a beautiful book about a girl who cannot stop taking Ls

A tale of bullying in the Gilded Age.

oh poor manipulative lily u were an awful main character who would swim in self pity. this girl would be like “woe is me im broke” but also have a gambling addiction like make it make sense. the drama was very good tho so that’s where 4 stars came from

Lily Bart’s tragedy is that she is neither human nor ornament enough.

Recommend the essay by Pamela Knights that serves as the Introduction to the Everyman’s Library version for further insight into the commentary on womanhood and the turn of the century moment.

Find it keenly fitting that Lily could not make it in her role stitching hats. Brought up to be an ornament herself, she can not slum it making a living stitching clothing that is itself, mainly ornamental.

As a drama (and at times comedy — Wharton is pretty funny) of manners, maybe I respond better to this more than British narratives of manners because I recognize the insidious, unspoken Catholic and capitalistic rules dominating everything here. I believe all of these people. Lily is at times a little vapid but she’s also played upon by forces beyond her comprehension merely because she has a heart.

Is that heart misguided? Absolutely. She openly admits that she yearns for the luxuries promised to her only if she plays the game well. But that’s the tragedy is it’s not her fault. More than anything Lily leaves this novel never getting a fair shake to be a person who COULD know what they wanted.

Wharton is such a good writer that I felt oddly conscious that I was being played upon myself and letting my critical faculties down in moments. There’s some beautifully strung words in this novel that kind of blindly celebrate the simplicity of lives lived on the edge of poverty without ever considering that you could both have a fulfilling life and not have to live it so treacherously.

Then there are other times where Wharton’s prose only elevates moments of undoubtable truth. The passage where Lily is succumbing to her medicine and hallucinating the baby in her arms feels, remarkably, like it could’ve only been written by someone who has experienced the approach of death themselves.

After that ending I need to go back and re read the entire book.
Every character meant something and represented something in this novel.
I must admit I got quite bored of it in the middle section or middle to end but chapter 13 of part II might have beeen the best piece of literature I have every read.
Wharton is a versatile writer in symbolism and what she wants the reader to take from each of her novel. Lily Bart represented youth, innocence and femininity. She appeared like a superficial character but deep down she was struggling against her fate throughout the whole novel.

Edith Wharton can create the most human, complex, individualistic characters, make them desire more from life, make them try to do their best regardless of the social situation or imperfect personalities. Those characters will make us root for them and crave their victory and happiness because ourselves we want them to prove to us that life can be changed with individual effort. The whole story will be framed with the most gorgeous writing and narrative you can possibly imagine, and this story will most likely break your heart.

/spoilers/
I knew from the start that Edith Wharton is far too much interested in complex sociological analysis to not try to prove me with this book that a woman of Lilys time can't afford to be rocked by doubts, desires and mistakes. From the first chapter I wanted her to succeed so bad and couldn't be mad at her for wrong choices she made. She wanted to be way more free and way more powerful than her position could allow her to be but in the same time she wasn't able to reach for it compromising what she thought was a honorable thing to do. Truly a tragic story, cried like a baby.

This was a book I have returned to after twenty years. Last time I read it, I was younger than the 29 year old Lily, this time around, far older. And both times my heart bled for her. Brought up to be an ornamental beauty to adorn society and marry well, she was provided without the financial means to do so, being foisted on to an aunt after the death of her parents. Her relationships with society women are bordering on toxic, as each one seems to constantly assess the the other to see what gain a friendship between them could bring them, how it could advance their standing in society. Lily's relationships with men are no better as she looks to them only in terms of whether or not they would make her a suitable husband as she reaches the realisation that she needs to marry, and marry fast, in order to sustain her way of living. The book focuses on the economic realities of marriage, with women as the commodities to be be bought and sold on the market. Divorce is derided, while at the same time, a divorced woman is easily forgiven as soon as she manages to marry again, provided the new husband is wealthy enough. There are some utterly beautiful sentences, and when I reached the end this time around, even knowing what was coming, I could not help but feel bereft as Lily's fate was revealed.

I almost gave up so many times and probably should’ve

Mirth is defined as "amusement, especially as expressed in laughter." I looked up the meaning at the start of reading this book and then again just now. I tried to see this story as Edith Wharton's way of poking at the absurdities of a way of life of a certain privileged class in a particular era and milieu.

However, try as I may, the story frustrated and annoyed the heck out of me! Lily Bart was a twit. She was raised to rely simply on her looks and her wiles. Her family lost their money, she was raised by her mother and, eventually orphaned, found herself attached to a wealthy widowed Aunt. This did nothing to soften Lily's self regard and, all too often, her snobbishness towards others. She believed she was meant for the finery in life and the lifestyle of the wealthy. That attitude blinded her to the need to consider others.

Her Aunt was on the prudish side, and that certainly did not resonate with the lifestyle Lily had in mind for herself. I found it difficult to have empathy or sympathy for Lily, as she was often the victim of her own machinations. She thought she could use her beauty to out-wile any social issue that came her way. To watch as she fell out of grace with the very people who at various times considered her one of their own, often coveting her presence (even though most of them were as vacuous as she) was simply irritating!

Ultimately, she was her own worst enemy, even as she could be called a victim of the times, life style, culture and the double-standards that applied to men and women, to people with money and people without money, and to people considered beautiful and those who were considered mundane.

As you see, this book produced a lot of annoyance in me. Surely that is due to the skill of Edith Wharton as a writer. What prodded me to read the book in the first place? My husband and I enjoy historical house tours and several weeks ago visited the Mills Mansion at Staatsburgh. Edith Wharton's name was mentioned on the tour, with the Tour Guide noting the possibility that Wharton may have visited or stayed at the house because the House of Mirth contains descriptions that were in synch with the surroundings and some events that occurred at the house. That comment seemed like an opportune time to remedy the fact that neither my husband nor I had read anything by Wharton. Suffice it to say, after hearing me provide an ongoing synopsis, my husband has decided it is not necessary for him to read the book. And so ends our Wharton foray.