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| From: | KathleenS | 3/5/2009 4:01 pm |
| To: | ALL |
(1 of 20) | | | | 19527.1 | |
Hi everyone!
Hope everyone is getting some glimpses of spring! It's hard to believe that it is March already! That means the Avid Reader Book Club is starting The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton.
I was thrilled to pick up a copy of the book from an AbeBooks bookseller here in Victoria. Actually the book is three of Wharton's novels:
The House of Mirth
Ethan Frome
The Custom of the Country
Some detailed information will be available on the site early next week (I'll keep you posted) but I thought I would throw out some questions to get the discussion going:
- Wharton took the title for her novel from a verse in Ecclesiastics—"The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in The House of Mirth." Does Lily Bart's allegiance to the follies and superficialities of society mean that she has the "heart of a fool" or is she trapped by the dictates of her upbringing and the expectations of the times?
- What does Wharton mean when she describes Lawrence Selden as a man with "the stoic's carelessness of material things, combined with the Epicurean's delight in them"? Are his scorn and aloofness attitudes only a man could assume in the society Wharton depicts? How genuine are they? Does his readiness to attend certain social events and to indulge in gossip and flirtations with Lily belie his chosen role as a "spectator"?
- Examining the characterization of one the social climbers of the novel would you say that Wharton gave them depth or are they caricatures?
I'm really looking forward to hearing your thoughts!
Also, stay tuned for the vote for April's book which will be posted next week as well.
Happy reading,
Edited 3/5/2009 4:02 pm by KathleenS |
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| From: | KathleenS | 3/10/2009 2:53 pm |
| To: | ALL |
(2 of 20) | | | | 19527.2 in reply to 19527.1 | |
Hi again,
I just wanted to let everyone know that we now have a page dedicated to The House of Mirth. The discussion questions are posted there and include a printable copy.
Hope you find the page useful!
Cheers,
Edited 3/10/2009 2:54 pm by KathleenS
Edited 3/10/2009 2:55 pm by KathleenS |
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| | | | | 19527.3 in reply to 19527.1 | |
I think HOUSE OF MIRTH refers to the fool's paradise of "the gilded age"...and those who dwell within. The getting of wisdom requires the loss of innocence(naivete?)...resulting in mourning, upon that epiphany...truth reveals itself through the experience of having lost both status and state of being (the two are conjoined in the novel).
For the flip-side of Wharton's cautionary tale, read Upton Sinclair's account of the travails of Lithuanian immigrants in Chicago (ca. 1906)in THE JUNGLE( where housing and its associated scams are a cental theme).
Also, Theodore Dreiser is often compared with Warton.
For an interesting socio-historical reference, see SIN CITY...about the infamous and exclusive brothel (a house of sorts) that was run by the enterprising Everleigh sisters, who catered to Chicago's movers and shakers of that era by providing the charms of "fallen" women, whose fatal choices were not unlike the protagonist of HOUSE OF MIRTH (and who, possibly, are not unlike the escorts who serviced the likes of Elliot Spitzer et al.)
Having said all that, it's also interesting to compare "the gilded age" to the folly our own era's "irrational exuberance" (the current financial crisis is said to resemble the crash of 1907 more than it does 1929...with income disparities between the rich and everyone else comparable to today).
What say you? Edited 3/11/2009 2:07 am by DooRonRon
Edited 3/11/2009 2:12 am by DooRonRon |
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| | | | | 19527.4 in reply to 19527.3 | |
Hi, I think you bring up a good point. In the Western World we have recently been living in a gilded age of our own but thanks to credit, it hasn't necessarily mattered if a person actually had the money or was a person of wealth. Can you imagine if Lily had had access to the credit we've had? And thanks for your reading suggestions! Kathleen AbeBooks
Edited 3/12/2009 4:33 pm by KathleenS |
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| | | | | 19527.5 in reply to 19527.4 | |
Hello Let's give credit to Lily...as for my robertsonian-school recommendation, it should have read: SIN in the SECOND CITY, by Karen Abbott...the Everleigh sisters were quite a pair, it seems...thanks for your reply. Ron Edited 3/13/2009 12:00 am by DooRonRon
Edited 3/13/2009 12:01 am by DooRonRon |
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| | | | | 19527.6 in reply to 19527.3 | |
Hi,
I am in agreement with the Gilded Age mentality/atmosphere for the book House of Mirth.
And if Lily had access to credit cards...it would be shop t'il you drop. She should not have ended the way that she did, a lesson was not learn. What would Wellesley'an women offer to her as advice...I wonder. |
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| | | | | 19527.7 in reply to 19527.1 | |
| I'm re-reading The House of Mirth after a long time and am only at about page 50. Lily is at the country house of the Trenors. It's such a good book because Lily isn't all good or all bad, I think. I want to scream at her and tell her to shape up. But she can't, probably mostly due to her upbringing. She was raised to think she could marry well and have everything she wanted. She loves the comfort that wealth brings but at the same time can see through the people and their values. |
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| | | | | 19527.8 in reply to 19527.7 | |
| If Lily had been born 20 years later...she may have been a flapper a la Louise Brooks...a veritable Pandora...n'est pas...? |
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| | | | | 19527.9 in reply to 19527.6 | |
I certainly don't think she would have discussed gender identity issues, then and there, or at any of the Seven Sisters...which were fashioned to the Ivy League, as they to prospective husbands...in all probability, (and this is just a guess) her sorority sisters would have directed her to the May pole...
Edited 3/14/2009 12:41 am by DooRonRon |
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| | | | | 19527.10 in reply to 19527.8 | |
| It's hard for me to imagine her out of her time and place. She was a product of them and imprisoned by them, but she could see through them. I'm puzzled by her relationship to Selden, but that may get clearer as I read more. She doesn't seem to feel passion for anything except comfort. She's 29, not a young girl. That's puzzling, too. |
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| | | | | 19527.11 in reply to 19527.9 | |
Hi,
I had to look up the term May Pole. I might have been misunderstood. Wellesleyan's women work and have careers, while at times marrying for money and being a decorative piece.
So, when you say go to the May Pole; do you mean like those beauty pageant winners parading at the Macy's parade or like that girl in Flashdance? I should refrain from saying anything else.
Best. |
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| | | | | 19527.12 in reply to 19527.11 | |
| I don't think that many women had careers back then...they couldn't even vote...as for the Maypole, it has a long and distinguished anthropological tradition...my apologies about the spelling...by the way, I hadn't considered pole dancing |
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| | | | | 19527.13 in reply to 19527.7 | |
| I think of her as a precursor to the modern (moderne ,if you will) woman...a true material girl...it took The Great War to complete the transformation...but I think of her as an American, consumerist version of an Ibsen or Strindberg character (or G.B.S., for that matter)...what she craves, it seems, are options...what might be referred to, in our time, as space...one can only speculate as to what she'd have the jones for today...pole-dancing, perhaps...? |
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| From: | KathleenS | 3/18/2009 3:29 pm |
| To: | ALL |
(14 of 20) | | | | 19527.14 in reply to 19527.13 | |
Great comments!
What are your thoughts on the following:
Lily rejects both Sim Rosedale, a fabulously rich man of "unacceptable" lineage, and Selden, a man she clearly admires who cannot support her in style. Do these rejections represent an unrealistic, perhaps inflated, view of her own worth and potential? Are they purely selfish or do they reflect an underlying sense of morality on Lily's part?
Both Lily's cousin, Grace Stepney, and Selden's cousin, Gerty Farish, live in genteel poverty on margins of society. How are their attitudes about their positions reflected in the way they treat Lily?
Are all the women in the novel passive "victims," dependent on the power and money of men? Who really creates the rules in Lily's circle and how do they wield their powers? Why does Rosedale ultimately turn Lily away, despite his previous persistence in courting her and his aggressiveness in making his way into society? Is he right in believing that his money alone is not enough to rescue her reputation? |
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| | | | | 19527.15 in reply to 19527.14 | |
I've finished the book now, so here are my current thoughts. Lily only pushed Selden away when she thought she could marry for a lot of money. I think she gradually did fall in love with him by the end of the book, but he was too weak or preoccupied with his own life to do anything to really help her or love her. I didn't like him much. I can see him marrying a sweet young very wealthy woman who would provide him a lot of comforts and think he was wonderful. Rosedale was operating mostly out of self-interest. I think he thought that Lily would hold him down if he married her at the end. He would give her money as his mistress, but he wanted someone with more social clout that she had. The women made the rules as much as the men. As long as things were going their way, they lived well. What do the rest of you think?
One more thing: I think that Lily was "redeemed" by the end of the book. Does this mean that women can only be redeemed by babies? She saw the example of the young mother who had changed her life, but it seemed out of reach for Lily. She really had passed beyond the superficiality of her earlier society life, and there seemed to be nothing for her now, although she saw clearly how lacking her life was. It's sad, but I think it was the end she wanted, whether or not she knowingly overdosed.
Edited 3/18/2009 4:33 pm by ozma |
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| | | | | 19527.16 in reply to 19527.15 | |
| I think she did fade to black deliberately. Say, can you see her in a Eugene O'Neil play?...if not, why not? Better yet, let's write her into one.... Just a thought. |
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| | | | | 19527.17 in reply to 19527.16 | |
I know very little about Eugene O'Neill. I've seen a couple of his plays, but that's it. The women characters that I remember seem much more immersed in family relations than Lily did. She was really alone most of the time with quite superficial friendships.
One thing that supports the idea that she deliberately overdosed is that she got all her finances in order ahead of time. I think she says that she would not have the strength to pay all that money to Trenor if she let it go. Something like that.
Edited 3/19/2009 10:35 am by ozma |
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| | | | | 19527.18 in reply to 19527.17 | |
| I say you're right about O'Neill (thanks for the spelling correction)...I guess Lily never bonded as a child.. I still think of her as the prototypical material girl...she probably failed miserably at home economics, hence, her desire to put her 'house' in order, before she exits the stage...which would make her an interesting foil for O'Neill's women, I think. How might she interact in their circle? Move to Greenwich Village and become a bohemian...had she done so, she may not have arrived at such a 'bitter end', n'est pas? |
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| | | | | 19527.19 in reply to 19527.14 | |
| I think Lily did reject Sam Rosedale out of both an inflated sense of her own worth and potential and she was trying to deny to herself that her real attraction was with Selden. Her efforts were purely selfish but there was an underlying morality in her. I find it intriguing that while Rosedale could not seem to fit in to the social climate, even with all his money, he was the only one who tried to come to her aid financially and there was a grain of morality in him as well. |
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| | | | | 19527.20 in reply to 19527.14 | |
The women in this story create the rules and are barracudas when they have the chance to wield their power. They are empowered by the knowledge that a divorce, while perhaps scandalous to them, might place their husbands at a disadvantage. Rosedale was right in knowing it would take more than his money to restore Lily. He was on the outer edge even with all his money. |
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