Wharton (as in Edith) and Me

So I just picked up a book I've been I-should-probably-read-that-ing for years now: Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth. Oh my word. I was in love by about page two. It's providential that I waited this long to read the book, because its heroine is a 29-year-old single girl (which is what I am, for those of you who don't mark off my birthday on your calendar each year)!

Now I am loathe, in a way, to bring up the subject of singlehood, because I have a touch of angst (touch of angst?) about people pitying me. So I'll just tuck in here that I'm extremely happy teaching ... love my students ... love my friends and family... fulfilled... blah blah blah. There. Done. No need to pity me. (Although not wanting to be pitied is probably a form of pride. Eeeek! Remorse! Okay, that's all taken care of. Now on with the post!)

This woman is awesome. Both the author and the heroine. My favorite humorous quote thus far is by the heroine, Lily Bart: "Younger and plainer girls had been married off by dozens, and she was nine-and-twenty, and still Miss Bart. She was beginning to have fits of angry rebellion against fate, when she longed to drop out of the race and make an independent life for herself."

Hee hee hee! So very human-nature-y! Um. Just as a note. When I shrieked with inward delight upon reading this, I did not have ANYONE pop into my head at the 'younger and plainer' part, so all of you married people reading this, I was not thinking of you! (Good grief, this post has more provisos than actual writing...)

Also of great interest to me is that while I can understand Miss Bart (except for some of the class issues she is dealing with), the last reader (whom I think might have been Danny) marked some of the passages with great censure. I read one paragraph that revealed Miss Bart's intentions of playing the system until it paid off for her, and I was internally nodding in understanding of the human nature there (not necessarily the sanctification!) when I got to the bottom of the page where the previous reader had written "Hideous." Hahaha - whether or not Danny is the one who wrote it, I think it must have been a male. It's easier to sympathize (if not always agree) with Miss Bart if you are (more or less) in her shoes (barring the fact that hers probably cost 14X more than mine). (What did people do before parentheses were invented?!)

My favorite thought-provoking quote was uttered by the hero, Seldon, whom I hope Lily marries (although I'm sure she won't, because this is, after all, Edith Wharton writing - author of both Ethan Frome and the quote: "Life is the saddest thing, next to death." Yeah, I'm guessing there won't be a happy ending there). He is philosophizing about success: "My idea of success is personal freedom." "Freedom? [Lily asks] Freedom from worries?" "From everything - from money, from poverty, from ease and anxiety, from all the material accidents. To keep a kind of republic of the spirit - that's what I call success."

It's a kind of stoicism, I suppose, and not completely sound, but still I was impressed by the idea of the republic of the spirit. With a slight tweak it can become quite the Christian idea of not being taken up with the things of this world... and learning "in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content." I like it.

And so, with great contentment, I go back to my reading of Edith Wharton's masterpiece. I'll try to let you know later whether I really recommend it. I am, after all, only on page 88.