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Title: The House of Mirth
Author: Edith Wharton
Narrator: Barbarra Caruso
Format: Unabridged
Length: 14 hrs and 9 mins
Language: English
Release date: 07-03-99
Publisher: Recorded Books
Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 168 votes
Genres: Classics, American Literature
Publisher's Summary:
Lily Bart, a beautiful, intelligent, but penniless young woman, lives on the outskirts of New York's high society, craving the luxurious lifestyle of her wealthy contacts. But while Lily possesses the grace, taste, and morality of the ideal turn-of-the-century lady, her delicate innocence threatens her survival in that very world. As she fights to maintain her newfound place among the aristocracy, Lily struggles mightily against what lurks beneath all the glitter and gold - greed, vulgarity, and ruthless competition. In her brilliantly perceptive novel, The House of Mirth, Edith Wharton, the peerless, Pulitzer Prize-winning chronicler of Old New York, provides yet another heartbreaking glimpse into the world of manners, privilege, betrayal, and shocking falls from grace.
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(P)1989 by Recorded Books, Inc.
Critic Reviews:
"The House of Mirth is uniquely authentic among American novels of manners." (Louis Auchincloss)
Members Reviews:
Pride and prejudice can bring a girl down.
This was a deeply satisfying audio.
The story is beautifully written and read....a good reader is so important to the audio experience. In fact I may well have become a little irritated with the depth of detail and repetition had I been reading it for myself; but really these qualities help to underline the inexorability of Lily's fate.
Having recently read Trollope's perspective on 19th century British "society", it was interesting to get the feel of what was going on in New York at the same time
The misfortune of beauty
My favorite Wharton novel.
Beauty, brains and breeding promise great success for Lily Bart. We are introduced to the heroine when her social triumphs are just beginning to be a thing of the past, and no one is more aware of the clock ticking away than Lily herself.
Wharton lucidly shows how Lily's expectations and upbringing have prepared her for a kind of life for which, at heart, she has a contempt. Her intelligence and sensitivity make her overly critical of the hypocrisy and vanity of the set in which she aspires to reign.
Wrong choices, bad luck and false friends erode Lily's last chance at fortune. The reduced circumstances in which her only true friends live is repugnant to Lily who can only imagine life being worth while when passed amid luxury.
We vividly see the illusory trap that prevents Lily Bart from escaping the denouement.
A Good Read!
I had never read Edith Wharton. Whether in printed form The House of Mirth would engage someone so deeply today as in Wharton's era I don't know. However, in audible format it was excellent. The author's command of language and psychlogy is remarkable. The reader was excellent and gave the characters "voices of their own"--better in some instances than in others but always "listenable." I very much enjoyed my "read."
Absorbing In The Extreme
I have started this book and dropped it several times but this time I fell totally in love with the writer and the narrator. This is such a haunting tale. My preference is English literature and that is why I stumbled initially. Now I am going to read all Edith Wharton's work. A great writer. Barbarra Caruso has the most perfect diction and sense of nuance. Her reading does not intrude.
