The House of Mirth

By: Edith Wharton

Narrated by: Eleanor Bron

Length: 12 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's summary

Exclusively from Audible

Beautiful, sophisticated and endlessly ambitious Lily Bart endeavours to climb the social ladder of New York's elite by securing a good match and living beyond her means.

Now nearing 30 years of age and having rejected several proposals, forever in the hope of finding someone better, her future prospects are threatened.

A damning commentary of 20th-century social order, Edith Wharton's tale established her as one of the greatest British novelists of the 1900s. Taking us on a journey through lavish drawing rooms in grand country houses to cold and menacing boarding houses, Wharton addresses the consequences awaiting those who openly dared to challenge the status quo.

First published in serial form, The House of Mirth contributed significantly to Edith Wharton's already substantial riches. Accustomed to living a life of privilege, Wharton was able to foster her creative talents from a young age.

Working as a published author from the age of 18, Wharton's story is as intriguing and daring as her heroine's. Wedding and then divorcing Edward Wharton, her experience of marriage and consequent heartbreak is usually chronicled in her works.

Never the victim however, Wharton went on to receive multiple awards for her writing, as well as the bravery that she demonstrated during the First World War when she organised hostels for refugees, fund-raised for those in need and reported from battlefield frontlines.

Usually seen in the company of other great authors including Jack London, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Jean Cocteau, Wharton became a literary master whose skill and wit is perfectly captured in this enthralling audiobook.

Narrator Biography

Celebrated author and stage, film and television actress, Eleanor Bron, lends her iconic voice to the narration of The House of Mirth.

Best known for her roles in films such as A Little Princess, Bedazzled, Women in Love, Black Beauty and Alfie, Eleanor's career is as varied as it has been successful.

Also not a stranger to the theatre, Bron thrived in classical and modern productions of plays including The Prime of Miss Jean Brody, The Merchant of Venice, Private Lives, All About My Mother and Hedda Gabler.

A celebrated writer, Eleanor has published various titles, including Life and Other Punctures, Double Take and The Pillow Book of Eleanor Bron.

Further audiobook contributions include A Little Princess by Frances Burnett, The Aeneid by Virgil, The Parasites by Daphne du Maurier and Daniel Deronda by George Eliot.

Public Domain (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

Very enjoyable listening!!

Where does The House of Mirth rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

This was my first listen and I enjoyed it very much!

What did you like best about this story?

The voice of the narrator and how she changed her voice from character to character.

Which character – as performed by Eleanor Bron – was your favorite?

Mr. Rosdale

I was surprised

I enjoyed this book. It has a certain "Austenesque" charm to it. I didn't like many of the characters but they were all so well drawn I felt as if I knew them. The world that Edith Wharton wrote about was a world that is a horrible one too and I found myself being quite angry about, because I know that it still exists.
Ultimately quite sad, but a good book.

Still exceptional

What a classic! Edith Wharton’s writing is concise and penetrating. Her themes are timeless and thought provoking. Highly recommended.

SAD

The most upsetting thing about this story are the lingering parallels to women's role in our own time. Despite feminist advances in the workplace, a woman who lacks marriage still lacks a certain amount of position and security in today's society. Argue if you will, but statistics demonstrate that women who have divorced are in a decidedly disadvantaged state economically compared to married women and men who have divorced.

A second upsetting aspect of the story related to the immense amount of judgment society doles out. Some are on top, some are on the bottom, and wherever you are, you look down your nose at those who are under you. Lily Bart was both scorner and scornee.

Finally, I was taken aback by the anti-semitism displayed by society as written by this author against Simon Rosedale, a Jewish man whom she characterizes by every stereotypical, anti-semitic trope available to her, both physical and personality. Strangely, Rosedale's experiences at the hands of a very anti-Semitic Upper Crust New York prepare him to be the only person who understands what has happened to our heroine, Lily Bart. I wanted to believe that the evolution of this unsavory character into a sympathetic one was the author's attempt to object to anti-semitism, but in the end result I could not because even as she redraws him as sympathetic, she keeps Rosedale's personality locked into Jewish stereotypes about money and shrewd business practice. I am Jewish and I wanted to smack Edith Wharton.

For all my distress with the book's themes, I didn't quit the book. I wanted to find out what happened to Lily Bart. But it was a lot of personal cognitive dissonance.

A walk through a different time

Beautiful and sad in the best possible way. We all come across glamorous, bright people and always wonder how they turned out in the end. This book will answer that question for you. Not in the way you hoped, but in the way you realize it always had to be.

Equally beautiful story and performance

Timelessly relevant and insightful story, and exquisitely written. Eleanor Bron’s performance is incredible and near-hypnotizing. I could hardly bare to turn it off. So good!

Renewed Resonance Given the Times We Live In

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Because it's so timely in that it's the story of a downward spiral as one watches the life they took for granted slipping away before their very eyes, only to be replaced by an ever more diminished view of the future, and so it parallels what's going on in the U.S. today as we adjust to a disappearing middle class, possibly forever, unless we act to preserve it.

What did you like best about this story?

In addition to its renewed resonance mentioned above (I've read the book in the past but it never resonated then the way it does now) I was very impressed with Wharton's writing, empathy, and understanding of what circumstances must be like for someone that she, being relatively affluent, never had to face or experienced herself. The ending chapters were brilliantly thought out and written, and yet she imagined the scenarios with great empathy. They were nothing she was able to call upon from her own life experience, and yet the depth of what she writes about, and how expertly she writes it, forces the reader to absolutely connect with the experience of the heroine.

What about Eleanor Bron’s performance did you like?

Top-notch. She's a great talent as an actress and always has been, even when playing an annoying American in the classic Audrey Hepburn/Albert Finney film Two for the Road, which is the first time she came to my attention decades ago.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

The ending was very emotional as I listened to it anew with a completely different perspective now given the times we currently live in. I can't say more without giving away the ending, so I'll simply say I thought it was masterful and genuinely touching and heartfelt, but beyond that it's sticking with me. How differently things might have been if just one thing had been changed along the way time after time.

I was also glad to read this again after watching the Gillian Anderson film version because there's a very important difference in terms of intent at the very end that's better in the writing than it was in the film.

Any additional comments?

Though not a book filled with religious themes or much about religion at all, the title comes from Ecclesiastes 7:4 and one can keep this in mind while reading the book and see if they agree. Ecclesiastes 7:4 reads:

"The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth."

I also felt this was interesting and something to keep in mind while reading:

"New York at the turn of the century was a time of opulence and frivolity for those who could afford it. But for those who couldn't and yet wanted desperately to keep up with the whirlwind, like Wharton's charming Lily Bart, it was something else altogether: a gilded cage rather than the Gilded Age."

"...The House of Mirth remains so timely and so vital in spite of its crushing end and its unflattering portrait of what life offers up."

Lily in a Gilded Cage

Edith Wharton is a surgeon cutting apart and exposing the true insides of the best in society. Her exquisitely drawn descriptions of even minor characters are the reason to read the book -- you might know someone just like them even in today's "modern" times. That said a major draw back for me was the mean use of stereotypical Jew, which shines a light not so pleasant on Ms. Wharton herself.

wonderfully performed, great novel

This sad, eloquent and gripping novel of New York society at the turn of the 20th century creates an immortal character in Lily Bart. I think any reader not familiar with Wharton is in for a great pleasure to discover this fluent, brilliantly analytical and deeply wise novelist. I was especially taken with the reading of Eleanor Bron, whose acting work I have much enjoyed. Her ability to inhabit a wide variety of characters, male and female, with complete verisimilitude, I found wonderful. One interesting and and jarring note is this otherwise most compassionate author's anti-Semitism, a sad reminder of how the prejudices of our social milieu can inhabit its most observant members.

Didn’t like the ending but...

liked the rest very much. Good narration and wonderful writing. It’s very interesting to me that books written in this book’s era are at a significantly higher educational level. Considering today’s novels versus earlier periods, I think we’re going backwards.