The single girl in the (turn-of-the-century) city.

Occassionally, I find myself reading books that seem to be entirely too familiar--they either mirror events in my life or echo the emotions that I'm feeling through a particularly tumultuous stretch. So maybe it's not fair for me to judge such books, as I'm not basing my opinions from an unbiased viewpoint.

Such was the case with Edith Wharton's 1905 novel The House of Mirth. In her struggle to remain a part of fashionable New York society, Wharton's flawed heroine Lily Bart finds herself fighting as much against herself as the gossip which brands her an outcast. Lily's life had always been about clinging to her precarious position among the wealthy, with a brilliant match to a rich (if unloved) bachelor the ultimate goal. Yet when her plottings are undermined by a jealous matron, Lily finds her inability to let go of her old lifestyle leaves her unable to find happiness.

When it was published in 1905, The House of Mirth landed on the bestseller list and established Wharton's reputation. In spite of the 101 years between its publication and today, Lily's precarious existance still reverberates in today's material-obsessed culture. Perhaps this is why I personally found it to be a little too close to the mark--I would not recommend it for someone in the job market, as Lily's efforts (and failures) to economize seemed familiar. The writing, in my opinion, fails to achieve the beauty and depth of The Age of Innocence, written 15 years later, and the ending veers towards sentimentality. Still, Wharton's depiction of old New York remains a novel well worth reading, challenging romantic notions of Gibson girls and corseted beauties to reveal themes that are strikingly modern.

Third time through...

I'm back in my native state, and for the occassion I thought I'd tackle a work by its most famous native author, F. Scott Fitzgerald. Well, actually the decision had more to do with the availablity of books while I was in the process of moving. For the week or so that I was in the nether world of being without official proof of residence I was also cut off from getting a library card, and thus had to rely on my own store of whatever's not currently boxed up. So, having already done the tenth-grade ritual of reading The Great Gatsby, I turned instead to Fitzgerald's 1934 novel, Tender Is The Night. In all honesty, I was a little skeptical that I would get through it, as I'd tried to complete it a few times in the seven or so years that it's been sitting on my shelf. Apparently all I needed to get through was to be jobless. Not the best way I'd like to get through some of the classics, but it worked in this case at least.

Written nine years after Gatsby, Tender Is The Night carries many of the same themes of the earlier book, but it seems much more of a personal book. The story centers on the decline of psychatrist Dick Diver, struggling to maintain his identity in the face of his wife Nicole's schizophrenia and wealth. That Fitzgerald's wife Zelda was undergoing treatment for the same illness at the time leads many to the conclusion that the novel is autobiographical. Whether or not this is the case, Tender Is The Night has a more personal feel than Gatsby. I can't say that I liked the later novel more than Gatsby--the earlier book had as much coolly beautiful prose with a little more plot--but Tender has a wistfulness that is lovely in its own way. Fitzgerald's writing is timeless, and for those who enjoy taking their time through well-developed characters and gorgeous prose will find it one of those classics that will reward the effort.

A less-than-sunny Italian sojourn.

Writing reviews of classics such as E. M. Forster's Where Angels Fear to Tread is probably one of the more obvious cases of unnecessary venting over a foregone conclusion: with a classic author, it's very unlikely that anything I or any other modern commentator would have to say about the book would have any bearing on whether or not it's good literature. Published in 1905, Angels was the first of Forster's novels to be published, and while not as successful as his other works, still bears the imprint of Forster's mastery that would become more apparent in Howard's End and A Passage to India.

I came to this novel after reading and thoroughly enjoying A Room With a View. Like the later novel, Angels centers around the experiences of English tourists encountering and being transformed by the Italian countryside. But unlike the humorous, sunny experiences of Lucy Honeychurch in Room, Angels takes a decidedly darker tone. The novel opens as widow Lilia Herriton and her chaperone Miss Abbott leave for Italy, much to the relief of Lilia's in-laws. After receiving word that Lilia has decided to marry an Italian, the family considers her as good as dead. But then a letter comes that Lilia is actually dead, and she has left a baby boy behind. Determined to raise the boy in England, Philip and Harriet Herriton, along with Miss Abbott, set out for Tuscany to collect him from his father. But complications arise, and without giving away the rest of the plot, let me just say that the book is the first of Forster's indictments of Edwardian society. I didn't like Where Angels Fear to Tread very much, but I get the sense that he had to write it before he composed his other works. The same sentiments are here, just in a less refined manner.