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Narrated by Fanny Serment
Edith WhartonUnabridged — 12 hours, 29 minutes
Narrated by Fanny Serment
Edith WhartonUnabridged — 12 hours, 29 minutes
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Entrez dans le monde glamour et complexe de l'âge d'or new-yorkais avec "The House of Mirth", un chef-d'¿uvre intemporel écrit par la brillante Edith Wharton. Plongez dans l'histoire séduisante de Lily Bart, une jeune femme captivante dont la beauté et le charme cachent une lutte pour la survie au sein d'une société soumise à des codes sociaux impitoyables. Dans ce roman captivant, Wharton tisse magistralement une tapisserie sur l'ambition, le désir et la poursuite du bonheur, avec pour toile de fond la haute société du début du XXe siècle. Lily Bart, une femme enchanteresse et farouchement indépendante, se retrouve piégée dans un labyrinthe d'opulence, de privilèges et de superficialité, où les apparences règnent en maître et où la réputation est la clé de l'avenir d'une femme. Sous la façade éblouissante des soirées et des luxueuses demeures, Lily lutte contre les contraintes de sa société, déchirée entre son désir d'amour véritable et son désir de sécurité financière.
"The House of Mirth" est une exploration intemporelle de l'esprit humain, une critique poignante d'un monde obsédé par le matérialisme et un rappel poignant que la poursuite du bonheur est souvent enchevêtrée dans le réseau complexe des attentes de la société. Le récit perspicace d'Edith Wharton transcende le temps et continue de captiver les lecteurs par sa compréhension profonde de la condition humaine et la quête éternelle d'appartenance et d'amour dans un monde où les apparences peuvent être trompeuses. Laissez-vous séduire par cette somptueuse histoire d'amour, de perte et de rédemption, et découvrez l'attrait et la mélancolie de "The House of Mirth" - un classique qui reste aussi actuel et pertinent aujourd'hui qu'il l'était lorsqu'il a fait son entrée dans le monde littéraire.
Edith Wharton's classic tale of social mores in early-20th-century New York focuses on the travails of Lily Bart, a ravishing young woman who lacks a fortune of her own and needs to find a wealthy husband in order to secure her position. Torn between her desire for freedom and the rigid conventions of upper-class society, Lily tragically misses her chance for real love with the intellectually refined attorney Lawrence Selden, the one man who could make her happy.
Actress Eleanor Bron played Aunt Julia in the 2000 film adaptation of this Edith Wharton classic, which she brings to life in an enjoyable audio production. At the start, Bron’s tones are cool and measured in keeping with heroine Lily Bart’s calculated manipulations in arranging her marriage to a fantastically rich—if fantastically dull—bachelor. But Lily’s efforts meet with little success, and Bron ably captures the desperate heroine as her suitor rejects her, her debts mount, and her options narrow. As Lily finds herself alone in what used to seem like a glittering world, Bron’s rendition of the character’s exhausted disappointment is pitch-perfect. This is a compelling audiobook with a memorable performance from Bron. (Nov.)
"Beautifully produced, this may well become the standard reading text."—E.N. Feltskog, University of Wisconsin
"Essential reading to know this chronicler par excellence. Great for english, humanities and women's studies courses."—J.C. Moore, Scottsdale Community College"I always choose Oxford World Classics editions whenever I can because their introductions and notes are the most useful and the texts are clearly the most carefully prepared. This book looks to be no exception!"—Laura Dabundo, Kennesaw State College"Beautiful, thoroughgoing, very professional—a complete 'treatment' of the text from Introduction to Chronology to Bibliography and Notes. Plus the great affordable price! A really terrific edition."—John Dempsey, Brown University"Excellent, reasonably priced edition. . . . introduction [is] useful for background and critical information."—Lynn F. Williams, Emerson College"Edith Wharton is my favorite writer and her incisive indictments of the wealthy class she was a part of, are endlessly interesting to me. I also love her gorgeous descriptions."
"An insider's unsparing portrait of late-19th-century New York high society...follows the declining fortunes of husband-hunting Lily Bart, one of the great characters of American literature. Wharton is an amusingly ruthless observer of the manners and mores of the wealthy."
"What I love about Wharton—the Wharton who wrote The Age of Innocence—is her empathy and ambivalence."
"Edith Wharton was there before all of us; disdainful, imperious, brilliant foremother."
"Only a few works of fiction can reasonably be called 'perfect,' and [Wharton's Ethan Frome] is one of them. There’s a crystalline purity to the prose, and a wintry sadness in the story. It gets deep in your bones."
"Edith Wharton’s use of language alone isn’t easily paralleled. She takes you into this woman’s life and makes you feel for her while showcasing her shallowness, materialism, and lack of honor. It is a timeless story we have seen play out for hundreds of years—yet, it feels like it would apply to modern-day society in the form of a Kardashian. Her turn of phrase and sentence structure are beautiful."
"Traditionally, Henry James has always been placed slightly higher up the slope of Parnassus than Edith Wharton. But now that the prejudice against the female writer is on the wane, they look to be exactly what they are: giants, equals, the tutelary and benign gods of our American literature."
"My favorite heroine is Lily Bart...She’s a tragic figure: flawed but self aware, living at a time when a woman’s surest ticket to wealth and comfort was physical beauty. In her last act, Lily transcends her mistakes, and I’ve never managed to read it without sobbing."
"Too often pigeon-holed as the work of a buttoned-up proper 'lady,' The House of Mirth is restored in this edition to its full cultural context. Critics have downplayed Wharton's connection to popular culture in favor of promoting her status as a canonical author. This edition makes Wharton's relationship to popular culture explicit by providing readers with a full dossier of materials, from fashion plates to advice columns and social commentary."
"This is an admirably edited volume that includes a wide range of texts by Wharton and illuminating documents from the period. The editors set The House of Mirth in the context of European as well as American novelistic practices, greatly expanding our understanding of Wharton's first major and arguably finest novel."
Narrator Susie Berneis lends this production the perfect blend of respect and contemporary wit. With a decidedly modern, warm voice, she embraces every nuance of Wharton’s social commentary without coming across as too formal or irreverent. The listener is immediately gripped by protagonist Lily Bart’s unique situation as an unmarried woman of a certain age who attempts to have some small control over her future in a world dominated by male figures and moneyed families. Berneis is simply wonderful—gorgeously precise with Wharton’s lovely prose and quietly prescient with the cold undercurrents of New York society. The classics endure because they capture what makes us human; Berneis’s humanity makes this an enveloping listen. L.B.F. © AudioFile 2013, Portland, Maine
| BN ID: | 2940159344267 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Jason Nollan |
| Publication date: | 07/27/2023 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
| Language: | French |
I
SELDEN PAUSED in surprise. In the afternoon rush of the Grand Central Station his eyes had been refreshed by the sight of Miss Lily Bart.
It was a Monday in early September, and he was returning to his work from a hurried dip into the country, but what was Miss Bart doing in town at that season? If she had appeared to be catching a train, he might have inferred that he had come on her in the act of transition between one and another of the country-houses which disputed her presence after the close of the Newport season; but her desultory air perplexed him. She stood apart from the crowd, letting it drift by her to the platform or the street, and wearing an air of irresolution which might, as he surmised, be the mask of a very definite purpose. It struck him at once that she was waiting for some one, but he hardly knew why the idea arrested him. There was nothing new about Lily Bart, yet he could never see her without a faint movement of interest: it was characteristic of her that she always roused speculation, that her simplest acts seemed the result of far-reaching intentions.
An impulse of curiosity made him turn out of his direct line to the door and stroll past her. He knew that if she did not wish to be seen she would contrive to elude him; and it amused him to think of putting her skill to the test.
"Mr. Selden-what good luck!"
She came forward smiling, eager, almost, in her resolve to intercept him. One or two persons, in brushing past them, lingered to look; for Miss Bart was a figure to arrest even the suburban traveller rushing to his last train.
Selden had never seen her more radiant. Her vivid head, relieved against the dull tints of the crowd, made her more conspicuous than in a ball-room, and under her dark hat and veil she regained the girlish smoothness, the purity of tint, that she was beginning to lose after eleven years of late hours and indefatigable dancing. Was it really eleven years, Selden found himself wondering, and had she indeed reached the nine-and-twentieth birthday with which her rivals credited her?
"What luck!" she repeated. "How nice of you to come to my rescue!"
He responded joyfully that to do so was his mission in life, and asked what form the rescue was to take.
"Oh, almost any-even to sitting on a bench and talking to me. One sits out a cotillion-why not sit out a train? It isn't a bit hotter here than in Mrs. Van Osburgh's conservatory-and some of the women are not a bit uglier."
She broke off, laughing, to explain that she had come up to town from Tuxedo, on her way to the Gus Trenors' at Bellomont, and had missed the three-fifteen train to Rhinebeck.
"And there isn't another till half-past five." She consulted the little jewelled watch among her laces. "Just two hours to wait. And I don't know what to do with myself. My maid came up this morning to do some shopping for me, and was to go on to Bellomont at one o'clock, and my aunt's house is closed, and I don't know a soul in town." She glanced plaintively about the station. "It is hotter than Mrs. Van Osburgh's, after all. If you can spare the time, do take me somewhere for a breath of air."
He declared himself entirely at her disposal: the adventure struck him as diverting. As a spectator he had always enjoyed Lily Bart, and his course lay so far out of her orbit that it amused him to be drawn for a moment into the sudden intimacy which her proposal implied.
"Shall we go over to Sherry's for a cup of tea?"
She smiled assentingly and then made a slight grimace.
"So many people come up to town on a Monday-one is sure to meet a lot of bores. I'm as old as the hills, of course, and it ought not to make any difference; but if I'm old enough, you're not," she objected gaily. "I'm dying for tea-but isn't there a quieter place?"
He answered her smile, which rested on him vividly. Her discretions interested him almost as much as her imprudences: he was so sure that both were part of the same carefully elaborated plan. In judging Miss Bart he had always made use of the "argument from design."
"The resources of New York are rather meagre," he said; "but I'll find a hansom first, and then well invent something."
He led her through the throng of returning holiday-makers, past sallow-faced girls in preposterous hats and flat-chested women struggling with paper bundles and palm-leaf fans. Was it possible that she belonged to the same race? The dinginess, the crudity of this average section of womanhood made him feel how highly specialized she was.
A rapid shower had cooled the air, and clouds still hung refreshingly over the moist street.
"How delicious! Let us walk a little," she said as they emerged from the station.
They turned into Madison Avenue and began to stroll northward. As she moved beside him with her long, light step, Selden was conscious of taking a luxurious pleasure in her nearness: in the modelling of her little ear, the crisp upward wave of her hair-was it ever so slightly brightened by art?-and the thick planting of her straight black lashes. Everything about her was at once vigorous and exquisite, at once strong and fine. He had a confused sense that she must have cost a great deal to make, that a great many dull and ugly people must, in some mysterious way, have been sacrificed to produce her. He was aware that the qualities distinguishing her from the herd of her sex were chiefly external, as though a fine glaze of beauty and fastidiousness had been applied to vulgar clay. Yet the analogy left him unsatisfied, for a coarse texture will not take a high finish; and was it not possible that the material was fine but that circumstance had fashioned it into a futile shape?
As he reached this point in his speculations, the sun came out, and her lifted parasol cut off his enjoyment. A moment or two later she paused with a sigh.
"Oh, dear, I'm so hot and thirsty-and what a hideous place New York is!" She looked despairingly up and down the dreary thoroughfare. "Other cities put on their best clothes in summer, but New York seems to sit in its shirt-sleeves." Her eyes wandered down one of the side-streets. "Some one has had the humanity to plant a few trees over there. Let us go into the shade."
"I am glad my street meets with your approval," said Selden as they turned the corner.
"Your street? Do you live here?"
She glanced with interest along the new brick and limestone house-fronts, fantastically varied in obedience to the American craving for novelty, but fresh and inviting with their awnings and flower-boxes.
"Ah, yes-to be sure: The Benedick. What a nice-looking building! I don't think I've ever seen it before." She looked across at the flat-house with its marble porch and pseudo-Georgian façade. "Which are your windows? Those with the awnings down?"
"On the top floor-yes."
"And that nice little balcony is yours? How cool it looks up there!"
He paused a moment "Come up and see," he suggested. "I can give you a cup of tea in no time-and you won't meet any bores."
Her colour deepened-she still had the art of blushing at the right time-but she took the suggestion as lightly as it was made.
"Why not? It's too tempting-I'll take the risk," she declared.
"Oh, I'm not dangerous," he said in the same key. In truth, he had never liked her as well as at that moment. He knew she had accepted without afterthought: he could never be a factor in her calculations, and there was a surprise, a refreshment almost, in the spontaneity of her consent.
On the threshold he paused a moment, feeling for his latchkey.
"There's no one here; but I have a servant who is supposed to come in the mornings, and it's just possible he may have put out the tea-things and provided some cake."
He ushered her into a slip of a hall hung with old prints. She noticed the letters and notes heaped on the table among his gloves and sticks; then she found herself in a small library, dark but cheerful, with its walls of books, a pleasantly faded Turkey rug, a littered desk, and as he had foretold, a tea-tray on a low table near the window. A breeze had sprung up, swaying inward the muslin curtains and bringing a fresh scent of mignonette and petunias from the flower-box on the balcony.
Lily sank with a sigh into one of the shabby leather chairs.
"How delicious to have a place like this all to one's self! What a miserable thing it is to be a woman." She leaned back in a luxury of discontent.
Selden was rummaging in a cupboard for the cake.
"Even women," he said, "have been known to enjoy the privileges of a flat."
"Oh, governesses-or widows. But not girls-not poor, miserable, marriageable girls!"
"I even know a girl who lives in a flat."
She sat up in surprise. "You do?"
"I do," he assured her, emerging from the cupboard with the sought-for cake.
"Oh, I know-you mean Gerty Farish." She smiled a little unkindly. "But I said marriageable-and besides, she has a horrid little place, and no maid, and such queer things to eat. Her cook does the washing and the food tastes of soap. I should hate that, you know."
"You shouldn't dine with her on wash-days," said Selden, cutting the cake.
They both laughed, and he knelt by the table to light the lamp under the kettle, while she measured out the tea into a little tea-pot of green glaze. As he watched her hand, polished as a bit of old ivory, with its slender pink nails and the sapphire bracelet slipping over her wrist, he was struck with the irony of suggesting to her such a life as his cousin Gertrude Farish had chosen. She was so evidently the victim of the civilization which had produced her that the links of her bracelet seemed like manacles chaining her to her fate.
She seemed to read his thought. "It was horrid of me to say that of Gerty," she said with charming compunction. "I forgot she was your cousin. But we're so different, you know: she likes being good, and I like being happy. And besides, she is free and I am not. If I were, I daresay I could manage to be happy even in her flat. It must be pure bliss to arrange the furniture just as one likes, and give all the horrors to the ash-man. If I could only do over my aunt's drawing-room, I know I should be a better woman."
"Is it so very bad?" he asked sympathetically.
She smiled at him across the tea-pot, which she was holding up to be filled.
"That shows how seldom you come there. Why don't you come oftener?"
"When I do come, it's not to look at Mrs. Peniston's furniture."
"Nonsense," she said. "You don't come at all-and yet we get on so well when we meet."
"Perhaps that's the reason," he answered promptly. "I'm afraid I haven't any cream, you know-shall you mind a slice of lemon instead?"
"I shall like it better." She waited while he cut the lemon and dropped a thin disk into her cup. "But that is not the reason," she insisted.
"The reason for what?"
"For your never coming." She leaned forward with a shade of perplexity in her charming eyes. "I wish I knew-I wish I could make you out. Of course I know there are men who don't like me-one can tell that at a glance. And there are others who are afraid of me: they think I want to marry them." She smiled up at him frankly. "But I don't think you dislike me-and you can't possibly think I want to marry you."
"No-I absolve you of that," he agreed.
"Well, then-?"
He had carried his cup to the fire-place and stood leaning against the chimney-piece and looking down on her with an air of indolent amusement. The provocation in her eyes increased his amusement-he had not supposed she would waste her powder on such small game; but perhaps she was only keeping her hand in; or perhaps a girl of her type had no conversation but of the personal kind. At any rate, she was amazingly pretty, and he had asked her to tea and must live up to his obligations.
"Well, then," he said with a plunge, "perhaps that's the reason."
"What?"
"The fact that you don't want to marry me. Perhaps I don't regard it as such a strong inducement to go and see you." He felt a slight shiver down his spine as he ventured this, but her laugh reassured him.
"Dear Mr. Selden, that wasn't worthy of you. It's stupid of you to make love to me, and it isn't like you to be stupid." She leaned back, sipping her tea with an air so enchantingly judicial that if they had been in her aunt's drawing-room, he might almost have tried to disprove her deduction.
"Don't you see," she continued, "that there are men enough to say pleasant things to me and that what I want is a friend who won't be afraid to say disagreeable ones when I need them? Sometimes I have fancied you might be that friend-I don't know why, except that you are neither a prig nor a bounder and that I shouldn't have to pretend with you or be on my guard against you." Her voice had dropped to a note of seriousness, and she sat gazing up at him with the troubled gravity of a child.
"You don't know how much I need such a friend," she said. "My aunt is full of copy-book axioms, but they were all meant to apply to conduct in the early fifties. I always feel that to live up to them would include wearing book-muslin with gigot sleeves. And the other women-my best friends-well, they use me or abuse me; but they don't care a straw what happens to me. I've been about too long-people are getting tired of me; they are beginning to say I ought to marry."
