House of Mirth

I bought this book at the half-price bookstore in my hometown last May and gave the first 50 pages or so a desultory look-through before going back to being distracted by the internet. I finally picked it up again a few weeks ago, tired of the guilt I felt every time I saw its unbroken spine on the shelf. Finished a few minutes ago and now I'd like to go to bed please, pull the covers over my head and listen to sad music until morning. 

I have a bad habit of getting so deeply involved with the characters of well-written novels that my identity begins to merge with theirs. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Actually, isn't that the reason people read? For a momentary respite from the daily tedium of life inside our own bodies?  Wharton's writing is so clean, the edges so crisp and well-defined, that once you decide to give yourself over the world she creates, it becomes impossible to get away until she sets you free. You're stuck in Lily Bart's hot fever dream of a life as she descends from New York society queen to...something else . For those of you, like me, who managed to avoid reading this book through high school and college I don't want to give away the ending. Think of it as an episode of Gossip Girl where the stakes are way higher and everyone is smarter and more evil (though I imagine Blair Waldorf could hold her own in this set without a wrinkle of either perfectly waxed eyebrow). Depressing though it is, this book is worth reading if only for the chance to get to know the original mean girls while engaging with a great artist at the height of her powers.