I went to see The House of Mirth, the movie, at a museum in Queens last weekend. The movie kept stopping because the projector would break, which also happened last time I went to see a movie there (Hurricane Season). I had underestimated how much The House of Mirth upsets me. I first read the book as a teenager and have had a visceral relationship to it ever since. I wrote a little bit about it already on this newsletter before and also have an essay coming out about it at some point soon in The Cleveland Review of Books. My emotions around The House of Mirth are compounded by the fact that I, like Lily Bart, am presently 29. My Lily Bart year, I like to call it. It feels like we are on the same doomed rollercoaster.
The House of Mirth, the movie, is more an interpretation than a translation of The House of Mirth, the book. It’s more romantic and melodramatic and lacks some of the blunt edges and viciousness of Wharton’s novel. Gillian Anderson, replete with red curls and frilly Edwar…