The House of Mirth caught my attention because of the character of Lily Bart, which drew me into this rich, tragic tale. Every day, the boulevards resembled the revolutionary France of two centuries earlier, with screaming, swearing, fighting, anger and violence of a kind I had never encountered in the modest world where I grew up. These were exciting times! I was absorbing all these changes in a modern French society where centuries-old ideas on class and politics were being tossed away. I was in Paris during the spring 1968 student riots when final exams got postponed indefinitely and "provincial" students like me got stuck in Paris because the trains and everything else were on strike. It was during those years that I first read The House of Mirth. Wharton was a writer who knew both America and Europe. I had recently spent a year in New England and New York - and was acutely aware of how living in a new country makes you see the strengths and weaknesses of your own. In my early 20s, I "met" author Edith Wharton in a literature class while I was living in Paris and attending the Sorbonne. Her favorite hobbies are breakfast, lunch and dinner. A New Yorker born and raised in France, she has yet to visit only two states: North Dakota and Montana. Mireille Guiliano is the internationally best-selling author of French Women Don't Get Fat and French Women for All Seasons, who for many years was the CEO of Clicquot Inc.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |