Freshman year at an all girls school in the 90s: "Here's your whistle, and everyone will be slogging* through The House of Mirth together."
(*You will appreciate it more in grad school.)
BACK THEN, as A Youngling:
"She's a good writer, I'll give her that, she makes me despise them, too, but do I really want to live through 300 more pages of this?"
"Dana Stabenow’s review of The House of Mirth"
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/149716345
A decade or so later, as an OLDER Youngling:
"At minimum, Wharton illustrates that self-determination and self-reliance are one thing when you're living in a cabin in the woods, growing beans, and contemplating existence during solitary sojourns around Walden Pond, but quite another in the company of others -- particularly a circle of others fixated upon a set of mores or, more strictly, rules. Reaching further, perhaps, Wharton exposes a stark line between the wherewithal of men and women in American society to 'go Thoreau'. In other words, The House of Mirth may temper Transcendentalism by portraying the profound influence of the company one keeps on reaching into oneself and, beneath that, the harsh reality of being a woman within that company."
"Jason (New York, NY)’s review of The House of Mirth"
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