The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.
–Ecclesiastes 7:4
I just finished House of Mirth by Edith Wharton Sunday night. I haven't been so overwhelmed by a book in a very long time. I found myself somatizing Lily Bart's physical condition as the story unfolded– kind of like how husbands of expectant mothers are reported to have sympathetic symptoms of pregnancy. At the end, when she was near collapse, I could barely read as Lily wrote out checks to all whom she owed money, and had to lie down when the book read
THE END.
Later, I felt strangely energized, like a burden had been lifted off me. I remembered a fragment of a song I had written years before, a fragment that I knew had to fit into the last verse, but I had no idea how the line related to the song– so the song remained unfinished. When I understood why Edith Wharton's prose took on an uncharacteristicly triumphant tone at the very end, when Lily Bart had died of an accidental drug overdose after an evening of paying off bills, I understood what the fragment at the end of the song meant, and I finished it in a matter of minutes. I had not even been able to remember what I had already written for several years.
Hmm… I guess I've actually written some personal stuff. I'll have to watch that tendency in the future.
