I have just read your essay on lying. Thank you for sharing your words..... I have read it several times and each time, I find myself in a clearer state of mind.
Mr. Wallace, thank you for that lovely essay on House of Mirth that you posted. I just finally read this novel—having tried first when I was 29, and found “the horror!” and couldn’t finish it; and watched the movie in 2000, but repressed it, as the whole experience was a horror, for other reasons as well as the story; and now, at 61, I could take it. Such a painful story! Your essay gave me a companionable coda. I especially liked your thoughts on Sim Rosedale, as I, too, who am also Jewish, did not mind his old-school depiction at all, and actually found myself chiming in with Edith Wharton on the Jewish gift for evaluation. In the end as you say he was the stand-up guy, and it is touching that I believe no one but he knew about the nobility (wasted in my opinion) of Lily in not using those letters. Jerk Selden was clueless, and I believe Wharton even adds that he knew he needn’t feel guilty, it was just kind of kismet or something. No, it wasn’t, we know, and Rosedale knows. So I felt better to know at last that, as has been my experience, the desired “soulmate” is unworthy and rather like a character in an Idyll of the King who goes galumping off while the person who loves him or her is pining nobly. Anyway, forgive my ramble; your essay was very welcome.
Cheryl