Lies and Weddings, Kevin Kwan

I’m a big fan of Kevin Kwan. He basically writes 18th-century fiction adapted to 21st-century sensibilities, but only just barely. It delights me. Like, Lies and Weddings has a plot that could almost be transplanted wholesale into a Burney novel (if you made everyone white). It’s especially satisfying, too, because it indulges in a delicious self-righteousness about wealth even while glamorizing it — you can relish the descriptions of lavish parties and extravagant couture; the marvelous spectacles that money can create, while feeling superior about how that money could actually be helping people. It’s thinly veiled bitchiness, and it’s great. But it’s not totally simplistic: there are reminders throughout that the creation of art tends to go hand in hand with privilege; that though it is often merely a pursuit of status, luxury is often a cultivation of beauty. And it is crucially counterbalanced, I think, by insistently humanizing the ultra-wealthy people it also skewers.