Kate es un ejemplo de los personajes escritos por Edith Wharton: con convicciones claras objetivos definidos, lista para tomar decisiones pero cuya vida tiene una serie de obstáculos que la harán dudar sobre sus acciones.

Una lectura ideal para acercarse a esta autora por su brevedad.

An early novel that foreshadows later works

The very short Sanctuary was published in 1903 and, as I thought about it, it struck me how Wharton's oeuvre is of such quality that you can pick anything, from anytime, and you'll still find yourself with something worth reading. Even if it's far from such peaks as The Age of Innocence o The House of Mirth, it will always be an insightful glance at a charachter's inner life and moral struggles.
She's probably the only one that could have had a remote hope of replacing Jane Austen as first goddess in my personal Pantheon (maybe if I'd found her earlier...).

Edith Wharton's writing wallows in moral struggles and societal pressures, usually about adultery and social-climbing. But she tries a different approach for the novella "Sanctuary," a story that is thought-provoking and well-written, but feels more like the outline to a full-length novel than a story in its own right.

Kate Orme is wrapped up in her idyllic engagement to Denis, when a woman claiming to be his dissolute brother's wife kills herself and her child. To Kate's shock, Denis confesses that the woman was, but to avoid having a low-class person in the family, he suppressed evidence and lied. Even worse, he feels no guilt because he considers it worth the sacrifice.

Kate breaks off the engagement, but to protect any child of Denis' from his hypocrisies, she marries him. Many years later, Denis is dead, and their young son Dick is a blossoming architect about to enter a prestigious contest. But then a friend of his dies tragically, and leaves Dick his brilliant architectural plans... to enter in the contest as his own. Now Kate must see if her careful upbringing will make Dick do the right thing, or if he will follow in his father's footsteps.

Most of Wharton's books are wrapped up in ethical dilemmas or one kind or another, but "Sanctuary" tackles a very different kind of problem. And Wharton does a good job spinning out a sense of suspense, all about a young man who could tip either way, and inspiring disgust and outrage at Denis' weak, whiny defense of his crimes.

Sadly, the second half reads like Wharton was sketching out an enlarged outline for a novel, but got bored and just published it as-is. Details are sketchy, as is the society that these people live in, and more than two decades are skipped over instantly. Little of the storyline is fleshed out except for Kate's (seemingly endless) angst, which trickles on throughout way too many of the few pages.

Kate herself isn't easy to relate to -- she marries wussy Denis for a kid that might or might not be born, and spends most of the book torturing herself over Dick's future choices. She comes across as naive at best, manic at worst. Dick himself is a far more interesting character, since he exists in the grey area that most human beings inhabit -- he's a partying, slightly slackerish guy, but essentially good at heart.

"Sanctuary" tackles the grey areas and hypocrises of many "upright" people, but the second half drizzles off into a lot of bad angst and extreme reactions. Interesting, but it feels half-written.

“Sanctuary” is a novella by Edith Wharton, published in 1903. From what I have read, the plot did not cause any surprises at the time, but today the story seems rather unusual. It is a story which deals with ethics, morality, and family honor. While there is nothing particularly unusual in that, some of the choices made by the main character, Kate, seem rather drastic today, and one has a difficult time imagining that any woman today would make similar choices. The story is divided into two parts.

In the first part, we get to know Kate Orme, a woman who is engaged to Denis Payton. She is a woman who has been sheltered from the realities of the world, and comes to learn of an unpleasant situation involving Arthur, Denis’ half-brother after he has passed on. Through learning about the situation and how Arthur’s family handles it, Kate is upset with Denis and pushes him to do the moral thing. Arthur mother comes to talk with her, and Kate learns that it isn’t just Denis who is willing to protect the family name regardless of the act. Lastly, she learns from her own father that scandal’s have been covered up in her own family. After a bit of soul-searching, Kate comes to the conclusion that the most moral thing for her to do is to marry Denis so that she can try to remove the character taint which his yet to be conceived son have. This decision appears to be very unusual and it is doubtful that anyone today would reason in such a way. Kate also seems to ignore that she herself must be tainted since her own father and family also has displayed moral weakness.

Part two picks up several years later. We learn that Denis passed on when their son, Dick was young, and that he squandered most of their money. We also learn that Kate has put her own interests aside to get Dick the best education she can. Dick is starting his career and an ethical dilemma arises which has Kate worried. She is suspicious of the motives of those around Dick, and becomes worried that he is making the wrong choice. Everything seems to be pushing him towards the wrong path, and the similarities between his reaction and that of his father Denis when he was trying to hide the truth from her are readily apparent.

It will likely be difficult for many modern-day readers to understand the motivation of Kate in this story, but that is due to changes in our society, and not a flaw in the book itself. Nevertheless, I don’t think this book is quite as good as Edith Wharton’s previously published works and so I round this one down to three stars. It is still worth reading, especially for those who enjoy her other works, but it isn’t quite as accessible.

"The music room, when she entered, was thronged with acquaintances, and she found transient relief in that dispersal of attention that makes society an anaesthetic for some forms of wretchedness."

"It was part of her discernment to be aware that life is the only real counsellor, that wisdom unfiltered through personal experience does not become a part of the moral tissues."

I'm sure Wharton's full novels have more skill to them (I've only ever seen Scorsese's Age of Innocence), but this book is a narrower slice of what I imagine she is like. It was a good entry point for me and reminded me of Henry James and The Turn of the Screw. In that book, I had found the highly descriptive inner thoughts and intentions of the characters almost hyperreal. In this one, it melded with the intensity of the generational moral drama. It's this drama that you come to this book for. It's a riveting tale, to be sure.

A fine novella if you're a Wharton fan, which I am. You can read it in a day or two. It's interesting in its take on the nature vs nurture debate, but what I think I liked best about it was how Kate is the centered character in both halves of the book when a man in her life has a moral crisis.

Kate Orme, engaged to be married to Denis Peyton, discovers a dark secret and postpones the marriage. Upon reflection, she rationalizes that if she fails to marry him, he would marry some other woman who would be oblivious to his secret and thus unprepared to steel any child born to them from perpetuating the father's (Denis) propensity. She proceeds to marry him, has a son by him, and her husband Denis dies seven years later. Kate becomes devoted to her son and raises him to be successful professionally. He, like his father, faces a moral dilema. Kate does not confront or compel her son but secretly hopes he will exercise the good moral judgment her son's father was not capable of. An interesting read.

Este libro debe servirle a las suegras que creen que los demás corrompen a sus hijos y que son la única fuente de verdad y amor.

Wharton knows how to write silence, from the crushing silences we face when no words can express what we want to say, to the strained silence of not being able to say what we want to

Such expressive characters, narrative felt hasty.

3.5

Kate Orme was engaged in one of those rapid mental excursions which were forever sweeping her from the straight path of the actual into uncharted regions of conjecture. Her survey of life had always been marked by the tendency to seek out ultimate relations, to extend her researches to the limit of her imaginative experience.

She had begun to perceive that the fair surface of life was honeycombed by a vast system of moral sewage.

Kate’s visualizing habit gave a hateful precision and persistency to the image she had evoked—she could not rid herself of the vision of anguished shapes striving together in the darkness. The horror of it took her by the throat—she drew a choking breath, and felt the tears on her face.

It was a part of her discernment to be aware that life is the only real counsellor, that wisdom unfiltered through personal experience does not become a part of the moral tissues.

Entertaining listening