Kate is madly in love with her fiancé. She is planning their wedding and looking forward to their future together. Unfortunately, she is about to find out a secret that he has that will forever change what she thinks of him. With this newfound knowledge, she is toils with her desire to be morally upright and for him to “do the right thing”. Years later, she finds herself in a similar situation, only this time with her son.

In this novella, Ms Wharton has explored the dilemma of morality in a world that is filled with people who will do just about anything to get ahead and succeed. While not necessarily my favorite of her writings, this story does depict the Gilded Age for what it was in all of its faults, shortcomings and newfound technology and mindsets. This is a world in flux with new technology affecting everyday life and the Victorian modicum changing. While still interesting, I find this story less captivating and to have a slower pace than her other writings. A bit disappointing but still an interesting read.

Much like Henry James - psychological introspection of characters. Set in NY a wife, mother, and son grapple with issues of morality.

Edith, girl, what is this? Boy mom energy is strong with this one.

My dabbling in Edith Wharton's short novels/novellas continued and for the next foray I chose Sanctuary. This one felt a lot shorter than Bunner Sisters with the characters reading more like sketches. The first half of the story follows Kate, a young woman soon to be married to a man who has recently come into a fortune. Shortly before their wedding, Kate discovers something about her husband that irrevocably changes their relationship. The situation unravels with Wharton presenting a thought-provoking moral dilemma that left me mulling over the possibilities and wondering "What would I do?" Had the story ended here, it would have been an interesting short story.

But, of course, it didn't end there. The choice Kate ultimately made (which I thought was absurd) guaranteed that Wharton had to write the second party of the story. This is that part that left me lukewarm. The bones of the story are good. The writing and characterization is strong in the way I've come to expect from Wharton. The dilemma mirroring the dilemma in the first half was interesting and kept up a "What will he do?" tension, thickened by what the reader, but not the character, knows happened in part I. A dozen conversations could be sparked by this story and I would happily chat for hours over the different angles of the story (nature versus nurture, morality, so on). While I appreciated the short length, it might have been nice to have the second part fleshed out a little more, and maybe even told from Dick's point of view.

And yet...I couldn't shake an icky feeling throughout the whole second half. Kate's relationship with her son felt...wrong. I can't say more without spoiling things, but it's this relationship that leaves me slightly unsettled with the story, even though I loved everything else.

Okay, almost everything else. Kate is so righteously annoying. But, I don't read Edith Wharton books for her lovable characters.

Edith siempre me pone a pensar, y por primera vez creo que yo no estaba en el lado correcto.como siempre buenas reflexiones y el final me gustó

Admittedly I am a huge Wharton fan, and this novella, while not up to the standard of her greatest works, was still compelling to me.

At its heart, this is a story about the struggle of Kate Peyton to try to "fix" -- or at least try to innoculate -- her son from the moral failings of his father. It's a fascinating idea, that a woman might go through with a marriage to a man of corrupt morals only to try to heroically keep any future children from that union from becoming equally morally challenged.

Most of the novella involves Kate's relationship with that son, Dick, as a young architect eager to get ahead. Dick is romantically involved with a woman whom Kate instantly pegs as coldly calculating, interested in Dick for what she sees as his future professional success: "It was prodigious but it was true--she felt nothing, saw nothing, but the crude fact of the opportunity."

When Kate realizes that given the opportunity, Dick will be willing to commit an extremely unethical act on his path, she is distraught: all her years of self-sacrifice for her son now seems to have been for naught. Kate engages in a battle of calculation with Dick's girlfriend, Clemence, hoping to present what she believes is Dick's true, moral character to her in a way that will make her waive her interest. This is one daughter-in-law Kate doesn't want.

Kate has allowed herself to become too wrapped up in her son's life, though she has done so for "all the right reasons." As a mother, I could easily see how this sort of entanglement could happen, and Wharton portrays it masterfully.

Hepi topu 90 sayfalık kolay okunan sıradan bir uzun öykü. Aşk, ihtiras, hırs üçgeninde dönen 1900’ler Amerika’sından bir kesit. Kafa boşaltmak için ataya sıkıştırlanilir, ama okunmaması kayıp olmaz.

Hmm. Well, this was not The House of Mirth. The story wasn't as strong, nor the writing as fine as I am accustomed to with Wharton's best. More a little like The Reef. It was short and mostly about the relationship between a mother and a son, and IMO the mother had wayyyyy too much meddling going on in her adult son's life, to the point of spiking a girlfriend's ear with a story she hoped would influence her son to do what she wants. If you want your adult child to do what you want, you need to have the kind of relationship where you can say "I think you should do this" and then leave it. Aargh. Anyway, the mother then got way too rewarded for the meddling. This poor guy will never have a life and I think Mommie Dearest will manage to "influence away" any future spouse material. Not that I liked the girlfriend in the story much better. Argh. It was so short, I'm not sorry I read it, but it's at the bottom of my Wharton oeuvre list at the moment.

Sanctuary is an early Wharton novella which addresses the immoral consequences of conventions of early 20th century well-to-do society. Kate Orme is about to be married when her fiance reveals an awful lie to her. She is thrown into a moral quandry but resolves (for a fairly complicated reason) to marry anyway. Slip forward 25 years; Kate's husband died years before and she has raised her son alone. The are very close (some would say too close. . .) and Kate must watch as he struggles with his own ethical dilemma. Wharton is great at this personal and political business. Sanctuary is not Wharton's greatest novel, but it is still wise and perceptive and ever relevant.

Parece que de momento no he encontrado el libro que me conecte con Edith Wharton. Al ser tan breve, me ha pasado como con "La solterona", los protagonistas me dan un poco igual. En cuanto a la historia en si, la clave es la excesiva moralidad, llegando a tal punto que Kate se casa con un hombre al que no ama para que su futuro hijo no sea débil en cuestiones de moralidad. Esto acaba derivando en una parentalidad tan posesiva y obsesiva que el pobre Dick vive influido por ella incluso sin que su madre le hable siquiera; marcando todos los aspectos de su vida de forma irremediable. Lo más destacable y lo único que me ha gustado del libro es lo bien que ha sabido mostrar la autora los pensamientos encadenados y obsesivos de la ansiedad.

Novela corta en torno a dos conflictos morales, separados en el tiempo, ninguno de los cuales tiene mayor interés. La prosa es precisa y abunda a la hora de trasladar los dendaleos mentales de la mujer protagonista, pero finalmente es poquita cosa.

Prescindible.

2.5.

Creo que la fundamentación moral de este libro es demasiado opaca para mí. Una mujer que decide sacrificarse y casarse con un hombre que no ama, mentiroso y falto de virtudes, solo para salvar a sus futuros hijos (aún no concebidos) de que hereden dicha falta de virtudes de su padre.

Kate… para qué te metes?