Sanctuary | Litsy

Sanctuary | Edith Wharton

(5th Avenue 1903 - at 42nd street)

A complicated little novella. In part one Kate Orme discovers “life was honeycombed by a vast system of moral sewage.” In part two the now widowed Kate Peyton fights to protect her son‘s morality, at some cost. Either a nice or uncomfortable story, depending on your take, but regardless with memorable characters and, within the prose, dark revelations about life. Did you enjoy? Thoughts?
#Whartonbuddyread

Lcsmcat

Graywacke One quote: “For here, at last, life lay before her as it was: not brave, garlanded and victorious, but naked, grovelling and diseased, dragging its maimed limbs through the mud, yet lifting piteous hands to the stars.” 3y

Cathythoughts I really enjoyed this one. I‘m not sure what I think of Kates decision to marry & control the child. That she would be saving this unborn child 🤷🏼‍♀️ .. and I‘m not sure what actually happened in the end. I presume Dick did not use his friends work for the competition & finally the title #Sanctuaty makes sense .. it all got a bit confusing for me & I‘m thinking about it a lot. Look forward to seeing what others think .. 👇🏻 3y

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Cathythoughts 👇🏻also Dick “ didnt go under “ & if he had he wouldn‘t have ‘ come up alive again ‘ .. maybe I‘m reading too much into it .. but the suicide in the lake at the beginning … I have suspicions about that.. 3y

Graywacke @Cathythoughts i enjoyed this too. Thinking about the drowning and Dick. I‘m not sure he was in danger of going under, per say. I‘m not even sure what he was considering was immoral. He certainly was smothered by mom. 3y

Cathythoughts He certainly was !! I love your picture 💫❤️old New York (edited) 3y

Lcsmcat @Cathythoughts Nice catch of the drowning symbolism! I missed that. I think Dick‘s dilemma was less than Dennis‘s, but @graywacke I do think it would have been immoral to pass someone else‘s work off as his own. But for Kate to marry someone she could not respect in order to save a not only unborn, but unconceived child was a difficult stretch for me. It was an awkward plot device IMO. 3y

Lcsmcat I think Wharton might have made more of this as a longer work where more could be shown of the years between the marriage and Dennis‘ death. 🤷🏻‍♀️ 3y

Lcsmcat Some quotes I marked. “she found transient relief in that dispersal of attention which makes society an anesthetic for some forms of wretchedness.” 3y

Lcsmcat “she had sacrificed her personal happiness to a fantastic ideal of duty, and it was her punishment to be left alone with her failure” 3y

Lcsmcat “Love such as hers had a great office, the office of preparation and direction; but it must know how to hold its hand and keep its counsel, how to attend upon its object as an invisible influence rather than as an active interference.” 3y

Lcsmcat “If she might expiate and redeem his fault by becoming a refuge from its consequences?” 3y

Lcsmcat “She had begun to perceive that the fair surface of life was honeycombed by a vast system of moral sewage.” 3y

Lcsmcat “a world where honour was a pact of silence between adroit accomplices.” 3y

Lcsmcat And, maybe the key to part 2, from book 1 “Yet Mrs. Peyton ought at least to know what had happened: was it not, in the last resort, she who should pronounce on her son‘s course?” 3y

Lcsmcat Those are in reverse order, obviously. Sorry to spam the feed but I‘m traveling today and hit a spot with cell service. 😀 3y

Graywacke @Lcsmcat ( @Cathythoughts ) - thinking this through in a modern sense, Denis was stealing from the rightful inheritor. Dick could have acknowledged Paul‘s contribution and then there is no moral dilemma and Paul‘s nice idea gets shared. 🤷🏻‍♂️ 😁 3y

Graywacke @Lcsmcat As for Kate - all I can say about her decision is I think it tells us something about her - she is a lot more selfish in her morality than she fully realizes, and it‘s a little strange. 3y

Graywacke @Lcsmcat the quotes are terrific. There is so much in so many of these lines, and in the manner of the expression. 3y

Lcsmcat @Graywacke Yes, Kate‘s morality is selfish and arrogant. She is the only one who can save any child of Dennis‘ ? Any other wife he chose would be unable to be moral? It‘s a bit of hubris! 3y

Louise Fascinating comments! I‘m a little behind with the reading but will chime in when I finish the book! @graywacke @Lcsmcat @cathythoughts 3y

Graywacke @Louise enjoy. I think it was my favorite book for September. 3y

Graywacke @Lcsmcat yes. Same for her son. There‘s a quote (searching… ) - “As she sat there in the radius of lamp- light which, for so many evenings, had held Dick and herself in a charmed circle of tenderness, she saw that her love for her boy had come to be merely a kind of extended egotism.” 3y

Currey @Graywacke @Lcsmcat I totally agree that she was full of a strange hubris, that she was the only one that could save an unknown child….and that her own moral sense is the correct one in any situation. I also thought that the whole relationship with her son verged on being obsessive and maybe even a bit sick but that may have been more normal at the time. Strange and haunting but not for any of the obvious reasons. 3y

Currey @Graywacke @Lcsmcat The son “doing the right thing” in the end was a bit of a twist in that we had been set up for his claiming his friend‘s work as his own. However, his mother actually did not believe in him, never actually believed in him….as clearly she had to marry his father to save him from the very beginning…. 3y

Currey @Graywacke. @Lcsmcat I did appreciate moments of humor: “ I think that she likes to be helped first, and to have everything on her plate at once” 3y

Graywacke @Currey I don‘t think it was normal for then. Especially to fight over your son with his fiancé. ? (for what it‘s worth, I liked Kate and finished the book liking her. She was nice to hang with and she was passionately well meaning and had positive influences on people. She just has some really weird aspects.) 3y

Currey @Graywacke Yes, I agree. I also liked Kate, I just thought she was odd….but hey, I like odd people and characters. 3y

arubabookwoman When I started reading this one I was immediately reminded of our 1st Wharton where the man who published the letters to get $ to marry, failed to tell his future wife and suffered guilt pangs ever after. Here, the future wife is told of her future husband's moral failures ahead of time, and it is she who suffers. I thought that was where this was going. 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻 3y

Lcsmcat @Currey @Graywacke I liked the quote about being helped first, too! Very character defining! I liked Kate, too, but still found her hubris unsettling. I think her obsession (for lack of a better word) over Duck was part of that. She had to keep him from being like his father. 3y

Lcsmcat @arubabookwoman Oooh, nice point! 3y

arubabookwoman I almost missed when Kate decides, "I better not let this morally deficient man marry another (unsuspecting) woman and have a child he'll pass this trait onto without my being there to prevent the child turning out like him." Then I saw it turning into a nature v. nurture tale. (edited) 3y

arubabookwoman I liked Kate, and didn't find her to be a too overbearing mother. I think she tried to teach her son as best she could, but in the end I think she was pretty much leaving the decision up to him. The worst thing she did was tell his fiancée, in the hopes that the fiancée might show her true colors, he would see the light and make a good decision. 3y

arubabookwoman @Graywacke I liked Dan's point about why he didn't just incorporate the inherited design, but give credit. 3y

arubabookwoman I'm really enjoying in the 3 we've read so far (which I've not read before) Wharton's themes of the moral ambiguities we live with, and the choices we face all the time--what makes us "good" people? I'm also enjoying her themes/comments (sometimes in your face and sometimes just snarky asides) about the place of women in society. Looking forward to the continuing Wharton journey! 3y

CarolynM I have to agree with @Graywacke about Kate's morality being a selfish thing and I thought her reasoning for marrying Denis was hard to process. But we have to remember the mores of the time, it was hard for a woman to make any contribution outside marriage and motherhood, so in that sense she probably thought she was doing her best for the world. I also thought there wasn't really moral equivalence between Denis's dilemma and Dick's... 3y

CarolynM ...Denis's problem seemed to me to be about embarrassing the family by acknowledging his brother's wife whom he didn't think good enough. That sort of pride seems to me inherently different from the likely damage to your self respect of representing someone else's work as your own. 3y

llwheeler I enjoyed this book! I liked how no one was portrayed as clearly good or bad. Everything is shades of grey. 3y

Graywacke @arubabookwoman glad you‘re enjoying! that‘s such an interesting observation about the various flawed husbands. Also good point about the nature vs nurture game she is playing with here. I felt Kate‘s influence was stronger than that, but subtlety so. Clemence tells her she interfered by reading his thoughts. She doesn‘t have to say anything to kind of rule him (and conquer the unpredictable nature). Anyway, i liked her too. Ready for HoM. (edited) 3y

Graywacke @CarolynM was Denis really concerned about honor or was it a convenient excuse to justify getting the money? 🙂 Hope you‘re enjoying! 3y

Graywacke @llwheeler she does finesse. Glad you enjoyed too! 3y

Graywacke @jewright @Louise @Sace @Suet624 @arubabookwoman @Currey @catebutler @Catherine_Willoughby @crazeedi @mdm139 @emilyhaldi @rubyslippersreads @KathyWheeler @llwheeler @CarolynM @Cathythoughts great stuff on a somewhat overlooked (and often panned in personal online reviews. But why?) novella. I‘m really looking forward to House of Mirth! We‘ll meet up after the first 8 chapters on October 30. 3y

CarolynM I didn't read it as being about the validity of the will, but going back over it now it is all very vague on that score, so yes, it may have been only about the money. Casting the woman as an unmarried mother in those days was a pretty despicable thing to do whatever the reason. This morning I'm no longer sure what I think about it. 3y

Graywacke @CarolynM 🙂 Wharton has left us a little uncomfortable three times now. But you bring up a point about the drowning. An unmarried mother commits suicide and no one thinks she would have been fine. Is Wharton poking at the sexist culture there, the dependence of women on men for financial support and social dignity? 3y

TEArificbooks I am a week behind but I finally finished the novella. I found it the most easily read so far and much more likable characters. 3y

Graywacke @mdm139 agree completely. Glad you caught up. 3y

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