8. The Mother’s Recompense by Edith Wharton
OPD: 1925
format: 181-page Kindle ebook
acquired: February 7 read: Feb 7-19 time reading: 8:27, 2.8 mpp
rating: 4
genre/style: Classic fiction theme: Wharton
locations: then contemporary French Riviera and Manhattan
about the author: 1862-1937. Born Edith Newbold Jones on West 23rd Street, New York City. Relocated permanently to France after 1911.

This oddly bitter pill marks my 18th book by Edith Wharton. I didn't realize this. I've counted twice and still find myself doubting it.

Having said that, this is some of Wharton's best sustained prose, from a prose specialist. Especially in the early sections where Kate is in Europe and then when she first returns to New York after twenty years away, shocked at the changes in life, landscape and values; and uncomfortable at the isolated worlds where appearances she once ran from have been perfectly preserved.

But this is a tricky novel. Wharton loves to crush her readers, and here she confounds us. And I'm pretty sure it's intentional. Kate Clephane ran away from her husband and her baby daughter. Now her husband has passed away, and, after the death of her mother-in-law, the family matron, her daughter calls her home. So, she returns and finds herself welcome. A brief and beautiful happiness ensues, the lost mother found. But who is this Kate now playing mom? She seems unable to tell us, and unable to figure it out herself. And, dear reader, was it merely our Kate who was the problem, or does this past and present stifling and changing NY world have some responsibility?

I never did figure out Kate or what Wharton wanted me to make of her, or what Wharton was doing to me, the reader. But I enjoyed experiencing it. This later Wharton is a good one.

2024:
https://www.librarything.com/topic/358760#8437761 ( )

Maternal Melodrama

During the 1920s in America a young woman, Kate, falls for wealthy New Yorker, who turns out to be not according to her taste. The marriage produces a daughter they call Anne, but when Anne is still an infant Kate runs off in the middle of the night to be with a new lover. Anne is left to be raised by her father and after the his death lives alone, with her education and financial cares looked after by a family-appointed guardian. Kate and her new love travel from the marriage home on Fifth Avenue in New York to the French Riviera.

After a short while, Kate dumps her lover, and eventually meets a younger man called Chris, an American with an adventurous spirit who is good in bed. They have a few years of bliss and travel but being young Chris eventually tires of the older Kate and tells a fib - he says he has to return to New York but will be back. He never returns.

While Kate dreams hopefully and uselessly of his return she lives cheaply (by her standards) with her maid, in hotels on the French Riviera where rich Americans flock to what they call “American colonies”.There they pack their days with card playing, dinners, parties and visits from dignitaries, in order that they can forget about whatever past they have left.

Meanwhile the infant Anne has grown up and come of age. She has no memory of her mother Kate, but wants a mother. She’s living in the same Fifth Avenue mansion as the one Kate fled from 18 years ago. Her guardian turns out to be an old admirer of Kate ever since her New York days. He is all for Anne to reunite with her mother. He has been in love with Kate forever but his love has always been unrequited. Kate finds him a bore.

Anne telegraphs to Kate who is surprised to hear from the daughter who she was unable to even visit after she fled the mansion. Anne asks Kate to return. Kate does, happy to leave her shallow life.

The ingredients: A thityish man, sexy and adventurous, but poor
A woman in her fifties still good-looking but on a fixed income.
An adoring older New York gentleman who loves Kate
Anne, the ingenue who wants a mother.

The rest would require a very large spoiler alert, so I’ll leave the action there, but action there surely is.

The book is well-written, and it’s an enjoyable read. Will she or won’t she? Noting there are two she’s. There is a bit of a drift into melodrama, but what does it matter? The writing is good and we are kept interested.

Recommended for those not averse to melodrama. ( )

Some interesting questions in a typical Wharton setting. Liked the questions, pretty tired of the super rich people. ( )

I've been reading more Edith Wharton lately and really appreciating her development of character and her story telling ability. I was prepared to find Kate vain and superficial from the opening and she turned into a far more complex character. Unfortunately, most of the other characters were not as fleshed out but the story is mainly Kate and I enjoyed figuring out her complexities. The plot twists I think were mostly as expected though the ending was not what you might imagine but made perfect sense to me. A great read.

Middle aged woman stays staunch with her guilt, and so forfeits a fulfilling life. Edith Wharton was an expert technician at producing moving, intelligent stories.