Chapter 3: Vivien, a Small Dog, and the Missing Furniture

[Carmenere_lady]

I thought the author is trying to make Ginny look like the odd one while Viv sounds fun loving and vivacious so that we sympathize with her.  But perhaps it's just to pull us into a trap and the opposite may turn out to be true.

In regards to the furniture though, why hadn't Vivien kept in touch w/her sister.  Check on her health and well being etc.  She could have taken a more active role, then again maybe she tried to, remember Ginny didn't like visitors.

[swamplover]

---

sriensche wrote:

gosox wrote:

. . . Although I am no expert on the condition, does anyone else think that Ginny might exhibit some symptons of Asperger's/autism?

Wondered the same thing.  Some of her actions are more than OCD, and her complete lack of emotional ties led me to think there is more to Ginny than just an eccentric reclusive woman.  However if there is something "different" about her how could her sister leave her completely alone and cut off for so many years?

---

Asperger's Syndrom (AS) was my first thought too.  I have a very close friend who has AS; his wife and two sons also have it.  Beacuse he had to help his sons navigate the school system, he read everything he could about it, and in the process came to understand a lot about himself.  We have talked about AS and his and his famly member's issues.  He said he does not have the same emotional reactions as most people but has learned appropriate behavior/reactions from reading, etc. and then applies what he has learned.  This seems to be what Ginny tried to do with the dog and making the face people make when they see a baby.  There are other places where I see her make this same kind of attempt to act in appropriate ways.  Selling the furniture without any consideration of the financial or sentimental value fits right in with these types of issues.

On another point - I wonder whether Vivi had something to do with Maude's death.  "That was when Vivi left this house for the last time and she hasn't been back since."  Was she in prison or in an institution for some of that time?  Or did she know that Ginny was responsible and she left in fear for her own life?  Is that why she didn't check up on her sister?

[DSaff]

---

Charlottesweb1 wrote:

Vivien comes home clearly with an agenda.

She spends a considerable amount of time searching the house for something. The reader is never let in on what exactly she is hoping to find. Ginny finds Vivien's snooping unnerving to her routine of having everything in it's place. It is interesting that the longer Vivien stays the more Ginny feels she must monitor her moments.

---

I totally agree with you about the agenda. I don't trust Vivien, and am not quite sure why. But, she is on a mission. After presumably not checking on her sister for many years, she is surprised at the state of the house? She seems more concerned about the missing "stuff" than about her sister.

[kmensing]

I'm still wondering what caused Ginny to be emotionally trapped in this house.  Is it a phobia & if so what caused it.  Some people become homebound by choice too. 

Maud trips down the cellar steps and "that is when Vivi left the house for the last time".  Did Ginny have anything to do with the fall?  Remember how convinced everyone was that Ginny was the cause of Vivi's fall....

Ginny's selling of the furniture--I understand both sisters.  Ginny needed money to live, so it was a simple solution for her to sell it off.  But Vivi feels like a part of the family history was erased---which I would feel the same.  Notice Ginny says "but I left the moth books & equipment"--maybe she thinks this was the only history worth keeping.

[Laurabairn]

I had the same reaction! Funny how Ginny didn't save a thing of  Maud's, but she saved all of Clive's moth and collecting things. She says so to Vivi as if this was consolation, but it seems to be all she values from their childhood. Are her memories so awful she just want to get rid of everything or she has so little attachment to anything that was Maud's that she doesn't give it a thought?

Poppy Adams is doing a good job of making us curious and asking questions about these too. I'm hoping the

things that seem out of character for the times(child of the 60's) or her perceptions of the women as elderly(though they are only in their 60's) are plot elements that foreshadow things to be told. So I hold high hopes that the next few chapters will reveal the secrets that have made Ginny either a very odd women (and why) or a person with an inaccuarate sense of reality and the story is far different that we have been lead to believe. Either way it should be an interesting tale!

[psujulie]

---

DSaff wrote:

---

Charlottesweb1 wrote:

Vivien comes home clearly with an agenda.

She spends a considerable amount of time searching the house for something. The reader is never let in on what exactly she is hoping to find. Ginny finds Vivien's snooping unnerving to her routine of having everything in it's place. It is interesting that the longer Vivien stays the more Ginny feels she must monitor her moments.

---

I totally agree with you about the agenda. I don't trust Vivien, and am not quite sure why. But, she is on a mission. After presumably not checking on her sister for many years, she is surprised at the state of the house? She seems more concerned about the missing "stuff" than about her sister.

---

My first thought wasn't that Vivien has an agenda (although I definitely could be wrong.) I thought how shocked she would be to arrive at her family home and see it in such shambles. She most likely knew that something wasn't quite right with Ginny, but seeing most of the furniture sold and parts of the house closed off would be shocking to say the least. I don't necessarily think that she was mad that Vivien sold off the furniture (without understanding the value of it), but I do think she was amazed at that current state of Vivien's life.

[BookSavage]

---

I totally agree with you about the agenda. I don't trust Vivien, and am not quite sure why. But, she is on a mission. After presumably not checking on her sister for many years, she is surprised at the state of the house? She seems more concerned about the missing "stuff" than about her sister.

---

My first thought wasn't that Vivien has an agenda (although I definitely could be wrong.) I thought how shocked she would be to arrive at her family home and see it in such shambles. She most likely knew that something wasn't quite right with Ginny, but seeing most of the furniture sold and parts of the house closed off would be shocking to say the least. I don't necessarily think that she was mad that Vivien sold off the furniture (without understanding the value of it), but I do think she was amazed at that current state of Vivien's life.

---

I agree, I did not think of Vivien as having an agenda.  Although I was thoroughly upset at the way Vivien treated her about selling off the furniture, I thought it just added to Vivi's rather domineering nature and not so much to an agenda.

[dhaupt]

This chapter was disturbing to me in the fact that I am seeing Ginny clearer now and think she's lost herself some how or somewhere. I find it interesting that she thinks that saving the moth items are more important than saving the furniture and gives us another small look into her personality. However Ginny is right in her attitude toward Vivi because Vivi is the one who left all those years ago and Ginny stayed. I also thought that Ginny's reaction to Vivi's looking like Maud will be telling in the chapters to come. And I think in some way Ginny was disappointed in the reunion because of Vivi's reaction to the sold stuff. I also wondering if Bobby isn't taking advantage of Ginny, I guess we'll find out later.

Message Edited by dhaupt on 03-04-2008 09:27 AM

[psawyers]

As the story progresses, you get more insight into the narrator, Ginny.  She was protected as a child, because she was different.  She is a recluse, but from the hints within the story, I believe very strongly we are dealing with a woman who has had either mental health issues throughout her life, or could very well be considered high functioning intellectually, but lacking social skills, to the extent that she could be a high functioning autistic individual.  She has no social skills whatsoever, and no idea of how to behave socially.  Her life is lived in her own little world, and she does not have any idea about why the furnishings, etc. within the house would be important to any one else.  We obtain the majority of this information from comments of other characters, but also from comments that Ginny herself makes.  Seh almost seems to be cut off completely from society and the world at large, and Viv certainly shocks her back into this to a certain extent.

Paula

[Countrygirl]

It seems like her and the house and falling apart and she just dose not care. It sounds like the house is falling down around it self. She is going to have explain to Viven why this happen and why she has let things go.

She just seems to live in cave away from world.  She seems to  be living in anther time and with her sister showing up she is going to brought back to the now.

[sbrinkley]

i don't think ginny really sold the furniture for money at this time. from what am getting from the book it seems like she didn't want any part of the furniture that it was more of a disturbence then anything, it belong to her family and it seems like vivi had more of a connection to the mother and father and the furniture ment more to her.

[DreamAngel0529…]

“My emotions weren’t played out on my face like hers… Such refinement was not well equipped to shield a disturbance rising beneath it, and every one of Vivi’s emotions would come to the surface and give itself away… but a thousand thoughts and feelings could be buried unnoticed within my broader cheeks and softer rounded nose…” (p. 27).

Once again Ginny's keeping her emotions bottled up... i wish she would just let loose.

"In Vivi’s distress over the fact that Ginny has sold off most of the family’s heirlooms, she says, “Our family might not have happened, there was no point to its existing for the last two hundred years if it’s got nothing to show for itself” (p. 33). In response, Ginny thinks “Is it really necessary to record and log your life in order to have made it worthwhile or commendable?” (p. 33-34). With whom do you agree?"

i actually agree with Ginny because eveyone knows what their family has accomplished by the reports that were written or the experiments that they did, Ginny didn't get rid of any of that stuff, so what does furniture have to do with their accomplishments??? why clutter the house with meaningless things and live uncomfortably if you dont have to? What I dont understand is that in chapter 4 we find out that she didnt end up keeping anything that was her moms....very odd???

the main thing that caught my attention was the tention between the sisters. they havent seen each other in a long time and its not like they seperated on bad terms (vivi wanted to live her life). so instead of catching up they are arguing about stupid little things.

Caitlin

Message Edited by DreamAngel052986 on 03-04-2008 11:40 AM

[dhaupt]

---

sbrinkley wrote:

i don't think ginny really sold the furniture for money at this time. from what am getting from the book it seems like she didn't want any part of the furniture that it was more of a disturbence then anything, it belong to her family and it seems like vivi had more of a connection to the mother and father and the furniture ment more to her.

---

You might be partly right, but on page 34 Ginny says "The furniture has gone because I wanted it to, and I needed the money. It was my choice and that is that." It will be interesting to find out why she needed the money.

deb

[Everyman]

Speculation on the comments quoted below: did Vivian leave because in fact Ginny did ush her off the bell tower, and she believed that Ginny had pushed Maud down the cellar stairs, so Vivian left because she realized that Ginny was truly dangerous and feared that Ginny would try again to push her to her death?

---

LisaMM wrote:
CubbyVet wrote:
I also thought Maud's death occurence was sort of odd. Was it just a coincidence that Maud died while falling down the stairs while Ginny was there or did Ginny have something to do with it? And if Ginny had something to do with it, does that mean she also had something to do with Vivi's fall?>>


I had to go reread the section about Maud's death after reading your post. It doesn't say that Ginny was there. Maybe she was, but it doesn't say that, unless I missed it somewhere.

From pg. 23 "But it was Maud's death that had the biggest impact on our lives. It was pain-free, although probably not as dignified as she'd have liked. She tripped down the cellar steps. But afterwards our lives changed direction forever. That was when Vivi left our house for the last time and she hasn't been back since. "

---

[Everyman]

DSaff wrote: I don't trust Vivien, and am not quite sure why. But, she is on a mission. After presumably not checking on her sister for many years, she is surprised at the state of the house? She seems more concerned about the missing "stuff" than about her sister.

Nice point. But why does Ginny paint Vivian in the favorable light she seems to me to?

[Everyman]

---

Laurabairn wrote:

I had the same reaction! Funny how Ginny didn't save a thing of Maud's, but she saved all of Clive's moth and collecting things.

---

And not only those, but apparently all the moth stuff that had been being collected over generations. Of course, it may have had no value and not saleable at all, and been more trouble to throw away than to leave hanging on the walls and sitting around.

[Everyman]

dhaupt quoted: "The furniture has gone because I wanted it to, and I needed the money. It was my choice and that is that."

But was it really her choice? I come back to the question I asked earlier: were the house and contents left to her alone, and if so why, or were they left to both daughters which would mean Ginny had no right to sell the furniture off without Vivian's consent?

[dubbuh]

Ginny selling the furniture really bothered me, too at first, but didn't she kind of have "squatter's rights"?  If Vivi had been there and known, she could have taken the stuff.  Like a lot of you have said, stuff is just stuff and I think it was OK for Ginny to do it.  She doesn't seem like the kind of person who is sentimental--but since she and Vivi were almost biologically connected when they were young you'd think she'd at least let her know.  Maybe she did.  Apparently their relationship was non-existant so she felt she didnt need to include her in the decision?  The fact that she kept Jake was wierd though.  Probably the least valuable and oddest thing in the house.

[DSaff]

---

Everyman wrote:
DSaff wrote: I don't trust Vivien, and am not quite sure why. But, she is on a mission. After presumably not checking on her sister for many years, she is surprised at the state of the house? She seems more concerned about the missing "stuff" than about her sister.

Nice point. But why does Ginny paint Vivian in the favorable light she seems to me to?

---

Good question. It could be that she has missed her so much that she can overlook things. It also could be that Ginny desperately wants a relationship with her sister, especially after all these years. We will see.

[DSaff]

---

vivico1 wrote:

---

CubbyVet wrote:

I also thought Maud's death occurence was sort of odd. Was it just a coincidence that Maud died while falling down the stairs while Ginny was there or did Ginny have something to do with it? And if Ginny had something to do with it, does that mean she also had something to do with Vivi's fall?

---

Ginny pushes,
Vivi falls.
Where is Maud,
She makes no calls?

Ginny looks,
She shows no pain.
Has Ginny pushed,
Someone again?

muuaahhhaaahhhhhhaaa

---

great poem! Thanks so much. =)