Monday: Chapters 20 through 22

[pheath]

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bookhunter wrote:

And why are all the clocks no longer synchronized? Do you think that in her disjointed state she has zoned out and fiddled with the clocks as a manifestation of her mind? Her mind is no longer neat and orderly so she unknowingly adjusts the clocks to reflect that?

Ann, bookhunter

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No one other than Ginny mentions them. Perhaps some of them merely exist in Ginny's mind and have been thrown off kilter by the shock of the previous days events.

[bentley]

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pheath wrote:

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kmensing wrote:

Ch 20

Two words for ya--Holy Crap! Ginny did it. I had to put the book down at this point and go make popcorn.

Ginny hasn’t actually seen the body yet, so is Vivi dead? And the clocks all out of alignment, how odd is that.

So if Ginny did kill Vivi, did she push her off the bell tower and did she push Maud down the steps?

So far, this is my favorite chapter.

Ch 21

The children leaving a pile of moths on the steps--I found that humorous.

Vivi’s not dead in the beginning of the chapter, but she is in the end. I’m stunned at Ginny’s ability to poison her a second time.

And why are the police there?

Ch 22

The tone of this book has taken quite an unexpected turn. The police are left thinking that Vivi committed suicide. And don’t they think it odd, that the only question out of Ginny is “what time is it” repeatedly.

---

I'm really starting to lean toward yes and yes on the bell tower incident and Maud.

If you think about it from Ginny's point of view of playing out the string of predetermined events, the second poisoning is not that shocking. She is just fully submitting to the driving forces of her life. Again this is just based on Ginny's (warped) view of the world.

I think that Ginny had an arranged to meet with Eileen that day, and perhaps Vivi knew that she might initiate the catastrophic moment. Perhaps she told Eileen something to the effect of, "If I don't meet you tomorrow, something horrible will have happened to me." This would explain why she showed up in addition to the police.

Another possibility is that Vivi called Eileen for help between the poisonings using her mobile, but I don't think this theory as much.

---

I think you might mean that Vivien was going to meet Eileen that day. I think that Vivien was setting up Ginny in order to get her moved out of the house and into a home or institution. If she got everyone to think that Ginny was mad, it would be a lot easier. I think she told Eileen everything; all of her warped thinking and probably made Ginny out to be this demented monster. She probably told her that if I do not show up; call the police right away because I will be dead or in trouble. She probably told Eileen that Ginny had pushed her as a young girl, that possibly she or her father had killed Maud and that Ginny was capable of murder or worse. I don't think that she had the strength to call Eileen; I think it was set up in advance. Why would someone call the police if someone did not show and expect the worse unless she had been told something by Vivian. I know that if let us say a family member did not appear for dinner; I would try to call them and see what had happened but would not call the police all in distress right away.

[nmccarthy]

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paula_02912 wrote:

nmccarthy wrote: "

Ginny has completed her metamorphosis; she has emerged from her chrysalis "It's the first warm day of spring. The early light, which has just begun to pour through the window, is bright and hopeful". pg. 241-242

As for the significance of the physical metamorphosis, "My feet and ankles are set solid as if, today, they have been carved together from a single block of wood." I love the description of knuckles on her crippled, clenched hands loosening up with the heat of the water and the toes of her hoof-like, single-toed goat separating as the paper is inserted between them. She is unfolding.

Very clever. But what kind of moth did she emerge as?"

nmccarthy, great catch here...I didn't even think to link her "change" with that of the metamorphosis as a moth...all along I was saying Ginny=moth and Vivi=butterfly and I missed it...I did notice the parallel between her and the caterpillar that was making the ants "work" to feed it...isn't the caterpillar she was talking about was a Puss Moth? She did say that it would spit at you if it got really angry (paraphrase p. 250)...this was the way she reacted with Vivi when she told her she didn't remember the events correctly...she got into a real temper, to the point where she ran and hid herself in that place that Maud told her about...she spat at Vivi by killing her...I would hate to tick her off...I think it also got to a similar point with Maud and she killed her too...what do you think?

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Nice find Paula! A spitting Puss Moth makes sense.

Nancy

[kmensing]

Just so many, many unanswered questions..................will they be answered before the end of the book?  At this point, I'm looking at how many pages are left & am really hoping that we'll have an ending that makes sense. 

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pheath wrote:

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kmensing wrote:

Ch 20

Two words for ya--Holy Crap! Ginny did it. I had to put the book down at this point and go make popcorn.

Ginny hasn’t actually seen the body yet, so is Vivi dead? And the clocks all out of alignment, how odd is that.

So if Ginny did kill Vivi, did she push her off the bell tower and did she push Maud down the steps?

So far, this is my favorite chapter.

Ch 21

The children leaving a pile of moths on the steps--I found that humorous.

Vivi’s not dead in the beginning of the chapter, but she is in the end. I’m stunned at Ginny’s ability to poison her a second time.

And why are the police there?

Ch 22

The tone of this book has taken quite an unexpected turn. The police are left thinking that Vivi committed suicide. And don’t they think it odd, that the only question out of Ginny is “what time is it” repeatedly.

---

I'm really starting to lean toward yes and yes on the bell tower incident and Maud.

If you think about it from Ginny's point of view of playing out the string of predetermined events, the second poisoning is not that shocking. She is just fully submitting to the driving forces of her life. Again this is just based on Ginny's (warped) view of the world.

I think that Ginny had an arranged to meet with Eileen that day, and perhaps Vivi knew that she might initiate the catastrophic moment. Perhaps she told Eileen something to the effect of, "If I don't meet you tomorrow, something horrible will have happened to me." This would explain why she showed up in addition to the police.

Another possibility is that Vivi called Eileen for help between the poisonings using her mobile, but I don't think this theory as much.

---

[pheath]

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bentley wrote:

---

pheath wrote:

---

kmensing wrote:

Ch 20

Two words for ya--Holy Crap! Ginny did it. I had to put the book down at this point and go make popcorn.

Ginny hasn’t actually seen the body yet, so is Vivi dead? And the clocks all out of alignment, how odd is that.

So if Ginny did kill Vivi, did she push her off the bell tower and did she push Maud down the steps?

So far, this is my favorite chapter.

Ch 21

The children leaving a pile of moths on the steps--I found that humorous.

Vivi’s not dead in the beginning of the chapter, but she is in the end. I’m stunned at Ginny’s ability to poison her a second time.

And why are the police there?

Ch 22

The tone of this book has taken quite an unexpected turn. The police are left thinking that Vivi committed suicide. And don’t they think it odd, that the only question out of Ginny is “what time is it” repeatedly.

---

I'm really starting to lean toward yes and yes on the bell tower incident and Maud.

If you think about it from Ginny's point of view of playing out the string of predetermined events, the second poisoning is not that shocking. She is just fully submitting to the driving forces of her life. Again this is just based on Ginny's (warped) view of the world.

I think that Ginny had an arranged to meet with Eileen that day, and perhaps Vivi knew that she might initiate the catastrophic moment. Perhaps she told Eileen something to the effect of, "If I don't meet you tomorrow, something horrible will have happened to me." This would explain why she showed up in addition to the police.

Another possibility is that Vivi called Eileen for help between the poisonings using her mobile, but I don't think this theory as much.

---

I think you might mean that Vivien was going to meet Eileen that day. I think that Vivien was setting up Ginny in order to get her moved out of the house and into a home or institution. If she got everyone to think that Ginny was mad, it would be a lot easier. I think she told Eileen everything; all of her warped thinking and probably made Ginny out to be this demented monster. She probably told her that if I do not show up; call the police right away because I will be dead or in trouble. She probably told Eileen that Ginny had pushed her as a young girl, that possibly she or her father had killed Maud and that Ginny was capable of murder or worse. I don't think that she had the strength to call Eileen; I think it was set up in advance. Why would someone call the police if someone did not show and expect the worse unless she had been told something by Vivian. I know that if let us say a family member did not appear for dinner; I would try to call them and see what had happened but would not call the police all in distress right away.

---

Yes, I meant Vivi and not Ginny. Trying to do too many things at the same time...

[bookhunter]

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pheath wrote:

---

bookhunter wrote:

And why are all the clocks no longer synchronized? Do you think that in her disjointed state she has zoned out and fiddled with the clocks as a manifestation of her mind? Her mind is no longer neat and orderly so she unknowingly adjusts the clocks to reflect that?

Ann, bookhunter

---

No one other than Ginny mentions them. Perhaps some of them merely exist in Ginny's mind and have been thrown off kilter by the shock of the previous days events.

---

That is an interesting thought--only she sees them. 

Ann, bookhunter

[bookhunter]

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pigwidgeon wrote:

...I found it incredibly sad that killing Vivi was, what Ginny considered to be, the first choice she had ever made in her life. She constantly referenced, throughout the book, that she was merely riding along fate, and the predetermined. How will Ginny deal with this? She has already started to rationalize it to herself, will she be able to live with this solitary decision?...

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I agree with you, pigwidgeon.  She has always traveled a course set by someone else.

So the fact that killing Vivi is her first decisive act on her own--does that make it more important or less important in Ginny's mind? 

I almost wonder if it was just another day, just another action in Ginny's mind.  What should I have for breakfast?  Should I smoke some pot? Should I kill my sister?

I know I am being flippant, but it does kind of come across that way--to Ginny it is an obvious move, and she has it perfectly rationalized. 

Ann, bookhunter

[crazyasitsounds]

"I like to think that, for once, I am in control of my actions, but I also like to know that I am not." was my favorite line in this section. The tension between the two outlooks on life is really coming to a head, but there's no resolution. You'd think that taking life as it comes & taking control of one's path in life would be mutually exclusive, but here it seems that the two just reinforce each other. I think that ties into Ginny loving even the parts of Vivi that she hates--everything is undecidable, neither one nor the other, but somehow both at the same time.

I was a little bit surprised that Ginny was able to answer the inspector's questions without lying and without implicating herself. She's probably incapable of giving an answer that isn't truthful, but I wonder if she was worried about giving herself away. She seemed surprised when she was asked if Vivi would have wanted to take her own life.

[Oldesq]

Fellow travelers,

As I see the remaining pages grow slimmer and slimmer, I fear we will have many unanswered questions.  If so, I will probably be going to Ginny's dark place!  At least you all have made the journey so very interesting.

One thing (of many) that continues to nag at me is what must have been so obviously wrong about Ginny that her parents spotted it before she was six and that caused Maud to think immediately that Ginny pushed Vivi- I don't think we are going to learn the answer. (sigh).  I also don't like the way characters have been disposed of along the way- Maud, Clive, Arthur, Maud's father, the baby Samuel but that's just me.

I do appreciate what resentment Vivi may have felt about cocooning her older sister.  Some of us may have experienced households with a sibling who was ill or had a disability- there is a dynamic there that is difficult for parents to cope with.  The child who has special needs may usurp all of the parent's time and energy and the parents are to be forgiven for assuming the healthy child has fewer needs.  While the healthy child can understand on a practical level that the needy child is more in need of the parent's time and attention that doesn't prevent the emotional toll and strains on the dynamic between the siblings.

Oldesq

[KxBurns]

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nmccarthy wrote:

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KxBurns wrote:

Chapter 20: About Monday

-I really like the way this chapter is structured. We find out rather abruptly that Ginny went through with the poisoning and Vivien is dead. But then we are plunged into doubt and uncertainty, along with Ginny, due to the time confusion. Rather than any sign of remorse, Ginny feels "a new life force coursing through my body, ousting years of lethargy and inertia...waking me from slumber, showing me the world more clearly' (p. 241). How does her physical state reflect her mental state in this chapter?

Message Edited by KxBurns on 03-12-2008 12:37 PM

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Ginny has completed her metamorphosis; she has emerged from her chrysalis "It's the first warm day of spring. The early light, which has just begun to pour through the window, is bright and hopeful". pg. 241-242

As for the significance of the physical metamorphosis, "My feet and ankles are set solid as if, today, they have been carved together from a single block of wood." I love the description of knuckles on her crippled, clenched hands loosening up with the heat of the water and the toes of her hoof-like, single-toed goat separating as the paper is inserted between them. She is unfolding.

Very clever. But what kind of moth did she emerge as?

Nancy

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Excellent observations, Nancy!

[KxBurns]

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Everyman wrote:
I had trouble in these chapters with Ginny's ability to function quite deliberately and intentionally with her increasing disconnect from reality.

Oh -- and does anybody understand why she felt that she had to kill Vivian?

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Vivien has come in and not just challenged, but completely obliterated Ginny's carefully constructed world. And on top of that, she has taken the one thing that Ginny had to herself -- the family secrets. You would think it would be a relief after so many years to have someone share in these secrets, but I think Ginny views it as an assault on her identity because she really prides herself on being the one to "protect" Maud. So Vivien has to go.

[KxBurns]

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Everyman wrote:
I found echoes of both Hamlet and Macbeth in these chapters.

Hamlet in "the time is out of joint:" surely her time has become out of joint (Why do we think all the clocks and watches suddenly went off? Something supernatural? Or she is just reading them all wrong? This wasn't explained at all, and doesn't make sense to me.)

And Macbeth in the knocking at the gate, an interruption in the horror of murder for an almost casually ordinary episode.

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Nice comparison. I also saw parallels with Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart," particularly in Chapter 20.

[bookhunter]

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kmensing wrote:

Ch 20

Two words for ya--Holy Crap! Ginny did it. I had to put the book down at this point and go make popcorn.

So if Ginny did kill Vivi, did she push her off the bell tower and did she push Maud down the steps?

So far, this is my favorite chapter.

---

pheath wrote:

I'm really starting to lean toward yes and yes on the bell tower incident and Maud.

---

I am not so sure I agree about the bell tower incident.  After reading the rest of the book and all our discussion, I went back to reread the beginning chapters.  There is no REASON for Ginny to push Vivi off the bell tower, so I don't think she did. 

When Maud asks her to tell her the "truth" about what happened and then later says "I thought we could be a normal family" was the first real bellringer ( ) that something was not normal with Ginny.  (pgs 13-14)

I also noticed in the descriptions of the house that there are no pictures of Vivi as a baby like with Ginny.  Vivi arrived along with all these other kids but then stayed.  It does say on page 6 "When Maud gave birth to Vivien..." but I wondered if that is what happened?

Maybe Vivi was adopted from that group of refugees? 

Ann, bookhunter

[KxBurns]

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pigwidgeon wrote:
I found it incredibly sad that killing Vivi was, what Ginny considered to be, the first choice she had ever made in her life. She constantly referenced, throughout the book, that she was merely riding along fate, and the predetermined. How will Ginny deal with this? She has already started to rationalize it to herself, will she be able to live with this solitary decision?

---

It was a sad thing for her to think. However, I disagree with Ginny here. I think she has made decisions in her life, she just chooses not to cast them in this light, preferring to think of herself as being carried along by fate. This is her way of opting out of responsibility for her life, and it's a technique she uses again here to absolve herself for killing Viven.

What are some of the choices Ginny has made throughout the book? 

[pheath]

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bookhunter wrote:

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kmensing wrote:

Ch 20

Two words for ya--Holy Crap! Ginny did it. I had to put the book down at this point and go make popcorn.

So if Ginny did kill Vivi, did she push her off the bell tower and did she push Maud down the steps?

So far, this is my favorite chapter.

---

pheath wrote:

I'm really starting to lean toward yes and yes on the bell tower incident and Maud.

---

I am not so sure I agree about the bell tower incident. After reading the rest of the book and all our discussion, I went back to reread the beginning chapters. There is no REASON for Ginny to push Vivi off the bell tower, so I don't think she did.

When Maud asks her to tell her the "truth" about what happened and then later says "I thought we could be a normal family" was the first real bellringer ( ) that something was not normal with Ginny. (pgs 13-14)

I also noticed in the descriptions of the house that there are no pictures of Vivi as a baby like with Ginny. Vivi arrived along with all these other kids but then stayed. It does say on page 6 "When Maud gave birth to Vivien..." but I wondered if that is what happened?

Maybe Vivi was adopted from that group of refugees?

Ann, bookhunter

---

Could the reason not simply be that Vivi didn't leave with the rest of the refugees of which she thought Vivi was one?

[KxBurns]

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bentley wrote:
I guess you have to ask yourself what a murderer feels like when she says, "I don't feel any different. I don't feel like a murderer. After all, I only put it in her milk. I didn't pour it down her throat. Then it was out of my hands. It's almost as if I did it to get something off my chest, like writing a scathing letter in the temper of the night, only to burn it in the temperance of morning."

What troubled me further about these chapters was the weird preoccupation of time and the amount of pages this takes up as the reader is wondering about Vivien dying or not.

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I thought that line was so telling, too, because it is immediately preceeded by a passage detailing how particularly bad her physical ailments are on this day -- to me, the two things taken together signifiy a complete and total detachment between her body and her mind.

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bentley wrote:
What troubled me further about these chapters was the weird preoccupation of time and the amount of pages this takes up as the reader is wondering about Vivien dying or not.

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I liked this -- for me, it really heightened the suspense. It also reflects Ginny's own inability to deal with the reality of what she's done. So she focuses instead on the time but she's really prolonging her own torment -- and ours!

[KxBurns]

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nmccarthy wrote:

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paula_02912 wrote:

nmccarthy wrote: "

Ginny has completed her metamorphosis; she has emerged from her chrysalis "It's the first warm day of spring. The early light, which has just begun to pour through the window, is bright and hopeful". pg. 241-242

As for the significance of the physical metamorphosis, "My feet and ankles are set solid as if, today, they have been carved together from a single block of wood." I love the description of knuckles on her crippled, clenched hands loosening up with the heat of the water and the toes of her hoof-like, single-toed goat separating as the paper is inserted between them. She is unfolding.

Very clever. But what kind of moth did she emerge as?"

nmccarthy, great catch here...I didn't even think to link her "change" with that of the metamorphosis as a moth...all along I was saying Ginny=moth and Vivi=butterfly and I missed it...I did notice the parallel between her and the caterpillar that was making the ants "work" to feed it...isn't the caterpillar she was talking about was a Puss Moth? She did say that it would spit at you if it got really angry (paraphrase p. 250)...this was the way she reacted with Vivi when she told her she didn't remember the events correctly...she got into a real temper, to the point where she ran and hid herself in that place that Maud told her about...she spat at Vivi by killing her...I would hate to tick her off...I think it also got to a similar point with Maud and she killed her too...what do you think?

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Nice find Paula! A spitting Puss Moth makes sense.

Nancy

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A definite possibility! I think she's emerged as the cannibal caterpillar...

[paula_02912]

Karen wrote: "What are some of the choices Ginny has made throughout the book? "

Karen, Ginny chose to stay in the profession of lepidoptery with Clive, she chose to hide Maud's secret of being a drunk, she chose to have Vivi's baby, she chose to live in Bulburrow Court by herself, she chose to sell the furniture in the house, she chose to let Michael live in the stables and releasing him from his duties, she chose to silence Vivi, by poisoning her milk; eventually having to murder her by giving her another double dose...these are all the big choices I can think of right now...I am sure that others will come up with something...

[bookhunter]

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kmensing wrote:

Ch 20

Two words for ya--Holy Crap! Ginny did it. I had to put the book down at this point and go make popcorn.

So if Ginny did kill Vivi, did she push her off the bell tower and did she push Maud down the steps?

So far, this is my favorite chapter.

---

pheath wrote:

I'm really starting to lean toward yes and yes on the bell tower incident and Maud.

---

I am not so sure I agree about the bell tower incident. After reading the rest of the book and all our discussion, I went back to reread the beginning chapters. There is no REASON for Ginny to push Vivi off the bell tower, so I don't think she did.

When Maud asks her to tell her the "truth" about what happened and then later says "I thought we could be a normal family" was the first real bellringer ( ) that something was not normal with Ginny. (pgs 13-14)

I also noticed in the descriptions of the house that there are no pictures of Vivi as a baby like with Ginny. Vivi arrived along with all these other kids but then stayed. It does say on page 6 "When Maud gave birth to Vivien..." but I wondered if that is what happened?

Maybe Vivi was adopted from that group of refugees?

Ann, bookhunter

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pheath wrote:

Could the reason not simply be that Vivi didn't leave with the rest of the refugees of which she thought Vivi was one?

The bell tower incident happens when Ginny is 11 and Vivi is 8, so if that is the reason it sure took her long enough!

Ann, bookhunter

[paula_02912]

Ann wrote: "Maybe Vivi was adopted from that group of refugees?"

Ann, this is an interesting question...the only reason I would disagree is the fact that Ginny was shocked to see how much like Maud Vivi looked in her "dotage"....just had to use that word...she felt like...on page 26 she describes her reaction when first seeing Vivi after she got out the car..."I pulled back into the shadows...it strikes me that I have seen a ghost. Maud...I hadn't even tried to imagine what Vivien would look lik but I'd never considered she'd be so like Maud."