Tuesday and Today

[SleightGirl]

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detailmuse wrote:

Throughout the novel, whenever Ginny remarked that she wouldn't harm a fly, Norman Bates's identical line (from Hitchcock's Psycho) came to my mind. Near the end of the novel (p269), when "[Inspector Piggott] gently lays a blanket over my shoulders..." it clinched it: a jailhouse officer did the same thing in Psycho. It helped me to think of Norman, regressed into Mother and narrating the last minute or so of the film, in order to understand Ginny, narrating her story from her lifelong state of mental dysfunction.

Message Edited by detailmuse on 03-14-2008 04:05 PM

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I think in Ginny's mind she still wouldn't hurt a fly.  All that time at the shelf full of poisons, she's trying to get the dosage right so that she kills her, and doesn't cause her much pain.  She want's Vivi gone, but she doesn't seem to want her to suffer, and when she is suffering, she can't bear to go in and watch it.

[SleightGirl]

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Everyman wrote:
I'm unclear why Ginny was apparently put into a mental ward and not tried for murder. Based on what we've seen, she certainly doesn't seem to me to meet the legal standard of not guilty by reason of insanity.

The McNaughton standard used in England states that the accused 'must be laboring under such a defective reason from disease of the mind as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing or if he did know it, that he did not know he was doing what was wrong.'

Ginny knew perfectly well what she was doing. She carefully plotted it out, putting the poison in the milk and, when that was insufficient, in the water. I think it's perfectly clear that she knew that she was committing murder, knowing the nature and quality of act. And I think she knew that it was a wrong thing to do, but did it anyhow for her own reasons.

As do others, I find the conclusion far from satisfying.

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I think because we're in her head and seeing things through her eyes that it all makes sense.  The crazy person always seems to make sense to himself.  However, from and outside perspective, they might have thought that she had really lost it...especially those that knew her since she was younger.  They might have just done a plea deal to get her the help she needed...There was no one left in the family to complain.

[SleightGirl]

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Everyman wrote:
I cited Shakespeare before. This time I'm picking on T.S. Eliot, slightly paraphrased from The Hollow Men:

She is the hollow woman
She is the stuffed woman
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

This is the way the book ends
This is the way the book ends
This is the way the book ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

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I can definitely see that.

[Thayer]

Am I the only one who felt that the relationship between Ginny and Michael wasn't quite developed enough throughout the book for it to be "the saddest day" of Ginny's life when she had to "leave Michael and the house?" The house, I understand, but I felt there wasn't enough basis for this strong of an emotion for Michael here.   Am anxious to hear your thoughts.  Dawn

[bentley]

No, I think most folks felt that way.

[dumlao_n]

Tuesday:
Ginny leaving her house and leaving Michael behind leads her to have her first “naturally emotional moment.” She does not want to leave her house where she has lived for fifty years, but she does not cry and willingly leaves her house with the police. I find her behavior odd because she never cried or showed her emotions at any other time in her life with her family.

Michael could be a connection in her head or an imaginary friend perhaps? They leave each other without speaking as if they both know it is time for change. Maybe her mind is playing tricks on her. She knew she would not get away with killing her sister and she is ready for the police when they come to take her away.

Today:
Ginny surprisingly is better off not living at her house. She mentions she is not anxious and free from the walls of her house. I can’t understand why with all the memories she would stay at Bulburrow Court all those years. I would think she would want a brand new start somewhere else. She never got out of the house to shop or feel the wind in her hair. No wonder she felt trapped there. She did this to herself.

I think the whole family had a part in her crazy behavior along with each person being a little bit off. Somehow I think they were all connected and Ginny was not the only one to break the family apart. However, because the story was told from Ginny’s point of view the story was one sided and the reader had to decide on what really went on in the story.

[Everyman]

Unless what Adams is suggesting is that in youth she was a caterpillar, when she was left alone there by Clive finally moving out the house turned into her cocoon and she gradually turned into pupae soup, the house/cocoon gradually disintegrated as cocoons do, time being important to her as she matured in it, an invader (Vivi) tried to enter the cocoon and was repelled, and finally the cocoon broke, she became free of it, and now she's a butterfly.

Do the caterpillar and the pupae appreciate how much freer they will be when turn into butterflies?

I'm not sure whether this is what Adams had in mind, and frankly I think there are too many weaknesses in the theory to work well at least for me, but it would explain why she felt so safe and secure and right in the house even as it deteriorated around her, but now feels freer and happier away from it.

And of course, butterflies don't live very long lives -- while a few, such as Monarch, can live up to a year, most live only a few weeks. So she probably doesn't have long now, even though she's only 70. She is certainly no Monarch butterfly, at least in my eyes!

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dumlao_n wrote:
>Ginny surprisingly is better off not living at her house. She mentions she is not anxious and free from the walls of her house. I can’t understand why with all the memories she would stay at Bulburrow Court all those years. I would think she would want a brand new start somewhere else. She never got out of the house to shop or feel the wind in her hair. No wonder she felt trapped there. She did this to herself.

I think the whole family had a part in her crazy behavior along with each person being a little bit off. Somehow I think they were all connected and Ginny was not the only one to break the family apart. However, because the story was told from Ginny’s point of view the story was one sided and the reader had to decide on what really went on in the story.

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[Everyman]

Okay, now that we're done the book, a little poll.

Which one was "The Sister?" Or was there only one, and Ginny and Vivi were in some way the same person?

[Bonnie824]

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Thayer wrote:

Am I the only one who felt that the relationship between Ginny and Michael wasn't quite developed enough throughout the book for it to be "the saddest day" of Ginny's life when she had to "leave Michael and the house?" The house, I understand, but I felt there wasn't enough basis for this strong of an emotion for Michael here.   Am anxious to hear your thoughts.  Dawn

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I think that was part of the author showing how unusual Ginny's thinking was. It was written from Ginny's POV and she had no clue about relationships, so I don't think it could have been developed well.

[BethD]

I wanted to like this book, but felt very dissatisfied after I finished.  For me, there were too many loose ends and ambiguities.  I don't understand fully why Vivi hadn't been in touch for so many years (she said initially she thought that Ginny had pushed their mother and Clive was covering up, then that Clive pushed her and that GInny was covering up, but what changed so she came home at this point and not years before?); why she came home; what she was looking for; the role of the dead baby - is this simply further evidence of Ginny's emotional disconnect?  Of Vivi's lack of caring?; whether Ginny had a specific disorder - I'm assuming she did, if her parents tried to protect her and if the police knew her as "that sister"; why the fluorescence (sp?) race went nowhere - was that simply a means to explain why Clive and Ginny neglected Maud?  I still would have liked that story thread concluded somehow, especially since I felt the two moths on the cover were the two types of moths with the particular fluorescene the race was about.  Given that that whole story thread went nowhere, I feel in retrospect that the whole "he put his hand on my bum" sequence was pointless and gratuious.  What's Eileen's role?  I don't get much from Michael either.  I was irritated by Ginny's retreating into her own head when Vivi was telling her the truth about herself (Ginny's self).  I do think Clive pushed Maud down the stairs, and that the vial he was carrying into the kitchen when Maud was attacking Ginny was nothing more than a prop.  What was the true relationship between Ginny and Arthur?  If she was so mentally unwell, I'm surprised that didn't show up in their relationship.  Re: Ginny's reputation as the "Moth Woman", I felt this was likely a derogatory appellation, not the title of respect she felt it was.  I feel like there are a lot of good ideas in this book, but that they really needed to be further developed.  Very disappointed.

[Everyman]

I'll answer my own question in a separate post.

I have rejected the one-person theory and think there were definitely two sisters.

On the basis of content, "The Sister" should have been Ginny. Her development was what the book was all about. But why should a book which (ostensibly) she wrote be called that? If it referred to her at all, it should have been "My Story" or "The Leipdopterist" or something else that she would use as a name to refer to herself. She would be unlikely ever to refer to herself as "the sister," wouldn't she?

So in that respect, I think it's a bad title.

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Everyman wrote:
Okay, now that we're done the book, a little poll.

Which one was "The Sister?" Or was there only one, and Ginny and Vivi were in some way the same person?

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[BethD]

I guess I shouldn't say I don't understand the role of the dead baby - Vivi's walking by his grave without any notice was the catalyst that set into motion her murder, but it just didn't feel authentic to me. 

[bookhunter]

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Everyman wrote:
I'll answer my own question in a separate post.

I have rejected the one-person theory and think there were definitely two sisters.

On the basis of content, "The Sister" should have been Ginny. Her development was what the book was all about. But why should a book which (ostensibly) she wrote be called that? If it referred to her at all, it should have been "My Story" or "The Leipdopterist" or something else that she would use as a name to refer to herself. She would be unlikely ever to refer to herself as "the sister," wouldn't she?

So in that respect, I think it's a bad title.

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Everyman wrote:
Okay, now that we're done the book, a little poll.

Which one was "The Sister?" Or was there only one, and Ginny and Vivi were in some way the same person?

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I don't like the title, either, and since it is not the original title the author gave it, I am going to blame the publishers and editors for it!    (Do I sound like Ginny--put the blame where *I* want it?)

But for the sake of argument, I will say the sister is Vivi.  The relationship with Vivi is what defined a lot of Ginny's character, and the actions of Vivi are what move the story along in many instances.  Vivi falls, Vivi goes to school, Vivi gets expelled, Vivi leaves home, Vivi marries, Vivi asks Ginny to be surrogate, Vivi withdraws from the relationship then many years later returns, spurns the baby's grave, confronts Ginny with uncomfortable truths and forces poor Ginny to kill her.  Even though Vivi was the younger sister, I bet Ginny grew up being called and was always known as "the sister."

[My mother is the oldest of two sisters, and my aunt was always called Sister--even into adulthood.  (In Georgia, that would be "Sistah")  We still call her Aunt Sister.]

Ann, bookhunter

[bookhunter]

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BethD wrote:

I guess I shouldn't say I don't understand the role of the dead baby - Vivi's walking by his grave without any notice was the catalyst that set into motion her murder, but it just didn't feel authentic to me. 

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Beth, I have had a hard time with this part, too.  Why did Ginny suddenly feel all this attachment to the baby and anger at Vivi for overlooking his grave?  I have reread the scene at the graveyard to see if Ginny misunderstands Vivi's actions, but can't see that she does. 

Is it just that she knows a mother should mourn her baby and Vivi does not?

It is almost like she randomly chooses THIS to be mad about.  She could have been mad about several things Vivi does--reinserting herself into the house after so many years, drinking sherry in the middle of the afternoon, ransacking the house and disturbing Ginny's orderly peace.

Maybe that is the point--that there IS not rational reason for this anger.

Ann, bookhunter

[Carmenere_lady]

I think PC Bolt makes it pretty clear to us when he states on page 261 "Are you Miss Virginia Stone?"  I nod.  "Right, I didn't realize you were the sister," he says.  Supposedly the sister that was a little different.

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Everyman wrote:
Okay, now that we're done the book, a little poll.

Which one was "The Sister?" Or was there only one, and Ginny and Vivi were in some way the same person?

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[Everyman]

Nice find! That makes sense -- that maybe she was known in the village as "the sister." Shorthand, one would assume, for "the nutcase sister."

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Carmenere_lady wrote:

I think PC Bolt makes it pretty clear to us when he states on page 261 "Are you Miss Virginia Stone?" I nod. "Right, I didn't realize you were the sister," he says. Supposedly the sister that was a little different.

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Everyman wrote:
Okay, now that we're done the book, a little poll.

Which one was "The Sister?" Or was there only one, and Ginny and Vivi were in some way the same person?

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[HannibalCat]

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Thayer wrote:

Am I the only one who felt that the relationship between Ginny and Michael wasn't quite developed enough throughout the book for it to be "the saddest day" of Ginny's life when she had to "leave Michael and the house?" The house, I understand, but I felt there wasn't enough basis for this strong of an emotion for Michael here.   Am anxious to hear your thoughts.  Dawn

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I don't think the relationship had to be developed because I don't think it really existed. Just more of Ginny's unreality. It seems to me that throughout the book she perceived unreal relationships. Look at her perception of Vivi's and her relationship. I think we see that Vivi did not see things in the same way that Ginny did, and think that her perception of Michael was the same. Why, all of a sudden, would she think they were close when she only spoke of him as someone who had bought parts of the estate and was making a good living? It doesn't make sense that they were close. I don't think she was close to anyone. She wasn't even close to Clive, even though she was his apprentice. They were both lacking in personal relationship skills and their interest in moths was the only thing they had to keep them in each other's company.

I think her strong emotions were more about the house than Michael. Or am I too cynical?

[dumlao_n]

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Everyman wrote:
Okay, now that we're done the book, a little poll.

Which one was "The Sister?" Or was there only one, and Ginny and Vivi were in some way the same person?

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In my personal opinion, The Sister could be all of the above. Or to take it off course a bit, do you think the sister was a part of both of them they wish they had in each other? They never connected like siblings who love each other and like to be with the other person in some level. Maybe the sister was a symbol for the sisterly bond they never had with one another? What do you think of that?


Nicole

[LeisaPS]

And what happened to Simon, the dog....?  On Monday, just after 12:24 p.m. by her beside clock, Ginny heard a noise and went cautiously to investigate.  She was relieved to see that it was only Vivi's dog, plopped a piece of cheese and a heap of Shreddies on the floor for him to eat and went back to her bedroom....that's the last I read about him....??!

[Readingrat]

I half expected Ginny to feed Simon some of that poisoned milk too - given her natural dislike of him.