mimi29 wrote:I wanted to know so much more about these characters. I am left with many (too many?) questions.What was Vivi's purpose in returning to Bulborrow Court? What had she be doing for the last forty-something years? Her reaction to the grave of the baby...her inablility to make an emotional connection to someone she so desperately wanted, mirrors Ginny's behavior throughout the book. I found that curious. Was Ginny severely autistic? What ever happened to Dr. Moyse...and what were those tests he gave Ginny?I finished this book in the middle of a sleepless night, thinking that reading it might help me get to sleep at 4:00 A.M. Wrong! My head was swimming with questions!
Hi mimi29 - the question of why Vivi came home is an interesting one because my take is that what Vivi encounters upon her return ends up changing the nature of her stay. And this makes it harder for us to understand her original intentions.
Since Ginny herself admits toward the end that she never knew her sister, I looked at Vivien's own statements on the matter. In the confrontation they have about Maud's death, Vivien at one point says, "I didn't come back home to tell you this, I came home to keep you company..." This explanation is supported by the very first chapter where Ginny states that Vivien said she was coming home so the sisters could keep each other company in their final years.
Of course it does not completely jibe with what we see of Vivien -- prowling around the house, provoking and challenging Ginny's Order of Things. But I attribute this dissonance to both Ginny's point of view and the fact that Vivi is completely taken by surprise by the changes she finds in both her sister and Bulburrow Court.
That's just my interpretation of it. 
What do you think?
What do you think?I really like your point that Vivi's stoic reaction to Samuel's grave mirrors Ginny's own lack of emotion throughout the book. Do you think this is an example of a learned coping technique that both sisters use to differing degrees? It certainly supports the idea that Ginny's problems were dispositional in nature (rather than a defined mental disorder) and were exacerbated by her environment over time. Vivi had learned the same defenses but because of her more social nature and her greater interaction with the world, she had quite a different outcome...
KxBurns wrote:
mimi29 wrote:I wanted to know so much more about these characters. I am left with many (too many?) questions.What was Vivi's purpose in returning to Bulborrow Court? What had she be doing for the last forty-something years? Her reaction to the grave of the baby...her inablility to make an emotional connection to someone she so desperately wanted, mirrors Ginny's behavior throughout the book. I found that curious. Was Ginny severely autistic? What ever happened to Dr. Moyse...and what were those tests he gave Ginny?I finished this book in the middle of a sleepless night, thinking that reading it might help me get to sleep at 4:00 A.M. Wrong! My head was swimming with questions!Hi mimi29 - the question of why Vivi came home is an interesting one because my take is that what Vivi encounters upon her return ends up changing the nature of her stay. And this makes it harder for us to understand her original intentions.Since Ginny herself admits toward the end that she never knew her sister, I looked at Vivien's own statements on the matter. In the confrontation they have about Maud's death, Vivien at one point says, "I didn't come back home to tell you this, I came home to keep you company..." This explanation is supported by the very first chapter where Ginny states that Vivien said she was coming home so the sisters could keep each other company in their final years.Of course it does not completely jibe with what we see of Vivien -- prowling around the house, provoking and challenging Ginny's Order of Things. But I attribute this dissonance to both Ginny's point of view and the fact that Vivi is completely taken by surprise by the changes she finds in both her sister and Bulburrow Court.That's just my interpretation of it.I really like your point that Vivi's stoic reaction to Samuel's grave mirrors Ginny's own lack of emotion throughout the book. Do you think this is an example of a learned coping technique that both sisters use to differing degrees? It certainly supports the idea that Ginny's problems were dispositional in nature (rather than a defined mental disorder) and were exacerbated by her environment over time. Vivi had learned the same defenses but because of her more social nature and her greater interaction with the world, she had quite a different outcome...
Karen --I think your thoughts on why Vivi came back are probably as close as we will get to understanding the why, but how realistic do you think it is that a woman who hadn't seen her sister for some thirty or forty years and as far as we know had no contact with her during that time, and who hadn't been back to her childhood home for about fifty, would just write a letter saying essentially "I'm coming back to live with you" without any preliminary conversations, any visit to the house to touch base with her sister, any "is this okay with you?," or any other contact? This is what makes me wonder whether we're getting the real story on why Vivi came back. I find it hard to believe that a normal (ore even mostly normal) person would act this way. Which makes me wonder, is there something as eccentric with Vivi as there is with Ginny, and if so what?
Or do you think this is the way a normal person would indeed behave?
