This month was our first attempt in eleven
years with the open discussion format versus a “structured” review/recap/analysis.
Our small band of loyals (15 Bookers) rose to the occasion and we were pleased that The
Headmaster’s Wife provided bountiful fodder to nibble.
“What’s
the book about?”
There is no right or wrong answer, but
here’s what the group gathered from reading this novel.
Grief was a popular
answer. The author began this novel in the neonatal intensive care unit in the
summer of 2009. His second daughter born prematurely with lungs incapable of
functioning only lived six months, but in that short time, she touched so many
lives. What began as a novel of grief evolved into a testimonial to her courage
and fearlessness. Narrative dotted throughout the book expanded on this theme,
“Grief, it numbs you. Nothing tastes
good, nothing smells good, sleep is elusive…it grows like a virus and takes
over.” The novel explores the tragedy of the loss of a child, the ties of
family and place, and how grief dictates what the mind absorbs and how it
processes that sorrow. It asks, “What happens if you don’t hold it together?”
What happens if life completely falls apart?” We wondered how grief connects to
mental illness and how easily the mind adjusts to the reality you create for
yourself. Parent’s grief over the loss of a child is different….often never
recovering from the loss. “What is the
only thing a parent needs to do? Make sure your children live longer than you
do.”
Forgiveness: What goes around
comes around. Arthur set up his “enemy” Russell in order to remove him as an
obstacle in his pursuit of Betsy. In the end, Russell felt obliged to save
Arthur from confinement inside a State mental institution. Why? Maybe selfishly,
to insert himself back into Betsy’s life, or because he chose to be a better
man, whatever the motive, he forgave Arthur.
It
stands “as a moving elegy to the power of love as an antidote to grief:” It’s a mournful
poem of marriage beginning with a couple “wanting
to climb inside the other person and wear her skin as your own. Only to end with
thinking if the person across from you says another word you’ll put a fork in
her neck – or somewhere in between.” They grow old together, are broken
together, but as long as “they don’t
shatter at the same time, they might find a way to pick each other off the
ground, but “Time is malleable. Memory fails. Memory changes.”
Expectations:
When their son Ethan was born, Elizabeth
and Arthur had different expectations for the child. She wants to shield him
from everything. He’s an average student, nothing exceptional which is OK with
her. Arthur wants him to suffer as much as he did under his own father’s
expectations, to be the top of the class and excel at sports. Ethan has “high emotional intelligence.” Arthur
would prefer “high regular intelligence.”
Entitlement
and Peter Pan: All that was
required of Arthur to follow in the
footsteps of his father and grandfather was to graduate from college. He didn’t
have to excel, just secure the degree and assume the role he was groomed for. When
Betsy and Arthur reconnect they both became comfortable “being naked both in the biblical sense and seeing each other’s flaws.”
She finds herself back in Lancaster, a faculty wife knowing they most likely
won’t live anywhere else. She loved the structure of the school year, not
having to worry about cooking, cleaning, paying bills…you can be an adult
without any of the responsibility. “I
won’t grow up.” She originally thought having a child would change things
in her ideal world, but “not doing what
you were born to do is like turning your back on the ocean for no other reason
than that you dislike beauty.” Nathan’s birth changed her life all right.
Selfishness flew out the window and the joys of motherhood took over.
Loose
morals set the tone from the beginning: We form an opinion of Arthur Winthrop,
fifty-seven years old, and a third-generation headmaster of an elite New
England boarding school, and it’s not a pretty picture. He’s obsessed with an
eighteen-year old female student, Betsy Pappas, taking advantage of his
position, verging on stalker status, to seduce her. He’s a liar, a drunk, a
lonely cheating husband, a distraught father failing miserably at handling the
loss of his son and incapable of comforting his grieving wife. “I’m a sad needy puppy. I am a boy clinging
to his mother’s apron; I am the teenager experiencing the pangs of love for the
first time.” Yuk.
The
style of writing – creative, unique, but very confusing, a downer: The opening
section, entitled Acrimony is
Arthur’s first-person narrative. He’s remembering a day twenty years ago with
his wife Elizabeth and their five-year old son, Ethan, enjoying a day in
Central Park. Then, the scene switches to the police station. Arthur, arrested
for wandering around the Park naked, says, “This
is how it starts.” His unstable mental health clearly on display throughout
the police investigation makes the case that he is an unreliable narrator. This
novel is one story told through two points of view.
What
is an unreliable narrator? In fiction, it’s generally a protagonist, almost
always written in first-person, who in telling the story sounds delusional and
untruthful or within the context of his recollection, you suspect he is
mentally ill, immature, or he tells you he is. Such as Holden Caulfield in Catcher
in the Rye, he admits to being “the most terrific liar you ever saw in
your life,” add his age and his skewed viewpoint of life and he’s as untrustworthy
as they come. Huckleberry Finn and Forrest Gump were also narrators whose
perception is immature or limited through their point of views. Gone
Girl is another example, but with two unreliable narrators…alternating
accounts of Nick Dunne and the diary entries of his wife, asking the reader…
Who do you trust?
This novel is a masterpiece of deception
as we’re tossed into a distasteful tale of a ‘dirty old man’ in an affair with
young lady and about half-way through the book, the OMG moment arrives in the
form of an old adversary, turned savior. The next section, Expectations, is the other side of the story, narrated from the
third-person perspective of Arthur’s wife – Betsy aka Elizabeth. The final
section, After, is the dénouement –
the final resolution of the complex sequence of events in the novel where we
find Arthur being committed to a mental institution and Russell and Betsy
eating sushi in his apartment in New York. Russell asks her why she didn’t
succeed in drowning…she says she doesn’t know the reason but after flinging
herself into the river, she knew she couldn’t do it….why, maybe she had
something to look forward to after all? “The
winter sheds its skin every spring.” She shed her skin when she first came
to Lancaster, the day she became Betsy, and again when she married, moved into
the big white house as the headmaster’s wife, and with the birth of Nathan. A
molting might come with a life with Russell…a glimmer of hope for their
future…ends the novel.
As always the group shared experiences
with forms of dementia and mental illness and being able to tell our own
stories is therapeutic for all those dealing with these issues…a commonality of
heartache among friends.
MN and I appreciate your contribution to
this discussion and thank you for giving this novel a chance to shine by
letting us grow as readers.
On the business side:
Please note the March meeting date has changed to March 3rd
instead of the 10th. We still
do not have a selection for that month and will decide in February.
We are considering The
Boys in the Boat, Nine Americans and their epic quest for gold at the 1936
Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown for our summer read. It’s a
non-fiction that reads like a novel. Solid five stars on Amazon and over seven
thousand reviews. Set during the Depression in the then small nondescript town
of Seattle, it tracks a rowing team’s triumphant march into Hitler’s Olympics.
COLOR CODING SYSTEM
WHITE: LIGHT READ
PINK: MODERATELY
CHALLENGING
RED: CHALLENGING
February 10th: All the Light We Cannot See
by Anthony Doerr
RED
Home
of Jean Alexander
Reviewer:
Barbara Creach
March 3rd
: Note earlier date
No
book selected
Home
of Joanna Linder
April 14th: Orphan Train by Christina
Baker Kline
PINK +
Home
of Kay Robinson
Reviewer:
Jean Alexander
May 19th: The Husband’s Secret by
Liane Moriarty
PINK
Home
of Beverly Dossett
Reviewer:
Beverly Dossett
Summer Break: June, July & August
September 8th: Bookers 12th year
Happy
Reading,
“What
do we owe to those we love? What actions are unforgivable?” Food for deep
thought.
JoDee
No comments:
Post a Comment