<p>^ It seems like every time I open the book, I find another connection I’d missed the first time around. For example, just now I noticed that Randolph calls Christabel, “My selkie” (p. 308)…and Maud and Roland find the love letters at Seal Court.</p>
<p>The grad paper that SJCM provided a link to earlier (<a href=“Crazy Fox Casino: Die Spielbank mit dem verrückten Fuchs”>Crazy Fox Casino: Die Spielbank mit dem verrückten Fuchs) has more little things I didn’t catch, such as the fact that in Seal Court, “Waiting in front of a bathroom that is occupied by Maud, Roland ‘went down on one knee…and put his eye to the huge keyhole’” (p. 147) – just like Raimondin, the Fairy Melusina’s husband. </p>
<p>The author of the article also mentions the masculine/feminine dichotomy, noting that Roland “does not comply with the established gender roles…Contrary to the masculine ideal of the strong, self-confident winner type, Roland is a ‘small man, with very soft . . . and small regular features.’” </p>
<p>I looked back in the book to find Maud’s first thoughts re Roland: “He was a gentle and unthreatening being. Meek, she thought drowsily, turning out the light. Meek” (p. 156). Blackadder says of him, “He’s not forceful. It’s his major failing” (p. 461). Even the poems that finally come to Roland “like rain” have titles that sound domestic, e.g., “The Fairfax Wall” and “A Number of Cats.” Maud, on the other hand, says, “I write about liminality. Threshholds. Bastions. Fortresses” (p. 549). </p>
<p>Whereas in the beginning of the novel, it seemed that Roland was too “soft” for a man and Maud was too “hard” for a woman, by the end they have balanced the masculine and the feminine within themselves, and created a compatible and harmonious relationship.</p>
<p>Something that isn’t touched on in the discussion questions is the Parent-Child bonds in the novel and how the various mothers and fathers encourage (or stunt) the growth of their children. I have a question along those lines.</p>
<p>We know of Christabel’s relationship with her influential father Isidore and Sabine’s with her father Raoul. We learn about Roland’s relationship with his “disappointed English graduate” mother. We are told about Cropper’s father (“he would say to me, ‘here is history to hold in your hand’”) and also his mother (“to whom he wrote, every day when he was abroad, long and affectionate letters”). In her journal, Ellen writes about her mother (“I lack many things in which my dear mother was both proficient and naturally greatly endowed”).</p>
<p>Christabel’s mother, however, is a mystery. (Or did I miss something?) I think the only mention of her is when Christabel tells Sabine, “my mother is not a spiritual woman, and her language is that of household minutiae and female fashion” (p. 377). Sabine interprets this to mean that Christabel’s mother is still living:</p>
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<p>Do you think Sabine is right? Could Christabel’s mother still be living? It seems impossible, but it’s true that Christabel’s use of the present tense is odd. I wonder what kind of relationship they had. There is a hint in Christabel’s Tales for Innocents, which tells of “a useless, hopeless, dreaming daughter, to whom her mother would often say that she should try to fend for herself in the wild wood, and then she would know the value of listening to advice, and of doing things properly” (p. 58).</p>
<p>Yikes, that’s really something, Mary. I had totally forgotten any mention of Christabel’s mother! I think it was because Sabine’s comment was so brief, and occurred in the earlier part of her journal, before the pregnancy had been revealed. (Maybe I’m slow, but I did not suspect that Christabel was pregnant. I thought she was just in emotional distress.) </p>
<p>Possibly the mother was too elderly or had limited resources, or perhaps Christabel’s fear of her scorn and disapproval would have been overwhelming.</p>
<p>If Christabel and her mother had had a terrible relationship, maybe this interfered with Christabel’s being able to imagine that she could be an adequately loving mother herself. </p>
<p>She really didn’t have any choice about relinquishing the baby’s care to somebody else, for practical reasons. As horribly wrenching as it must have been, maybe it was mitigated just a little bit by a feeling that her sister would be a much better a mother than she ever could have been, even under ideal circumstances.</p>
<p>Okay, so Christabel prefers her father’s creative world and seems to be critical of her mother. But the sister sounds more traditionally maternal, so you would think that she (the sister) might have had a good relationship with the mother. But you don’t hear anything about the mother coming to visit or interacting in any way with Maia.</p>
<p>A.S. Byatt likes to draw parallels and I see a strong one here between Christabel and Bertha: both pregnant and unwed, both refusing to identify the father of their baby, both unrepentant, and both unwilling or unable to turn to their own mothers for help. Ellen writes of Bertha:</p>
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<p>The question is whether the parallel extends so far as to indicate that both women are carrying Randolph Ash’s child. I tend to think not—I saw him as a man with more integrity—yet Bertha’s comment “It all continues on whatever I will” suggests that she has some leverage that she could use (i.e., naming Ash as the father), but chooses not to out of respect or fondness for Ellen. All we know for certain of the father is that Bertha “denied strenuously, in a great burst of weeping, that he could possibly be required to take care of her, either by marrying, or in any other way.”</p>
<p>I caught the Roland-peeking-in-the-keyhole bit mainly because it seemed out of place to me. Really, wouldn’t he have waited till the door opened or just lightly knocked, speaks my practical soul? Of course, it ties to the Fairy Melusina.</p>
<p>I gathered that Christabel adores her father and has strained relations with her mother Arabel, perhaps fractured when she moves in with Blanche. She briefly mentions her mother in her letters to Ash:</p>
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<p>(in a later letter)</p>
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<p>So, Sophie takes in Christabel and passes May off as one of her children. Perhaps only Sophie knows the truth.</p>
<p>NJTM: I felt no subtlety on Byatt’s part re Christabel’s impending pregnancy:</p>
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<p>So Christabel suspects she’s pregnant, as does Ash apparently. Christabel plans to “carry her own burdens.” (Okay, so exactly what do the two think might happen as a consequence of their intimacy, if not a child, asks my practical soul once again?)</p>
<p>I found this snippet while perusing a discussion online about Mummy Posset; an obvious reference to Ash and LaMotte, but possibly also about Bertha, the sentinel for a pregnant Christabel (p. 441)?</p>
<p>So I guess Christabel’s mother was not necessarily a cold person – just more shallow, or at least more non-intellectual, than Christabel and her father.</p>
<p>That makes it even more plausible that Maia would be so little like Christabel. She was more like Sophie, but more like Arabel as well.</p>
<p>I was wondering about A.S. Byatt’s upbringing and found this on wiki:</p>
<p>Her upbringing was fairly unhappy as she struggled against her domineering mother.</p>
<p>And this:</p>
<p>Byatt has been engaged in a feud with her novelist sister Margaret Drabble since she learned that Drabble wrote about their family’s tea set, a tea set which Byatt had intended to write about herself. The two sisters have also disagreed about the appropriate portrayal of their mother. The pair seldom see each other and don’t read each other’s books.</p>
<p>Great discussion here! I really enjoyed re-reading this book. It was really different knowing the ending - I focused a lot more on the details than on the “literary thriller” aspect of it.</p>
<p>I was greatly entertained (again) by the tour-de-force of the writing. All of the genres, eras, voices, etc. were an enormous accomplishment. Perhaps some of the characterization, if not the plot, was sacrificed as a result. But this makes me think - the study of literature really WAS the main “character” of the story. Having been in a university English department myself as a student, and having worked in a special collections department of a university library, I have seen all of the “types” Byatt represented here. And I’ve also asked the questions she stated so often here: “Why the heck do people care so much why someone wrote this word instead of that word, why something is red instead of blue, whether or not some fake person loved their mother ( ) and whether they can write a paper on it and publish that paper in some journal that no one will ever read???” Yet I myself loved to do that work, still love to read, still love the fake people and all of their problems, and love to discuss it all with people like you.</p>
<p>I think the moment that these words on a page, that she’d been obsessed with all of her life, became true FAMILY for Maud was a defining moment in this book specifically because it changed the ballgame for every single scholarly character in the book. For her, now it was REAL, and that was really, really big. It would be for any scholar - probably a very frightening prospect! We all think we’re so intimate with these people (collecting their inkwells and all that) but if they actually popped up in front of us we’d be mortified. Maud truly became a different person when she shared blood with these people. And that almost says more about the nature of literary scholarship than about her as a person.</p>
<p>The A.S. Byatt-Margaret Drabble feud is sad. The sisterly competition reminds me of the feud between the Dear Abby and Ask Ann Landers columnists, real-life twins Eppie Lederer and Pauline Phillips.</p>
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<p>Amen to that! I couldn’t agree more. :)</p>
<p>I like your idea of the study of literature being a “character” in the story. I underlined a part in the book where I felt that Byatt was giving a slight self-deprecating dig at herself – and at all of us who analyze our literary hearts out. Sabine wearies of the over-analysis of the stories that she loves. “Too much meaning is bad at Toussaint,” she tells Christabel, adding, “The stories come before the meanings” (p. 384). (That reminds me of what mathmom alluded to in post #59 – that the “multiplicity of meanings” and intellectual genius of a work are nothing if the story doesn’t draw you in first.)</p>
<p>Sabine goes on to write: “I do not believe all these explanations. They diminish. The idea of Woman is less than brilliant Vivien, and the idea of Merlin will not allegorise into male wisdom. He is Merlin.”</p>
<p>But still, we literature buffs continue to explain and allegorise, and enjoy doing so. I guess, as Maud said, “All scholars are a bit mad” (p. 360).</p>
<p>That was fun. Fascinating that she was partly inspired by the success of Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose. That makes perfect sense. I was also amused that she looked at Georgette Heyer and Dorothy Sayers for clues about how to put it together - for romance? detective stories? or both? </p>
<p>And so funny that she admits to a bathroom obsession. I thought the bathroom article was Brilliant. :)</p>
<p>We’ve already talked about the “fine line.” Although I’m not keen on grave robbing in the dark of night, I agree with what mathmom posted earlier (#59): </p>
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<p>I am somewhat confused, however, about the second part of discussion question #5:As much as the scholars have discovered, one secret is kept from them at the end and revealed only to the reader. What is that secret and what difference does it make to Roland’s future?</p>
<p>First of all, I believe that two secrets are revealed only to the reader: 1) the celibate nature of Ellen and Randolph’s marriage, and 2) the fact that Randolph met his daughter Maia.</p>
<p>Secondly, I can’t see how those secrets make any difference to Roland’s future. Is there another secret I’ve forgotten about?</p>
) and whether they can write a paper on it and publish that paper in some journal that no one will ever read???” Yet I myself loved to do that work, still love to read, still love the fake people and all of their problems, and love to discuss it all with people like you.</p>