I don’t think either of my kids look anything like either parent, so I wasn’t bothered by her not recognizing her son. There are people out there doing caloric restriction diets. Monkey research is creepy. When my dh was at Caltech the lab next to him was doing horrific stuff to monkeys to better understand how sight works. So that part hit home.
I actually found the idea that Varya just couldn’t have the logical abortion very believable. I think it’s related to her feelings about death. I can’t remember when it happens in the timeline - after Simon’s death for sure, but was it also after Klara’s death as well? I think she’s carrying around a lot of guilt.
I am still on my library’s waiting list for this book, at #1! Looks like I will join you here midmonth and peek in from time to time. Spoilers don’t bother me in the least!
I wanted to like this book. But I just didn’t like any of the characters at all. Does a scientist believe in fortune tellers? Does a mother with a potential hit show in Vegas commit suicide because of a fortune teller’s prediction? And I agree with the statement about Daniel, a doctor, who is rational up until his last day. Simon was just such a self-involved jerk that I didn’t like his story line at all.
I didn’t time manage well. I had a house full of company and thought I would finish last night. Didn’t happen. I should finish up today or tomorrow. I’ll drop back in when I’m done.
I think I would have liked the book more had one of the three “doomed” children not succumbed to the influence of the fortune teller. The author seemed to say that it’s impossible to move forward from impressionable, secretive events from childhood - that our emotional vulnerability is sealed. To me, that’s a disheartening message.
I did like how the book caused me to think about the way I use superstition, intuition, and other non-fact reasoning to make decisions and get through life. It also reminded me of how my very logical father had become worried about death when he reached the age of his father’s death, as if this would be his destiny as well. (It wasn’t.)
I kept noticing how this book was such a contrast to its predecessor, The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley, in its use of familiar technological objects (televisions, phones, etc) to help orient us in time.
I am going back over it since I read it early. For a change I got done on time Do you think the reality of Simon’s death on the predicted date influeced the others to behave irrationally? As soon as Simon was part of the gay community in SF during that time period I knew his death would be from AIDS. The timetable fit, too. Although frenetic, his behavior wasn’t as irrational since AIDS was not known when he started in SF. The others, though, perhaps bestowed magical thinking on the event. As each of the others dies on their date I think the guilt really does get to Varya. Survivors guilt is a reaction to the cumulative events and feeds her OCD.
I think I liked the idea of what this book could’ve been much more than I actually liked the book. In a funny way, it tried to do both too much and too little.
That being said, it was an entertaining read.
The main characters were mostly bland or unlikeable for me. I didn’t feel vested enough in any of their stories to the extent of wanting to root for them. I liked Gertie, Robert, Raj and Mira (although she’s less fleshed out than the others).
Simon’s life and death, I can understand — at seven, he’s so young to hear what he gets as his fortune. He has also been spoiled by his mother too much. His selfishness and hedonistic lifestyle would be his undoing but makes some sense.
Klara is a more complex character. Is she afraid of being a real person or is she being true to herself? That isn’t something I could answer at the end of the book. Her suicide on the very day her show, her big chance, would debut, is almost too pat. She killed her herself because she knew if she didn’t die on that day, her reason for running away would be invalidated? Almost as if she saw that success lay ahead for her and Raj and she wanted her story to end before that, because after that she would have no tangible reason to end her life.
I have to say that the adult Daniel didn’t ring true to me. The glimpse we get of him as a boy doesn’t add up to whom he becomes.
I also don’t see anything that triggered the desire to visit revenge on the fortune-teller that last day. Eddie, as the catalyst for Daniel’s desire for revenge and the device of his death, wasn’t believable.
Varya was, quite frankly, boring. But her character was relatable — hmmm, not sure where that leads me. I didn’t understand why she went through with her pregnancy. I didn’t see it coming so I was just flabbergasted. The rest of it, her career choice, her obsessions, her inability to enjoy her life, did make sense. One question remained - did she not believe her fortune? Eighty-eight is a respectable old age. Was she trying to prolong her life with the restricted diet? Or retain a semblance of control over her life? I’m still confused.
Benjamin’s writing style was easy to read and flowed well. The structure of the book worked well for me and the suspense was maintained.
I feel like she tried to make stylistic changes to each sibling’s chapters to suit their character. And maybe I’m reading more than she intended here.
One peeve, sloppy editing. I nitpick, so apologies in advance. An example: on page 315 (hard-bound library copy), Luke says “And blue eyes. It’s no wonder you didn’t how who I was.” There were others, not huge mistakes, but mild irritants for me.
ETA: I finished the book just over an hour ago so I really didn’t have time to read all the posts. I just finished reading them now and wanted to say I agree with most, if not all, of the points you’ve each made. My understanding of the book has improved because of it. So, thank you.
I thought Klara was genuinely mentally ill. Does anyone agree with me on that?? She was not hearing knocks from Simon and Saul. So her suicide was, allegedly, so she coud go and be with Simon and Saul. If you’re hearing knocks as she did, the suicide makes sense.
^ TBH, I’m not completely sure. She did seem a bit crazy at times but at others grounded and lucid. And her blackouts were never given a satisfactory explanation (alcohol?) unless I missed something. She definitely thought she was going to join Simon and Saul but why was the pull of the dead stronger than that of the living? Maybe that is an argument that she is crazy.
But if you consider the timing of her call to her mother and the news that they were celebrating Daniel’s engagement — was that the reason for her suicide? She feels abandoned by her living family so she goes off to join the dead members and become a bridge between the two (paraphrasing her last thoughts here). Still crazy. So, I suppose the logical conclusion is that she is mentally ill.
She was hearing Simon knock. She stood silently in the ladies’ room for over an hour to hear the knocks while Ruby played in the sink and ate soap. I think that qualifies as mentally ill.
I agree with many of the above comments, particularly comments about stock characters and Daniel’s section just not being believable. That said, I think I like the book more than anyone seems to so far. I found it thought-provoking. So get ready for some of my jumbled thoughts:
Sometimes a book hits at a time in your life and makes more of an impact than it would otherwise. As a few of you know, my husband was unexpectedly diagnosed with a rare cancer - Stage IV and basically untreatable. And so the countdown began. While the actual date was not predicted at time of diagnosis, months were: get affairs in order, do whatever makes you happy, i.e. Christmas well before the month of Dec. So, months at first and then the timeline narrowed to weeks, then days, then hours. It amazed me how accurate the medical profession (hospice, in particular) can be. So … hospice workers = gypsy. (Yes, I know it wasn’t fortune-telling but still.) Both my daughters had read The Immortalists: one pointed out that knowing the actual day would have been a relief. She also said that she believed that had Dad been given a date, he would have died at that time (Friday vs Saturday vs Sunday).
So does life change with a given date? Yes. I can see it nudging at the back of Simon et al’s minds the whole time - even with an element of disbelief. Simon and Klara - neither were content or felt they belonged in the life they had. If you’re told you have five years and you’re unhappy with circumstances, wouldn’t you go for it? Simon heading to SF seemed on point. Then when Simon died on the predicted date, did that start Klara’s downward slide? AIDS didn’t even have a name at that time. Klara seemed rational till that point. I could even believe the suicide: alcohol and pushed into a Vegas life she never wanted and couldn’t escape. I agree with Daniel that Raj was controlling. Klara had lost control of who she was and what she wanted. Raj separated her from her family, so in a sense, she lost her footing. Daniel and Varya felt responsibility for the younger and flightier two - hence, guilt.
No, I never believed Daniel’s story. I think the author Benjamin needed to make the gypsy reappear and did so through Daniel’s section. It didn’t ring true.
Varya and the baby: Life continuing on through loved ones is what made Simon, Klara, Daniel immortal: Simon and Robert, Klara with Ruby, Daniel and Mira. The author needed to make Varya have that someone also - hard to do with the picture she painted of Varya’s life. Frieda the monkey wouldn’t do. So enter Luke.
On a side note, I think the gypsy really could predict the date of death. The scene in the trailer with Daniel when she realized it was his day, she was no longer scared for herself but rather for him. She may not have known the how or why or the part she’d play for Daniel but she wasn’t wrong. Eddie’s shot just went wrong - on the exact date. I think the author intentionally left that possibility open.
Another side note: My oldest daughter read The Immortalists when it first came out and gave it three stars on Goodreads. She has since changed her rating to four stars because after a period of months and other books, her mind kept returning to some of the themes introduced here. Circumstances in our lives - maybe - but the book has lingered while others have come and gone.
And making stock characters out of Simon, Klara, Daniel, and Varya didn’t bother me. (Well Daniel kinda did.) I recognized what they represented and still was interested in how it played out.
And I like how the author weaved their lives together despite the distance between them all.
@ignatius what a poignant post, acknowledging your husband’s recent passing, his experience with hospice, and your family realizing your husband’s days were counted in months, then weeks and finally days.
Quite a coincidence The Immoralist was this month’s selection.
What a unique perspective you have, and thank you for sharing.
I am so pleased that so many have the same reaction as I did to the book. Blah!! I was hoping for so much more. For the most part, the main characters were just cardboard copies of real people. I really did not like most of them. I did like Robert and Ruby. I also liked Luke. ( I did not see his story coming.) Daniel was especially annoying. (My husband is a retired Naval Officer, and Daniel’s career path was a joke. Totally unbelievable.)
I can’t believe that one of them did not tell their mother. I did like when Gertie laughed at Varya when she told her about the fortune teller. How much angst would have been avoided if they had told her?
I also would have moved heaven and earth to prove the fortune teller wrong if I had been one of the children, especially Klara and Daniel.
In the end, I didn’t know any of these people and quite frankly, I wouldn’t have wanted to.
@ignatius, I thought of you often while I was reading this novel. At one point, I almost PM’d you to say that if you wanted to toss the book out the window and skip the discussion, I would completely understand. I guessed wrong about how it might make you feel during a difficult time — I’m glad you found it more thought-provoking than painful. Knowing your perspective also makes me appreciate the book more. "Circumstances in our lives - maybe - but the book has lingered while others have come and gone.” Such an important observation. There are books we have read together that have hit at exactly the right time for me. I remember that was the case with The Orchardist, which we read around the time my dad died. (I went back to our discussion and found it [post #105]: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/1461744-the-orchardist-%C2%96-april-cc-book-club-selection-p7.html. Over the long haul, our book discussions are a bit like journals, aren’t they?)
I’ve so enjoyed reading everyone’s comments. I want to respond to all of them, but here’s a start:
Having lost a friend to AIDS in the 80’s, I was a little uncomfortable with Simon’s character, as I felt it teetered on the edge of stereotype – that men who died from AIDS in those days were outrageously promiscuous, living and working in seedy areas. Not so.
I had to smile a bit at the fact that someone (or a couple of people?) provided us with a gentle caveat about choosing The Heart’s Invisible Furies because of the descriptions of gay sex. Turns out we got that anyway in *The Immortalists/I
Very odd. I raised an eyebrow when Eddie confided to Daniel that he had been in love with Klara. Unless I missed something, it seemed to me that he barely knew her. He ran into her on the steps of the police station, attended a few of her shows, and tried to get her interested in him, to no avail. Infatuation, not love. But I suppose if you’re the person who’s feeling it, you can’t tell the difference.
Also, Eddie’s shift from beat cop to FBI seemed far-fetched, as did his being assigned to the fortune teller-fraud case.
I had wondered how accurate the description of the lab (and project) was. Ugh. Btw, if anyone is looking for a novel describing a complex relationship between human and primate, try We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler. I read it right before The Immortalists. It wasn’t a perfect story, but it was very interesting. Funny, both novels mention Harry Harlow — somebody I had never heard of until last month. (He’s probably well-known to most of you — I have found that my knowledge of historical figures is pretty mediocre.)
I agree!
She did seem to be someone blessed/cursed with The Gift rather than a con artist. The fact that she recognized Daniel after 40 years—he had been an eleven year old boy!—showed some sort of clairvoyance (probably not the right word, but you know what I mean).
I did, too. As for the other characters, like them or not, I could picture them perfectly. Benjamin does a really nice job with describing appearances, physical quirks, attire, etc.
I didn’t like Luke’s story about his father’s awful death. It seemed like overkill (no [horrible] pun intended). Like it belonged in another novel.
Lol, yes! She would have slapped some sense into them and shuffled away in her fuzzy pink bathrobe and that would have put an end to it. But then we’d have no story to discuss.
Sorry for the lengthy post, but you have all gotten me thinking!
My initial knee-jerk response to the first question was Of course not! Who would want that? @ignatius’ post made me view it in another light:
Maybe my first answer was because, since I am not actively dying, I feel at some level that I am immortal. Isn’t that human nature? To know the date of my own death would strip away that illusion and force me to face my own mortality.
I think @ignatius’ comment speaks to why people with terminal illnesses sometimes die on, or very close to, their birthdays. Perhaps it represents a sort of finish line.
As for the second part of question 10, I’d like to think that in the long run, I wouldn’t do things much differently. If I learned that I was to die at age 97, I don’t see myself altering the trajectory of my current life too much. But in the short run, I’d happily eliminate some of the “have-to’s” in my life. For example, if my time were to be up tomorrow, I wouldn’t go to work today.
That sums it up for me. I’d have a hard time answering that question. A timeline stretching far into the future provides breathing room for daily life to continue as is while the other doesn’t. Knowing - even far in advance - would encourage me to take care of business (and, by business, I mean finishing personal projects.)
And yet …
When my husband expressed regret over not finishing projects of interest to him, his hospice nurse told him that she had worked with patients of all ages - one 105 - and all had the same regrets. She told him hearing that actually made her feel good about life - that it continued to be of interest and lived till it no longer could be, regardless of age. She told him that having stuff he regretted not finishing was a sign that he had led a full and active life till it was time to let go.
On the other hand, he sure would have signed up for early retirement.
Remember Varya’s friend Ruby (pages 6-7 in my hardback copy): doctors disagreed about how much time her grandmother had left to live. The rishika provided the date and the family from India got to be there for her last moments. Poignant … and something to be grateful for when scattered family members have to make decisions on when to come - time away from work or school or whatever.
I see a definitive answer most clearly with Simon. How sad it would have been had he not grabbed the chance to fully explore the life he wanted to lead. Simon finishing high school and then working in the family business would have been a tragedy in its own way. @Mary13’s right that Simon teetered on stereotype but then again many young men did in the San Francisco of that time. Simon figured he had 5 years to live and so he did.
Yet knowing the date of death or rather believing it gave Klara - unhappy, troubled - the excuse she needed to make an irrational decision rational in her mind.
Still can’t quite get behind the Daniel section other than to say it gave us a chance to meet once again with the gypsy and ponder whether or not her dates were actuality or made actuality through prophecy.
Jury’s still out for me on Varya. Does she make it to age 88 or does she die tomorrow crossing the street? If you assume she makes it to her expiration date, then you give the gypsy credence. But in truth that question remains unanswered. Maybe that’s why the author brings the gypsy back into play. She adds that bit of gravitas to a prediction that perhaps could be blown off with a hedonistic Simon or troubled Klara. If you lean toward the prophecy only skewing behavior that then leads to death - in other words, not true - then Varya needs to watch out for speeding cars etc a little more closely than she does if she’s guaranteed that she’s assured age 88.
I don’t know for sure, but I’m guessing the mention of monkey labs and Harry Harlow might have something to do with the fact that the author, Chloe Benjamin, lives in Madison. http://psych.wisc.edu/primatelab/primatelabhistory.html
I graduated from U.W. Madison, and my first-year psychology professor had worked in Harlow’s lab. Here is that prof’s Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Suomi
Do you think the reality of Simon’s death on the predicted date influeced the others to behave irrationally? As soon as Simon was part of the gay community in SF during that time period I knew his death would be from AIDS. The timetable fit, too. Although frenetic, his behavior wasn’t as irrational since AIDS was not known when he started in SF. The others, though, perhaps bestowed magical thinking on the event. As each of the others dies on their date I think the guilt really does get to Varya. Survivors guilt is a reaction to the cumulative events and feeds her OCD.