Lori, your comments are so insightful. Incisive—they do touch on some of the puzzles of the book. Right now, for me the main puzzle is Bea herself, her motives in going on the second trip voluntarily. She has had a certain passivity about Leo and Marvin—but with these young people she is simply caught and drawn in —and acting on her own, however awkwardly.
This is a good point, Eileen. She does seem almost inexplicably drawn to the young trio. Perhaps she has some regrets that she didn’t live more adventurously when she was their age?
Hah - these awful men! I'm wondering if some of it is that Bea has ambition to be something more (she makes fun of Laura's ambition to get married and be a history teacher), but not enough direction or confidence, and so that is where the initial infatuation with Leo comes from, and the subservience to her bullying brother. She adulates men like this because they do have the power, the ambition, and the drive? She hides her feelings for Leo from Laura because she knows she'll be told "Leo is not for the likes of you" and then later when thinking about how her philistine brother wouldn't appreciate the art in the Louvre, she still says "But what he was capable of!"
Bea sees ambition in herself too when she's younger: At Laura's wedding, Leo jokes that Bea will be the next "Bride, Wife, Mother, Teacher" and she says she'd rather be an "Indian chief." But after Leo questions her and makes her feel embarrassed she ends up saying that she wants to be "attached in some intimate way to a marvel, a force, a prodigy" and so, lacking confidence, maybe loses her own ambition at this moment? Maybe this is then a clue as to why later she has to keep thinking of him as being some kind of a genius, in order not to hate the fact that she DID become "bride, wife, teacher" (not mother)?
So the first trip to Paris is maybe all about just living her prosaic existence as dictated by her life choices (organized by agency, using guidebook, doing as her brother says), but then after Iris crashes into her life and shatters the "holy thing" by pressing a piano key without any veneration at all, this triggers something in Bea, who starts to act with much more agency, and following the sort of detective work she talked about wanting to do when she was 19. Uncovering hidden things. So, while it looks like she's doing what her brother wants, she's actually breaking free? Maybe?
Such a web is weaved! I also hope to see why Bea feels so in debt to her brother’s request. Currently, I am on the thought that she 1. Doesn’t have children of her own, so subconsciously, she wants a connection to her niece and nephew
2. She hates her teaching job so much that the distraction is helpful in taking her away from her job.
Also, I am anticipating what we may find out about Leo! What a jerk. Did he only compose one movie score or what? Bea watching the same movie just to see his name in the credits? 🤔
Lori, your comments are so insightful. Incisive—they do touch on some of the puzzles of the book. Right now, for me the main puzzle is Bea herself, her motives in going on the second trip voluntarily. She has had a certain passivity about Leo and Marvin—but with these young people she is simply caught and drawn in —and acting on her own, however awkwardly.
This is a good point, Eileen. She does seem almost inexplicably drawn to the young trio. Perhaps she has some regrets that she didn’t live more adventurously when she was their age?
Hah - these awful men! I'm wondering if some of it is that Bea has ambition to be something more (she makes fun of Laura's ambition to get married and be a history teacher), but not enough direction or confidence, and so that is where the initial infatuation with Leo comes from, and the subservience to her bullying brother. She adulates men like this because they do have the power, the ambition, and the drive? She hides her feelings for Leo from Laura because she knows she'll be told "Leo is not for the likes of you" and then later when thinking about how her philistine brother wouldn't appreciate the art in the Louvre, she still says "But what he was capable of!"
Bea sees ambition in herself too when she's younger: At Laura's wedding, Leo jokes that Bea will be the next "Bride, Wife, Mother, Teacher" and she says she'd rather be an "Indian chief." But after Leo questions her and makes her feel embarrassed she ends up saying that she wants to be "attached in some intimate way to a marvel, a force, a prodigy" and so, lacking confidence, maybe loses her own ambition at this moment? Maybe this is then a clue as to why later she has to keep thinking of him as being some kind of a genius, in order not to hate the fact that she DID become "bride, wife, teacher" (not mother)?
So the first trip to Paris is maybe all about just living her prosaic existence as dictated by her life choices (organized by agency, using guidebook, doing as her brother says), but then after Iris crashes into her life and shatters the "holy thing" by pressing a piano key without any veneration at all, this triggers something in Bea, who starts to act with much more agency, and following the sort of detective work she talked about wanting to do when she was 19. Uncovering hidden things. So, while it looks like she's doing what her brother wants, she's actually breaking free? Maybe?
Yes! She is subtly undermining Marvin, and I think that feels liberating and rebellious to her.
Such a web is weaved! I also hope to see why Bea feels so in debt to her brother’s request. Currently, I am on the thought that she 1. Doesn’t have children of her own, so subconsciously, she wants a connection to her niece and nephew
2. She hates her teaching job so much that the distraction is helpful in taking her away from her job.
Also, I am anticipating what we may find out about Leo! What a jerk. Did he only compose one movie score or what? Bea watching the same movie just to see his name in the credits? 🤔
Yes! Leo is a real mystery so far in terms of how they separated. And could she possibly still love the jerk?!