I've just finished reading this section, and I'm pondering what makes Bea do Marvin's bidding to go to Paris to look for Julian once and then once again. I'm playing with a couple of thoughts I'm not very sure about.
First, we hear her analyze what she says she truly wants for herself when she first meets Leo "this was what she was after: to be attached in some intimate way to a marvel, a force, a prodigy, the other side of the moon, where ordinary mortals could never go." So perhaps part of it is how she feels deeply about things (e.g. she loves poetry, and we see later that the artifacts in the museum really move her) but she doesn't feel confident/good enough at anything to take on herself being the marvel, so she attaches herself to those with ambition and drive who might really do it? So that would perhaps explain the initial impetus to do as Marvin asks, as she has always subjugated herself to those with the more pushy drive? And then why she keeps seeing the movie Leo composed the music for?
However, before she said that (maybe losing confidence as Leo kept questioning her, and making it clear that ambition was only ever for one party in a pair? "there can't be two chiefs in one tribe") she said that she wanted to be some kind of detective/archeologist/discoverer She says all of her ambitions may be different, but they are all to do with "things that start out hidden, and then you find them out". And that's what she ends up doing in Paris, by figuring out Julian, Iris and Lili's secrets. So these trips are really only giving rise to a desire she had always felt, but sublimated. And are now coming back out - the way that she would "make her mark."
Secondly, I'm also wondering if she isn't really doing it for Marvin, but that the impact of these initial shifts in her life (being asked to find Julian initially, while she's on holiday anyway) start to bring something alive in her again. Like, how her first trip is organized by an agent and carried out with a guidebook in hand, but her second trip is organized by herself, with no guidebook, and this is the one where she both takes charge in some ways (hosting the dinner) and figuring out their secrets, as well as taking charge of what Marvin knows and doesn't know.
You are writing about something very fundamental to Bea’s character—her lack of self confidence. How readily she capitulated to Leo’s point of view: that he, not she, is destined to greatness; that she should become a school teacher because her way of being in the world is so conventional. I think that Ozick really draws Bea’s character quite wonderfully, even as we wish that she had more backbone.
The reasons for why she goes a second time to Paris are particularly puzzling, but we are seeing her change. You bring up some interesting details that demonstrate that.
The family dynamic building here is off to the races!
I like how Julian’s wife describes Bea’s niece and nephew, it is spot on.
Yeah, Marvin is a complete creep and for Bea to do this bidding for him and running all over the world for a niece and nephew she had never known feels weird. Of course, it is a different era too.
I am interested to see where this goes. I did catch that line about Bea’s father reading Henry James while his mother manned the shop!
I'm going to be late to the party, but excited to start next week and catch up to follow along with the rest of these books!
I've just finished reading this section, and I'm pondering what makes Bea do Marvin's bidding to go to Paris to look for Julian once and then once again. I'm playing with a couple of thoughts I'm not very sure about.
First, we hear her analyze what she says she truly wants for herself when she first meets Leo "this was what she was after: to be attached in some intimate way to a marvel, a force, a prodigy, the other side of the moon, where ordinary mortals could never go." So perhaps part of it is how she feels deeply about things (e.g. she loves poetry, and we see later that the artifacts in the museum really move her) but she doesn't feel confident/good enough at anything to take on herself being the marvel, so she attaches herself to those with ambition and drive who might really do it? So that would perhaps explain the initial impetus to do as Marvin asks, as she has always subjugated herself to those with the more pushy drive? And then why she keeps seeing the movie Leo composed the music for?
However, before she said that (maybe losing confidence as Leo kept questioning her, and making it clear that ambition was only ever for one party in a pair? "there can't be two chiefs in one tribe") she said that she wanted to be some kind of detective/archeologist/discoverer She says all of her ambitions may be different, but they are all to do with "things that start out hidden, and then you find them out". And that's what she ends up doing in Paris, by figuring out Julian, Iris and Lili's secrets. So these trips are really only giving rise to a desire she had always felt, but sublimated. And are now coming back out - the way that she would "make her mark."
Secondly, I'm also wondering if she isn't really doing it for Marvin, but that the impact of these initial shifts in her life (being asked to find Julian initially, while she's on holiday anyway) start to bring something alive in her again. Like, how her first trip is organized by an agent and carried out with a guidebook in hand, but her second trip is organized by herself, with no guidebook, and this is the one where she both takes charge in some ways (hosting the dinner) and figuring out their secrets, as well as taking charge of what Marvin knows and doesn't know.
Hi Clemmie,
You are writing about something very fundamental to Bea’s character—her lack of self confidence. How readily she capitulated to Leo’s point of view: that he, not she, is destined to greatness; that she should become a school teacher because her way of being in the world is so conventional. I think that Ozick really draws Bea’s character quite wonderfully, even as we wish that she had more backbone.
The reasons for why she goes a second time to Paris are particularly puzzling, but we are seeing her change. You bring up some interesting details that demonstrate that.
The family dynamic building here is off to the races!
I like how Julian’s wife describes Bea’s niece and nephew, it is spot on.
Yeah, Marvin is a complete creep and for Bea to do this bidding for him and running all over the world for a niece and nephew she had never known feels weird. Of course, it is a different era too.
I am interested to see where this goes. I did catch that line about Bea’s father reading Henry James while his mother manned the shop!