Little Friend ~ Donna Tartt ~ 6/03 Export

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Donna Tartt's The Little Friend -- an absorbing, beautifully written account of murder and its consequences -- is a successful second novel that reaffirms Tartt's talent. The narrative takes place in Mississippi in the late 1970s, but the central event occurs twelve years earlier, when nine-year-old Robin Dufresnes is found hanging from a tree in his own back yard. Robin's murder, which is never solved, virtually destroys his family. Years later, twelve-year-old Harriet Dufresnes -- who was an infant when Robin died and who is haunted by images of the brother she never knew -- sets out to locate his killer. Tartt is a natural storyteller and a masterful stylist whose precise, evocative descriptions of people, landscapes, and events are both convincing and hypnotic. .... Bill Sheehan READING SCHEDULE Week 1 (June 1- 7): 1-137 Week 2 (June 8-14): 141-294 Week 3 (June 15-21): 297-409 Week 4 (June 22-29): 413-555
LINKS Donna Tartt

Your Discussion Leaders are: Andy (ALF) and Maryal

B&N Bookstore | Books Main Page | Suggest a Book/Discussion

Okay, now this will be a little different. I know absolutely nothing about this book except for the high praise I have been reading about it, but I do know that the voices telling us to be sure to make it a discussion have been loud. So let's hear from anyone who would like to read along with us as we turn the pages of this captivating book! Please post here if you are interested in joining us. We must have a quorum of at least three beside the Discussion Leader to make it official.

Lorrie

I have this book and would like very much to join the discussion, Lorrie.

Mal

Okay, Mal. We just have to wait now to see if we can get a quorum.

Lorrie

I'm sorry, but I find that I will be unable to join this discussion.

This is one of the best books I've read this year. It is a delightful story, with extraordinary characters, fast paced and full of fun as you travel the road with this girl.

Reading the description above, I guess I am stuck in this adolescent phase with her. I felt myself prodding her on and whispering into the pages "go for it!"

Come on Mal, you're a kid at heart, it'll be fun.

Okay, now how many more do we need to get this folder up in the scheduled box? Let's hear it from you all!

Lorrie

Count me in. Where are all those other people who said they liked this novel?

Hey Andy!

In truth, I haven't read the novel -- only reviews of same, and one urgent solicitation from a southern friend of mine.

As a general rule, neither sway me, and I would be willing to embark on this literary adventure here.

If I'm around, you all can be sure I'll be looking in. I absolutely LOVED this book! In The Library, I said ALF and Maryal are leading this discussion... is that right?

That's right, Jeryn, and it looks like June, so far. Andy and Maryal will be co-hosting.

Lorrie

I feel much like Julius Caeser here, giving a speech and calling on everyone to stand up and be counted. (Hold your swords though.) I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this story and how many times I've raved on and on about it. Everyone get your book, put in for it now at the library, you will not be sorry. It's written so well and there's so much meat to be discussed all of the way through. As stated before, I believe I'm somewhat stuck in the adolescent phase and couldn't help but have a great time skipping thru this story with this little girl and her "friend."

Please post here and tell us you'll be joining us in June. I'm the bag of wind here but Maryal, our academician, will keep us on course. Come on in and join us.

I have this book and will join the discussion if I dare.

Mal

Surely, I don't scare you, Mal and our fascinating Harriet with all of her energy would enjoy your company.

Nope, you didn't scare me, Andy. It's just that I seem to have an awful, unintentional way of putting my foot in my mouth.

Mal

Well, I hope that i haven't done that very thing this morning. I wrote to Donna Tartt and told her that we would be discussing this story. I have asked her if she would be able to find the time to stop in on us a couple of times to address particular questions that we might have. Where is Sarah, she loved this story? Who else have we?

Alf

Here is who we have so far

Maryal:

ALF:

Jeryn:

Lorrie:

Traude S

Malryn:

Ella Gibbons:

Okay, I might as well sign-up--it won't be the first time to be in a situation where I don't know what I'm doing--I do have a nagging doubt about this book after reading description--I do not like to read anything that might cause me to be overly-frightened; so if I find myself being unduly affected, I will stop reading it. Okay?

I was at the library yesterday, I put in request for this book, (an accomplishment for me) Lordy, I miss card catalogs. Also I put in a request for Kitchen Privileges by Mary Higgins Clark--audio book--

What are the rules about regular books and audio books--would both qualifiy as discussion book? See y'all!! Lenalu

We are delighted to have you here with us and I know that you will love this story. I promise you, you will not become unduly frightened by this book. We will just all hold hands and follow this precocious child all the way through the story. You don't have to DO anything but sit back, relax and enjoy the company. Having someone to read a novel with enhances our enjoyment and our reading pleasure. I love being able to ask someone else what their perception of a certain subject or paragraph is.

Don't be afraid of anything. (Well maybe you might take fright at my garrulous efforts to pull everyone into our circle, but you'll get used to my rantings.) Most people are apprehensive when they first start with reading & posting their thoughts "online" . You will find, in no time at all, that everyone here CARES about what you have to say. We care about one anothers opinions and thoughts. We all bring a piece of ourselves to our group when we read and I'll bet that this book will bring out things in all of our pasts that we've either forgotten or repressed. Anyway, Welcome aboard we are happy that you are here.

Lenalu

Hi my Friend. I just felt you were a reader from Your first post on S/N. Wecome it is So Good to see you checking us out. I will be looking forward to Your posts.

Ginger

Count me in...Alfie....made me do it.

Oooh, delighted to see all the people interested in this book! I can't wait! [I already read it so I will be very careful what I say, I promise. Best book I've read in a loooong time!]

Hello, everybuddy, good to see so many folks

I have read only the first sixty pages or so of this wonderful novel, but I know Andy and I will have a good time throwing a party for it, or maybe even discussing it!

I won't have the time to read it until May since I have to keep up with my classes. But I am really looking forward to it.

My Honda had to have some work done on it several months ago, and that's when I read the beginning of the book. It was difficult to put it away.

Lenalu, I promise we will give you a blanket and some hot cocoa if you feel at all scared. Nothing I read up to page 60 was scarey.

Maryal, who would never scare Mal

Thanks, Maryal, for the offer of a blanket and hot cocoa. I don't want to give you all the impression that I am easlily scared!! I have lived through many scarey situations, and it's a good thing that I don't scare easily. The problem seems be that when I read, many times I become immersed in what I read, then late at night should I be awake when all is still, the neighborhood quiet, then I am apt to get spooked, especially after reading something dark and sinister. Just say Stephen (shudder) King--I choose not to read him--or to see movies of the same style.

The Little Friend does sound good from the various descriptions I have read. I do hope the library calls me soon, since I have put it on reserve list.

Not to fear, the scariest part of this novel is when these kids mischiveously snoop around where they do NOT belong. As an adult you will either cringe knowing of the possible dangers that await them or you urge them on. It's fun!

The book is not all levity however. This child has been ignored and discounted for most of her life, with little supervision and love.

Okay, sounds good--doesn't sound dark and sinister at all--sounds normal to me, since my childhood was spent getting into situations I had no business getting into--I survived obviously, but in today's world--it would have been so dangerous!! Maybe I should write a book--well, I am writing my life story--interesting to me, anyway!!

Well that's the way it goes--I put in a reserve request at the library for Little Friend and Kitchen Privileges both and guess what they just called me to pick up!!!Right--Kitchen Privileges. Hope I get the other one in time to read by June 1. I must check back in some of the posts of the past, to see what you all do and how to participate.

I have had some eye problems and I don't read as much as I used to, and when I found that I could check out audio books and a slim selection of CDs, I started getting those. It just ain't the same as reading a book--it's really hard to lose yourself in audio context. Strange--

I agree Lenalou. I know audio books lull me to sleep when I close my eyes and try to listen to them. If you have any questions just ask . We are all here to help you. I'm sure your book wil be in by the first of June. Heck that's 2 months away.

I'm here too! Just started it yesterday, after finishing The Lovely Bones and The Life of Pi pretty simultaneously.

May I just say that The Life of Pi is one of the best books I have EVER read. I have begged everyone I know to read it.

Prusten!

Is this like a very serious coming of age story? I love coming of age stories and I love mysteries. May I join?

Of course you may join us. We are delighted to have you. The girl who is the "detective" in this story is quite something. I think you will enjoy it.

Is this anything like J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books? When I read the first one with my grandson, I didn't expect to get almost as caught up in it as he was. These are actually coming of age stories, too.

Horselover: Indeed it is not like Harry Potter other than the fact that we meet another precocious teen, in Little Friend. This is a powerful story that reveals the importance of love, security and family while the determined characters encounter numerous adventures in search of a murderer.

It is well written and filled with emotionalevents and ordeals.

Grab your book and join us.

Thank you Alf. I will try to get it, but am still reading "The Dante Club." Your enthusiasm for this book is a great recommendation.

in the big smoke next week would like to try, I think, mostly because of your enthusiasm Alf which I trust. Anneo

Bless your hearts, thank you. I enjoy most books but I don't always LIOVE a book like I did this one. I felt the same about Life of Pi and I hope that The Dante Club holds up as well. I'm just getting ready to start it.

Alf, I got "The Little Friends" at the bookstore, also because of your enthusiastic recommendation. Hope I can read it before June 1, but will follow the discussion even if I don't. Still engrossed in "The Dante Club." I've got about ten books on my shelf waiting patiently to be read (that is, if a book can be patient).

Horselover: I'm certain that we will need a bit of a respite from Dante and the Inferno. the Little Friend will provide that for us. I'm happy that you've joined us here. I am excited about sharing this one.

Not to worry. We're not starting this one until June. There's lots of time to read it, especially since we generally go section by section in these discussions. You certainly don't have to have the whole book read when we begin.

I have such a poor record of being able to join in on discussions at the time they are being discussed. I read Life of Pi a good month after the discussion, although I did follow along with the discussion as it was posted. Nice to see some familiar names from that group here.

Then the library called with my reserved copy of The Lovely Bones - after the discussion had concluded. I read it and so wished to have been in on the discussion at the time it was "live". So, I went back to the archives and read most of the posts and felt much better to find that there were other reactions similar to mine.

And then I read that Little Friend is upcoming, found that my library has a copy on the shelves, reserved it, and this time I hope to juggle things around so that I can read it at the same time as the rest of you.

Even though I don't get to participate in many discussions I am grateful to have learned of books to read that I may never have heard of otherwise. Haven't been disappointed yet. Thanks, everyone, for your great enthusiasm - I love it.

Oh, Diane, I do hope the scheduling works out. Would love to have you here.

I just discovered this book discussion site and love it! I've already signed up for the Piano Tuner in August and jumped in on the current discussion of Girl in Hyacinth Blue. I'll join you in the discussion of Little Friend, too.

Nancy

Maryal - Little Friend did indeed come in from the library - along with, I kid you not, about ten other books I'd reserved but rather expected would trickle in - not in a deluge! I'm reading like crazy to get the others out of the way and then will dive into Friend. It's not a small book, either, is it? Good thing we still have a month to go.

Oh, for a household staff to take care of other stuff!

Welcome, Aberlaine! We look forward to seeing you!

Diane, YAY!

Very good news about all your books coming in. Never mind the house. Reading is far more important than dust. You have time to read. I know that we will take the book in chunks, and since it is a long one, maybe we'll even run a bit over.

I've only read the first sixty pages or so myself. I think Andy has read the whole book, but we will be sure not to let her reveal the ending! ANDREA, shhhhhhhhh.

I like to read the end first, and then try and decide how it got there.It is indeed a big book.

For shame, girl, you KNOW that we are very strict around here. You may read all you want, but I dare you to jump ahead! You think Ginny's penalties over in Last Man Standing are severe.

I am Da King of Penalty!

Maryal inflicts penalies, I pay the fines. What a good combo we are.

Diane is going to join us and Nancy (aberlaine) is here with us for the first time. An email is forthcoming to you. Feel free to speak up and ask any questions or make any comments that you would like. Yes, I've read the entire book and I never, never, never tell the ending to a book or a movie.

I'm just starting "Little Friend." Are we going to read it in sections??? If the answer is yes, can you post a schedule so I know how far to read now. Thanx.

My guess is that we will be reading it in parts. Andy is off golfing. When she returns in a day or so, we will post a schedule.

Hi Maryal,

Please add my name to your discussion group. I've skimmed the reviews and am anxious to get started on the book.

Thanks, Pat in Texas

Welcome, Pat!! We are happy to have you join us.

Soon, the reading schedule will be posted. For those of you who like to get a head start, we will be discussing the first 137 pages the first week in June.

When we are reading a novel in sections, we ask readers who are ahead in the reading not to comment on anything that occurs later in the novel. One way to remind yourself what the safe topics for the week are is to put little sticky notes at the divisions.

First little sticky note goes on Page 137.

Maryal

Hey there gang, I am here! Welcome, welcome Pat in Tx and horselover, our fellow reader from the Dante discussion. I read Little Friend a few months back and swore that this one would be the best ever on SNet for discussion. It is so meaty!! There is so many emotional statements and phrases in this story I know we will be jabbering constantly. We are especially blessed to have with us and FOR us, one of the finest discussion leaders that SNet has -- Maryal (the modest one over there in the corner.)

Bring your friends in, your lovers, your not so great famiuly memebers who you can hollar at and join us. As Maryal stated we are off to a running start with the first 137 pages ONLY!!! No fair cheating (this is a hard order for me to follow, myself.) Keep posting in here while our tech team is preparing a new site for our start.

I can't wait to join in discussing The Little Friend with all of you. I've had the book for a while but haven't had an oppotunity to get into it. Her first book was excellent so I'm looking forward to this one. Will begin it as soon as I finish my live book club book for tomorrow night and The Girl in Hyacinth Blue.

Prissy: After reading the Little Friend I went to the library to check out her first book. I enjoyed it but I much preferred Little Friend. I don't know, this book really moved me. The implications that surrounded this child were severe and my heart went out to her.

ALF--now I really can't wait to start it. I just got the new Larry McMurtry book though and have to read it quickly first.

McMurty's easy reading so you should be ready by the first of June. Bring your wit, wisdomn and tears for this discussion. anneof avolon expressed interest in this book but I don't have her email address. Anyone out there who could tell her I'm looking for her to join us? I would appreciate your help.

I don't know her email address, but anneo has been posting in "Last Man Standing." You might leave her a message there.

Andy, I'm dancing, uh reading as fast as I can!

and have the book. Also my e-mail is in my preference page if you need it. Anneo

Thanks anneof- I hope that you will join us. Horselover's dancing and a -prancing to get ready, Ginger will be here, Lorrie, CMac I hope. I'll be meeting her in Ft. Meyers next week so she might change her mind.

Jeryn will be stopping in, Mal, Diane and a couple others that I'm waiting to hear from. I think that this book warrants a good discussion and we are here to accomplish just that!!!!!

Andy, Lenalu, Anneo, Horselover and all. I bought Little Friend today as I like to be able to underline and make notes so I will be here a and hope you will be also.

Alf:

Well, I tell you--I had the book, kept it two weeks, renewed it by phone; all the while it graced my coffee table along with several other books I want to read. Didn't read it.

As someone so aptly said, I have more hay on my fork than I can handle--or as I say, more on my plate than I can eat (and that's a lot!) So while the fit is upon me, I will try and get the library to get the book again for me. If I don't make it to the discussion, I will make it to another one. Sounds like a really great group of participants!!

Sign me: Alibi Ida (alias Lenalu)

I have finished the book and returned it to the library, but I can probably remember it well enough to put it my 2-bits now and again. I found myself equally divided between admiring our little heroine and longing to shake some sense into her! ...Babi

Good to know that you will both be here with us for the reading of this novel.

Lenalu--You are instructed to retreive that book since we will miss you if you do not.

This will be an interesting book for June since there's something summery about childhood, even though our heroine is a very unusual kind of child.

Maryal:

Yes'm. I will be going by library manana. We shall see.

Don't forget to put on your best imploring face at the library. Tell the librarian that hundreds are depending on you getting the book. Nothing like a little exagerration!

She already thinks I'm nutty, I fear, after my trying to tell her about the non-existent(?) abbey at Grasmere and the tup with the hat, et ceteraaaaa. But she's very kind and agrees pleasantly with every thing I say. Hundreds counting on me--yes, that's the ticket, I will tell her that!! I can hardly wait. Yippee!!! hahahahah.

Lenalu~~What can I say? I know Ginny believes that the ruins of that abbey are there, not to mention all the tourists who weren't too cheap to see it. Still, the fact remains that no one seems to have any evidence, apart from hearsay, that such ruins were ever there. Best not to spread stories of its existence though until we do some more checking.

doubting Thomases think my red kangaroo doesnt exist either.i'm telling Ginny hahahahahahahahaha

Sorry Alf will get serious when the play begins. Anneo

Hey that's ok, let's party. I will be back later tomorrow to post some comments about the book, without giving anything away.

There are so many insightful, well-articulated passages in this novel, Maryal and I have agreed to stay with the text instead of posing questions. Many questions and comments will arise as the emotional edge progresses.

We want you to feel comfortable to post any of your own poignant, propelling thoughts, experiences and questions as we follow our Little Friend through the next 500+ pages of growth.

Is everyone here present and accounted for? I am waiting to hear from a couple of more folks that expressed an interest in following Harriet about.

Lenalu! PRESENT! Can you believe it? The book was there on the shelf--waiting for me--now, how could that be? The librarian said it had been on reserve so much the last couple of months and she herself was surprised that it was there--Big book, isn't it? So, thanks, friends. Now, if I don't slow myself up looking up too many of those neat-sounding words...I may can keep up with you-all.

ALF I am here! I've read only the first forty pages, but I already love this family.

Ah, Lenalu, your reading along with us was obviously ordained. So glad that the book was on the shelf. Perhaps we have an intervening angel to thank.

Horselover--Glad that you are already fascinated with this family. I have read just a little further than you have, and I've already been sucked in.

Soon we will begin our discussion. I hope that you all will bring whatever you notice, whatever is special to you, to the table for discussion.

I'm really looking forward to this adventure!

Here!

Well, I read the preface, decided I wanted to read the book, then had to return it to the library. But Lenalu, we must share the same guardian angel because when I figured the time was right to go for another three weeks, there it was - all mine for another three weeks and, if my good fortune continues, will be renewable for another three weeks to see me through the end of the discussion.

Here goes!

Diane! YAY. We must be wearing out those guardian angels!

Hey we have Maryal, Diane, horselover, Lenalou. and moi signed in thus far. Where is everybody? We'll catch up with them shortly. An angel indeed ladies. It's too bad that some angel dust wasn't sprinkled over this family after it became so fractured. We are all going to have to stand with Harriet and get her through the messes she gets herself into. I am so happy to see everyone aboard. The book is long but it is fast paced. I kept stopping to contemplate the wording of many sentences. I love the way Tartt writes. It's emotional and she gets right to the guts of the matter. Reading this I wondered how did she get so deep into each and every character? The characterizations are profound and right on target, I felt.

Alf,

Whoops, you left out three names--Babi, Ginger and Anneo, I do believe; weren't they going to join in also? I hope so.

In the prologue a couple of times, she described the atmosphere, sky and air, so that it made me remember the same things before a rain. Don't know if my description even gets close to what I mean.

Signing in, Andy and Maryal. My daughter brought this book in to me so long ago I thought the discussion would never begin, and I still have a week to wait! I'll be here, though, bright and early June first.

Mal

tomorrow, saturday here, touch of cool weather so will snuggle with my Doona and be ready when you are. Anneo

Malryn and Anneo!! YAY. Celebration time! And yes, Ginger and Babi will be joining us and HATS too, I think.

ER, Anneo, what IS a "Doona"? Suddenly I feel that I am missing something in life. I need a doona, whatever it might be. A baby Roo, perhaps? Some other strange Austrailian animal? A best friend? A comfortor/duvet/puff? Anyway, it has a nice name and sounds snuggly.

And another YAHOO. Sarah is here as well!! Are we going to have some fun or not?

Sarah, bless your heart. I have missed your presence on the boards. Welcome, welcome. Mal, I am very pleased that you'll be joing us, you always add such enlightening information to a discussion.

A doona is what I always say for the final Jeopardy answer. " I dunna."

Sarah

I to am Very Glad to see You again my Friend, are you still doing the Triathons and how are you doing with them?

Doona= Down or feather comforter, sure you have one under another name.

Sure is a great crowd here, looking forward. Anneo

Not a reason in the world to be SORRY. I love learning new words. And I did guess comforter among other things! Doona is a fine word. Do you have any idea where it comes from?

I have put in a request on line for this book from our library system-there are three copies and they are all out! I will try to join this discussion but it will depend if the books come back in and how many other requests there are for the copies. I wonder if this book has been featured on Oprah - if it has there will be no hope of getting it within a year! Last time I requested a book Oprah recommended it took more than a year to get it! LOL. Sounds like a great book anyway from the synopsis above and when I do get it I will enjoy reading it.

Carolyn

Well Carolyn, whether you obtain the book or not, do stop in and give us a shout. We will welcome your comments. Keep bugging your library, sometimes they literally leave "it on the shelf."

Alf our Libraries are all space age when they check the book back in the PC will issue a warning and tell who is next on the list for the book. Its very efficient. I will get an automated email when its my turn.

Carolyn

Doona, is a trademark name,like calling your vacuum cleaner a Hoover. I assume that happens in America, sure does here. We mow our lawns with a Victa, and hang our clothes on a Hills.Always blow our nose on a Kleenex. Anneo

Hey Alf and Maryal,

I'm here and excited. Talk about a Southern literary treat! Donna Tartt is mesmerizing, isn't she? And what a neat group of voices responding. I can tell June is going to be FUN, FUN.

By the way, you may be getting another post from me. I lost it somehow when I was inputing it a while ago. It is floating around somewhere out there in the ethers, I suppose. Pardon the redundancy, should it drift your way.

Pat in Texas

ALF, You are sooo right! You said, "She gets so deep into each and every character." Even in the first forty pages, each character becomes so individualized that I feel as if I've known them for years.

"Horselover" --The thing about this story is that we do KNOW these people. They are a part of our everyday lives. We need readers like you to distinguish these everyday vulnerabilities.

Ah Pat--lost in cyberspace! Glad you posted again so we know that YOU are not lost, just the message. I love novels set in the south because my mother was from North Carolina and used to tell me stories about when she was a little girl. I asked for these stories again and again. We also visited her relatives, most of whom stayed in the South, from time to time. I can almost smell the bushes in my aunt's backyard that we kids used to play in after dark. And the fireflies! They were everywhere. I was from Chicago and had never seen so many fireflies.

June will indeed be a fine month for us all!

Maryal had you ever seen a tupelo tree, such as the tree in our story?

Tupelo trees grow in my part of North Carolina. The largest one in the state is in Lassiter Swamp in Merchants Millpond State Park in Gates County. The base of the trunk is often very wide like swamp Cyresses.

Speaking of trees, a plant with big leaves popped up outside the living area windows of this apartment addition to my daughter's house. Because of the big leaves, I thought it was an Elephant Ear plant and yapped at my daughter to cut it down because I knew it would swallow up the space and ruin the ivy I had planted there. If you know Elephant Ear plants, you know that you don't just cut them down, you dig out all the roots, and if you're very lucky they won't come back.

Well, this one came back and came back; then suddenly began to grow very tall. It's now sixty feet tall, and its leaves are a canopy over the boardwalk from my deck which leads to my car. This Spring my daughter and I saw dark lavender blossoms at the top of it, and she realized what we have here is a Paulonia tree. Paulonia trees are native to China, and the wood is often used by the Japanese for making boxes and woodcarving. They seed themselves apparently and love soil that is not well-nourished. It seems I have a treasure here, and isn't that a surprise!

Mal

Thanks, Alf, Maryal and Ginger. Yes, I'm stil doing triathlons (for charity) - in fact, I'm going to be a mentor for a group training for one this summer! Summer camp for grownups, I call it!

Maryal - ahhh, fireflies! One of my biggest disappointments about California (since moving from New York nearly 50 years ago) is the lack of fireflies. You'd think someone could import a few?

Mal - loved your story about the Paulonia tree - it sounds just lovely. And to think how hard you tried to get rid of it! Reminds me of a "volunteer" tree that popped up in our yard in Los Angeles many years ago. I guess the first clue that it wasn't just a new weed was that it grew enormously quickly and grabbed our curiosity. The thing grew into a fair-sized tree fairly quickly and still we didn't know what it was. Birds were, no doubt, its means of getting there. We finally did identify it as some kind of Australian tree but by then had become accustomed to referring to it as the "mystery tree". I don't remember much about it but it really was a good-looking tree and we enjoyed its mystery arrival and identity.

That sounds like a wondrous tree you have there. I suggest that you immediately go into the wooden box making business. Wait a sec--I guess that would involve harming the tree in order to get the wood. Thank you for that excellent description.

I'm interested that you also have tupelo trees in North Carolina. I'm not that far north (Maryland) and I have no idea if we have any around here. I'm going to have to look the tree up on the internet so I can see what it looks like. I wish I knew the names of more trees and plants. For years I loved the redbud best of all our spring blooming plants and bushes and didn't know its name.

Maryal - I don't remember ever knowing what a redbud tree was until we moved up here a year ago. Redbuds abound and they are breathtaking! It's sometimes hard not to drive off the road as I gaze at a particularly striking one. Wouldn't you think they could have done a better job of naming them? So undescriptive.

Indeed I do think the plant deserves a better name than "redbud." I was terribly disappointed when I found out its name. And they can be so beautiful that you can forget you are driving a vehicle. I love the laciness (lacyness?) of them and how their flowers go down the branches. In the DC area, they have a lot of competition, but they are still my favorites. Magnolias are fine, but they are just such show-offs. There's something magnificently subtle about the redbud.

Great description, Maryal. Yes, the flowers just cover the whole tree, it seems - I've never seen anything like it. And to think that if we hadn't moved here I might never have known a redbud - gasp!

I can get a little carried away talking about dogwood trees, too - maybe it's a good thing our discussion on Little Friend is about to take over!

Hi Andy and Everyone. I'm here as promised. Speaking of trees our prettiest trees here in NJ are the Brandford Pears that appear in early Spring. Right now our Dogwood are just bursting. Andy it is cold up here. Should have stayed with you........

Pleased as punch to see you reporting in. Our pears around here are lovely too as are the dogwoods. But they are all gone now. Even the azaleas that are in shady places have bloomed. Now it's up to all the gardeners in the area to provide us with summer flowers. It's been cold here in Maryland too. And rainy. I'm thinking it might be time to build an ark.

Does anyone remember the significance of this tupalo (sour gum) tree in the novel? I bet she's talking about the water tupelo which can reach a height of 100 ft. It grows in swamps and our novel is set in Mississippi.

Tupelo wood is heavy, hard, and strong. Its close, uniform texture and interlocked grain, which prevent splintering under heavy wear, make it useful for factory floors and platforms. It is also used for box boards, crates, baskets, pulpwood, and furniture.

"Tupelo (tree)," Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 2000.

And here, folks, is a photo of a tupelo tree complete with a set-in of its fall folliage. Nice looking tree, but the one in our novel has more unpleasant happenings associated with it.

Go to http://www.rosevilleelectric.org/residential/shade_trees/tupelo.htm

to see a Tupelo tree.

Drats, Maryal. The link didn't work for me. Empty document!

It works for me. Maybe I can find another one.

Swamp Tupelo trees, Alcovy River, Georgia

Tupelo gum swamp

Both of those URLs came right up for me. Thank you ladies.

Ominous looking sites aren't they?

Indeed, anneo, creepy and creepy sets just the right tone for the beginning of our reading.

Buckle your seatbelts, fellow adventurers and detectives, in less than a week from tomorrow, we begin!

Maryal

Here I am again expecting to comment on one topic and getting carried away with another. You all are too interesting.

I was suprised to see how widespread the redbud seems. The dictionary says it's Oklahoma's state tree. I know they grew out in West Texas where I grew up. They are hardy and prolific here in Austin. I have two in my yard.

Thanks, Malryn, for the tupelo tree site. Donna Tartt refers to the one in the book as the black tupelo. Wonder if it's the same tree? Somehow 'black' tupelo sounds more ominous.

Now to my original reason for the post. I consider Donna Tartt a phenomenal southern writer ranking in the company of Eudora Welty, Harper Lee, and Horton Foote (although he's from Texas). I was shocked to read in the dust cover info that Donna Tartt's writing can be compared with 'the adventurous literature of Stevenson, Kipling, and Conan Doyle'. I suppose she does compare with these earlier, more formal writers in her ability to plot and characterize, but don't you think of Scout and Boo Radley when you read about Harriet and Hely?

Pat in Texas

I think Tartt far surpasses most writers of today. She has that knack of throwing one of those"gut-punches" on every other page. It is one of those statements that makes me put a book down and actually ponder and reflect. It has been a long time since I've read a story that did that as well as make me laugh and cry so much. Do you think that i should try ONE more time to get her in here to discuss the book with us? Perhaps I could email the publisher. snail mail letter to be forwarded obviously did not work.

Another not so sunny day in New Jersey. Guess we will not have our parade. I agree with you Maryal we will soon need an ark. Wish we could store it ( the rain not the ark) for the summer and then use it to water our lawns when we have a draught. I must run to the library to pick up the book as I had to return it when I hopped off to Florida. Hopefully it will be there. It is a large book and I think I read about a quarter of it before my arms began to ache. Eager to join and not just lurk.......Andy

From what I have read about Tartt--there was an article in Time or Newsweek a while back--she keeps pretty much to herself. She doesn't seem to be one to spend any time "puffing" her book. Authors are, as you all know, encouraged to make book tours, read at bookstores, appear for interviews, etc. in order to promote sales. Some authors just hate this. One city today, another tomorrow. Lots of book signing and being charming to strangers.

I have a good friend who is an author. She did a little of the publicizing and then told me that readings in four places was enough for her. It wore her out, took time away from her writing, and generally was counterproductive.

Pat in TX--I don't understand the comparison to Kipling and Stevenson at all. Tartt is certainly in the group you name, along with a number of others. And yes, Scout and Boo come immediately to mind. Maybe, as you suggest, the writer was referring to the ability to plot, to put in much and write well. Who knows why people write what they do about books?

CMac--Raining here still too. Your idea of storing all this water until we really need it is an excellent one! Get out those barrels! Every once in a while it gets a little lighter in the west, and then--more rain.

Malryn--Thanks for the tupelo trees. Yes, I think black tupelo sounds much more ominous. I wonder if it is a specific variety of tuperlo. Or perhaps just an adjective used to describe the dark wood of this particular tree? I'm guessing here as you can see.

Misty Maryal

I've read about sixty pages, and the whole world of the Cleves has come wonderfully alive. Can't wait to discuss some of the eternal questions the author raises through her fabulous characters.

and Kipling is about the cross generational thing, and maybe it will also become a classic.Not many writers can attract the adolescent and the senior in the one book.Comparing to Harper Lee, well she will need to be good, that is in my mind, (to Kill a Mockingbird) the greatest modern day classic.

All right horselover. Let's kibbitz behind the scenes. They'll sneak up on us later.

Clare, you imp, don't get lost on the way to the library.

Here's part of the Encyclopedia Britannica's definition of the "tree in question."

The most widely distributed member in North America is the black tupelo (Nyssa sylvatica), also known as black gum, sour gum, or pepperidge tree. It grows in woods and moist areas from Maine southward to the Gulf Coast and westward to Oklahoma. This tree typically grows to a height of 60 feet (18 m) and occasionally attains a height of 100 feet (30 m). It is sometimes grown as an ornamental and is prized for the brilliant scarlet autumnal foliage. A variety of the black tupelo called the swamp black tupelo (N. sylvatica, variety biflora) grows in swamps along the East coast and in the Deep South.

There's a good photo at the Encyclopedia site which I will attempt to put a link to here: http://search.eb.com/eb/article?eu=75726&tocid=0&query=black%20tupelo&ct=

If the link doesn't work, go to the Enc. Brit. and type "black tupelo" into the search field.

Still on my way to the Library. A few obsticles on the way.......Holidays, Dentists, husband needs, etc.

Still raining.

Still raining here too, and the nine-day forecast is not encouraging. Do you remember the drought of several years ago?

I'm spending the morning reading The Little Friend, and I am enchanted. Fragments--so much has to do with fragments.

I have read the first hundred or so pages and can hardly wait for the discussion to commence because, as a natural mimic, I am already looking for ways to include "incandescent" in sentences so complex that commas are inadequate; where semicolons are in demand--or even dashes--to guide the reader through a maze of clauses; and enhance his comprehension of both the sentence and the family it describes.

Well HUZZAH and welcome in from the course, Golfer John!

It will be fine having you in the company. I too long for sentences that need semicolons now and again. And sentences that connect disparate details that all serve to illuminate the meaning. This writer can write!

Maryal

Welcome aboard John. I think that a man's point of view here will add a great deal to this discussion. I hope that I am more proficient in facillitating a discussion than I am in putting and chipping this week.

http://www.purpleglitter.com/donna_tartt/

http://www.purpleglitter.com/donna_tartt/gallery.html

Has some very nice photos.

horselover--Great minds! I was looking at that site today. There is interesting information on it and good photos too. Donna Tartt is only five feet tall which means that I am nearly a foot taller.

Purple Glitter, what a wonderful site. Thank you horselover for bringing it to our attention. Maryal had just mentioned to me how much DT loved Stevenson and I wondered how she could know of that. I would love to copy her "take" on Little Friend being a scary book about children being introduced into the frightening world of adults. What a great explanation of this wonderful story.
I assume that these tour dates are from 2002, is that correct?
I was quite impressed with her bio; imagine her first poem at 5 yrs. old-- speaking of precocious children...
Oh goodness, can we get someone to put that link in the heading? It's full of information about Tartt.
I wasn't too fond of the message board but...

Maryal, I feel a kinship with Tartt, since at 5'3", I have always been a petite size. Are you really almost six feet tall? How wonderful! I would love to be tall and willowy.

horselover--I am 5'11" (still, although expecting to shrink any moment). Daughter is 5'10"; son is 6'5". And I, of course, have always wanted to be short and delicate.

However, it really is nice for reaching high shelves and distant objects. I've always liked being tall, except for when I was taller than all the boys in my class except one in grade school.

I'm not as tall as you are, horselover, and never have been. My former husband was over six feet tall; I have one son 6'2", the other is 6'3", my daughter is nearly 5'9" and her son, my North Carolina grandson, is an easy 6'4". I feel no affinity with Donna Tartt because she is short.

She certainly knows a lot about drugs and alcohol, as represented in The Secret History, her first book. I read that her grandfather, one of the people who raised her, gave her whiskey and codeine as medicine when she was growing up. In the past I was known to ease pain with alcohol, so we have that in common, I guess. Other than that, I don't see much in common with her, even though I live in the South and recognize much she writes about in this book.

I have read the book, but promise to keep to the page schedule as posted here. The first of June can't come soon enough for me, especially since we've had a much cooler than usual, very rainy, dreary, gloomy month of May.

Mal

I'm here. I just finished with the discussion of "Girl in Hyacinth Blue". Got "Little Friend" this morning and can't wait to start it. It looks like this discussion has been going on for quite a while now. Thanks for the links. The tupelo trees look ominous. Kind of like the cyprus trees I saw in the Dismal Swamp in North Carolina.

Donna Tartt's site looks fascinating. Guess I'll be spending some time there following the links and finding out about her.

Nancy

Mal, Some years ago, codeine was a common ingredient in non-prescription cough medicines. It's only relatively recently that it was made a prescription drug because underage kids were medicating themselves by swallowing bottles of cough syrup. These cough syrups also often contained alcohol.

Did you say you were taller or shorter than 5'3"? Actually, I wish I could write like Tartt even if it meant being only five feet tall.

We just finished reading "The Dante Club," where Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, who was shorter than all his friends and colleagues, was always trying to make himself look taller. And studies show that taller people get more attention and make more money. I'm not sure what all this means.

Welcome, Nancy! Not to worry. We have not been discussing the reading itself, just sort of clearing our throats. Preparing our duffle bags, packing our flashlights, making picnic lunches.

Mal--Ah yes, we've had rain and overcast skies here--until today--for what seems like forever. Someone at work told me today that we had not had a day without some overcast skies since sometime back in April!

As to Tartt's grandfather and his treatment of young Donna, I believe that it was cough medicine with codeine that he doctored her with. Apparently she was quite ill, not to mention in a fog, when she was very young. She does a good job, I think, when she goes into one of her "dreamy" writing passages, perhaps because she remembers that floaty feeling from long ago. I haven't read The Secret History, but there seems to be quite a following for it. I'm glad you're ready to go.

OK, fellow travellers, pack those knapsacks and duffle bags. We are about ready to hit the road!

horselover, I never was taller than five feet two in my life. I am just over five feet tall now.

I wish I'd bookmarked the site. It was a quote by Donna Tartt in which she said her grandfather's remedy for anything wrong with her was whiskey and codeine. That resulted, she said, in some strange ideas and impressions when she was very young. I'll see if I can find it again and link the article here.

Mal

Thanks, Mal. Perhaps he gave her whiskey AND cough medicine with codeine! I remember reading that he believed in medicine! Nothing like those old home remedies.

"The romance of death has deep roots for Tartt. In a brief memoir that appeared in Harper's just before the publication of The Secret History, she described her 'Southern gothic childhood' in vivid detail. Born to parents who were 'neither able nor inclined' to deal with an infant, she was raised by her great-aunts and grandparents, and a great-grandfather who treated her frequent ailments with glasses of whiskey and 'massive doses' of codeine cough syrup. 'Between the fever and the whiskey and the codeine,' she writes, 'I spent nearly two years of my childhood submerged in a pretty powerfully altered state of consciousness.' Her great-grandfather believed that her sickliness was a sign that she would soon be 'gathered swiftly to the Lord'; on one bad night, she overheard him say to her mother, 'I'm afraid that poor child won't live to see the morning.'

"It is no surprise that Tartt, too, was possessed by the idea that she would meet an early grave. Delirious with fever and drugs, she suffered terrible nightmares:
" 'The very worst dream of all still frightens me to think of, even though it is years since I last dreamed it. In it, a set of country-club types--smartly dressed, around what would have then been my parents' age--are gathered, cocktails in hand, around a barbecue grill. They are snickering with jaded amusement as one of their number--a handsome, caddish-looking fellow--holds a howling Persian cat over the barbecue, pushing its feet into the flames.... Though it was never quite clear exactly who these people were, it was obvious to me that what they were doing was Devil worship ... and that what I had glimpsed were only the more innocent, preliminary stages of the ritual. Unimaginable horrors lay beyond. Which set me thinking, as I lay back trembling in bed after Mother had come and gone, about Devils, and Hell, and all the bad things there were in the world, and what was really going to happen to me after I died, and I would start to scream again....'
"The demon of this nightmare--all the bad things there are in the world, and what really happens after we die--has pursued Tartt well into adulthood."

MORE

The material I read had the cough syrup but omitted the whiskey.

A warning to all readers. Mal's article (from The New Republic) has details that refer to things that happen in the novel. What in the movie review business are known as "spoilers."

So, read at your own risk. Those of you who like reviews and don't mind knowing a little about the plot won't be bothered. Those of you who are like my daughter--who won't even read the inside cover of the book jacket because she wants to be totally informed by the book itself--had best read only the part Mal quoted above.

Maryal

Welcome fellow readers. If you get a chance look over the links that were provided- ver-r-r-y interesting.

Maryal and I are so pleased to see such a group of bright, eager readers-- ready to get started. If it were up to me, we'd start tomorrow. Get your books, kick off your shoes and sit back. I think we are going to have a wild ride with this multi-dimensional Cleve family.

Present and accounted for!

I was stunned to learn of these incidents in Donna Tartt's childhood. It's a wonder the woman is sane.

I remember my grandmother telling me of being ill with some serious illness as a child, either scarlet fever or, worse, diphtheria. They were out in the country at the time, with little available in those days in the way of medicine and medical care. Her treatment included a teaspoon of whiskey 2-3 times a day. It was considered to be 'strengthening'. She did survive, obviously; whether the whiskey helped or not I have no idea. ...Babi

I don't know, whiskey has long been used for medicinal purposes. Of course to listen to my daughters take on it, that's why there are so many alcoholics in today's society. I disagree. Moderation is the key to good, healthy living. Damn- I wish I couldpractice what I preach.

Welcome Babi, we're delighted you are here with us. You always lend a "down to earth" understanding when we discuss a novel.

MAL, Sounds as if Tartt made a trip to Dante's Inferno.

Perhaps an abnormal childhood provides the material for great writing.

I had a terrible childhood, a life-threatening illness at the age of 7, being taken from my mother at that time and given to someone else, death around me -- including that of my mother when I was barely 12 -- among other things. It certainly helped make me write, often just to heal myself and purge myself of trauma.

There is no way of knowing if anything I write is great, but I am prolific; have written 12 novels since 1996, a total of 13. There was a gap of 14 years between the first book and the second. There's rarely a day in my life when I don't write. Much stimulus has come for me from the people in the Writers Exchange WREX here in SeniorNet and their encouragement, comments and critiques.

My computer failed completely last Monday, and at the moment we are trying to get me access to the books and numerous short stories I've written because I'm locked out of those files. They are, at least, on this computer. This new computer has a CD writer, and the first thing I'll do when I can get to my writing is put everything I've written on CD's. After all, the writing I've done and the pictures I've painted are the only legacy I have for my two sons and daughter, who keep reminding me I'll be 75 years old in a month. That's traumatic, too, and will probably lead me to write another book.

Mal

Hello everyone! I can't wait to join in this discussion and have been busy reading the book so I won't fall behind on the schedule. I'm one of the supporters of Donna Tartt's first book THE SECRET HISTORY and have looking forward to reading this new one.

I'm 54 and I remember my dad fixing me a bottle of cough medicine that was a combination of whiskey, honey, and lemon juice to take with me to kindergarten in case my cough got bad. He'd give me doses of it in the middle of the night when I'd wake up coughing. He was also a firm believer in paragoric for stomach aches, which I had a lot of as a child. I don't think paragoric is as easy to get now as it once was and is a lot more powerful that was realized when I was a child. It's been so long since I've thought about these "home remidies" and wonder if they are still in use today.

I read the New Republic review of The Little Friend. I was struck by the author's views on black/white relationships expressed in the book. I live in the South, in Louisiana, and, unfortunately, race relations in the South haven't improved to the extent we would hope for since the Civil Rights Movement. I'm constantly appalled by the racism still prevalent here. It was just a few years ago that a black man was dragged by a white man's truck to his death in Jasper, TX.

Another note on race relations: There is a town about an hour drive from my home, Vidor, TX, where blacks are "encouraged" not to move into. The majority of people that I come into contact with on a daily basis still use the "n" work for refering to blacks. I cringe everytime I hear it and make my feelings known but it doesn't seem to do much in the way of changing anyone's habits.

Mal--I'm sure you have some more books left in you! You made me laugh when you said that turning 75 would be enough trauma to produce another one.

Prissy--Ah yes, we will be dealing with race relations. Your contributions will be much appreciated. Mal lives in North Carolina so she will likely have some imput on that as well.

Everybody burn those pages. We are set to TAKEOFF tomorrow.

Maryal

Prissy, Those remedies are still in use. Tea with honey and lemon are always popular, sometimes with brandy. Cough syrup with codeine and paragoric now require a doctor's prescription.

Mal, I wasn't aware that SN had a Writers Exchange WREX. Tell me more about it.

horselover, I brought the Writers Exchange WREX to SeniorNet Online from SeniorNet on AOL a few years ago at Marcie's request. We are a group of senior writers who exchange and critique our work every two weeks. Each submittal is considered for publication in my electronic magazines, the WREX Magazine or Sonata magazine for the arts. The WREX Magazine contains only the writing of members of WREX. Sonata contains work by authors of all ages from all over the world who do not have to be members of WREX.

Come visit the WREX discussion in the Writing, Language and Word Play folder here in SeniorNet; tell me you're there, and I'll tell you more about it. I'm the leader of this group, and have been for several years. Some of us have been published electronically and in hard copy; others are beginners who hope to publish their work.

Thanks, Andrea and Maryal, for letting me plug WREX here in this discussion.

Mal

You're welcome, Mal. Anything to promote writing. Smile

Malryn,

I was so pleased to see your post about the Writers Exchange. I am interested in joining, but (how dumb is this?) don't know how to send email with attachments. I think I have to know this before I can submit. So glad there are other writers in this group. I'm a fledgling at this point, but really want to write more.

Is there a source within Senior Net that addresses specific email problems?

Pat in Texas

We will plug WREX whenever we can for you Mal. I always enjoy reading it and I think that your encouragement of others is admirable. Pat, please send an email to Mal and she will instruct you. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Shall we begin the discussion of this wonderful novel? Maryal and I have chosen NOT to post questions in the header (this will be a first in books) as we think the novel raises more important, social and personal interpretations than we could. Let us know what you think.

Most of us have lived long enough to know the unbearable pain that besieges a family when they lose a child and many of you have experienced this horror, first hand.

Today we are introduced to the Cleve family who has experienced the overwhelmingly tragic loss of their beloved child, Robin. The first character we meet is Charlotte Cleve, the mother who "would blame herself for her son's death" for numerous reasons- none of which were valid. I referred to her, as I read this novel as shattered Charlotte and I fear her fractured psyche will never mend.

When Robin is found hanging by the neck from the tupelo tree the lives of the entire Cleve family are changed, forever.

Like the black, angry smoke that poured from the kitchen window the menacing question arises for each one of them; The haunting question -what could I have done to prevent this? Was this my fault? Why do survivors always assume the guilt?

Did you feel that the ME carefully scrutinized this child's body? If everyone thought he was a victim of foul play, why didn't it warrant a more thorough investigation?

I think there is not a thorough investigation because something is being kept a secret. Someone knows something. The day Robin was murdered Baby Harriet was in the yard and Allison. I think the aunts were inside the house. I think Allison saw someone that day. Whatever she saw, it is stored in the recesses of her mind, in her subconscious. The whole day is just too frightening for her to remember.

Harriet is smart enough to give Allison a pen and pad to write down her dreams. This little girl is so smart. At first, I thought that it would be impossible for a little child to be this smart. But sometimes a child's innocence will lead them to ask and say what we as adults are too "smart" to say or think. After all, we are grownups. Our grownup status can sometimes block our minds. We lose the freedom to be real.

As a child, Harriet owns what we lose as adults. I believe most children have this extra sense. This is why we love and admire them.

MAL, Thanks sooo much for the info on WREX. I would love to join. I have been writing since I was about ten years old. I even had some short stories published in magazines devoted to that form which were around when I was in college, but which unfortunately no longer exist in today's over-commercialized magazine marketplace. That's why your efforts to create a place where writers can exchange ideas is wonderful.

ALF, I think survivors always feel guilty because there are always things that could have been done differently, and we tend to believe that, if we had done something else, the end result would have been changed.

HATS, Harriet is obviously extremely intelligent. The way children like her can get to the heart of things is not the result of innocence alone. It is also the result of an innate honesty in the way children face the mysteries of life. We see this everywhere in the pages we've read so far. The adults have accepted whatever explanations and stories that ease their pain, but the children, especially those like Harriet, are still seeking answers to the unanswered questions.

Prissy, we must live in the same general area. I know about Vidor, unfortunately. There are these little geographical pockets around where confirmed racists like to congregate with their own kind. When I was with the Texas Bureau of Long Term Care, working as a nursing home inspector, we had to stop sending our African-American (Black was the politically correct term then)team members to the Vidor area after one of nurses was threatened and terrorized. I am happy to say, however, that I encountered very little of this among my co-workers anywhere I worked. What I did find was residuals of cynicism, anger and mistrust (perfectly understandable)with some African-Americans, however well they might get along in the team. I therefore found myself recognizing and understanding the responses of the two Afr.Amer. maids in the story.

In the investigation of Robin's death, there seemed to be a strong desire to distance it from any association with the community. It either had to be an accident, or the act of some transient passing through. It seemed as though even the police officials did not want to consider the possibility that someone local was involved. Given that there had been no incident like this before, nor any in the 12 years since, they could be right. ..Babi

I am late coming in because my daughter came in to try and retrieve and restore more from my computer which died just about a week ago. Because of a new and different operating system in this new computer, compatibility issues had to be addressed before programs I use all the time could be reinstalled. I hope this never happens to you, and if it does, I hope you have as good in-house technical help as I do. If I'd had to pay for the new computer my New York son sent to me and the help I've received from Dorian and her computer genius partner, I'd wouldn't be posting now, tomorrow, or next month.

The Little Friend. What an intriguing title. I understand that the working title for this book was "Tribulation", the name of the Cleve family estate, which was now a thing of the past. In ways, I think that would have been a better title for this book. Tribulation describes what the Cleve family went through after the estate was no more, as well as describing the bleak history of the South after the Civil War, the effects of which are still felt by many Southerners today.

I think it's common for people to feel guilt when someone dies. "Oh, I wish I had taken her out more before she died." "Why didn't I buy him the gift I thought about giving him instead of spending the money to go to Nashville that weekend?" In this case, the death is so horrible that there's even more reason to feel guilt, don't you think?

The town in which this novel takes place is a little, sleepy Southern one. I figure the time to be around the mid-70's. Tartt tells us that the pediatrician who examined the body spoke to the medical examiner from the state who had looked the county coroner's report before he made his determination that Robin died of strangulation, not a broken neck. How could he know this without making an observation and ordering a post mortem of the body? All he had to go on was a piece of paper on which somebody else wrote. Things then were not what they are today. I was suspicious about the medical examiner's report when I first read this part of the book, and wondered at that time if there really had been a killer.

I don't think anyone is hiding anything. I think the reactions are typical. Charlotte, the mother, is distraught ( who wouldn't be? ) and has been medicated almost into insensibility. If Allison saw anything, she has blanked it out of her mind. It is said that Edie, the grandmother, has hardened herself to the point of being stone. After all, Robin was her very favorite grandchild. Dix, the father, who doesn't live with his family anyway, says, "What's happened has happened, let's get on with it." Harriet was too young to have remembered anything, and is so full of curiosity that all she can think of is finding the murderer, even if there wasn't one. The town is horrified by the death of this little boy, and more or less shuns the Cleves. If they get too close, something like that might happen to them.

All of these reactions seem typical and quite normal to me, frankly. What is not normal is the fact that twelve years after Robin's tragic death, there is no sign of recovery in this family. By keeping Robin alive through memory and never mentioning or really acknowledging his death, they have stood still in that terrible time and place.

In some ways, this reminds me of some Southerners I know who have never recovered from losses, both personal and financial, suffered in the Civil War. In a very few pages, Tartt has captured the essence of a Southern family and the South itself. The reader hopes at this point that the promise of this book will be fulfilled by the time he or she reaches the last chapter and reads the last page.

Mal

Hats--Yes, Harriet is sure one smart girl. She is way beyond her age and really likes being the "boss" in the games. Did you notice the games she has the boys (they seem to be all boys) playing? Harriet always takes the best part. And it seems to me that Allison is, as you suggest, deeply affected by what she might have seen that day. Doesn't she take on when the old cat, Weenie, dies?

horselover--I agree with you on survivor's guilt. Almost everyone who has lost a loved one seems to feel it. In thinking about what we could have should have done, we satisfy a deep need in ourselves to feel POWER (at least that's what I think is going on--I'm no shrink). By thinking about how we might have acted differently and thus prevented the tragedy, we give ourselves a whole lot more power over events than we actually have. I really believe in step one: We admitted we were powerless over _______ you fill in the blank, and our lives had become unmanageable. Charlotte's life is certainly only semiconscious as she continues to depend on drugs to ease her pain. She is an ineffective mother.

I have a question for you all to think about: What is the present time of the novel? There are clues here and there, but Tartt keeps them to a real minimum. Guesses?

Maryal

Maryal, we posted at about the same time. In my post #163 I said that I think the novel takes place in the mid-70's. There are clues about this in the book, such as the mention of the "Who".

Mal

Hi, Mal--We were posting at the same time. I know what you mean about the pricelessness of having in-house computer help. I'm so sorry that all the incompatibility has to be worked out, but glad to hear that you will be able to recover your programs and files.

{OT: We have new telephones at work with programming buttons I've never even heard of. I just met my new phone this week, and promptly broke it. Now it won't ring. A little message on the screen at the top tells me that calls have been blocked. To my knowledge, I did nothing to disable anything. AAAARGH. Anyway, I had to talk to the telephone service rep from our secretary's phone. She said they would send someone over as soon as possible. The system is so complicated that they couldn't tell me what to do. I hate phones}

Please tell us your evidence for guessing the mid-70s for the date of the novel. Evidence in the novel, that is.

Maryal

Mal---mention of the WHO? You've lost me. Other clues? Remember, don't go beyond p. 137.

The Who was a 70's Rock band. That may be farther along in the book. On Page 90 there is mention of the soap opera, "Dark Shadows". That was on TV 1966 to 1971.

Mal

Ah, yes. "Dark Shadows." I vaguely remember that program. It had quite a following, including Allison and Ida Rhew who have to catch all the episodes. Did you notice that when Allison goes to school, she misses programs and the first thing Ida does when Allison gets home is give her a synopsis?

The ROCK GROUP! I kept trying to remember when the World Health Organization was founded! Heh.

Very good. Other hints about the time period? Anyone?

MAL, You questioned how the coroner's report arrived at the cause of death. "Strangulation" refers to the behavior of one person placing one or two hands around the neck of another person and squeezing or applying other pressure. This can kill. It also leaves distinctive markings on the neck which are different from those left by a hanging. Strangulation also creates petechial hemorrhages in the eyes. These indications of strangulation can be observed without a full post mortem. Therefore, I think there probably was cause to suspect foul play.

As for the perpetrator--someone local or a transient--the talk of a "Mysterious Prowler" is similar to those cases where the killer claims his family was murdered by a "gang of hippies," or a "wooley-haired stranger." As BaBi said, this is a way to "distance it from any association with the community." It also means it could not have been someone who looks like me.

Hats, I agree, everytime that little Allison is approached about that day she has a tendency to "relapse" into silence or sleep. I think Mal hit the nail on the head when she describes Allison as literally "blanking things out of her mind." I feel as if she has deliberately inflicted a form of amnesia upon herself so that she can better cope with what it is she witnessed. Maryal reminds us of how she reacted with such histrionics when Weenie had to be put to sleep. Didn't you think that perhaps this was a form of transference. She became so depressed and verbalized that she wished she could be the "dead one." That scares me when I hear that from a child- scares me to death.

Hats, I love that thought you presented "As a child, Harriet owns what we lose as adults." Do you mean that kids are more genuine and unpretentious ? Horselover defines it as an "innate honesty."

Racial issues are very strong throughout this novel which takes place in Mississippi. For some reason I felt that this story took place earlier than the 70's Mal. I thought it was a novel set in the 60's, but you present a valid argument against that.

Guilt can be defined as a bad conscience over responsibility. I have lived feeling this culpability first hand and will always wonder if I was somehow derelict in my duty to my best friend, in her suicide. That was in 1968 and to this day I question myself,feeling self-condemnation and self-reproach. IF I had said this or that to her; If I had listened instead of hollaring at her; IF,IF,IF-- could I have saved her? I can not even begin to imagine the guilt and regret I would endure if it had been my child. Mothers are alert caretakers, responsible and always there to "fix things." My heart breaks for shattered Charlotte.

Our 3 year old grandson drowned in 1987 and I also witnessed what that tragedy did to his parents. They are now divorced and the chasm will never be closed, nor will they ever be the same.

horselover, I'm sure everything you say is correct, but I see nothing in what Ms Tartt has written which suggests that there is clear-cut evidence of strangulation. The investigator told the sheriff it was his "opinion" Robin couldn't have tied the knots himself. The pediatrician, who spoke to the medical examiner from the state who had examined the county coroner's report, said he thought Robin did not die of a broken neck. Admittedly, I am a non-trusting skeptic, but this reminds me of that game where someone whispers a short phrase in the ear of one person who repeats it to the next and on down the line. By the time this phrase reaches the last person, it is garbled and almost unrecognizable. I see nothing here which tells me a person with the kind of expertise needed to make a determination about strangulation had examined the boy. We'll see, when they find a murder suspect.

Harriet was a precocious and imaginative child from the time she was a toddler, apparently. She's very bright, and what she reads influences her point-of-view. She also, unlike some of the numbed-to-inaction Cleves family, feels the need to find out what happened. Though she never knew her brother, he has become a big part of her life. She refuses to dismiss him as just a beautiful memory, and she acknowledges more than anyone else that something terrible had happened here.

She has to know. Her lack of paralysis in the midst of people who are so traumatized that they can't or won't do anything, either to solve this mystery or take revenge, spurs her on. I like her a lot, but am sure she's going to stick her neck out too far.

And who's to stop her? No mother, no father, some ineffectual aunts and an officious, not overtly caring grandmother, Ida's the closest thing to a caring guardian Harriet and Allison have.

Mal

I went to the Library to retrieve the book a second time as I return it because I was going on vacation and it was not renewable. Guess what...Icouldn't get into the Libray because they are enlargeing the parking lot so it was closed and is not open on Sunday sooo I have to wait until tomorrow. I did get to read the first two chapters. Am enjoying the discussion. As for the guilt of losing a child, I have a friend who came East and left her 12 year old son back in Illinois with a neighbor and when she returned she found him dead with a bullet wound in his head and the bullet in the wall. They never knew whether it was suicide or murder as some things were missing and only the dog will ever know but oh the guilt that family and the neighbor have been through.

Hi All, What an amazing beginning for our discussion. I know this is a bit off task, but Dr. Phil did a wonderful program last week on the topic of loss and guilt. I found it very insightful. I believe his address is drphil.com. He said he would post the info from the discussion on the web for anyone who's interested.

Now to the book. The Cleve method of coping with Robin's death is so familiar. I think everyone I knew growing up made use of denial just to get through the day. Those who didn't drank or had 'nervous breakdowns'. Everyone in that time was terrified: the Great Depression, the awful killer flu epidemic, tuberculosis, polio, World War II. There were so many monsters lurking in the dark. Adults felt very little control over their lives. My mother's favorite saying was, 'Just don't think about it and it will go away.'

As an only child growing up in this 'heads in the sand' environment, I was filled with unanswered questions. Being left to find answers on my own was terrifying. I remember having nightly stomaches and terrible nightmares. Like everything else, bad dreams could not be discussed because 'they might come true'. All these memories came to mind when Allison could not tell Harriet her dream 'because it might come true'.

Allison and Harriet seem to me perfect examples of the 'Fight or Flight' syndrome. Harriet fights, Allison escapes in sleep.

The Fight or Flight syndrome runs rampant throughout the Cleve family. Daddy flees physically and through alcohol, Charlotte, like her own father before her, escapes through medication. Ida Rhew is the one person in the house who is in touch with her own feelings. She is a godsend for Harriet.

The aunts seem to handle their grief by blocking out large portions of their psyches. (They bring to mind 'The Three Faces Of Eve'.)Add the four together and they would make one beautifully integrated person. The one commonality they have is their discomfort where Harriet is concerned. She seems to be a reminder of all the things they want so desperately to forget. Allison, on the other hand, is quiet, sweet, withdrawn, easy to be around, for everyone but Edie, that is. Allison seems to remind Edie of all she's blocked out.

The aunts seem to deal with Harriet by dividing their time with her into their own areas of comfort: Edie handles her misbehavior and shows her independence, Libby consoles her, Tat fills her mind and imagination with the the stuff of books mixed with a healthy dose of fantasy, and Adelaide demonstrates organization and cleanliness. And none of them let her spend the night.

The shock of seeing whatever Allison saw when Robin died seems to be the basis of her problems. She was a happy, effervescent child until that day. When her mother found her on the walk after Robin went missing she sat, thumb in mouth, rocking and humming to herself. She had turned off.

Lord, how I do run on! Please forgive this interminable post. I promise to be briefer in future.

Pat in Texas

Pat (you there in Texas!)--You go on just as long as you want. You put something together for me, several things actually. I loved what you said about Allison and Harriet providing "flight or fight." I wouldn't have thought of their behavior in those terms, but they are "spot on" as my daughter's best friend from England sometimes says.

Mal--Harriet's closest relationship does seem to be with Ida Rhew, the maid. The scenes between them so far have reminded me strongly of the girl in "Member of the Wedding" whose name just won't come to me as well as young Caddy Compson's relationship with Dilsey. Perhaps that explains some of my attraction to this novel. I do admire southern writers (even if they aren't from the south as this one is).

Andy--There are a number of clues that the novel is set somewhere in the mid-70s, but I agree with you that the time seems to be earlier. It's not just that there is no mention of personal computers or cell phones, but the time seems, by the way people live and what they believe, to be a couple of decades earlier.

Anyone find any more clues to substantiate that our setting is in the 70s?

Maryal

Maryal, It does feel as though the novel takes place earlier than the 70's. The south does live at a slower pace and more relaxed style. In social areas and in industrial areas growth seems slower. I think this is the reason we have a different feeling for the time period. It is almost like a time warp. Of course, Atlanta might disprove this theory. It is really up and coming in progress.

Alf, exactly. I do feel that children are less pretentious and more genuine. If a child backs up from a friend in the home, you can bet your last dollar there is a reason. Too often children are not heard. We think their minds are little because they are little. I think because children are small and unprotected, they are given a special gift of seeing, feeling and hearing.

You are right Mal, our Harriet was precocious and had a more meditative quality about her. She is described as poker-faced and pompous, never laughing. That is a difficult picture for me as I identified so much with Harriet that I am unable to see her in that way.
Flight or Fight- the knee-jerk reaction to a stressful stimulus is precisly the plot of this novel.
Argumentative, haughty Harriet is unable to fit into any group and found "girl talk" crude so her choice was to indulge herself in swimming and maintain "movement." Shy, skittish Allison, on the other hand, immersed herself in a forgetful distance by sleeping.

While reading and considering "plots and schemes" of this story I listed Death (it's consequences) as # 1 , dreams as #2 and books/literature as #3. If anyone wishes to add to this speak right up. Should we put this list in the heading, do you think?
Harriet sat with her aunt Tat and looked at pictures from Pompeii and Herculaneum: The Forgotten Cities. Tat questioned Hariets preoccupation with "aspects of ruin and fragments of her own family." They are all fragmented; everythinbg feels fragmented to me. I can't get a grip on any of them because there is so much to consider. The author has done a superb job in painting a picure of each character and I found myself laying the book down pondering each personality. We've barely touched on little Allison and Harriet when we get the pleasure of meeting the aunts. I love these ladies!
Libby, the elder of the four, is the spinster and the peacemaker. We all need someone in the family to tease, especially if one is afraid of everything like she was. She selflessly cared for the father since age seventeeen up to his death when she was in her 60's. Now, there is NO better reason to admire Libby than that fact, alone.
Is this eloquent writing or what??? Page 122- To step into Libby's sheltered bedroom with its wooden window-blinds and its wall of duck-egg blue, was like sliding into a friendly underwater kingdom.
How can we ever get this book discussed in its entirety if I keeep going over these paragraphs that make me drool?
Does this writing move anybody else the way it has me?

I have to jump in here and say I do not admire Libby for sacrificing herself to take care of her father because no one else would. I like strong Edie, whom Harriet so much resembles. There's no nonsense about Edie, and she gets things done, dares to go where her sisters never would and doesn't hesitate to do what they are afraid to do, and has no patience with people like Charlotte and Allison, who hide from facts and reality through the use of drugs on the part of one and sleep on the part of the other.

Hats has mentioned something I've been thinking about; the slower pace of the South. Like Hats, I am not a native-born Southerner ( I was raised in New England ), but I've lived in the South for many years at different intervals. I lived in Maryland, which is not really South in my opinion, but can be very Southern in its attitude, for three years, 1952 to 1955. I lived in Durham, North Carolina for a year in the late 50's, and this last "term" totals over 21 years -- 9 in Florida and nearly 13 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Florida is South on the map, but it isn't "South", any more than Texas is South in the way that Eastern Southern states are.

When I moved down to Durham from the Buffalo, New York area 45 years ago, I was immediately struck by two things. The pace was much, much slower, and people didn't push and shove on the sidewalk or run you over with a grocery cart in the supermarket; they had manners! I felt as if I'd gone back in time.

Things had changed a lot here in the years between the late 50's and the late 80's when I moved back to North Carolina. There was no obvious segregation, except for certain church-run schools which started after de-segregation laws were passed. Black people had good jobs and lovely homes. They were not cleaning house and doing yard work for the five dollars a day and whatever old clothes handouts their employers would give them in the 50's. The water fountains in stores were not marked "White" and "Black", and Black people can go in the same door as Whites do. Black people could go in restaurants where they were forbidden entrance previously. They no longer had to ride in the back of the bus. I did not hear a preacher say from the pulpit that "if you give those people a bathtub they'll raise chickens in them", as I did in the 50's.

People who had been considered a minority ( even when the numbers said they were a majority )now have more of a chance.

There's still resentment. There's still racial hatred. There's still discrimination, but that exists all over this country toward people who are "different". ( I've been discriminated against almost all my life because I'm handicapped. ) Laws don't change attitudes that have been embedded for generations. Witness the condescension displayed toward their black maids by the Cleves family, even in the 70's.

I know black women who clean house today, but they are paid $12.50 or more an hour instead of $5.00 a day. You can almost live on $12.50 or $15.00 an hour. Five dollars a day was not a living wage.

There is a considerable population of blacks who do not have "cushy" jobs here in this area, but they do have jobs. In the 50's here it was very hard for black people to find work. When they did, you can be sure it was grubby menial work, and you can be certain that many of these people were not treated at all well.

There are now many black college graduates here, some from a very fine college, North Carolina Central University, which began as a segregated black school and is now integrated. Things have changed. More change is needed.

In Durham in the 50's I met many more North Carolinians than I do today. There had not been the great influx of Northerners trying to escape ice and snow in a kinder climate. Good jobs were located in the North, not in the South at that time. Now there are places like the Research Triangle Park here with high-paying jobs which attract people from all over the world.

I know two very intelligent native North Carolina women here, both of whom proudly say they are "Southern belles". That's what the Cleves sisters were -- Southern belles. There are Southern belles and there are Southern belles. Edie represents a type I know today, independent and fighters, but still imbued with some of the attitudes and all of the manners of Ante Bellum days.

Yes, death is very important in this book, but that's something I'll have to talk about in another post.

Mal

Pat in Texas, You said:

"I think everyone I knew growing up made use of denial just to get through the day. Those who didn't drank or had 'nervous breakdowns'. Everyone in that time was terrified: the Great Depression, the awful killer flu epidemic, tuberculosis, polio, World War II. There were so many monsters lurking in the dark. Adults felt very little control over their lives."

This is an important comment because we all tend to think of life in times past as being somehow simpler, slower, and less stressful than life today. We're overcome by nostalgia for those "simpler" days, forgetting that we live longer, healthier lives now. We have less overt racism, less gender discrimination, more job security, less abject poverty, and even safer automobiles. Of course, human nature hasn't changed much, so there will always be feelings of loss of control, and reasons to practice various forms of denial.

I wonder what sort of mother Charlotte was before Robin's death? She seems to have made very little effort to have a good relationship with her husband, preferring to think of him as merely a "provider." It's true that Dix had never been a very involved or understanding husband or father, but Charlotte did not appear to make much effort live with him or look to him for social support. Her feeling that the family is better off with him living away from home is communicated to Harriet and Allison.

Harriet's attitudes about race, and her conflicts with the attitudes prevalent in the town, and even among her aunts, are a recurrent theme. Harriet is embarrassed and angered by racial comments, and she is aware of her family's dependence on Ida Rhew. She is shocked that her beloved grandmother, Edie, knew about the burning of the Negro church and did nothing to seek justice. The complexities of race relations in a small southern town at that time make little sense to Harriet. But she is, so far, not able to decide how to seek justice herself.

Horselover, you are right. The racial situation does not make sense to Harriet. Through Harriet's talks with Ida Rhew, we get a feeling of what the black community are experiencing and thinking. Of course, there is a lot Ida Rhew does not share with little Harriet.

What amazes me is how in the world black people found the strength to go to work each day knowing that they were not seen as people living and struggling like the people they worked for but more like just handy people to have around, good servants with not a thought of their own. Many of the white people had no idea what went on in the lives of the people who worked for them. But I think the house workers were well aware what went on in the homes where they worked.

Often, these house workers knew more about their worker's children than the parents of the home. A certain kinship seemed to form between house worker and the children. Harriet feels very welcome and comfortable with Ida Rhew.

I agree with Mal. A lot has changed in the south. I am a native northerner, but I have come to love the south. I did not live through the dark days of racial hatred. I have heard about them. Still, the south has a certain unique personality. I can not describe it.

Pat, in #174 you wrote, "As an only child growing up in this 'heads in the sand' environment, I was filled with unanswered questions. Being left to find answers on my own was terrifying. I remember having nightly stomaches and terrible nightmares. Like everything else, bad dreams could not be discussed because 'they might come true'. All these memories came to mind when Allison could not tell Harriet her dream 'because it might come true'."

I've been thinking about Harriet's predicament stuck in this family where stories about Robin are always of before he was killed. She and Allison know, and have known from their earliest days, Robin's favorite color, Robin's favorite character in The Wind in the Willows and a million other small details about Robin. But because no one in the family can tell stories about Robin's death--remember this is a storytelling family living in the most oral storytelling part of our country--his younger sisters are left with a lot of details that have never been knitted into a legend. When Pat says that she was pretty much left to put things together for herself as a child in a family that didn't want to talk about bad things, I think of Harriet who is smart and desperately wants to know How and Why things fell apart in her family. She doesn't even know that things have fallen apart until she has the encounter with the girl on the school bus who tells her how odd it is that her parents don't live together. People are talking about Harriet's family and she never knew it.

When we are children, we pretty much take our family as the model of how families are. I remember several incidents from my own childhood when as a visitor in another child's house I discovered that other people did things in different ways. My best friend, Beth, for example, had a maid--or rather her parents did. The maid cooked dinner, cleaned, tried to keep us away from the popsickles in the deep freezer. She was white and I think German or Swiss. We were afraid of her.

To return to the point that most intrigues me in Pat's post--the section I've quoted above--in this book we have a child, Harriet, who might as well be an only child, who has parents who are absent in one way or another, who is smart and really wants to put the answers together, but who is also afraid and angry.

Keeping secrets, covering up the unpleasant details of life, although it was the fashion in our parents' generation, may produce children who are desperate to understand.

More later. This is a wonderful beginning.

Maryal

Pat's comment about denial doesn't ring true to me, but that is because of my own experience. My mother and father didn't get along or live together a good part of the time. He was out of work a lot and couldn't contribute to the welfare of his family when he did come home. Though she loved music and had a beautiful soprano voice, my mother scrubbed rich ladies' floors on her hands and knees when she could find work. She got free food at the city commissary once a week. We were kicked out of cold water tenements with a kerosene stove in the kitchen for heat and cooking because she couldn't pay the rent, only to move to other lesser ones she could afford. My maternal grandmother died of tuberculosis, and other members of my mother's family had that disease. I had polio and nearly died. We lived all of those things and didn't deny them or anything else. The struggle to survive was so great that there was no time or energy to give to fear. In a good part of my childhood there were no Good Old Days or simpler ones. This was true for many families I knew. Of course, I am older than most of you here, as far as I know.

It's my feeling that if Harriet had decided that race relations were her cause, she would have fought for that cause. She was too busy thinking of ways to find her brother's killer to have time for much of anything else.

Mal

Maryal, You said that Harriet might as well be an only child. This is interesting because, at one point, her best friend, Hely, suddenly wonders what Harriet's life would have been like if Robin had not died. Would he be teasing her all the time? Would Harriet even like him?

Although the Cleves have not created a family legend about the death, there is an unspoken legend that the Robin of today would be the same as the beloved Robin at nine years old. He would have grown up to be handsome and to break hearts, the aunts believe.

I wonder why there is always a silence, a pregnant pause, whenever Harriet asks the aunts about the death. When Adelaide and Tat are together, and Harriet questions them, there is "a small beat of thoughtfulness during which some unspoken communication seemed to pass between them."

In a way, Harriet's real problem is not in dealing with Robin's death, but in dealing with a non-functioning parent. Children who grow up with an alcoholic, drug addicted, or mentally ill parent are often forced to deny the real problem to the outside world, and to assume the parental functions themselves as best they can. Harriet herself is not really sure where her sense of frustration comes from. She is sometimes so bored at home, it is physically painful for her. At other times, she gets a sick feeling that she could set the house on fire and no one would stop her. The search for her brother's killer may actually be an obsession she uses just to stave off the boredom and the unwanted thoughts about her frightening life.

I sometimes think families latch on to things which are verboten or hushed up. In my case it was something too fearful and horrible to contemplate, much less talk about -- cancer -- and something "dirty" -- sex.

Because of the story-telling in the Cleve family, Allison and Harriet knew Robin's favorite color, his favorite ice cream and his favorite baseball team. Since they had never known him, he was a myth handed to them by their family. Tartt says it so well:
"Consequently their relationship with their dead brother was of the most intimate sort, his strong, bright, immutable character shining changelessly against the vagueness and vacillation of their own characters, and the characters of the people they knew; and they grew up believing that this was due to some rare, angelic incandescence of nature on Robin's part, and not at all to the fact that he was dead."
For his sisters, Robin had become the angel boy in the stained glass window, perfect forever and forever untouchable and unreal.

Though the people who raised me were not alcoholics, drug addicted or mentally ill, they both worked and were gone all the time. I was left alone from when I was 10 years old; came home from school to an empty house and did my chores, music practicing and studying until they came home at 6:30, at which time we ate. I then washed and dried the dishes and went upstairs to my room. I was on my own alone in that country place every summer all day long. There was plenty of time for imagining things, and imagine things I did.

My sisters had been taken to a different state by our father, and my brother, who lived where I did after our mother died, was never home; either out on his paper route or with friends. Part of the reason I was bored was because I was lonely and had no one to talk to, simple as that.

Neither Allison or Harriet ever really had a parent aside from Ida, since their mother "left" them when they were very, very young and their father lived in another state. I see Harriet as lonely, and think it's one reason she lost herself in books and imagination. Let's face it; her imagination worked overtime just as mine did.

To me, weaker and friendless Allison was the one who needed a parent. When Weenie died, she lost her only real and faithful friend, and she buried part of herself with that cat. Poor girl.

Mal

Despite the fact that Ida Rhew cooks for the family, Harriet always seems to be hungry. She searches for food in the freezer and finds only popsicles. Hely brings over food for her to eat. When she is lying in the swing on her back porch, she smells somebody cooking steaks outside on a grill and covets them.

Hely tries to get his mother to invite Harriet to eat with them, but his mother declines. She says, "Harriet understands, don't you, sweetie?" When Harriet says nothing, his mother continues, "I'm sure she understands, don't you Harriet? We'll her over next time we cook hamburgers in the yard."

Her hunger for the food she doesn't seem to get enough of seems to parallel her hunger for the information and affection she also does not get enough of.

What gets me about this book is the damage the adult women in the Cleve family do to the kids. Harriet is trying to reconstruct a mythical life she never knew by looking at pictures of a house she never knew, which decayed even before the family was hurriedly forced to sell it, a house which burned down when she was only four, a house that was largely fake. Her great grandfather allowed it to run into the ground while he played around with foolish investments and lost the family's shirt. The Bohemian glass chandelier came right out of a Monkey Ward catalogue.

The brother Harriet is told so much about and is obsessed with never existed in her real life, either. The past history she and her sister are told is largely fictitious, a sham, a fraud, just like the house. How can these Cleve people have the audacity to make these two children think they miss any of that?

There's nothing like what we'd call normal about this Faulkneresque family, and I cannot use normal standards to assess these two girls. They never really had a mother because Charlotte decided to blow her mind, with a doctor's prescription-writing help, the day her son died when Allison was four and Harriet was not even one. Their father is non-existent except on Christmas when he disrupts their lives. How can they possibly miss either of them?

I will say this, though. Children adjust to dysfunction and abnormality when they know nothing else, just as latch-key children mind their situation far less than people think they would because they, too, have known nothing else. The fact that Charlotte has made herself a virtual cripple is normal to these girls, and they'd rather their father stayed away.

It is something else that is disturbing to them, and I'll stick my neck out and say it is the four sisters, Edie included, who perpetuate the myth of Southern gentility and inflict it on those kids. This Southern story thus far is so musty it stinks. (And if ever there was a word I disliked, it is that one.)

Mal

Mal: I think you're being harsh where the aunts are concerned. As Faulkneresque as they are, they are southern women who know no other way of life. The are clueless about children and I do not believe that there is any evil intent on their part.
Wasn't it Tat who tended to the children after Robin's death as shattered Charlotte began her descent into oblivion?

horselover- Harriet's hunger is a great point and I hadn't thought of it. (Good Lord the kid looks for muchies and finds only popsicles! No wonder she searches for more food.) You said, Her hunger for the food she doesn't seem to get enough of seems to parallel her hunger for the information and affection she also does not get enough of. Her hunger is an ache and an emptiness isn't it? I was viewing it as nervous energy, something to do to while away her lonely days. I think you've hit on something here. She longs for "something" to fill the void in her life. How could I have missed that? By the way WHY didn't Hely's mother allow Harriet to eat with them?

How do the rest of you see these colorful aunts?

Traude will be checking in very soon.

Sorry, Andrea. That's how I see it here in my part of the South, but obviously I'm wrong.

Mal

if this were not so the world would be filled with satisfied happy people.When one lives in a dysfunctional family, nuance and plain meaness from others lets you know.

Are dreams in something better, Fraud? I think not.

And who decides what is normal, never been to the South or any part of America for that matter, however there is a realism here in this novel, that chills my very soul.I never had a father, except biologically, 60 years on I miss him more than ever. More even than my mother, who I knew and loved.

My grandmother lost one child, and reared 12, always felt we almost knew the one who died tragically better than those who lived long lives.All of this family had different reasons for pining this murdered child, and through them all we get a complex picture of who he may have been.

My lifes work has been with caring for needy children, and of course they see what they are missing. Have we not all seen the look of a child gazing at some thing he has never had with that desperate need in his eyes, because he is convinced this particular thing would make his world right.We with maturity could tell him it is not so, but would that be believed; I think not.

Now you are being harsh on yourself. Different opinion doesnt make you wrong. not to me anyway. I find your reasons for your opinion well based, just dont match my view is all.We are all unique, thank God.

Anne, I'm very tired for various reasons, including a computer death on the eve of the publication of two of my electronic magazines. I shouldn't have come in probably, but I enjoy these discussions. I also read this book last week when I had no computer, and perhaps that is influencing me.

Goodnight, all. I'm going to bed and try to get some rest.

Mal

Come on, Mal, get a grip, get some rest. I love these old girls. Each one of them enhance this story. Youn one, pretty, 3 husbands and a dreamer; another- afraid of her own shadow; the third , a mystic Latin teacher, who loved the riddles of the Ancients and a pack rat, to boot. she took the time to work the crossword puzzles with Harriet. I found myself guffawing just comparing them to folks I know or have known. They just don't get it.

Why is it everyone sanctifies the dead? Souls become divine and righteous even if they were no good &^%^$&** while they walked the face of the earth. I'm not speaking necessarily of children here. I don't think we ever get past the age when they pass- they will always remain the "chosen" child, as Anneofavonlea mentions.

Talk amongst yourselves. Maryal will be in to check on ya'll as I am off and running today. See you tonight.

How is poor Ida coping? Remember, she was "fatally harried" and had the radio blaring out gospel tunes the day Robin was found. Ida is the only one who worries about Harriet and warns her about the Odums and the Ratcliffs.

Well hello there, anneo. Good to see you again. I think it's the haunting atmosphere that gets to me as well. And I do know the American South, at least the one of my childhood. My mother was from North Carolina and we visited her sisters when I was small. I lived in Chicago at the time, and going "home" with my mother was like venturing to another world.

I, too, find the aunts interesting people, and so different from each other. Libby, who never married, is 82; Edie is 73; Tat is 71 and Addie, the "baby" is 65. Addie has had three husbands and would consider another if she could find the right one.

While Harriet is at Libby's house, trying to ask what she knows about Robin's death, Libby's maid, Odean's, "auntie" arrives, telling of the white men who were shooting at fishermen from the bridge. Turns out that she was the woman that Hely (notice that his name is pronounced Hay-lee) saw when he was down at the river fishing and the shooting broke out. Poor "auntie" was scared to death as was Hely who had the presence of mind to wonder if the men on the bridge would have shot at him if they'd known that he was white.

Quite a lot said about race relations present in that thought on the part of Hely. There's also another edge to racism in the novel: the thoughts of black people, specifically Ida Rhew, about "trash." When she calls people "trash," she always means white people. She refers to families such as the Ratliffs, Scurlees and Odums as trash and will not allow the children in her care to play with them.

And one more point about the writing. I love the way Tartt gives us just enough of Southern dialect that we understand the speech. It is very difficult to do dialect without overdoing it or coming up with strange spellings to indicate it without losing the reader. Mark Twain was a genious at dialect, but too often writers attempt to capture it and totally fail.

Tartt's touch with dialect is light. When Ida is asked early in the story (11) "Was Robin with them?" she answers, "Nome." Exactly how it sounds--"No ma'am" all run together. Later we find "yall" without the apostrophe, for that ubiquitous Southern "you all," usually written as: "y'all." I like it so much better without the apostrophe. I'm not sure why but it captures the word as it is spoken for me.

Will check in later today. Meanwhile I am off to the vet to find out why my dog has a lump on what would be her cheek if dogs had cheeks.

Maryal

Please don't get the impression that I don't like these aunties. I do. I was talking about the burden adults put on children sometimes by repeating and repeating stories that become more and more romanticized, idealized and changed the more often they are told, stories children take as truth.

I see Donna Tartt making a very realistic comment about the place where she grew up and the people in it. Many of the people in this book, including the Cleve sisters, are caricaturized. Tartt is the one who is harsh, not I. It is in this way that she reminds me of Faulkner and other good Southern writers.

To me she appears to have a love-hate relationship with the South, and this book deals in a great part with that area and what has made the South what it is. I can understand her attitude, since there are parts of New England where I grew up and things about it which I love, while at the same time hating its bleak Gothicness and tight, Puritanical traditions.

Like some black people I have known here in the South, Ida Rhew has a certain superiority in her attitude toward the Cleves family. She sees through their poses and pretenses of gentility in a way that they cannot see. Because of her experience, she warns them about poor white trash and the children of those families. She knows the potential for cruelty they have and how they will take advantage of the naïveté people like the Cleves women often exhibit. There is nothing Ida can do about this except give warnings, and she becomes exasperated when the Cleveses do not listen to what she says. She has to remind herself that she is there only to do a job, not to mother and rescue Harriet and Allison or teach them what life is really about.

Except for one young woman I knew in the early 50's who had a stillborn baby, I have never known anyone who lost a child, so can't really identify with that experience in any way except to sympathize from that distance. I do identify with Harriet and Allison's childhood, though, because I was more or less left alone to raise myself. Until I came into SeniorNet and read posts by people who talked about their childhoods and the stay-at-home mother who was always there to take care of them, I didn't fully realize how different my childhood was living in a house where everyone went out to work at a job. I enjoyed the independence I had, life without answering to anyone but myself until my caretakers came home from work.

I truly think Harriet enjoys her independence, too, and I don't think she envies people like Hely whose mother appears more interested in herself than anyone else. Harriet has as much freedom as a boy would, and there's something to be said for that. Ida is the quiet stability in Harriet and Allison's life. She's the fixture in the kitchen that's always there and dependable, the only thing in their lives that is, really.

Allison is a different story. Tartt implies that she saw the murder of her brother and that it is that which makes her behave as she does. Who knows? Tartt doesn't tell us, and it can only be our guess. I admit to becoming as annoyed with Allison as Edie does.

What about Mr. Dial and that Sunday School class? Did that impress you? I see that as a barbed critique of the South, too.

Mal

Anneo, I agree with you that children certainly can miss what they have never had. Deprived children do not live in a vacuum. They visit friends, and see how they live and how their parents behave. And, of course, today children get an alternate view of life from television, distorted though it may be.

MAL, You are too hard on yourself. If you are having trouble meeting your publishing deadline because of computer failures, isn't there some way to postpone the publication, or get help in catching up? Try not to let it stress you out. Life is too short!

I'd like to point out that not all the race problems in this story are confined to the South. When I was about Harriet's age, many families had black ("colored" at that time) maids. Their attitude toward these servants was very similar--the maid was part of the family, up to a point. She knew a great deal about the family, but was expected to pretend ignorance. If she took care of the children, they would frequently absorb as much of her beliefs as those of their parents, but she could be removed from the children's lives at the whim of the parents. Her status within the family, and in the community where she worked, was summed up as "the colored girl."

Is it possible that you also "have a love-hate relationship with the South"?

Losing a loved one, even if it is not a child, can often produce many of the same symptoms we see in Charlotte. Widows and widowers experience the same numbness and lack of interest in life. People who suffer such a life-altering loss need compassion and help to get back to "normal" functioning. Charlotte does not get that help, even from her sisters. She is not allowed to talk about her loss, she is over-medicated by her doctor, and she is virtually abandoned in her semi-conscious state by her family.

I think behind Harriet's agressive independence is a great deal of anger at being unable to change the circumstances of her life. So she sets out to change what she can.

Where did you live when you were a child? I am interested because your description of the treatment of "colored" maids is so well put.

You wrote, "When I was about Harriet's age, many families had black ("colored" at that time) maids. Their attitude toward these servants was very similar--the maid was part of the family, up to a point. She knew a great deal about the family, but was expected to pretend ignorance. If she took care of the children, they would frequently absorb as much of her beliefs as those of their parents, but she could be removed from the children's lives at the whim of the parents. Her status within the family, and in the community where she worked, was summed up as "the colored girl."

My mother and I had only one serious argument, disagreement--don't know exactly what to call it--after I was married. I was visiting my parents in Maine with my two small children. I saw Martin Luther King and the march on Washington. Having followed civil rights demonstrations for some time, I was near euphoric when I heard King speak. I told my mother of my excitement, and she said, "You don't understand how it was in the South." And then she went on to explain to me that black people in her then small town of Dunn, NC were accepted as equals. Why, there was even a black doctor in town. I asked if he only treated blacks, and the question hurt her deeply, so much so that she was in tears. I backed off at this point, because I knew that we were going to have to disagree on this whole issue. Civil Rights had my whole-hearted support; she couldn't believe that I was her daughter.

Maryal

horselover, I'll explain to you and anyone else who is interested that according to U.S. statistics, I am qualified for poverty status. In other words, all I can afford are basic necessities. When my computer died there was absolutely no way that I could buy another or even have tried to have the dead one repaired, if that had been possible. If that had happened I would have had to rearrange my life totally, since I am housebound, and my only outlet, work and recreation are through the computer. It was more than missing self-imposed deadlines that upset me.

I was also more than upset because I had lost every web page I've made as well as every book and short story I've written.

I am a lucky woman today because my daughter told my New York son what had happened, and he bought and sent me a new computer. My daughter is the one who makes using it and coming online possible. Perhaps now you and others won't think I'm quite as hard on myself as you did.

EDIT: I just saw your question about my having a love-hate relationship with the South. My answer is that I am a realist and have seen none of the 7 states in which I've lived through rose-colored glasses.

Mal

Maryal, I grew up on Long Island, in a suburb of NYC. I also recall having disagreements with family members regarding their tacit acceptance of a status quo I found unacceptable. It takes time for entrenched attitudes to change, but children have little patience for what they see as obvious injustice.

One of my favorite movies is "Driving Miss Daisy" where you see an elderly white woman slowly changing her relationship to her "colored" servants. Some of this change is precipitated by a speech Martin Luther King makes in her town. But mostly, it comes about through genuine human interaction.

I find myself divided between irritation and compassion in regards to Charlotte, as well as her family's handling of her withdrawal. She had three children, and the remaining two are as much deserving of her love and care as the lost one. I grant you her mother Edie is acerbic in her attempts to make others conform, and might have driven Charlotte deeper into her hiding place. Still, between them, the older generation of ladies should have reminded Charlotte of her other children instead of sitting around murmuring "Poor Charlotte"! The acerbic Edie could have been let loose on the prescription writing doctor. (Of course, this would have then been an entirely different story. But mothers who wallow in self-pity while their children are neglected really rouse my ire!)...Babi

Right on, BaBi. It's not as if this tragedy happened yesterday or even the day before; it's been twelve years, Harriet's entire lifetime.

I have worked with people who had severe addiction problems, and Tartt has drawn Charlotte with serious symptoms of one. To me it's not so much grief she's showing, twelve years later, as a great dependence on tranquilizers and narcotics. Edie and the others are enabling her to feed her addiction by not intervening as a family and insisting that she get help with detoxification and rehabilitation. Intervention is a method that is known to work very well.

Charlotte's grief has not followed a normal course, and can't until she rids herself of the drugs. Meanwhile, it is her children who suffer. In her drugged state, Charlotte is not even aware of this. What would happen to that household if Ida weren't around to pick up the pieces and keep them fed?

Mal

Babi--Yes, Charlotte is pretty much a loser as a mother. I'm not at all convinced she would have been very good at it even if Robin had not died, but we will never know that. Fortunately, she isn't much of a presence in the book, so you won't have to put up with her!

Sometimes when people go through a huge loss, they are helped back to life by love, compassion, and a "keeper" who temporarily keeps the griever BUSY. Charlotte needs such attention desperately, but she doesn't get it. I think ignorance is to blame as well as the reliance on drugs and a mother who is so interested in trying to keep the rest of the family going that she doesn't help.

I thought of another example of "Suthren" speech in the novel. Again, it is Ida Rhew who says, "It's fixin to thunder" (12). Again, I think Tartt gains something by not including the apostrophe. I heard this expression many times when I was a child. "I'm fixin to take a bath," "She's fixing to read a book." People didn't talk like that in Chicago, not the ones I knew anyway, and anything unfamiliar in speech has always interested my ear.

horselover--I loved "Driving Miss Daisy," and the point about personal relationships pathing the way for peace is well taken.

Maryal

Mal asked a really good question, "What about Mr. Dial and that Sunday School class? Did that impress you? I see that as a barbed critique of the South, too."

What do yall think about that Sunday School class? It starts on page 68. I have to admit that I've witnessed SS classes that were almost like this one, and I found the scene very funny, but that's me. I often see humor where others take offense.

And yall? Mr. Dial's Sunday School class. Any takers?

When someone is as far along in addiction as Charlotte is, compassion and keeping him or her busy can't be used to straighten them out. Such attention only signifies to the addict that he or she is a victim and will either increase drug usage or justify the use of drugs.

Maryal, y'all is used when one says, "Y'all goin' shoppin' niaow?" You all is used when saying, "Bah, yew all. Y'all come agin, yew cheer? Lord a mercy, Samantha, stop that racket! Y'all git you-se'f over here raght niaow afore I whop yore bottom! Niaow be good and say bah to yore kin."

Mal

Mal--Hey, thanks for the dialect! What did yew think of the Sunday School class?

When I suggested that Charlotte might have been helped if someone had been there to attend to her, I certainly didn't mean as she is now, twelve years after Robin's death. I meant right after he died. Right now, she needs to be in a recovery program, preferably residential!

I live in the dep North. We are credited with the slowness and backward attitudes associated with your south. One gets used to it, sees an element of truth in it and gets on with life.

We still treat our indigenous people badly, and one still heres the arguments suggesting a certain inferiority in grey matter. Ridiculous as they are they take some defeating.

My mother was a station cook, which meant she ate with the workers in the kitchen, and was treated as an inferior by her "betters",what a disgusting term. The "blacks" as they were then called didnt even make the kitchen.

My husband had three spinster cousins who lived alone and had the absolutely weirdest attitude to the rearing of children, and losing one brother in a sporting accident, spent the nexy 50 years explaining to the younger brother how little he lived up to their expectations. So all seems terribly real to me. Anneo

Oh hi Maryal, we meet again.

MAL, Your dialect is priceless!

You are correct in saying that "Charlotte's grief has not followed a normal course." I do think we all need to keep in mind that the treatment of mental illness and addiction was very different at the time of this story than it is today. Most of the current treatments did not even exist then. And many doctors did not understand the addictive nature of tranquillizers.

Charlotte's problems are complex and go beyond her grief over Robin's death. She appears to have a type of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Their house is filled with newspapers piled everywhere that Charlotte refuses to throw away, and no one else is permitted to dispose of either. Until very recently, there were no treatments for this serious illness, and doctor's did not understand its nature. Harriet simply accepts her mother's obsession, her depression, and even her time distortions (when Charlotte confuses Harriet and Allison with her own childhood). This is exactly the way children will deal with a parent whose abnormalities they are powerless to change.

Maryal, Such Sunday School classes were very common in the days when corporal punishment was legal. North, South, and even in other countries. In "Angela's Ashes," you find the same Sunday School in Ireland. Unfortunately, kids were an easy target for adult frustrations in those days.

It just so happens that I know something about treatment of addiction in the 70's, having been in the hospital for just such a problem at that time. Patients were hospitalized and detoxified. There were daily consultations with a psychiatrist and a psychologist. Alcoholics and drug addicts were introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous during their stay at the hospital. Exactly the same treatment is used today. I had personal experience with that not too long ago with a family member who was addicted to drugs and alcohol. Alcoholics Anonymous has been around since 1935.

Oh, me, oh, my, that Sunday School class. Here we have Mr. Dial, who is not just a car salesman; he's a professional salesman for Southern Christianity.

I know something about that, too, since I had a job in the 80's, when I lived in Florida, playing the piano for two services a week in a very strict, fundamentalist Southern Baptist Church run by two émigrés from Alabama. Brother E. stood in the pulpit and preached against the Catholics in the Cathedral in downtown St. Augustine, the Jews in the synagogue, Blacks, of course, and anybody and anything that was not a part of the Bible Baptist congregation. I taught piano to the children who went to the school that church ran. Some of them delighted in telling me about the exploits of their Daddies in the Ku Klux Klan. It amused me that the religion in which I was raised, Universalist-Unitarian, was on Brother E's hit list as a cult religion.

I couldn't stomach the sermons too well, so took a notebook to church with me, and sat and took notes for a book I have yet to write. I was worried that I might get fired for doing this and I needed the money, so one Sunday when Brother E. pointed at me and told the congregation what I was doing, I took a breath and got ready to be chastised in the front of the church and kicked out. Instead, he told his congregation that Mrs. Freeman took notes every Sunday, and he wanted all of the parishioners to bring notebooks the following Sunday and take notes just as I was. Whew! That was the year I got "saved" sort of inadvertently, and threw all my worries out the window. I've had an interesting career.

I picture Mr. Dial as very well fed with slicked back hair, a double breasted suit and a greasy manner. He is very cordial to little Annabel Arnold, who comes from a fine Christian family; has led a little Jewish classmate to Christ, and is also a champion baton twirler at events sponsored by Dial Chevrolet. Mr. Dial has the great idea of having the kids write down what their goals are. Annabel won first praise, of course, with her goal of praying every day that God will send her a new person to help. Harriet's black dot à la Treasure Island doesn't get her anywhere, and all poor Curtis Ratliff does is scare the bejesus out of the anointed teacher.

This is a very funny scene, satire at its best. Unfortunately, it's very much based on the truth.

Mal

Satire at its best, eh, Mal? I agree. Mr. Dial sells Christianity and repossesses cars from the poor whites, the Odums, the Ratliffs, the Scurlees. Can't get over those names. Odum and Scurlee sound like the worst last names. Odum makes me think of odor and dumb and Scurlee of scurvy. Ratliff has rat in it and on we go. (Those of you who have read Faulkner will remember his Snopes family, Montgomery Ward Snopes and Flem Snopes among them.)

However, Harriet does get the idea of having a goal from this exercise. She does nothing with it in class, but she starts to figure out in her notebook just whom she admires and what she wants to accomplish.

I thought little Anna Arnold--she who will always please the teacher--to be a real kick. I've known kids just like her. And have wanted to strangle them. Wasn't Harriet's idea about sending Mr. Dial a "mash" note from Annabelle a good idea!

Maryal

Before I take myself to bed, I want to comment on Anne's post. Thank you so much for telling us more about Australia. Deep North? That sounded funny until I realized the climate there. Your mother suffered the same treatment that my poor floor-washer mother did. Class systems prevail, don't they?

It's hard to believe those spinster ladies spent fifty whole years putting down the younger brother in favor of someone who was dead and gone. Yes, I can see why your understanding of this book is so strong.

Goodnight, everybody. Long-winded Mal is going to bed.

Hi Yall,

What a great discussion you had today! I could feel the static electricity popping in the air.

I want to comment on everything, but time precludes. It's 10:30 in Austin. Sooo. . .just the mainest things.

First, Mal, I was interested in your comment (#194) about Harriet's cherished independence and the freedom it gave her. As I read your remarks it occurred to me that perhaps there was another 'carrot' in her behavior as regards Robin. If Harriet had a role model it was her idealized Robin. There was no one else to emulate. Everyone else in her world was flawed. Harriet held herself to standards much higher than any living person she knew. She was much more masculine in her behavior than Hely. She had no interest in the trappings of girls. She played boys' games. She was the leader, the organizer. She called the shots with Hely and protected Allison.

It seems to me she was subconsciously trying to bring her brother to life by letting him exist through her--much like Idgie Threadgoode and her dead brother, Buddy, in 'Fried Green Tomatoes At The Whistle Stop Cafe'. Buddy, like Robin, was killed tragically and without warning, and it changed the course of Idgie's life.

Robin was (in Harriet's skewed vision) fearless and happy and loved by all. How wonderful that she had this image of her brave Robin to see her through her desolate childhood.

Yumm! What delicious food for thought you gave me, Mal.

Second thing on my list of 'mainest things' are the comments on race relations in today's discussion. I have another take on this conundrum. I worried for years that the people I grew up with had such biased notions of anyone 'different'. My mother was a prime example. Her comments were all charicatures, based in ignorance, and she made me feel ashamed.

In homogeneous West Texas very few people were racially different. Those who were stayed to themselves. Segregated schools supported this distance and lack of understanding. I was in high school before I met my first Black girl!

When I was in college I took a course in early childhood development and learned that young children make sense, organize and catalogue their worlds through stereotypes. Babes in arms call all strange men 'dada'. Large four-legged animals in pastures are called 'cow'. To a baby, logic would have it, then, that horses are cows and goats are cows--all four legged country animals are cows until children expand their understanding of creatures with four-legs. Their understanding is expanded through familiarity. For example, a beloved grandaddy would never be confused with a baby's daddy. He is 'Gamps' or 'Daddy Joe' or whatever name the child has assigned him.

Anyway, it occurred to me one day that this organizational technique must also apply our early understanding of races and religions and socio-economic levels and everything else that varies from our notion of the norm. This was such a relief to me. I finally understood that my mother's attitudes were simply a product of her limited exposure and knowledge. Hate and bias had very little to do with it.

When I logged on tonight I had planned to discuss Tartt's amazing contrast of mood as Harriet went from her terrifying experience with the blackbird to the sanctity of her visit with Aunt Libby. But it is now 12:15 a.m. I'll get into all that tomorrow. Thanks for listening.

Pat in Texas

Mawnin', folks. Gray skies here, thunderstorms predicted. More rain!

And you made me think about the blackbird, PAT. I find this scene more disturbing than the relating of Robin's death. That may be because I see a parallel here -- Robin = bird = blackbird. "It's dead," said Harriet.

What do you think about the dream that made Harriet decide she had been called to find her brother's murderer?

Mal

Pat, I , too, was exposed to bigotry as a child and it made me all the more stubborn to "love" everyone of any color or creed. Perhaps I had a bit of Harriet in me; tomboyish behavior, obstinate and determined to do and believe just the oppositeof what I was told would "be good for me to learn.". Thank God for Ida, she seemed the center of Harriet's Normal development.

I'm with you over Mr. Dial- he brings a chuckle doesn't he , the old goat? Professing to be a Christian, he'd steal the gold out of your teeth when you weren't lloking. Roy Dial looks down his nose at anyone who doesn't worship"him" and his love and conviction is not philanthropic, it's self serving. People like him give the church a bad name and I just hate to read about a character like Mal's Brother E. They lead people to submissiveness and propogate hatred in the young. We will be seeing more of him later.

My heart broke as Harriet viewed her mother's picture that she found in Edie's attic. Here was a mother she had never known; airy, charming, sparkling with life. She sits and recalls how many times her aunts have told her that she was the best Christmas present that they ever had, being born on Christmas eve.

OOps, sorry Mal, We were posting at the same time. That is brilliant! Robin= bird=blackbird. Yes, yes, it's an omen for Harriet.

I love Mal's idea about Robin=bird=blackbird. Thinking about names in this novel, I started with Robin. It is fairly unusual for a boy child---two famous Robins that come to mind are Christopher ROBIN and ROBIN Hood. Christopher Robin could be the idealized younger Robin, he with the adventuresome ways and ability to make people laugh. The older Robin could be Robin Hood, adventuring into the woods, playing in the trees, etc.

It seems odd that one family would have three such different names for their children--Robin, mostly English, Harriet--sort of old-fashioned, and Allison, definitely popular today.

oooh, just thought of something else. That old poem about Cock Robin:

Who killed cock Robin?
I said the fly
with my little eye,
I killed Cock Robin.

.... And so forth. There are so many references to children's literature in this book it is hard to trap them all.

Pat--Your analysis of how we come to accept others from early babyhood on is acute. Today, at least in this part of Maryland, children of all different races are introduced to each other early on. In my daughter's art classes, she has African American, Asian of all descriptions, Hispanic and Caucasian kids. Oh, and a couple of Indian kids. I never know what color the kids are when she talks about them. Don't know until she brings me photos of the classes holding their Self Portraits. So many different shades!

Is there any reference to Robin, robins, or blackbirds in Robert Louis Stevenson's work?

Mal

I agree Maryal, everytime you go to another chapter there are references to Childrens Lit. The reference to the black spot in Treasure Island is what the pirates gave you before they came to kill you. DEATH we see again through these citations in Literature. Remember how Harriet loves thinking about Captain Scott and Lazarus? Even oild Uncle Clyde who was lost at sea. (His plane went down off of the Florida coast.)

Mal, I don't know the answer to that but will check my electronic text books and see if I can find out if there are any such references.

What does everyone make of old Mrs. whats-her-face, who lives next door? Mrs. Fountain! the reservoir of every neighborhood. Like a fountain she gushes in and out, spraying and spouting, doesn't she? As a kid, I had a neighbor just like her , Gerie Babcock and needless to say, I was in trouble because of that ole bitty more often than not. She always had her nose in our business (the kids) that is. She was tattling on us more often than she shopped. "Did you know Andrea is smoking? Did you know those girls go behind the garage with those boys? did you know she stuck her tongue out at me?"
My mother loved her and punished me more often than she spoke to me. Mrs. Babcock, bless her heart, taught me how to perfect lies and how to BS my way out when I was nabbed, by the old goat.
Me, smoking? (Corn cob pipes in the early 50's) Me? with boys? Where did she think we got the corn cob pipes from? Oh my yes, I know the likes of evil Mrs. Fountain, who with her shrill voice sticks her nose in everyone else's business.
Did you all have neighbors such as she?

It's interesting that in much of Southern literature, there is frequently a character who is retarded or deaf or mute. In "To Kill a Mockingbird," we have Boo Radley who ultimately saves the children from an evil predator. In "The Little Friend," we have Curtis Ratliff, the poor retarded member of the evil Ratliff clan. He has developed a kind of friendship with Harriet, as Boo did with the young tomboy, and somehow I get the feeling that he may have a central role to play as the story proceeds.

Andy, Mr.Dial does not make me chuckle. True, this book is sooo dark that you tend to look for some humor anywhere possible. But this guy is an abuser of children and the elderly; he is trying to extort money from the ladies for a rickety bus ride; he is a terrible bigot; he is a crook, selling cars at high interest rates to poor people whom he knows will be unable to keep up the payments. He reminds me of Ichabod Crane, and one hopes that somewhere in the story he will receive his just punishment!

Anneo, Last night in saw a PBS documentary called "Journey of Man" which had a large section about Australia. They showed some really starkly beautiful country. I'd love to travel there someday.

MAL, I agree with your idea that the death of the blackbird is connected to Robin's death. The robin is a brightly colored bird that is often the first to arrive in Spring. The blackbird is the color of death. Do you think that Harriet's partial responsibility for the bird's death may mirror her feeling of responsibility for not having saved her brother, even though there was no way she could have, and for now being responsible for finding the killer?

Adelaide represents an interesting contrast to Charlotte. She has suffered many more tragedies in her life than Charlotte, yet has somehow been able land on her feet and go on. "Moment by painful moment, breath by painful breath, one got through things." She has gotten through two stillborn boys, the death of an eighteen month old daughter, the death of her three husbands, and, of course, the death of Robin. "Savage blows" that she has overcome, while Charlotte has never recovered.

It seems to me that Ms. Tartt is using the Cleve family as a case study for the lingering effects of unresolved grief reactions. Each of the members is stuck at one or more places in the process of denial, fear, anger, depression, and resolution.

Denial is constantly manifested by the family's unwillingness to talk of Robin's death. In Allison's case, denial may take the form of repression, an involuntary placement of painful memeories in the subconscious mind. There may also be an element of negotiation running through the family in the form of, "If we don't talk about it, maybe it didn't happen."

The fear that similar events may strike other loved ones is most clearly demonstrated by Allison when she refuses to discuss her dream about Harriet for fear it will come true.

I could be wrong, but I think Edie's going stone cold and becoming domineering is a manifestation of anger, though her sisters certainly clear the way for domination. Anger can be against oneself (I should have done something.), against the victim (He abandoned me.) or against the perpretator. Only Harriet overtly registers this last type of anger, unless I am missing other clues.

Depression can be the typical signs of grieving--crying, lethergy, withdrawal--or it can a more self-desptuctive form with the use of alcohol or drugs. Certainly, Charlotte falls into the latter category. As pointed out by others, Allison uses sleep as others would use tranquilizers.

All of the Cleves seem unwilling to move past their grief for fear that they will lose the memory of Robin. Will Harriet find the killer and bring him or her to justice? If so, will that allow the other family members to find resolution of their grief?

John, That's a good summing up of the stages of grief. Harriet is definitely angry. The rage she feels returns at the burial of the cat. There is also fear of the mystery of death, the "outer dark, the terror you never came back from." She understands that her mother and grandmother also share this fear, which "would never wholly leave her."

Whether the Cleves will find resolution if the killer is found depends, I think, on who the killer turns out to be.

Preacher E brought back an unpleasant memory for me. When I was about 8 or 9, we moved near a lovely, small stone church. It captured my imagination and I wanted very much to go there. As it was close, my Mother, somewhat puzzled by my eagerness, agreed one Sunday morning that I could walk there for the service.

I don't know if the man who spoke that day was the regular preacher or a visitor, but his sermon consisted of explaining why the Roman Catholics were idol-worshipping heretics. Even at my young age, I felt how wrong this was, and was very unhappy that my lovely little church was spoiled by this preaching. I didn't go back again.

We seem to be in unanimous agreement that we wouldn't trust Mr. Dial an inch, in any respect whatsoever. I'm just dying for someone to give him his come-uppance. (That's a good country word.)

Checked my Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, Mal, but found no references there to Robin, robins or blackbirds by R.L.S. Alf may have better luck.

I keep wondering how Harriet could possibly find the murderer after all these years,assuming he's still around. Maybe by simply poking and probing, she might stir something up. And being 12-yrs. old, she has no realistic concept of personal danger. Someone could get seriously hurt here. ..Babi

The cat was the first living thing that died which Harriet ever saw close up, or touched. The cat was rigid as stone and cold, cold, cold. It seems natural that this death would reveal to her mind what her mother and Edie had seen when they found her brother. My mother was the first dead person I'd ever seen, and Tartt is right: "The vertigo of that moment" will never leave. The blackbird which died in her hands was another traumatic moment for Harriet. I see all these things as part of growing up and something we all go through at sometime or other during our lives.

I don't see Harriet as angry. I see her with an immense curiosity and very strong motivation. Since she is the kind of imaginative girl she is, if it hadn't been her brother's murder to goad her on, she would have found or created some other cause. Remember that a good part of this book is founded on imagination, embroidered and embellished stories and fantasy. Harriet would have dreamed up something to search for, even without her brother's death.

The grief element in this secton of this book has to be there to justify what the protagonist is spurred on to do, in this case, look for a killer who may or may not exist. I don't see grief as a main theme of this book. It's part of the technique Donna Tartt used to lay the foundation for her plot and develop her characters.

If the reader does not see the satiric humor in this book, he or she is missing a lot. Maryal, Pat and I have been giving you clues about what the South is like. Knowing these things makes Tartt's barbed satire even more clear. Realizing that many of these characters are caricatures drawn from life, not a real life photograph of these people, also helps in understanding Tartt's aim and technique. Some of the things she satirizes are bound to hit a nerve, and that's exactly what this author wanted to accomplish.

As I see it, she is going to cover a lot of ground in The Little Friend which has little to do with Harriet and dead Robin.

Let's see. She's already gone into the race issue in the character of Ida Rhew and the scene where the men are shooting in fun at an innocent black woman, religion in the South as represented by Roy Dial, who also shows us capitalism in the form of a car dealer whose conscience about what he is does is nil, the class system as represented in the scene with Harriet and Pemberton at the Country Club and the contrast between poor white trash, like the Odums and Ratliffs, and Southern gentility like the Cleves family, materialism in the shape of Hely's mother, physical handicaps, marriage, child-care, responsibility or lack of, addiction and any number of other things. Tartt has written a mammoth book about a large number of different issues, and has displayed many of them in just 137 pages. This book is not about just one thing, and I'm going to keep this in mind as I do further in-depth reading.

Mal

In another online discussion one of the posters made this comment and I think it is appropos to bring here. It is so important that we respond to other posters. It's perfectly fine to agree or to disagree but it is imperative that we acknowledge one another.

We need each other to help us know who we are. I learn about myself by how you respond to me and how you respond to changes who I am, gradually, over time.

Harriet responds to said poster: Gosh! You do have a gift for saying the most marvelous, thoughtful things. It's wonderful to have you in the discussion. You make me think and there's hardly a situation, literary or personal where that comment wouldn't be valuable to consider.

What a wonderful thought to keep in mind as each of us bring a piece of ourselves here. It is especially important to respond to others due to the fact we have decided NOT to post questions. If we converse back and forth, sharing ideas and experiences with others, we do not need specific questions. We all DO need recognition, though.

Okay, the part of my post above which is about grief is in response to Golfer John's post. The part about death and whether Harriet is angry is in response to horselover's post. The rest, and nearly every message I post here, are a reaction to or a response to something another participant has said. Long ago, when I first came into SeniorNet and joined a discussion I was chided because I used the person's name in my response. The person took offense and I've never forgotten that warning, so it's difficult sometimes for me to address a poster directly.

Mal

who said what, and with such long posts have no way of getting back to them. I got up this morning and had 8 new posts to read and am very aware that I never post names, or at least rarely do. Even in the Australian forum, I continually put wrong name to people, and they have come to accept it. I dont even know who it was that told me I should acknowledge everyone, so I cant even manage that, sorry. If it is ok I will just lurk here as I could never remeber you all and who said what.

Thanks to those who acknowledged the Australian thing though.Oh I see as you are still on this page Alf that it is you who requires acknowledgement, and while I see what you mean there are only 3 of the 8 posts I can see on this page as I write.To print them all would be way beyond my time restrictions so sorry will just read all the comments and the book. Anneo.

Whoa there, girl!

Don't just lurk. I think Andy's message was meant to convey that if you are responding to a particular person's post, it is nice to use the name. You certainly do not have to use names. Don't go silent on us.

Now--as to how many messages you can see on the screen, if you go to the top of the page, and then click on "Print page," your display will show many more messages. You don't have to print them out, but they will show on your computer.

I'll go test this right now to be sure it still works.

Don't go, Anne. You're adding so much to this discussion, and I know Andrea would be very upset if she thought anyone decided not to post because of something she said.

Stay. Post. We need you here.

Mal

what happens is that another box will open on the left side of your computer. It contains all the messages that have appeared since the beginning.

Of course, you don't want all the messages, just the ones that have appeared recently, so there's a scroll bar you can use. Or just hit "end" and it will go to the last message. Then you can scroll up a litte.

I think there's another way to see more messages at a time. It may be in "Preferences." Will go check there.

The preferences button is at the bottom of the page. Click on Preferences, go to "Miscellaneous settings," go all the way to the bottom of that category and you will see a box where you can tell the computer how many messages you want to see on the screen. I typed 50 in my box.

This does not mean that after you have read the messages, you will see 50 messages again, but rather that you will see ALL of the messages that have appeared since you last looked.

Please tell me if I have been unclear.

Anneo, Yes, please keep on posting. Whether you write directly to us or not, we want to know your thoughts!

and didnt think anything other than I find it difficult to put names with comments.I am off to work just now and will look at the suggestions on how to fix problem later on today.Thanks. Anneo

MAL, I think Harriet is angry, but not just about the death of her brother. Her repressed rage is over losing her whole way of life--her mother, her father, even her sister and her connection to much of the rest of her community.

I do agree that there is wonderful satire in this book, but I think Tartt is much too good a writer for the story not to be primarily about the characters and setting, and less about issues. I don't think the characters are caricatures. If they were, we would not be so affected by them.

Oh Mal, I'm so sorry that that happened to you. That is wrong, we each like to be called by our names and cited for something that we've said. Please feel free here, or in any discussion I'm in, to express yourself freely and openly.

Oh anneof..... Have I created a problem here? I did not mean to cause your distress. I meant, as we progress through the story and we each answer one another, I just feel it's nice to validate others thoughts. Don't you dare clam up on us now!

I am relentless when it comes to hounding people so jump right back in here or I wil be writing you at all hours of the day and night.

If you are angry with me, speak to Maryal and the others. You can pretend I didn't say that. Everyone that knows me knows I have a habit of stirring up people, unintentionally. It's got something to do with that "Harriet" thing-- unsophisticated and impolite, I guess.

Horselover- I am in complete agreemenmt with the "anger" thing. I think Harriet is extremely angry. She just doesn't know it.

horselover, I respect your opinion that Harriet is angry, but I do have to ask:- What way of life did Harriet lose? She was a baby when Robin died and her mother disappeared. To her the aunts are a mosaic mother substitute. Her grandmother and Ida are disciplinarians and helpful critics, just as a father would be, if he were a good one and stayed around.

I maintain again that to Harriet her life is normal. Abnormal would be if Charlotte tried to take over the house and mother her kids, in her drugged condition. Abnormal would be if Dix moved back home and began pushing everyone around, as is his way. It is my opinion that these things would totally disrupt Harriet's life and make her lose the only lifestyle she's ever known.

Mal

Well, I certainly don't claim to have an indisputable answer, but I think she is. She is confrontational, gets into fights, and has a low tolerance for not getting her way. Edie's genes and Edie's influence have undoubtedly molded her to some extent, but then I think Edie is also quite angry.

And I think Harriet was derived of something when Robin was murdered, even though she was an infant at the time. Imagine that Robin had been her mother rather than a brother, and the effect on Harriet's life is easier to see. However, Robin was more than a brother; he seems to have been the only truly effective male in three generations of the Cleve family.

If Harriet is angry and disappointed that Edie did nothing to seek redress for the church fire, how could she not be angry that someone killed her brother and seems to be getting away with it?

For what it's worth, I welcome disagreements to any of my opinions, and it doesn't matter to me if my name is used or not.

I have not mastered the art of editing on this board. I meant to type "deprived" rather than "derived" in my previous post.

I agree with you that grief is not the main theme of the book. The point I was trying to make is that, in the first 137 pages, their various reactions to grief tell us much of how the main characters came to be the persons they are by the time we meet them. Well, I think I agree with you...

I've been reading and enjoying everyone's postings while I read ahead in the book. I have so little time to read that I need to make use of all that I have.

When I was a child we had a black maid that had a great part in raising my brother and myself. She was responsible for keeping the house clean, cooking, and entertaining us. She came to our home by bus five days per week and, if my parents had plans for the evening, even at our own home, she spent the night. I was an adult before I truely realized what my parents were asking of her. She had twin sons younger than me that she was forced to leave for the night to spend nights with us. We adored her but I'm sure that adoration couldn't possibly make up for missing her own children.

This was the mindset of the South at that time. I can't blame my parents for taking advantage of her goodness and need because that's the way things were then and they didn't see the wrongness of it.

There have been times as an adult that I have remembered her and the impact she had on my life. To us she was part of our family although I realized long ago that she couldn't have felt the same way.

Harriet's relationship with Ida Rhew follows this same path, although this story is taking place in more current times. I think that time tends to stand still longer in small Southern towns though and I grew up in a large city, Houston.

Harriet is bored, lonely, and angry. She needs something to take the edge off her emotions. Having the thought to look for her brother's killer solves all of these. And Robin is larger than life to her. His memory, which has been kept alive by the family as a living breathing boy, never as a dead one, has been projected into her psyche. If she could solve his murder maybe she can bring him back to life in a more real way. Maybe she can bring her mother and sister back also.

She's living in a house full of the dead: Robin, who is really dead, her mother and sister, both of whom figuratively died at Robin's death, and her father, who went completely out of all their lives after Robin's death. He's so dead to them that they wish for him to leave when he deigns to visit. How can they stand his LIFE? He may be an absent father but how can he survive in this family of walking dead.

How Harriet has survived is a testament to her strength of character. I think she needs something to keep her anchored to the world and at this moment in time it is the search for the killer who killed this whole family when he killed this son.

I am constantly struck by Donna Tartt's ability to create a mood and draw me in. The sequence of experiences in the two scenes described on pages 116-118 and 119-123 are a good example.

Harriet is playing alone in her room when she hears Allison screaming for help. Alarmed, Harriet acts reflexively and rushes to the front yard to help her sister. The sidewalk heat seres the soles of her feet. She retrieves her shoes and is immediately thrown into the dizzy swirl of the hysterical Allison's hands on her arm dragging her down the street. Ida Rhew calls questions out the window. Too much stimulation. Too much confusion.

Allison finally stops and points to the terrified bird. She screams, Do something! she screams. The blackbird writhes and cries out in pain. This din superimposed on the sering heat of the day throw Harriet off balance and for a moment she doesn't realize what's happening. Allison needs her. She doesn't know what to do.

Her wits return and her sense of alarm increases. She approaches the panicking bird and tries to touch it. She flinches and her hand draws away. She is afraid but keeps her voice quiet and her own fear in check. Allison and the bird are depending on her.

Mrs. Fountain shuffles out and yells ridiculous directions. Harriet sees blood streaming from broken quills. Allison screams again, 'Can you get it loose?' Harriet's heart pounds against her ribs. She kneels on the hot asphalt and feels her knees burn. She ignores her own pain and speaks softly to the flailing bird. She sees the terror in its eyes. Her hands tremble with agitation. She supports the broken wing as best she can and slips her hands under its body. The unharmed wing batters her face, she winces, closes her eyes, and tries gently to free the blackbird. Now there is a hellish screech. She opens her eyes to see that she has ripped the stuck wing off the bird's shoulder.

Mrs. Fountain yells to put the thing down. Allison pulls at Harriet's sleeve to hurry to Edie's to get help. In shock the bird has one final spasm and dies in Harriet's hands. Does she feel she has wittnessed Robin's death as the bird dies? At the end of the scene I am exhausted and in shreds. Tartt has tied my stomach in knots.

There follows a brief scene in which a panicky Hely tries to tell her he's been shot at....Still no rest for Harriet.

But the next scene opens with a dazed Harriet making her way to Aunt Libby's house. The sense of calm Tartt creates as Harriet walks into the old lady's world unravels all her pain and exhaustion. Step by step Tartt takes the little girl into ever-calmer waters. To accomplish this she lets us experience with Harriet the almost holy set of sights and sounds and familiar sameness she finds in the cool serenity of her aunt's home.

What masterful manipulation of readers' feelings. Would that I could begin to write like this!

Pat in Texas

John: I was remiss in welcoming you to our chorus of whys, and wherefores yesterday. It's a delight to have the male perspective here and I may often defer to you. As you pointed out, Harriet was angry because Edie didn't act on the fire issue. Remember when Harriet and Hely were examining the dead cat and Harriet thought about Capt. Scott and his "passage to the stained glass window" of death?
Tartt says, "it would never really leave her the vertigo of the moment, it would be with her for the rest of her like, and it would always be mingled inextricably with the dim tooshed--shiny metal saw, teeth.....Amnesia: ice floes, violent distances, the body turned to stone. The horror of all bodies."
Her heart was pounding and she felt breathless- not with breathlessness of fear but with something very close to RAGE!

I think she identified her anger there but she's still a child.

Prissy: Welcome, welcome to our discussion! We understand how difficult it can be to get in here while reading a novel and post. Please, feel free to come and go at you leisure (if you have that luxury) we are happy to have you at any time.
May I ask you a question? Have you ever had any contact with the black maid that you and your brother adored? Is she still living?
I wondered if anyone would bring up old Dix here in this discussion. That's a pretty raw area for me to delve into so I've avoided it. Run with that weak link folks!

Pat: I agree, this entire novel does what you have just mentioned. It's a roller-coaster ride of emotions, isn't it?

I shall never forgive myself if you choose to put your voice on mute! Speak to us, pullleeeze.

Dix Dufresne is just this side of being a Redneck. He's what we in the South call a "Good Ole Boy". He's the kind who keeps a gun rack in the back window of his truck to show the world what kinda guy he is, and why not? He's earned that right and fought hard to get it, didn't he?

He'd rather be out drinkin' and huntin' with the boys than tendin' to his family any old day. That's women's work, and he wouldn't be caught dead doin' it. Why should he stick around with a bunch of foolish, moanin' women who don't know their arse from their elbow and a bunch of cryin' kids, for Pete's sake?

Dix is a hard-livin' man who gets his kicks drivin' his big new car and makin' out with loose women and drinkin' good bourbon. As long as he keeps his family in shoes and a roof over their heads, he's doin' his part, ain't he?

I mean, what's a fella to do? You gotta go where the work is, doncha? Besides, that wife of his is no damn good since their kid died, is she? She lolls around in bed swallowin' them pills when she should be up washin' floors and lookin' after things like other women do.

He makes his appearances, and straightens out them people who don't have no direction and don't know where they're goin', don't he? What more can you ask of a real he-man like Dix?

The whole cotton-pickin' Cleve family's got their head in the clouds, anyway. Look at 'em there, all thinkin' about some mansion they ain't got any more and grievin' and sighin' about the past that wasn't no good anyway, and a boy that's been dead and gone for nigh onto twelve or more years. Why, that's ridiculous.

You think Dix is going to put up with that kind of baloney? Nosiree. Dix Dufresne's got better things to do with his life, by God, and you'd better believe it, Sister. If you don't like it, you know what you can do.

Mal

Well one thing, Dix is still sending money for the household expenses. Adelaide says when discussing this fact that "there's many a slip twixt the cup and the lip". My mother used to say "there's many a slip 'tween the hips and the lips."

Andy, Exactly! Harriet is angry, but doesn't know it. It's Tartt who describes Harriet's reaction as rage, not Harriet herself. Harriet mistakes her feelings as boredom. She paces around her room, goes from bed to window, and seems to have no real friends anymore besides Hely.

And thanks for pointing out that Dix is still supporting his family. He's not really a redneck or a drunk. He holds down a high-paying job at a bank, his entertainments are similar to many middle-class males, and his gun collection was inherited.

MAL, You asked, "What way of life did Harriet lose? She was a baby when Robin died." I think her obsession with looking repeatedly through the albums of old photos is her way of searching for the life she knows she has lost. In these photos, Robin is laughing, her mother is a playful young woman taking care of her children, sparkling with life. "The pictures enchanted Harriet. More than anything, she wanted to slip out of the world she knew into their cool blue-washed clarity, where her brother was alive and the beautiful house still stood and everyone was happy." That says it all--Harriet knows that the family had a different life before Robin's death and she desperately wants it back.

horselover:- Oh.

I'm outta here, folks. Not gonna defend my interpretation of this book no mo.

Thanks, you all.

Mal

Thanks for the wonderfully descriptive and highly amusing first person summary of Dix. I am trying to figure out what role he plays in the book as he could easily have been killed off prior to the beginning of the story.

Was he so uncaring he perceived no loss from Robin's death? Could be; he is portrayed as insensitve. However, my experience with the good ole boys is that they often take an inordinate interest in their sons, provided the boy embraces outdoor activities and becomes a companion on hunting and fishing trips. I may have missed some signals, but I think Robin would have gladly joined his father if offered the opportunity.

It seems strange to me that a man like Dix would have accepted Robin's murder without a massive out-pouring of overt rage. I would have thought he would have belligerently pestered the police to do more and would have threatened to take matters into his own hands if he was not satisfied with their progress.

So maybe he didn't care.

On the other hand, he may have resolved his own grief faster than the others and attempted, in his own insensitve manner, to jolt the others out of their wallows in self-pity (as he might see their behavior). When Charlotte, Allison and the others did not respond to his "encouragement", he found the home atmosphere intolerable and moved on.

One final possibility--and the least likely in my opinion--is that he may have been the champion of denial in a family where the competition for that title is keen.

I hope it doesn't sound like I am defending Dix because I don't like him. I am just trying to understand what his role is in this carefully crafted story.

Several references to the reservoir (pronounced rezovar in Mississippi)suggest Alexandria is either Jackson or lies close to Jackson, and yet my feelings are that it is a much smaller communtity in that everything seems to be within walking or bicycling distance. Have I missed some clues?

IMHO Golfer John Dix is a loser, a bon vivant, who cares only about winning an argument . Tartt describes him as a "remote and unpleasant figure.: He was always right, everything was a test of wills. He teased and nettled the children like a big bully and literally whipped Harriet with a belt for talking back. The only positive thing about the guy is he is sending $$ to support the family. Why on earth, else, he's in here, baffles me also.

Mal, stop back in whenever you feel like it. You're always welcome.

I see Dix as a very self-centered man with very definite ideas about what he wants and what he deserves. He wants to be a big man, respected and admired. He wants a wife who will help him socially. He doesn't want to be the man whose son was murdered. He doesn't want a wife who won't show up at the country club with him and impress his boss and colleagues. So he simply goes off and makes himself a life more to his liking. He is 'doing right' by his family by sending them money and showing up every once in a while. He feel he has a right to his life, and the family has no complaint coming. An easy man to dislike. ...Babi

Thanks, Mal, for giving good ol' boy Dix a voice. He has "married up" and having done his job, is off to have some fun out in the woods where women folk don't dare to come (little does he know that he has a young daughter who would probably love to be taken hunting)>

Yes, Harriet is definitely angry. Anger sometimes cannot be pinned down to a rational understanding, but it is felt all the same. An example of her anger occurs when we find her siting through the gun scope at all the neighbors. She is holding a gun. We are assured that it is not loaded, but in this same scene it occurs to Harriet that she could burn down the house and no one would stop her. She sure sounds angry to me. I don't mean that she spends all her time acting out her anger.

John--Maybe Dix is in the book because he serves a purpose as a very absent father. There are now no strong male influences around Harriet. Girls need a father just as much as boys do. Dix may, as you suggest, have rather taken to Robin especially if Robin had liked hunting. We'll never know though. Dix might have decided to have his own life anyway.

Prissy--I enjoyed your account of your black maid and I too wonder if you ever saw her after you grew up. That being part of the family and yet not really was one strange situation, but it was also quite common.

Pat in TX--I too would really love to write like Tartt. Thanks for calling our attention to the wonderfully rendered blackbird scene. How hot it was! Once, when I was first in Puerto Rico, I mistakenly left my shoes up by the path instead of taking them with me down to the water. The soles on the feet were burning by the time I returned to my shoes. And hot tar! How well I remember smelling hot tar as a kid in Chicago. We used to love to pick up some of it and mold it if we could get to it fast enough. That poor blackbird didn't have a chance; if Harriet had not tried to rescue it, it would have died anyway. Notice that the whole section is titled "Blackbird." We are meant to see this incident as central.

Sorry to be so late today checking in. I had a dentist appointment and the Jack Russell terrier has a lump on her face and may have to have surgery tomorrow morning. I find out at 5:30 today. Everyone please keep Kemper Elizabeth in your thoughts. She is a good dog.

Maryal

A little behind though, have an exit weekend for pupils so will catch up. Mal it was your different interpretation that got me involved, I was pretty laid back about this till then, so keep right on defending.

Unless I am too far removed to see this clearly, the book seems almost like a caricture of the South to me.And all the character types are here, somewhat in the manner of Wind in the Willows.I agree Tartt writes well, and I assume all this defining of characters, (since Alf wont allow me to read the end)is working towards some end.

I have some sympathy for the drugged Charlotte, she would do better in todays world of counselling and ownership of feelings, with so much more to learn I am not going to write her off just yet.

Edie I love, so often the strong person who holds things together is scorned, by those who rely on them most.I dont believe that children see things clearly, in fact I think they are notorious for concluding the wrong thing.My own children seem to think I have changed, when actually I am still the cranky old girl of yore, their perception has shifted, gladly.

Anneo

Anneof..- if you think you've read caricatures of southern living in the first few chapters, jus wait until Saturday when we meet up with the Ratcliff brothers. REDNECKs personified!

I don't know anne, I don't think that Charlotte would even attend counseling sessions (in todays world.) She's happy in her drug induced stupor.

Hello everyone. Do check out our very own SeniorNet Home page. They are taking a poll to see how many people like to read books and discuss them with others. It is located on the right side of the home page, go in and cast your vote. click here for Senior Net Home Page.

My wife and I are off to a couples' golf tournament in Hattiesberg tomorrow. Will read my assignment, and be back in touch Sunday night or Monday morning. If I encounter Dix, I will kick his ball into the rough.

You go John! I'm in a member-guest this afternoon. It'll be hotter than the hinges of **** but hit 'em far. We wil be anxious for your return.

Does anyone have anything that they would like to point out about this first section that we've not yet hashed over?

Who, so far is your favorite character?

Have you ever know anyone like this kid?

I still can't figure out why Hely's mother won't let Harriet at her dinner table. Why is that, does anyone else wonder at that?

I loved the aunties planning on a bus trip together to Charleston; one of them had barely steped outside Mississippi and she and the others weregloomy and terrified for days if they had to venture a few miles from home. T The water tasted funny; they couldn't sleep in a strange bed; they were worried they'd left the coffee on, worried about their houseplants....
That sounds like my mother! I t used to irritate me so, but as I age, I find myself starting to lean that way, also. Ole , generous, benvolent Mr. Dial-a God is only going to charge them a phenomenal fee--- what a guy.

Let's hear from you today. Maryal and I will return late today?

Andrea asks, "Have you ever known anyone like this kid?"

Not really, but I can relate to a lot of the things she did and what she thought because I was alone so much growing up. When Harriet takes the Winchester and the bullets out of the cabinet, Tartt writes on Page 65, "The fort was under attack; she was guarding her post and all their lives depended on it." Shortly after that, Harriet says to herself: " Here I am, she said to herself, on guard." She's protecting her family and the house.

To me this scene doesn't sound like anger because I played out similar scenes. Like Harriet, I read all the time, and my imagination was very, very active. We lived on a dirt road country street six miles from the center of a small city in Massachusetts, near the New Hampshire state line. There was a field between each of the houses. All of the "bus kids" in school, who didn't live near enough to go home for lunch, played Jackknife, Marbles or Baseball in the schoolyard when the weather was good, and we all carried jackknives, bags of marbles and baseball gloves. I'd take my jackknife out of my pocket when I got home, put it on the windowsill and position myself and our wire-haired fox terrier, Patsy, so I could see any robbers and bad guys coming down the hill from New Hampshire, sic Patsy after them and go out and scare them off or kill them, and save the house and us.

Once in a while Mrs. Chooljian, an Armenian-American lady, who lived half a mile away, would walk up the street toward the hill to gather wild grape leaves she used in cooking, and Patsy and I would talk it over and decide if she was the enemy and should we go after her, too? This is why to me Harriet was playing a game, not acting out anger, a game very similar to the one I played when I was a young girl.

Things happen to the imagination of a child who is left alone, and Harriet had special concern because "the killer" was lurking somewhere, and he or she might be right there close to her house. After all, she was sure Robin was with her at those times watching over her. "She could feel him breathing at her back, quiet, sociable, glad for her company." She wasn't going to let what happened to him happen to her or any of her family.

Harriet smoked her mother's cigarettes. Well, I remember finding a pack of cigarettes a visitor must have left in the house and taking them out in the backyard and smoking a cigarette a day, feeling very grown up, one summer when I was alone. Who was to stop me except myself? Who was to stop Harriet? She arranged the shotgun shells on the carpet in a starburst pattern. That sounds like a game to me, too, and like something I would have done.

Harriet's imagination was fired up wild with the story about Captain Scott and his last expedition to the Antarctic and by Houdini, too. I can remember holding my breath until I nearly passed out, not to imitate Houdini, but just to be able to tell somebody that I held my breath for such and such number of minutes.

Many of the things Harriet did, I did, too, simply because I was alone. I guess I don't see her as most of you do because my childhood probably was not very much like yours.

Mal

Thus far I'd say it's Edie, Margaret, Mr. Dial and Curtis Ratliff.

Mal

I think Margaret jumped from one book to another? Just kidding, Mal.

I did that yesterday when I wrote a message to be posted here, but caught it and made corrections. I should know better than try and think about two books at the same time! Of course, I mean Harriet.

Thanks, Maryal.

Mal

My favorite character is Harriet. When I was her age, I spent most of my time with a cousin who was three months older. The two of us were always dreaming up schemes to liven up our lives. Often we'd get into trouble as a result. One spring, we tried to cross a rain-swollen creek and ended up clinging to a log being swept along by the fast-moving current. Fortunately, we were rescued as Harriet often is when she goes too far.

I like Hely, too. He's a wonderful little boy, and his farfetched fantasies about how to win Harriet's love are simply hilarious.

I also like Robin. I realize that we don't really know him any better than Harriet did, but there is something beautiful about the things we slowly learn as Harriet uncovers them. It's not hard to see why he has such a hold on the Cleves imagination.

And Aunt Libby, the spinster who took such good care of her father despite his mean lack of appreciation. A real candidate for sainthood!

Maryal, I hope your dog is okay. Please keep us updated on her condition.

Off to my Part-time job now. Back later to read all your posts.

To me, Donna Tartt is doing an incredibly good job of presenting these two kids, Harriet and Hely, most realistically. Their thoughts, games, viewpoints...everything fits their age and social setting with wonderful accuracy. I have never been privy to the inner workings of the Southern male mind, whether redneck or upstanding citizen, but I suspect she is doing an equally valid presentation there as well. ...Babi

and your choice of Robin really pleases me horselover, he really is real then.

I dont think I know any Harriets in the one skin, she seems to me to be a composite of every imaginative child I have ever known.Also have trouble with believing she is really aware of how far she is going, and if she is really so astute she should know that Edie loves her almost as much as she loved Robin.Trouble is as children no matter how smart we are, we can never get our mind around adult thinking, least that was my experience.

My husbands three cousins who lived together in the one house for 80 or so years, all had separate areas over which they seldom crossed, in all things. Work, play and imaginings. We always felt that the three of them together made one whole entity,and as each of them died over a ten year period, the ones left took up the slack so to speak. Once we are categorised in life, it is difficult to change.

Anneo

One of the girls has a barbie doll, and they didnt go on sale till 1959.

horselover--Thank you for remembering Kemper Elizabeth. Her lump is responding to the drops the vet told me to put on twice a day. Medicine is a combination of cortisone and some other anti-inflamatory drug. The lump is now less that HALF the size it was. Vet says it's not a lipoma which wouldn't have shrunk like that, and to just keep putting the drops on the lump until it is gone. She asked me to call her next week. Kemper is extremely important to me because she has seen me through some hard times and because some days I really think she is smarter than I am.

Mal--You're welcome. I'm reading both discussions too, and I can see how characters can wander around in your head. If I weren't reading the other discussion though, I'd still be wondering where Margaret is!

anneo--Ah yes, Barbie. I never had one of her though my daughter had Skip, or Skipper, or someone who was supposed to be Barbie's younger sister.

I'm not sure which characters I most admire. I find Edie very interesting, and I want to know more about her. Harriet, of course. I'd like to see Mr. Dial take a serious fall. (The malicious side of me comes out now and again.)

I have to spend some time tomorrow reading the next pages. Have been busy this week and I have not read them yet. Eeeeeeek!

Though unprepared when things counted, I am trying to make up for my omissions. I got the book TODAY and will try to catch up with you as soon as I can.

I have followed the discussion faithfully from its very start and have pondered alongside you about some issues.

There is one issue - however, and let me say this now, please - where I fail all understanding of this very real racial issue, with which I clearly cannot identify, in contrast to many born in this country. As much as I would have liked tro adjust and assimilate, this is one issue that leaves me stranded.

Maryal, I'm sooo glad Kemper Elizabeth is respoding to treatment, and that her condition is not serious.

I wonder why Allison remembers jumping again and again from the tree where Robin died. Is this because she saw something she was trying to imitate? "She'd had a dream where she did the same thing, except in the dream she didn't hit the ground." Harriet tries to get Allison to remember her dreams and write them down. Will Allison eventually provide a vital clue to the crime and the killer?

horselover, this book takes some unusual twists and turns before it's over. The answer to your question is no.

P.S. Remember, I read this book when my computer died and I had no hopes of getting another one. This second read is the important one, though, and quite different from the first.

Mal

I am keeping up on the very interesting posts and do have the book and will post a bit about the people we are getting to know but not just now. I shall return as bad pennys always do.

Hi, Gingee! It's so good to see you here.

Mal

Do You know how that got started?

Our Sweet 80 some year ole Gladys on S/N that I have met at several gathering just made a typo and I loved it sooo It's hanging on.

I shall be back and So Glad You spoke to me as it does make a diffence as some times I feel inferior to all of you. Thanks.

Ginger~~ Gingee

Don't you ever feel inferior to me, Gingee. I think you're the best!

Mal

OH WOW, Now that is so encouraging. Thanks.

Gingee-- I love that, that's what you shall be dubbed forever, now. I am always happy to have you in any discussion Gin, please do not feel inferior as we are all here for one purpose- our love of literature! Noone is better than anyone else as the novel influences allof our thoughts.

horselover you said that Harriet mistakes her rage for boredom. I hadn't thought of it that way but you can really see it fulminating in her daily life, can't you? She's a stormy child and I worried about her all through our first reading. Is she going to snap? Kill something? (Maybe her mother) I've got it- maybe Margaret!
Like Mal, I too, can identify with this child. She's offered no regimen or discipline to help her know her boundaries.
Anneof.. brings up a valid point . She said: "Also have trouble with believing she is really aware of how far she is going, and if she is really so astute she should know that Edie loves her almost as much as she loved Robin.Trouble is as children no matter how smart we are, we can never get our mind around adult thinking, least that was my experience."
I don't think kids that age understand their emotions. Gads, I still have trouble understanding mine and I'm near 60. She doesn't even think about the affection that the aunts have supplied for her. She just sees her mother's despondancy.

Maryal- how's our Kemper Eliz. doing? I fear Mr. Dial would be in trouble if he had to face you and me together.

Hooray, there's our faithful, latecomer Traude. I am so happy you're here at last and look forward to your comments. What do you mean about the racial issues, Traude? Do you mean you don't understand bigotry or you don't understand the racial issues in the story? Am I missing something?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Today we meet the RATCLIFFS! I will be brief for now but I will return from work at 4:30 today.

We can add Jungle Book to the list of books Donna Tartt mentions. Why do you think she inserted that one with Mowgli at this point of the story? Chew on that thought and I shall return.

Somebody's got to do it, ANDREA. Kill Margaret off, I mean. I thought Week 2 and the Ratliffs began tomorrow? TRAUDE grew up in Europe, and came to this country as an adult. There is not and hasn't been the extreme prejudice against Blacks in Europe as there was and is in the United States. I can understand Traude's shock when she moved to the DC area.

Harriet wanted to avenge the murder of her brother, which everybody but her family talks about. I think she's trying to reconstruct the past so she can know Robin or even be her brother. Because of Robin's death, Allison "had been teased cruelly in her early years of school . . . . She'd endured the taunting in meek silence." Harriet, on the other hand, "perhaps because of her ferocious nature" or the fact that "possibly her classmates were too young to remember the murder", was not treated this way. "The tragedy in her family reflected a spooky glamour on her which the boys found irresistible." She often spoke of Robin with a "strange, willful obstinacy which implied not only that she had known Robin but that he was still alive. . ." (Pages 32-33)

Harriet is described as "brooding and humorless." At least one of those adjectives might be used to describe her grandmother, Edie, perhaps both. In many ways, Edie certainly is the same kind of iconoclastic rebel that Harriet is.

In her striving to reconstruct the past, Harriet has made the house, Tribulation, not into a replica of the house, "but a chimaera, a fairy tale"(Page 40) and she's reconstructed her brother into someone who's larger than life with the same "narrowness of vision which enabled all of the Cleves to forget what they didn't want to remember, and to exaggerate or otherwise alter what they couldn't forget." (Page 40) The trouble with Harriet is that these imaginings don't satisfy her. She wants to find her brother's killer, bring him to justice, and in this way perhaps bring her brother back to life.

I think it's Robin that Harriet misses and longs for, not some lifestyle. If she's angry, her anger comes from being deprived of the brother whom she thinks is part of her. Harriet is more boy than she is not, and Robin alive would be her playmate, her soulmate, the friend who would fulfill her needs as Hely and no one else can. Yes, that's what she misses, not her mother or father or sister but her missing brother.

I have the strongest feeling that even if Charlotte had not disappeared; even if Allison was a bright, lively teenager, even if Dix had stayed home and been the father he might have been, Harriet would still have done all she could to avenge her brother's death. I think Robin's absence is the major influence and stimulus which goads Harriet into being what she is and doing what she does.

Mal

Thank you, MAL.

ANDREA, I meant to say that the "landscape" in which we are born influences (determines) our entire life. I believe it is a truism.

I don't want to belabor the point and don't mean to digress. But I believe it is essential to explain here that my family came from a different background, a different "landscape", so how could we have possibly experienced racial differences ?

Furthermore, there is no absolute truth, e.g. in history There are always different interpretations on wars, depending on what side is doing the reporting.

Once here, my husband and I were immediately confronted with the racial issue. I worked in the Pennsylvania Building in Washington, D.C., where there was then a Drug Fair on one side of the ground floor and a 'higher class' establishment on the other side. (Class difference, so soon ?)

We had only 30 minutes off for lunch, so an office pal and I patronized the Drug Fair, where you could just wander in and sit where you wanted (if you were white, that is); lunch was then about dollar. We always looked for the counter where Maureen was serving, and I have never forgotten her.

I was appalled (outraged is a better word) that negroes, as they were called then, had to sit at the last counter way in back -- in Washington, mind you, and AFTER laws had been passed to change things. Outspoken as I was, I voiced my concern to a female attorney in the office who said, "My my, you are a crusader ..."

Thank you for allowing me to outline the background.

To all who asked--I never saw our black maid after she quit working for us when I was about 13. And I don't know the details around her leaving. Since both of my parents died recently I'll never know, I guess. I was at an age then when I had no interest in anything much that didn't revolve around me, so I didn't give her leaving the notice it deserved. Something I'll always regret. My mom did mention running into her at a upscale department store around 10 or so years ago. My mom was taking her mink coat in for summer storage and our ex-maid was working there. They had a conversation and my mom mentioned it to me in passing. As I was no longer living in Houston by then I never followed up on the information.

As a child I lived with my nose in books. I tuned out the rest of life when I was reading. Books sometimes felt more real to me than reality did. I can understand Harriet's use of books in much the same way. She relates her everyday life to stories she has read. Robin's story is much like a book in that it's a story she has been told over and over while growing up. It's become more real to her than if she had actually experienced it. I think that she feels that by looking for his killer she can somehow return him to her family and herself. This is just the sort of adventure that heroes take part in in her books. They are larger than life, with books written about them, and her search for the KILLER is larger than reality.

The man she is focused on (forgive me for reading ahead some, but we meet him tomorrow anyway) is also larger than life in some ways. He and his family are so awful they seem almost caricatures of Southern rednecks, although I know first hand that people like them really exist. He is so foreign from what she is used to that he must feel larger than her reality.

In this book we get a look at how things look through a child's perspective. Things as foreign as murder and the actions of people like the Ratliffs must seem too large to contain in her mind. Of course they would become linked together for her.

I must say that I am enjoying this discussion. I participate in a live book club and my fellow members could learn much from the insights offered here. We mainly get together to say we read the book and to eat. Discussion doesn't play a big role.

HORSELOVER, thanks for reminding me about Allison's dreams of jumping from the tree. I remember at the time I read about I thought it didn't suggest a murder to me. I thought it more likely the boy was jumping from the tree and the rope wound up around his neck. He may have looped one arm through the noose, planning to swing from it. This is speculation, of course, but an accident seems to me in many ways far more probable than a murder.

I see that Edie is popular with several posters. I give her credit for strength of mind, and keeping the family going. However, I found her incredibly insensitive to the feelings of others. This seems especially so where the younger generation is concerned.

PRISSY, my whole family are of the genre that buries their noses in a book, and don't notice the house is on fire. And it is so true that the books that we read as children stimulate our imagination and become a part of our play and our 'adventures'. I believe your observation about Harriet incorporating the stories into her own 'story' and actions is a good one. ...Babi

Andrea - Thanks for the email about the discussion but I have not yet received the book. The library only has two copies and they have a big list of people waiting. I have read all the post so far and I am really upset I am going to miss out! I know this is my kind of book! I will really love reading it when I do get it. It brings up so many issues and I have enjoyed everyones perspectives.

I never knew how dysfunctional my family was until I was in therapy at age 48! My childhood basically kept me back from so much. Child of an alcoholic and an ineffectual constantly clinically depressed mother who was addicted to dieting. Both of my parents gave me some terrible hangups! If I only knew what I know now about myself while I was bringing up my kids! However I have managed to forge a different relationship with them in the last decade and its a healthy one. My mother also attempted suicide when I was 21 and my little sisters only pre teens. One can block out a lot of hurts and traumas without realising it when one is a kid but it will come back to bite you at some time.

Carolyn

BaBi, The same thought had occurred to me -- that Allison saw Robin jumping from the tree and was trying to duplicate what she had seen. That would also explain why she thought she would not reach the ground, but would fly through the air. However, what she might have seen was someone else, hidden among the leaves, throw Robin's body from the tree tied to the rope by a noose around his neck. We still have to wait to find out what really happened.

I think all of us must have been book lovers as children. That's how we ended up in Book Clubs for solace and entertainment as adults. It's interesting that Harriet turns to the classics and to non-fiction tales of heroism and adventure, while Hely is fascinated by comic books, especially horror comics. He relies on these tales of murder and torture to get him "through certain difficult stretches of life." It's hilarious when Hely tries to pay Benny, an older kid, three dollars to look at his comic for one minutes, until he finds out these comics are for sale at the pool hall for twenty cents.

Prissy, Reading and eating are fun, too. Here, on-line, we have to satisfy ourselves with virtual eating. But it doesn't taste as good (haha).

Well, it's "Riders Up." I'm off to watch Sunny Cide win (I hope)!

What a blockhead I am! DUH! It is tomorrow, indeed, Mal that we were scheduled to meet the Rats. My intentions were honest but a bit premature. So sorry!
I don't know Mal I disagree about Harriet not missing her mother. I think that what she misses most is "living" beings. It's ghastly that everyone around her is consumed with death. The grim reaper walks through her childhood. I see her as neglected and depressed, with a heaviness of heart. Perhaps that germinates from my own empathy for this child.

Traude: Our Crusader. Thank you for explaining about the different "landscape" that causes you to scratch your head over racial issues.

Prissy: I feel so saddened that you never saw your maid again to be able to convey to her how important she was to you , as a child. I have learned , especially in my profession, to thank people whenever I can and let them know how loved they are and how affected I have been by their presence in my life. My parents are gone now and I have no relatives to ask about some unresloved questions and issues in my earlier years and I feel a sense of regret.
You said :Things as foreign as murder and the actions of people like the Ratliffs must seem too large to contain in her mind. We shall see how well our little imp does with this crew of losers she's about to meet.

I, too, participate in two book clubs. One is the Great Books Foundation and the other is from our Women's Club. Let me tell you, we are the best, right here, and I don't miss an opportunity to tell them and invite them to participate in SNet.

Babi-I am interested in grandmother Edie also, (the old girl). Remember we were told that although divorced, noone would talk about the mysterious alliance wihich had produced Harriet's mother. She's the autocrat of the family; arbitrary and bossy (Not unlike Harriet).
(pg 28) Edie, who did not mind a scrap herself, found in her youngest grandaughter a solid competitor.

Carolynn (kiwi): I am soooooo sorry that you do not have your book for the discussion. We are happy to have you with us, none the less. Dysfunctional family! Everyone thinks that their family is the most dysfunctional of all , it seems. My daughter used to tell me all of the time how dreadfully dysfunctional we were and I'd just laugh and tell her"Wait, just wait until you get out into the real world, honey, you'll see dysfunctional. She laughs about it now and it does my heart good to have her tell me, "I thought we were dyfunctional, we were a walk in the park in comparison to ------"

Well, Sunny Cide did not make it, but he put up a valiant effort. I guess I'll have to return to my memories of being at Belmont when Secretariat, Seattle Slew, and Affirmed won the Triple Crown. And wonderful memories they are, too.

Andy, I agree. We all come from dysfunctional families. But, thank Heaven, they functioned long enough to raise us!

I'd like to shoot the guy, who decided "dysfunctional" should become the most overused word in our vocabularies today, up to an uninhabited asteroid in space. How many "normal" families have you ever known? We're human beings with all our faults and all our glories. Not one of us is perfect, and most of us do the best we can.

I find it hard sometimes not to let my sympathies for a character and that character's situation cloud what the author of a book is trying to do and say. Tartt had to make Harriet free so she could do what she's going to do in upcoming chapters.

If Harriet were as depressed as some of you think she is, she'd never go out looking for snakes, and she'd never be able to do a lot of the things she does. Depressed, heavy-hearted people don't function that way. They take to their beds and swallow drugs the way Charlotte does.

In these first 137 pages, Tartt has introduced some of her characters and the locale, and defined the reason for the plot, which we haven't really seen yet. Tartt will go through the same process with the Ratliff family in the next segment we'll read. In my opinion (for whatever it's worth), this story hasn't even begun.

It's my award-winning, scholarship-to-a-fine-university-winning North Carolina grandson's high school graduation tonight. I wish I could be there.

Mal

I wish you could be there for your grandson's graduation too. Congratulations to him. Where is he going to school?

Interesting that the plot is still being set up, and I look forward to meeting the Ratliffs, those people Ida Rhew calls "trash." I expect to find them pretty trashy since I trust Ida.

I have a LOT of reading to do. . . .

so, I am off to do it.

Maryal, Hil won a four year scholarship to the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He plans to major in math with an emphasis on statistics and will live in the German House where he'll speak nothing but German. (And there's no German in either his mother's or father's families.) I'm not absolutely sure, but I think he's graduating tonight at the top of his class. I'm very proud of him, even if he has little or no interest in music and art. I'm sure his Massachusetts scientist grandfather (my former husband) is extremely proud of him, too. The truth is, grandfather and grandson might just as well be two peas from the same pod.

Mal

Mal--That's just wonderful, especially the part about living in a German house and speaking it all the time. What a great way to learn a language. Not everyone goes into the arts, you know. And some people consider math at the higher levels to have an aspect of art in it. UNC Chapel Hill is such a good school. They have a wonderful English Dept. in case he changes his mind. And Duke is close by. Of course you know all this.

Maryal, yes, I do know. My daughter works at Duke at the Fuqua School of Business as web content manager. She received her BFA from UNC, Chapel Hill not too many years ago, having left Sarah Lawrence to be married at the end of her sophomore year. Hil's grandfather did post doctoral work at Duke in Cryogenic Physics, 1958-59. Unfortunately, at least I think it's unfortunate in a way, Hil took college level courses in high school. Among some other classes, he has been exempted from UNC English classes his freshman year.

Mal

in my time Mal, but have never taken to drugs and bed as a result. Different strokes for different folks. Reading about all these children makes me totally sad, because as Kiwi lady says this stuff comes back to bite one sooner or later.

Traude, where is this Utopia you were reared in that knew no rascism.Sometimes I think the overt type is easier to handle. Years ago when travelling round Australia we spent 3 weeks working at Leyland car manufacturers in Sydney.The place was mostly manned by Europeans, who literally hated one another. Serbs and Croatians.Turks and Kurds.Greeks and Albanians. Lebanese and Syrians.All these people were kind to us but extreme in their treatment of each other.As an Australian, I am ashamed of how we treat our indigenous people, and more ashamed of how many of us attempt to deny it.I think its all part of the human psyche, and though the word "nigger" and "wog" may now be politically incorrect, we still have a way to go all over the world.

Ida, discriminated against herself, metes the same treatment to "white trash".Tartt forces me to look at myself, and wonder about how I treat others.Aside from that this is beautiful writing, and in commenting about that to my husband I said "for an American", which shows my opinion, however incorrect, that English prose, is best written by the English.

Ginger, you may have some difficulty writing down the ideas, but they are so there in your head and heart.That you can admit your difficulty here is not inferiority, just honesty and openness.I admire you greatly. Anneo

I'm here Andy. I had to wait for the book. Now I have 2 of them. I had read the first 2 chapters and I am waiting patiently for the story to begin. I enjoy the way the author digs into the very soul of each character. She does have a way with words without being verbose but I am anxiously awaiting some excitement. I have had enough of disfunctionalism. Is that a word??????? Let the story begin.

Well different strokes for different folks as Anneo says I lived all my life with a depressed mother, who sat about filling my ears with the sins of my father causing deep anxiety in me. I was only a little girl but she filled my ears with her pain. I had lots of responsiblity caring for my four siblings. At 13 I was an old lady. I never learned how to laugh and I am still a solemn soul! I think the author of this book is probably setting the stage for events that follow. Books with dysfunctional characters do not depress me I am quite interested in them. Must admit that if they are still dysfunctional at 55 it does get on my nerves a bit. You can grow if you want to feel the pain and make the gain. I get more and more frustrated with not being able to actually read this book but I am enjoying your posts IMMENSELY!

Carolyn

Alf Thank you for your encouraging email wondering when I was going to post.

OH Anneo, You are so understanding of my honesty and openest. Yes I do feel much in my head and heart about many things pertaining to the book of Little Friend and so will post. You are so encouraging. I apprieciate your pulling me out of the woodwork, smile.

I feel much like Cmac "Let the Story Begin" as I am chopin at the bit Like Funny Cide did today. Whaaa.

Kiwilady, (Carolyn) and All, I came from a disfunctional family I thought as they physicial fought for some reason, Oh the stories I could tell, Hey I may put that in the book, memories or whatever I am writing. You would not believe some of it and it has very much affect my life. Any way when I got older I figured out some of it as my Mother would do things to bring it on such as throw hot coffee in Dads face I think that I would have done something about that also. Now hearing and reading about people I look back and see that there are many out there here now and was then who take pleasure in fighting and making up, both Women and Men. NOT ME as I am a person who feels You love me Tender so Love me or Leave me and let me be lonely as I do not want to be beat on or to beat someone else. Different strokes for different folks, You bet.

We are getting to know these folks and why they are what they are and the reasons they will be what they will be as we shall see in the future reading of Little Friend.

Donna Tartt, Is setting the background in a very special way in my opion and she is making us Think about our childhood. I Love the sharing of us the posters of what we thought of our childhood then and now. It can and will make a diffrence as to our future and our chidren and Grandchidrens future also.

Yes I can see all of what you have said about the book so far and looking forward to All of Your Posts.

For any looking in who are new to Books and Literature I will sign my name as I remember reading long posts and forgeting who the post was from.

Ginger is my name and Smiling is my Game as I am a Very Happy person Now that I understand what has been and why.

I wrote a long post here last night which I deleted. It detailed some of the nightmarish things that happened to me when and after I had polio at the age of 7 that continued on a fairly regular basis most of my life. What I did not mention was the aunt to whom I was given by my parents. Not only was she prone to temper tantrums and hysteria, she tried to make up for her own feelings of inferiority by pushing me very hard. Between operations, injuries, other indignities caused by the terrible illness I had so young and the instability and craziness of the woman who raised me, it's a wonder I managed to survive in one piece. After I wrote that post I realized that all I was saying was that it is a rare occasion when I state an opinion that is not based on some knowledge or experience.

This book is bringing out interesting things in us, but I will tell you unequivocally that what Tartt has written is in a great part fantasy, not based on anything that did or could have happened in real life. At this point Harriet is thinking about Mowgli and snakes, especially cobras, cottonmouths and copperheads. If you live in the South you are aware of snakes. You'd better be, or you might get bitten by one.

When I moved up to North Carolina from Florida where I had lived nearly ten years, I rented a house alone in the country in north Durham. The landlady insisted that I hire someone to mow the yard, a good deal of property, and told me her grandson was available. He did a very good job, and when he did he disturbed all the snakes that made those grounds their home. I went to the grocery store on a highway several miles away one day and came home and began to unload the trunk of my car. When I picked up a couple of bags and started to walk to the house, I saw a very large poisonous snake coiled not far from my car. Because of a paralyzed leg and the full leg brace I wear, I can't run, of course. If the snake had tried to attack, there was no way I could escape. I had to get in the house, so calmed myself down and decided that if I didn't disturb it, it wouldn't disturb me. I was right, but I was shaking when I finally got up to the steps and struggled into the house. My experience in Florida was less traumatic since I lived closer to "civilization". The only poisonous snake I saw was a deadly coral snake, dead in the middle of a road to the recycling center.

Harriet calls Hely to come over and join her in a snake quest. "Can't or no was never what you wanted to say to Harriet. He had seen her jump off rooftops, attack kids twice her size, kick and bite the nurses during the five-in-one booster inoculations in kindergarten." Hely suggests that they "call the cops" and say they know who killed Robin. "Harriet looked at him like he was insane. 'Why should I let other people punish him?' she said."(Page 159) Harriet has made up her mind; there's no crossing her, so she and Hely go out to catch a snake which will kill Robin's murderer.

I've noticed that Donna Tartt not only uses foreshadowing, she sets up scenes which are a lead-in to something which comes later. This scene is one of those, so is the scene when Ida leaves leftover ham and cold mashed potatoes for Allison and Harriet's dinner. If we pick up on the fact that Harriet is hungry without considering that the lack of food could lead to something more important, we are missing something.

This book must be read with a fine tooth comb and a long-term memory. Tarrt is doing a great deal of weaving of a pattern that is not revealed immediately in these early parts. It's hard sometimes to distinguish between the wheat and the chaff because this author places tangents like possible psychological damage to Harriet in front of the reader while subtly leading that reader into something very different.

Anne mentioned Ida Rhew's attitude about "Poor White Trash". I'll say that the attitude of black people in the South toward poor white trash is justified. Didn't Hely stumble onto the scene where the Ratliffs were shooting at a poor old innocent black woman for no reason at all except the fun they were having scaring the daylights out of her? It would have made no difference if one of those bullets had hit old auntie; that was part of the game. Incidents like this are fairly rare these days, but not unusual. I daresay the Ratliffs and the Oduns are kinds of people most of us here would never meet in our lives.

Mal

so of course it isnt real.

Even using the term "poor white trash" sickens me, doesnt quiet tally with the all men created equal of your constitution.

Mal, at our age we will most of us be speaking from experience, but given the same set of experiences we all of us thank God react uniquely.

As an Australian, I have lived with snakes, loathe them with a passion.they have been at varying times, in my bed, my car, my laundry and ever in my garden.

Am I wrong in assuming, Mal, you dont like Tartt.I consider myself a fairly critical reader, yet I find little chaff in this book. I find myself reading o'er and o'er, determined to miss nothing. Anneo

Anne, I'd better be careful about what I say! I think Donna Tartt is a very fine writer. I read her first book and was very impressed. I used the wheat and chaff expression only to mean that it's sometimes difficult to see what really is the intent of this fine writer in this book. I could have said see the forest for the trees. Some of the things we've discussed so earnestly are not really important to the plot at all, thanks to her cleverness and adroitness.

According to Jonathan Daniels, the expression "Poor White Trash" goes back at least to the early 19th century. He says, "Slaves themselves entertain the very highest contempt for white servants, whom they designate as 'poor white trash' " I suspect that these white servants mistreated the slaves badly because they were black, and that was why there was such contempt.

Today people who are considered to be poor white trash are those who generally live in a beat-up old trailer which has a couple of derelict cars, empty beer and whiskey bottles, garbage and other trash on the property. These people drink too much, use drugs, shoot guns off for no reason at all, and are generally lawless, often in and out of prison. As Daniels says, "There are poor, and there are poor."

Admittedly, the term is degrading and should not be used, but habits of such long-standing persist. One hears this expression used today in the South.

I must tell you that a great cookbook was published a few years ago which was called "The Poor White Trash Cookbook."

Donna Tartt is going to give us a much better description of "Poor White Trash" than I could. I have never known people who live and behave like this, and have never used that expression, any more than I'd say "nigger". I was quoting the book.

Mal

Well I have known people like that- people that are called "white trash" and have a soul blacker and bleaker than the darkest of any man's skin. Many times I believe that some of them (not all) are just too damned ignorant to know what harm they generate.
I do agree that Tartt has just begun. She's given us some wonderful characterizations in the first part of our read and you have each added immeasurable, poignant contrasts, telling us of your own memories. I can't tell you how much I benefit by reviewing and deliberating each and every one of your posts. It makes me wish that we were in a room together, kicking back and reflecting, as we comfort one another.

We now have the back ground and the prevailing framework for Harriet and her family. Let us move on to the big, bad bullies! No matter how bloody ignorant, ignoble and illiterate these people are protrayed as, I must tell you, I cracked up over some of their shenanigans.
I sure learned more about snakes than I ever wanted to know. Frozen snakes? Why would they want to live in a climate where they would freeze? Was Chester right? Would they thaw? Yuk is all that I can say to that description. Reptile playland doesn't sound like a place I should take the grand kids; I'm really not into boa constrictors!!!

I will be on the links today with a group and will return this evening. Thank you all for your wonderful insights into these characters. Tartt should have accepted our invitation. You all make her look good!!

Anne, I personally think equality of all people as stated in the American Constitution by our founding fathers is an idealistic dream, simply because we're human beings and people. In 1858 Stephen A. Douglas debated Abraham Lincoln when they were campaigning in Illinois. Part of what Douglas said is this:
"America has undergone incredible hardships as a nation. No issue has had more impact on the development of the American definition of freedom than the issue of slavery. Did the Constitution specify which men were created equal? Surprisingly enough the phrase 'all men are created equal with certain inalienable rights' did not mean what it says."
Dougas went on to say that "Negroes are naught and ought to have naught."

Abraham Lincoln said in one of the debates between him and Douglas:
"There is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will for ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race."
These are the words of the "Great Emancipator", Abraham Lincoln who wrote the Proclamation of Emancipation?

About the proclamation: "The statement that all slaves would be declared free in those states still in rebellion against the United States on 1st January, 1863. The measure only applied to those states which, after that date, came under the military control of the Union Army. It did not apply to those slave states such as Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri and parts of Virginia and Louisiana, that were already occupied by Northern troops."

Lincoln and Douglas both believed that ownership of slaves was covered by the Constitution. The equality issue is still argued today, despite majestic efforts by Martin Luther King and others.

And to think that this inequality was more than partially based on economics. Slaves were unpaid labor.

Mal

Alf, I have to agree with you. Reading about those snakes gave me the heebie jeebies. I do hate the use of "poor white trash." I hate those words just as much as I hate the "n" word.

I do find myself believing that people fit either one of these descriptions when they are crude and impolite to others or refuse to acquaint themselves with another race of people. Still, terms like these seem racist in my book.

When we use either of these terms, we have immediately stereotyped a whole race as useless good for nothings who are a waste of our time. Like Anne, I am "sickened" by such terms.

Hats, there has to be a reason why Donna Tartt uses the poor white trash phrase in her book. What was that reason?

Mal

Tartt preambles the introduction of Eugene Ratliff with an appearance by Curtis, a character I like very much. Curtis says, "Snakes bite", causing Harriet to do a double take. Does he know what she and Hely have been doing? Can he read her mind? Curtis obviously knows about the snakes in the house Roy Dial received as a legacy from Annie Mary Alford because of kindnesses he showed her in her last illness and perhaps a little manipulating by him as "impartial" executor of her estate and power of attorney. Mr. Dial has turned the house into an apartment building, the top floor of which is inhabited by Eugene Ratliff, a self-styled "Minister of the Word", whose calling came to him while he was in a prison infirmary after a mixture of lye and Crisco was thrown in his face by another inmate.

Eugene's guest is Loyal Reese, another pious fellow whose faith requires the handling of poisonous snakes to prove the faith of those who hold them. Eugene has been conned into this entertaining of Reese and his snakes by his brothers, Farish and Danny, and Eugene is fairly certainly these drug-dealing fellows have something up their sleeve when they do this.

Okay, Tartt introduces these characters, then abruptly changes the subject, part of her intriguing technique. We find Harriet cutting out a picture of her brother from a yearbook and Ida suspicious about holes in the lunchbox, put there for snake-catching purposes. Things look fairly normal at the Dufresne house. Edie's upset because Roy Dial is going to charge her, her sisters and the other ladies who are planning an excursion to Charleston (one of the most charming cities I've ever seen) eighty dollars busfare to get there. That doesn't surprise me, either.

While poor Harriet is mulling over the idea that nobody cares whether she has fun or not, Danny Ratliff is not sleeping well or at all, mainly because his brother Farish has set up a methaphetamine laboratory in the taxidermy shed behind his grandmother's trailer, and he's done a little testing of the "product".

Whoa! Slow down! Tartt is setting up another scene with drugs, snakes, peculiar preachers and snake practitioners? Where did Harriet's problems and the Cleves family and their obsession with Robin go? The book is taking a very sharp turn, and it affects me exactly as Tartt's first book did. I don't much like what's happening. There are too many unanswered questions, and my ideas about the plot have been burst like a balloon.

Mal

Mal, it does not bother me that those words are used in the book. Tartt is only describing the behavior of "real" people in our society. I just hate the use of those words outside of a book.

You guys and gals have been really busy posting such interesting insights. I was behind about three pages when I signed on. I'm still finishing part of the next section, but MAL has whetted my interest with her foreshadowing of things to come.

I might have thought the part about Loyal Reese and the religious cult based on the snakes was an exaggeration if I had not seen a PBS documentary about just such a group. Tartt's description was right on the money! She has such a wonderful way of setting the scene for a particular part of the plot. The way she describes the pool hall makes you visualize exactly how it was, and even check your clothes for dirt that may have rubbed off on you.

Andy, I agree that the main problem of many poor whites and other groups, too, is the ignorance that can result from poverty and lack of opportunity. Still, we all know that people who were what is often referred to as "disadvantaged," can overcome poverty and not become criminals like the Ratliffs. This family is a very scarey bunch!

Anneo, You are absolutely correct. Racial prejudice can take different forms in different countries and cultures. In England, the immigrants from India are the target. In Germany, it's the Turkish immigrants.

MAL, Your quote from Douglas was right on:

"America has undergone incredible hardships as a nation. No issue has had more impact on the development of the American definition of freedom than the issue of slavery. Did the Constitution specify which men were created equal? Surprisingly enough the phrase 'all men are created equal with certain inalienable rights' did not mean what it says."

The founding fathers all owned slaves, and did not believe they were equal. They did not believe women were equal either. The Supreme Court is still trying to define issues like "affirmative action" that arose from slavery and its aftermath.

Congratulations to your grandson, and to you, too! It sounds as if you and his grandfather were a large influence on his success. Is his grandfather still living?

With Horselover, I would like to say congratulations to you, Mal, and your grandson.

Thank you, horselover and Hats. Not only did Hil graduate, he and his class spent last night in a gym at the University of North Carolina doing all kinds of things, dancing to the music of five live bands, eating, playing games, etc, to celebrate. He won a CD player and some other prizes at this event.

Hil's grandfather and his wife live in Massachusetts where he is the semi-retired director of his medical instruments business and his laboratories, and on the board of various other businesses and banks, as well as consultant for some corporations. I guess he's slowed down a little at 73, but I really don't know; I've seen him once in the past 21 years.

I don't think I have had any influence on Hil, though I've lived close in distance to him since he was five years old. The things he'll probably remember is that we used to have Midnight Eaters parties when he was little -- ice cream with all kinds of toppings -- and that his grandmother never leaves the computer except to sleep, and keeps very busy buildng web pages.

Mal

My congratulations, too, Mal, on a very bright grandson. And ice cream parties at midnight will never be forgotten! My thanks, also, for teaching me something new. I did not know the Emancipation Proclamation only covered those States still in rebellion at the time of its issuance. That makes it much more a move of political and military strategy, doesn't it?

I was impressed by the way Tartt takes the time to reveal even the minor characters to us. Most authors only take you 'inside' the main characters of a story. You know the character that really sets my teeth on edge? Grandma Ratliff! She has got to be one of the most poisonous females I have encountered in literature in a long while. And unfortunately, women like her are not confined to fiction. ..Babi

Gingee--Thank you for posting. I hope it helps to read about other families that had severe problems. I'm sorry that you had such a hard time as a child. I think it was Mal who said that she didn't like the word "dysfunctional", perhaps because it is overused. I know a lot about alcoholism and its effect on families. It sounds like a lot of us have had some hard times. Perhaps that is why we are all brave enough to read this novel.

It certainly was delightful to read all your posts, and thanks for the summary of the first bit of our new reading, Mal. I still have forty pages to go--this is a BIG book; back to reading as soon as I finish this post.

The Ratliffs really are something, aren't they? Old granny, called GUM, who is only in her sixties but looks a hundred. She has outlived her son and his wife and a lot of other people, but she keep on catering to her "men."

Danny, the Ratliff that Harriet has her sites set on, has not come down from his drugging on crank (methamphetamine) since I started reading this section. We have a shack that is both taxidermist shop and meth lab. There's a huge problem with meth in this country, and I think it is meth labs that are quite volatile and prone to blowing up.

And snakes--lots and lots of snakes, snakes that have not had their venom removed. And Holiness preachers who handle them to demonstrate the miracles of God, the argument being that if you have the Holy Spirit, even poisonous snakes can't hurt you. This is all still going on in the hills of some states. I have had students who have told me about snake-handling and having witnessed it. I am blessed to teach at a school where the students come from all over the country so I learn a lot that I wouldn't know otherwise. Like snake handling, for example.

The pool hall scene is magnificent, I think. You just know that Mr. Odum is going to lose his car payment money from the very beginning, and we encounter Lasharon Odum, his little daughter who takes care of all the other Odums (Mom is dead and probably glad to be). We met Lasharon before when Harriet saw her curled up in the library reading.

I'm really enjoying watching how Tartt cuts back and forth between the Harriet sections and the Ratliff sections. She manages to keep both of them full of interest.

OK, back to the book. Read, read, read. Still cloudy here though NOT raining, for a change.

Maryal

and as for Lincoln, he may have said things not accepted by us today, he was nevertheless a man before his time.

As for using the term in the book, I understand Tarts need to use it, what I will never understand is people who believe that some of Gods people actually fit this desscription.

Having being labelled such, how were the three children who came to the house ever able to overcome it?

Anyway, back to the book, enough digression. Anneo

Maryal, I think part of the reason many of us can sympathize with hard times is that our parents came to young adulthood during the depression. They had to dig themselves out of that hole along with their children.

Lasharon Odum is a wonderful character. My heart goes out to her, taking on all the duties of a mother and housekeeper at ten years old, and trying to keep up with school as well. Yet Harriet and Hely have absolutely no sympathy for her. They are revolted by her--by her voice, by her smell, by her breath. Children can be sooo cruel to one another! Nowadays, she'd probably be snatched out of her home by a social worker.

Hely provides much of the comic relief in the story so far. The scene at the comic book rack is quite funny. And then a little later, he gets together with Harriet and tells her about his idea of signing up Danny Ratliff for the Book-of-the-Month Club. "It's the worst thing in the world you can do to somebody," he says. This is sooo true to life! My cousin and I actually did the same thing at that age to get even with an imagined enemy. Harriet, of course, is unimpressed.

Did you noice that in Aunt Tat's list of the aunt's virtues, no mention is made of Charlotte? Adelaide is the housekeeper; Libby is good with children; Edith is the organizer; and Tat herself is the archivist. Charlotte, I guess, is the sleeper. Whatever may be missing in Harriet's life, she seems to always be welcome in the homes of her aunts and grandmother. This does provide a background of love and a platform for her courageous acts.

I think Gum is a wonderful character. It's not necessary to like a character to think it's great, and Donna Tartt is very skillful when it comes to creating people you love to hate. Wasn't Gum supposed to be riddled with cancer, but such a tough old bird that she wouldn't give up the ghost?

Here's some information about Methamphetamines. I've known people who used Speed, and, boy, were they wired up! Did you know at one time certain diet pills contained many of the same ingredients as methamphetamines? I guess the manufacturers figured if they could get you up on your feet and rushing around you wouldn't eat so much and would burn off some calories.

METHAMPHETAMINE

Now they have replaced the methamphetamine in diet pills with ephedra, another dangerous drug that can kill you.

Thanks for the link, Mal.

Wow, you are hot in here today. Thank you for carrying on without me today. We had a great time, won no money but enjoyed the outing!
horselover: I love little Hely too as he seems so sensitive to Harriet. He wonders what if Robin hadn't died when she was little andcompares how Robin would be at this age with his own brother, Pem, a great teaser. These kids have guts going off to capture snakes with a BB gun, a book on how to capture reptiles and two forked sticks; they bring along miscellaneous items like gloves, a tourniquet(that cracked me up) and change to call in the event of an emergency. They even wind up clinging to one another in fear and desperation, (a no-no for those two), before she collapses with heat exhaustion.
Tartt makes it clear that in Oak Lawn Estates things are different. People don't know one another and the "houses had a frightening, sealed off quality." We see so much of that in todays world. I feel very sorry for my kids raising children in an environment like that. When we were kids you literally could not get away with anything! Everyone knew your parents, or your aunt or uncle and they had no qualms about bossing us around. The positive thing about it was that we could stick our thumbs out and hitch hike without a care in the world, it was always someone we knew who would pick us up and transport us to our destination.
Mal: Isn't poor roly-poly Curtis sweet, in spite of his extensive problems and his whackO brothers?

"Curtis was such a valorous puppy-stricken, bumbling uselessly to the defense when he believed his loved ones hurt or in danger."
I love that writing, what a great sentence. Poor lil Curtis loves everything in the world and Harriet feels sorry for him--but from afar.

Must listen to 60 Minutes and I shall return.

And one more link on that drug our friends the Ratliffs are cooking up in the shed behind the trailer:

http://www.secondchanceinc.com/CRANKTHEWORKINGMAN'SDRUG.html

You can see all of the effects of this drug in Eugene and Danny.

Thanks Maryal for a very comprehensive, down to earth clarification of Meth. Unfortunately I have seen too much usage of this in my days and I know full well the horrors it causes families.

I read this book last winter and I'm getting a heck of a charge out of semi-keeping up with the discussion you all are having.

Just had to add my two cents worth on that bit in the Constitution... "all men are created equal..." which they certainly are NOT; nonetheless it is a fine goal to promote Equal Opportunity for All of us unequal people and I think that is the primary idea the writer of that grand document had in mind.

And comes a great deal nearer to being accomplished!

You've got some fascinating thoughts about this book, I know you do.

Andy, I ran off to watch 60 Minutes, too. But it seems all the stories now are repeats of earlier pieces with a short "update" at the end. One story was pretty much a commercial for Martha Stewart as she was two years ago, rather than anything current. And the update told us not to count Martha out.

I remember the days when it was safe to hitchhike, too.

Wonderful posts, insights and links.

Sorry, I'm still way behind and trying to catch up.

Admittedly I loafed today; it was my birthday.

H A P P Y B I R T H D A Y, Traude!

In the 30ties it was just the way things were as they all grew up thinking that smoking and drinking made them glamoures. NOW it is drugs, sex en al what a shame NOT to be just who we are is the Only way to be in my opion. Oh Oh I just read Your clickable on METHAMPHETAMINE, Yikes as my daughter is on drugs it was good for me to understand a bit about it. Thanks.

Andy I traveled from Michigan in those days with no fear until one screwball, but then just left the man while he was getting a room so it was not so safe in those days either.

Horselover, I Now eat all day long just a little at a time, it is just one meal spread over the day and have lost a lot of weight just recently. Now Can I get out of the habit or loose to much weight I wonder.

Andy, I grew up with No relation around as we traveled around so much so guess the abuse was not known at the time. I also enjoyed 60 minutes and the Awardes this evenng.

Now on to read more of Our Little Friend.

Okay, now that we are well into the book, perhaps someone can clear up a question that has puzzled me from the beginning. Who is "The Little Friend" of the title? Is it Harriet? Whose 'little friend' is she? Robins? Harriet's 'little friend' is Hely. Is it a little friend of Robin's, possibly responsible for his death? I can't find any other 'little friends' in the story. ???? ...Babi

Drugs have been around forever, GINGEE. In the 1900's people (especially women) became addicted to laudanum, which is opium in an alcohol solution. Later women didn't hesitate to take Lydia Pinkham's compound for "Female Problems". That compound contained alcohol and opium, as did Paregoric, which was commonly used. Coca Cola contained cocaine in the beginning. That is one of the reasons why it was called Coke. Today we hear more about drugs and sex because of advances in communications technology, and "the news" that sells is news that is bad and/or sensational.

There is an excellent description of the Ratliff males beginning on Page 179. Described are Danny's and Farish's reactions to Methamphetamine and references to the actual manufacture of it and the business, of which Farish seems to be the brains and the head. The visit of Loyal Reese to Eugene Ratliff had been arranged by his brother, Dolphus, from his prison cell. Dolphus's "courier" had been picked up, and there was no one to distribute the drug they made. Packets of the drug had been hidden in the engine of Reese's truck, and all unaware, the "snake man" would drive them to Virginia. It's a very neat plan. Will it work? And how does Harriet fit into all of this?

Mal

BaBi, you'll have to be patient. The answer to your question comes near the end of the book.

Mal

We meet up again, as Mal has outlined, with good old Mr. Dial(-a god). What a beneveolent soul he is to offer his "impartial services as executor and POA for Mrs. Alford with her broken hip. How fortunate for him to be able to afford her single home that he made into rental apartments, for his benefit, of course. pg. 104 "sometimes the ladies left Mr. Dial their property outright, so comforted were they by his friendly presence". It makes you love Miss Annie Mary who wasn't the least bit deceived by his dutiful "presence."

Eugene is the minister of the word; an ex-con with a disfigured face and a greasy gray ducktail who preaches and quotes the scripture to all. He is the one who has to fight a constant hatred of his grandmother, good ole Gum. Was it Mal who said "she just wouldn't "give up the ghost?" That is for sure! Eugene recalls that it was 20 years ago that Gum's death sentence was pronounced and she's outlived more than half the family. I love this: "Unable to kill her the cancer had taken up residence within her, and made her it's comfortable home." What terrific writing this is here. Eugene feels if someone cut Gum open, instead of blood they would find only a mass of poisonous sponge. He sounds a bit dillusional to me by comparing himself to John the Baptist and "being forced to preach the Word in abandoned warehouses and by the side of the highway was to labor without rest among the wicked of the earth." Oh please. Ignorance is bliss.

Delusional, ANDY? Well, I guess. I think maybe I'd be that way if somebody threw lye mixed with Crisco on my face. On Page 184 Eugene is described this way:
". . . . even in the old days, back when Eugene had been stealing cars and staying out drunk all night, he'd never been much fun to be around, and though he didn't hold a grudge or nurse an insult, and was fundamentally a decent guy, his proselytizing bored them to death."
He's described as humorless like his father, but without his father's temper. I guess the Good Ole Ratliff Boys consider Eugene to be something of a bore.

Mal

You're absolutely right Mal, although I believe his delusions far preceded the lye incident. Don't you love the inferences Tartt gives us? "The devotion with which Eugene regarded his Maker was vocal, unwavering and driven by terror. .... for His engines of retribution were swifter than His engines of mercy." Sounds like good ole Eugene finds that reason enough to proselytize and embrace his maker. He must have been quite a sight; preaching away without the gift of eloqency or the gift of "tongues" with his disfigured face. I can't quite recall ever witnessing such a thing as that.

Delusions are part of the territory for drug and alcohol abusers, ANDY.

It's funny here because the Cleve family has been suffering from delusions for years, even before Robin died and they hooked onto that delusion. The whole package of Southern gentility was for that family a big delusion. Tribulation was mostly fake as a Southern mansion. There wasn't any family fortune. Edie lived in a small two bedroom house, etc.

I see a real parallel between the Cleve family and the Ratliff family. Derelict cars and a broken wheelbarrow by the Ratliff's trailers, junk all over inside them. Newspapers stacked to the ceiling in Charlotte's house, the Dufresne yard is mess. The only order is in the kitchen over which Ida reigned.

What's the distinction between the "Poor White Trash" the Ratliffs are and the "Southern Genteel" that Charlotte and the others consider themselves to be when you look at their reality?

Mal

Gingee--It's wonderful that your nickname came from a typo. The one pattern I notice with the drugs you mention is that there seems to be an accumulation going on. First smoking and drinking, which we still have with us, and now a host of other drugs, and if it weren't illegal, I'll bet laudanum would still be a favorite with many. Laudanum used to be sold over the counter at the drugstore. And Mal has provided more information. I think you're right about people trying to escape who they are and their circumstances, and it's very sane to suggest that you just accept yourself. The problem is that for one reason or another, drugs are very attractive to vulnerable people. And some folks are simply more easily addicted than others.

What do you all think about these Ratliffs? There's not a one of them that hasn't been in the penitentiary or the mental hospital, is there? Young Curtis who has what seems to me to be fetal alcohol syndrome (there's a mention of the mother being a "bad drunk") has not gone to prison, but are there any others who are not, or have not been, in trouble with the law? Pick a Ratliff and describe him or her (Gum) for us.

There's some terrific, not to mention exciting, writing in this segment. I'd like to copy two sentences--I read in some interview that Tartt just loves to pay attention to sentences and to get them just right--that I find strikingly wonderful:

"The shadows were getting sharper, and more complicated" (268)--This occurs in the description of Harriet and Hely riding their bikes over to Mr. Dial's apartment building (formerly Miss Annie Mary's house). The sentence is much better in context, of course. The problem with ripping sentences out of context is that they are always weakened. The part of this sentence I love is the end where the shadows become "more complicated." What a wonderful way to describe the effect of gathering darkness, and the danger to bikers riding through those shadows.

The second is actually more than a sentence. You will find it at the bottom of 280 and top of 281. Hely is stuck in the apartment:

"He leaned his head against the wall, rolling it back and forth. How could he be so dumb? He always had trouble with directions, confusing left with right; letters and numbers switched chairs when he was looking away from the page, and grinned back at him from different places; sometimes he even sat down at the wrong chair at school without realizing it."

Have you marked some sentences or sections that you think contain especially precise language? Please share them if you have.

Maryal

I believe Tartt has encapsulated a little allegory within her descriptions of racism in the south of the seventies.

Many years ago we bought a home with a well-appointed greenhouse in the back yard, and my wife, who loved to garden, was thrilled. However, on one of her very first visits she was sufficiently started by a large lizzard that she never returned to the greenhouse.

Later, she became a docent at the zoo and learned of the roles of snakes and other reptiles in various ecosystems. Her fear evolved into appreciation, and now she is completely comfortable in taking non-poisonous snakes on outreach programs to schools and nursing homes. She does not handle poisonous snakes, but neither does she fear them if they are properly caged.

She began with the innate fear of snakes and lizzards that most humans share, but with knowledge and understanding her fear was dispelled. While the process is far from finished, we have seen other types of prejudice undergo similar evolution during the past thirty years.

On a related note, if you'd like to see the south of the sixties through the eyes of a young African-American, I recommend The Last Train North by Clifton L. Taulbert. Like the Ratliff boys and the Dufresnes girls, he grew up in an extended family where his parents played a lesser role. However, his grandparents were lovingly functional, and their influence shows in his memories of a bad era.

MARYAL,

Thank you for the birthday wishes. I mentioned it only to explain my silence yesterday. But I am noy yet ready for characterizations quite yet.

But Charlotte reminded me from the first moment on of the mother (also named Charlotte, if memory serves) in ATONEMENT. While the latter was not drugged, she also stayed in bed a lot waiting for the recurrent migraines she knew would come and left the running of the household to her eldest daughter. (In that novel the father is also mostly absent.)

People have used narcotics of one kind or another for centuries, sometimes for ritual purposes, to dull the senses, achieve some kind of rapture, or keener perception. It is lamentable, of course, that the stuff is so readily available to the young especially.

About 30 years ago when we lived in Virginia, the teenage daughter of a military family we knew from church was slipped a drink spiced with mescalin at a school party. She became violently ill, and her mental state was such that the father obtained an immedite hardship transfer back to their home state of Texas. I heard from them once.

But is not the constant thrill seeking some kind of an addiction ? e.g. bungie-jumping or the obsession with violence ?

Happy Birthday Traude, sure glad we have lived to be seniors. Smile.

Well I have gotten thru the snakes to the snake handlers and am wondering what it has to do with the Pool hall but soon will know. Do you read the book the week at the time we are to discuss it or the week before? I have tried reading the book ahead of time and that did not work for me as I would post to much ahead of time so am trying to stay on course this time. Please share with me what works best for you and I will try it. Thanks.

Golfer John: From your lips, to God's ears, as the saying goes, I would love to see similiar prejudices evolve into interest, admiration and concern as your wife's bias was with the snakes.
I've never read The Last Train North but it sounds quite interesting to compare the Ratliff boys to anyone! Which one of these "boys" piqued your interest the most? Oh--h by the way how was that golf game on Sunday?

Traude: Our birthday girl of this site. Imagine -if one of your kids was slipped some mescaline or that damnable "date rape" drug. That would give me license to kill, I swear it would. Drug usage has played a disasterous, ruinous role in my life, through the years. I've lost a roommate to an overdose, I've pumped stomachs of young kids who didn't think there was any other way out; I've held my Godson's head while he vomited after cocaine usage; my middle daughter was an addict (who has since risen out of the depths of that hell, educated herself and is now a wife and a mother of four. )
I hate drugs. I learned early on that that is an argument you can not win. I don't care what you think your resources are. You can not be the victor when your enemy is drugs! I'm sorry I shall get off the soapbox now.

Gingee: I read the book ahead of time and then I place a book marker at the end of my assignment so that I don't "go off on a tangent."

Where is everybody??? Have you deserted us already?
Nobody seems to be answwering questions, perhaps we should have put them up in the heading. Let us hear from ya'll.

Alf, I can not remember the questions. I am at the pool hall with Hely, the Ratcliffe boys and Lasharon. I am having a hard time keeping the names of the Ratcliffe boys straight. I think there is Danny, Farish and another one???

I feel very sorry for Lasharon. Her relationship with her diddy is sort of creepy.

I remember loving comic books. I loved Veronica, Jughead and Archie. I did not like the spooky ones, but I loved reading the romance ones. My father thought reading comics was junk reading.

I am not just posting to Alf. Alf is the last name I saw posted. Danny is taking what is called speed, a drug. I do not think he knows what in the world is going on around him. He talks about time going by faster than it should. Drugs are never good. Sadly, they are always available to young people and where young people hang out.

Does Granny Gum know the boys are taking drugs? Even if she did know, there is nothing she could do about it.

Hats, the other two Ratliff boys are Curtis and Eugene.

ALF, Curtis is the Ratliff who has piqued my interest because I have a hunch he will save Harriet's bacon before the story completely unfolds. I also feel Lasharon Odom will play a key role. The golf was fun, although I did'nt play well at all.

Thanks, Golfer John.

Andy, I haven't deserted. My refrigerator died yesterday, and I had to buy a new one, so couldn't read much or post.

MAL, Your post about the "parallel between the Cleve family and the Ratliff family" was very interesting and insightful. I had not seen the relationship in this way, but Charlotte is a drug addict, despite the fact that she gets the drugs from a doctor. And she is delusional, too. The scene where Harriet comes home one evening and Charlotte wakes up thinking it is morning. She slaps Harriet yelling that Harriet has stayed out all night! All the drugs seem to be having a permanent effect on Charlotte's brain, and the children are frightened by it.

Your dsecription of the parallels between the decay in the Ratliffs environment, and the downhill slide of the physical home environment at the Cleves is quite correct. It's an interesting question as to where the line is between "white trash" and "fading gentility."

Don't apologize, Alf. I was applauding your 'soapbox' speech. I find it one of the most pitiful ironies that so many young people plunge themselves into a bondage to drugs as an expression of their "freedom" and "independence".

HATS, I'm glad I'm not the only one that thought the relationship between LaSharon and her father was not kosher. I found myself wishing she would slip in, take the money from her out-of-it 'Diddy', and go pay the bills. By the time he sobered up, he wouldn't remember what had happened. I'm really uneasy for LaSharon. I don't like Harriet's attitude and behavior toward her, but this is what Harriet has been taught by Ida Rhew. ...Babi

Babi, your right. She could have easily taken the money and paid the car payment. He didn't know what was going on. You know, I will have to think more closely about what Ida Rhew has been teaching Harriet. Has she been teaching Harriet that she is superior to the poorer kids in the neighborhood?

It is so strange how bigotry comes out in so many ways. Everyone can think of a prejudicial feeling against the next guy. It shows that discrimination never makes sense. Bigotry just makes each person feel better than the other person. It reminds me of gossip. Gossip makes you feel better about yourself because you have ripped someone else to shreds. But no one could have told Ida Rhew that she was prejudice or wrong. She would not have believed them.

horselover, I was hoping someone would pick up on that post. I think the comparison is important, and it certainly says a lot about attitudes in the South.

Anybody here know anything about pool? I've fooled around at pool tables, but don't really know anything about the game. I wish I did, so I'd better understand the pool hall scene in this book.

What about slumlord, Catfish de Bienville? Rust-red hair in a giant Afro, features like a black man's, blue eyes and freckled skin. How's he going to figure in this story, and what's his relationship to the Ratliffs? Where'd he get the stuff he's snorting?

Danny Ratliff sees Harriet staring at him across the street. This is not the last time they'll meet.

Lasharon Odum will end up just like her parents. A friend of mine in Putnam County, New York was a lonely old widower. I went to see him one time and met a woman at his house whom he'd met at a nearby flea market. She was maybe one step up from the people described here, and I could tell she was playing on my friend's sympathies. John had a hard time resisting anyone who was poor, especially female, and people who were needy. His friend had a little boy around six years old. Sitting in my friend's living room while he and the woman were in the adjoining kitchen making coffee, I watched that boy steal things off John's end tables. The boys hands were very quick and busy while he looked me straight in the eye. I could tell this wasn't the first time he had done it. John was so defensive about his woman "friend" that I said nothing.

Funny thing about drugs. Some people can try them without any ill effects; others can't. All three of my kids tried them. One got hooked. In the mid-70's he and a friend went to a neighborhood bar one night. They were both pretty loaded, I guess, when they left. I don't know if any drugs besides alcohol were involved, perhaps pot. My son's friend drove his car into a tree. Seated in the passenger seat, my son suffered a very severe head injury, broke both feet, and had other minor injuries. Part of his face had to be rebuilt, and his nose was completely rebuilt. He hasn't been the same since; has psychotic episodes, etc. Doctors keep him "medicated". Did all of this stop his drinking? No. Why? Because he suffers from addiction.

Addiction is a disease, and if not treated properly will kill you. I've known people addicted to butter who died of heart attacks which were directly related to the fat they had consumed. People have used drugs and alcohol for thousands and thousands of years. Addiction has been around for the same length of time.

I'm inclined to say that seeking freedom and independence has little to do with the reason people drink alcohol and use drugs, or addiction. As a person who was once addicted to drugs too freely prescribed by doctors, and as a recovering alcoholic who has worked with more people addicted to alcohol and/or drugs than I can remember, I know whereof I speak.

Mal

Catfish reminded me of Redd Foxx. Remember him? When he was a young man, he had red hair. He played Sanford, the junkman, on t.v.

Hats, I remember Redd Foxx, a funny, talented guy. Redd could never be as lawless as Catfish is, though.

Mal

Mal, your right. I do not trust Catfish. Really, I do not trust any of those guys in the pool hall accept for little Hely. I thought you had to be a certain age to enter a pool hall.

Horselover—Refrigerators and other appliances seem to do that—die suddenly. In this house, there’s a conspiracy—first one appliance and then another and another until they are all replaced. Every time something breaks, I hold my breath.

Mal—Yes, I see the parallels you point out. The difference, of course, is how the two families are accepted in the town. Harriet’s family is accepted—they live in a house and everyone in town knows them. The Ratliffs live in a trailer and most likely have done for quite some time. We see the town’s categories of people in Mr. Dial (the creep) who lumps the Odums, the Ratliffs, and the Scurlees together. Even Harriet’s father is thought to be “about one generation removed from country sorry.” I assume that "country sorry" describes the same folks as the above group. It does show you that it was possible to move from one group to another.

Hats and Babi—little Lasharon doesn’t dare take the money from her out-of-it father because she knows that she would get a big whupping later. I am guessing, but that’s how it seems to me. Isn’t “Diddy” a strange name for Daddy? I’ve never heard it before; perhaps it’s common. And, yes, Ida Rhew looks down on the above named families. It’s the old pattern of if you are a depressed group, you look down on someone else. Look at how the Irish were treated when they came to America. The Irish could then look down on whatever the newer immigrant group was. Hats—good point about prejudice being something like gossip. One person can look down on another in so many ways.

"Diddy" is the way it's pronounced, you all.

Mal

O, MAL! Of course--thanks. I don't think I would have ever figured that out. And I am one of those who is so interested in how Tartt reproduces dialect!

Can everyone tell that my ears are pink??????

Maryal, I think you've hit upon the difference between "white trash" and "faded gentility." It's, as you say, "how the two families are accepted in the town."

BaBi, Do you think Lasharon and her "Diddy" have actually had s-x?

MAL, I once saw a PBS documentary about suburban working wives and mothers who had gotten addicted to drugs. And the reason they all gave was that the drugs made them feel as if they could do it all (be SuperWoman). Some of the Ratliffs seem to have the same reaction to the drugs--a sudden burst of energy and euphoria.

horselover, Valium doesn't have that effect, and that was what was prescribed for me because I became stressed out cleaning a ten room house, five bedrooms, three bathrooms, etc., etc., and trying to keep it clean. Not so easy for someone like me, actually. All that tranquilizer did was make me numb to some of the pain I felt from physically overworking.

Mal

horselover--I got the same feeling of something sexual going on between them. It was in the way he spoke to her and referred to her. It gave me the creeps.

Could it have been when Odum reminds young Hely that "that girl does the work of a grown woman?" or perhaps "Come here and hug old Diddy around the neck?" something about the possesssiveness of Odum's embrace, and the vacant way she accepted it- like a miserable old dog, accepting the touch of its owner.

Even the Ratliffs were disgusted with that and that IS saying something for those derelicts.

I didn't pick up on the sexual innuendoes y'all seem to see. I saw a long-suffering girl chile being slobbered over by a teary-eyed drunk who can't hold his liquor that just happens to be her Diddy.

What I did pick up on was another resemblance between the Ratliff and the Cleve families. Gran'maw Gum is the matriarch who looks after the Ratliff family. Edie is the matriarch who deigns to watch over her sisters and the Dufresnes. Keep watching. I'm sure there'll be more.

Mal

MAL, I did take Valium a couple of times for pain after surgery, but still have almost the whole prescription left. My husband made me stop taking it. He said it really scared him the way I seemed to turn into a robot with no will of my own. You are right; there is a difference between stimulants and depressants in their effect.

It could be that Lasharon is simply slave labor for her "Diddy" and not a sexual partner.

I guess we will have to wait and see if there is any sexual abuse being inflicted on Lasharon. I, at this point, don't see any reason to go there. I agree with Mal's version, I guess: a little girl who has been turned virtually into a slave and a teary-eyed maudlin drunk, her Diddy.

I've known several alcoholic men up close, and they all seemed to be afflicted with a certain sentimentality. Not capable of true emotion, they emotionalized the smallest things. Yuck.

Mal and Maryal, I don't know. I don't think diddy has touched Lasharon in a sexual way. I do think it is dangerous when a drunk thinks of his little girl as the "woman of the house." It makes me feel uneasy.

Whether anything sexual goes on or not, it is wrong and disgusting when a sloppy drunk puts his hands all over his little girl. Then, she is at his beck and call because he is the father. It's just not healthy. Again, I don't think he has abused her sexually, but the circumstances are ripe for such a thing to happen.

I agree completely that abuse could well be right around the corner and also that Lasharon is already being abused. She shouldn't have to care for all her younger siblings; her father certainly shouldn't be thinking of her as "the woman of the house."

We really are thinking of these characters in a book as real people, aren't we? That's one sign for me that the novel is good; it draws you in. You care.

By the way, Odum may well be impotent because of all that drinking. Impotence is a problem for most male alcoholics. Maybe that will help you to think that Lasharon is "safe."

Of course, she is not safe at all. She has aptitude and a desire to learn, and she has no one to parent her. Sort of like Harriet, now that I think of it.

Maryal, the characters do draw you in. I like Donna Tartt's writing. I just hate the snakes.

Funny what we get hung up on, isn't it? You're right, Maryal, Odum was in no shape for sex when he was drunk, which I guess was most of the time. If he ever began to sober up, he wouldn't want Lasharon around because he'd feel so bad. That was the time she'd have to watch out because he'd be apt to smack her one then because she got on his nerves. I'm sure Lasharon knew these things about her father and knew where to hide. Odum and Lasharon are very minor characters in this book, put there by the author as "local color" more than anything else, I believe.

There's something much more important going on, anyway. In her drugged state, Charlotte has become confused and is very upset because Harriet isn't home. She is so befuddled and out of control when Harriet comes in, in fact, that she shoves her daughter against the wall so hard that her head hits a "framed engraving of the singer Jenny Lind."

Has it occurred to you that Harriet might be in more danger than Lasharon because of her mother's drug-induced madness? Unlike Lasharon, Harriet does not expect what her mother does, and because Charlotte's behavior is unpredictable, there is no way that Harriet can prepare herself for "attack". Lasharon is used to her father's behavior because she knows what happens when he is drunk. She also knows what will happen if he should start to sober up, and she knows what to do to keep herself safe. I think Harriet's the one we should worry about, not the Odum girl.

Mal

for serious sex, but drunks certainly are involved in most of the sexual crimes, and they are crimes against younger females.

A mans inability for "penetration" does not stem his ability to ruin the aspect and outlook of youn girls under his power.

Personally, the snakes and now this and I am having trouble reading so "near the knuckle" this book gets.Apart from personal experience, I have a life times experience dealing with victims, and if people, eapecially we women, followed more that feeling they get..... the this isn't right notion.....much could be stopped.

The hateful characters, like Diddy, are so well described, my skin crawls.Sheez I hope this book has a happy ending, if I am to continue reading, I need it.

Presently, I read your posts before reading, to see if I can deal with the daily session. Am I the only one dreaming about snakes. Anneo

Anne, the snakes don't bother me. The people and their behavior do.

Mal

Anneo, Yes, absolutely. Just because a man is impotent does not stop him from improper touching and even physical abuse in a sexual way. In fact, it makes this sort of behavior even more likely. You are all correct that Lasharon is abused anyhow. She is overworked, undernourished, neglected, and improperly educated.

MAL, Thanks for pointing out that Harriet could be in danger as well. People who are mentally ill are usually not dangerous, but they can sometimes inflict harm unintentionally.

Don't you just love the scene where Harriet escapes from Curtis by pretending his shoe is untied. She uses the pretext he himself has invented to get attention in order to divert his attention. What a smart cookie she is!

You don't suppose she could be in danger from Curtis also (unintentionally, of course)?

horselover, mentally ill people who are not properly medicated can do a great deal of damage to property and people. Abuse of drugs of any variety from alcohol on down can cause some awful results, including death. So can severe psychoses.

Let me tell you that Lasharon is not going to have anything terrible happen to her, and Curtis is not going to harm anyone. Concentrate on the other Ratliffs, why don't you? They're the important ones in this book, as far as I can see. Let's talk about Farish and Danny. Isn't Farish the brains of the methamphetamine business? What's Danny's relationship with him? Will Harriet get in trouble with them?

Mal

Tartt is drawing a wonderful analogy here using snakes. The venom that comes from these characters is far more deadly and treacherous than the reptiles are, in our story.

I think Maryal wrote about Lasharon and Harriet in the best way. Neither one of the girls have good parents. Harriet and Lasharon's lives are insecure due to mental illness and alcoholism. Maryal wrote,

"Of course, she is not safe at all. She has aptitude and a desire to learn, and she has no one to parent her. Sort of like Harriet, now that I think of it."

Mal, I did feel very frightened for Harriet when her mother attacked her on the staircase. At that point, her mother did not know whether it was night or day. Her mind was all out of kelter. She did not realize that Ida had left to go home. Well, the home life for both girls is tragic.

As far as the snakes, I think some of us have a real fear of them. Just reading about them can make our skin crawl. Our phobias can be very real. So, I think the fear of some of us should be taken seriously.

HATS, I certainly don't belittle anyone's fear of snakes or anything else. You live in an area where there are a lot of poisonous snakes; so do I. In fact, so does Andrea. I guess what she and I are trying to say is that in this book there are people far more dangerous than the snakes are, and we are here to talk about what's in this book.

Though Eugene Ratliff has snakes in his apartment brought there by the religious snake handler, Loyal Reese, Eugene doesn't like them, and as a person he is less of a danger than, say, Farish or Danny Ratliff.

There are snakes, and there are snakes. Some of them aren't harmful at all. Does it help you, HATS, to know the difference between a snake that will harm you and one that will not? When I moved to Florida that was one of the first things I learned.

There are people who think a snake is the devil. I knew a woman in St. Augustine who truly believed this. I guess you have to believe in the devil before you think a snake can be it. Since I don't believe in the devil, I have never made the association.

There are people who believe that snakes represent knowledge. In this book Loyal Reese truly believes that if, in handling a snake, someone in his religion is bitten and survived, that person has lived because he or she was touched by the hand of God. Harriet wants a snake to use as a weapon against the killer of her brother, Robin.

Anyway, HATS, please don't ever think that we do not respect the way you feel about these reptiles.

Mal

Well, Anneo is having nightmares. I never thought of snakes as being associated with the devil. I just think they are creepy critters. I don't want to focus on just the snakes. Like you say, there are lots of other situations to follow.

Poor Essie loss her job. I felt sorry for her. Harriet felt sorry for her too. Harriet knew that Essie was talking about the posters on the wall, burning those and not the house. Everything got blown out of proportion.

HATS, to me that scene is another example of prejudice. Hely is just a kid, but he acts as if he's superior to Essie. I wonder why he took such pride in getting rid of all the maids his mother hired?

Mal

Mal, I guess some parents give their children more control than they are capable of handling. Pem and Hely did not realize the importance of a job to a family. As kids, their minds did not think of the loss of utilities and other bills. I guess the parents were at fault for not being more aware of who they hired and what went on after they hired them.

Why is Harriet so sensitive to such issues while these boys are not sensitive at all? I think Harriet gained something good, as far as values, from her aunts.

Or from Ida, HATS. I think Ida teaches Harriet more about life, people and prejudice than anyone else in Harriet's life.

Mal

Harriet really loved Ida. Remember when Harriet hugs Ida? It is sad that Harriet could not hug her own mother in that way.

Snake=Satan. It all goes back to the story of the Garden of Eden in Genesis. It was a snake that tempted Eve to eat fruit from the forbidden tree. Later by means of accretion and Christian reading of Genesis, the snake/serpent was equated with Satan. There’s a lot more to the story, but it boils down to: the snake plays the role of tempter in the Garden and Satan’s main goal is to tempt people to sin.

Harriet’s relationship to both her mother and Ida can be seen clearly in this section by placing two passages side by side. When Harriet’s mother attempts to soothe Harriet and get her forgiveness for berating her and slapping her for “staying out all night,” she hugs her:

“Harriet, squashed against her mother’s chest at an uncomfortable angle, tried not to squirm. She felt suffocated. Up above, as if from a distance, her mother wept and coughed with muffled hacking sounds. . . .The pink fabric of the nightgown, pressed against Harriet’s cheek, was so magnigied that it didn’t even look like cloth, but a technical cross-hatch of coarse, ropy skeins.” (235)

Compare Harriet’s discomfort here with her response to Ida. Harriet has come home just before it is time for Ida to leave for the day:

“She found Ida Rhew in the living room, sitting in her favorite chair, where she ate her lunch, or sewed buttons, or shelled peas while she watched the soap operas. The chair itself—plump, comforting, with worn tweed upholstery and lumpy stuffing—had come to resemble Ida in the way that a dog sometimes resembles its owner. . . .How she loved Ida! The force of it made her dizzy. With no thought whatever of her sister, Harriet skittered over and threw her arms passionately around Ida’s neck. . . .Harriet closed her eyes and rested with her face in the moist warmth of Ida’s neck, which smelled like cloves, and tea, and woodsmoke, and something else bitter-sweet and feathery but quite definite that was to Harriet the very aroma of love” (260-261).

Harriet has to concentrate on something else while her mother hugs her, but when she hugs Ida, she breathes in LOVE.

Some kids like to torment people who have authority over them in whatever ways they can. Hely's attitude toward the maid may not be totally the result of prejudice. He is just a spoiled kid whose mother lets him get away with almost anything. You see such kids in classrooms as well, tormenting their teacher and trying to turn the class into a circus.

Hats, A snake is the source of Adam and Eve's expulsion from the Garden of Eden. So I think we have a good reason not to like them! Of course, if they had not been told to go forth and multiply, none of us would be here today.

You asked, "Why is Harriet so sensitive to such issues while these boys are not sensitive at all?" I think it's because Harriet has developed a long-term and loving relationship to Ida, and she depends on her. The boys have never really had a relationship with a black person.

The snake also opened Eve's, and then Adam's, eyes to knowledge that was not just carnal. Just for the record I want it known that I am not here because Adam and Eve did their multiplication.

Mal

MAL, Just kidding!

I shoulda stood in bed. Had a bad night last night, lightning knocked the power off in here not long after I posted here, and I thought it ruined my new computer, big doctor's appointment ahead of me that my kids lined up and a machine called to remind me of ( as if I could forget. There's nothing wrong with me except arthritis and an extra few pounds ) and I managed to upset someone I care for a lot. It has not been the best of days.

Now. About those Ratliff boys . . . .

Mal

Mal--Sorry to hear about that storm, and I hope your computer is OK. Doctor's visits are rarely fun, but I'm glad that you are going.

We had a huge storm, or series of storms here yesterday evening--banner warning on the TV and so forth. The Jack Russell went upstairs and got under the covers of my bed. She ALWAYS does this when there's a big storm. The boy terrier, Ben, doesn't mind storms at all. Dogs are as different from one another as people are.

I am rambling because we have more storms in the area tonight and I won't be here long. Is that a good reason for rambling? Does it make any sense?? Probably not.

I don't know why people are glad I'm going to the doctor. Grumble, grumble. My daughter, who works at Duke University, heard of this Special Sessions for Senescent Seniors Staving off Senility thing at Duke Hospital and signed me up without consulting me. If she were in my shoes ( which she ain't ) and had been through as many years and years and years and years of doctors who prodded, poked, cut, experimented with casts and various other "orthopedic appliances" and slashed me up to no avail as I have, she wouldn't be so eager to do this, either. I know I have an attitude problem, but why trouble trouble until trouble troubles you?

I know. Nurse Ratchett will come in and tell me in no uncertain terms to behave myself, but I am what they call "An Old Polio". Nobody don't know nothin' 'bout polio any more, you all, and 90% of them don't listen to this old lady who knows more about her body than anyone else.

Okay, thanks for letting me blow off steam. I wish someone would come in and say something about the book I could argue about!

Maryal, how's your dog?

Mal

Well, here I am. Our power was just resumed and it was a whopper this time. Power shot for a few hours. Anyhooooo, her I am.

Nurse Ratchett understands more than you could imagine, Mal. My mother in law was a polio victim who in her last few years suffered horribly with Post Polio syndrome. I argued and fought with more docs than she cared to acknowledge. You are right! They don't know a damned thing. As far as behaving yourself there-- you have a choice, Don't go if it upsets you, stay put. Dor will get over it.

Harriet did love Ida and my heart broke when she asked her Aunt Tat "Do you love me?" Tat was "flummoxed," when H. ursued it by asking why she was never allowed to stay over? Tat urges Harriet to wash up and then questions Ida's care of her Ida Rhew knows good and well that she needs to ---" at which point Harriet defends Ida.

Even Harriet realized how poorly her diet was planned when written on paper, forcing herself to copyout a proper one for science class. Hariet, once again defends Ida to her mother and tries to exonerate her.

Together they pushed the top of the pane inward; something caught and squeaked and then, with a groan, the bottom of the window swung out...

Is there an ominous tone to Ida's saying, "Oh, I'll be back tomorrow. Never you worry."?

Farish Ratliff is described on Page 163 as having a tendency to misunderstand things "in a really twisted way" because he's slightly deaf. Add that to the drugs he takes which make him paranoid, and I'd say there's a very scary fellow here. Farish and Danny are making plans to load Reese's truck with the "product".

Meanwhile there's nothing for Harriet to eat for dinner, and she doesn't want to eat her mother's peppermint stick ice cream. Charlotte's going to have "a little talk with Ida" the following day. When Harriet asks Hely on the phone if she can eat dinner at his house, he tells her no, that Essie's been fired. I'm beginning to worry about Ida Rhew.

The two kids decide to go downtown and investigate Eugene Ratliff's preaching. This is a worry, too. They decide to go over where Eugene lives. When they get there they hide their bicycles; then go up and break into Ratliff's apartment. When they do, they see the boxes full of snakes.

Once again I say, "Whoa!" Where is this author taking us? What's happened to the story? How do the Cleves and poor, dead Robin fit into this?

What's your take on it? Is this what you expected when you read the first part of the book?

Talk to you tomorrow.

Mal

MAL, I really don't have a "take" yet. I find myself alternately fascinated by the writing and annoyed that I don't have the time to linger longer over each and every phrase. It feels as if I were lost in a dense forest without a clearing in sight...

Forgive me for saying this, MAL, but we are old friends : Wouldn't this doctor's appointment be THE chance for you to finally get out of the house after so many months when you weren't able to even get out on to the deck ? Don't be angry with Dorian, I am sure she has the best intentions. And please don't be angry with me. Just reflect on it.

TRAUDE, my friend:-

You made me laugh! I'd much rather go out on my deck and get in a car so I could go to lunch at a little restaurant I know than go see these medical bozos! ( And it probably would do me more good! )

I'm not mad at Dorian or you.

Mal

Maryal, I just saw you and Mary Page at the Annapolis City Dock via the Annapolis Web Cam. That was fun!

Where is everyone else today? Let's talk about this book!

Mal

LOL! Mal, you made this up, didn't you? A "Special Session for Senescent Seniors Staving Off Senility"!!??? I love it! You are right though about so many medical professionals not listening to their patients. Like you, I know far more about this carcass of mine and how it behaves than they do. If I say it's just sore muscle, then trust me, it's sore muscle!

As for what's happened to the story, this is the story. Headstrong Harriet setting out to avenge her grother, with no idea whatsoever of how much danger she could be getting herself into. And probably dead wrong in her assumptions, as well. ...Babi

Mal--I'm excited that you actually saw us! Mary-Page had scoped out the camera view before we met, and she knew where we should sit. Thanks for telling me.

I too am eager to discuss this section. I've been sort of holding back so that people would have the time to finish reading it.

The writing is always good, but I do like good suspense writing. When Hely gets trapped in the apartment house with the snakes, I was on the edge of my seat. The whole section, from the time the kids get there by riding their bikes to their eventual escape is just splendid. (268-291).

I'd appreciate any comments readers would like to make on this section, or any other section for that matter. I can't stay on long because we are due to have big thunderstorms (for the third day in a row) here in the greater DC area. I don't know if we made the national news because I didn't see it, but we had roofs taken off of apartment buildings and lots of trees and parts of trees taken down. The worst storm yesterday was in the Annapolis area. The worst storm the day before was right here. The crews are out with their trucks removing tree branches and sawing away to clear roadways.

Back to the novel: Did you all notice that practically no one came to the Mission service held by Eugene and Loyal. The square where they "perform" is practically deserted.

Who is you "favorite" Ratliff? By favorite, I do not mean which one you think would make the best neighbor, but which one seems to be the best drawn? I'm leaning toward Danny, Gum, and Farish (notice that his name is pronounced "Farsh") at the moment.

One more question: Does Hely seem more mature, more finely delineated in this section than he did in the first? Perhaps it is just me, but I found him far more of a follower in the first section and much more interesting in this section. What about the rest of you?

Maryal

I am sorry about missing your picture, Maryal. I wanted to see MaryPage too. Anyway, snakes or no snakes, I had to keep reading. This book won't let me go. I have to continue with the adventures of Hely and Harriet. I am glad Alf encouraged everyone to read it.

I am so glad Hely is out of that upstairs room. Harriet used her head by breaking the headlights. She's a smart little girl, and she has a lot of courage too.

I can't wait to see what will happen next.

That is exactly how I feel. I was also much relieved to discover that Harriet and Hely escaped. Can you imagine how scared they would have been if the Ratliffs had grabbed them?

Go here for a captured screen shot graciously posted by Marcie (post #456):

http://discussions.seniornet.org/cgi-bin/WebX?7@@.596ba6d4/477

The funny thing is that you can't even see us. Look for the blue balloon (Mary-Page brought that) in the foreground. You still won't see us, but we are the teensy tiny folks that you can almost see. Mal--I don't know how you managed to find us?

ME? Teensy? I don't think so.

Maryal, your right. It is a good picture of the blue balloon. If my eyes are not playing tricks, I see two tiny people near the balloon.

Yup, that's us. Teeny tiny people of indeterminate age and gender. Next time we wear red.

MARYAL, Mary Page had said she was "the short, fat one" wearing pink and would be carrying a blue balloon, so it was easy to spot her. I couldn't spot you at first, though. I thought MP was talking to someone wearing what looked like a blue denim jacket, but it looked like a child. The web cam picture changes every few seconds, and it was when both of you stood up that I realized the blue denim jacket figure was you because I know you're tall. Mary Page should have carried a red balloon. The blue faded into the background too much. It was fun to see you both. I wanted to jump through the monitor screen and be right there with you, yakking away and ready for lunch.

BABI, yes, "Special Session for Senescent Seniors Staving Off Senility" is mine. It's copyrighted, ha ha, so don't use it as the title for your next book! You're right about doctors. One time a dermatologist made me go for expensive x-rays. I said, "You think I have osteomyelitis, don't you?" She said, "Yes." I told her I didn't, and after spending many hundreds of dollars I couldn't afford, I was proven right.

HATS, I'm glad the snakes didn't chase you away from this exciting part of the book. Talk about crazy, those two kids are nuts! What a risk they're taking; do you believe it? There are some scenes from now on that make me think Tartt is writing for a special effects movie, not a reading audience.

When this part about the Ratliff boys began I was disappointed. It seemed as if the author was veering away from a very good premise ( and promise ) and going into something wildly different.

All of the Ratliffs are very well-drawn characters, I think. Curtis, of course, is the one I lean to. It's easier to portray a mean, bad guy than a character like Curtis. Gum is a funny old lady. I like the scene where she's telling all her complaints to Loyal Reese, whose only real sin is playing with poisonous snakes. Not to downgrade his religion, but it sure doesn't appeal to me.

Mal

Mal--You wrote, "There are some scenes from now on that make me think Tartt is writing for a special effects movie, not a reading audience."

I really find that an interesting suggestion. I have read a number of contemporary novels where the writer does seem to have been influenced by movies--it's hard to imagine how any of our younger novelists could not have been. And I have read many a scene that I could see done in a film. Perhaps this scene, the one of Hely and Harriet in the apartment house, seems so cinematic because it is so carefully detailed. Tartt makes us see. If we read every word, we don't have much of a choice! We won't talk about scenes we haven't gotten to yet. But we will all be on the lookout for scenes to come that seem to be more like movies than books.

Hats--I'm also glad that the snakes haven't scared you away! This book is quite a ride so far, isn't it?

MAL, I know you are tired of comments about your doctor's appointment, but it is important to get a checkup now and then. No matter how well we think we know our bodies, things can be happening which are not visible or don't have pronounced symptoms yet. My husband went for a checkup, thinking he was fine, and discovered (from the blood tests) that he had a serious thyroid condition which needed daily medication. Had he waited until there were symptoms, it could have affected his heart. So go. Your daughter loves you.

Maryal, You asked, "Does Hely seem more mature, more finely delineated in this section than he did in the first?" I think you are right. As Harriet's life gets sadder and more disorganized, Hely seems to become more aggressive. It's interesting that Hely says that "when Harriet got in these mean daredevil moods, it excited him." Maybe Hely is beginning to be affected by pre-teen hormones.

Here comes the theme of Harriet's hunger again! You just know that her explosive tantrum with her mother about the lack of food ("People don't have toast for dinner! Why can't we eat like regular people?") is going to lead to a further catastrophe in Harriet's life.

All of the Ratliffs (except Curtis) make my flesh crawl. I have the same reaction to them as to the snakes!

Ann, yes, she loves me, and I love her, but since I'm not incompetent I want to choose my own doctors, thank you. It will soon be over; there won't be anything wrong with me, and then I'll go to the orthopedist I prefer to get a prescription for a new brace.

The ones I feel sorry for are those poor Mormon boys downstairs who wake up to find a timber rattlesnake on top of their neatly folded shirts.

Mal

I think Mal likes doctors as much as I do LOL! I was dragged round so many as a child with all my allergies!

I am still waiting for my book - it must have been on Oprah as there is a list a mile long. However I am enjoying reading your posts and I guess I will read it through your eyes when I finally get it!

CAROLYN, I have a niece in Maine who is an M.D., a general practitioner. I'd have her as my doctor in a second she's so good. Martha's a tiny little thing with a long braid down her back. She weighed 2 pounds when she was born. The last time I was in Maine I was sitting in an airport with her and her sister, and people came in and said, "Hello, Dr. St. Onge." I had to stop a minute and figure out to whom they were speaking. Marth is taking some time off now because she got fed up with the way medicine is practiced these days. She's an M.D. close to the business, and she understands very well why I feel the way I do. That was not what bothered me here, though. I want to make my own decisions as long as I can. After a talk we had, Dorian understands that now.

Something happens when a person is confined to a wheelchair, as I have been for a couple of years. There were times in the past when I used one in airports or places where there was a great deal of walking. People didn't talk to me; they talked to the person pushing the chair. It's as if they think because someone is physically disabled, they've lost part of their brain, too. I don't like it, and other disabled people I know don't like it, either.

What I want to know is what's happening to this book? Harriet now has smashed the windows and lights of a truck; then she has the audacity to go up to Eugene's apartment to tell the Ratliffs about it. To me this story has begun to be a fantasy.

The worst dreams of this reader have been fulfilled, too. Charlotte has decided to fire Ida because Harriet complained about the food. Now what? Harriet's become unhinged as far as Danny Ratliff is concerned. She's walked headfirst into danger, and there'll be no stable influence in her home life at all.

How do you feel about this part of the book? Is it believable? Does it feel contrived?

Mal

Mal, I think the story has become unbelievable. It is really hard to believe that Harriet could outwit all those guys. Guys like the Ratcliffes are not exactly dumb. They are smart. They are just smart in the wrong way.

Hello everyone! I try not to be derelict in my duties here in the Little Friend and I see you are all doing just fine without my retorts. You guys are a phenomenal group and I love your takes on every issue. Maryal , you little peanut you, I can hardly see you and Mary Page. I can not tell you what a delight it was to meet Maryal when we went to DC last October. She and I (Mutt and Jeff) walked thru DC together ,chatting away, as if we'd been fine friends for years and years. Mary Page was blessed that she, too, had that oportunity. Maryal has been with Virgil, descending the depths of Hell in the Inferno while Joan P. is away with her hubby; I do so much appreciate the time you have given us here, Maryal and all of your challenging thoughts.

I think that these Ratliff boys are a hoot. They're dumber than a box of hammers and attempt to show a sophistication that they will never see. A hoot, I tell you. A delusional self- proclaimed Minister- ex-con ; a retarded boy with extensive physical ailments, and two meth addicted junkies. Oh boy, that is enough fodder to feed the masses. I love Tartt's writing and paused to wonder WHO she must have known to be able to characterize the likes of milkey-eyed paranoid Farsh???

Poor Danny seems to be the only one who fears anything or notices anything.
When Eugene was bitten by the snake "he felt high,and not unpleasant, the way he felt in the 60's..." that cracked me up and Farish, not to be outdone boists that he'd been bit worse. Tartt is having a field day with these whacko's. I really don't feel it is contrived, Mal.

What a proper ending for our assignment hey? The Mormons wwere startled at their morning devotions by the sight of a timber rattlesnake, observing them. Funny and frightening, but great writing. Do the Mormons know that the Ratliffs are more dangerous than the viper staring at them?

Tomorrow we begin Chapter 5 and the Red Gloves.

"Swarms of Mormon crickets invade the West"
Guess those boys downstairs are getting back at the Ratliffs.

Mal

Mal, I certainly understand your comment about people talking to the person pushing you instead of you. I pushed my dear friend, John, through several airports. He was a tall man with a deep booming voice, but as soon as he was seen in a wheelchair, I was the one people talked to. He was infuriated. I didn’t blame him. I would feel the same way.

Andy—Yes, I am but a mere speck of a woman! Andy knows that this is not true. But if you move the camera far enough away, I am little, something I have always wanted to be for about a week so I could see what it’s like! Then I would choose to go back to being tall, I think. So much easier in crowds! Mary-Page and I had a fine time, and next time we present ourselves for webcam view, we will be sure to have on striking colors. Even my fairly dark denim was washed out. Thank heaven for the balloon. Next time, I bring a RED balloon.

Mal—I loved the Mormons surprised by a snake on their freshly folded shirts. What a wonderful comic ending for this pretty scary section. For some reason that snake just doesn’t seem as harmful to me as he/she actually is!

Andy—I’ll have to agree with you that these Ratliffs are, if not quite as dumb as a bag of hammers, pretty easy to deceive. They are all either delusional or on drugs. (Not Curtis of course, but he isn’t in the scene.) I don’t find it unbelievable that Harriet can outwit them. It is not that difficult to deceive stupid men on drugs. Keep in mind that these Ratliffs keep winding up in jail. They can’t be that good at what they do.

I’ll be absent for the rest of the day. I have a LOT of reading to do. The whole next section! Don’t anyone give away anything too much tomorrow, as I want to be surprised.

I find myself with a certain amount of sympathy for Danny Ratliff. I have the feeling that if he could find a way to get safely away from everything and everyone at home, he'd be gone. He knows he's a mess, Farish scares him, Gum preaches futility, Eugene has religion. The only one he would care about leaving is Curtis. I found myself hoping he would get out. ..Babi

I feel sorry for Ida Rhew and Harriet. Ida has lost her job. Harriet feels guilty and sad about the whole thing. She looks and looks for those red gloves that Ida gave her and can't find them. She puts her heart into picking the vegetables from the garden.

I think Harriet carries a lot of weight on her shoulders because of her mother's condition. Her mother is off in a dream world somewhere. Since Ida can't talk to the mother, I think Harriet gets to hear all of her pain and anger.

I worry about what will happen to Ida. I also worry about what will happen to Allison and Harriet after Ida leaves. Who will make the big decisions? The mother isn't capable to make any decisions.

There is so much going on here. I almost have to force myself to remember poor little Robin and what happened to him.

Hats: Dreams are another major thread in this novel. We start our next section with Harriet sliding "back into the stagnant waters of nightmares." (Don't you just love that description?) Hely's memory is clouded and fouled, like the "after taste of a bad dream".

Think about it- Allison survives by living in aDREAM world. She also dreams where she climbed the tree as high as she could and jumped over and over, except in her dreams she hit the ground. (Pg. 102) Charlotte buries herself in the never-never land of narcotic induced dreams. Harriet, herself, often dreams about Houdini and daydreams about Capt. Scott's fateful adventure.

Hmm, is this an illusion too, perhaps delusion?

Hely is like the "before and after, Charles Atlas" commercial. I see him as a slight, fragile looking boy, with sharp features and a keen eye. His cousin blamed him for the Country Club incident when they stole the liquor and the best part about that incident (to me, not to poor Hely) is that his mother wasn't so distraught about him drinking as she was over the fact that he had "stolen" the booze. Oh boy, talk about mixed signals for a kid.

Maryal is right; he seems to be maturing before our very eyes. Even though he is worrying over Harriet's safety, he is terrified that the rednecks might have recognized him from the night before and tell his father. His little voice even "creaks" when he answers to his father's voice, be it from fear or pubescence. This is what I loved most about this book. Tartt takes us on this roller-coaster ride from childhood into adolescence with Harriet and Hely. I can remember actually being there, experiencing these emotions. I was a thoughtful, busy kid but felt like a Jekyl and Hyde most of the time, struggling for my own identity and feeling of worth.

Indeed, what will happen to Harriet and Allison if Ida is not around to keep an eye on things. the first time I read this part of the book, I cried like a baby. It is so well written. Typical of adolescence, Harriet represses the horrible thought that Ida is angry with her and that she has been fired, because of her own selfishness. She squelches her fear by rationalizing that she will pick Ida some tomatoes and this will make it all OK. Perhaps she thought she should take a bath without Ida having to ask her to do it. Her anguish is doubled as she thinks about how she had hurt Ida's feeling by not wearing the red gloves and losing the only present that Ida had ever given her. Red gloves,teary, red eyes and a red, angry RAGE is present now. Even ole Gum is in a red flowered house-dress, resembling a spiny old cactus. What is the significance of these red gloves, here?

This book is getting more and more difficult for me to read. I lost a loved one not that long ago, and the scenes describing the pain and sense of loss that Allison and Harriet feel are so real to me, my heart hurts. The girls sense that they have absolutely no control over the impending loss of someone who means so much to them, and who is such a large part of their lives. When Tartt writes that Ida's leaving gave Allison "a panicky, breathless, choking feeling," she is right on target. She goes on to say that Allison felt "as if she would have to go on looking at the blank wall for the rest of her life." If any of you have lost someone close to you, you know this feeling is real.

As Hely and Harriet are running from the bridge where they have left the Cobra, Hely points out a sign that reads:

Heritage Groves
Homes of the Future

"The future must suck, huh?" says Hely. And we know he is right. Their town and their lives are going to change irrevocably into more Oak LAwn Estates.

As for the Ratliffs, Farish's paranoia and conviction that someone from prison is out to get him, is probably responsible for his failure to focus on Harriet at first. But eventually, he does realize that she is somehow involved. At this point, she is in real danger. Farish seems to have strong feelings for Gum, and is determined to avenge her attempted murder.

Then there is the terrible scene of the aunts' accident and the loss of Libby. Edie's refusal to give up her driving priviledges despite the danger she poses to herself and others is totally realistic. I've seen relatives trying to persuade someone who should no longer be on the road to give up driving.

Edie, the practical one, becomes disoriented and fails to pay attention to Libby's symptoms. She has "a sharp ugly nightmare-flash of impending old age. Aching joints, blurry eyes...Peeling paint, leaky roofs, taps that dripped, and lawns that never got mowed. And time: time enough to stand in the yard for hours listening to any con artist who drifted down the pike." She remembers her fathers slow decline, and sees herself slowly sliding into a similar state.

It's all sooo sad!

It's not sad. It's all so exaggerated that I can't feel anything except to wonder how Donna Tartt is going to work herself out of the tangled literary complications she's got herself into by writing the way she has. This is beginning to be a book I'd love not to read.

Back later. This is my Duke day, and I'm off to what's sure to be not exactly a picnic adventure.

I'm glad to see all of you. I missed you while SeniorNet was blacked out.

See you later, you all.

Mal

Alf and Horselover, I cried too. I kept walking around with the book and telling Bill how moved I felt. Alf, I spent all weekend thinking about those lost red gloves. Found myself wondering and wondering where they might have been lost. I know those red gloves represent more than just a pair of red gloves. I think those red gloves represent everything and everyone that Harriet will lose in her life. I think those red gloves will come to represent all of the pain that Harriet will ever feel in life. I think she will tie everythink back to her losing those red gloves.

It seems Ida's leaving is going to lead to a whole lot of stuff falling apart in Harriet's life. The last few paragraphs in the chapter called Red Gloves really tore me apart. I read it over and over and over again. It's too long to write here.

"Never had she been happy or content, exactly, but she was quite unprepared for the strange darks that lay ahead of her. For the rest of her life, Harriet would remember with a wince that she hadn't been brave enough to stay for one last afternoon-the very last one!--to sit at the foot of Ida's chair with her head on Ida's knees....But most of all, it would pain her that she'd been too proud to tell Ida that she loved her....A whole new ugly kind of life was settling about Harriet, there in the dark hallway at the telephone-table; and though it felt new to her then, it would come to seem horribly familiar in the weeks ahead."

Ohhhh, it just breaks your heart. Tartt can write!!! I am soooo glad Alf and Maryal chose this book.

Poor Hely, when Harriet leaves for camp, he feels all alone. At this point, after they throw the cobra over the overpass, I feel that Harriet seems more grownup. She seems to withdraw into herself, realizing that they could really be in trouble. She seems so sober as she talks to Hely on the phone.

Alf, you have my mind thinking of dreams, red. I don't want to miss anything! I envy the ability you guys have to see all the stuff that my eyes scurry past.

I am still behind. I kept reading pgs 340-341 all over again.

But poor Gum. Oh, I could go on and on and......

Hi Mal, we will be thinking about you today. Hurry up and get back!!!

I'm off to the Links this morning but the weather doesn't look too good.

Thanks for your input Mal, but----- well, I respectfully disagree. I can only extol Tartt's writing which has an impact I've not felt in a novel for a long time. She's creative, descriptive and very eloquent. She illustrates PAIN, agony and suffering of the mind and the body in an exemplary way. I feel myself evolving right along into adulthood with Harriet and Hely. (Who thought I'd ever reach adulthood.?)

Horselover and hats, hang on I just found another RED reference.

Be back soon, Maryal will be here in a little while to offer her take on these chapters.

Andy

As they are driving down the highway towards camp, a tube of lipstick drops out. "Harriet caught it before it fell--Cherries in the Snow, said the label on the bottom..." Well, here is more red like Alf mentioned. Hmmm.

The parts about the Ratliffs may be somewhat exaggerated. I've never known such a family, so I can't say. But the parts about Harriet's and Allison's grief are definitely not exaggerated. Anyone who has lost a loved one will recognize the pain, physical and mental, that the girls experience. When Tartt says that "Harriet's heart squeezed disagreeably tight," I know the feeling. Harriet's anger at the funeral reception when ahe observes all the guests milling around, eating and chatting, is also recognizable to me. Even Hely is unable to share the depths of Harriet's grief. He has never had to deal with the kind of loss Harriet experiences--first her brother, then Ida, and now the aunt she loved the most.

I wonder what will happen to Edie from here on. She was not severely injured physically by the accident, but her mental capacity to deal with the practical aspects of daily life seems to have been damaged.

I'm glad we are all back together! I missed all of you.

HATS, to me, the red gloves represent those things you regret and can't change, however much you would like too. For Harriet, they represent the indifference she showed to Ida, the hurt she caused her. Now she would give anything to have them back and do it all differently.

Dreams about Houdini, in my mind, simply shout of a feeling of entrapment and struggles to escape. Harriet is definitely in a situation in her home that she must long to escape, to change.

I hadn't picked up on the red. Sharp eyes, Horselover, and Hats. So much red appearing at a specific juncture can't be coincidence, surely. So RED! Danger, perhaps? Anger? Both are present now. ...Babi

Babi, I can really see your thoughts on the red gloves. Wow!! I didn't get any of that about Houdini. Your thoughts are really interesting and fit the story for me. I love reading about Alice and Wonderland and all of the other children's stories.

Alf, mentioned Red References. I have been seeing those references more and more: a pretty red toothbrush (Allison gave one to Ida), cherry curtains, red discloths and a pretty red box, full of christmas lights. Babi, I think of danger, pain, anger too.

Horselover, for me the grief and pain is very real. This is the part of the book that speaks to me and does not come across as exaggerated. When Harriet goes to the library and looks through all of those newspapers and finds the one about Robin, I can feel her pain. Someone stole her brother from her. Her mother's son is forever gone for no reason. At that point, I see red. I become totally angry with whoever had the nerve to commit such a cruel act.

I also have been thinking of the way Tartt describes houses. She describes them almost as if they were living and breathing organisms. I think our homes do inhale and exhale our emotions.

Tartt always seems to describe Hely's home as cheerful, happy, even welcoming. Of course, no one has died at Hely's house. Harriet's house is always described as sad, almost dark all the time.

"Now, with Ida leaving, nothing in the house shared Allison's sorrow...the gloomy carpets, the cloudy mirrors; the armchairs hunched and grieving and even the tragic old tallcase clock holding itself very rigid and proper, as if it were about to collapse into sobs."

"Hely! He lived in a busy, companionable, colorful world, where everything was modern and bright: corn chips and Ping-Pong, stereos and sodas.....Even the smell over there was new and lemon-fresh--not like her own dim home, heavy and malodorous with memory, its aroma a sorrowful backwash of old clothes and dust."

I think what Harriet feels at her home is the lack of closure. Robin is still almost living, although dead, because no one knows what happened to him. Harriet's house proves that undealt with grief can kill us. Her home is literally dying because everyone who lives there is thinking about death.

Good afternoon to all! Here we are again! I don’t know how Andy got back so early. I couldn’t connect last evening at all.

Hats--Ida Rhew (did everyone notice that “Rhew” is her middle name and that she has a last name that we hear in this section?)—will be OK because she has a home with her daughter. She will most likely find another job, similar to the one she has now, but with better pay. We discover that she is getting only $20 a week while other maids are getting $30 and $35 for less work.

The most touching part to me in this section is Harriet’s inability to stay that last week with Ida or at least to say goodbye to her before she runs away to the camp she has always hated. Harriet displays that between-child-and-adult behavior that I remember. She wants to tell Ida that she loves her, but she is angry at Ida and feels abandoned. She “cuts her nose to spite her face” as my mother used to say. She needlessly takes on more pain by her behavior. I can remember acting in this way.

Andy--I love your description of the “roller coaster ride” that the book provides. After the set up—the first section we read, it seems to whirl us through one adventure or drug trip after another. I can almost feel the prickles from the bushes the kids run through as well as smell the inside of the Ratliffs’ trailers.

I am amazed by Tartt’s ability to take us back and forth between Harriet and the Ratliffs and keep both plots (intertwined of course) equally interesting. I can’t say how many books I have read where there are intertwined stories and I really care about one of them and I read quickly through the others until I get to the one that is most interesting to me. In this book, both are interesting, at least to me.

horselover--I’m glad you are sticking with us. If it gets too much, you can stop reading. I have lost both parents, a sister, my only sibling, and a man I loved deeply. There was a period when I found it difficult to read anything and I understand. Whether we lose someone, as Harriet does, because the person is moving away or dying, loss is very hard to deal with, and I think we all feel abandoned for a while.

It all seems very real to me too. The only part of the book that is distorted are those parts that deal with dreams or being under the influence of drugs. The distortion of dream and the living nightmare that Danny and Farish are caught up in are so similar in my mind. Notice that Danny doesn’t sleep for days and days. If we don’t sleep, we hallucinate while awake. AND he keeps taking “bumps” of the “product.”

BaBi--Yes, indeed! I had missed the continuing references to Houdini. Your mentioning that Harriet’s dreams “simply shout of a feeling of entrapment and struggles to escape” certainly rings true. Thank you.

Mal--I too disagree. I am completely caught up in this story, and I don’t see the exaggeration that you do. All exaggeration for me can be explained by the dream or the drug.

You all are moved, as I am, by what is real and possible in this book. I am not so hard-hearted that the death of Robin doesn't bother me, or that the death of dear, selfless Libby doesn't make me feel bad. I am, however, insistent that Donna Tartt is going away from the original premise she had which made the reader hurt and feel.

This morning I was in my daughter's car headed for Durham. We were approaching an underpass on a highway, you know, with the bridge on top of the car as we passed through. Dorian has read The Little Friend, so I said, "It would be a one in a million chance that two kids could stand on top of this bridge and drop a cobra into the right car." She agreed, and it would.

Nobody here is mentioning Gum and what happened to her. It's Edie, Edie, Libby and the Cleveses. What about this poor old, cancer-ridden woman who has been incredibly attacked by a cobra two kids managed to get in her car by performing a very illegal act? Doesn't Gum's life and welfare mean anything here? Is she to be stigmatized because her grandsons are such dope-peddling more-than-rascals? Are Harriet and Hely to go unpunished for their crime because they happen to represent "the good guys?"

Do you really think the cobra incident could have happened in real life? Do you really think anybody in real life, no matter how crooked he is, would allow a visitor to infest his home with boxes of snakes? No, he would not have endangered himself in this way. He'd have insisted that Loyal Reese take the snakes somewhere else. This is what I mean by exaggeration.

Tartt's original plot about a young girl trying to avenge the death of her brother and zeroing in on a man who may (or may not) be the killer is a very good one. It's when she goes off on flights of fancy that she loses me as a reader, and she will continue to lose me the more she does it in this book. There's so much that's real and true and poignant in The Little Friend that it seems a shame that the author couldn't have stuck to what she was originally trying to say.

Once again I don't see the importance of something you do -- the color red. What the red gloves symbolize to me is the fact that Lasharon either stole them or Charlotte gave them to her. If Tartt meant that she stole them, it is more description of certain poor white people, as described in this book, and their disrespect of other people's property.

If Charlotte gave them to Lasharon, it is, to me anyway, more evidence of her skewed, mixed-up values -- giving away something Harriet really cared about -- and either Charlotte's judgment as altered by drugs, or the fact that Harriet's mother cared more about the memory of her dead son than she did her daughters.

Mal

Maryal, I have come too far to stop reading now. But I thank you so much for your empathy, and for sharing your own experiences with these emotions.

Hats, I love your little essay about the houses. The houses in this book do reflect the people who live there and the lives they lead.

MAL, I do agree with you that some of the adventures, such as the episode where the children drop the cobra into the car, have a movie-like improbability about them. But the emotions are very real, and most of the characters and their relationships seem real to me.

I guess you're glad the checkup at Duke is over. I hope it wasn't too uncomfortable.

BaBi, Your point about the Houdini dreams is good. Harriet does feel trapped in a situation in her home that she longs to escape or change. She not only dreams about him but also tries to imitate him by learning to hold her breath underwater. But no matter what she dreams or fantasizes, she is still a child and limited in her options for escape.

The scene which describes how, for Harriet, "time was broken" after Ida left is another one where the emotions ring true. Harriet's day had revolved around Ida's coming and going, and the chores she would do on a predictable schedule. Now, the chores do not get done, and Harriet loses track of the days of the week and the hours in the day. It's heartbreaking that Harriet does not want to sleep in her bed because the freshly made bed is the last vestige of Ida left to her. She sleeps on top of the covers in a house that is dim and still, and feels that she is "the sole survivor of a terrible disaster." For her, it is as if her "world had ended and most of the people in it had died."

horselover, just to tell you I'm tired tonight, but fine.

I think -- don't just think -- I know I'm more critical of writers than some because I am one. Tartt made a mistake in her first book, and she's made the same mistake in this second one. After I read this book and came to the conclusion I stated above, I read reviews. Many of the reviewers felt the same way I do, so I didn't feel quite as far out in left field about my opinion as I did.

There's no question in my mind that Tartt is a writer. It's what she does with her skill that is important to me.

And that's all I'm going to say about this until everyone has finished the book.

Mal

And if one listened to reviewers, and took their opinion as Gospel, we would never draw our own conclusions.

Of course Tartt takes poetic license, it is after all a legitimate tool of the trade.

This author had me horrified at the snake scenes, especially the one where the creature went into the car. The odds that such a thing could succeed may be indeed short, matters little.It is after all a work of fiction.A work of fiction that sometimes makes me laugh, other times cry, but always enthralls me.

If one needs to be a writer to form an honest opinion of a book we would be in trouble. What we are, each of us, seeing in this or any other novel, is after all only opinion. However there can be no doubt Tartt has excellent literary skills, that is a fact.

Maybe, as someone said she has a movie in mind, personally I think she writes in pictures. Beautiful explicit pictures which seep deep into my psyche, I think to remain with me a long time.When Charlotte made her error about Harriet, thinking she had been out all night, I was taken back to times in childhood when parental reactions seemed "crazy". It pleases me when Tartt gives me reasons to have sympathy for characters, in that particular episode Charlottes fear was palpable.

As a point of interest, I chose to read the scenes where Harriet and Hely went snake hunting to my hostel students, last evening.They so wanted more, unlike me they were not put off, but actually found it amusing, and the pleasing thing for me was I needed to give no eplanation, they "got it" for themselves.

I aplogise for being behind, have trouble keeping up, as I tend to read over and over, wanting so much to understand both families. Anneo

Mine is an opinion just like yours. I believe I have every right to have it and express it, even if I am a lonely minority. I never assess books by book reviews. I do try to see your point-of-view as best I can and with as open a mind as I can have.

Now I'm going to try to stay silent, since obviously what I said yesterday is not at all popular.

Thank you.
Goodnight.

Mal

Maryal: I must have accessed SNet yesterday just at the right time to post. After that, it wouldn't let me in. Maybe it likes me better.
anneof: I love that thought; an artist such as Tartt writing by painting a picture. I had to think about it but what an ideal way to compose a story. Thank you for your comments and I'm sure Ms. Tartt would thank you as well for defending this wonderful story. We can't all like the same works of art, can we? I always enjoy it when you talk to us about your "hostel kids." I can just imagine reading this to my grand kids, they would love it! The more suspense and fear, the better they like it. We all read the first two Harry Potter stories together (taking turns reading aloud) and I enjoyed their reactions more than I could believe.
I think that the emotions and sentiments that are so poignant in this novel are what makes it so memorable. Like horselover said, you laugh, you cry and you feel fear. When I read this the first time, I can't tell you how many times I laid the book in my lap and just "thought" about how it moved me. Noww--- to me, that makes a good read.
Hats said: I also have been thinking of the way Tartt describes houses. She describes them almost as if they were living and breathing organisms. I think our homes do inhale and exhale our emotions.
Wow! That is a subject I would LOVE to get into.
It's the middle of the bloody night here and I'm suffering once again from insomnia so I will wander around and catch up in the morning.

I think our homes are a part of us. Like our thoughts or our personality are always with us. What we feel, whether sorrow, anger or happiness becomes a part of our home.

I remember growing up and my dad going deep sea fishing over the weekend. Although my mother was home, there was a sense of insecurity without dad being home. When he returned on Sunday evening, all of a sudden the house felt more secure, safe.

When someone dies, I can feel the grief the moment I walk in a house. Some houses you can just walk past, and the house exudes a feeling of fear. Growing up we would run past certain houses. No one lived in these houses, but these houses frightened us. We called these houses haunted. These houses made great summer fun. Now I wonder if maybe something bad had really happened in those houses.

I keep thinking about red.... is it a warning, like a hunter who would wear red? Is it for protection against evil ? Check out this web site for thoughts. RED

I am up to the part where Harriet is wandering around her house, thinking about all she has lost with Ida's departure and Libby's death. The house is frighteningly dim and still. There are no clothes on the clothesline, no coffee brewing, no one to say "Good Morning." She thinks of Libby's house, shut up, the sun coming and going through the windows, no reflections in the mirrors. Never again, until the end of time, can she call Libby on the telephone and hear her say, "My darling! my dear!"

Harriet sits alone brooding on the stairs, thinking of the bad things she had done to Libby while she was alive. She feels such terrible regret that she goes into her mother's closet to cry. She is "sick with the certainty that what she felt was never going to get anything but worse."

At this point, the reader feels the same certainty. What, I wonder can make Harriet's life better?

Can you imagine the emotions that Harriet is suffering through? She's petrified after her little caper with Hely, that she will be found out and arrested; so she opts for the lesser of the two evils. Go to camp! Even Allison senses something is amiss and asks her "What did you do? You act like you're in trouble." She hangs up from Hely and thinks "even Hely felt like something that was lost now, or about to be lost, an impermanence like lightning bugs or summer.

Yes, horselove Harriet will never be the same and although never happy or content, "she was unprepared for the strange darks that lay ahead of her."

Irritable, Harriet and Edie make their way toward the camp and Harriet knew only that she was far from home as she tried to put Hely out of her mind! As soon as she spotted the lettered sign, she abruptly changed her mind and begged Edie to take her home. Poor Edie , with no inkling that Harriet is upset scolds her and tells her to stay.

Now, at this point, I cracked up when we meet Dr. Vance blowing on his clarinet and leaning in, stuck out his tongue at Harriet and gives her the old pity party BS. Harriet conjures up bad memories when Dr. Vance pushed her onstage for a hula hoop contest and Mrs. Vance, the touchy-feely wife greets her . We leave young Harriet for a bit.

Poor little Allison, sick with despair over Ida's departure notes that now, nothing in the house shares her sorrows. Ever so diligent Ida tidied up, cleaned the refigerator, wiped down cabinets, and made food, singing and humming merrily. Allison spends all of her Christmas money buying Ida things that she would knew she would like, wrapped them and boxed them up for her. She writes for Ida to not forget her. Allison felt that her mother was disappointed when she looked at her and found that it was not Robin. She tried to make herself nonexistant but what a morbid life this child has. I worry more about her mental health than I do Harriets. Allison is somehow more fragile.
Again she has a DREAM of standing in front of a white wall, very close to her face, where she can not move but must face this blank wall for eternity. What do you make of that?

MAL, there is no question the cobra landing in the car was a long shot, but by a freak (in the story)it happened. I expected it to miss, but that would not have sent the story where Tartt needed it to go, would it?

Do you really think Gum has cancer? I very much doubt it; she's still around years after the purported diagnosis. I suspect Gum has cancer the way some elderly ladies have 'palpitations' whenever someone opposes them. This is not a sweet old lady, folks. This is the woman who squelches every dream by any of her sons/grandsons to better themselves. She slyly stirs up trouble between them at every opportunity. I see her as pure poison. Sorry about that.

I feel certain that Charlotte had given LaSharon the red gloves. It wasn't a matter of her giving away something that meant a lot to Harriet. Harriet had stuffed the gloves away and forgotten them when Charlotte came across them and gave them away. I doubt if Harriet would have reacted so savagely if the red gloves had not come to symbolize to her a tie to Ida Rhew. I think I feel sorrier for LaSharon than for anyone else in the book. ...Babi

ALF, we were posting at the same time. I found Allison's dream of staring at a blank, white wall very disturbing. The girl, in my opinion, is very close to a complete breakdown. Her dream was almost catatonic in it's symbolism. Brrr! ...Babi

Andy--I had no idea that SeniorNet loved you best, but it makes sense. Remember that old running joke that the Smothers brothers used about Mom liking me best? Made me laugh every time even though I knew exactly what was coming.

OK, Andy, you have hit it on the head for me--why I like this book so much. You wrote, "I can just imagine reading this to my grand kids, they would love it! The more suspense and fear, the better they like it." I think that's why I like it so much too. When I was a kid--yall should be glad you didn't know me then--I had a best friend, Jerilyn. We had what my mother called "overactive imaginations." We took great delight in scaring ourselves to death, making up stories, acting them out, the scarier the better. I distinctly remember the night in the backseat of her mother's car when we began "The Mystery of the Two Moons." I looked out and said, "Hey, look, TWO moons, " and Jerilyn responded, "Gosh, what could that mean?" as she nodded in agreement. That's all I remember of the complicated mystery we made up, but it was very sinister and we were scared by our own imagining.

When Hely and Harriet figure out a way to drop the cobra into what they think is Danny's car (well, it is Danny's car but his Gum is driving), I am so caught up in their excitement and fear that it doesn't occur to me to wonder what the odds of the snake actually falling directly into the car are. It is possible, just like it is possible for kids to drop rocks from an overpass and hit the windshield of a car just right to break it and cause and accident.

Maryal

Babi, I felt the same way about Gum. Tartt tells us some of what Gum has taught the Ratcliffe boys. Gum teaches them not about love but about fighting to get what you want no matter whom you hurt. She feels it's a dog eat dog world. Something bad must have happened in Gum's life because she is a pretty bitter woman.

Alf, thanks for the link about RED.

Hats mentions that Gum teaches the grandsons that it's a dog eat dog world. She, in fact, discouraged Ricky Lee from going to college on a sports scholarship. Made it sound too expensive and a waste of time. She certainly doesn't believe in the next generation doing anything differently from the prior one. (Ricky Lee is now in the State Penitentiary.)

But it's the "dog eat dog" that caused me to need to comment.

We English teachers collect errors that are funny (to us), or at least I do. For example, I once had a student who wrote about a "rod iron" fence.

But my favorite, so far, comes from another student: "We live in a doggy dog world." They learn language mostly by hearing it, and it loses touch with its written form because they don't read that much. But there is something really wonderful in "doggy dog world."

Or maybe I am losing it!

I can't remember when I've ever seen anyone's opinion so successfully shot down in these discussions in the way most of you have shot down mine. I must learn never to post when I'm as exhausted as I was yesterday when I arrived home from the long medical exam I had. I don't really want to leave this discussion, but am a little fearful now.

I would like to say that to me Donna Tartt promised a story in the beginning that was about Harriet Dufresne, the murder of her brother, and what that did to this growing girl. As I have concluded and according to what is stated in anything I've read about this book, Tartt turns away from that premise, and instead of fulfilling her earlier promise, turns the book into a thriller. I obviously am way off base, but this disappointed me, thus what I said.

About Gum. She may believe it's a dog eat dog world and probably has reason, but she does try to hold her family together. For that reason I see some worth in her. I also am of the opinion that people should not go out and try to kill a living human being ever, no matter what the reason might be. That includes Harriet Dufresne.

Now I'm going to to hole up for the night and try to rest up for the upcoming exams by an orthopedist, an audiologist and an opthalmologist I must go through. The only really positive thing that came out of what I went through yesterday is that a physio-therapist will be coming to my apartment through home health care to try and get me back on my feet, at least enough so that I can walk outside to the deck of this room I live in and get a little fresh air. Until my daughter got me out yesterday I'd been mostly alone in this room with my cat and my computer for company for months.

Mal

Rest well Mal.

Your opinion was NOT shot down, it's just that nobody else agreed with yours. That is OK too, we are all individuals. Everybody here also has an opinion and I am happy that each one of you stand firm in your own convictions.

Maryal, I taught Middle School English at one time also. I really loved your collection of misheard errors. I can remember students writing about "poison ivory."

Andy, I agree that Allison is more fragile than Harriet. Harriet will probably grow up and go on, even if she is left with deep scars from her warped childhood. But poor Allison! One wonders if she will be able to grow up at all. Perhaps she will become pregnant by Pemberton and have her life end in tragedy. Would Hely's mother ever let one of her sons marry Allison? She won't even let Harriet stay for dinner. "Where did they go, Pemberton and Allison, when they drove away in the dark?"

The part where Charlotte begins to come out of the bedroom to do strange things is really scarey. She doesn't clean, but polishes doorknobs. She suggests that Harriet make a party for her school chums in this dim and dirty house. Harriet is amazed by some of her wild suggestions. Her mother tries to talk to her, but Harriet refuses to give her any sympathy. "Harriet felt herself harden to ice." Her mother frightens her now. Yet she feels guilty. "Why was she so hateful?"

It's hard to figure out how this story will end. There are so many possibilities.

horselover--ooooo, I don't have "poison ivory." Ok with you if I add it to my list? If you remember any more, I'd appreciate your passing them on.

Mal--When we get to the end of the novel, I have several comments to make that more or less go on with suggestions you have made. When we get to discussing the novel as a whole, we have an interesting task before us, that is--is it successful as a novel?

But first we have to wait until everyone has finished the novel which won't be until the end of the week. And even then, I think we need to be careful about revealing the ending. Be patient. I'm glad that the physiotherapist will come, and that you may regain a little mobility. I'm sorry for all these other tests.

ALF, MARYAL,

I know I've been conspicuous by my absence, but - let me assure you - I have not defected, deserted the fold or been indifferent. I was, simply, pressed for time. P>

And also engaged in a search for an old friend with whom I've studied in Italy a looonnnng time ago. I found her, thanks to the invaluable aid of Maryland state agencies, but I'm afraid she is oblivious and lost in every sense of the word.

Back to the book :

I agree with HATS that our homes are expressions of ourselves. And I'd like to add that the place where we grew up is the landscape that defines us and that molded us, one we'll never forget. Whether we can actually "go home again" depends on the length of our absence and is open to question. Visits home are a Bandaid but no real remedy for the homesick.

It took five years to process our application before we were admitted to this country. Our sponsors were models of patience, support and diligence - except that white/black race relations and conflicts were never EVER mentioned. My husband and I happened on the 'problem' at work (for him) and in the Drug Store (for me) where I was appalled to see blacks still restricted to the last booth at lunch time.

Your sources/references to RED are all wonderful. Isn't blood also a smbol for death ?

What is the point of no return for Harriet?

What does she mean when she thinks, "Impossible to quit now, put the toys up, knock down the chessboard and start again" (331)?

What does Harriet's point of no return have to do with growing up? This is, in some ways, a coming of age novel.

Traude said that it is in some ways possible to go home. But what do we find when we get there?

I stubbed my my toe in the pool hall and am trying to catch up but am enjoying all the posts.

Hi, Gingee! Good to see you!

In Chapter 6, called "The Funeral", Tartt covers a lot of territory. Various themes of the book are woven in as if this were a piece of contrapuntal music. I find that I have to be careful not to get too caught up in what is happening to Harriet and the Cleves family. If I do I miss something about the Ratliffs that is important to the plot.

Page 380. Edie: "All my life, she thought, I have been robbed. Everything I ever loved has been taken away from me." This picture of the decay of the Clevese is of strong Edie?

I think it's a real coincidence that Catfish, slumlord and compatriot of the Ratliff boys, is the limousine driver at Libby's wake, don't you?

Farish and Danny have been afraid ever since Harriet and Hely broke into Eugene's apartment and broke the windows and headlights of the truck. These fears have increased since attack on Gum.

Farish: "Parties -- dangerous parties -- were out to get him. Their grandmother's life was at stake."(Page 394)

Danny is worried because the methamphetamine was still on the property. Then Farish hid the drugs in the water tower behind the train track. An unlikely and perhaps unwise place to put them?

The water tower was a wooden barrel on spindly metal legs, 45 feet above the ground. It comes out that Danny is afraid of water because, when learning to swim, he sank.

Danny thinks, "Who knew how he rigged the tower? If it was rigged at all, it was (knowing Farish) rigged to maim, not kill." (Page 397)

At the reception at Edie's house after Libby's funeral, Hely's mother is described as "a flirtatious little sass since childhood." (Page 402)

There's talk about the funeral bouquet from Harriet's father, Dix, which was sent from his mistress. Mrs. Chaffin: "She sure didn't sound like a secretary to me." (Page 404) Why is Tartt bringing in Dix at this point?

Hely talks to Harriet about Danny: "He drives all over town." He saw Danny driving toward the train tracks.(Page 404) The train tracks are where the water tower is.

The Black issue comes out in the scene with Odean: "Why ain't nobody told me 'bout Miss Libby?" (Page 406) No one asked her to go to the funeral. Odean has come for what is due her, as stated in Libby's will. Harriet is disgusted with the behavior of people at the funeral home and at Edie's. She doesn't realize that people follow this kind of protocol to avoid thinking about death and their own mortality.

An interesting comment here: "Before Harriet was born, the whole family had vacationed on the Gulf every year; after Robin died, they never went back." (Page 408) The whole family gave up living after Robin died? Why?

At the end of the chapter, there is this picture of Harriet and a foreshadowing, I believe, of what is to come.

"Mud and slimy grass, under the cracked garden brick she'd kicked aside. Harriet studied the ugly spot on the ground with great attention, as if it were the one true thing in the world -- which, in a way, it was." (Page 409)

Hi Mal! Thanks! It is good to be back.

Gingee, you devil, put down that Budweiser and "call the corner pocket."

Mal: Now, Tartt began to lose me as she introduced flirtatious Mr. Sumner, Adelaide's old beau and the limo driver, Catfish, who tells her that "boys don't like no stuck-up acting girl." What is that about? Even Tartt calls it "a twenty-car pile-up of freaked-out reality. (This coincidence of seeing H. with Catfish in a hearse.)

The Ratliffs become more crazed in their amphetamine induced paranoia; particularly Farish who we find had spent most of his time in an asylum, during the Nam war. He seemed to believe he trudged thru rice paddies, breathing thru a bamboo pole. This is so typical of druggies! I've known them and you can't argue facts with them. They are right and they believe that they were really there. Do not confuse them with facts!

Edie, in a fog, is annoyed with her whole family and thinks of the dead cat incidient. Why does she say it's no difference in the world? She calls it "old friends in disaster! "
How true is that line? We all wish to "get together", become busy with our everyday lives and only come to one another in the event of a disaster, such as death. Who is NOT guilty of that crime?
--------Poor Charlotte, unable to function with an independent thought, can not even perform the simple task of pouring punch at the funeral as she looks up in bewilderment at her mother, confused. I didn't think about Dix's reappearance into the novel or should I say his LACK of appearance at the funeral. Maybe Tartt is trying to "sum everybody" all up OR ---hmmm?
Who would have called him to notify him of the death? Charlotte? Is she still linking her heart to him?

We find the emotions running high throughout this tragedy of the aunt's death. Allison, "sobbing with an intensity that even frightened Harriet," (pg. 407), poor faithful Odean and Harriet who's face constricted with a foreign, frightening emotion which made even her best friend step back "as if she had an infectious disease."

As far as the vacation to the Gulf Mal, it could be compared to the tiny, gray bivalves that lose their magic when they've been out of the water for awhile." The magic of vacationland died with little Robin. A dream of life past, not life to come. What a powerful ending here.

What do we find when we go home? That is much too painful for me to ponder, Maryal. You run with this one, my good friend.

Traude: We are happy to have you join us at anytime. I am sorry about your friend.
Yesterday, Madonna was being interviewed on a TV show and was asked WHY she chose red to mark across the cover of her new CD? In her new yoga fashion, she sat tall, took a breath and slowly said "because red denotes judgement! "
"Judgement?" hollar I! Where the he** did she get that from?
Is this a story of judgement? Have we harshly judged Charlotte, the aunties , the druggies and Donna Tartt, as well? Oh dear , often I am guilty of that. I will appraise something, draw my own conclusions and "shoot from the hip" with my own opinion.

Is Tartt judging this family through her words? Are we probing emotions too deeply, where "no man should go" into another?
Have we already sentenced this lot? I know I have. I've got them all wrapped up (in my own head) and the verdict has been given, for each one of them. Judgement, hmmm!

Andy, it's my opinion that in order to understand what Donna Tartt is getting at, this book should be read as a whole. She gives clues and foreshadows coming events throughout the book. The chapter called "The Funeral" is full of clues about what's to come next.

In this chapter, also, she's bringing Harriet closer to the Ratliffs. That's what sitting her in the limo with Catfish and Danny's seeing her there does. As I recall, the last time we saw Catfish was in the pool hall.

Farish and Danny are zeroing in on Harriet. She has not been too swift when it comes to dealing with them. Goes to the pool hall, smashes the truck windshield, etc., on the truck and goes up and tells Eugene about it. Of course, this was a ploy to get Hely out of there, but she took a very big risk when she did it. Now Danny's after her while she's after him. It's a real Charlie Chaplin-Keystone Kops situation with both running after each other, when you think about it. We've already gone a long way from trying to see how Robin's death affects Harriet's life now and later, perhaps without realizing it, since Tartt is weaving the Harriet story and the Ratliff story quite tightly together now, and a clear pattern is beginning to be seen.

(Trying to talk sense to a person way out on drugs is like my trying to tell my brain-injured son when he was in a psychotic episode that God was not really walking down a rainbow and that he was having a hallucination.)

The only thing the color red suggests to me in the context of this book is STOP! Harriet's had enough red stop signs in front of her to make her pull back and quit what she's doing. She's so crazed by the obsessive idea that she's going to find Robin's killer and that she knows who he is that she's plowing headlong through a million red lights. I think Tartt is telling us a terrific collision and crash are going to come, which, of course, Edie's automobile accident foreshadows.

Mal

After my marriage ended I went back to my hometown in Massachusetts to live for a few years after an absence of over twenty-five years. Compared to what I'd seen living in several other states, time seemed pretty much to have stood still in my hometown. The worst part about going back was that, except for a few old people who remembered me, I was a stranger with a foreign accent and foreign ways to everyone I met. Put simply, I didn't fit in and didn't belong in the place where I had grown up.

Mal

Grandbaby Day yesterday. I am regrouping. I had lots of fun. I miss, miss Little Friend. I will catch up later today.

Mal and Traude, If I went home now, I would feel the same way. All of my friends have moved or passed on. My parents are gone. I like what Traude said "Visits home are a bandaid but no real remedy for the homesick."

Every page in this book seems to leave me wanting to ask a question, or reread a paragraph or wonder why someone acted in a particular way or what in the world does that dream mean.

I thought Ida Rhew acted a bit harshly towards Allison on the way out the door. "And she'd taken nothing but the red plastic glass she drank out of: in the hallway, on the way out, she had refused the artfully wrapped cuttings and the box of presents, which she said was too heavy to carry. "I aint need all of that!" she said, cheerily, turning to look Allison straight in the eye; and her tone was that of someone offered a button or a piece of licked candy by a toddler. "What you think I need all that nonsense for?" Then, Allison tells Ida she loves her, and Ida says she loves Allison too. I did not understand why Ida acted that way about the gifts.

Oh, I get it! Is Ida just hiding her true feelings? Does it hurt her deeply to leave this family? I know she is going to her sister's home, but she has been with this family through thick and thin. She had to love them, didn't she?

To me, when the children speak in this book, there are many times when no one listens to them. Their voices are like whispers. What they have to say is unheard. Edie doesn't really hear what Allison is saying about Libby. On the way to camp, Harriet keeps saying she doesn't want to go. Edie just keeps talking and doesn't really tune in to what Harriet is saying.

I wonder if it is just the times. During those times, children were taught not to speak up. Is it the same now? Children speak, and we don't hear them. Their voices are inconsequential.

This bothered me. While Edie is driving, she sees Tat's childhood doll. What did that mean? "...an inexplicable memory from childhood leapt up in her mind: Tatty's old tin doll-dressed in draggled yellow-lying windmill-legged in the dust of Tribulation's kitchen yard."

I don't know why Edie had this memory. I can identify with her feelings. The older I become, memories just pop out at me for no reason. I can remember playing with a particular toy, my mother singing in the kitchen or a family argument around the dining room table. These memories seem haphazard. Are they really haphazard like dreams? I don't know.

Hats, I think Ida knew Allison loved her and didn't need a box full of little gifts to tell her so. And, yes, Ida loved the family, too. I believe it was a terrible wrench for her to leave Charlotte, Allison and Harriet. They had been like her family for many, many years.

The doll Edie sees after the accident says to me that she's hallucinating a little after suffering a hard hit to the head in the accident; nothing more than that. We all have childhood memories, and sometimes the shock of a blow of whatever sort brings them to the forefront of our minds.

Mal

Why in the world didn't they tell Odean about Libby? I can't understand it. Odean worked for Libby for fifty-five years!! Now, that made me feel sad and angry. I think it just shows that they didn't see or think of Odean as a person. That was totally unforgivable. Not telling Odean made me feel so sad and hurt. I just don't understand why they didn't go to her house and tell her!

MALRYN, it is horrendous to think of those children actually causing someone's death. But at that age, does the reality of what they are doing really sink in? As best I can remember, I don't think I really understood what death meant at the age of 12, it's unalterable finality.

TRAUDE, black/white seating arrangements in that drug store must be a matter of custom. Otherwise it would be completely illegal. Most people who are in a place regularly tend to prefer a favorite spot. If there is anything going on to restrict the seating of African-American customers, the owners/managers could be in serious trouble.

Libby's funeral, or wake, was so typical of the South. (Maybe of other areas, too, but I know the South.) Of course Dix was brought up in conversation. Everyone is brought up in the family gossip on these occasions. It's a time for 'catching up' among people who haven't gotten together since the last wedding/funeral.

HATS, my reaction to the failure to notify Odean of Libby's death was the same as yours. I was shocked that someone so close to Libby, so dear a companion, could have been completely forgotten. It made me so mad I wanted to smack somebody!

I may be off-base here, but all through this book Tartt's depth of feeling and insight has made me think that she is exorcising some very personal ghosts here. Mississippi raised, I think we are seeing in this story many memories and emotions of her own childhood. Just a feeling...I have nothing factual on which to base this idea. ..Babi

Maryal, You asked what was meant by "Impossible to quit now, put the toys up, knock down the chessboard and start again." I think it means that some things in life can be repaired or forgiven, and relationships can start again. But Ida's departure is a point of no return; they do not even know where she has gone. And death is the ultimate point of no return. Whatever Harriet has left undone or unsaid can never be repaired.

Andy, You said, "How true is that line? We all wish to get together, become busy with our everyday lives and only come to one another in the event of a disaster, such as death. Who is NOT guilty of that crime?" That is sooo true! It's not necessarily a crime, but we all tend to take one another for granted, sometimes focus on each others faults rather than strengths. It is only when faced with a real disaster that we seek out family and friends we have neglected.

I wonder if we are not romanticizing Ida's relationship to the girls just a little. Although she was fond of the girls, Ida may have distanced herself the way a doctor does from her patients. Ida knows she is not really a member of the family and can be dismissed at any time. To the girls she is a source of love and stability, but to Ida, this is a job from which ahe goes home at night to the mud hut where she actually lives. The incident with Odean at Libby's funeral also points out the nature of the black servants relationship to the white family. After fifty-five years, she was just forgotten.

MAL, I agree with you that all these incidents where Harriet and the Ratliffs come together and recognize each other forshadows "a terrific collision and crash that are going to come."

BaBi, I certainly understood what death was when I was twelve. That was the year my mother died, and my grandmother died three years before that. I also understood what killing a person was. All those Thou Shalt Nots might not have sunk in, but "Thou shalt not kill" surely did. I'm sure Harriet understood both because of Robin.

I don't think Tartt is exorcising anything, but I do believe that descriptions of the locale and some of the people are based on experiences she's had and places she's been. Some of the characters may be composites of people she knew in Missippi.

Mal

Make that Mississippi in my Post 451.

BaBi, Traude's experience in the diner in Washington was in the mid-50's. There were no integration laws then. I was living 9 miles from Washington at that time and saw the same thing.

Like Ida Rhew, Odeon was a second-rate person to the whites, one step up from slavery. People like that weren't invited to funerals of white people whose relatives know they're first class.

Mal

We sure are making those, Charlotte is unfit, Ida is a better mother, why this, why that.Ida just disappeared from their lives, perhaps she was relieved to be away from this miserable house, Certainly she seems not to have looked back.

If we look back to these times, people made some pretty lousy judgements , when we were married in 69 we invited an aboriginal couple to our wedding, it caused a stir.Nowadays it is the norm.Thankfully things change. I find it uncomfortable to see instances, that were common place, maybe we need to judge ourselves.

Can we really blame the children for all of this, if they are so inconsequential, and kids really were back then, how do we judge them as responsible.How dreadful that a child Harriets age be left to wear the burden of life changing descisions.

As for understanding death, surely these little girls felt more about death than life. It permeated their being, and as someone already said their house and surrounds.If they ever live a "normal" life, it will be a miracle. Gosh I would love to peek at the end Maryal, or is it Alf, there I go mixing names again. Anneo

Anne, that is what I am saying. The children were treated like they did not matter. As if, they had no feelings or were not aware of what was going on around them. Harriet is very aware of what is happening and what is being said at the funeral.

I am still upset about Odean. They did not even tell Odean that Libby was in the hospital. Could Odean have not walked in the back door of the hospital to see Libby? Still, I don't understand it.

I know the south was segregated minded, but some families broke rules for people of color. Then, Edie and all of them kept saying they were so sorry. It all sounded so hypocritical.

I hate to make judgments. Some of our judgments might be wrong. I think Tartt wanted us to make judgments. She is laying a lot of issues out on the table. I don't see how we could not make judgments. She portrays the hypocrisy, I think, of this period in the south.

I think you are totally right. Anneo

--Anneo!-- Good for you. Sixty-nine was a sort of transition year in a lot of ways. I'm glad the aboriginal couple came to your wedding.

I think the evidence is that Ida Rhew did love the girls, but she knew she was not being paid well, and she was getting older as were the girls. She was tired of it all, the dealing with a comatose mother and being ill-treated and ill-paid. Good for her for getting out. The relations between races at this time (we agreed that the novel is set in the mid-seventies if I recall correctly) were, at least in this small town, pretty well established.

Black people were seen as useful but not fully equal, not socially equal. Odeen could have worked for Libby for sixty years and still those planning the funeral could have "forgotten" to notify her. They didn't forget; they just never thought of it at all which, to my way of thinking, is worse. It never entered anyone's mind that Odeen would come back to work after the sisters had their little trip.

Harriet's natural inclination to stand up for black people would have been "trained" out of her by the adults in the family if she had had a functioning mother and father. She would have been told things like, "That's just the way things are, dear." As if the past determined the future forever and ever, amen.

What is the "point of no return" for Harriet? Ida's leaving has been suggested, and I think that is part of it. What is the other part or other parts?

Maryal

If you really think about it, Edie is a terrible mother and grandmother. In her own way, she is just as bad as Charlotte. She is not drugged, but she does nothing to help her daughter or her grandchildren. I would never leave my daughter or grandchildren to fend for themselves the way she does!

Harriet comes to beg for her help on many occasions, but she rebuffs her. "Throw yourself into schoolwork," she tells her. "It will take your mind off things." I just want to shake this woman. It's true, she is old, but she could have devoted some energy to her grandchildren instead of that fateful trip that ended with Libby's death. And now she is occupied with Libby's estate.

she does what she sees as right, and what she has learned.Certainly we would hope to do better, I dont think she has abandoned them, she seems not to know how to love.I think she idolised Robin, and like all of them died a little when he died.

I think Edie suffered her own tragedy, in that unexplained marriage of hers, this was certainly not "the good old days".Thank God we seem to have learned more about relationships now. No wonder psychologists do such big business, as we all of us seem to have some of this dysfunction in living memory. Tartt really reminds each of us of stuff long hidden, I think. Anneo

Horselover, I felt angry with Edie too. Then, there is something written about her experiencing two losses. She experienced the loss of her grandson, Robin, and she also experienced the loss of her daughter. Charlotte is lost to her. Maybe all of these losses made her give up on living too.

Anneo and Hats, I do agree with you both that Edie did not have an easy life, and that she lived in a time when most people did not understand the psychological consequences of neglecting or abusing children. Still, love and the desire to nurture generally come naturally to a mother. My grandmother was from Edie's generation, and she lost a child, and had a not very communicative husband, but whenever her children or grandchildren needed her, she was always there. I suppose that's why Edie's cold, dismissive attitude toward the girls strikes me as cruel in a way. They turn to her for help and are rebuffed. When Allison calls her about Libby's strange symptoms, Edie pays no attention and hangs up. Ultimately, she is the cause of Libby's death.

Horseloved, I thought of Edie through the night. She is not the only woman who has suffered loss. Most women would turn to their grandchildren. I do admit that she bothered me. Edie seemed to love Edie. Maybe that's why Charlotte can't get over her pain. Her mother is not there to help her.

I like Edie. She's smart, and she's tough.

Hats, Charlotte is all grown up. There comes a time when all-grown-up people have to take care of themselves and mothers have to stop mothering.

Edie has told her daughter what she has to do, and Charlotte won't do it. There are none so deaf as those who won't hear. When you realize that about your grown up kid, you have to walk away and take care of yourself.

I see people posting here in SeniorNet who are full of worry and anxiety about their fifty year old kid who's made some kind of mistake. I worried my head off about my grown up kids over twenty years ago until one day, after I had sacrificed five years of myself, most of my energy, and all of my money on one of them who's a lost cause that no one can help, I woke up and knew I had to save myself. This is not selfishness, it's self-protection and survival.

Of all the characters in this book, Edie is the one who knows this. She's not hard-hearted; she's realistic. You simply can't help anyone who does not want to be helped. Charlotte knows her mother is there like a brick wall if she'd ever sober up enough to know she needs what Edie is willing to give.

Edie treats her grandchildren in the same way she treats herself. She's saying, "Toughen up and use your head, and you'll be okay" and she's right.

It's Edie's example that's the teacher, rather than the kind of smothering, keep-your-kid-a-child-all-his-or-her-life methods some other women use. It's a hard lesson Edie has learned, and perhaps watching Libby's self-sacrificing is one of the ways she learned it. Some of you may argue that Libby was a saint. I say she wasted her life.

One of the biggest and most important lessons I ever learned was taught me by a wise old Yankee who said, "After me you come first." I thought he was a very selfish man until I went out in the world alone with no husband, no parents, or anyone else to protect me and fight my battles for me, and found out he was right and not selfish at all.

What do they say on an airplane when they tell you how to use those oxygen masks that fall down in your lap in an emergency? "Put the oxygen mask on yourself first; then put it on your child."

Mal

Hi Mal,

Excuse me. Horselover, I did not spell your name correctly. I'm sorry. I tried to edit, but the edit button is gone.

Mal, I will have to finish reading your post.

I will have to agree with that assessment Mal. I think that tough old Edie knows no other way to get by & acclimate herself to living. I used to cal it "seasoning myself." Some saw me as rough, obstinate and well shall we say--- pugnacious. It was only my armor guarding me; my psyche looking for a safe harbor, so to speak. I think that there are many who insulate themselves this way. I never meant harm nor meant to make others feel unimportant to me, it was my only means of keeping afloat. (I THOUGHT .) I also believe that people can not go on living like that for too long of a period, it catches up with the real you and things start to fall apart. I understand Edie, the no-nonsense,detached, distant grandmother.

There's a soft heart under that tough exterior of yours, Nurse Ratchett. Aren't you the one who sent me a book so I could join a book discussion several years ago without knowing anything about me or who I was?

I was soft, self-sacrificing and giving for a good part of my life because that was how I was taught to be. It nearly ruined me. I'll tell you truthfully, if I had not learned what I found out and what Edie knows, I'd be dead by now.

Mal

we all of us get what we deserve, in the long haul. Not in the early years, when the descision isnt ours,but later on we reap what we sow.

Maternal insincts, sadly, horse dont come naturally, and I think in this story we have a number of women who never learned to cultivate them.

Regarding lessons for life though, during my novitiate years, we were taught never to think of ourselves, and never to ask for ourselves. At mealtimes for instance if another sister didnt think to pass us the salt, we didnt get it, as we were not allowed to ask.In the early days we went without much, but once the lesson was learned life became so much smoother.It is a policy I have kept and the rewards are still continuing.

Sorry to digress, but I have so much sympathy for all these characters, in that they are so much victims of their surroundings and times.Tartts story so encapsulates the difficulties of this era, before the self realization of our generation.When I think of my grandmothers attitudes and compare her to Edie it is somehow easier to understand how they ignored our pain, in fact how they didnt see it.Gosh I love this book. Anneo

Hats, I think your misspelling of my name is wonderful. For me, to be "Horseloved" is even better than loving them. It's a lesson some of the characters in this book need to learn--love is a two-way street.

I understand Mal's point that, at some point, if someone is a lost cause, you have to give up and go on with your life. But a twelve year old is never a lost cause. And Charlotte is clinically depressed; she is probably incapable of recovering without some sort of intervension.

On the plane, you are told to fix your own oxygen mask first so you will remain conscious and be able to help a child who cannot help herself. This advice is not meant to indicate that your obligation is to save yourself. Our world would be a terrible place if no one was willing to risk his own life to save another. Firemen do it every day. I do not think that Libby wasted her life; she was not a saint, but she was much loved.

I wonder what the relationship of Danny Ratliff is to Edie. Does he recognize her only from the birthday party at Tribulation, or did he see her also on the day of Robin's death? Will something happen to Edie because the Ratliffs saw Harriet at her house? This is getting very scarey. Whether Danny Ratliff had anything to do with Robin's death or not, he and Farish are now sooo paranoid that some sort of dangerous collision with Harriet seems inevitable.

Horselover,

I agree with you. I think Charlotte is clinically depressed. I don't think there is a time limit for grief. Each person is different. It seems like Charlotte is just not trying to go on with her life. Probably, Charlotte, herself, wishes she could go forward. She can't. Some people can get over a loss in a year. Others take ten years or the rest of their lives.

My parents died a long time ago, years ago. I grieve until this very day. Grief is so hard to understand. At funerals, some people cry. Some people don't cry. The ones who don't cry are called cold. They don't have to be cold. They just grieve differently from other people.

I like Libby. I think she had a heart. Time and place have nothing to do with compassion. Either you care about others or you don't care. Some of the others in the book seemed to have parked their heart at the door. Edie does seem selfish. She hears only what she wants to hear. Harriet and Libby needed her. She wasn't there for them.

At the funeral, Edie tries to make Charlotte give out the punch. Charlotte can't do it. The woman is in a daze. She is in a daze for a reason. Her son was taken from her, and the way he was taken was cruel and unselfish.

I think people who are victimized by crime might take longer to get over their grief especially when there isn't closure. When Charlotte finds out who murdered her son, she might come out of her state of grief.

I am worried about Harriet too. Danny and Farish seem to be out for revenge. They are watching Harriet and Hely. Why didn't Hely's mom go to the funeral? Was it because she didn't really know the family?

Hats, Your description of the process of grieving is so very accurate. Recently, when I lost a loved one, I went to a Grief Support Group, and the group leader expressed the exact same thoughts. You are so wise.

Horselover, what a nice compliment. I will pass it on to you, Mal, Anneo, Andy and Maryal and all of the other posters. I have gotten a chance to learn something from everyone during this discussion. I think it is such a good book. Like Anneo, I just love The Little Friend. I have almost overcome my fear of snakes, almost.

This is the second time in 2 hours I've have lost a post here for no reason I can discern, and I am rather upset.

This is my third and last attempt.

I am referring to posts # 436, 439 and 452,

First I would like to thank MAL for speaking for me; obviously I didn't respond promptly enough. But as a linguist, translator and interpreter in seven languages I am capable of speaking for myself.

It all had to do with BaBi's answer to a report of mine in # 436 according to which all coloreds, as they were then called, sat at the very back and last of the lunch counters at Drug Fair in the Pennsylvania Building in Washington, D.C.

It was the summer of 1954; I was appalled and greatly disappointerd. You see, the basic anti-segregation law was passed in 1953, and I was an idealist.

So I took the liberty of asking an attorney in the patent law firm where I worked. She looked at me thoughtfully through the dense smoke of her cigarette and said, "But you are a crusader, aren't you ?". I don't recall anything else from that cconversation, but I stll take everything literally and am averse to "making nice", spinning, mirrors and fog.

In my # 436 I was about to make a comparison between opinion and impression. Let me make it now, belatedly, please :

We are entitled to our opinions about books- and anything else; there is no need to expect that those who don't share our opinion must automatically fall in line, or feel guilty in any way for diverging.

We have different opinions because we formulate different impressions and may be affected differently by a character or a turn in the plot. And that is accceptable.

We learn from the experience, we grow in our understanding of others; is there are more gratifying human experience ?

Of course, if I saw a snake right at this moment, I would jump out of my skin. I just wanted to sound brave. Already, my brave spirit is gone (smile). I would have hated to be in Gum's shoes.

HATS, we posted within one minute of each other.

My post didn't really relate to our book (mea culpa), but I'll come around, never fear.

Hi Traude,

Yes. We were writing at the same time. I have been helped by your posts as well.

That is the beauty of sharing a story with others as far as I am concerned; we all LEARN. We learn from others experiences, thoughts and opinions and I am always in awe of the soul that is brave enough to take their own stand on an issue. I love the divergent view points and have many times disagreed. When I disagree I always want that other person to "convince" me. Sometimes that happens, other times it does not. How each of us can read the identical text and form entirely different ideas, encourages me to buy another book and get in on another discussion. I love it and I, too, love this book that has "spoken" to so many of us--- for what ever reason.

I wonder what will come of Allison's relationship with Pemberton. Do you think they are sexually active? In the pool, Pem asks Harriet why she didn't tell him Allison was home when he called. Harriet looks at him blankly. She has no idea why she did that. Maybe she fears losing her sister as well as her mother. Maybe she senses that Allison could be headed for trouble. Maybe she is trying to keep Allison from adulthood as long as she can. "Harriet reflected upon how life had beaten down the adults she knew...Something strangled them as they grew older." She was not ready for this. "She was young still, and the chains had not yet grown tight around her ankles." Harriet is a fighter!

TRAUDE, I didn't realize you were describing an event from the 50's; I thought this was a recent occurrence. Of course these things were happening in the 50's.

One of my most vivid memories: In the mid-50's I would routinely take a bus from the college campus to my part-time job, which went through an African-American area. (Tho' of course that term was not in use then.) One day while going through this area, a woman stepped onto the bus looking as though she had stepped off the cover of Vogue. She was very light-skinned and looked magnificent, not to mention totally out of place. She slowly and gracefully proceeded to the very back of the bus and sat down in the rearmost seat. The bus driver's face was a sight to see. He was in a dilemma. After a long mental debate, he rose and went to the back to ask the woman if she was "black". I couldn't hear what was said, but the woman's cool and courteous demeanor was flawless. I was grinning like a fool, and longed to stand up and cheer! Back then, unfortunately, I was still young enough to be too self-conscious to act on it. ...Babi

I'm sorry, TRAUDE. It won't happen again. I fully respect your talents and skills as a linguist, translator and interpreter in seven languages. You know that, my friend.

HORSELOVER and all. It was a Clinical Psychologist who first told me the airplane story when I was beating myself for not having tried to help an alcoholic woman who died drunk after she fell down a flight of stairs. And yes, he meant exactly what that story says: Save yourself first or you'll never be any good for anyone or anything else.

I spent until I was over fifty-five years old taking care of people -- elderly men and women, people addicted to drugs and alcohol and my own adult children, all as an unpaid volunteer, and thinking of, helping and doing things for everyone but me. It sounds pretty and saintly when you say it, but unless you choose that vocation, sacrificing everything you have and all you are for people other than you -- in other words going around saving lives -- is not only unwise, it verges on the edge of madness. In my case, it nearly killed me. Unless one has done this over a relatively long period of time, he or she does not really know what it's like, what it entails or how destructive it can be, physically and mentally.

I have turned this learned habit of mine into productive work which enhances my life rather than destroying me and it. I publish three electronic literary magazines which generally contain the work of writers who would not be published otherwise. I can spend up to ten hours working on one of these web pages I build. If a magazine contains thirty or more pages, it can take a long, long time to produce. The only pay I receive for doing this is the satisfaction I receive from knowing I am helping these people by putting their writing in a place where it will be read by others, and the knowledge that I have created something that is worthwhile and beautiful at the same time. It and my writing and leading the Writers Exchange WREX here in SeniorNet are my life's work, have been for over seven years, and will be as long as I am able to sit at a computer and do what I do.

I know the kind of grief that Charlotte wallows in. I was taken from my mother when I was 7 years old when I had polio. She died suddenly when I was 12. I will never get over grieving for her. My marriage ended. When it did, I lost someone whom I loved for a very long time. There's more, but I won't detail it except to say sometimes I grieve for the use of a leg whose muscles I lost when I was so very ill as a child.

I have endured the kind of depression Charlotte has in this book, and I know for fact that if I hadn't wanted to recover from that condition and using drugs and alcohol to cover symptoms, I'd have been just like her or dead.

I had to grow up. Part of growing up is learning to stand alone on your own two feet and handling the responsibility for yourself by taking care of yourself so you'll stay alive and enjoy what there is to enjoy in life, including your own self. Charlotte has not and will not, it appears, grow up and out of her illness because she doesn't want to, and there is no one in the world who can do it for her except herself, no matter how many people try to intervene. Edie recognizes this, you see. And, having tried to help so many people in Charlotte's condition and worse, so do I.

Mal

I just read through the posts again. Some here think that Edie is hard and cold because she doesn't do more for Allison and Harriet. How old is Edie? Maryal posted the ages of the Cleve sisters once, and I've forgotten, but it seems to me that Edie is pushing 75. How many of us would be able to take charge of our grandchildren and practically raise them at that age? I know I wouldn't, and I'm close enough to that age to be able to tell.

Edit:- Posting that reminded me that my granddaughter, my Florida son's daughter, came here from New York when I was 67 years old. She was addicted to drugs and alcohol, and had left college at age 19. My New York son urged me to help her, and reluctantly I did so, though at that time I was tired of doing so much for other people besides myself and had pledged to myself that I never would do it again. I found an apartment for her and me, and I packed her up and took her to AA and NA meetings and made her go to work at a job in a healthy foods market, as well as paying court costs and fines she had for various reasons, taking her to court to pay them, and bailing her out of other trouble. Megan began her recovery. What happened to me in that year we lived together with me as principal "caregiver" for my granddaughter? I developed Cellulitis in my bad leg and was sick with it for a very long time. It's very hard for older people to take full care of their grandchildren, even when they're as old as Megan was, believe me, it is.

Mal

gloriously, crazily, totally mad. Oh how joyous is my experience.

Anne, as I understand it, you had a calling to be a nun. As I also understand it, when you became one you vowed to be in the service of God and other human beings for the rest of your life. This was your choice, your life's calling. If you had been somehow prevented from following your calling, your soul would not have been happy, would it?

When I was a child I had a calling to be a musician and to serve God and other human beings that way. When I was prevented from following my calling as an adult, either by people's demands on me for services I'd perform for them, which had nothing to do with music, or by my own thought that I'd have time for what I was called to do, even if I never said no and did everything people demanded of me first -- which, of course, I did not -- my soul was not happy.

If I am not mistaken, as a nun you took a vow of poverty. Along with this was the guarantee that if you worked hard and maintained the self-discipline it takes to follow your calling, you'd have a roof over your head and food to eat. The poverty you vowed to accept willingly and joyously is not the poverty I endured by not just giving of myself, but also giving away money I needed to live on, as I have done too often with needy members of my family and others.

Our situations are different, and so are our callings. I do not feel as if I am a selfish person because I wanted to follow mine.

Mal

I have dedicated most of my life to helping others, in one way or another. It is a vow I have not only given to God, but also to myself, Mal. I do not believe that it is others demands that I am answering to as much as it is a commitment that I have made for mankind and to myself. I have not only been in the nursing profession, aiding and assisting people in their physical, mental and spiritual quest since age 14 but daily I endeavor to be a "caregiver" ,in some aspect, for others. I want to make a difference and I will! It makes for a more orderly and amenable world. That is not too much to ask of a person to give a few lowly minutes with compassion, condolence or happiness for another being. Have I been hurt by this? You betcha, many times, I have but how sweet it is to know, in your heart, that you've made a difference, somehow. It sure wasn't the nuns who taught me that, it was my father and he lived like that for 69 years. I sure didn't take a vow of poverty like anne but I've been there and anytime that I can give now to lessen someone else's poverty, I do. I have found that the secret is to set limits for yourself as well as for others. Helping is not controling!

Edie, like the majority of the world is too wrapped up inherself to look any further than the end of her own nose. Just like in real life folks, everybody needs to get "over themselves".

Okay, I'm wrong, selfish and not a kind, generous and good person in the eyes of all of you. The more I say the worse I look to you. Maybe there's one person in this world who might just possibly understand what I've been trying to say.

Frankly, I think a big part of what has troubled women for centuries and put them in an inferior position on this earth is the fact that they've been taught by societies constructed by men that they should live and survive for other people and not themselves, and that they're not any good if they don't. Rarely do I see a man do that. Look at Dix and every other male in this book, for example.

Mal

Yes, where's Dix? Rather than think about what Edie should do for Charlotte, Allison and Harriet, why aren't we talking about Dix? Isn't he the husband and father here, and doesn't he bear primary responsibiility for his sick wife and growing children and what happens to them?

Mal

MAL, I do understand what you mean when you say that age is a factor in Edie's ability to take on the full-time care of her grandchildren. She is elderly, and even more frail after the accident. But the fact that she could not do this herself should not have stopped her from getting help for her daughter's family.

There has been lots of talk about poverty, but Edie is not impoverished. I can't get past the fact that, after the accident, she immediately purchased a new Cadillac (which she did not need because she should not be driving). Why could she not hire a housekeeper so her grandchildren would not be living like homeless orphans?

We now have hints that Danny is not the killer of Robin. This means that Harriet's obsession may lead her not only into danger but also into making a fatal mistake. And the question we were all asking at the beginning returns--was Robin murdered, or was it an accident or suicide? Will the answer matter to the ultimate outcome for Harriet?

Mal--I hear you, and I even agree. So that’s ONE person in the world. Try no to fall over with disbelief! On a primary level, we need each to take care of ourselves if we want to take care of, help, come to the assistance of others. I learned this in Al-Anon and from life experiences. I also learned how not to worry about various family members before the fact. That is, even when I could see the probability that decisions were being made that would lead to no good, I didn't spend time worrying. I figured that eventually I would have to worry--that is, when something happened--and put it off until then. Why worry and get all worked up TWICE?

I am a minister’s daughter and the daughter-in-law of another minister. Many, many times I have seen the caretaker in a elderly couple, be it a man or a woman, die before the ailing one. The stress and strain on the caretaker is often more serious than the serious illness of the person being cared for. Caretakers must first care for themselves or they will not be able to care for others; if they do not learn this, they will be broken by the experience.

Back to the book: I noticed on 332 that Tartt takes a whole paragraph to tell us what happened to the cobra after it attacked Gum. Why do you suppose she takes the time to fill us in on the future life of the cobra?

HORSELOVER, Dix has plenty of money, enough to keep his mistress and himself in a style his family wasn't accustomed to. Why doesn't he hire a housekeeper and do everything that is necessary for his family? Why should Edie do it?

Dix knows what Charlotte's condition is, and I'm certain Edie has made sure to remind him of what his responsibility is. Why do we come down so hard on Edie when Dix is the real culprit here? We're wonderfully tolerant of a man who leaves his family and neglects them except to give them just enough money to live on and a visit or two each year when he pushes them around, and we're very intolerant of Edie. Why blame anyone but Dix? I don't understand this reasoning.

It says on Page 379 that Roy Dial gave Edie the car as a loaner. He approaches Edie about the car when she's dazed, injured and vulnerable because of the accident. That man should be run out of town.

Yes, HORSELOVER, what will happen to Harriet if Danny Ratliff was not Robin's killer, or if it is proven that Robin wasn't murdered at all?

MARYAL, I learned about putting myself first in both AA and AlAnon and later with the help of a good Department of Vocational Rehabilitation psychologist when I was driven to the point of being half sick and exhausted all the time trying to take care of my brain-injured son, whose psychotic episodes were frightening to watch, especially before I found out about such things.

It wasn't just the caregiving, it was fighting with the U.S. government to get him a disability allowance ( that battle took over three years ), and fighting to get him proper medical care both in and out of the hospital, which is not available to people who don't have insurance or any money. Not only did I care for him, I had to go out and get a part-time job to augment my income so I could pay for his medicine. You can't do much on $766.66 a month alimony income, and that's what I had.

You're right about the effect caregiving can have. My experience those hard years drained me almost completely since I am a handicapped person, and it takes twice the effort for me to do even ordinary things that it takes a "normal" person. It took me three years to recover physically and emotionally after I stopped what I had been doing for my son and to myself by being a good, caring mother to him, then in his mid-30's. I have never recovered financially.

Do you suppose the cobra will enter the story again?

Mal

You might ask why my son's rich father didn't help him. The answer to that is, he wouldn't and didn't.

Mal

Well, sure, Dix can be blamed. He left town, has a mistress in another town, visits his family only rarely, does nothing to straighten Charlotte out. BUT he is hardly in the book; we know next to nothing about him except surface matters and Harriet's view of him which is not good. AND he whups her when he IS home, so she has good reason. My point is that Dix is a flat character so it is natural for readers to turn to the more rounded ones to think about.

(Mal--I know you are reading All Is Vanity too. The two husbands in that book (to me) are flat characters as well. They don't live and breathe; only the women do. We hardly see Michael at all, and there's nothing about Ted that I can latch on to other than his keeping the ledger.)

OK, who has any thoughts to share on this long section that we have not yet covered? Any parts that you think were particularly well done?

When you turned to Chapter 6 just after reading about the cobra and Gum and saw that it was entitled "The Funeral," did you have any preconceptions as to whose funeral it would be? Were you right?

MARYAL, have you just pointed out a bit of a flaw in these two books? That's something to think about when we finish reading this one, isn't it?

Mal

is there no choice offered.Lots of people, including Charlotte herself need to take responsibility here. As for Dix, I guess this is essentially a book about the coping mechanisms of the female of the species, and Tartt has given us lots of characters to ponder.

It seems to me, that were we to see Harriet and Alison in later life, they may like many of us have learned to understand the failings of those around us, Tartt always relates this saga through the perceptions of the young.That is why she is able to give us such an insight into "evil".Hely and his first sightings of Tarish, made him seem larger than life, almost mythical, to me, at least.My sons, who are now insatiable readers, read horror comics through their teenage years, which I considered laughable.After reading this, I was moved to ring them and ask how the comics had effected them, surprisingly for a short period at least, they had really been happily scared of the content. It did, they say brighten an otherwise mundane life.

I assumed Edie was going to die, not sure why, and was so glad she didnt, again not sure why.She is a curmudgeon, and traditionally I like curmudgeons, they offer so much more than the "Melanie Wilkes" or Libbys of this world.We most of us know people like that, who live a lifetime, seeing goodness everywhere, what a divine state that would be. For me measuring myself against characters, as I am wont to do, Libby leaves me way less than I should be, but Edie and I are not so far apart.

Sheez maryal, you had to remind me about the dang snake, didnt you. Just when I thought it was safe to go back in the water. Anneo

I'm not sure about Ted actually I find him quite realistic, Michael, I think, is deliberately shadowy, he almost never speaks for himself only thru the other characters, mostly Letty.

Sorry to interrupt, just wanted to say that. hahahaha

ginny

Some of you are also reading All Is Vanity. If you are reading both The Little Friend and All Is Vanity, you will find the opening sentence of The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst interesting. Here it is:

"Here is what we know, those of us who can speak to tell a story: On the afternoon of October 24, my wife, Lexy Ransome, climbed to the top of the apple tree in our backyard and fell to her death."

(Aside to Ginny: I'll agree that Ted is a little more developed than Michael, but I still think he is a flat character. We know practically nothing about him except what we get from his interactions with Margaret.)

anneo--Interesting that you thought it would be Edie. I thought it would be Gum since she was the one bitten by the s_______.

Did anyone else predict that it would be someone else?

Mal--When we get to the end of both books, we should discuss the failings we find, if any, HERE and not in the other discussion. I do think one novel is superior to the other as I'm pretty sure you do.

Maryal, I felt sure that it would be Gum who would die and not Libby. I thought Gum would die, if not from the snake bite, at least from shock. I have to admit Gum is a pretty strong lady to go through such an experience.

MAL, You are absolutely right. I was so focused on Edie, I had actually forgotten about Dix. I think this is for the reason Maryal mentioned; Dix is a two-dimensional character. He has receded into the background of this story. Also as you yourself pointed out, some men won't and don't support their children; and there is very little to be done about it.

You are also right about Roy Dial. He should be run out of town. Today, he would probably be exposed on some TV news report, forced to return the money he cheated people out of, and fined or jailed. But in those days, there were no laws regulating such sleazey characters, and no one investigating them.

Strange, but I was certain when Edie came for Harriet she was bringing news of her mother Charlotte's death or that of Allison. Maybe, it is because I see them pretty much devoid of life and in a constant state of bereavement. They are already afflicted with apathy.

Well, well, Miss Ginny has surfaced! Welcome to our neck of the (redneck) woods, my friend. I don't think your characters would much enjoy this part of Mississippi but it would give Margaret a lot to write about.

Yes, Maryal, Dix is an afterthought, an irrelevant one at that. Like many husbands and fathers, there are many families that do better without their presence. Now, Mr. Dial, he's just another snake, spreading his venom, falsely, in the name of God.

Having finally caught up, I am now in a position to share my impressions : Impressions of characters, mood and, later, plot and story line.

Clearly we don't all have the same impression of the protagonists, but then why should we ? The fact that we do not all regard Edie, for example, in the same way does not mean that we are intolerant, IMHO. Everyone's opinion is a valid contribution in any discussion and food for thought.

Despite the excellent writing, the keen observations and psychological insights I find myself in "alien territory" in this book, standing on the sidelines as it were, detached, unable to fathom a mindset of such abysmal ignorance. That is what I meant to express in my # 436.

What I said, TRAUDE, was that we are tolerant of Dix's behavior toward his family, but we are not tolerant of Edie's, not that we are "intolerant" of everything, or that we are intolerant people.

I assume that you're talking about the attitudes toward Blacks in the United States in your last paragraph? If you are not; then I don't know what you mean.

In no way do I consider the character of Dix irrelevant. If he had stayed home with his family, many things that happen in this book never would have taken place. Whether drawn fully or not, this character's behavior toward his family is important here.

Mal

MAL,

yes, that's what I meant in the last paragraph. But this attitude infuses all other aspects of human relations and, I fear, may well be ineradicable.

As for Dix, so he was a disinterested, absent father. I believe it is futile to speculate on what he could and should have done, or what he failed to do for whatever reason. As I see it, he is on the periphery of this story, not an sctive player.

As for the feminine issue, is there any evidence that the great-aunts were angry about the inequality of women ? Should they have been ? After all, there is mention of the return of the Panama Canal (1979). Shouldn't they have heard about the women's movement ? Isn't the absence of any such awareness anachronistic ?

TRAUDE, I know of no civilization ever that did not have its discriminations, prejudices and bigotry, so I guess what you say applies to the world since civilizations began. Look at what's going on today with Palestine and Israel. Look at what happened in Germany with the Jews during World War II. Look at what's been happening in India. Blacks do not receive the treatment they did in the 50's or even in the 70's now in the South. Two of my African American friends here in North Carolina worry more about the plight of Native Americans than they do about what's currently happening to Blacks.

I don't see where and how the inequality of women has anything to do with this story. As far as the aunts' attitude in the 70's is concerned, there are plenty of women here in my part of the South and all over this country who do not support or even pay any attention to the feminist movement today.

If you found a reference to the return of the Panama Canal in this book, this story takes place four years than I thought it did.

Mal

I'm spending lots of time today reading our next section, so I don't think I'll say much lest I give away something by accident. Tomorrow we switch to our new chunk of the book, all the way up to the end! This month is certainly going by quickly. Summer always seem to do this, probably because I don't teach in the summer. It just zooms by, ignoring my pleas for it to slow down and hang around for a while.

I'll be back tomorrow.

Good for you, Traude, for catching up. It's a long book, isn't it? I heard that the latest Harry Potter book is very very long. By the way, one of the reasons we read is to discover how life is or was lived in some place we are not familiar with, isn't it? Take heart though--the American South up until fairly recently wasn't understood at all by people in the North.

It seems as if we've already done some talking about this section beginning on Page 413. There's some fine, sensitive writing in the first part of it. Harriet is bereft because of the deaths of two mother figures, Ida and Libby. Because Ida is gone, Harriet's real mother has suddenly reappeared, something Harriet had yearned for. Now it appears that she's wondering why she did. ". . . it seemed as if she was supposed to say or do something, though she wasn't sure what, and the pressure of that expectant gaze (Charlotte's) left her speechless and ashamed, and sometimes . . . . if it was too desperate, or lingered too long . . . . frustrated and angry." Harriet is lonelier and more confused with her mother around than she was when Charlotte stayed in her room all the time.

Just as the Cleve family spoke around Robin, talking about what happened when he was alive but not mentioning his name, they talk around Libby, too, constantly reminding themselves of her by pointing out food she cooked, etc., but never mentioning her. These are peculiar people when it comes to death, these Cleves.

Charlotte has no comprehension of what Ida's leaving has done to Harriet. Charlotte is only aware of her own pain and not that of anyone else. She's a totally self-centered and selfish woman, in my opinion. Charlotte's tragedy is the only tragedy that ever happened on this earth, and she makes sure people know that fact.

Harriet feels as if she's drowning and spends her time floating in the pool, just as if she had really drowned. Hely is busy with the Band Clinic. Charlotte and Allison are distantly involved in their own distance. Harriet feels totally alone in the world. It seems as if Harriet's dead brother is her only companion, and once again she focuses on Danny Ratliff, whose picture she cannot bear to touch.

She sees Danny climbing up the ladder to the water tower. He has become a very real and terrible enemy. The obsession Harriet has once again takes over.

There is the scene with Lesharan, who refuses to give Harriet the red gloves, which we've talked about before. Danny catches a glimpse of Harriet's face when he climbs down from the water tower and sees her footprints. He's afraid of Harriet; she's afraid of him. It seems almost funny to me.

This story is building in momentum and becoming more and more surreal and continues that way. I have to say here that beautifully written as it may be, I find the last part of this section of the novel completely unbelievable. Later I'll tell you why.

Mal

Today we begin our final descent into The Tower section. One of my favorite lines is on pg. 414 "Without Ida, time dilated and sank into a vast, shimmering emptiness" for Harriet. You can just feel the dreamlike, aimless and purposeless passing of her time. Now, with Libby's passing, she has suddenly become "sanctified" as Robin was; remembering each litle nuance and "haunting every conversation."
Of course, she did mediate arguments between Adelaide and Edie, and ith her passing the rift grew larger between them.
What did you all think about H. when she self inflicted the wound into the palm of her hand, thinking that when it healed, the pain of losing Libby would be less?
Another great line in this book was describing how Hely "lived in sunny shallows where it was always warm and bright." The sole reason for being invited to join the Band Clinic was because they were short of trombones in the brass section but he jumps in with both feet. Harriet is surprised that his indifference doesn't bother her much.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Time marches on thru the noisy days, the country club is deserted and there is noone to talk to for H. so she "floats" and then proceeds to the Tower.

Malryn, you noted that Danny was afraid of Harriet and Harriet was afraid of him, adding that "It almost seems funny to me". Now I found this somewhat ominous, because people do rash and unthinking things when they are afraid. Danny is becoming more fearful;he is already afraid of Farish. He is just about ready to do something really stupid. ..Babi

Interesting question about Harriet's self-inflicted wound. She tells herself that by the time the wound heals, she will be "over" Ida Rhew. This sort of injury, if repeated, would lead to a clinical diagnosis today. She would be put in the category of a person who cuts or otherwise wounds her/himself in an obsessive manner. From what I've read about the disorder it seems that most who practice it are trying to overwhelm pain with pain. Having suffered some grievous pain in the past, they are "letting it out" by making themselves bleed. Granted, we are in the realm of abnormal psychology here.

However, when I read about Harriet wounding her palm, I remembered something I did back when I was high school. I was reading, I think, Darkness at Noon though it may have been another book, and became fascinated with the protagonist burning himself with a cigarette (I think to see how much pain he could endure). I was caught up in this idea, and I burned the back of my left hand with a cigarette, causing a wound and then a scar that lasted a very long time. Only time I ever did anything like that. So you can see how much I identify with Harriet.

MAL, I do agree with you about the surreal quality of all the increasing coincidences that keep happening--the way Danny keeps running into Harriet, and Harriet keeps on turning up at the water tower at the same time as Danny. Then, of course, Farish is not dead, and he ends up in intensive care at the same hospital as Harriet. This is where I am up to so I don't yet know what happens as a result of Eugene finding out what room she is in, but it bodes ill for Harriet.

Harriet now feels responsible for the death of the bird and the death of Danny. "It was me, Harriet said. I killed him."

It's interesting that, on her way to the water tower, Harriet passes a red Chow dog with matted fur. She feels sorry for him. "He looked as is he'd never been bathed in his life and in winter his owners left him outside with nothing but an aluminum pie tin of frozen water." I wonder if Harriet recognizes the parallels between the dog's situation and her own?

Well, I cannot wait to find out how all these plot strands will resolve. Will Eugene try to kill Harriet? Will Curtis save her? Will she find out that Danny did not kill Robin? Will they all find out what happened to Robin? Will anyone find out that Harriet was at the tower when Farish was shot and Danny drowned? What will Happen with Hely? With the aunts? With Charlotte and Allison?

MARYAL, I think most kids experiment with pain. It's a kind of endurance test like holding your breath until you nearly pass out. I also think that it's relatively common for human beings to try to relieve one pain by inflicting another, either to someone else or to themselves, whether it makes any sense or it doesn't.

BABI, I understand what you're saying, but when you stop to think about it, it seems as if both Danny and Harriet are ready to shoot at shadows, so to speak. Danny thinks this 12 year old girl is somehow mixed up in a conspiracy to get the methamphetamines and to do harm to his grandmother, his brothers and himself. Harriet is obsessed with the idea that Danny has murdered her brother. Each one of them is as whacky as the other. That's why it seems funny to me, as I look at the book objectively. As I mentioned before, it's like a Keystone Kops movie.

HORSELOVER, this part of the book is not just surreal, it's unreal. Could you have shinnied up the legs of a beat-up old water tower and climbed to the top on a rickety old ladder at the age of 12 with a hand you'd wounded yourself to drive away pain about a death in the family? Could you have endured everything that followed?

When the gun Harriet tries to shoot backfires and hits her in the nose, she's further injured. Then Danny throttles her while she's in the water, yanks her by her hair and more. Read from Page 500 to Page 509 and tell me if you really believe this girl could have gone through what she did and survived. Keep in mind, too, as you read on, the fact that we were told sometime ago that Danny Ratliff was very, very afraid of being in water because the first time someone threw him in, he sank. I think Donna Tartt tries to stretch the reader's ability to believe what she writes in this book much too far.

Only some of the questions you asked, HORSELOVER, will have been answered by the time you reach the end of this book.

Mal

MAL, Isn't there a type of adolescent illness, similar to anorexia or bulemia, where teens cut themselves repeatedly and cannot stop doing it? Could Harriet be crossing the line into some sort of obsessive illness? After all, her mother has some form of O.C.D.

As far as unreality is concerned, you are absolutely right. But I think all thrillers are guilty of this kind of exaggeration. I do not believe the hero could have done everything that's described in a James Bond book either. Or a Clint Eastwood movie.

It seems Edie is now there for Harriet. She is the one who sleeps in a cot by her bed, and keeps an eye on the treatment Harriet is getting from the doctors. It also turns out that she had not gotten past the front hall of Harriet's house for years, and was not aware of the condition of the house until Harriet's illness (although I guess she should have been). "The condition of the house had shocked her thoroughly. Squalor: there was no other word."

Hely is back in the picture, still bullied by Harriet who is still unappreciative of his efforts to help her.

And Harriet is stunned to find out that Danny may not have killed Robin, and that she was misled by Ida's prejudicial statements about the Ratliffs. She finds out that Danny and Robin may even have been friends, and she is horrified by what she has done. "Maybe he had never hurt Robin at all."

HORSELOVER, let me ask you a question. Did you really think when you started this book and we began this discussion that it was a thriller, or did you think it was a sensitive study of a Southern family and what the presumed murder of a little boy in that family did to it? If that's what you thought, when did the change come, and did you really think the novel was going to turn into a thriller then?

No, Harriet does not suffer from that sort of disease. She was trying to kill emotional pain with physical pain.

Mal

MAL, I have to admit I did not think, at first, this was going to be one of those 'over the top' style thrillers--although the book flap does say it's about solving a murder and exacting revenge. Still, the insights into human nature are worth the suspension of disbelief, which I cannot say for all thrillers.

Well, I've read to the end but promise not to give anything away.

MAL, 'unreal' is right !

Once again about Harriet's self-inflicted wound: Diagnosis of a compulsive obsessive condition is based on repeated behavior over a fairly long period of time. Harriet wounds herself once and does not wound herself again. I think this is evidence enough to say that she does not have that kind of condition. Her obsession is with the killer of her brother, whom she thinks for quite a while is Danny Ratliff. I don't think now, and didn't think when I first read this book, that Danny killed Robin Cleve Dufresne. Frankly, I wonder if the boy was murdered at all.

HORSELOVER, Poe wrote thrillers, and he didn't have to resort to the movie-type, computer-enhanced kinds of tricks that Donna Tartt uses in this book, nor does Poe promise anything else but what he writes. Donna Tartt does, unfortunately.

Mal

Why was Harriet's request blatently denied when she asked that her mother /Edie return with pancakes for her? Neglect?

Now Charlotte says "we should just move in with your father." That world is gone, Charlotte, and it's a bit late to start acting like a family. Harriet feels her life slipping away - again with talk of moving to Tenn and thinking about Tribulation. She is trying to keep a hold on things here.

Finally, I finished the book too. My lips are sealed about the ending. I agree with Mal. The story is totally unbelievable. I find it unbelievable that Edie, a grandmother and mother, had not been past the hallway of the house. At the water tower, I find it unbelievable that this twelve year old escaped death. Also, It seems silly not to hear anything from a policeman or investigator until nearly the end of the book. I could go on and on, but Donna Tartt's imagination did seem to go into overload.

Although, the story did become "unreal" as Mal wrote, I really loved the book. I am glad to have read it. Without encouragement, from Alf and Maryal, I would not have read it.

Is this a thriller? I am not sure.

Malryn, when you describe it that way, I can see how the Harriet/Danny thing takes on a Keystone Cops quality. I did think, however, that Tartt had sufficiently played up the importance, to Danny, of those drugs as his means of escape to explain his ability to enter the water to retrieve them.

I knew Harriet's efforts to extend the amount of time she could stay underwater had some importance in the story. What did surprise me was that in such circumstances she could have kept her head as she did. That does not seem likely, tho' I must say Harriet was an extremely stubborn child. Does anyone in this discussion feel they could have done this at the age of 12? >..Babi

MAL, You turned out to be sooo right! The ending of this book was totally beyond belief and totally unsatisfying. The whole thing took on a comic book quality, with characters that seem to be killed rising up and returning to life. And at the last page, I kept thinking that part of my book must be missing. It's true that in any serious work of fiction, the reader is left to imagine the continuation of the characters into the future after the book ends. But this book is too much! It felt as if the author just ran out of steam and could not figure out how to end the story properly.

You were also right about the original premise of the plot, the death of Robin and Harriet's search for a murderer, getting completely lost as the plot proceeded. Finally, the story ends with no clues as to what will become of Harriet, Allison, Charlotte, Edie, or the aunts.

It was enjoyable to read the book and join in this lively discussion, but the ending was somewhat disappointing.

I understand the disbelief surrounding the final section where Harriet manages to survive in the old railroad water tank and even to get away from Danny. I believe that what happens is indeed possible.

I am a swimmer, have been for many years. If you have no fear of water--even this icky water which makes Harriet very ill--then all sorts of things are possible. Danny is terrified of water and holds on to the ladder while poking at Harriet. Eventually he falls into the tank and then (this is the part I find hard to believe) he manages to jump from the bottom to get air long enough to survive for two days. Clearly the water must be just a little over his head or this bobbing technique would not work.

I swim at the local Y where they teach kids survival skills. One of these is bobbing. Let yourself fall to the bottom of the pool, push off hard from the bottom, grab a mouthful of air, dead man's float for a while and then repeat. It is amazing how long kids can perform this activity.

Harriet's trying to be like Houdini by holding her breath and all the practicing she does at the country club pool does prepare us for what happens in the water tank.

I think it's important that TIME is a factor here. Because Tartt describes Harriet and Danny in the tank in such detail, it is impossible to tell just how much time Harriet spends in the water holding her breath. We do know that Harriet can hold her breath for several minutes, and Tartt does tell us that several times, when she is in the shadows, Harriet is able to turn her head to the side and get a gulp of air.

So, yes, it could happen. In fact, I find this scene more believeable than the lucky hit with the snake. The odds are better here, given the circumstances.

We also need to allow for the wonders of adrenaline. Mothers have been known to life cars off their children. Adrenaline makes us a lot stronger than we normally are.

Maryal

Maryal, I don't see any explanation of what leads them to find Danny Ratliff in the tank quickly enough for him to be saved. Do you?

MARYAL, do they teach kids at the Y how to survive in the water after they've wounded their hand (which is still quite painful), been hit in the nose so hard by a gun that it's possibly broken and bleeding profusely? And do they teach a child how to survive in the water after she has been manhandled, had her head pushed hard under the water, been shaken so hard that her attacker's shoulder hurts; then shaken by the neck until the child screams, and jerked up out of the water with the man's fingers so deep in her neck that she yelps not long after he pulls her hair hard? (Pages 500, 501, 502) Then we're to believe that after Danny sank in the water, Harriet got herself home and took a bath? I don't think so. Adrenalin works just so long, then strength gives out.

BaBi, Danny Ratliff fell in the water. The fact that he survived at all, considering his phobia about water, is hard to believe. The fact that Tartt is asking the reader to believe he'd survive for two whole days in that water is incredible. In fact, it's hard to believe that Farish would have hidden the drugs in the water tower in the first place.

The point I'd like to make about Donna Tartt's writing in this book and her first one is that she takes a strong premise in the beginning which is totally believable, then veers off into a realm of impossibility. In this book I believe she also took on too much. The story of Robin's death, what it did to the Cleve-Dufresne family, and Harriet's obsessions about Danny Ratliff was more than enough without going into such detail about "Poor White Trash", as represented by the Ratliffs and Odums, writing about the race issue, old age as represented by the aunts, and bringing in all kinds of things about religion as practiced in the south and what drugs like methamphetamine can do. Tartt is such a fine writer -- her prose is wonderful -- that this book was a real disappointment to me because, as someone said, she went into "overload."

Mal

Mal--That's why TIME is so important here. We do not know how long the struggle took place. It takes a lot longer to write out the details of an encounter than it does for the encounter to take place, and there are no TIME markers in the section that I can find.

Harriet's hand wouldn't bother her when she is fighting for her LIFE. Haven't you ever had a headache and then suffered a more serious hurt, and all of a sudden you don't notice the pain in your head anymore? FIGHT or FLIGHT--that's what it comes down to, and Harriet fights because she cannot flee.

I still believe that Harriet could have survived.

Maryal, I also believe Harriet could have survived. It's Danny's survival that gives me trouble! That he is alive when they finally find him, in water that is probably too cold to survive in for that length of time even if he could manage not to drown really strains credibility.

Okay, folks, I won't argue with you.

Time: Harriet goes to the water tower early in the morning, not long after daylight. (Page 472) "Except for the birds . . . which sang loud and piercingly, with a loony optimism akin to emergency . . . the street was solitary and still."

Danny and Farish: "As Danny drove through cottonfields hazy with morning heat and pesticides . . ." (Page 487) He, Farish and Harriet are at the water tower early in the morning. Not long after Farish and Danny arrive there, Danny shoots Farish twice, leaves the car and turns toward the tower.

Harriet has already thrown the packets of drugs into the water. The gunshots disturb the birds, which in turn disturb Harriet. (Page 495) She has her feet on the ladder, her legs in the tank.

Danny decides to get the drugs. (Page 497) Harriet is lying on her stomach "too terrified to breathe" with her feet above her head. This is when she shoots the gun, drops it and injures her nose. Danny climbs up and finds Harriet, and all we've described takes place after that. "It was two o'clock when Harriet. . . after pausing to listen (all clear) . . . let herself in throught the back door." (Page 511)

Though it's hard to tell how long the confrontation between Harriet and Danny lasted, it seems safe to say that Harriet has been away from home for about eight hours.

Mal

The whole point of a novel is that it is "a cliff-hanger, atypical (novel) and innovative. " It is fiction!!!!

Personally, I'll give it an A, a 9 on the richter scale of reading . That is difficult for me to allow, but I have. It entertained me, it made me laugh and cry as it spoke to me of years long ago and arched into that world of yester-year. It brought memories of expectations that can never be reached and dilemmas that are never solved. It was expressive, thought provoking and introspective, IMHO.

I can understand Danny surviving. I can not understand Harriet's ability to survive. Like Mal, I had the impression that Danny was "manhandling" her. At least, I thought, her neck should have been broken.

Horselover, It did seem like a "comic book " situation to me at the hospital. I never got the impression that the nurses or doctors understood the severity of Harriet's sickness. Of course, finally, epilepsy is mentioned. The idea of the lettuce threw me off. I think the lettuce idea came up because Harriet had swallowed so much of that green slimy water.

This bothered me too. After all of what Harriet went through in that watertower, she was still able to walk home! I would have upchucked long before I made it to my front door.

Hely's reaction bothered me too. He and Harriet had been through so much together. When she really needs him, he takes her whole situation so lightly. In the beginning, I did not see him as this lighthearted type of person.

Maybe it doesn't matter whether the book is reality based or not. There are important lessons in the book, and the characters are unforgettable. It is a good coming of age story. Children living through an adventure. Children being children like they were years ago.

There is more about the book to love, I think, then, to dislike. If I were asked would I read it again, I would say yes in a heartbeat.

Ah, Hats, always the voice of reason. Maybe it doesn't matter. We are just having fun tossing ideas around.

So----A couple of us think Harriet could have survived and a couple of us think that the survival of Danny is more problematic. I'd say that the book is obviously open to interpretation.

horselover--Way back a bunch of messages ago, you suggested that there was no explanation for how "they" found Danny in the watertower. I went searching, and you're right. The only information we have is from the newspaper article Harriet reads where the statement is made that Danny was found hiding from the police in the watertower.

I think we have to remember that Danny has killed his brother Farish, not to mention his two dogs, and left them all in his (Danny's) truck. The body would have been discovered before too long because it is summer and those vultures and other birds of prey would have begun circling before too long. Remember Danny shot the windshield out to get one of the dogs.

So--someone finds the body, calls police, police come, search the immediate area. They would know that in all probability they are looking for Danny since it is his truck. The watertower is within view of the site with the truck and the dead bodies, so it would be a good place to look.

Also, someone, I think it was you, horselover mentioned that the temperature of the water would contribute to Danny's survival. An excellent point that. Probably Tartt shouldn't have stressed how cold the water is.

Maryal

Thirty years ago, in the time this story was taking place, I was living in the country outside a small commuter town 50 miles north of New York City in Westchester County, New York, quite a rich place. Most of the kids Harriet's and Hely's age had a brother or sister or two who were using drugs, or were trying them out themselves. There was Woodstock and all that seventies Hippie-style stuff. There was the Vietnam War. None of it was quite as romantic as some might remember or think it was. As a parent of teen-aged kids, I thought the 70's were a very difficult, worrisome time, which followed an equally difficult, turbulent time in the 60's.

The big question in my mind about this book is this: What happened to Robin? Isn't that what this novel was supposed to be about? Anyone have a guess?

Mal

Have to let others pipe in on that one, Mal. I gave up on Robin long ago. Once Harriet decided that Danny was the enermy, I figured we wouldn't ever find out whodunnit.

But you bring up an interesting point. I found the first fourth of this novel very different from the remaining three-fourths. It's like lots of wheels are being set in motion and we expect to find out certain things at the end. As I said, I completely forgot about Robin, but it really bothered me that Lasharon was introduced and then reintroduced in such a way that I wanted to know more about her.

I don't know exactly how to explain my point, but it's almost as if one author wrote the first quarter and then another took over the plot. Even that doesn't say it because those glorious sentences are there all along.

What about the rest of you? What did you want to know more about. The ending is disappointing to many. If it's disappointing, then you must have been expecting more. What is the "more" you wanted?

Just the tying up of all the loose ends, MARYAL. In my opinion, readers of this book are left dangling, and it's not a very comfortable feeling.

Mal

I hated the ending. I wanted to know who murdered Robin. Maybe Tartt is going to write a small sequel. It seemed that Harriet made peace with not knowing who murdered Robin.

After Harriet learns that Danny did not kill Robin, Harriet's vengeful spirit and anger seems to disappear. After all those years of wanting to know and searching, how could those feelings just go away? Is it because she almost made a mistake in blaming the wrong man? Is it because the trauma of coming so near death frightened her and left her without the spirit to continue the search?

For me, the scariest character in the book was Farish. His death in the car with the dogs almost made me sick. I would hate to see that scene in a movie.

After Harriet learns that Danny did not kill Robin, Harriet's vengeful spirit and anger seems to disappear. After all those years of wanting to know and searching, how could those feelings just go away? Is it because she almost made a mistake in blaming the wrong man? Is it because the trauma of coming so near death frightened her and left her without the spirit to continue the search?

For me, the scariest character in the book was Farish. His oncoming death in the car with the dogs almost made me sick. I would hate to see that scene in a movie.

I thought it was a brave story, about grief, and different ways of handling it.I never even considered that we would discover how Robin had died, if it were that simple, there would have been no mystery.Surely this is the whole point, showing how difficult death is without closure.

Life, is a mish mash, and so often, unlike one hour television, mysteries are not solved, crimes go unpunished and justice isn't served.

Pesonally, I thought this a good solid read, start to finish, and though it thrilled me, dont see it as a stereotypical thriller.Natural progression of the times, will have righted many of the wrongs here, I found it interesting to be reminded of a time, when we were most of us left to our own devices in handling trauma, before one was offered counselling to cope with the stress of something as simple,as a common cold. Anneo

No, I don't think you have missed the point at all. In fact, I think you have articulated it wonderfully. I, too, didn't think we were going to find out who killed Robin.

And good point about GRIEF, unresolved grief. We certainly see it in Charlotte, in Harriet, in Allison, in Eddy. Poor Harriet doesn't even remember Robin because she was just a baby when he died. But she certainly learns about grief in the novel. She has to grieve the loss of Ida Rhew as well as the loss of the kindest of her aunts, Libby.

I think Harriet, now that she has been relieved of the burden of being responsible for Danny's death, will be OK. She is a strong girl, and she has passed now into early adolescence. She now knows that death is real, and that tracking down a killer isn't the adventure she thought it would be.

Hats, You said, "Hely's reaction bothered me too." You feel he is lighthearted when Harriet needs him to take her situation seriously. I think we should remember that Hely is described as being younger than Harriet, and Harriet is only twelve. If he is ten or eleven, he is probably incapable of the kind of serious focus you expect of him. And, also remember that he comes from a household where maturity is not encouraged by the parents. He is pampered and over-protected. I think he tries to help Harriet, but he can't resist his childish impulses.

I think both of your explanations for Harriet's loss of her vengeful spirit are correct: she is frightened by having almost killed the wrong person, and she is too ill at the moment to waste energy on revenge.

I agree with everyone that there is more to like about this book than to dislike. I enjoyed the beautiful writing, the wonderful insights into human nature, the expertly drawn characters, and the evocative setting created by Tartt. It was only some improbable ocurrences, and the abrupt and unsatisfying ending, that were somewhat disappointing.

I'm not sure I understand why we talk about this story as if it happened a very long time ago. I thought we concluded that it took place between 1972 and 1975? (Edit: It says above that the date was the late 70's. That would make Robin's death in 1967 thereabouts.) There were psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors, 12 step groups, grief counseling, all kinds of things available at that time. I took part in some of them and partook of others. Are you all so much younger than I am that you aren't aware of this aspect of the 1970's?

I think Harriet stopped thinking about her obsession to find her brother's killer because she was frightened and shocked out of it. She had gone through a sort of experiential shock treatment, as it were.

Yes, I wanted more from this book than Donna Tartt gave it, and, yes, I will read it again sometime later on to see if I can figure out what she did to go so far out on a tangent that wasn't part of her original plot and how and where she did it.

I know I'm the oddball in this discussion, and I know I was gently criticized when I said I read reviews of this book after I finished reading it. I also know that there are numerous others who share the opinion I have:- Tartt, though a very fine writer, did not accomplish what she set out to do.

Mal

Was anyone at all sickened by the feelings that poor Danny experienced? "He wanted to howl at the universe that had dumped him here;.... " The kid's father pushed him to steal ihich resulted in a felony conviction and he just wanted to run away where noone knew him or his family. "Danny knew his hands very well as he's studied them like a book. They were a ticket back in time; to beatings, deathbeds, funerals, failure;" This is GREAT writing and I think that Tartt is drawing parallells very aptly.

MAL, from that one chance comment in the book about the Panama Canal transfer (I can't remember where it appeared and can't check now) I thought it likely that the action must have taken place closer to 1979.

Also at that time- by the end seventies- race relations were much improved, so that the attitudes of the Cleves and the Ratliffes appear to me more reminiscent of the sixties, and that struck me as anachronistic, as I said in an earlier post.

MARYAL, there is indeed much to like in this book, Tartt is a gifted writer, her style brilliant. The characters are well observed and perfectly drawn in the first part of the book, until Harriet sets her goal for the summer - to find Robin's killer. From the very beginning I had difficulty with the leisurely pace and no real connection with the Southern Gothic descriptions and gory aspects. I did overcome my difficulty, but then the "action" began and the story changed. And no, I had not expected that the mystery of Robin's death would, or could, be solved.

Harriet is a precocious, bookish, introverted twelve-year old and not very likable (to me) in her obsession and occasional deliberate meanness vis-a-vis the great aunts, e.g. stirring up trouble about the Christmas presents.

I believe this book is a coming-of-age story written for grownups, and what we see is essentially Harriet's subjective point of view. But the cops-and-robber activities change the tenor of the book, and the ending seems abrupt, somehow unfinished. We had reason to expect that we would be told more of what Harriet has learned from the horrible events and whether she realizes how close she had come to kill an innocent man.

In an earlier post I had agreed with the word "unreal"; I'd like to change that to 'unrealistic' : I am thinking particularly about poor Danny in the water tank bobbing up for air every so often. We know he can't swim and fears the water; he must have been scared out of his wits ! How could he carry on, physically and emotionally, for two long days ?

Hely's reaction and his garrulousness surprised me, and so did the casual revelation of Harriet's epilepsy.

Even so, I wonder whether there isn't a shimmer of hope for the Cleve family. We have been upset with Charlotte and felt contempt for the absentee father, but isn't it remotely possible that Charlotte may be trying to come out of her lethargy after 12 years ? Even Edie thought a move to Memphis might not be a bad thing.

We have been given much food for thought in this book, and I'd like to repeat that whatever she has written, she has written beautifully.

Traude, I agree this book is beautifully written. Anneo helped me to see that every crime is not tied up neatly at the end. Some crimes do go unsolved.

So, I did not hate the ending, I felt sad at the ending. I wanted to know that the person who had committed this brutal act against this child would pay for his horrible deed. I think it is natural to want justice.

Alf, I did begin to like Danny Ratliffe. I felt that he was different from all the other brothers. At the end, his brother, Farish, became his strongest enemy. I believe if Danny had not murdered Farish, Farish was bound to murder Danny. Danny proved the fact, I think, that we can choose our jobs, friends, hobbies but not our families. A tragedy was waiting to happen in that family.

Danny' friendship with Robin really moved me. Sometimes, as adults, we can't understand the relationship between children. Children do not pick friends by race or class. They bond with one another sincerely and with true love until adult's become involved.

Danny also loved Curtis. I think his last words to Eugene were to please take care of Curtis. At one point, in the watertower, Danny regrets his actions against little Harriet. I think there might have been hope for Danny to change.

Traude, The casual revelation about Harriet's epilepsy may not, in fact, be true. The doctors examining Harriet are not the most competent, and they are not being told everything surrounding Harriet's seizure. This may have been one possibility mentioned, or simply made up by Hely's mother who is an expert at gossiping and spreading rumors.

Although the story takes place in the 1970s, this is a backwater town where many of the treatment innovations mentioned by MAL may not exist. There are still such places today where illnesses that could be treated go unrecognized. The environment in this town seems more like the 1950s, which is why I think we all keep forgetting the actual time frame.

There is some hope that Charlotte will move to Nashville and the family will be reunited. Whether this would be a good thing for Harriet is debatable. And Edie is not very optimistic that Charlotte can be persuaded to move.

Hats, I do agree that Tartt begins to create some sympathy for Danny. Both he and Harriet are neglected children, but Danny has an even greater handicap in his social class and his family's reputation. He wants so badly to escape from everything he has known and everyone who has known him. But unlike Harriet, he is addicted to drugs. This is what causes him to make all the misjudgements that lead to Farish's murder. And he doesn't admit to his addiction; he thinks he can stop any time he wants to. Perhaps he will be rehabilitated in prison, but it's not likely. His protective feelings for Curtis are very touching.

Finally, we still do not know that any horrible crime has been committed at all. We are left with the same alternatives we had at the beginning--Robin's death could have been an accident, or suicide, or a horrible murder.

It was very unlikely, from the beginning, that the mystery of Robin's death could be solved. But doesn't that make even more tragic the events that finally occurred as a consequence of Harriet's obsession? Tartt has written, to my mind, a modern version of the classical tragedy. ...Babi

Granted that the town was not a large one, there was a neurologist on the staff of the hospital. That indicates to me that there were also psychologists and psychiatrists. AA has been around since 1935, so have other 12 Step groups. It takes only two people anywhere to have a meeting, and meetings take place everywhere in the world at no charge to anyone who wants to join one. Support groups also have been around, even in places as small as the town in this book.

Edie knows Harriet doesn't have epilepsy. ". . . epilepsy ain't what's wrong with her."(Page 524) This author has an intriguing way of saying something important, then leading the reader in another direction. After writing this thought of Harriet's, Tartt immediately has Edie think about the squalor in the Dufresne house and the fact that she hasn't been upstairs in that house"since Harriet was just a little thing," thus leading the reader in another direction. The minute the doctor heard the word, "seizure", he dismissed Harriet's other symptoms.

Harriet hurts herself by not telling what led up to her illness, which would lead doctors to know she's reacting to the ordeal she went through. She's afraid of the Ratliffs. That fear keeps her from saying anything about what happened to her. I remember once when I was in the hospital for something and because I didn't want to hurt someone I did not tell my doctor what my real problem was. This led to a rather disastrous consequence.

I am not enough of a romantic to think Danny Ratliff truly wanted to change. If he had, he'd have gotten away from his family and out of that town by whatever means he could find, including his thumb. He also would have joined AA or NA if he had really wanted to stop taking drugs. As I mentioned before, these groups exist everywhere all over the world. If Danny had joined one he would have learned where to find rehabilitation from one of the members. County and State Rehab centers that cost almost no money at all are available to people who do not have insurance, and they were available in 1979. I knew of one at that time in a rural area of upstate New York and heard of others in other states. There's a whole network of people who know about these things, and the information is there if anyone wants it, and was in 1979. I had experiences in 1978 that caused me to know.

The most poignant part of this book for me was on Page 543. Harriet's father says, "Danny Ratliff. Robin's little friend, don't you remember? He used to come up in the yard and play sometimes." There is the title of the book and proof enough for me, anyway, that Danny did not kill Robin, and that Harriet has been chasing a murderer that was created and existed only in her imagination.

Mal

BaBi, I think some of those tragic events that occurred among the Ratliffs would have happened in some form even without Harriet's intervension. The paranoia, fueled by drug addicted hallucinations would have made them latch onto something to fear.

What happened to Harriet cannot truly be called tragedy since it is not irrevocable. She will grow up, with scars probably, but will surmount her childhood. She is a fighter!

MAL, Thanks for pointing out who "The Little Friend" actually is. At one point, we were all guessing about that. The fact that Tartt meant it to be Danny Ratliff is significant!

I saw the mention of "the little friend" the first time I read this book when my computer died last month and I had nothing to do except read.

Mal

Mal, along with Horselover, I would like to thank you for pointing out the identity of The Little Friend.

Horselover, you are so right. I kept placing the time of this story in the fifties. I can not relate it to the seventies.

I also can not stop wondering what really did happen to Robin. Is it possible that it could have been just a freak accident? I think you can play in a tree and become strangled in the rope.

I think it would be impossible to read the book without wondering what happened to Robin. After all, it is an obsession with Harriet.

Horselover, I think Harriet will grow up with scars too. In the hospital, she is so fearful. Again, none of the adults hear her, not even Edie. My opinion did not change about Edie.

I think her fears will stay with her for a long time. Doesn't Eugene seem like he still has some vendetta? Why does he keep coming in her hospital room?

I also did not understand why Gum seemed partial to Farish.

The sense of time displacement in the story may be because this is a small town in the deep South. There haven't been many deep-seated changes here. Irregardless of what is going on the wide world, and modern innovations in the form of modern hospitals, etc., this town hasn't changed much culturally. It may be the late 70's, but most of the people we have met in this story seem to be a generation or two behind socially. It does make for a sense of distortion to outside viewers/readers like us. ..Babi

Just the mention of the making of methamphetamine for the drug market should have made us aware of the time in the book. Methamphetamine was not one of the "drugs of choice" in the 50's.

There are plenty of other places in the United States where time seems to have stood still. You don't have to drive very far north from the small city that is my hometown in New England to come to a place that is very similar to the town in this book.

If anyone here lives in Florida, I'll tell you that when you drive inland about twenty-five miles from St. Augustine to a tiny little place called Spuds, you are right in the middle of a time that doesn't feel or act much like today. When I lived over the bridge from St. Augustine, I drove to Spuds every time I wanted to get away from the tourist culture that exists on the East coast of that state.

Mal

Wonderful thoughts, folks. I have been gone most of day to get BP back under control. I shall return in a bit. Gracious! Danny blew a fuse,murdered his brother and his dogs, tried to drown Harriet and "took a dive." Harriet suffered so much rotten vile, she qwas permeated with it and vomited it. I felt as if she had purged a lot when she upchucked the slime. In the hospital, once again, a dream sequence appears (Pg. 516) as it did when she was underwater. I highly doubt that Harriet suffered a true seizure.

Don't you just love it? Harriet's regular doctor is named Dr. "Breedlove"? Everyone is coming out of the woodwork in this final chapter; Mr. Dial visits H. in the hospital, as does" Reverend " Eugene. Eugene recalls that dogs howl before an earthquake and questions Harriet's presence when things have gone wrong, recently. Harriet beseeches Hely to find and dispose of the gun. Allison lies in bed, humming. Without Harriet's presence it "hardly makes a difference to her." Edie morbidly thinks that all roads lead to the hospital. (Ain't that the truth?)

Gosh, ANDY, it almost seems as if Donna Tartt is throwing a party in the hospital for all her characters, doesn't it? Getting them up on the stage for their final act. Even poor Gum, who had to be sedated she was so upset about Farish's death, was there. I've wondered about that use of the word,"sedated", since sedate to me always meant dignified, reserved, rather elegant and superior, not numb, dumb, zombie-ish and glassy-eyed. That reminds me of how some patients looked and acted in psychiatric hospitals when my poor elder son has had to be in them, but that's another story entirely.

I think HATS was wondering why Gum was so close to Farish. After thinking about it, I concluded that if he'd been straight, Farish would have been a very successful businessman. He was the brains of the methamphetamine business as well as researcher and developer, lab technician, data analyst and salesman. He provided the living for his family through his business. When you come to think about it, they all depended on him for their survival. I think Gum felt about him the way a proud grandmother would feel about "my grandson, the doctor".

I feel the same way about people who produce illegal drugs that I do about computer hackers. They have to be smart to do what they do, why don't they go legit?

Mal

hahaha, Mal, the adjective sedate= calm, serene & dignified is far from this cast of characters. Whereas the verb sedate= means to medicate or anesthetize is by far the choice for this cast.

I agree with your opinion of the illegal drug makers. You should hear me get on my soap box about the "legal" thieves as well. LeCarre's The Constant Gardner is a great example of those thieves. Off to the beach for a "photO-op". Our women's club is shooting a Rotonda Calendar Girl calendar and I have agreed to hang a sign from my very large butt. (I will probably be able to spell out the entire sequence on one cheek. ROTONDA WEST WOMEN'S CLUB!

It sounds like a blast, ANDY, our very own Calendar Girl 2004!

Mal

Alf, Don't forget to have some pictures taken.

I think the cynical, and truthful, answer to your question, Mal, is that the drug producers can make MUCH, MUCH more money in the drug trade than they could in legitimate enterprises. The ones that get filthy rich, tho', are the ones that don't use the stuff themselves. (It just occurred to me, I don't know of a better application for the term filthy rich.) ..Babi

Andy, A terrific idea! Is it a nude calendar??? I heard some other women's club made a lot of money selling one of those.

Hats, It's true, you cannot read the book without wondering what happened to Robin. But I'm beginning to think that Tartt just planned to use the mysterious death of Robin, which occurs at the very beginning, as a vehicle for delving into the reactions of her main characters to this life-altering event. Then the second set of characters, the Ratliffs have their lives altered by the actions of Harriet. Tragedies often bring out the best and the worst in people. Character traits that existed before are magnified. And this is what we see throughout the book.

I think Gum favors Farish because he is the one who really loves her and pays her the most attention. The others, except for Curtis, say repeatedly that they would just as soon be rid of her.

Because the book ends so abruptly, we don't have much of an idea what Eugene might do with respect to Harriet. He may harbor anger and seek to avenge his family tragedy, or he may simply return to his life and to taking care of Curtis. Eugene was the least violent of the brothers and doesn't seem capable of planning a violent act now that they are gone.

MAL, Drug dealers do it for the money, but hackers do it for the adrenaline rush, for the thrill of solving the puzzle and being part of this secret underground community. They usually do get legit once they are caught, and often make lots of money working for the very companies they were ripping off.

Well, heck, gals, I know why they do it! It was a rhetorical question, that's all.

I finished writing my 13th novel night before last. Today I started something that might work into another, thanks to the All is Vanity discussion. Shoot, maybe I can work in a lowdown dirty drug dealer and a nurse who poses for calendar pictures and use some of this one, too! The protagonist's name is Parry Zveldt, Paranoia for short. I'm serious. I thought of this name a while back and finally have the chance to use it. She's an aging writer who just found an agent, and I can tell there are loads of exciting adventures ahead for her, but not with kids who play around with snakes.

Now I'm tired. Trying to keep two books in my head and discuss them at the same time is not conducive to a decent night's sleep. Guess I'll take a nap!

Mal

MAL, Congratulations on finishing your 13th novel (I hope you are not superstitious). You are sooo industrious, it makes me feel very lazy. Have you published any of the other 12 so we could read them? You've told us so many interesting things about your life that I'm sure your novels must be absorbing to read.

I was waylaid en route to a nap. One of the health professionals who is working with me to get me back on my feet is coming in soon. Hope I can stay awake that long!

No, HORSELOVER, none of my novels has been published. Short stories of mine have been published in hard copy, but it ain't easy to get a book published these days.

I am thinking of putting the last novel I wrote in Sonata. The only thing that holds me back is that it has 37 chapters. I'll let you know if I do.

Mal

This is a first draft of something I wrote today. Since one of the discussion leaders here is in it, I am posting it for her okay.

I am an old woman. Those words looked so dire on my computer monitor that I scrambled over to the old gilt-framed mirror and checked myself out. Moderately surprised to find the description fit me to a T, I scrolled down a mental list of deficits and assets. I'm not bad looking. At sixty-six my hair is thick and glossy with some brown still in it. My eyes don't look dead. With only the littlest help, my skin color is pleasantly peachy, and the smile is great ( if you discount the minimum number of teeth in my mouth. ) Jolted by the emptiness of that reality, I hurried to the bathroom, shook the surface of my uppers with powdered glue, pried my mouth open with a handy pair of pliers and squeezed them in. Their glitter and gleam made the effort and the excruciating pain they caused worthwhile. Now if some handsome Prince Charming appeared at the door, I could lure him away from any Snow White who happened to nubile herself down the street in low slung jeans and a tee shirt that barely covered her pubescent buds.

I laughed. Who was I trying to kid?

I'm a writer. I write books. Novels. Short stories that range from the ridiculous to okay for the supermarket crowd to serious stuff nobody looks at but me. My name is Parry Zveldt, Paranoia for short. Why am I paranoid? Well, I am today because I finally found an agent. Yeah, at last. This agent's out of the Brent, Bradley, Bricke Agency right here in town. So why hadn't I ever heard of it? Don't ask me. It’s my guess they flew in one night and perched in the aerie above the Starry Eyed Club, the town’s only half-decent sushi joint and internet café-cocktail lounge, because they thought a college town, especially where Thomas Wolfe hung out, might harbor a whacky writer or two.

The minute I got the word, I called Angela Walsh. Angie’s a nurse I met that time when I had cellulitis in my left leg and that pimply-faced doctor with the Yankee accent and the long, straggly hair booted me right into UNC Hospital. Mad as hell, I sputtered so much after they got me there that they called out the troops, the head of which regiment was Angela, known in local medical circles as Hatchet Ratchett. You remember Nurse Ratchett, don’t you? The one in Who Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest who instigated that dastardly deed on poor old Jack? Let me tell you right now that she really didn’t look the part, with those sizzling, sexy eyes and that curly dark hair, but I soon found out you don’t mess with this gal. She stalked in and glared at me, more than twenty years her elder, and said in no uncertain terms that I’d damned well get back in bed and elevate that leg, or she’d give me something I’d never forget in a place where it sure as hell wouldn’t show.

Before my hospital sojourn ended, Nurse Ratchett and I had come to a kind of uneasy truce. To tell the truth, I liked the woman. Her passionate causes amused me a lot, and she was probably the most efficient nurse I’d ever known. After I went home, I put down my gin and tonic and called her on the phone at cocktail time one afternoon.

“What do you want?” she said. I told her to shut up, she was going to lunch with me, and I’d pick her up right after noon the next day. Say, I can be just as tough as she is if I want to, and I’d spotted her soft spot before I ever left that medical jail. We reluctantly became friends, tolerating each other’s idiosyncrasies quite well I thought. When I announced to Angie that I had an agent, she said, “You didn’t sign anything, did you?”

“Not yet,” I told her.

“Good. I want to see the contract first. Knowing you, you’ll sign every penny you make over to them and turn over your house as a bonus.”

“Angela,” I said, “that’s enough of that. I do have a head on my shoulders, and I’ve been around a whole lot longer than you have, hon.”

“Your head’s full of feathers. Now, mind what I say.”

There was a pause of a second or two while I took a puff of the long brown cigarette I favor; then Angie said, “I’ve got news, too.”

“Like what?”

“I got a job moonlighting for a calendar.”

“Just what are you talking about?” I asked.

“Posing. I got a job posing for pictures on a calendar. I’m gonna be June.”

“Are you nuts?”

“No more than you.”

I had a vision of Angie half nude, draped in white, holding a bouquet of Diego Rivera calla lilies over tender places that count.

MAL, I love it! I'm already interested in what will happen to Paranoia and Angie. From your previous posts, I had thought you were older. I'm glad to find out you have many more years to write.

Off to my Tai Chi class. Please post the next installment soon.

HORSELOVER, I'll be 75 years old two weeks from today, but I want to tell you I'm going to live to be 99. At three books a year, I figure that's what? 72? I'll accept that.

Mal

Oh good grief, no, horselover, it's not a nudey photop. We had an absolute ball over on Boca Grande beach and had the staff all standing around laughing at us. Have you ever seen 13 women, aged 59 thru 75 behaving when they pose for a camera? We did a typical Fla. calendar and the "snow brids" wore their minks, ermines and fox furs. Very funny, indeed! OK Mal, count me in as the sexy calendar gal in your 13th story. Oh-oh, 13? Ah, well, never mind I'll pass on # 13 and wait until the paranoid fella asks me to be his Svelte wifey in the sequel. I like it- Andrea Svelte!

How true that tragedies can bring out the best or the worst in any of us. How one reacts to adversity, hardship and/or misfortune tells a great deal about the "inner sole" IMHO.

Oh Malryn, I didn't realize that you knew me so well. I would like to point a couple of errors in your story, if I might. Brent, Bradley, Bricke Agency "flew over the cuckoos nest" all right. they came from a big house up on the hill that Jack haunted , I mean built.
The wonderful Hatchet Ratchett that you describe indeed fits me to a T, deep sexy dark eyes and curly hair. As long as we are reaching for PROPER description, please add the long legs and the flat stomach. There , now I feel the part. " Twenty years my elder or not, get your butt back in that bed as you've been ordered. " I know that one of these characters has idiosyncrasies but the nurse? No, I think not- she's just a regular, run of the mill whacko!!

hmmm? Half nude, cradeling calla lilies. I did that once. OOps, we will continue this later. wOULD YOU BELIEVE I had the letter O TAPED to my BIG BUTTOCKS , bending over on the beach with 12 other women. O is not the letter of choice here. It had a crack in it.
HAHAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAA

I will be losing my high paying job as DL here if I continue this story.

ANDY, your story is better than mine is. It's #14. Thirteen is already finished.

Thanks for permission. Can't wait to see that calendar, Nurse Ratchett!

Mal

A few of you have voiced your opinion that this story seems "unreal" or a triflr "unrealistic." Myself, I believe in fairy tales. What say you all?

Let us take the next couple of days winding down with unfinished thoughts. Or if you prefer, we can talk about unwashed lettuce. hahahaha. Hats, horselover, Gingee, yooo-hoo, maryal? Wherefore art thou?

Alf, I don't believe in fairy tales anymore. I do believe in miracles. If I think of what happened to Harriet as a miracle, the story becomes believable. So, I am changing my stand and saying the story is credible and definitely could have happened to a strong little girl.

I do love Harry Potter!! I might still believe in fairy tales and not know it. I love a sweet happily ever after romance too. So, maybe I believe in fairy tales and miracles. As far as what happened to Harriet, I will stick to calling her circumstances a miracle.

I'm here, I'm here. Fairy tales? Hmmmm. Not a fairy tale kinda person here. But as for unlikely events actually occurring, I present the argument often noted by others that FICTION has to be more believable than What Actually Happened.

I have several friends, writers who have published novels and short stories, who have tried to incorporate in their fiction actual unbelievable events that actually happened to them that agents told them to delete because they were not plausible.

So much for unrealistic. Very strange things do happen in what we choose to call "real life."

Now, as to Andy's newfound career as a calendar girl and Mal's as a paranoid novelist---oooops, novelist whose most recent novel features a strangely named character, just exactly what is going on around here? Is anyone else doing anything equally unusual?

Off to swim--outside--and shop. Have to get ready for my high school reunion in July. Woooo-EEEEE.

Maryal

MAL, If #13 is finished, when do we find out what happened to Paranoia and Angie???

Maryal, Your point is well taken that "FICTION has to be more believable than What Actually Happened." This is because every reader needs to be able to relate to the characters and events. Of course, this does not explain reader's fascination with Harry Potter, or the Stephen King novels. I guess, in those books, it's the characters that are made believable while the events are incredible.

Don't forget your sunscreen when you swim outside!

Did you notice that one of the opening quotes in "The Piano Tuner" is from "The Inferno?"

MARYAL, you call posing for pictures to appear on calendar pages unusual? You call writing a novel unusual? I think personal appearances on people's computers through the use of a Web Cam is unusual!

I'm in complete agreement with MARYAL about believable fiction. Unless you're writing non-fiction, farcical fiction, science fiction or fantasy (which is what the Harry Potter books are), what happens in a novel must be within the realm of possibility, or what seems logically possible in a reader's mind. This often means reducing the shock of the truth to something less.

Donna Tartt stretches the reader too far. I won't even qualify that by saying "in my opinion" because it's the consensus of many, many of the readers and critics of The Little Friend.

I don't mean that it isn't a good read. It is and the writing is fine, but this novel misses being what it started out to be because it's too long, over-detailed and a push to believe. That's an opinion that also is not just mine.

Mal

HORSELOVER, what I wrote yesterday about Angie Walsh and Parry Zveldt might possibly turn out to be the beginning of my 14th novel. I finished my 13th less than a week ago. That one is an incredible but fun story about an interior designer who buys a house on the New Hampshire coast cheaply because it's haunted by a mischievous ghost named Agatha. The ghost's conniving gets designer, Eve Goodhue, the protagonist, into a whole lot of trouble, including all that's involved with starting a summer theater in her barn and producing a show. That novel is called Agatha's Revenge, and I'm seriously considering publishing all 37 chapters of it in the September-October issue of Sonata, since at the moment I don't intend to try to find a hard copy publisher for it.

I don't always write farces. My 12th novel is a very serious story about a middle-aged woman whose 20 year marriage falls apart, and who has a serious problem with alcohol.

Mal

Mal, your 12th novel sounds like a page turner. I think you are a very good writer. You have the discipline to put out the words, and the words have been well thought out. You are not a sloppy writer. I am comparing what you write to the books read by me. What is really important you love to write, and it shows.

Horselover, what is a Tai Chi class?

Hats, I am not horselover but thought this clickable might be of help to you I hope.

Tai Chi class

Hi Ginger, thank you. I have been meaning to say hello. You gave me a good clickable on birds one time. Thank you.

Ginger, that clickable helps a lot. I think there is a tv commercial with people doing that Tai Chi. It looks very graceful.

You are welcome. Glad to be able to help.

So much, my senior's Tai Chi class is about to become so much more professional. Have been floundering in the proverbial dark, untill now.

Anneo

You Remembered the Birds clickable WOW thanks as it does mean much to me that You Remembered as so many do not and little things such as remembering makes it all worth while.

I know nothing about Tai Chi but love my search engine. I am so glad to be of help to anyone as I was told Many years ago in the 60ies that I was in the hand of God as I love All people and do my best to be of help before the 60ies and now.

I am so glad you are here among us. Thank You for being a Friend.

A few years ago PBS carried a series about a comparison between (and the possible combination of) Chinese and western medicine. Bill Moyers was the host. Some parts were filmed in China where Tai Chi is practiced in parks and squares by large groups of people in perfect synchronism.

From what I saw, it is a rhythmic, precisely-coordinated 'swaying' of the body and arms with the feet in correspondingly angled positions, seemingly in endless variations.

This exercise, or activity, is said to be very beneficial for mind and body. In fact, a class is taught here every Friday at the local Council on Aging, and the local TV access channel has a regular program with an instructor executing and explaining the various movements.

I may just go down there one Friday and observe; only observe, mind you.

Ah yes obsever I like that. I realy do not have the time so Please let us know what You think of it.

What Happened to the Book Little Friend? How can We be so rude to our DLer's that we talk of these other things when we do have the COMMUNITY CENTER . Aw gee I guess this is my fault and I am so sorry, Please forgive me.

You're always welcome to come into any discussion I lead Gingee and say hello.

I would like to point out another favorite here on page 547. Harriet is still in the hospital, musing about Capt. Scott's bravery ; "A weight lay upon her, and a darkness. She'd learned things she never knew, things she had no idea of knowing and yet in a strange way it was the hidden message of Captain Scott: that victory and collapse were sometimes the same thing."

what did yo make of this?

Hi Alf and All,

Thanks for all of the information about Tai Chi. It is very interesting.

Alf, when I read that about "victory and collapse," I read it more than once. I am still thinking about it. I can't wait to read what everyone else writes. I am going to read it again.

The one character that makes me seethe in this story is Hely's mother. GRRRRRRRRRRrr

Why in the world is that woman so distant and snooty too? I felt like choking her a few times.

Hely's mother never grew beyond adolescence. On Page 402 at Edie's reception after Libby's funeral, Hely appears at the door. He's looking for Harriet. Edie shoos him off; then thinks:
"The boy's mother -- a flirtatious little sass since childhood -- had not bothered to show up for Libby's funeral, had not sent flowers or even called."
What did Edie expect? She knows what Hely's mother is, and has already described her. I've known women like her. Frankly, I don't think they're worth bothering with or getting upset about. Any omissions she made with Harriet, like not inviting her for dinner, should be expected.

Mal

When Hely's mother did not go to Libby's funeral, I blamed it on her not really knowing Libby. She did not seem like a person who would become closely acquainted with her neighbors.

I think some people tend to stay away from families who suffer tragedies, especially when a crime is involved. I think Hely's mother might have been affected in that way by what happened in Harriet's family.

It does seem mean for her not to take a casserole or cake to Harriet's family during their time of bereavement. She seems like another cold woman in the book.

Well, not all of that makes sense. Hely's mother should have been acquainted with Harriet's family simply because of her son's friendship with Harriet. When my boys were growing up, we always tried to know something about their families.

I can't remember. Do we ever learn Hely's mother's name?

Mal, how do you describe the statement Alf asked us about on Pg.547. In my heart, I know what it means to me and what it meant to Harriet, but I can not put it into words. I think the knowledge of this statement will and does help us get through the bad times in life.

I guess it means to experience strength, we must also experience weakness. Weakness and strength go together. If you can get through the hard times, the times when you want to collapse, then, you can experience victory.

I think being in the watertower made Harriet that much stronger. During a time of terrible sickness in my family, my son, I felt crushed. Afterwards, loooong afterwards, I felt stronger.

Hats, I think Donna Tartt answers your question on Page 546.
"No, she hadn't killed anybody. But it was her fault he was dead. And maybe he had never hurt Robin at all."

"She had almost been a hero. But now, she feared, she wasn't a hero at all, but something else entirely."
Harriet has a visit from reality, for a change. Her collapse -- that is, her realization that she'd been chasing something that wasn't the truth -- is a victory for her.

Mal

"A weight lay upon her, and a darkness. She'd learned things she never knew, things she had no idea of knowing and yet in a strange way it was the hidden message of Captain Scott: that victory and collapse were sometimes the same thing."

(457)

I think the part you have quoted above about how Harriet feels after the incident in the water tower gives us a direct statement of what it is to grow up, or to begin to grow up. We learn, most of us, things we never thought we would learn.

I also think we learn the most from painful experiences. We come to understand suffering from the inside. Harriet for most of the book has relied on her native intelligence--cunning--to get through, but now, having faced death and nearly experiencing her own, she has had to deal with emotional involvements that adults have to deal with.

Additionally Harriet has all this weight upon her because she still doesn't know that Danny Ratliff is not dead. She works back and forth in her mind that she didn't murder him, but she has to admit that if it hadn't been for her he wouldn't be dead.

It turns out that Danny isn't dead, but for a while Harriet has to carry the terrible weight of his death and her part in it.

One more thing Harriet now knows: Danny was Robin's "little friend" who used to come play in the yard. He probably didn't kill Robin. (The reader knows that he did not.)

I was out most of yesterday, so just caught up with your discussion about Tai Chi. I hadn't realized there was interest in it or I would have explained further. But I see some of you found information on the net. Actually Tai Chi is much more than just rhythmic movements of the body for exercise, although it is excellent exercise for people of all ages. Tai Chi is fundamentally a sedate form of martial art. When the Master performed his demonstartion before each class, he would do it with a sword. Of course, the rest of the class did not do any of those movements or we would probably have chopped off a few heads (Haha).

Seriously, those who are interested should investigate further. When done correctly, Tai Chi becomes a moving meditation, that creates an inner calm as well as outer strength. It is also a collection of wisdom that you slowly learn from the Master. You can learn and practice the art regardless of your age or athletic ability. It improves circulation, and helps improve balance and coordination. It keeps your body flexible, your muscles toned, and your mind alert. Most towns have a school that offers classes at every level. I started with some free lessons at the local library. Try it. Some of you may like it a lot.

Mal, your interpretation of the quote about Captain Scott makes sense, and is probably correct. Yet I had a different impression of it. Scott's expedition was a total failure, achieving nothing that he had hoped for and ending in the death of all concerned. Yet he left behind a story of a victory of the spirit.

Harriet had failed totally in what she set out to do; had in fact been on the wrong track from the beginning. Yet in her fight for life, she found a new depth of strength and spirit. That seemed to me the closest analogy to Scott's experience.

Another view heard from....Babi

BaBi, I like your analysis. An additional application of the closeness of victory to collapse is that Harriet's knowledge that Danny did not kill Robin, which frees her from her obsession, comes at the price of collapse of her faith in Ida who totally misled her about the relationship of Robin and Danny.

I like your take on the passage very much. She has failed completely, but she has brought from that failure a new depth of spirit and courage. This certainly applies to Harriet at the very end.

And somewhere back there Andy said that she thought the diagnosis of epilepsy was completely wrong. I did too. Harriet doesn't give the doctors the information they need to understand why she is so very ill. They have to come up with Something (they think) so they diagnose epilepsy.

My grown daughter was once diagnosed with epilepsy of the minor sort. She didn't always respond when her name was called and then on a trip to Italy and Greece in high school, she went into a fugue state while looking at a sculpture (I've forgotten where) and although several of her friends called to her, she did not respond at all. The leaders of the trip were so concerned that they called us. I gave permission for her to stay because she assured me that she felt just fine.

As soon as she got back from the trip, I took her for an EEG which indicated that she had epilepsy-- petit mal variety. She took dilantin for about six months. She then had a second EEG, a more sophisticated one with more detectors (what IS the name of those sticky things they put on you to hook you up?) including ones up her nose. This time the EEG showed that she was completely normal.

Doctor gave us instructions for decreasing the dilantin (you can't just stop taking it) and we did so until she was not taking any.

About six months later, another EEG--another perfect one.

Anyhoo, I know that epilepsy can be misdiagnosed.

Maryal

Horselover, thanks for further information on The Tai Chi. It is interesting.

I don't think Ida purposely misled Harriet. I think Ida's words were misinterpreted by Harriet. Many times, I think, children hear grownups conversations and come to wrong conclusions. This is not the child's fault or in this instance, Harriet's fault. She drew her conclusions from the world of a child.

Horselover, are we making the same conclusion?

That take hits it (the nail) right on the head for me.Mind you I am not convinced that Danny didnt kill Robin, albeit accidentally.It seemed to me that "the little friend" allusion was perhaps tongue in cheek, in that Robins friend was in some way involved in his death.

This novel is similar in my mind, to one of those children read where you can take different paths and find different conclusions.Certainly, Hats is right about childrens perceptions about what they hear,and it is the seemingly detatched Edie who is there with Harriet at the hospital.Those people prepared to sit by a boring hospital bed, are the ones I always love most, they show real concern and devotion. Anneo

Hats, I think we are coming to a similar conclusion. Ida makes some statements that stem from her prejudices about "white trash," and Harriet jumps to the conclusion that Danny is the killer of Robin. But this does not ease the shock to Harriet of what she ultimately sees as Ida's having led her down this treacherous path.

Anneo, I think Tartt pretty much tells us at one point that Danny is not the killer of Robin. Danny has a flashback in which he remembers the day he came to school and the teacher told the class about Robin's death. "Most of the kids had already heard--but not Danny. At first he thought Mrs. Marter was bullshitting them, but when she made them get out crayons and construction paper and start making cards to send to Robin's family, he realized she wasn't." Then he thinks that had Ida not chased him off earlier in the afternoon, then Robin might still be alive. (page 462)

I think Tartt makes it quite obvious that she intends both the reader and Harriet to realize that Danny is not the killer of Robin.

Your right, Horselover. I do feel that as adults it is our duty to watch our tongues around children. Children do not have the capacity to separate the various reasons for our words. Ida should have watched our words. Prejudicial name calling is always wrong.

Alrighty then, my fine friends- our story has come to an end.
I would first like to thank Maryal who has sacrificed so much time and effort here to help me lead this discussion. I greatly admire her "take" and her views and find myself agreeing with her the majority of the time (that is a miracle in itself.)

I would next like to acknowledge each and everyone of you as participants who have given of yourselves. I think in any discussion we reveal a great deal about ourselves as we disclose our thoughts, unrestrained, by close proximity to another. I am grateful that you felt confident enough in your own opinions to express them with the rest of us. We all come from different stations and perspectives in life and to me, THAT fact is what makes these discussions so extaordinary. Thank you!

I have r/c a couple of emails from folks who had expected to join in our discussion but for one reason or another, time did not allow that opportunity. They have, however, followed our analytical posts and our conversations, with interest and appreciation.

As we exam this novel in its entirety I would like to mention a couple of issues in hopes that you all can resolve a few questionable points for me. I will however, as leader, wait until you have all voiced your final evaluations.

Come on down!

The Little Friend is a mammoth book which requires much longer than just four weeks to explore and discuss. So many issues arise -- the passage of a little girl into almost a woman, the race issue, drugs, poverty, class distinctions, families -- these are only a few that come to my mind. Though I was disappointed for reasons I've stated before, I would certainly recommend this book as a good read. In my opinion, Donna Tartt has yet to write her best book. She will, though, and when she does, watch out.

My thanks to Andrea and Maryal for leading this discussion so well. Thanks, too, to all who have joined in this discussion. I've learned from you.

Mal

Alf and Maryal, it has been a pleasure. Thank you so much for all your hard work. ...Babi

Alf and Maryal,

I enjoyed the discussion. Like Mal wrote, there are so many issues in this book. I think we touched only the surface. Still, we gained so much from this book. I regret not keeping a record of the many books, fiction and non-fiction, that Harriet read. Harriet intensified my love of books.

I will remember Ida and Odean. To me, they are ordinary women with strong souls who, at times, are forgotten. My mother and sister worked in the homes of other women. My sister did this type of work longer than my mother.

My mother had cancer and became a stay at home mother. My father opened a tailor shop to make his living, and also, as a way for my mother to continue to feel needed after she left the Stetson hat factory.

She went to the factory after my father swore that no woman of his would dare scrub the floors of another woman. When I was born, my mother had already become a stay at home mom. When I came home from school, she was there, in the shop or upstairs in the dining room sewing or lying on the couch.

For this reason, it took me a very long time to become as independent and strong as Harriet. It took me longer than some of the other posters to understand how a little girl could be so strong. I envy such strength in a little girl. Independence, I think, is a virtue.

My sister, twenty one years older than me, worked in the homes of others almost all of her life. After becoming a widow, she worked as live in help. Seeing my sister nurture the children of others made me realize that there is worthiness in this type of work as well as any other. That is, if the worker is not abused. She became very close friends with some of the women. Still, like Ida, when my sister left these jobs, the relationships did not continue.

As usual, I have gained much from this discussion by reading the comments from other posters. At times, my ideas were reshaped.

I respect Donna Tartt as a writer. She made me look at the south with new eyes. I think the old south, and the new south are unique. I think Donna Tartt wanted the reader to look at the south closely.

I live in the south now. It is a place I will never fully understand, but maybe that can be said for all places in the United States. Each area carries a unique difference.

Alf and Maryal gently shoved me into looking at each page again and again to see another meaning for Donna Tartt's words. If I had to grade the book, I would give it an "A." I think it might be difficult for Donna Tartt to top this one.

Thank you Alf and Maryal for introducing me to this book.

Oh, may I interrupt again? A few people in this discussion gave me compliments. I felt undeserving of these compliments. However, I would like to say thank you. Your words gave me the strength to join another discussion. Thanks.

Thank you all, and especially Andy and Maryal, for a stimulating and informative discussion. I'm sad to end the reading and discussion of this interesting book, as I am with almost every book I read and become involved with.

The race issue exists all across our great country, but it is different in the South than in the North or West. The recent death of Senator Strom Thurmond, and the subsequent obituaries provided an opportunity to see clips of the progression of race prejudice in the South from the early days to the present. Harriet and her family, as well as the black characters in this book, absorb the racial and class prejudices that exist in their town and have to live with the consequenses.

The book also gave us a terrifying picture of the world of drug dealing and drug addiction. This picture was enhanced for us by MAL who gave us the benefit of her personal experiences with this problem. Thank you MAL. And thanks to all the other participants for their ideas and interpretations which pointed out many things I might not otherwise have thought about.

Most of all, this book explored the problems of dealing with grief. Having lost a loved one recently, this is an area which touched me personally. I really understood the difficulty each character had in trying to resume a normal life.

I don't know how much longer we will post in this discussion. I'll check back until the end of the month I guess to see if there are any new pearls of wisdom I have missed. I hope all of you will be joining "The Piano Tuner" discussion because I sooo enjoy your company!

This has been a good discussion and I very much appreciate the differing views we have shared. One of the most interesting things for me is always hearing WHY people think the way they do or respond the way they do to a character or a setting. Those of us who have lived for a while have such interesting life experiences to bring to our reading, some pleasant, some painful.

Thanks to ANDY for co-leading this very long book with me. I could not have survived here and in Hell (Dante) without her. Thanks to Mal, Hats, horselover, Babi, Gingee (I saw you peaking in), and all those who also participated. I have learned from all of you.

Congratulations on the CALENDAR, Andy, and I want to see the photos, especially the ones of the rear ends with the letters on them.

Let's all write Andy an email and get her to post those pictures on SeniorNet. Heh.

Maryal

Mal: I am pleased that you would recommend this book of Tartts. I agree there are some fanciful escapades here but the brilliance and the depth of her writing over ride that (to me at least.) I went to the library and checked out her first book after reading this one a few months ago and was very disappointed in that book, irregardless of what kudos the critics bestowed on her. I am also glad that she never responded to my invitation to join us here. Do you think that we would have been ever so honest as we were had she been around here?

BaBi: You are very welcome and we appreciate you joining us here. It's always a pleasure to read your thoughts.

Hats: You and Mal are correct in stating that there are so many issues that could be up for examination and we have barely touched on them. It's funny that you said you regret not keeping a list of all of the books that are mentioned throughout this story because I did do that. Where is it one would ask. I haven't a clue, I'll probably find it stuck in with notes from vanity or from Dante. teeeehehheee.

I love your login name particularly now that know your mother worked in a Stetson factory. Was that in Missouri ? Do you own a "ten gallon" cowboy hat ? There is a private University close by us, in Deland , Forida that Stetson helped found. It's called something else now.

Independence from a child is a whole other issue. I personally believe that it is a mothers duty to teach her children self-reliance from a very early age. You deserve many compliments and I am so pleased that you are going to join in on another of our fine discussions. Good for you!

Horselover:thank you so much for joining us for this discussion. this is only your 2nd one, isn't it? You shine and I was delighted with your presence. I feel exactly the same as you: when it comes to the end of a good book, I pout for days. It's like losing a friend and I want more, more, more.

Anneofa... Where are you? Anne is another new participant and I hope that differences of opinions did not sway her from enjoying our time here together.

Get this one guys. Our Pres. of the club called yesterday and asked if I would be in one more photo-shoot. It is to be the cover. ahahahahahah I told her I wanted centerfold rights now that I've got people interested in this damned thing. The cover is to be shot at the local Marina with 28 of us in bright, bright colors.

Maryal, Yes I have read All the posts and apprieciated every one of them. 607 posts shows that this has been a very good discussion and our DL are the best and it shows. Thank You for All Your posts, Thank you DLer's for leading us. Gingee

Do I get one of those calendars? I will pay you what ever they cost as it will be a kinda mento (sp) but you know what I mean. See you in Florida this winter if all goes right.

I enjoyed the book, just been very busy, but I am a Tartt fan, and for that matter a Texas fan also.

I enjoyed all the comment, and yes I do disagree with a lot of what was said, but that is what discussion is about.I did read slowly though, and only completely finished last night.Edie is still dear to me, and I think the youngsters will do better, so I go away happy.

Hats your surprise at compliments phases me, and glad you are going to continue.Babi was one of the few able to change my mind with her gentle persuasion, hope i run into you again.

Mal I will save the best to last, you obviously know your subject well, and supported your ideas. I respect that. We differ in that I am a feeling reader, they get me or they dont.Tartt got me!!!!!My husband reads and lives as you do, which accounts for my reaction, have spent years not letting him sway me with facts, which infuriates him. Lets hope I have not done the same to you.

Alf I have enjoyed your comments and thank you and the other Mal for your time and effort, you have given much of your time. Anneo

P.S. Ginger you know I always love to hear from you, trust your comments so much, because of you joyous innate innocence. Anneo

ANNE, I hope your husband doesn't live as I do in a wheelchair! No, you didn't infuriate me, though I admit occasionally to having felt very lonely in here and wondering why what made good sense to me did not make sense to others. I think when I read I am searching for truth. I guess what disappointed me about this book was that it didn't ring true some of the time.

I don't set out to be moved by what I read, and I don't read sentimentally, though when I was much, much younger I did. Sometimes a book like All is Vanity will hit some nerves. The Little Friend didn't. I liked Donna Tartt's The Secret History, though she took off on tangents in that one, too. Regardless, I think Tartt has real talent, and I have a big feeling that one of these days she's going to write a book that will knock the world in a spin.

Yes, Edie is a wonderful character. Ida and Odeon are the most real characters in the book. I'm with Hats on that one.

HATS, my mother scrubbed floors on her hands and knees so she could feed her children and keep a roof over their heads. Her hands were always rough and red from the soap and water in the pail she used. She was a very special woman. I'll never look down on anyone who does that for a living. People who have menial jobs are treated like wallpaper. They're ignored and treated as if they don't count. That's wrong.

Mal

I wonder if Hely will ever get anyone to believe his tales of his and Harriet's fantastic adventures???

ANDY, MARYAL,

before the curtain comes down I would like to express my gratitude to you for leading this great discussion of a demanding, fascinating book. For me, the book and its discussion were a memorable, enriching experience, and I am grateful for the thoughtful posts provided here.

So how could one possibly feel alone during such a spirited, stimulating exchange ? Do we have to "see" everything the same way ? I think not.

In an interview Tartt has explained that her childhood was similar to Harriet's, that she was sickly, lonely and raised by grandparents and a great-grandfather. She is a marvelous storyteller and will doubtless be heard from again. Let's hope she won't make her readers wait another ten years!

Thanks to one and all!

you enjoy that dang limb. You worked hard at staying there.

Thanks for the analysis. Now I'm really out of here. So long, it's been great. See you around sometime maybe.

Mal

An apology. If my presence and what I've said in this discussion have made people uncomfortable, I'm sincerely sorry. This is the last one for me; I have plenty to do already and don't have money enough to buy books anyway. As I said before, it's been great.

Mal

Hi Alf, I WANT a calendar!!!! I would definitely choose the centerfold or nothing else. (laugh)

Alf, my mother worked in the Stetson hat factory in Philadelphia.

Alf, I hope you find that list of Harriet's books. If you ever do find it, email it to me. I am hoping you can find it. Of course, you might not find it. I lose stuff everyday, and I go crazy looking for it.

Mal, you misunderstood my post. I shared a part of my life story with this group. I shared what my father wanted for his wife and the mother of his child. His choices worked in our family.

If his feelings had not run so deeply, I am afraid our lives would have taken another turn. It worked because my mother would soon become diagnosed with terminal illness.

My mother would soon develop cancer and need a mastecdomy. My father, with a second grade education, opened his own shop. My mother was able to continue working, but she worked in our home. It worked well. She was in and out of the hospital. I remember weekly trips to the oncological clinic in Philadelphia. She could not have scrubbed floors. Sorry.

I tried to give two examples of work history. Each about two black women. None of my family ever avoided hard work. I hate to say this, but I resent your conclusions that my family hated menial work. All of us are from one ethnic group or another. Each of these groups worked menial jobs. Everyone of us know about hard work and the importance of it.

Mal, Do you know what conditions my mother worked under? Do you know the background history of my father's life? NO, you do not, Mal. So, you do not know why certain choices were made in my family. DO NOT judge my family, Mal. I truly resent it.

My father always worked. He did the hardest work. He opened his own business and continued it for years and years. He stopped working only after a robbery. That drove him out of business. Again, he thought of my mother's health. A person with cancer can not live under stress. My father, thankfully, always thought of her well being.

Mal, my mother worked in a hot factory. I call that hard work. I do not know what you would call it. I think my mother scrubbed enough floors in her lifetime. Mal, do you know how many bathrooms she cleaned for someone else? Do you know how many meals she served at night for long hours for someone else?

Mal, you don't know me well enough to write what you wrote. I am sure you have made others afraid to post about their lives. Mal, I know you have Polio. Please open your mind and see the many ways in which people suffer and grow strong.

Sorry my family's story does not live up to your stereotypical view.

I hate to become angry in a post. Mal, have you walked in my family's moccassins? Have you walked in mine? Then, please think before you speak.

HATS, I just read your post, and I am sitting here crying. You misunderstood what I said! I said nothing about your family at all. I was writing about my mother, and this is what I said!

"HATS, my mother scrubbed floors on her hands and knees so she could feed her children and keep a roof over their heads. Her hands were always rough and red from the soap and water in the pail she used. She was a very special woman. I'll never look down on anyone who does that for a living. People who have menial jobs are treated like wallpaper. They're ignored and treated as if they don't count. That's wrong."
If you interpreted that somehow to an insult to your family, I'm horrified. I was sharing something with you to tell you I'm proud of my mother and of all people who are badly treated by others who think they're better than these people are. My mother was badly treated, and I have been because I'm not like other people. I've been refused housing, refused jobs, you name it. I can't believe that you took what I said the way you did. I'm so upset. There are times when I wish I was dead! I'll never know what I've done to be so disliked in this forum. Don't worry. You won't see me in Books again.

P.S. My mother died when she was 41 years old because she was overworked and never had enough to eat.

Mal

You see now! This story has guts! It brings about emotional fervor, as we have here. This novel incites passion and sentiment to a great degree. Like many stories it is like digging at a scab-- we keep poking and tampering with that scab that is trying to heal and bang we create open, supporative wounds.

I still have the feeling that this story was not completed; it has left a curious longing for me. What will happen to Harriet's own "little friend", Hely? Will their friendship grow or come to an abrupt end? How will they punish the drug addicted Danny? Will Charlotte return to that whacko husband? Will Edie move in with Charlotte and the girls? In essence, after a thought provoking, enjoyable joy ride with into the lives of each character, I feel that Tartt left too many unanswered questions for her readers. It is anticlimactic in its ending and because of that I was disappointed.

I thank you all again for your participation in The Little Friend and look forward to our next discussion together.

Adieu- andy

Sayonara, Alf!! (laugh)

Mal, If I reread your post, you need to go back and read my post again. If you can remember, I said that Ida and Odean were very "strong" women. You took my words out of context.

I am not a person who can bite her words. I am emotional. I get angry quickly, and I forgive quickly. Mal, I am not going to compare "mothers." Everyone loves their mother. Everyone feels their mother cooked the best apple pie (smile). Everyone feels their mother worked harder than any other mother. It's a useless argument.

I think you apologized earlier, before I posted, because you knew the intention of your words. You are a wordsmith. At this point, I am feeling you are a manipulator of human emotions too.

Mal, you always become upset in some part of a discussion. I think you need to rest. You will feel better. You will be in the next discussion and the one after that one. You have a very strong will. I hope others are as strong as you. If not, they will become fatiqued by your attitude and not continue to post in future discussions.

Alf and Maryal, I love the book. I enjoyed your help throughout the discussion. I have been helped and encouraged by all the other posters. I hate to end on a sour note. I am sorry to ruin it for those who lurk and for the ones who posted here.

I will think of Alf's centerfold today. That will give me a good, happy laugh. I will think of Harriet's life and remain strong. Mal, you have tested my strength today. Maybe that victory will make you happy.

I shall sing for you all now ---------------------------------------

Many of you have posted, laughed and cried with Harriet Cleves
Now, I'm off to the links without you which is plenty reason to be bereaved.

Poor and pointless but oh so true------------------

Since Donna Tartt is not here, I have some wonderful advice for her. Instead of taking ten years to produce the next novel, maybe figure out the general structure of the novel first and then craft the sentences.

This book seems strongest to me when it deals with Harriet and her relationships to the aunts, her mother, Ida Rhew, Hely. The drama obviously comes from the Ratliffs and the plot. However, there are too many plot lines that are introduced that don't go anywhere.

Alyson, always a shadowy figure, has a few dates with Pem, Hely's older brother and a contemporary of Robin, and then more or less disappears. Yes, she does gather gifts for Ida while Harriet runs away, but that's about it.

I've already mentioned my problem with Lasharon being made to seem interesting and then dropped.

It feels like dropped stiches to me--I used to knit. Tartt needs to figure out whether she wants the stitch there or not. Don't cast it on, only to drop it later and leave a hole in the work.

The novel is strongest for me when it is plot-driven. The two scenes of adventure--the kids in Eugene Ratliffs apartment with the snakes, and the watertower scene and the one that immediately precedes it--Danny's murder of Farish are the most action filled. They move with amazing speed despite all the details.

I haven't read Tartt's first novel so I can't comment on whether she is growing stronger. I do sense a major talent here who needs to learn what not to say as well as what to say.

Again, thanks to all. I hope we can be honest in our discussions while maintaining a little bit of objectivity. It is far easier to do this in person. Remember that we are pioneers in a brand new place--cyberspace. We have yet to discover all the rules and customs, or rather we are in the process of inventing them as we go along.

I have an example of what we now have available to us that ten years ago would have been impossible. There is a webpage--http://donotcall.gov--where you can go and log in three phone numbers that you want put on the "do not call" list for those annoying unsolicited calls from people (or computers) trying to sell you something. Within days of the opening of the webpage, I read about it here on SeniorNet as well as on Pentrace (I'm a fountain pen accumulator) with the LINK.

Two nights ago I went to the site and registered two phone numbers. It was quick and easy. I got an email with the final confirming step to registering the numbers within twenty minutes.

Let's not forget the wonders of this new experience.

http://donotcall.gov

Maryal

Andy, I agree with you that the ending is too abrupt and leaves too many unanswered questions and loose ends.

Maryal, I agree that Tartt should have concentrated on her central characters more, and left out some of the peripheral characters and episodes which she fails to explore fully.

Yes, the computer does bring us many wonders and makes life easier in many ways. But it also brings us many problems to cope with--loss of privacy, unauthorized access to sensitive data, SPAM, and an almost total dependence of society on computers so that everything stops running when computers fail.

If you got an e-mail confirmation of your "do not call" registration, it means they now have your e-mail address, and there is no law preventing anyone from selling it or using it for SPAM (haha). We may just trade one annoyance for another.

Hats, I hope you will join the discussion of "The Piano Tuner." I have read only two chapters, but it seems to be an interesting and unusual story with lots to discuss. Please don't let differences of opinion discourage you from stating your opinions and ideas!

MAL, We appreciate your information and ideas, too. Your personal slant on things often gives us lots to think about.

Thanks, HORSELOVER. I won't be joining any further discussions after today. At the moment I'm trying to find a replacement as leader of the Writers Exchange WREX because I'm going to be too preoccupied to participate in SeniorNet.

Thanks again, everybody. It was a glorious roller coaster ride with some turns in it I didn't expect.

Mal

Yes, you are surely correct about all the gucky stuff about the internet. I am lucky to have email through work so most of the spam stuff is caught. It is all I can do to read mail on my AOL account. I really get tired deleting all the garbage.

And then there's the rapidity with which scams can be perpetuated, sort of like "Telephone" gone wild. Do you remember the game of Telephone where everyone sits in a circle and someone starts and whispers a sentence to the person next to her, and then that person whispers what she thinks she heard to the next and so forth around the circle? When the final person has heard the sentence, she says it outloud. Laughter explodes as that sentence never even remotely resembles the original. The internet allows information and misinformation to spread like wildfire.

However, I still think it is a WONDER. More bad than good, especially if you use common sense.

The internet site is a government site and since the government already knows my email address, there's no harm.

There's also an 800 number you can call, but until July 7 you have to be west of the Mississippi to use it, and you must be ON the phone whose number you want blocked.

But you can, and I did, register your phone numbers on the website now if you are east of the Mississippi, you send back an email they send you, I'm in SC and it's done for us.

Just FYI, do it on the website now.

ginny

I carefully abstained from reading the reviews until I finished the novel so I wouldn't steal any ideas accidentally. Today I decided to check a few out. I quote this particular review because the middle paragraph presents the opposite point of view to mine re: what is the strongest part of this novel?

Three paragraphs from a review of The Little Friend by MICHIKO KAKUTANI, published in the NYTimes on 17 October 2002.

''The Little Friend'' also turns out to be a far more emotionally resonant novel than its predecessor, and a much less satisfying thriller: awkwardly plotted, if keenly observed, and speckled with glittering set pieces that do not add up to a persuasive whole. It is a kind of changeling creature, neither caterpillar nor moth but something still in chrysalis, waiting to be born.

The strongest portions of ''The Little Friend'' deal not with Harriet's vigilante actions but with her mundane, day-to-day life: her contentious relationship with her sickly, woebegone mother; her affectionate reliance on the family housekeeper, Ida, who is summarily let go after decades of service; her loving, if sometimes embattled relationships with her grandmother and great-aunts. Ms. Tartt's portrait of the Cleve family possesses all the detail and luminosity of an old platinum photograph: she chronicles their emotional history, their mortgaged dreams and their intramural squabbles with consummate ease while showing us how familial traits and inclinations are handed down generation to generation, mother to daughter, aunt to niece.

Most of all, she makes palpable the losses that the family has sustained over the years: we are made to understand how Robin's murder, Ida's departure and the death of her great-aunt Libby have affected Harriet, and how these events have goaded her to seek refuge in the dangerous fantasy of avenging Robin's death. Ms. Tartt has also tried to show how very different sorts of disappointments have shaped the life of Danny Ratliff, but her attempts to dovetail the stories of these two desperate characters -- one, a bitter and violent speed freak, the other a feisty 12-year-old girl -- feel mechanical and forced, a high-concept Hollywood notion that proves to be a poor showcase for this writer's rich and variegated gifts."

Maryal

Dear Mal,

I owe you an apology. I know you enjoy the discussions. I do not want you to leave because of me. Many of your words are very, very wise. I have reread your post. I misinterpreted your words. Never fear. I am not angry. Don't cry anymore.

I have my grandbaby quite often lately. I have really been thinking about resting for the summer. Don't worry. I will always remain a Bookie. I think all of you are great. The discussions are wonderful, and there is nothing like a release of emotion now and then (laugh). I just don't want you to cry, Mal.

Dear HATS:

You don't have to apologize. Much of what you said is true. I am strong willed. My will has kept me alive all these years, but I don't have to inflict it on other people. I do get frustrated in discussions and say I'm going to leave, instead of being quiet and taking a day or two off.

I don't like to think I judge people, or that I look at people as stereotypes. I was raised by very prejudiced people and have tried most of my life not to be prejudiced against any ethnic group or religion. I've been treated like a second-rate person by some people ever since I was a child, and I can't stand to see anyone else treated that way.

You said some things that are very true. I am tired right now because I'm working with a physio-therapist and an occupational therapist so perhaps I can walk again. It's hard work and it hurts sometimes.

You're right this way, too. I try to be a wordsmith, and I do try to manipulate emotions through what I write, but not in what I post in discussions. This is a place where I can relax from work I do and think about something else. It is the place where I have friends -- something that's very important to a housebound person who is alone more than 90% of the time. This is the place where I have company and a little pleasure that I don't have otherwise.

Your saying that made me realize, though, that I am probably more a writer than I am a reader, so I guess I'd better concentrate on that, especially on the hard work it takes to get anything published these days. I haven't been working hard enough on getting my stuff published, it's true.

So don't worry. I'm glad you gave me a little nudge in the right direction. I was crying because I consider you my friend, and I didn't want anything to happen to that friendship. I'm a little tearful now because it's hard to get used to facing some things in life, but I'm trying, and I will.

Thank you, HATS.

Mal

Good morning, everyone.

We're not going to let this discussion end like this, are we? Together we've explored a book which is almost too much of a meal. We've watched the positive growth of a young girl who lives in an environment that would stop growth in someone not as strong Harriet is. We've explored like Scott, but unlike Scott, we haven't failed in what we set out to do.

I agree with many of the things Michiko Kakutani has written in his/her critique of this book. The critique says what I was trying to say in much more succinct, convincing language than I can write.

It's my feeling about Donna Tartt, and has been since I read her first book, that one day she will pull together the huge talent she has and not drop stitches, as Maryal has pointed out so well, but live up to the enormous potential which is in her.

It will be hard to forget this book and the characters which are in it. It will be hard to forget this experience with all of you. For me, thanks to dear Hats, this has been a period of growth, too. What more could anyone ask of a book?

Sometimes I think what we've said about The Little Friend is as important as the book is. Please come in and say hello as we say goodbye. Our circle of Little Friends will always remain intact in memory.

Mal

Good morning, Mal~~I actually got up this morning. That in itself is a victory. When I'm teaching, I have to get up at 5:30 and I spend much of the summer "catching up." Actually, I am by nature lazy.

I chose that particular review to quote from because the middle paragraph disagreed with my contention that the adventure scenes were better than the other parts. The problem with dividing a text into two is always that some people will like part 1 better and others will prefer part 2. When I was a young graduate student, learning how to teach, I remember being told to help students to divide a paper into three or more parts, or keep it whole. Never divide into two.

The Little Friend participants will now engage in a

group hug

to show their appreciation for each other.

Maryal

((((( Hugs for each and every one of us! )))))

WOW! All this hugging really feels good!

Maryal, I think, on balance, I would have to agree with the reviewer that "The strongest portions of ''The Little Friend'' deal not with Harriet's vigilante actions but with her mundane, day-to-day life." Tartt is best when dealing with character development. Her adventure scenes carry you along, but don't give you anything to think about.

MAL, I know you are NOT going to give up editing WREX. This is something you love doing and do so well.

You make us feel sooo important by saying that "what we've said about The Little Friend is as important as the book is." That should encourage you to keep participating in discussions where we all value your input.

Hope to see you all tomorrow at "The Piano Tuner."

Hi, HORSELOVER. I consider the WREX Magazine and the m. e. stubbs poetry journal the lesser two of the three electronic literary magazines I publish.

I inherited the WREX Magazine when I volunteered to keep the Writers Exchange WREX writers group going after the leader, Bernice LeClaire, became ill with cancer and had to resign suddenly. That was five and a half or six years ago, when the WREX writers group existed only in SeniorNet on AOL. Bernice's magazine was known as WREXERS PAGES. When I inherited it, I changed the name and the format. Bernice stayed as leader of the writing group three years. I have been the WREX writing group's leader almost twice that long, a long time for that volunteer job and publishing its writers, believe me.

I started the m. e. stubbs poetry journal because I was so inundated with submittals from poets that I had no room for them in my own magazine, Sonata magazine for the arts. Sonata is my baby, my creation, the publication that is closest to my heart.

The WREX Magazine is open only to the writing of members of the Writers Exchange WREX, senior citizens ranging in age from 50 on up. Sonata is open to anyone, anywhere, of any age. I have published work ranging from poetry by a nine year old girl, and work by Carson Simak, age 92, in Sonata.

If I do cut down on the editing and publishing I do, it will be Sonata that will stay on the web.

Mal

MAL, I now have a better understanding of all your efforts and how they fit together. If you include writing your own novels, it represents a Herculean task. I don't blame you for wanting to cut down somewhat, especially now that rehab therapy is taking up time as well. They say, "If you want something done, ask a busy person." You are an excellent example of how that works.

I hope you will join in "The Piano Tuner" discussion. You always have such interesting information to add.

HORSELOVER, right at this moment I doubt very much that I will participate in other book discussions, but I'll think about it.

My editing, publishing, graphics work I do, and my writing keep me going. If I had to live as alone a life as I must without these things, there wouldn't be much reason for living.

Mal

Here is my late but sincere group hug to everyone!!!

And to think that lucky grandbaby gets those nice hugs from HATS all the time!

Incidentally, folks, there's a moving story by Hats in the new issue of Sonata I put on the web Friday night. I'm posting a link to Hats' story below so you can see it without scrolling down the index cover. Be sure to check out all the other fine writing in the July-August issue of Sonata by clicking the left arrow at the bottom of Hats' page. (And that's a plug!)

Hats' story

Thank You so much for sharing your story with us.

MARYAL,

May I add that it wasn't you who divided the book, it was the author herself who changed horses in midstream and went off into a radically different direction and into the thriller mode- not entirely convincingly, as we've seen.

Also, on March 18, 2003 Tartt won the WH Smith literary award (endowed with five thousand pounds). On March 19, John Ezard said in The Guardian :

"... With only her second novel, The Little Friend, she beat plays by the long-established Tom Stoppard and short stories by fellow American Sam Shepard in a contest open to drama as well as fiction.¶ Tartt, 40, told the awards ceremony [? - the ceremony ? or the people at the ceremony??] in London that the victory was a special honour because 'the little Friend is a love letter to the British novels of my childhood : Stevenson, Barrie, Dickens, Kipling and all the rest.' " ' ¶ .......

Then the reviewer says, alas, incorrectly, "The Little Friend is about a 12-year-old Mississippi girl's efforts to find the murderer of her BABY BROTHER." [!!!] Oh my ... Mercy ! HARRIET was the baby at the time!

Renewed thanks to all and hugs.