This is one of my favorite books EVER! I learned of it through my Dad in the early 90s, who couldn't stop talking about how good it was. He's gone now, but I always think of him and this book as somehow intertwined.

Over the years that have followed, I've run into several people that (spontaneously) mentioned this book as one of the best they'd read in the last (insert a number) years. I see people carrying it on the bus (or cable car - a bit of San Francisco-iana in honor of the author, who grew up in this area) and strike up a conversation - and people inevitably rave about this book. There's something about it that resonates with people of all stripes - and with women and men.

Don't be fooled by the cover or the title; while they are provocative - this book has less to do with sex per se than with why one person chooses another as a mate.

All of this is set against the backdrop of Botswana. Our intrepid "heroine" treks across the desert (in a very funny section of the story) in pursuit of Nelson Denoon, a charismatic man with "a beautiful head," to find his "utopian" community (Tsau) in the middle of the Kalahari. The story of their relationship, this strange community, the contraptions the community devises to survive the elements and stay comfortable, Africa, politics, and, yes, their sexual life, ensues.

I think you'll love this book. Join me on January 1, 2001 for this discussion. Can't wait to start!

Jeepers, Sarah, you sold me! I'll be here!

ginny

I think I would like to read this book. However, I followed the link to the National Book Awards site, and whenever I got to the bottom of the page that says to continue reading, I wind up back at the Publisher's Weekly home page. I tried another author and I can't seem to get past page one with the interviews. Any advice.

Crunchy Crawler - what a great name! Welcome. I too am having the problem; I'll check with our techies and find out if we can remedy it.

It's great to have you with us. Do you have the book?

Oh Sarah! I shall have to beat you silly! I'm sold too. Your enthusiasm shall cost me another purchase for the book. You did such a superb job with Blindness, I would not miss your next discussion.

Crunchy Crawler.. I have checked out the link you pointed out, and it is a problem of Publishers Weekly... I have written the webmaster about the problem.. It was an interesting article... sure would be nice to read the rest of it.

The Library got the book for me, so I'm in!

š ...jane›

Hooray - Crunchy Crawler, Ginny, ... jane and ALF are all IN!! Can't wait to begin this discussion. I've already started rereading the book and it's just SO much fun to read.

Anyone else planning on joining us?

Thanks, PatW, for checking on that link.

I'm here, I'm here I think I had to sign up for a new internet provider and so far nothing is working consistently, this time I got on the internet and quickly got to yahoo- so if I can't get to you all (I still have no email) I will get to the library and try to find you through yahoo.

I will have had about 3/4 of Mating read so I am imagining you won't get to the "end" until late in January and hopefully by then I can reborrow the book.

Can't wait to read all your thoughts on this book.

I'm so glad you're here, YiLi! You're right about the discussion schedule - this is definitely a book to take section by section. I think the first week or so, we'll read the first section, entitled "Guilty Repose." That leads us up to our heroine's first meeting with Nelson Denoon.

I'll get a schedule up in the heading shortly.

Remember - a discussion schedule is not a reading schedule. You may read at your own pace. I just ask that you discuss what's up for the week at hand, so folks that haven't read further remain in suspense.

whew- all it will cost me is a gourmet soft crust pizza when i get back "north" but the librarian extended my loan- so now all i have to do is find the reading classes and hopefully will finish this book.

am so intrigued by what (I would have underlined had the book been mine) I see as significant thoughts and passages, but am truly waiting for astute others to share a wider sense of this book. the good part to me - funny?, is the lack of exploration of the african condition- this is usually what informs so much foreign literature or american literature in foreign settings- i am please to read about real people in a "real" experience.

Sounds to be a fascinating read. If I can get a copy I will join in.

~Marj

Mine has been ordered but as of last Tues when we left home it had not arrived. My neighbor has been asked to be on the look out for it and I've instructed her to begin reading it so that she can join us in our discussions.

Marj is here! We're assembling a wonderful group. I've heard from some folks that I emailed as well that they'll probably join us.

ALF - this may well be a book your library has (although, as Yili points out, you can't underline things in library books). Hope yours gets here in time - but have no fear if it doesn't. We'll start the pace fairly slowly (the holidays and all) and then pick up toward the middle of the month.

Yikes - Yili, I just realize that the copy of Mating I'm reading is MY OWN - and yet, I'm so conditioned to library books that I haven't marked a thing! What to do, what to do???

Currently, I propose the following DISCUSSION schedule (read at your own pace):

Jan 1-5 -- Section 1: Guilty Repose (approximately 55 pages in the paperback edition)

Jan 6-10 -- Section 2: The Solar Democrat (~ 70 pages)

Jan 11-15 -- Section 3: My Expedition (a personal favorite section of the book) (~ 30 pages)

Jan 16-20 -- Section 4: Tsau (~ 80 pages)

Jan 21-25 -- Sections 5 and 6: Acquisitive Love and Love Itself (~ 100 pages)

Jan 26-30 -- Section 7: Strife (~ 100 pages)

Jan 31 -- Section 8: About the Foregoing (~ 10 pages) and final thoughts on the book in general.

--------------

How does that pace sound to you? Essentially, I have us discussing most sections for about 5 days.

Let me know your thoughts. I am completely open to other suggestions. Is Betty out there? You read the book - what do you think? Yili - you too? Others?

schedule sounds great- can you post a few "jump start" questions, and even a bit before the 1st- i find that technique very helpful.

Schedule looks great!

I ordered my copy from half.com. Great site for used books. The books I've ordered from there have not been "used" at all. Very impressed with their service.

My library did not have this book. Odd since it was prize winner. Nor anything by him.

~Marj

Jump start questions: Will definitely do that, Yili.

I'm here. Schedule sounds good. I've located my book on the shelf and intended to be (re)reading before this. Will start any day now.

is it okay to "talk" a little about the author before we actually begin? who is Norman Rush? I don't mean only in terms of interviews about this book or Whites- is there anything out there that gives a "slice of life" hint as to who he is?

Yili - both the NY Times Review link and the National Book Award Study Guides link in the blue "box" above have some biographical information about Norman Rush. I know that he is from the SF Bay Area (where I'm from and live) and that he headed up the Peace Corps in Botswana for some time. I like your idea - do you want to start the discussion of Rush off?

Also following up on your suggestion, here are a few questions to jump start the discussion:

1. As noted above, Norman Rush spent time in the Peace Corps in Botswana. I wondered how much of this story is autobiographical. I couldn't help feeling that the (nameless) narrator and Nelson Denoon were two halves of one complete person either that Rush could identify with or that represented Rush himself. What do you think?

2. Why is the narrator nameless?

3. What do you think of the idea that starts the book: "In Africa, you want more, I think. People get avid. . . . Obviously, I mean whites in Africa and not black Africans. . . . But in Africa you see middleclass white people you know for a fact are highly normal turn overnight into chainsmokers or heavy drinkers or gourmets. Suddenly you find otherwise serious people wedged in among the maids of the truly rich in the throng at the Chinese butchery, their faces clenc ed, determined to come away with one of the nine or ten half pints of creme fraiche that arrive from Mafikeng on Wednesdays at three." Is this typical of whites living in the third world generally - for those of you who have ever lived there? Something particular to Africa? Assuming the narrator is right - why do you think the people become so avid?

4. Is the narrator correct that "the prelude is important, probably," referring to her life in Botswana before she meets Denoon? Does the prelude add to the book, in your view?

5. How well does this male author portray the thoughts of a woman heroine?

I LOVE question number 3 and am now chomping at the bit til Jan.1. My bias about male authors writing women's viewpoints has been expressed in other discussions- I have avowed support for Geisha though- so let me try to explain- i don't have a problem with Denoon as a character written by a man and i don't have a problem with the various female characters, but i wonder about a man (Rush) creating a world through a woman's eyes.

Must admit some observations appear valid to me- hmm okay now that I said that I will backoff bit- I "attempt" to write and I have created a man's world in one of my works- but it is a created world not one that suggests it understands how to interpret thaat world through a woman's eyes.???? so I wonder in tthis book about truthfulness- validity of the observations.

Forgot to say - Welcome Betty! So glad you are here!!

I'm surprised the library didn't have the book, Marj. How dare they!

Just 6 days til blastoff. Counting down. . . .

YiLi ---- did you ever read any of Canadian novelist Carol Shields work. She writes men very well. And I have heard numerous male reviewers attest to that. "Larry's Party" comes to mind. Just reflecting on what you say above.

Don't have a clue about why my lib. doesn't have the book. They praise themselves on the fine collection. Perhaps it was overlooked in some kind of staff changes during that year. ?????

~Marj

I know I was recently exposed to shields but for the life of me at this moment i can't remember what i read.

I am truly looking forward to the comments on this book, I am enjoying "vignettes" throughout but I still can't quite put the whole thing together.

My brain "in repose" - forgot to finish reading this section.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

~Marj

okay half the house guests are on the road- here's my jump off- the prelude- hmm- no reaction to the prelude of the novel, but the notion of the prelude that is one's life before any particular event is of considerable significance. we are who we are in a large part as an accumulation of our preludes- both characters had expectations of their own lives, each other and the ensuing relationship, in great parts as a result of the preludes.

avid- greed- i am not so sure that this is merely a phenomenon of people who are experiencing life outside their culture, i think people do this whenever they are experiencing life outside their comfort zones- think of the rush to the market and hoarding for the snow , preholiday, potential commodity shortages (topping the tank on gas lines) etc. i am not so sure we fear losing amenities i think we have seen these amenities as the tools for survival. for those outside their cultures the tools are infused with more meaning- so cookies sent from mom, creme frache, grits, new york bagels etc. are hoarded and awarded power.

?power, suddely i see a major theme in this book- power- oh where is Barbara?

I thought we'd start off with the discussion questions in the heading for the next couple of days. Note the schedule there too - so we'll accompany our protagonist through her period of Guilty Repose until the 5th.

It's ironic - but probably common - that most of the westerners living in Botswana are so little adapted to life there. Rather than blend in, they practice excess, become avid - in eating, smoking, drinking, spending money, concocting business schemes, sex. Have any of you seen the movie "The Year of Living Dangerously"? One gets the same impression of those whites - they stick together, spend much of their time drinking and at parties, and barely interact with the locals.

What is behind this? Self-preservation and safety? A fear of the unknown? For those of you who have spent any time living in the third world, does this sound familiar to you?

What are your initial impressions of this book?

It's delicious! I love the vocabulary. I always enjoy learning new words and I have utilized my American Heritage Dictionary quite a bit since starting this novel. I also love the "no nonsense" approach to a paragraph.

"In Africa you want more, I think."

"I was typical- avid, and frantic."

What type of person gets into bed still dripping wet from his bath?

Each sentence is loaded with these comments that I find very entertaining.

Can anyone explain to me what an echt mamma's boy is?

I wonder if the avid is true of anyone living where they cannot get the "amenities" that YiLi speaks of. I spent three months in a foreign city (not a third world country, but a European capital) as a student many, many years ago, and those things that we'd taken for granted did suddenly become "bigger than life"...and the little things became BIG deals...ie, no salt shakers became an annoyance. Some of the students became almost obsessive about having peanut butter, for example.

I don't know why the narrator has no name...and I'm unable to "picture" her in my mind as I do characters in other books I read. It seems I know so little about her that I'm never even clear the narrator is female until a reference is made to a skirt. That seems to be the only identifying "gender" reference I can find. She (?) just doesn't seem dimensional to me.

š ...jane›

The visitors have left; the house is empty again. So, back to SERIOUS reading !

I am still weighing Sarah's questions, but have one comment :

it is common, I believe, for whites to cling to each other in a foreign environment, like Africa or Asia, and Paul Theroux has made referene to this fact in his short stories. To search for what one is used to, to try and create it if one cannot find it, becomes almost an obsession. Tools of survival, as has been said; and, I would add, a security blanket, a fixed reference point, immutable and thus comforting.

Alf, "echt" is German and means genuine, real, authentic. A TRUE mamma's boy, we might say here.

Traude

Yes, Sarah, the Year of Living Dangerously is a great example. An added pressure in that story was the curfew, so the excesses had to be enjoyed in compressed time.

Other movies/books that come to mind---Passage to India and Out of Africa. Remember in Passage, the Indians felt pressure to provide elaborate food and drink for the trip to the caves---many lines about, "You must provide..." Also, the young English woman, a first time visitor to India, was surprised there was almost no mixed socializing.

In Out of Africa, Baroness Blixen was determined to bring and use her Limoge china. Having a guest visit always meant producing an elegant dinner. In this instance, it doesn't seem like "wanting more," or becoming "avid," but maybe was a normal reaction to being lonely, wanting to make a production when welcoming fellow countrymen. Of course, there were the sexual excesses of her husband and many scenes of elaborate social functions, always with plenty of alcohol.

This all seems tied to how separate the classes and races were. A desperate clinging to what was familiar, maybe, as Traude suggests.

Maybe the safaris in Out of Africa could be part of this excessive "wanting more." Who killed more, who killed the biggest. Who took the biggest risks, was in the most danger. Oh, wait a minute---Karen Blixen delivered supplies to her husband's military unit, traveled through dangerous territory to get there. THAT was very risky behavior.

How important is the prelude? Very, I think. We are given a picture of where she is in life---a failed thesis, a reluctance to go home, a restlessness, and, most importantly, how she relates to several men. And, her first meeting with Nelson Denoon.

think about the movies/stories about the British living in colonies and how they were avid about their interests and traditions. Keeping a comfort zone. Yes, I too was thinking about "Out of Africa" as I pondered the question.

And I, too, think the prelude important. Rush , in the interview link, states his wife was his editor in keeping his character true to feminine form. I think she is more true to a survivalist form. She is doing what she has to do in order to have this time . I've not quite finished this Section 1.

From the study guide link:

The occupational model for the character was several women we knew in Africa who were on the loose and occupationally distressed; one was an anthropologist having difficulty with her thesis. The model for the mind at work in Mating -- there's no secret about it -- is my wife, Elsa. We've been together since 1953, and it's been a close and intellectually frank and open relationship. But the character became autonomous very quickly, though it was fortuitous to have the model sitting here in the house. Elsa is my editor, and for the second draft of the novel, she had a special injunction to read for infelicities in the female voice. That was great, because I knew the book would stand or fall on this question of authenticity Her finagling to get to Victoria Falls was what a person, male or female does , to get their own agenda.

That was quite a section on her feelings at the falls. The sadness and the weeping. Quite vivid I thought in Rush's descriptions of the mist, the sounds.

~Marj

about Z- "You're unique he said, no woman in my life has done for me half of what you have and yet ypu've asked for nothing"... I wonder if most women do not ask men for anything- but men have a perception or a need to believe the are asking for something- Z seems so threatened by this- "Please- what can I do for you?"

I am intrigued by a possible short story that takes this theme further-

I am also ruminating on that wonderful bit of information about the editing provided by Rush's wife, makes me think of all those works throughout history that had major contributions by wives and lovers-

Sorry I could not respond earlier - could not get back in yesterday.

What great posts to start things off. ...jane and Traude - so glad you've joined Yili and Betty and MarjV and ALF and me.

I probably asked the question about people's avidness and greed in the third world because my experience was so different. I went to Central America in the early 80s and had no American friends there at all. It was a revelation to me - a lifelong city slicker - to realize I could adjust so easily to "spit baths," electricity that cut off during much of the day, limited transportation (bus, feet, bicycle) and completely different food. But I was young then ~ sigh ~. Things are easy to get used to when you're 20!

But I agree with Yili's point that people become avid "whenever they are experiencing life outside their comfort zones," and her analogy to hoarding before a big storm, or after an earthquake or other natural disaster. It's odd that we cling to things as our comfort - but we do, for lack of anything else that feels familiar.

Thank you Betty for all of those movie analogies. When I first read this book, I found I could think of no analogy at all. I found this book truly unique - and it is in many ways. But you're right about the avidness of the party that visited the Marabar caves (in Passage to India), or with which Baroness Blixen surrounded herself with fineries (wine, Victrola, great books) in Out of Africa. By the same token, those were colonists - and those in Mating are (supposedly) in Botswana at the pleasure of the government. You'd think they'd try to blend in a bit better.

ALF - I too love Rush's use of language, even to the extent of making up words: "It was unso" is a personal favorite. It's delicious! He also uses a backward sentence structure on occasion that I find hilarious. Can't find an example right now, but the sentence will usually be something like "Full of greed was what she felt."

MarjV - thank you SO much for picking up that bit from the study guide - I had completely missed that. Assuming that Elsa, Rush's wife, is his model for the book, does that give his female character more credence to you? Yili?

I was inclined to agree with . . . jane that the protagonist felt a bit one dimensional. I too couldn't figure out if she was a he or a she until she mentioned a "period," - dead giveaway - and something about wearing her hair long and about looking good when she was so thin. Why tell us she's a woman by telling us about these physical attributes? Why not just give us her name, and identify her with an occasional she/her??

Was Rush perhaps trying not to step completely into the role of a female narrator because he knew he couldn't presume to do so? There's something to this. Betty, I know you can help me out here.

The prelude to which I was alluding was mostly the narrator's various "mating" attempts prior to meeting up with Denoon. I agree that we needed to learn of Botswana, of the nature of the whites living there, of their greed and feelings of dislocation. I wasn't as sure that we needed to meet all of her prior boyfriends. What did you make of them - of the finagled trip to Victoria Falls, for example? None of this made me appreciate the narrator much - she seemed like a bit of a user or a dilletante.

Thoughts?

I called her tactics "survivor tactics" earlier. I think, Sarah, after reading more of section 1 today, and her Z episode, that "user" is definitely included in the label. I don't much like users.

Sure ,there are people like that - male and female.

I laughed so at Z's girdle and tanning technique. Sad man. ~Marj

Interesting comment about being a "user/manipulator"...so far, they all seem to be in that category...the narrator and her male acquaintances. I somehow can't identify those men as "boyfriends" or lovers or anything other than guys who seemed to be using her as much as she was using them...whether for companionship, sex, whatever. There just doesn't seem to be any..."feeling" or passion or anything with any of these "relationships." These relationships seem more physical than emotional, I guess.

š ...jane›

On whether we needed to know of her various mating attempts pre-Denoon and about her being a "user/manipulator,"------I didn't realize something until reading your posts, but then I remembered. I remembered (from my first reading of the book a few months ago) what I felt about that pre-Denoon period----that universal feeling of being only half awake in life and not even realizing it until something wakes you up. She is not engaging these other men. Her reaction to DeNoon comes in sharp contrast to her reaction to the previous men.

Betty, Jane: This partiular time frame in the book reminds me of the old adage: "You have to kiss many frogs before you find your Prince." She was jumping from one stone to another.

...jane, betty, MarjV, ALF - you captured for me what I was trying to put my finger on: the sense that the protagonist (what ARE we going to call her?) was just drifting aimlessly through life during her Guilty Repose period. Indeed, I sensed no guilt and little repose! I wasn't sure what she was doing or why she was doing it. She certainly didn't need a companion in order to go to Victoria Falls, did she?

My impression was she needed somebody to pay her passage and hotel room. I can't imagine any other reason she needed one, since she knew the language and apparently her way around the country.

š ...jane›

That is right........Betty, she is not "engaging" other men, or any people for that matter.

Now I've been thinking about the no name for our "protagonist" here in this section. How about Ms Pro! I always try to use people's name when I talk with them, or even in e-mail for that matter. It validates the person. In the conversations she is never addressed. Ms Pro can't be an Everywoman I don't think. The totality of womanhood is more she evinces.

In studies of men and women, women are seen to be more relational then men. With this is mind, Ms Pro doesn't seem very feminine.

Now I've forgotten her age - if it was mentioned. Is her behavior an issue similar to women in her age category; unfulfilled; striking around; ego centered; hormone driven????

~Marj

I guess I don't see the "woman" as hormone driven...if anything, she seems, to me, to be un-attached, non-emotional, wooden, and with lots of free time on her hands. She doesn't seem to have any interest in or any bonds with any of the people around her...so, yes, self-centered since there's no one else who seems to be of any concern to her.

I, too, would like to have a "name" to call her..but I haven't thought of one which sums her up, for me.

She made the comment (p.6 in my paperback copy) about going back to the US for another birthday at the hands of her mother...and says she had promised to spend the thirty-second with her (mother) if she (character)were in the US. I took that to mean "woman" was presently 31 and that the 32nd was the birthday she was not, in fact, probably going to go back to the US for.

š ...jane›

" guilty repose" perhaps that is a hint as to what is going on here- women have often been expected to live up to some norm of behavior- since the 70's if a woman were not fulfilling the domestic role then there was the next model- career woman or in this case contributing academic. it seems like there is a lot unfinished about her- thesis, partnership, sense of belonging- and for this reader i see her as making a brave statement. many women in their 30's regardless of the role they adopt, have issues with parental expectations, societal expectations and ooohhh the single woman! i think remembering that this is a novel designed to reveal motivation of characters, and using this technique of inner dialogue- i venture that this character is simply telling us those unspoken things in a lot of women's minds.

so perhaps she feels guilty that she is in this period of repose- not making any particular contributions but what i can't figure out at this part was she looking for a place or taking advantage of the opportunity to dally.

hmm that song- looking for love in all the wrong places

YiLi...hmmm..."Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places"....yes....and maybe also "Is That All There Is?"...or whatever that Peggy Lee song was called.

Yes, I, too, think she's "drifting" at this point. She's been so involved in academia up to this point...working on a doctorate, all the classes,seminars...and now into the thesis stage to find it's not going to work. I've the impression everything has gone pretty much on schedule for her...at Stanford, etc. with her photographic mind, etc. but the thesis has fallen apart and she may now be trying to decide what she's going to be/do when she "grows up" as the saying goes. What are her options? Go back to Stanford and start the thesis thing all over again?

š ...jane›

I have to agree with ...jane when she says the following

"I guess I don't see the "woman" as hormone driven...if anything, she seems, to me, to be un-attached, non-emotional, wooden, and with lots of free time on her hands."

Pro's (protagonist's) pre-Denoon attachments are decidedly non-sexual.

At loose ends...that's how I see her. And I agree with YiLi that there is a grounded sense about her---worry though she does about the eventual birthday thing with her mother, she gives herself permissionto stay put to see what happens. In this, I see her as "available," that condition of being open to new experiences, of not having a plan. And, maybe to some extent, there is a touch of depression in the form of anxiety---therefore, the "guilty" word. To find out that one's thesis is all hypothesis, that the research question itself is faulty---wow, what a worst-scenario nightmare for anyone. No wonder she isn't very quick to engage other people---either because she doesn't have the energy for it or no one looks good.

She lets herself go with the flow, and the "flow" of this odd crowd includes overpayment for services, regular and free buffet food, and being the grateful dumpee for extraneous food, etc., when someone gets shipped back to the states...or wherever.

This may be pushing the identification with her a bit, but if my dissertation had just fallen apart and I had no backup plan, I might let myself be carried along with this crowd's overindulgence and let myself follow spontaneous whims---all in the name of oh-poor-me.

As we move on from Guilty Repose to the Solar Democrat (see schedule above), do you have any final thoughts?

It sounds as if we have some ambivalence about our Protagonist. From your fascinating list of adjectives

Betty: there is a grounded sense about her; half awake in life

Yili: looking for love in all the wrong places

...jane: drifting

ALF: drifting from one stone to another; a user

MarjV: not engaging anyone

Sarah: drifting aimlessly, a dilettante (ouch!)

I'm sure there are more.

With all of this - a question. Do we like her? (or does that matter?) I remember liking her a lot the first time around. I found her funny, smart, interesting in her level of self-understanding.

She does not take herself seriously: she knows she's taking advantage of missionaries, knows she's using Elman (the Peace Corps doctor) for free medical care (just as he's using her to do actual medical work-ups on, and for what he perceives to be their mutual fear of infection); for a trip to Victoria Falls with Giles. Oh, by the way, on Giles, when he (embarassingly, to Ms. Pro) suggests that Reagan would appoint Jean Gabin as "Director of the FBI" - would someone tell me who Jean Gabin is??

Another thing about Giles: "His obstinacy [in insisting Basil Rathbone was British and therefore couldn't be a member of Reagan's mock cabinet] brought the game to an end, but in an unconscious tribute to his physical beauty, we all immediately forgave him."

Do we tend to do that with beautiful people?

And "Very goodlooking people are as a rule moe forgetful than the median. Their mothers start it and the world at large continues it, handing them things, picking things up for them, smoothing their vicinity out for them in every way."

I also enjoyed: "Pastoral sex is exclusively a male penchant. I guarantee no woman ever proposes it if there are quarters available."

And more of that delicious backward sentence structure: "of surfeit one can never have too much."

This first section of the book is FUNNY, delicious to read. I'm just not sure I understand why any of her period of guilty repose brought her inevitably to Denoon - which is what seems to be the suggestion:

At the beginning of the subchapter headed, "Why do we yield," Ms. Pro says "it's an effort to recapture the detail of guilty repose, beccause what I want is to plunge into Denoon and what followed. But the prelude is important, probably. I feel like someone after the deluge being asked to describe the way it was before the flood while I'm still plucking seaweed out of my hair, Denoon being the deluge. . . . [I]t was distinctly like a building falling on me when I met [Denoon]. Why? Why do we yield, when we don't have to?. . . What did the sex side of my life in Gabs up to then have to do with it?"

Do we have the answer to that important question? She seems to be asking: did my life up until then lead me to choose Denoon as a mate? Was their some inevitability in her "yielding" to him and not others? Or was it pure chance that brought them together? Had she not had the prelude to meeting Denoon, would she have been so thunderstruck? Do we stumble into things when we're "drifting," (or, as Betty says, grounded) that we wouldn't do otherwise?

Take note that in Guilty Repose she displays misconduct and self-reproach with humor. What a great title for this chapter. Repose , indeed! She is at ease admitting that she, too, is another disappointee, "avid and fanatic ", for a couple of months. I mean get real! A nutritional anthropologist. What the heck is that???It sure sounds boring to me and I'd be the first one to adapt very quickly to a hedonistic lifestyle after that stretch. No wonder she felt detached as she blended in as one of the accumulated whites. Don't you love these little subtitles that NR provides for us? A Period of Surplus. She says"What went wrong was the surplus I began to run.". The ploy by the author is hilarious as Ms. Pro describes the excesses and surpluses she is afforded in a country this poor.

---

Ha-ha! The age old question we've asked: Why did she yield? She describes it as being "like a building falling on her." Has anyone here ever been thunder struck like that?

With that article Charlie posted for us still fresh in my mind (authors must supply interesting characters with interesting questions but not necessarily answers---that we readers identify with the questions, the search, perhaps), the fact that Ms Pro is trying to make sense of why she was drawn to one person but not others, strikes me as funny, interesting and ridiculous. It's that same brand of ridiculous that we all do, trying to apply reason to matters of the heart. Maybe it was the researcher in her that wanted to set the scene, describe all the variables.

I'm inclined to think a lot of the chemistry between people (even just good friends) can't be explained, but it's such a universal story, the "how we met" story. Maybe her prelude is just---there I was on a Tuesday with dirty hair, wandering around without a plan B after my failed thesis...and there he was.

On the other hand....she did stop doing the expected, she did give herself permission just to be and that's when she met Denoon. Maybe we can discuss later if we think any of her boldness in the next section would have happened anywhere, or does it have something to do with "wanting more" in Africa.

Betty I really like your observation about being available for life's events. Too often I think we believe we must create events - learning to wait and allow things to take a course is a significant challenge.

I think what threw me in the beginning with this book was the early introduction to Denoon holding court- I found nothing intriguing, unique or meaningful in character- I could not figure out what the attraction was(is)- is Denoon the real attraction or the lifestyle he represents?

I didn't make clear in my last post that she knew Denoon before---I wrote as if she'd never seen or known him before. Also, her bold pursuit of him is in contrast to her "just being" before she heard that he was in the area. I must have been half asleep when I wrote that.

To Denoon - the Solar Democrat - tomorrow, Yili.

Any final thoughts as we close out the Guilty Repose chapter?

What do we know about Ms. Pro?

She is very smart, funny, 32, thin (but worried about her body lest she turn into her mother - "an exhibit," by which I think she means morbidly obese), single, an anthropology major (wait a minute - still doing a thesis at 32?). Is she a prof. or a student? And if the latter, what does the fact that she's 32 say about her "drifter" status? That she drifts back at Stanford too?

She has a good waist, and is pretty enough to attract the physically beautiful (but rather slow) Giles.

She likes older men - and gives great back rubs.

She does not wish to remain in Africa - this is the rationalization she gives for not dating Black Africans.

She seems to have few friends - especially women - or ambition about what to do once her thesis unwinds.

Knowing what we do about her, how would you answer Betty's question:

"[Do] we think any of her boldness in the next section would have happened anywhere, or does it have something to do with 'wanting more' in Africa."

After not being able to sign on to AOL Wednesday night and last night, I am tickled pink to be here now.

I tried earlier, DID get on, clicked on SN.org, but could NOT proceed beyond the category. <
Then stared in disbelief at the screen which remained blank with only the basketball spinning ad infinitum; of course I gave up. Glad I made one last attempt.

I will have to concentrate some more on your insightful comments. But before I turn in, just a few thoughts :

Yes, I think it was necessary to describe the unnamed narrator's activities immediately preceding her encounter with Denoon. After all, there are not too many details.

All the people who figure in the narrative are described with infinite understanding; the author's powers of observation are marvelous indeed.

Even so, I totally agree that Ms. Pro is rather one-dimensional. She appears to be preoccupied with her mother and with having overcome certain barriers in class or whatever. (In a supposedly classless society ???) If the father was ever mentioned, I missed a reference to him, for I was too absorbed in reading as much as time allowed.

There is no hint I could detect of her more distant past or origin, to account for excamplefor the splendid knowledge of French and Latin.

Yes, she is at loose ends when the reader first meets her, and one wonders how (or why) an obviously gifted, extraordinarily perspicacious young woman could ever settle on a thesis so specific and so abstruse within a field into which few women venture. I was frankly surprised that the reviewer in the NYT piece attributed to the heroine a feeling of "sadness" and "mediocrity". I detected none of this at all.

Rather I think she is very sure of herself, egotistical to the point of being self-absorbed, and intent on getting what she wants at any cost- an opportunist in other words, not a person I would like.

Moreover, I am somewhat uncomfortable with the "setup" :

this is an obvious paean to the author's wife; I believe he wants her to be unique and so absolutely incomparable that he left her unnamed.

Still and all, it is HIS erudition, HIS splendiforous, multi-faceted, dazzling knowledge he parades before us; how seriously can we take HER voice coming from him ?

That he reports things he has actually seen and experienced while there (the Victoria falls, the parties given by influential parties, etc.) is a given, in anyone's voice.

And yes, I do very much appreciate his linguistic virtuosity and alacrity, especially the French and Latin phrases; alas, language mavens happen on false Latin quotations here on the web on a regular basis and wince :

distressing is the oft-encountered "ad nauseum" which should be ad naeuseAm. And yesterday afternoon, when I was looking for a sympathy card in the grocery store (all right, it WAS an emergency !) I saw one that said In MemoriUm ---- and left me almost in linguistic apoplexy.

Therefore it is most gratifying and linguistically refreshing to see signUM and datUM referred to in the proper singular they indeed represent, even as e.g. the plural "data" is now carelessly used as singular as a matter of course.

Regarding Jean Gabin (1904-1976):

He was a true Olympian of French cinema and famous in pre WW II Europe. Marlene Dietrich was one of his admirers, and a reputed lover. Gabin was stocky, had a rugged appearance and played French low-life characters to absolute perfection. My French aunt was a devoted fan and would take me to his movies when I visited her; but that was before our innocence ended ...

Traude

Please forgive the typos.

The words are

ad nauseam and in memoriam

In both instances the noun is feminine; the "ad" and the "in" require the accusative of the noun, hence the "am" ending.

Traude

Thanks Jane, for reminding me of her age.

Drifting yes, finding herself.

Her prelude to meeting Denoon goes back to her undergrad days when "he was a bete noire of mine". Ms Pro couldn't get into Denoon's lecture on her Stanford campus. The "scrotum tightening experience"- I thought that phrase wildly funny, expecially as it was not a male only event.

Traude: I can't remember Father being mentioned either.

~marj

Welcome Traude! So glad you could get in!

On Ms. Pro's sadness - perhaps that crying jag at Victoria falls was enough to call her sad. I agree with you, that that adjective does not describe this chutzpah-laden woman! Indeed, the crying incident was temporary insanity, I think, brought on by the splendor of the falls. Have you ever had a similar experience? I had a similar one in Tikal, Guatemala once.

ALF wondered at her field - nutritional anthropology - which sounds like a joke. Now, Traude, you're saying it's a field scantily populated by women - which makes me think it's a real field. Is it?

And aren't you spot on, Traude, about Ms. Pro's lack of a name. She is Rush's incomparable, splendid, fabulous wife, after all - how could her name be anything other than Elsa (if that weren't disallowed for obvious reasons). For some (perhaps perverse) reason, this makes me like her even less!!

MarjV - scrotum tightening experience is even funnier given that this was the woman's reaction in describing it!

The use of language here is exquisite, as many of us have remarked. So many sentences are sprinkled with words and sentiments one would never expect, or that are just FUN:

"There was full-blast camaraderie going on" (for the blacks running through Giles and Ms. Pro's part of the train to Victoria Falls)

"[Giles'] appearance was against him because he looked so clasically proconsular, with his tailored safari kit and opulent wristwatch.

"I was forced to the hypothesis that it must be the starkness and recency of the overthrow of white power here that had done something to him at the level of the lower self.

------------------------------

Ok - on to The Solar Democrat. Some obvious questions present themselves:

1. What do you think of Denoon's thesis that if Botswana could harness the power of the sun, it could free the populace up for art, science, scholarship, sport, and the "villages could be like the great universities of Europe during the dark ages (???) [and] Botswana could be a harden of beautiful villages, each one different. . . . [Botswana] could be the first nation to tell [its] children to ask themsleves what work in the world would most become their souls and to prepare to do it."

There's something viscerally attractive - and plausible - about this thesis, I think? And yet, we know it's complete hogwash at the same time. But why?

2. How do you explain Ms. Pro's attraction for Denoon? Is it pure animal instinct? An appreciation for his intellectual powers? For example, when Denoon spoke perfect Setswana (the Botswana language), she noted that "he was excellent. I said to myself You are in the presence of the extraordinary." And "He did have a more general theory, even one more difficult to capsulize. There was a suigenerism. I found this erotic. Is it erotic or not to be in the ambience of someone who offhandedly confutes the two systems that are dividing the world, is fairly convincing about it, and has in reserve something entirely his own and superior."

So is her attraction based on his intellect, his chutzpah (there's that word again), or something more physical? What IS the basis for the attraction?

Welcome to Chapter 2!!

There is always something exciting and even chemical (well, our brain does put out those things when we get excited) when two intellectuals collide. (Not the pseudo kind, but the real thing.) Tracey and Hepburn in the movies in the 40s. Actually, Hepburn and just about anybody. This was before the movies dropped the sharp-witted, sharp-talking twosome banter that was actually very smart.

Intellect alone won't attract, however. There had to have been an initial physical or chemical pull----or maybe just an absence of something that would have been a turn-off.

I did have problems with a word here or a word there that Rush gave to this woman to say; however, I just loved it that he wrote her as a very sharp person who is attracted to another sharp thinker. Hooray for that. The setting of Africa, or anywhere else but their familiar homeland, may have been the perfect setting to let a natural unfolding of a smart man and woman take place. Yes, they had historical baggage, even if we don't know what much of it is, but at least the setting offers more neutrality than the social politics of "home."

More later on "love."

From Betty

Intellect alone won't attract, however. There had to have been an initial physical or chemical pull----or maybe just an absence of something that would have been a turn-off.

Yes, Betty, there has to be something. For our Ms Pro, that something was rekindled from her Stanford days...

And I have not been able to figure why the underlined words or phrases here and there in this second section?????? I sort of got bogged down in Denoon's lecture.

~Marj

Does Denoon sound at all attractive to any of you?

It seems that people "in love" or even "in like" describe their "love/like" in glowing, flattering terms. Denoon sounds like an egotistical controller, to me. I just can't seem to connect with Ms Pro or any of the characters.

š ...jane›

Jane I agree not just in chapter 2 but throughout- Denoon does not do a thing for me- and I wondered why for 'her' as a reasonably intelligent and articulate woman. I could have swallowed better her using Denoon to get to the village rather than using the village to get to Denoon.

Solar energy and living off the grid has held the attention of many, unfortunately the whole movement has been caricatured as somewhat romantic- I wonder if that is what the author is reinforcing here- using the solar theme as a vehicle for the romantic, grasping at the could be's of life not what is. What did not sit with me- and this was the pivotal scene that ruffled my feathers for the rest of the book- is how pompous Denoon is- no one I have ever known living an alternative lifestyle, setting up or participating in an alternative community or lifestyle acted like him....oops take it back there was one guy I'd met who talked about way back when he I guess was the head honcho of a commune- there was something sinister about his motivation.

"Intellectual Love", she called it.

It is known that we are often attracted particularly to what we cannot immediately have and hold and possess, penetrate and dissect. Hers was an obsession.

It was frustrating for Ms Pro, and a lasting sting, not to have been among those who were given access to Denoon when he lectured at Stanford. (There are a few good-natured digs ...)

When she heard of his alleged presence in Africa, and in Botswana yet (!), nothing in the whole wide world could have stopped her from setting forth to reach him.

He was a most powerful magnet, and she had something to prove to herself, and him eventually.

I am looking forward to Betty's comments on love. If I may, I will say that intellectual love alone cannot sustain a relationship for whatever length of time. But I hasten to add that if there is only physical attraction and nothing else is THERE, nor can be feasibly "constructed", such a relationship is likewise doomed to failure.

I am not sure yet whether I like Denoon, and I am still trying to determine whether Grace's role in the narrative is anything more than a conduit (or a literary device), and within the context of the story.

In fact, what exactly IS the intent of the author in telling us this story ? This extraordinary love story between two exceptional people takes place after all in an exotic locale where modern-day politics play a huge role, where the art of spying for the sake of adventure and financial gain (not always for the love of country) is alive and well, and the fate of helpless innocents caught in the crossfire hangs in the balance.

When the book was written, South Africa still was still shackled by apartheid, and the reader simply marvels at Denoon's visionary (if utopian) concept.

So much more to ponder.

Traude

My last word made me think of this post scriptum :

So far the "hearsay" reporting/narrative depicts Denoon as "patient" (toward his ex-wife) and as "tactful" (toward Ms Pro).

Would it be blasphemous to see him as a bit ponderous ?

Traude

Denoon sure does have chutzpah---supreme self-confidence. Even to the point where some of his thoughts seemed a "con". In reference to the solar cities, I am thinking.

I'm starting to think in sentences similar to the author's creations.

With a smile and laughter I enjoyed the latrine incident. What a wonderful funny incident.

Purely intellectual love - maybe it is a psuedo-sophisticates way of rationalizing "the hots" for another - be it male or female. What led me to think about it this way was that Ms Pro refers often to his physicality. Opening the latrine incident she was commenting on how his mid-section looked - she says: His midsection was nice, better than I expected. I think earlieri there was reference to what type of body was hiding under his dhashki (sp?)

And then I thought I"d type "intellectual love" into Google search. There wasn't much - but a reference to Spinoza's def of intell love for God (Spinozistic Glossary and Index)

While we contemplate the world as a necessary result of the perfect Nature of God, a feeling of joy will arise in our hearts, accompanied by the idea of God as its cause. This is the intellectual love of God, which is the highest happiness { better, °PcM } man can know. { Neff LT:L34(21):336 } { Cosmic religious feeling—E5:Bk.III:258. } Bk.XIB:251.

I think a bit of Ms Pro's intellectual love characteristics touches on the above. A highest happiness for her?

Traude : A BIG THANKS! I think Denoon just a wee bit ponderous also.

~Marj

I'm still trying to sort all of this out and find some "excitement/passion" in the life of Ms Pro and what she does. It just seems as if Denoon was the newest white male to appear on the scene to her...and it gave her something to do. She may have felt a bit of "rejection" not having gotten into this seminar thing at Stanford, so that may have added a bit to this "something to do." In looking at his "midsection" she has, to me, less emotion than I've seen in people at dog shows looking at a beautiful animal. She sounds like she's inspecting beef!

š ...jane›

I draw a distinction between love and falling in love. The longevity and hard work and commitment of love is not what I'm talking about when I say falling in love. This may sound wild to you, but I think of falling in love as similar to going insane. No, really. Insane is the popular term for the medical term psychotic break----both mean out of touch with reality. The prelude to falling in love is almost as bizarre, or can be. There is something there and we go to great lengths to explain it to others, but sometimes it doesn't translate. It's just happening and it can feel as if we're powerless to prevent it.

During the actual falling in love, those first few months of bliss, there are numerous signs that one isn't in touch with reality. What may seem so dear in someone when first observed--that cute way his nose gets red when he's getting drunk--may not hold up to scrutiny a few months later. Others tried to warn us, etc., etc.

What interests me about P's tale are just those things that may not make sense to anyone else but her. What might sound so egocentric or self-involved to some may be part of Denoon's attractiveness for her. So far, I'm ok with Denoon's obsessive excitement about saving the world. Most people (like P) who have been immersed in a thesis or dissertation are true believers anyway, that what they are studying will actually make a difference in the world. How seductive someone like Denoon and his project could seem to a serious student---he's actually out there in the world making it happen, so to speak.

   A fete is an elaborate outdoor party and I loved the precise title reference, A Fete worse than Death.   I was very amused with the description of our hostess, Ariel.  Cursing was heard in every language as the human comedy unfolded for MsPro and she herself admitted " it is wrong in the real world to assume that because someone looks like a fool he or she is unintelligent."  
Haven't we all been guilty of this infraction ?  She stereotyped his wife based on her "rich skin" and her ash blond hair , feeling shabbily dressed, until she realizied that this was Dennon's wife.  Then she propelled herself forward into the Serious Men. I had the sense that she considered  herself far superior to  others.  i.e. she felt she had to help the wife before she made a spectacle of herself ;  she silently urged Denoon to become "voice activated" and critiqued his entire presentation.  Her evaluations of his speech , I might add, were weighed with knowledge.&lt

Solar Democracy sounds darned near perfect , doesn't it?  Everything under the "sun"--  free!!  Everyone could live and do as they pleased, without a care in the world, free to live a life of hedonism if so desired.  Any takers????

 

Whew okay I was going to ask Traude to help me understand intellectual love, then i read MarjV's post and of course Betty- so now I'm thinking hmmm perhaps intellectual love is being in love with the idea of love, rather than actually being in love? now I understand all those different kinds of love so i avoid addressing love and lust (or love or lust). I understand where Betty speaks of the insanity of falling in love- and it is that insanity I believe sustains the species-- has us keep falling in love. The insanity also entices us to be voyeurs and to read about it (love)- Perhaps that's what is missing from this tale, the insanity of falling in love, or if it is being told i've missed it- Where is the insanity?

I can understand and attraction to a leader, an apostle of humanizing and radical creeds, but often that attraction is passionate, dangerous, something about the essence of the attraction titilates- So far this relationship is way too academic (rather than intellectual) for my tastes- and as an 'academic' i am not applying the label as a put down, just noting the difference between an academic (noun and adjective) and intellectual (noun and adjective) approach to situations.

Where is the insanity? That trek across the desert comes close, for me, although I DO know you're referencing another kind, that of weak knees, loss of sleep, pounding heart.

Intellectual love. Hmm, I guess we could go 'round and 'round with this, but I've often been drawn in, attracted to the thinker, the one who challenges my brain. A first date, for example....there's no greater turn-on than a serious, talk-into-the-wee-hours, passionate exchange of ideas. Spare me the linen napkins and menus without prices. Take me to a place where we can pound on the table and laugh out loud.

So many great points.

I'm not sure I know what intellectual love is. I'd be curious, MarjV, of your definition, and if/how it differs from Spinoza's. I assumed you meant love based on a meeting of the minds, on being intellectually stimulated by another, but I suspect that's not what you meant at all.

...jane - while I find it hard to picture Denoon as attractive, let's assume he really is attractive. I can never picture characters in books, but what if we think of Denoon as a Bill Clinton/early Marlon Brando/__________ [fill in the blank] type - big head (both literally and figuratively), great intellect, charisma, chutzpah (even in the face of loud criticism: "So far Denoon was impressing me with his performance of absolute repose in the midst of turbulence"), a great voice, and a huge ego. Aren't a lot of people - not just women - "attracted" to (at least drawn to) people like that? Maybe not sensible us (although I certainly had brushes with such people as a younger woman), but I think a lot of women would be drawn to him. There's an air of mystery to his project - only a spy (Z) has many details about Tsau.

I agree with Betty here that someone like this would seem seductive - especially since he was living, rather than simply thinking about - his thesis. (As we go along we'll discuss how well he's really living it, of course!)

A question, Betty, about something else you said. "During the actual falling in love, those first few months of bliss, there are numerous signs that one isn't in touch with reality. What may seem so dear in someone when first observed--that cute way his nose gets red when he's getting drunk--may not hold up to scrutiny a few months later. Others tried to warn us, etc., etc. " Are you saying that the obsession of "falling in love" is blind? That when we fall in love, we're actually setting ourselves up for a fall? That one doesn't fall in love in the "insane" way you describe with a truly good person, but only with the type of person whose cute red nose actually signals his constant drunkenness?

Is such "falling in love" just, as Yili describes, an "attraction to a leader, an apostle of humanizing and radical creeds [which] . . . attraction [often] is passionate [and] dangerous . . .?

It's odd that Ms. Pro thought of Denoon as a bete noire from her experience missing his talk when she was at Stanford. Why bete noire? Why not someone she idolized if she was this eager to extract details about him from Z, to meet him at the party?

ALF, I too enjoyed the description of the party Ariel gave - the hot wind, floodlights, scant food, the fact that "there was a feeling against Ariel across the board for underentertaining." The chinoiserie, the Chow-Chow dog in the air conditioned room. The description of the scene as having a "mad hatter tenor" is perfect. And Ms. Pro, in this setting, has a bit of Alice in Wonderland to her, don't you think?

Someone awhile back (...jane?) also asked about Grace, and how she mattered to the story. Didn't Grace's squirrely, timid nature make Ms. Pro feel superior to her? It seems to me that if Grace had been more formidable, Ms. Pro wouldn't have moved in on Denoon so quickly. The opportunist in Ms. Pro took advantage of Grace's weakness, I think.

ALF and Yili seem pretty unconvinced by Denoon's solar democracy ideas. They may be romantic - like living off the grid, as Yili puts it - and even hedonistic - but they are certainly not serious ideas.

Do you think Denoon is serious about them? Does he believe what he's preaching - or is he just so full of bull that he'll say anything? I can't quite decide yet!

Sarah, you asked about my reference to that first few months of bliss, the falling in love period, and if we are always setting ourselves up for a fall---is it never with a good person, etc. I was only saying that it's later when our feet are back on the ground that we can judge how things really are with this other person, that our judgment during the first few months isn't altogether reliable. It is only later that we both stop spending an hour deciding what to wear. All the extraordinary effort coming from both may not represent real life. Real life includes taking out the garbage and balancing checkbooks and facing the unexpected. I believe it is after the first few months that the truly good person, as you named it, can be seen. How does he (or she) behave, say, after 8 months and you are ill or tired or upset about work.

Sarahsays: "I'm not sure I know what intellectual love is. I'd be curious, MarjV, of your definition, and if/how it differs from Spinoza's. I assumed you meant love based on a meeting of the minds, on being intellectually stimulated by another, but I suspect that's not what you meant at all. "

I'm thinking meeting of the minds. And I was wanting to find some other thoughts on the matter.

And like Betty says : "Intellectual love. Hmm, I guess we could go 'round and 'round with this, but I've often been drawn in, attracted to the thinker, the one who challenges my brain. A first date, for example....there's no greater turn-on than a serious, talk-into-the-wee-hours, passionate exchange of ideas. Spare me the linen napkins and menus without prices. Take me to a place where we can pound on the table and laugh out loud."

I can sure remember getting really excited by that kind of thing now that I am reading and reflecting on the posts. And it sure is "dangerous", YiLi. I feel some experiences in that vein somewhere in my memory.

Yes, I agree that Fete was well done. You could feel the heat and see the sweat.

Sarah says: "It's odd that Ms. Pro thought of Denoon as a bete noire from her experience missing his talk when she was at Stanford. Why bete noire? Why not someone she idolized if she was this eager to extract details about him from Z, to meet him at the party". Puzzling to me also.

That ride thru the desert --- I can remember doing all manner of very difficult things just because I was excited about the end; the difficulty of the means drifted on by, didn't even matter.

~Marj

Yes Betty,

there are many types of love and one of them can seem, IS, sheer madness.

As for intellectual love, I took that to mean that Pro was attracted to his mind, i.e. his intellectual capacity, first and foremost. That was the challenge for her because she felt perfectly able to understand what he was "all about", and more than willing to share in equal measure. There was no self-consciousness in her determination at all, and THAT much confidence made me a little uncomfortable, I must confess.

Earlier Sarah (I think) said that it seems as though the two, Denoon and Ms Pro, form the ideal: two halves that complement each other to form a perfect unit.

Any unit whether perfect or not will eventually include also the physical aspects, and we already know she has noticed his midsection ...

She is of course quite believable and very real, the prototype of a go-getter, an opportunist, as we see her striding on her long legs, supremely self-assured and ever purposeful.

It will be interesting to see the interaction and who of the two turns out to be stronger. And whether the ideal can be sustained.

Traude

Yes Betty,

there are many types of love and one of them can seem, IS, sheer madness.

As for intellectual love, I took that to mean that Pro was attracted to his mind, i.e. his intellectual capacity, first and foremost. That was the challenge for her because she felt perfectly able to understand what he was "all about", and more than willing to share in equal measure. There was no self consciousness in her determination, and that made he a little uncomfortable.

Earlier Sarah (I think) said that it seems as though the two, Denoon and Ms Pro, form the ideal: two halves that complement each other to form a perfect unit.

Any unit whether perfect or not will eventually include also the physical aspects, and we already know she has noticed his midsection ...

She is of course quite believable and very real, the prototype of a go-getter, an opportunist, as we see her striding on her long legs, supremely self-assured and purposeful.

It will be interesting to see the interaction and who turns out to be stronger. And whether any ideal can be sustained.

Traude



Traude

It just tickles me that we are here attempting to explain the age old concept of what "love" is. I took a stab at it myself and this is roughly where I got.

description of love -- Heavelnly vs. earthly? Is love a God, glowing in the heavens? -is it an ancient god or a new one

scientific god? or a divine poet ?

why are souls attracted to human beauty

Is it all embracing?

different kinds of love i.e. familial, romantic

good for you or bad for you

is it necessary for you? all embracing?

Beloved vs. lover

give praises of love

expressions of love

poetry

are you seeking the best of self as ones own attraction must be eclipsed

selection of lover

beauty exchanged for beauty (or here- intellect/ for intellect)

Needless to say, I can not keep ONE thought going for more than a sentence when another pops into my mind. Are we all this way? Do we all believe that we are in understanding of this vague emotion? I am perplexed and can't get past these ruminations. Perhaps it is because I am ovrwhelmed with love stories I have the need to perceive and explain.

Sheer madness (Betty) vs. intellectual love (Marj). Good for you vs. bad for you (ALF) or dangerous (Yili). No self consciousness (Traude). So many versions of love - and I can't quite figure out what Ms. Pro really feels here for Denoon. I do feel that her OWN needs are driving her "love," rather than something completely external that fell into her lap. By that I mean - she was primed for an experience such as this. Everything about her was working up to an obsession - she was idle, finding little stimulation in "Gabs," bored, horny, tired of dull pretty men, or older needy men. Denoon dropped into her life to fill a void.

Before, as Traude notes, we see the interaction between these two halves, we have a bit more prelude.

For example, Ms. Pro has one last encounter with the drunken Grace, who discloses Denoon's location in a last ditch display of bitterness. Do you find Grace to be an utter cariacature? And what does it say about Denoon that he was once with such a woman? There is something very maddening about the way Rush portrays this character - a thin, always pulled together, drunken, vindictive, pathetic shrew. It irks me - and Ms. Pro's opportunism in using Grace's drunkeness to extract details about Denoon is also maddening.

When I first read this book, I wasn't nearly as turned off by these lead characters. I found them fascinating (of course I was Ms Pro's age when I first read the book). Now there's a part of me that finds them both execrable!

Next, Ms Pro beings ruminating on whether she is drawn to Denoon because of some biological need to bear children. This too feels a bit like a late 80s stereotype - the 30-something woman agonizing about childbirth, thinking of artificial insemination, of "becoming" a lesbian even though she has no inclination in this diretion. Again this feels like a cariacature of 30-somethings felt during that period.

And what do you think of Ms Pro's musings on the Franciscan women she encounters in Kang at the end of her crazy truck trip? "[T]he heavy work of this remote mission was being done exclusively by very nice women. . . . Even when a woman gets her own order authorized, like Mother Theresa, it's women who end up doing the cooking, cleaning and nursing and little detachments of men who get to do the fun proselytizing. True?

----------------

We'll move on to one of my favorite parts of the book tomorrow - My Expedition. It's short but chock full of adventures.

This is probably a good time, therefore, to reflect not only on the questions that have gone before about Section 2, and the new questions above, but also on anything else about Section 2 that intrigued you.

Oh yes to your last question, Sarah.

The basic "stuff" still falls to the women, women anywhere, everywhere, the religious not excepted.

Back later Traude

I fumed at the phrase > very nice women < re the nuns at Kang.. Didn't seem to fit Rush's descriptions thru anyones mouth thus far.

Grace is really a mess. That character (forget his name) that she became obsessed with. Phew!

Love is giving freedom (adding to our love list).

~Marj ~Marj

Hmmm...wonder if Grace was a mess when Denoon married her...and would he have, given his ego, if she had been...or has she become a mess since being married to him?

š ...jane›

MarjV, I agree with you.

That description is not felicitous. (I have misgivings when I hear something or someone described as "nice" , but perhaps that is my problem.)

It has occurred to me that I am taking some of this too literally, too seriously, for there are comic elements to be sure. Nothing uproariously funny, of course, but not everything is so "bloody" serious (an English expression).

We will have to see whether the feminine voice can be credibly sustained throughout. In any event, the author clearly has an enviable, encyclopedic knowledge of many fields of endeavor (I wonder what HIS is) that is truly stupefying.

We will see what we learn from the next chapter.

Traude

I know we are moving forward- bur Sarah just wanted to commment on your question of whether Denoon is serious about solar democracy or anything- perhaps that is a very important question, especially for those of us a bit skeptical about Denoon- is his quest, his vision really serious or some gambit to achieve another goal?

YiLiLin,

from what I have read so far I must believe that Denoon was absolutely serious, and frankly, I cannot believe he had what one might call "ulterior motives" or selfish goals. "So far" are the operative words here, though.

Happy reading, Traude

This is an absorbing chapter.

The reader is propelled and amazed by Pro's singular purpose, doggedly and successfuly pursued despite the loss of one of her beasts of burden.

What an incredible undertaking for a woman alone - who builds a campfire every night and thethers herself to the remaining four-footed friend !

I find the vocabulary often breath-taking and keep the dictionary close by.

Traude

Do you think Ms. Pro acted precipitously in heading into the desert in this way?

Why did she do it?

There is something akin to a "Heart of Darkness" quality to this portion of the book. As she ventures further into the desert, things become stranger and more surreal. What, for example, happened in the dead place that scared off one of the donkeys? What was that place?

Does the journey fit this character? I see her as someone with polished nails, long hair she fusses over, a need for tweezers and a mirror, and an obsession with weight. This does not sound like the kind of woman who would make the decision to do something so tough. What in her character drove her to undertake this dangerous journey? What in her circumstances just prior to taking it?

Do you find her journey humorous? I agree with you, Traude, that we must not fall into the trap of taking the story too seriously. Much of it is hilarious. I remember the trip across the Kalahari from my reading of the book 10 years ago because it was so absurd.

Aha- heart of darkness- yes. what a great observation, thank you. Traude, funny how we always note our unique viewpoints and perceptions on these discussion- but something about Denoon just does not sit right with me- maybe it is not really Denoon himself, perhaps I don't seem him worth the trek, for example, as an outside observer- but then again I have fallen head over in the past and probably would have trekked for 'lesser' men so labelled by objective others. But I bet if I had the book handy to reread portions, I would find something I missed that would either redeem Denoon or give me a better glimpse of what is going on emotionally with both characters.

I think the title Expedition is quite telling.

Polished nails, etc.? No, I didn't see P that way. I thought of her as someone who already had been out in the field, the bush?, attempting her former research project, someone familiar with out of the way African landscapes. Of course, she did act stupidly, rashly, to begin this solo trek across a desert---not even informing another person where she would be---and revealing how inadequate her plans and provisions. And, yet, I loved this part, felt a kinship with her willingness to take great risks. It reminded me of Karen Blixen delivering supplies to her husband's regiment---across a dangerous African desert (Out of Africa).

this is not a thorough, nor an exhaustive reply, and I apologize.

Quickly then, to Sarah's questions :

Was Pro's journey through the Kalahari Desert precipitous ?

Well, whatever the definition of the word - and add to that 'impetuous', I believe Pro was meticulous in her preparations (as described) and had firm control of all possible contingencies. Of course her inner voice may have told her to strike the iron while it was hot ...

In answer to "why" (the journey across the desert), I would have to say : because she was attracted to the man, the scholar, his irresistible magnetism, in short the very IDEA of him, and could not have done otherwise.

Was Pro's journey in character ? In character for an anthropologist ? I am not sure.

I think of Margaret Meade when anthropologists are mentioned. Long nails do not enter my mental picture, even for her latter-day disciples, few as they may be.

Traude

Back later<

I don't know where I came up with the painted nails idea. I may be projecting (I have long hair, and painted my nails recently!! Ugh, wouldn't it be awful if I see myself 10 years ago as Ms. Pro. It never dawned on me that I might! Horrors!).

But I don't see Ms. Pro as rugged at all - that's simply not the image I see in my head of her. For example, Traude, I was struck by your impression that Ms. Pro prepared for all contingencies before undertaking a walk ON FOOT across the desert. She had a map of water sources - but it was very old, and, she knew, possibly unreliable. She had a lot of vague ideas about lion behavior, but most of it was based on surmise. Her complete education about lions appears to have come from the lion man, a bar character she bought drinks for in Gabarone. Although it's probably absurd to hold it against her, she had no idea of the equivalent of "here kitty kitty" for donkeys - so when Mmo cantered out of sight at the dead place, she had no idea how to call him back. She had failed to bring gloves of any kind for the journey.

I thought her impressions of her journey were right on when she said "Then I impressed on myself that if I died there, no one in his right mind would regard it as a tragedy. I would be in the category of an aerialist falling to her dealth. Or I would be entitled to the species of commiseration people get who show up at parties on crutches but who got injured skiing at Gstaad or some other upper-middleclass earthly paradise. It would be sad but not that sad."

hahaha. I laughed out loud when I read that.

Yili said "Sarah just wanted to commment on your question of whether Denoon is serious about solar democracy or anything- perhaps that is a very important question, especially for those of us a bit skeptical about Denoon- is his quest, his vision really serious or some gambit to achieve another goal?"

What do you all think? We learn, for example, during My Expedition, that Nelson was the sort of child who goaded his younger brother into ridiculing himself. The games are actually quite funny and typical of what older siblings probably do to their younger, more naive siblings the world over. For example, Nelson would propose to Peter that they each have the power to name the other's firstborn. Peter wold always quickly pick a not very awful name, and Nelson would win the game every time - e.g., when Peter was forced to accept naming his firstborn Dong. Ms. Pro states not only that after hearing of these games she "felt fortunate having no siblings," but also that she "was seeing the true vortex of oppression."

What else do we know about Denoon? What is is class background? (We know Ms. Pro is working class - we learn this partly from her frustration with her inability to call donkey Mmo back when he runs. "I even took time to stupefy myself with a moment or two of class rage. I could never have been one of those adolescent girls who deified the horse family. You had to have money for that. If I had ever been exposed to horses for more than ten minutes in my life I might have had a better idea of what to do now or what I should have avoided doing that led my boy to bolt. . . ."

Is Denoon working class? Do these two have anything in common? I don't know that I understand the type of man who builds a "utopia" in the desert. I'm not sure we know enough about him to know what drove him to do it.

As ...jane points out, Grace is a mess and doesn't explain much about what drove Denoon to do what he did.

I am struggling with what motivates both of these smart, somewhat screwed up people. Can you help?

------- By the way, I'll be out of town this weekend. I look forward to reading your answers when I return Monday!

Yes, Betty, that did remind me also of the Karen Blixen trek for her husband.

I think we can do these manner of "things" blindly, as Ms Pro, seemed to do it. Especially when younger. She did have background in Africa, she did have a sense of what she needed.

I'm thinking of people who take ocean voyages these days in their sailboat, alone. Tho of course, they have radios to keep in contact. She had no contact. She left no one her plans. She went. She wanted Denoon. Obsession.

I like the vividness descriptions of this whole section. And I shivered in the "gray" place.

Smiled there at the end when she wants Denoon to know she is there. Barely before she recovered physically.

!Marj

The line there about Ms Pro pondering the caregivers name as being "mother of...." rather than a name of her own. And our author has not given us a hint of Ms Pros name.

To me, that was like a gritting noise. If Denoon is supposed to be so enlightened and liberal, then how come one of his "women" of the village is so 'unnamed'. Maybe that will come to light later in the book.

~Marj

ps----love this discussion. It is a small enough group so everyone is interacting. Plus it is moving along at an excellent pace. Happy Saturday the 13th.

My 2¢ on My Expedition...it sounds to me like a teenage girl chasing off after the "trophy" high school hero, but Ms Pro still lacks the passion I associate with being "in love" with a person. It is, as several have indicated, more an obsession perhaps.

I'm again struck by her ego ...blame to her mother, again... this time for not having provided her with access to the "horsey set"...and all I could think of was...good grief, you're 32, never apparently gainfully employed, still a student on the last leg of the Ph.D trail, and somehow it's her Mother's fault the donkey got away.

I'm anxious to see/hear more of Denoon and am hoping it will be "real time" so I can hear him for myself. For the present, he's on my "Academic Fruitcake" list [and Ms Pro may be looking to get herself a spot there as well.(grin)]

"Academic Fruitcake" list ... with no authority or expertise to judge... I really agree with jane... And I think Ms Pro is already on the list..

How can a grown person, 32, (educated???) exercise such poor common sense to go trekking across a desert to satisfy a whim?

Motivate! yes that's it- and putting that together with Pat's post I have at least identified something for myself- the actions of these characters don't quite gel with what I see as a lack of passion. They engage in these "out of mind" type actions but the overall presentation of them does not suggest people of great passion, looking at the world throught their eyes all seems rather controlled- even nature- and of course Tsau- an aha moment Tsau is control. So a Ms P did not reveal aspects of herself that would suggest the foolhardy trek across the desert and she is not even one of those British characters acting out in the colonies like we see in Passage to India or the muddled type like we see in Iris Murdoch's work. She is an American, after all, university "type" or not, in my mind when american women do this sort of thing they are 'blindly, madly, follheartedly' chasing after the likes of Antonio Banderas or Steve McQueen. I could have believed her trek if she were chasing someone quite miscast or out of type for her. Therein lies the love's madness.

Whoops I see I jumped ahead when I made my second comment above. I'll say it again when we go to the next section.

I will have to agree about the trek. Just didn't seem real. Even thinking of it in fun.

The other thought I had was of the symbolism of the different stages. Such as the gray place. Or the nadir. etc. Maybe analogous to a life journey???? I don't know.

And there wasn't a clear explanation , really, about those markers into Tsau. Maybe later in the book?????

If we hear word from Denoon eventually. HOpefully it won't be as dull as I thought his words back at that lecture-meeting place. ~Marj

32 is about the right age to do something wild but determined, planned but not precisely, with conviction but not too much wisdom.

I've done similar things. Not across a desert, but down the Colorado River in a canoe from Austin to ____ (next tiny town?), about 18 miles. The guy I was with was charming but a bit flaky on schedules and clocks---he thought we'd arrive just before sunset. Well, we were on that river 3 hours after dark, a dark so complete I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. We were truly in danger. John got out and towed the boat in many places after we hit sand bars. Once he didn't answer me---he'd stepped off into a depth of water and gone under for a moment. (What would I have done if he'd disappeared? Who knows--I was wearing leg braces at the time and needed help getting in and out of the canoe.) It was spring. There were snakes. There were low hanging branches that we couldn't see---one bonked me on the forehead, but it was a glancing blow. (I was purple the next day, then yellow for days.) I was terrified, but handled it better than I would have guessed. I sang. Every song I've ever known. Rock and roll. Hymns. Childhood songs. Bus songs. Michael Rowed the Boat Ashore...was a hit. We sang and nervously giggled through that one.

When we spotted lights in the distance--the town--then made it to the little camping dock, the physical and emotional high surpassed anything I had ever experienced. We'd made it!!! We had camping gear with us, but decided on a nearby cafe instead of cooking over a fire, but we did cook (melt?) smores later. (Smores? gives you an idea of our level of river camping sophistication.) After a shower at a nicely outfitted camping facility, we set up our tent, then sat in front of an outdoor fire under tall East Texas pine trees, sipping cold beer and marveling that we were safe. I loved doing the whole thing and I love the memory of it.

32 or 62, it matters not!  The only thought that she gave this trip was how long it would take her to arrive in Tsau.  Throwing  caution to that winds , she leaves Kang because of the cloudy water and begins her trek,  allfor the sake of a "man."  I loved the correlation between her sunglasses and her inability to see the real colours of the Kalahari as she pushed her sunglasses atop her head pondering brain chemistry.  (intellectual or scientific?) She proceeds to muse of the true and fundamental color of nature as she realizes, deep in the desert, she was  "in over her head."

The hunchbacks theory that there is "less to the mysterious than meets the eye" carries her through.  Interpret nothing, she reminds herself, as her own "music calms the savage beast" within herself.  I can relate to that.  When I am alarmed or dismayed, I often sing little ditties.  If I am experiencing pain or discomfort, I hum. Disquiet settles itself somehow with the sound of music, doesn't it?  Music is such a wonderful form of expression, I could actually visualize myself treking thru the Kalahari, scared to death and "whistling a little tune."

I was thoroughly amused that she suffered over losing her mirror. It was on the mule that ran away. Then, I remembered that the author was male and couldn't decide how I felt about the mirror episode. Then, someone here told us that the author's wife had a part in checking gender voice, so I'm not back to square one, but almost. I'm not sure what to do with the information about the author's wife, anyway. Maybe it's nothing different than learning that someone had an editor assigned to him by a publisher.

How eloquently you described that, Betty : wild but determined, planned but not precisely..." And you too, Alf.

"meticulously" was not what I meant in my post the other day.

She really did not have a perfected plan. And for someone of superior intelligence, which is stressed over and over, she was remarkably oblivious of, and uninterested in, the very real dangers lurking ahea in the desert.

No longer simply intellectually (!!!) attracted to the man, she just wanted to get going, to GET there. The preparations were woefully inadequate (no gloves !)-- and shouldn't an anthropologist in particular know better ???

She HEARD what the lion man said but dismissed it without another thought. Didn't think it applied to her. Marching on undeterred ...

I have been in that condition-- once or twice...

Traude

Betty: what a neat tale of your river experience. Thanks!!!!

The business abaout our author's wife checking gender voice was in a link above that Sarah posted. - the study guide article.

~Marj

Betty - that is a great story! I won't embarrass myself with the much more foolish things I did at 32, but I can completely relate. Of course, I could relate even more completely if they were talking about what I did at 22. Somehow, I can forgive the 22 year old Sarah much more easily than I can the 32 year old! We should know better by then, shouldn't we? Or are we simply trying to recapture a lost sense of adolescence, of feeling invincible? I think that explains a lot of what I did at 32. At 22 you can call up complete strangers in third world countries, stay with them for 3 months, not even consider bringing a hostess gift (shoot, I didn't even know what that was), take a 20 mile hike with no water and bad shoes, stay up all night drinking some strange liquor and eating ceviche (raw fish in lemon with herbs) - and never blink an eye. Mirror, a comb, tweezers - irrelevant! At 32, you WISH you could be so free again. (At 42, you begin actually feeling free again.) What about 52 and 62??

Sorry, Traude, if I trampled all over your use of the word "meticulously"!! Sounds like we both agree Ms. Pro's trip was pretty flaky.

Yili talks about this not being a quest for someone fabulous like Antonio Banderas or Steve McQueen, and jane talks about how boring Nelson was. Precisely!! And the lack of passion these characters seem to feel! Yes! Is this just supposed to be a funny story about passionless people who do silly things? Or is Rush striving for something great here - and does the lack of passion undercut it?

Marj and Betty both talk about the gender issues (have no fear, Marj, we're almost to the Tsau section so your comment about Ms. Pro's caretaker, who was named "___'s Mother" is apt. Do you find yourself doing what Betty does throughout the book - being entertained by this woman's thoughts, or startled by them, or somehow reactive to them; then stopping and realizing this is a man writing, then getting offended, or being impressed with his insight, or appalled by his machismo; and then stopping again and wondering about his wife's influence (whatever it may have been). That's EXACTLY what happens to me with much of this book. I keep changing my mind about whether I'm outraged - or enchanted - by what Ms Pro thinks. I can relate to her innermost thoughts a LOT, but her deeds are completely flaky and weird. So - the woman's voice inside her often "works" for me - but the outer (male?) actions mystify me.

Where have we felt this before? I'm certain there was another book much like this one in its ability to inspire ambivalence in me (and the other readers).

Good to have you back, Sarah.

Forgot to reply to a comment made earlier; Ms Pro's report on the mind "games" Nelson played with his younger brother and how she told him that she was glad she did not have siblings.

No wonder ! One can only shake one's head at such nastiness; the grown man still remembers them, is he actually proud ? How immature !

Can't remember his background, have to go back and check.

But first I have to clear my desk; I can't find a thing anymore under all the layers...

Traude

As to your question, Sarah. I find myself alternating about how I feel with this young woman. Sometimes the whole scenario seems stupid and ridiulous. Other times I get a feeling of the challenges you could take up when younger.

I do enjoy descriptions of the land, etc. The section with the Nadir, the trail markers, the glass object tinkling.

Now I"ll repost my comment on the beginning of our new section----

The line there about Ms Pro pondering the caregivers name as being "mother of...." rather than a name of her own. And our author has not given us a hint of Ms Pros name.

To me, that was like a gritting noise. If Denoon is supposed to be so enlightened and liberal, then how come one of his "women" of the village is so 'unnamed'. Maybe that will come to light later in the book.

Looking forward to chomping on this Tsau section ~Marj

Personally, I can relate to MsPro. Her whimsical and entertaining thoughts abound. She flits from one thing to another without hesitation. She reminds me of Holly Golightly, my favorite character. She ignores the past and chases her tail in search of the "ultimate." (whatever that may be, on that day.) I have the sense that she will "get there" she will find her way , when all is said and done. She sabotages herself, doesn't she? Haven't we all done that? I have always told my kids that they had until they were 35 yrs. old to extract their heads out, from you know where. If they couldn't accomplish that by the age of 35 they would never get there. Will MsPro make it?

Such good questions to start off the discussion of the "Tsau" section of the book, ALF. Will Ms. Pro make it? Will she make it at Tsau? I already have a feeling she will run into trouble.

First, she cannot reveal her true purpose for being there - but rather has to lie about being an ornithologist (which is really quite funny).

Second, she finds herself wanting to be alone despite the fact that much of the community socializes almost to excess.

Third, she is white, and obviously an outsider who, from the start, is told she cannot stay indefinitely.

I do love the descriptions of the land too, Marj. The variety of food is astounding, the ornamentation the community places on even the most mundane of objects - on tool handles and the sides of pushcart wheels, in the privy. The pains to which the community goes to save and store water. The communal cooperation in covering machines and devices from sand storms. The matrilineal property ownership. All of it is very enticing.

But don't you feel a sense of unease about what is to come, and Ms. Pro's ability to deal with it?

And about the influence of Denoon's bad childhood experiences - his drunken father destroying his glass bottle creation - on the way the community lives. The vitrophilia, of course, is the obvious Denoon-ism in the community. But the strictness also seems to come from Denoon's own chaotic childhood. Doesn't this community have something of a Jim Jones/Guyana feel to it?

So, some questions:

1. What are your impressions of Tsau? Are you charmed, enchanted - or worried, turned off? Would you like to spend time at Tsau (what we now know of it)?

2. Is Denoon's obvious influence here troubling? What in Denoon's childhood has caused him to create this community?

3. Is the emphasis on women contrived? Do they really have any power, or is Denoon actually in charge?

4. What do you think of Ms. Pro's relationship to Tsau, the women in it, and Denoon?

5. Did she make the right choice by coming across the Kalahari?

6. What do you think of the concept of the community's banding together to defend itself against sand storms and germs and to preserve water. As Ms Pro observes: "It is perfectly to be expected that you will be shouted at from the next yard or the street if someone notices you being remiss. When you come to Tsau you take a virtual oath to do this faithfully. Is all this a tonic thing or not? Would you tend to wear down over time? Compare this to living at a less comfortable level but in a condition where you are free of the obligation to become part of a collective self-defense system every time a bell rings. Or does that generate feelings of connection you can only get in some such way?"

About Tsau, anything that is too structured, too clock-bound, too organized----especially if there is an implied "goodness"---makes me nervous. Jim Jones, of course.

Even if Denoon's initial vision of Tsau was authentic (pure?), there were not enough individual freedoms built in---or that's my first impression, anyway.

Betty says:

Even if Denoon's initial vision of Tsau was authentic (pure?), there were not enough individual freedoms built in---or that's my first impression, anyway.

My first impression, having read only a portion, is that these women have come from less than nothing to having something. They now have land that is in their name. An ownership. A life to stand tall in.

I laughed at the hints of individualism --- how they disagree at meetings over rules.

~Marj

Whatever we feel about the characters (and I for one am ambivalent about the two main protagonists), we cannot help but admire the tremendous scope of this story, and the magnificent, clearly informed descriptions of the locale, frightening as they are-- in reality and in their implications.

I am not far enough into the new chapter to respond to Sarah's penetrating questions now, other than in a very general way (which is not much help).

Later Traude

I am taking MsPro to the Turk/Caicos with me in the morning. I will probably be out of touch until next week. Enjoy the read, I will miss your passionate observations.

Andrea

The more I get into this chapter (Tsau), the more amazed I am. We are given a minute description of life and activities in Tsau, that is almost overwhelming in its thoroughness.

Take the Journals. They may well be notes the author has made himself over time when he lived in Botswana (for 5 years, I believe). The attire of the women is described exceedingly well, as are the materials from which the clothing is made.

The technical details of recycling, water conversation, irrigation, solar energy sound authentic enough, but are they ? I mean, how could they be ? The concept, while utopian, might well be feasible (at least to some degree) - provided certain prerequisites are met and the execution of all plans is relentless and constant and has the unstinting participation of all. But is that, could that be, a given ?

Traude

I sighed as I finished that section. So full. And I also thought Phew! the bedding down finally happened.

Yes, the journals. I thought that was a great technique to use in that section. So much material could be told to us.

The references to Ms Pro's mom were quite numerous. I don't know that I ever thought-referenced to my mother that often. I have a next door neighbor,almost 30, who brings mom into reference almost every lengthy conversation.

Erotic section - yes! ~Marj

There is a strange preoccupation with the mother very apparent early on in the text. The narrator wants nothing so much as to get away from anything her (his ???) mother represents and likes.

There is no closeness, and none is sought by the narrator. In fact, it is studiously avoided.

Of course we don't know whether the author had this weird relationship with HIS mother or whether this reflects the narrator's (Ms Prom's) viewpoint.

One more irritating point (for me): the repetitive use of "id est" in the preceding chapter; I was tempted to count ---- but thought it would be petty and therefore did not.

Given my training, I greatly enjoy linguistic puns and don't mind the use of Latin or any other foreign words/phrases -- though I am aware of very strong objections from readers when such words/phrases remain untranslated -- I HAVE wondered whether the author is showing off -- oh well, a little !

Traude

Having no latin background, the linguisitc puns got very tiring for me. Some I can figure from the context. Traude, I am inclined to agree...maybe he is showing off.

I was looking to definie "ululate". Since our Ms Pro talks of the villagers doing that often and that she didn't try to participate. I had always thought it was a tongue rolling sound...I find the definition is

From Rogert'sII 1. To utter or emit a long, mournful, plaintive sound: bay2, howl, moan, wail, yowl Ululate derives from Latin ululare, to howl, to yell, ultimately of imitative origin. The noun form is ululation; the adjective form is ululant.

So glad you're keeping up the pace, folks! I'm down with flu but hope to reemerge in next day or so.

Sarah...TAKE care of yourself...and we'll all muddle along here... until you're well and back....

I've heard that ululating (sp?), I think...on news broadcasts, etc...strange sound and I'd think would be hard to learn...like yodeling or the "wail" of the Middle Eastern women.

I read about how the town was built...by the big contractors and then these women were brought in...and really apparenly had no say in anything about the construction, etc. I was reminded of those early US cities...the "planned communities." It also sounded like the planning was all done by men (or Denoon????) from the references to where the wash house and community kitchen were located.

I don't have a problem with the call for group action when it rains...to collect the water...protect what they have from hail, etc. The seems to me to be comparable to the US's "provide for the common defense," and similar to volunteer firedepartments, etc. where all rally against a threat or for the common good.

As the rest of you have mentioned, I still have a problem with Ms Pro and her references/blame to the apparently obese mother of whom she seems to be ashamed and to whom she attributes all her perceived shortcomings or failures.

š ...jane›

Sarah,

so sorry to hear you have the flu -- please get as much rest as you can and concentrate only on getting well. We'll hold the fort.

Here in the NE we are reading with some alarm of the deliberate power outages in selected northern CA areas, designed to counteract (if that is the appropriate word) the calamitous power supply situation in the state. I hope a solution to this vexing problem can be found, soon.

Traude

Traude, The Utility problems in this country are mismanagement, Greed and may backfire on them. It is a sore spot with me, can you tell?

Just stopping by to say hello.

Sarah, My thoughts are with you.

Ginger

I must confess I haven't read "Mating," but I have read "Whites---Stories" by Norman Rush, and I must say I enjoyed these very much. The author made the area of Botswana come alive, and he shows a wry understanding of white diplomats and businessmen. His writing is powerful and original, and I'm sure "Mating" is all of these, too!

Get well soon, dear Sarah!

Lorrie

Lorrie, thank you for coming in. I hope Sarah is begining to feel better.

Printed on the back cover of MATING are excerpts from 7 highly complimentary reviews of Rush's WHITES; the last one, by Leslie Marmon Silko, of The New York Times Book Review, reads :

<< I hope he will deliver us a novel soon. >>

Well, the novel is MATING and we are discussing it. It is an extraordinary story, also about Botswana, and about exceptional people, in sum- a book of astonishing breadth and depth and, frankly, quite demanding.

In this day and age one does not often find such writing skills combined with an encyclopedic knowledge in a wide variety of esoteric subjects from science to literature (political and otherwise), religious beliefs or the lack of same, and much much more.

The author provides his own linguistic creations, re-creations and reformulations of familiar words, and I find them all delightful.

We have puzzled over the fact that the story is narrated by a woman, that she remains stubbornly unnamed, and that she is - we read in reviews - drawn after the author's wife. I have felt a great deal of ambivalence about this, and I admit that I would feel better had I NOT been told the narrator is drawn after the author's wife. But that may well be my problem.

We also have wondered just where the author is "going with" the story, but we may not come up with an answer until the very end, when the scales might fall from our eyes-- or so we hope. Another question concerns humor. Is the book humorous, we wonder.

Well, after finishing this week's assignment, it occurred to me that some of the questions are really quite simple : The title says it all. MATING. That's what it is ultimately about.

In the body of this adventuresome tale about the (fictive) creation of a utopian society in Botswana there are ample ruminations about life and about people : how they find each other, how they interact, and react to life around them, the daily grind, through thick and thin despite flaws and foibles; what keeps people together; about love in its guises, and about the end of an affair.

I am not sure the book is intentionally funny, but there is some humor, inadvertent perhaps, and involuntaryas it were, and that is often true even in the saddest circumstances.

BTW, much needed information about Nelson's ex-wife Grace is provided on pp 262-263. Ms Pro (as we have decided to call the unnamed narrator) is quite proprietary there, and shows some surprising jealousy (also vis-a-vis Dineo e.g.).

Sending a hello to all of you and hoping Sar

... and hoping Sarah is on the mend.

Traude

Traude...I haven't had much luck finding anything humorous in this story. At the moment the only thing I can think of that struck me as a bit humorous was the child named "King James." I haven't laughed out loud; I don't know that I've even smiled. I guess I keep reading, hoping, as you say, that the scales will fall from my eyes and I'll figure out what this book is about and where it's going. So far, to me, the "Mating" has all the passion and interest of artifical insemination.

Hope springs eternal, however, so maybe in the part we start tomorrow it'll grab me, and I won't have to force myself to read some more pages.

š ...jane›

Rush's ability to weave all this intricate information and also weave Ms Pro's feelings and the events is truly a talent. And a challenge to read.

Reminds me, in a sense, of John Irving's method of weaving the details.

~Marj

Sarah - I hope you are feeling better this Sunday day.

Ok, Sarah, time to shake off the cobwebs and rejoin the human race!! Thank you all for your kind words and for keeping the discussion going so ably - especially you, Traude. I really enjoyed the way you put it all together.

Traude and ...jane - you have both seized on the issue that Rush raises in Sections 5 and 6 (Acquisitive Love and Love Itself). As Traude puts it "Well, after finishing this week's assignment, it occurred to me that some of the questions are really quite simple: The title says it all. MATING. That's what it is ultimately about." ...jane, in a post that DID make me laugh out loud, said, "the 'Mating' has all the passion and interest of artifical insemination."

BUT, before we take on LOVE (in the next day or so, ok?), I had a few final questions about the "Tsau" section.

It sounds as if we are all somewhat suspicious of Denoon's experiment. While he has raised the standard of living of these women - all of whom come from extreme poverty and, in the case of the former prostitutes, are society's outcasts - one doesn't get a sense that they have much say in how society is structured. Betty and I felt there was an almost Jonestownian feeling to the place. By the same token, the abundance of healthy food, conservation of resources (something we sure could use in California, Ginger!!), and good stewardship of the land is pretty inspiring. Does anyone think the society would last if Denoon left?

Ms Pro remarks that Tsau feels a lot like charity. Denoon obviously has invested real money in Tsau, and may not have much plan or hope for sustaining the concept without his cash.

So - do we like Tsau? Do we believe in it? Does it have any virtues? Is it an improvement for the women who occupy it - in every sense of the word? Is Rush perhaps making a commentary on Western - and particularly American - development philosophy here? Perhaps saying that throwing cash at a problem - even if in the most well intentioned way - won't necessarily produce real change? Or do we think Rush believes in the concept of Tsau?

What, in your view, was the significance of the scene in which Dineo took a bath in front of Ms Pro (the name we're using to describe the otherwise nameless protagonist/narrator)? Was it her means of asserting dominance? Was it just a meaningless gesture that Ms. Pro read something into that Dineo did not intend? Was it a sign of trouble to come?

...jane - by the way, I gave the book to a friend - thinking she'd love it since we both enjoy similar authors - and she hated it! I was shocked! I'd never known anyone who hated the book before - but even I feel more ambivalent about it this second time around (and after a significant time gap).

Yili, I seem to recall that you also had some trouble with the book? Betty, you, as I, loved it. Traude, you seem to like it a lot. MarjV, you seem to like it, as do you ALF. Lorrie - you must get this book - if you liked Whites I think you'd really enjoy this book. What I love about these discussions is that they can be good even if everyone hates the book. It's interesting how that works.

It's great to be back!

I've stopped reading (drat!). I'm packing, moving in 4 days, went crazy yesterday. Boxes everywhere, my paid helper/packer didn't show up for her 8 hours of packing----but guess who did, my parents, then my little brother with whom I'm on the "outs," he didn't know I was moving---then, once in the door, how could he not---boxes everywhere and me pulling my hair out. Run-on sentences permitted under stress.

Anyway, the absent packer came today instead and my rarely dependable son decided he wants to fly in tomorrow night to "help." I said yes, but am not cancelling other scheduled help---just in case. He's offered his services for a "whole week." By the end of a week, I may really be crazy. (He's going through a divorce and old Mom gets to be supportive and empathic.)

I hate missing the end of this discussion, but who knows if the computer will get hooked up as quickly as I need. We'll see. Maybe if I need an escape from all that "help," I'll say I need to read, will actually catch up, then catch the last 2 or 3 days here.

Glad to see you're up and around, Sarah---the flu?? How could you be feeling any better at all? Don't push too hard.

Betty

Sarah, it is good to know you are well enough to post. Thank goodness.

Betty, I am thinking of you and the upcoming move. I know that everything will go perfectly well with the move and the visit !

Sarah, I like pondering the philosophical ideas and theories expressed in this book and admire the agility with which various viewpoints are presented.

The discourse is not always "complete" : when Denoon feels like talking in bed, expounding on something or other, and sits up to do so, Ms Pro often falls asleep. At other times we are given only tantalizing PARTS of discussions, as in the surprising (to me) and truly revelatory exchanges with the actor Harold.

On throwing cash at a problem, indeed, isn't that frequently thought of first ? Still ?

Regarding Tsau, this minute, being where I am in the book, I still think Denoon had no ulterior motive, as I said before. But I will wait till the end.

But it is true that the more I read about him and see his interaction with Ms Pro especially, the shadowier he becomes to me, and the less I like him, if ever I did.

Also I am beginning to see why both of them hark back to their parents so often.

Yes, there is something mysterious, vaguely menacing about Dineo and her role (of course I don't want to give anything away here).

I think the idea of giving equity and power to the women was a noble idea. An ideal, actually.

Some of the women had some input; Dineo sure did. The others at least had the freedom to express grievances (the Lamentations). While Denoon had "his hand" over them all and oversaw every detail, he does not come across to me as a cult leader like the fellow in Jonestown who exerted absolute control and demanded total obedience/compliance.

It was a HUGE surprise to see mention of Ignazio Silone and Louis Ferdinand Celine in this book and to see the intriguing opinions expressed about the Catholic Church and about socialism (during the British actors' visit). Wow.

It is late and I will read/write more tomorrow. Graciously overl

I meant to say, graciously overlook any typos.

While I am at it, let me add a P.S. for jane :

I agree completely; much of the physicality appears "mechanical", there is no expression of a deeply felt passion.

And that first noctural visit when Ms Pro had just gotten herself to Tsau, wasn't that a bit strange ? When THE encounter FINALLY took place, it seemed almost anticlimactic.

There is "more" coming, still somehow oddly unconvincing to me.

Traude

Great to see you back, Sarah...

IS it Denoon's money that build Tsau? I missed that. I was under the impression it was "grants/donations/large corp. generosity/foundations" that was the source of the money for the building of this place. The place, since the women had no input, has the feel of a "plastic" community...of a large sized "dollhouse"...all made by "Big Daddy" for the "little girls" to have...but with no input from them or even any real understanding of the work that this "commune" would do. It's like "Big Daddy" reaching in and placing the props for others to live with. As an anthropologist, does Denoon think the commune..and one set up and organized by those who don't even live there...will work? Have other communal arrangments worked? I'm only familiar with those which have failed ...like Zoar, Ohio, and Amana, Iowa, etc. And, in both of those the inhabitants apparently did the "arrangments" which I'd think would make it theoretically more likely to succeed...but neither did. I wonder how many of the "hippy communes" remain?

There is the Mother Committee, but I wonder how much real power they have? There has always been the dream of "utopia"/Shangri-La...but, to my knowledge, it hasn't happened or lasted.

No, I don't think Tsau would last if Denoon left, for the same reason I've stated before...the women have no "ownership" of the place. I, too, don't see him as as Jonestown figure...those people had passion and zeal for what they believed...something missing in Tsau.

I don't know what the bathing thing was all about. I thought perhaps it was a sexual advance, but that doesn't appear to be correct.

On to Acquisitive Love and Love Itself....

š ...jane›

Oh...a question for you all...where did the English/Americanized women's names come from? Why "Gladys" and "Ruth" ...why not Botswanan (sp?) names? I recall reading some explanation earlier, but it seems so odd...yes, I recall Ms Pro being agitated by the "mother of..." as a name for a woman, but I wonder if Ms Pro thinks it's ok for her to impose her "name standards" on everyone else...regardless of the cultural heritage of that person. I wonder if she objects to all those Scandanavian names...and the Scots' with the Son of as part of the old names?

Dineo and the bathing scene. That has to have some impact later in the novel.

Denoon irks me. He seems quite narcissistic. But then, I have not had experience with academia - male or female; so perhaps that is the norm.

Betty ---- we will miss you. Good luck moving.

Now I wonder - shall we see a maturing love in the sectionn "Love Itself". Or what ?

to jane's question :

If it was ever stated unequivocally who funded this enterprise, I must have overlooked it.

Surely Denoon invested heavily himself, but he, or anyone else, could never have brought off such a venture without substantial moneyed international participation !!!

An off-line book group meeting is scheduled for tomorrow; whether or not I make it, I will post tomorrow.

Traude

There are surprises in our assignment this week, but I don't mean to outline prematurely what I think may be coming...

Just let me say this : the women are not as passive as they may been perceived to be. Change is in the offing.

Just let's go on reading.

Traude

Denoon is portrayed as losing control I believe. For instance when he is told he can come to meetings when specificially invited (except for the committee on names. And then he must make concessions for the gun need. The women are taking on power. Or showing an outward stance; because women are so often behind the powers that be. I keep thinking back to the bowerbird reference Ms Pro used to describe Denoons actions in readying their "nest". {I know it is not in this section} When D takes Ms Pro to see his digs, unknowing she had done a prior sneak look, she labels him a bowerbird homolog. Homolog means exhibiting the behavior of .He sure had altered the interior. Interestingly, the bowerbird's bower is only for the courtship & mating; not the egg hatching. And I am assuming this is what happens - our Ms leaves & this is not a family commitment menage.

bowerbird :

common name for any of several species of birds of the family Ptilonorhynchidae, native to Australia and New Guinea, which build, for courtship display, a bower of sticks or grasses. Usually the males construct the bowers, some of which are large (up to 9 ft/275 cm high), while others are like small cabins or runways. The crestless gardener bowerbird, Amblyornis inornatus, makes a lawn around its bower. Colored stones, shells, feathers, flowers, and other bright objects, which are replaced when they become withered or worn, are used to decorate the lawns and the bowers. The satin bowerbird, Ptilonorhyncus violaceus, prefers blue decorative articles. The bower is constructed by the male in his effort to attract a female and probably has no other function than for the courtship performance. After mating has taken place in the bower, a nest is built by the female away from the bower, and there the clutch of two eggs is laid. The birds are crowlike and lack the showy plumage of the related bird of paradise. The bowers may be high pyramids, such as those built by the five species of maypole builder bowerbirds, or lower, more intricate, and painted with blue and green paints made of saliva and pigments, such as those built by the satin bowerbird and regent bowerbird (Sericulus chrysocephalus).

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright © 2000 Columbia University Press.

There are so many literary references to ponder (to William Blake, e.g.) and to look up, and wonder about the political implications of very involved, treacherous situations that have since changed so radically.

Have you noticed that the pace of the narrative seems faster now and that a sense of urgency is palpable ? I am surprised to find myself almost sorry for Ms Pro, all the while liking Denoon less and less.

Traude

I am smiling , Traude. I mark the book as I am reading; thinking I will look up this or that reference. But there are so many I just overwhelmed. And there is the "Middlemarch" reference again. He saying he had lied and not read it. I think he lies often. He is definitely giving me negative vibes.

`Marj

Thank you, MarjV, for reminding me about bowerbirds. I saw a program about them on Nature or something similar and had completely forgotten it when I read the bowerbird reference to Denoon. There is something almost pathetic about the bowerbird who readies the bower (archway of twigs), and who cannot catch a mate.

It seems we probably think Denoon should have been one of those sad bowerbirds, who built a beautiful bower and didn't catch a mate. He doesn't seem to deserve Ms. Pro.

Indeed, there is a disturbing part of Acquisitive Love in which Denoon performs an anti-English play for Harold and Julia. He also gets into a tit-for-tat/one-upsmanship exchange with Harold about Shakespeare and Francis Bacon. Ms Pro suddenly begins to realize what a buffoon Denoon is. She is embarrassed by him. She has to escape to the bathroom just to avoid having to watch the play. She appreciates it when the women's committee plays music chairs to put Harold and Nelson next to one another in the hope their Shakespeare/Bacon argument will die out.

During her escape from the anti-England play, she is overcome with feelings about the oppression of women: women in Africa who must give their bodies to those in power; women in business who do the same to raise cash; women inventors whose inventions are claimed by men, etc.

Are you encouraged by Ms Pro's awakening? Do you believe her views of Denoon are beginning to shift? Does this make you happy? Do any of you support the relationship between Denoon and Ms. Pro?

Why is the Section titled Acquisitive Love?

Sarah, I believe Ms Pro was always more realistic than he was, saw things more clearly and was able to get to the heart of an issue and recognize a problem. She always had the "vibes". In that sense her awakening is not a surprise to me.

But this is bound to be bittersweet at best, for she has invested heavily in the relationship, perhaps more heavily than he did, and his failure or disappointments will be hers, by extension.

We are told repeatedly that Tsau had existed for 8 years; I am not sure how long Ms Pro stayed; we see a change of season, was she there one year ? I am reading STRIFE, and so far there has been no further mention of Grace. Was she just a marginal figure in Denoon's life and in the narrative ?

Must finish the book this weekend- time is short. Wish the copy were mine so I could mark it. Alas, it is a library copy, now seriously overdue.

Traude

I, too, must finish the book and get it back. I noticed the sexual references suddenly seem to appear in "her" writing for awhile there...the "penetration" of the topic...the "climax" of this or that...seemed a bit forced to me.

Ms Pro hasn't seen Denoon's behavior anywhere but in his element where he's been "head honcho" for 8 years. Suddenly, with Harold and Julia, he's the equivalent of a bit outside "his" element...and he doesn't do well "before company." His "manners" embarrass Ms Pro...and his appearance with the spots on his clothes.

Traude, I'm not sure what you mean about how heavily she's "invested" in Denoon...besides her time...what do you see as her investment? What I see is that she didn't want to go back to the US, this was a way to avoid that...so I'm not sure I understand what is meant by her "investment" in him. Maybe she is more emotionally attached to him than I give her credit for.

šjane›

jane, perhaps I got too far ahead of myself. Yes, I think she is very heavily emotionally involved. That's what I meant with 'investment'.

The erotic references abound all of a sudden. Some don't quite sound as though they were made by a woman, and some are a bit "much" for my taste (though I really am not a prude), e.g. the rather specific reference to cunnilingus.





Traude

Traude: My reaction was exactly the same; it doesn't "sound" right. It's too clinical or something. "She" writes, as I've said before, with all the passion of a clinical observer of artificial insemination.

Ok, thanks. I'll look for the emotional investment as I get further into Strife.

šjane›

As you can all tell, I fell behind - first the flu got me, and then a week of catching up at work finished me off.

We have a few more days to finish off the book. I'll admit I'm behind, but since ...jane and Traude need to get the book back to the library, I want to open up the discussion to any and all topics that arise in the final 4 sections - Acquisitive Love, Love Itself, Strife, and About the Foregoing.

Traude, I know you're in Strife. I'm not quite there yet, so some thoughts about Love follow.

I'm still unclear why the first Love section is called Acquisitive Love. While Rush tries to explain it, it doesn't ring true to me somehow. The morning after the disastrous last dinner with Harold and Julia (at which Denoon brings out his cherished bottles of wine and gets quite drunk), Denoon is "all abjection and apology." As Ms Pro observes: "He was his father's son. Never before or since have I felt myself become tranquil so abruptly and causelessly. I can look back and say that it was some physicochemical way station on the road from the state I called acquisitive love to the state of love itself, I suppose. It felt ordained. Something was saying These things are nothing. Ecce homo."

(Traude, some latin translation on that last phrase would help!)

So, is she saying that she saw him with all his faults, and that her anger fell away, and that this caused a melting of all of her resistance to him and that instead of a mating game we had true love? (sorry for the stream of consciousness). What does that say about the quality of this love - she sees him drunk, buffoonish, and abject. She realizes he is very much like his alcoholic father. His apologies make her melt and truly fall in love! What is this - co-dependency??? I do NOT approve. She falls in love just when he shows himself to be weak? I hate to get militant but this seems to be a decidedly male view of what "turns women on" and makes them fall in love. All men have to do is act helpless - and voila - love comes their way?? I don't buy it. And the idea that the woman melts especially once the man "lowers himself" to perform oral sex! Maddening. Here I think Rush's male voice comes through most powerfully.

Any other interpretations here?

There are some delightful passages in Acquisitive Love, though. For example:

'[W]hen you're really happy and doing the right thing with your life, including morally . . . in that situation you should expect to have repeated trivial instances of the odd happening to you. You'll have correct intuitions. For no reason an obscure or archaic word will come into your mind and in a week you might discover it's exactly the word you need for a difficult passage in a piece of writing you're doing. I remember wondering at the time if he [Denoon] meant to be saying that the more rightly you're living, the more odd things will be peripherally happening to you, so that as you get to actual secular sainthood you'd find matchbooks levitating toward you when you need a light and your weight going down no matter how much Black Forest cake you eat."

Love that!

Also, Gotcha, Butelezi, a pun on the name Gatsha Buthelezi. "Gotcha was another entry in a jeu I had initiated between us when for no reason I had described some position he had taken as Highly Selassie or Fairly Dickenson or that some notion of his was Utter Pradesh. He had been longsuffering at first about this game, but lately he'd been more willing to join in the fun and had introduced inversions, such as Ansermet, Ernest."

Hilarious!

Sarah,

please don't accelerate the pace on my account. I mentioned my library copy ONLY because I rue the fact that I cannot underline and scribble notes in the margins, which this book really demands of me- a few more days won't make any difference.

Besides, I can always order my own copy, which is what I should have done in the first place.

In truth, I wanted to finish reading MATING in order to be able to lay it aside and let it gel for a little while, which is my preferred method.

And I must admit to a feeling of urgency (even guilt) because my particularly deep involvement in this book has delayed my getting into PRODIGAL SUMMER to the extent I had planned; after all, I am to lead the discussion !

But I had no intention to hurry everyone else along unduly because of my commitment ! That would be presumputuous and is not like me.

Rarely have I felt such a mixture of admiration and distaste for any book. I have wrestled with the knowledge that the female narrator is drawn after the author's wife. As I said, that has made me uncomfortable, and I will comment on that aspect at the wrap-up discussions whenever you say, Sarah.

"Ecce homo" = Behold the Man were the words spoken by Pontius Pilate as he handed Jesus adorned with the crown of thorns to his accusers.



The events of the evening in question were extremely disturbing, a portend even; they should have been a wake-up call for Ms Pro :

to her astonishment, Nelson in a never-before-seen drunken state manages to utter thoughts, make historical and political pronouncements and tell familiar tales in a manner radically different from anything he had voiced and, supposedly, believed in before.

Alas, these are not the last "bouleversements"; Ms Pro (and the author) really likes that word !

Let me repeat, please don't advance the agenda on my account !

Traude

jane, Sarah,

just had another thought.

Indeed, some of those exertions sound mechanical, like a deliberate construct, in other words not the real McCoy. And I simply do not believe that the description fits the feelings of a woman.

I have found going back in the text helpful, even necessary. For example the italized Specimen Days beginning on pg 259.

What was your impression of those Lamentations ? Was that carefully synchronized spectacle already part of the beginning of the end ?

When I spoke of "investment" the other day, I meant it in terms of emotional engagement. And love. Yet Ms Pro was incredulous when this one-in-a-million man said HE loved HER -

She emerges more clearly from the writing, I think, but the occasionally untruthful (to put it mildly) Denoon retreats from this reader to the point of becoming evanescent.

Traude

What do you all make of the mental condition of Denoon after being brought back from the "trek" to the neighboring town...and what was that all about? Did he realize he was losing power in Tsau...or did he really believe that Tsau was now at self-sufficiency and it was time to "franchise" the idea to neighboring areas?

š ...jane›

I do think the Lamentations was a lead to the "townhall" meeting he called to discuss god, etc. I am fascinated with Denoon's diatribe against religion , god (notice it is not capitalized by Rush), etc. And the chanting by the men's "choir" when he speaks. Symbolic of what? Are they chanting him down or what he is speaking against. This section is just packed.

I am about halfway thru Strife. They have just released Denoon from his "jail". I can't quite tell if he realizes his power is gone. I definitely think Ms Pro is portrayed as coming into so much understanding of this heroice figure she was pursuing. That academic outline she created of his characteristics had me laughing.

And is she pregnant?

~Marj

jane, perhaps we can figure out together just WHAT his extremely baffling mental condition was, or WHETHER it was a mental condition. I am left with even more questions than I had before.

What did Ms Pro call the condition : hyperpassivity, decompensation, personality inversion ?? Was it all deliberate and calculated on his part ?

Or was it a consequence of his ordeal in the wilderness ?

Both ?

Either ?

We do know he could be manipulative and told lies. On at least one occasion he showed a tendency toward violence. And what about those lily white raiments ? Were they VESTMENTS; did he consider himself godlike ?

MarjV, his antireligiosity is transparent; his views of Catholicism are expressed in sheer vitriol (immensely surprising in view of his own background !!). There are no houses of worship in Tsau, and Denoon is referred to somewhere as the "resident atheist". And yet, issues/ideas/thoughts of considerable import are expressed in the beginning of the chapter IN RETROSPET WHERE WAS I ? See second paragraph pg. 357 in the hardcover.

Pregnant ? No, it was a ruse.

Traude

jane, perhaps we can figure out together just WHAT his extremely baffling mental condition was, or WHETHER it was a mental condition. I am left with even more questions than I had before.

What did Ms Pro call the condition : hyperpassivity, decompensation, personality inversion ?? Was it all deliberate and calculated on his part ? Or was it a consequence of his ordeal in the wilderness ? Both ? Either ? We do know he could be manipulative and told lies. On at least one occasion he showed a tendency toward violence. And what about those lily white raiments ? Were they vestments; did he consider himself godlike ?

MarjV, his antireligiosity is transparent; his views of Catholicism is expressed in sheer vitriol (immensely surprising in view of his own background !!). There are no houses of worship in Tsau, and Denoon is referred somewhere as the "resident atheist". And yet, issues/ideas/thoughts of considerable import are expressed in the beginning of the chapter IN RETROSPET WHERE WAS I ? See second paragraph pg. 357 in the hardcover.

Pregnant ? No. It was a ruse.

Traude

One of you:

Translation please: On s'engage et puis en voit.

Twice it is used in the pages I've just been reading. In the one place Ms Pro thinks she could have used that phrase to stop his trek to that village.

Lily being a symbol of purity. Surely he must feel godlike. Look at what he has been able to create.

I have to say the concept of the 'night men' is most funny. Can't you just see them beckoned and creeping around thru the evening darkness.

~Marj ~Thanks, Traude, I'll recheck that section you mention above.

What is Dorcas' role? Is she jealous of the power of Dineo and some others...and of Ms Pro...or???

Denoon seems like he's in a trance...a world of his own...seeing himself as a Ghandi-type figure or???? ...I don't know. I need to read some more!

š ...jane›

Traude - I think keeping to our schedule works for the active participants in the discussion, so do not worry about it!!

In response to your remark: "When I spoke of "investment" the other day, I meant it in terms of emotional engagement. And love. Yet Ms Pro was incredulous when this one-in-a-million man said HE loved HER": I was struck throughout the "Love" sections at how one sided this relationship is. He calls, she answers. He drinks and acts abominably, she goes all soft inside and feels true love descend for the first time. And yes, he says he loves her - and she is utterly shocked and in disbelief.

What is truly amazing for me is how much more taken I was with the relationship when I read this book 10 years ago. I hope young women aren't as naive as I was then!

On his mental condition - there's something sociopathic about him, I think. He creates Tsau as a paean to himself. He convinces himself he's doing it for downtrodden women - but he makes all the rules. He holds all the cards in his relationship with Ms. Pro.

I keep thinking of the Marlon Brando character in Apocalypse Now whenever I think of him! Maybe not quite that insane, but there is something off about him.

I'm now wondering if this "state" that Denoon is in hasn't convinced him he's been "saved"...sort of the equivalent with the bees and the lion of the "tunnel of light" and boat many have reported seeing when near death. I had a brother-in-law who experienced this "light and boat" phenomena when he was in a cave-in. I wonder if this is what Denoon has experienced and feels he's now a sort of "holy man"...odd given his prior feelings about religion.

Back to finishing this up.

š ...jane›

Marj, this idiomatic phrase cannot be translated literally because it implies much more than those few simple words; it must be taken and understood in the respective context.

On page 413 (hardcover), Ms Pro thinks she might have stopped Denoon from leaving if she had said "you get into something (without a clear idea), and (only) THEN you see (what you have done)".

On page 419, her "own version" of the phrase means : she too left precipitously, in a demoralized state, without any rational planning or thought of consequences, and then it dawned upon her : << I HAD NO FORWARD PLAN. >>

Sarah, jane,

I too think the power had gone to Denoon's head and he had become slightly deranged; the comparison with Marlon Brando is excellent in all it implies. He had charisma, loads of it; he charmed the sensible nurse and the Sri Lankan psychiatrist (what about that lengthy 90 minute long consultation ?!). What did you think of the garrulous homeless beggar Hiram and his seeming transformation ?

I think Dorcas mattered in the narrative only in connection with her brother, the suddenly gone Hector.

Traude

Rather than edit my previous post I will add a new one in order to avoid any possible misunderstanding :

OF COURSE I meant Marlon Brando in his ROLE in the film Apocalypse Now, NOT the actor personally, for heaven's sake.

Sorry, I have been up too late ...

Traude P.S. And yes, jane, I agree about those immaculate starched white raiments symbolizing vestments -- for a self-perceived god-like presence.

Thanks, Traude!

Denoon's time in the desert, after his accident. He had those visions. Maybe that fits in with all comments above.

~Marj

just looking back at the first chap of this section - Retrospect... Ms Pro says:

I think I must have known there was a hump in the arras. Dineo seemed stricken once or twice. Etc.

Gave us an inkling of things of come I believe, in retrospect.

True to Ms Pro's inability to commit herself she left Tsau. I really scratched my head when she decided to offer Bronwen to Denoon. So similar to when Grace pushed her to D. Obviously B didn't fill the bill or was not as obsessed since she left.

And I feel Rush continued her immaturity with the obsession about the phone call message. And what did it all mean. Leaves us hanging. Sort of wonder where she would go next in her life journey.

And was she maneuvered by a liar?

An interesting novel - full of intensity of activity and description.

~Marj

I think she's going back to Tsau. I interpreted her feelings of the phone message to mean she felt she was needed/wanted back in Tsau and by Denoon or someone who was his surrogate and the "je viens" to be "I am coming"...[back to Denoon and Tsau.]

What did the rest of you think that meant?

š ...jane›

...jane - I'm still not there yet. Can we talk a couple more days about the book?

I cannot help but feel somewhat touched by the level of Ms. Pro's feelings for Denoon after his trip into the desert. One feels actual passion and love, rather than obsession. The sense of losing him mentally feels real to me. How frightening it must be to lose one's loved one mentally, even when the physical being remains. This is one of the few times where the relationship seemed to move beyond mere banter , which I found cute but ultimately annoying. I sense that the banter was the result of years of little jokes the author saved up. For lack of a better place to put them, he put them in the conversations between Denoon and Ms. Pro. Real people just don't act that way, do they?

Sure, Sarah....a few more days is fine with me.

I, too, feel she truly loves him now...for reasons I don't see, but that's not unusual.

I feel I'm an outsider forever looking in, however much the author tries to make me see things as Ms Pro does, I feel he really missed the mark there.

š ...jane›

definitely ! Thank you for that suggestion, Sarah !

Many questions remain, some perhaps unanswerable; I find myself simply unable to let go. I have returned the library copy but my very own paperback (so much easier to balance when reading in bed !) should arrive any day now !!!

What an extraordinary book !

Traude

Oh I am so happy that you have decided to prolong here for a bit. My company leaves todya and then I can get bak to all of these books.

BN was wonderfully prompt and I now have my own copy of MATING, which I can and will mark to my heart's content ! What joy !!!

I find this is a hard book to leave. It pertains to and points out so many important, pressing issues and problems, offers different ways of thinking and fresh perspectives (not necessarily to be agreed with but worthy of being considered nonetheless), and could easily spawn any number of essay questions in any arena.

This is, I think, nothing short of miraculous in this day and age of diminishing attention spans often displayed by the intellectually incurious and the dumbing down (is it deliberate, I wonder ?) especially of the young.

Very basic questions remain :

Can we assume that Tsau is merely a figment of the author's prodigious imagination, born out of hope and deep concern ?

He tells us at the end that a place by that name does exist and that he had permission to use it. Can we then further assume that this is where the similarity ends ... with the NAME ?

What was the reason for the total secrecy concerning the fictional Tsau ? Did the powers that be and knew about this creation for 8 years fear that vast numbers of the desperate and abjectly poor would descend on Denoon's creation like human locusts and make a shambles out of the whole thing ?

And wasn't that perhaps already partially coming true -- through the inevitable word-of-mouth ? Is that why Denoon said that he wanted to "save" Tsau ?

From what ?

What is the reader to make of the ending ?

Well, from my precarious perch onto which I climb at times when I cannot help myself from pronouncing an opinion or two (which on occasion should have been better left unsaid), I think Ms Pro has come full circle.

Whoever left that mysterious phone message for her when she was back in Stanford (and clearly not "fulfilled") was only the DEUS EX MACHINA. I believe that she was bound to return and that she did.

After all, didn't Sarah say early on in our discussion (and I paraphrase) that perhaps these were simply two exceptional people, both with human flaws of course, two unfulfilled halves who had much to offer individually and needed each other to form the complete unique whole. Rare and admirable as this may be, a state of bliss I would say, it is all that really matters, I think and I climb back from my precarious limb.

As for Tsau, I think it is an inspiration, a dream, and we CAN dream, can't we ?

I am grateful to Sarah and all of you who posted here for this super experience. Your presence made it possible !

Traude

In reference to Traude's statement above -

in this day and age of diminishing attention spans often displayed by the intellectually incurious and the dumbing down (is it deliberate, I wonder ?) especially of the young.

I probably would not have read this book without it being a discussion item. I found it difficult reading because of the bredth of background & activity. However, I wanted to go the challenge; and I made it. i think I would have bogged down on my own. However, the good sched made me stick to reading. And continuing the challenge has added another depth to my fiction reading.

I remember when I participated in Byatt's "Obsession". Loved that novel - that was also difficult. But,with that background I was able to start her new book . Already on the first few pages there are references to be examined.

As there are multitudes in "Mating". Which I didn't have time to look into.

~marj

Biographer's Tale

I've always been puzzled by the ending as well, Traude. What does it mean? I have occasionally wondered if it means Ms Pro went back to Nelson? Did you have that reaction?

Traude - is this what you meant when you said - "I believe that she was bound to return and that she did." ??

Did any of you feel more sentimentally toward Denoon once his personality morphed so profoundly? I almost missed his old, caustic, word-play obsessed, power tripping self!

And what did you think of Ms Pro's rejection of the new him - she even compared him to a wife in justifying her rejection!! Did this anger you as it did me? Thinking of the book written through a man's lens, with a woman as influence, what does it mean that a man thinks a woman will reject a man who becomes like a wife, passive, accepting, kind, quiet?

And yet - I missed the old Denoon, I cannot deny it. I too probably would have left him if he made such a radical transformation. What does that say about me - and other women - that we would leave the nice guy?

MarjV - I am so glad you accompanied us on our journey. Mating and Possession (the Byatt book) are two of my all-time favorites - but they are work to complete. Sometimes a good group such as this one (even if a bit smaller than when we started) makes a hard book seem easy, or more enjoyable, or at least more comprehensible!

Traude - the total secrecy concerning Tsau - good question. Was it just more of Denoon's conceit? He made it important by withholding information about it. It certainly is a brilliant strategy to attract curiosity. Or was there true danger in having it known? We don't ever get enough detail about Botswana to know whether officialdom truly threatens the existence of a place like Tsau. I tend to think of the secrecy as a Denoon power trip!

As I've been thinking about the ending and reading the other comments, I still come back to what I posted earlier. I think the "je viens" means she's returning to Tsau...and I tend to think that Denoon has changed mentally from his time in the desert. Whether it's comparable to a stroke or if it's a religious conversion, I'm not sure. I think, though, that she feels he's vulnerable/weak and that he may truly need her...perhaps for his own protection...so he's not manipulated...perhaps by the powers that are emerging in Tsau. Whether she'll stay in Tsau or attempt to bring him back to the US is something else that remains a mystery to me.

š ...jane›

MarjV, thank you for the link to Biographer's Tale. MATING has indeed been a challenge, I agree, and we h ave come a long way together.

Sarah, I feel exactly like jane - namely that she DID go back, and it was expressed with "je viens", almost jubilantly as in Here I come !!!

There is a passage toward the end where she says "I have come full circle" or words to that effect. Haven't had time to check yet.

I don't think she actually rejected Denoon but instead realized that she could not cope with, not FIND the new Nelson, nor was she willing to sit starry-eyed at his feet in boundless admiration, as she had before. They had reached different stages of maturity, if you will, so she pushed him toward the young woman just as Grace had pushed her, Ms Pro, in the beginning.

Denoon himself is much harder to analyze and has increasingly retreated from my comprehension. I still don't know whether whatever happened to him was REAL or partly deliberate since his influence was clearly waning. Which brings us to the equally difficult question of what that entire project meant; the secrecy may well have been Denoon's idea, just as you said, Sarah. None of the reviews I read speculated on those aspects at all.

Well we did find out that the creator returned to his creation with the new female disciple but that she was either chased off or went voluntarily, which clearly opened the way for Ms Pro's return.

We are left to wonder whether she GOT there (this time she would have been given aid and comfort by the authorities, I would like to think) and what happened when she did. How she found him. But it's no use, we just have to imagine. The ending is as enigmatic as the entire book.

And I am glad we tackled it together and persevered !

Traude

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