JoanP, yes, I agree. the jumbling of chapters tends to confuse and is a bit annoying. But there are clues from the very beginning.
We hear first what his colleagues, most of them decades younger, know of him or have heard about him. He has almost become a myth. He himself coined FILTH, and he is known by that moniker, and also referred to as coelacanth, a group of fishes, all extinct, a word I looked up as soon as I read it. O.F. wasn't that old, but to the young men he seemed a fossil, as PatH aptly put it.
So here he is at the end of his life, and they say about him "well preserved"; "rich as Croesus; "a great man"; pretty easy life"; "Nothing ever seems to have happened to him".
And then Gardam writes
Nothing.
And then she proceeds to tell us.
Re Wales. I believe that Edward really did not think of Babs and Claire after he was taken to Sir's Outfit. He deliberately hid the memory of Malaya and Wales "behind tightly closed shutters". Only after Betty's death did he "flip them open".
He had buried the memories of Kotakinakulu but they did surface at least once in the chapters we've read. He grew up with Ada and her family, she was 12 when he was born, and about 15 when Aunty May suggested that he should be sent Home, that wasn't a home. He had believed she would come along and, alone on the boat with Aunty May, he sobbed his heart out until Ajuntie May, well prepare for such desperate separations, gave him a drink that put him to sleep. He never mentioned Ada again.
Then came Wales. A three-year episode is ending. The three children are outside, idly waiting, and Auntie May locks the now empty house. She is getting married and soon off to the Belgian Congo. Edward pretends not to know Auntie May but he shakes hands with her when he leaves with Sir. He instinctively takes to the man (a father figure?) Aunty May will also hand over control of Babs and Claire to other people until their parents return from India to claim them. To me, the picture of the three children is not a happy Why one. They are standing there separately, impassively, silent, Edward sullen. Repeatedly we hear of "tragedy" and "horror" Are the children in shock or frightened? We don't know but the curtain will be lifted.
The children had attended the village school and learned Welsh. Sir didn't have a high opinion of that. "Don't go near Wales," he would later say to Edward, and he must have remembered. When Betty and he wondered where in Britain the'd settle, Wales was dismissed at once.
The pairing with Pat Ingoldby was inspired. Pat was a talker, Edward lost his stammer. He was invited to High House for summer vacations and treated like one of the family, and he firmly believed he was a ember of the family. (In a chapter on this week assignment he finds out that he is not a memer of that family after all, another bitter disappointment.) He loved Pat's mother who was forever cheerful, always smiled, did little things for everyone around, and suffered her choleric husband's rants without complaining. We understand that the Ingoldby Lancashire estate included arge fields and, a distance away, the carpet factory that had been the family's main source of come for two generations.
One sentence puzzles me : Far below the avenues to the west you could look down the chimneys of the family business which was a factory set in a deli. [/color].
A factory set in a deli ??
In this country a deli as an abbreviation for delicatessen and I wonder what connection there is between a carpet factory and a "deli" or food store. Could we please call on Rosemarie again and ask whether "deli" has a different meaning in England ?
At High House Eddie meets Isobel for the first time the summer he is 14. Mrs. Ingoldby tells him Isobel finds them boring, and asks Eddie to encourage Isobel (who dislikes polished tables) to join them for lunch int he house. That night Isobel comes into Eddie's room and asks what he thinks of her.
He knows that something is expected of him but he has no idea what. Then he thinks She's old and she is evil and she only wants to hurt, and finds that he is able to sit up straight under the blanket and confront her, brave, brave - a s Cumberledge. [/b]
He could finish her, as once already in his life he had finished a woman. Ohhh.
Why does he have to confront her ?
Why does he say Isobel is evil ? Also, she's she is hardly "old", she failed three terms.
Moreover, at this point he and we do not know she's lesbian.
I'm not sure O.F. suspects Betty of infidelity. In fact, in Veneering's house that Christmas night he says to the old adversary "She was very faithful." (pg. 29) Because of his past we can assume, I believe, that O.F. was insecure, perpetually afraid of losing her as he had lost and/or been rejected by other people before. He depended on Betty, she was his rock. Bellamfrie quoted a crucial phrase above (please check) and let me paraaphrase it, "He had Betty, he was not afraid of failure." It is possible, of course, that his feelings for her were stronger than hers for him, but that has happened to couples before and will again. Their marriage appears to have been solid and calm, without differences of opinion or quarrels. There were sorrows, of course, and Isobel's letter hints at that.
Jonathan, yes, those pearls, hmmm
JoanP, I also was surprised by the statements of Rosemarie'sfriend, the geriatric psychiatrist. Perhaps she dislikes her job. Perhaps she has to treat Alzheimer patients, which must be trying. But then O.F. is not about old people. It is the portrait of one man from birth to death - even though not in chronological order - and the people in his life. It is about getting old, and it happens to all of us.
Back to Betty, briefly. Before the trip to London we don't get a sense that anything is wrong with Betty. During her long walk in London, alone, her heart beats faster. So her death the next day is rather sudden.
Jonathan, and yes, those 'guilty' pearls, hmm
As for O.F. He questions the extra fare on the train, "Four pounds, is that each?", he asks. He who is "rich like Croesus" !
Isn't that rather typical ?
Babi, I think you are getting into the spirit, I'm so glad.
Bellamarie, if you read The Man in the Wooden Hat, may we count on you not to reveal it here? Thank you so much.
Gosh, we have so much more to discuss in this assignment.
