Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier ~ November Book Club Online

[ANNIE]

The Book Club Online is  the oldest  book club on the Internet, begun in 1996, open to everyone.  We offer cordial discussions of one book a month,  24/7 and  enjoy the company of readers from all over the world.  Everyone is welcome.

November Book Club Online

Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier

In Remarkable Creatures, Tracy Chevalier brings to our attention, two historical figures, telling their tale in two distinct voices. Mary Anning is the young one, the uneducated girl with the uncanny gift of finding fossils.  It is the older woman whose voice dominates the novel, another historical character, a middle-class spinster sent away by a married brother to live more cheaply in England's coastal village of Lyme Regis.  To Jane Austen's readers, she will sound familiar.  Both women played a key role in understanding the earth with their discoveries, though not without controversy, at a time when there was no place for women in science. This  is  the story of their friendship which allowed them to stand together and prevail as they challenged the thinking of the day.

DISCUSSION SCHEDULE:     November 1-8    Chapters 1-3    November 9-15    Chapters 4-5   November 16-22    Chapters 6-7

SOME TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION

 Chapters 6-7

Chapter 6 begins with Elizabeth's reflection that digging her out of the sand and rocks to save Mary's life didn't bring them closer together but drove them apart. What/who are the catalysts that drive Elizabeth and Mary apart?

What do Elizabeth and Mary each think of the men who come into their lives, Mr. Buckland and Lt. Colonel Birch? How do each of them react to each of the men and to each other?

What is your opinion of Lt. Col. Birch? Do any of his actions cause your view of him to change during the chapter?

What happens at the end of Chapter 6 to cause Elizabeth to weep, not for Mary but for herself?

What do you think of the confrontation between Elizabeth and Mary in Chapter 7? What seems to be happening to their relationship?

How does Mary change and what causes her to do so? Does Mary learn anything, or come to terms with anything, about her life?

Related Links:
Comments from the Prediscussion of this novel ;   Video ~ Tracy Chevalier on Writing Remarkable Creatures; The Annings' House and Shop;

DLs: AdoAnnie,   BarbStAubrey,   Marcie,  JoanP

Here's nice link about the first ichthyosaurs found back in the 1600's.    
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichthyosaur

Isn't is amazing how Elizabeth connects the finding of the Lyme Regis fossil with their beliefs concerning the beginning of the world?  Especially, since the first ichthyosaur was found much earlier and then given a name by Sir Richard Owen in 1840? A link to him is here. Hmmmm!  Seems he was controversial also.
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Owen

And here's a link to the first  whole ichthyosaur being on exhibit in Lyme Regis and of course, its Mary Anning's croc!
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/news/2011/august/worlds-first-ichthyosaur-goes-home-after-200-years100730.html

Fanny's story about being trapped in the slip and someone rescuing her makes
me wonder if she is fictional.  Well, her story does add to the book.

[bellamarie]

Egads, sorry if my last post got a bit political. I was attempting to address the "disgruntled employee" point, but more so, hoped it showed how if treated with dignity and respect it would not matter what class, skill or position you hold for a job, seeing Fanny's work, as important as Mary's fossil hunting, so Fanny would have no reason to be jealous of Mary.

Barb, " I need to remind myself that class differences was as deep as race is for us in America."  

Gosh, I think I also need to remind myself of this while reading books in earlier eras, and in other countries.  It does help to keep things into perspective doesn't it.  Having never visited other countries, other than Canada, I lack the the awareness of this. Thanks Barb.


As Marcie reminds us, Fanny and Mary were friends in the beginning, and it seems the Philpot sisters casted suspicions of whether Fanny's parents thought it acceptable to be spending so much time with the spinster sisters.

The whole burial of Mary and Captain Cury in the landslide was horrific and creepy, imagining them lying there buried, alone on the beach, not knowing if and when someone would come to rescue you.  This just spooked me out:

pg. 144, "Captain Cury, can you hear me?  Are your bones broke?  Fanny's leg is broke, I think.  Mr. Buckland's taken her with him.  He'll come back soon."  I was chattering on to mask my terror.  The finger stayed stiff, pointing up at the sky.  I knew what that meant, and began to cry.  "Don't go! Stay with me!  Please stay, Captain Cury!"

pg. 145, "It was hard to breathe now with the mud so heavy.  My breathing got slower, and so did the beat of my heart, and I closed my eyes."

Knowing Mary, survived did not make this any less frightening to read, how close she came to death. And wasn't it interesting Mary knowing this she says: "I tried to think of God instead and how He would help me through it.  I never told anyone this, but thinking of Him then didn't make me less scared."

This reminded me of the Homily our priest gave this past Sunday, he told us when he was a missionary priest in Africa, he went to the bedside of a very old, dying woman, who had her Rosary beads and Bible on her side table, and she used these similar words to him.  Ironic, yet a bit of a mystery for me.  Does give me food for thought.

Ciao for now~

Annie we were posting at the same time.  The landslide was pretty eventful!

[BarbStAubrey]

We both got off into politics Bellamarie - and I have to remind myself when I tend to rant that I am only seeing what is in me and so I need to see my rant as a mirror and look at how I am or not furthering my future because of not being in the swing of things as I was what seemed like only a few years ago - Mary and her family is on the edge financially and determining a future that required choices - my edge is more along the lines of going to another phase of life where a new life purpose must be determined rather than drifting, riding out the waves of what was.

Marcie thanks for filling in Fanny's parents - looks like both Mary and Fanny's fathers were in the same line of work - I thought it was telling to read how Mary was preparing her fossil in her father's workshop still littered with his wood shavings, almost like he would walk in the door any minute and resume his work so that Mary is surrounded by the spirit of her father.

It looks like Steph, you and Ann see Fanny as a fictional character - I bet you are right Steph that it was a devise used by Tracy Chevalier to allow us to know what those in the villages were saying and thinking. We never hear that much about Elizabeth's older sister who liked to garden - you would think that would ingratiate them with the community.  They probably dressed to upscale compared to those in their lowered class because of a lack of wealth and because of that lack they could not socialize with those who probably dressed as they did and were more educated.

[BarbStAubrey]

Another stroke of history - Chevalier has Fanny both knitting and making lace while she chaperons Mary. Lace making was waning and not as important to the dress of both men and women and women no longer carried lace fans as during the eighteenth century when lace was taxed.

Reading, I found that where there was no longer lace manufactured in Dorset, expensive lace of good quality was made in Lyme Regis, Blandford, and Sherborne. This was needle made lace in addition to the lace that involved bobbins and a cushion often depicted in old photos from Belgium and France.

There were lace schools through out the area until the plague wiped away teachers, students thus, the schools disappeared in the seventeenth century. From what I have read the main street in Lyme, (Broad Street) is where the lace makers lived.  They gossiped and entertained travelers who came for the waters, their clients, telling them about the valiant deeds of Lyme men during Monmouth times. (Another layer of this town's history - the next post)

Queen Charlotte had a lace dress made for her in Lyme that pleased the court to no end. The demise of the industry was so swift as manufactured lace took over that when Queen Victoria wanted her wedding dress made in Lyme there were not enough lace makers to be found in order to complete a dress.

A good lacemaker was in training since childhood for as much as 8 years and then apprenticed for another 4 or 5 years before selling her own completed piece of lace. Lace was worked piecemeal with each doing the section they were most adapt at.

Here is a photo of point lace that you can see is mostly a buttonhole stitch around pieces of the cloth left intact and then further decorated with bars connecting where the cloth has been removed.

Where as this is an example of Bobbin Lace - which does not start with a ground of cloth and does require a large cushion to work on, that no way could Fanny take with her to work on out of doors in the weather on the cliffs

The knitting would probably be knitting ladies lille stockings although hand knitted stockings were also going out of fashion. Looks like our Fanny needed workforce training for a new economy. 

[BarbStAubrey]

The mention of Monmouth times had me on the search - there is a beach - one of four in Lyme called Monmouth beach so at first I thought there was a shipping industry with brave sailors rescuing ships at sea. But no - this is a big deal - what we did not know about Lyme is amazing.

"The Monmouth Rebellion, also known as The Revolt of the West or The West Country rebellion, was an attempt to overthrow James II, who had become King of England, Scotland and Ireland upon the death of his elder brother Charles II on 6 February 1685."

"The Duke of Monmouth landed at Lyme Regis on 11 June 1685 and for the following few weeks his growing army of nonconformist, artisans and farm workers fought a series of skirmishes with local militias and regular soldiers commanded by Louis de Duras, 2nd Earl of Feversham and John Churchill who later became the Duke of Marlborough. Monmouth's forces were unable to compete with the regular army and failed to capture the key city of Bristol. The rebellion ended with the defeat of Monmouth's army at the Battle of Sedgemoor on 6 July 1685 by forces led by Feversham and Churchill."

Here is more about the battle at Lyme
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monmouth_Rebellion#From_Lyme_Regis_to_Sedgemoor

[bellamarie]

Barb, your beautiful lace pictures brought back memories of the beautiful lace doilies my Mom would make.  I crochet, knit and needlepoint, but never could get the art of lace.  When I read Fanny doing this on the beach, my first thought was how the sand and moisture would damage the threads and yarn.  I was always so careful when I would do my work, so as never to get the least speck of anything near the materials of my project.  It was a large stretch for my imagination, to believe Fanny or anyone, would take their precious threads and yarn on a beach. It would be interesting to know the cost of thread and yarn back then, especially after reading this from your post:

"I found that where there was no longer lace manufactured in Dorset, expensive lace of good quality was made in Lyme Regis, Blandford, and Sherborne."

Do you suppose TC gave any thought to the fact her readers would question this?  Fiction indeed.  I am imagining, TC has never done either of those crafts, or she would have known the beach would be the last place for it, IMO.

Ciao for now~ 

[BarbStAubrey]

Thought - we have no idea, however, if Fanny and her lace making was real and her mother works in a factory - there were 3 cloth factories in Lyme during the early nineteenth century and so bringing home spun yarn would have supplied Fanny with her needs however, there was in most areas where there were active lace makers and knitters a plan that if she sold her work to like a wholesaler or vendor or middle man they would supply the yarn. With sheep still a source of wool and flax growing prolifically in Dorset there would be a source of inexpensive wool that is spun into lille and linen used mostly for point as well as bobbin lace.

Most women at this time carried their projects with them in their apron pocket so they could knit or stitch anytime they had a spare minute including while chatting on the street or I have some old photos in one of my books of woman stitching sitting on a stone wall by the Irish sea.

I do know that early stitching was done sitting in the doorway since lamp light was expensive and few windows to give adequate light. The reason so many young women in France and Belgium went blind was from age 12 onward they were hired to make lace all sitting in a room where the light from one candle was fractured by a cut crystal glass holding water and each girl placed their work and chair where one of those fractured beams was a source of light.

[marcie]

I agree with you, Steph.

[bookad]

I have got so carried away by this book, that when we began this section I (having finished it already, intending to reread it and follow along) accidentally began reading the following section and suddenly found myself with the book finished .....excellent read

finding it so sad that the reality of the day was .....one seemed stuck in the class they were born into and Mary who could have been so much further recognized for her contributions in fossils was slated to be held to her station in life whereas if she had been a male and in an upper class she may have been known today alongside Darwin and others for her discoveries  ....as it was she was kept to finding fossils and remaining behind while others claimed the limelight and status

I remember reading during the first world war, the English were not as cohesive a group as the Americans, Canadians etc due to the class structure that was maintained within their brackets.

I have been interested in the bobbin lacemaking, as every fall there is a quilting fair with other craft venues and always there has been a group of women with their bobbin lacemaking creating their lace in demonstrations.  I even went so far as to try my hand at this with a set of old fashioned clothes pins (to use for bobbins), crochet threads, book from the library on bookmark making, using lacemaking with bobbins  and a pillow of a sort.  Everything can be folded into a compact carrying mode when finishing for the day. 

am determined to go to the museum this week and check on fossils in the area of south Florida and walk some shores and look for some

this book has really grabbed me, peaked my curiosity around a number of issues and given me  added interest in this author, having not enjoyed the previous book I read by her.

and all your wonderful sites giving further information on points of interest give much more dimesnion with this read''thank you"

bookad

[Steph]

I cannot imagine lace making at the beach. I have seen people doing it as a demonstration and just too complicated and delicate. Now sewing.. that makes sense.. idle hands, etc.
I still think Fanny stands for the people of Marys age, specifically female.

[bellamarie]

I couldn't get the idea of Fanny being a fictional character out of my head, especially when I could not imagine her lace making on the beach in the conditions TC described in the book.  So I went on a little research journey and I found this interesting.  Tracey Chavelier was a reader of Frances Trollope, nicknamed "Fanny"  In researching her recent book, "The Last Runaway" she read Fanny's book, Domestic Manners of Americans. In an interview TC says: (Notice how TC uses Frances's nickname "Fanny" in her interview.)

During her research, Chevalier – who has lived in London since 1984 – read Frances Trollope’s book,  

“I found it hilarious. She describes so many things that remind me of the way the British see Americans, still. Funny little things, like Americans eat faster. Fanny Trollope has so much fun with it; she says American women are flat-footed and they don’t know how to make conversation: they’re not sparkling, they don’t have any interest in anyone else. I’m not saying that Americans are like that, but there are elements that I recognise. I had a lot of fun playing around with how Honor would respond to America and what that says about us now.”

http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/books/tracy-chevalier-on-her-new-novel-the-last-runaway-1-2840194

So, knowing how much TC seems to like and admire, Fanny Trollope, I don't think its a stretch of the imagination she would use the name "Fanny" as one of her characters in one of her own novels.  

Something else I especially liked finding from one of TC's interviews is:

"By using fewer words, I am also giving readers the chance to fill the gaps with their own. "Less is more" encourages collaboration, which is what a book should be—a contract between writer and reader."

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/01/why-the-phrase-less-is-more-means-so-much-to-tracy-chevalier/267399/

I think this statement corroborates exactly how we are feeling about this book of hers.  We are filling in the gaps, with what each of us as individuals are feeling, seeing and expecting from the story.  That's what gives us the latitude to go with our thoughts, and have these great discussions.  Bravo! to TC, she is an author after my own heart.

I am still learning how to upload pics, so I decided to try and share a pic of Fanny here.  If I succeed it's because I was determined to not give up.



Ciao for now~

[BarbStAubrey]

aha - so Fanny does have a history - just not one that most of us imagined for her  

Steph, Point lace is like sewing but like you it is hard for me to imagine keeping the cloth clean when carting it around to work on where ever you are. I must say though when my youngsters were young I took all sorts of needlework with me to work on while sitting on the grass of the nearby Henry Clay estate while they learned to roller skate and bike ride on the sidewalk that we did not have in front of our house.

Found this last night - scroll down the photos of the beaches around Lyme and the charts of the various levels of history in the earth around Lyme are just grand - really the best I have seen so far.

http://www.discoveringfossils.co.uk/lyme_regis_fossils.htm

[marcie]

Barb, what an interesting piece of information: "from age 12 onward they were hired to make lace all sitting in a room where the light from one candle was fractured by a cut crystal glass holding water and each girl placed their work and chair where one of those fractured beams was a source of light."

Thanks for the photos of the beaches around Lyme. I wouldn't have thought that today they would allow (even encourage) people to come and discover and take fossils with them.

[BarbStAubrey]

More Tid Bits about the people of Lyme

"By 1800 Mr Bennett’s shoe-making business was prospering and in 1802 he rented a house on Bridge Street, off Cockmoile Square, next door to the home of the Anning family. Fossil-collector Mary was then just three; the two families never inter-married however, Mary dying a spinster. However, it has been suggested she may have fostered an interest in fossils in some of the Bennett grandchildren.

http://dorset-ancestors.com/?p=1489

A water color painting of a double-decker bus named "Mary Anning" (actually it's one of the buses of the X53 coastal line) looming around the tight corner of Bridge Street and blocking all other traffic, on Mary Anning Day (March 18) in 2005, with "Mary Anning" herself aboard and greeting the crowd, which has been listening to speeches about her from the steps of the Guildhall - more about Mary and another painting

http://www.lymaze.com/Anning.htm

[BarbStAubrey]

Reading one of these books online that Google prints out that you cannot copy from it. The Fossil Hunter: Dinosaurs, Evolution, and the Woman Discoveries Changed the World By Shelley Emling said, that Molly and Richard, the parents of Mary rented a timber frame house next to the Town Jail called the Cockmoile. The location was described as a nuisance with the "hoosegow" drawing so many unsavory characters. Densely packed Cockmoile Square has the Town Hall on one corner which shared the building with the Butcher shop - the square had the stocks that were still used till 1837. Next door were the Bennetts, the shoemaker and on the square was the hotel, Three Cups Inn.

Richard was a giant of a man who grew up 12 miles away in a medieval village called Colyton. The town was a Saxon village laid out in circles that evidently was typical of Saxon towns with lots of trade from local skilled craftsmen. Richard came from a long line of cabinet makers. Richard never really settled down he has what was called a spirited personality. He died at 44 in 1810, leaving his family destitute.

When Mary purchased her house in 1826 at the age of 27 she left crowded Cockmile Square behind and moved her family to the back of the house on Broad Street. Moving up the street higher on the hill was considered a social move. The house was located in what was called 'The Top fo the Hill' with cows grazing nearby. George Roberts moved in across the street and newly opened was the Royal Lion Hotel where many of Mary's fossil customers stayed. At the foot of Broad street was the most important shopping area. This move was so momentous it was reported in the newspaper.

[BarbStAubrey]

Mary wore something called pattens on her feet to keep they dry while walking on the beaches. Some sort of metal plate nailed to the wooden sole of the shoe and then metal bars connecting the two but I cannot visualize where these metal bars are located if the metal plate is nailed to the sole of the shoe. Geologists who visited were there to learn and copied this contraption called pattens. Early, when they first started the Murchison's visited to learn from Mary and learned to use these pattens. The Murchison's were the ones who found the first dinosaur. Charlotte Murchison and Mary became good friends.

Aha found it - even photos --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patten_%28shoe%29

"Pattens are protective overshoes that were worn in Europe from the Middle Ages until the early 20th century. Pattens were worn outdoors over a normal shoe, had a wooden or later wood and metal sole, and were held in place by leather or cloth bands. Pattens functioned to elevate the foot above the mud and dirt (including human effluent and animal dung) of the street, in a period when road and urban paving was minimal."

[Steph]

Oh, I have actually seen those.. We were in Switzerland years and years ago and went to the ancestral village of my husband.. His grandparents were both born there. Anyway, we were in the cemetary and it had rained and was muddy.. Several women had on these peculiar overshoes and you just described them.. Amazing.

[bellamarie]

The patterns remind me of the wooden clogs the dancers wore when I was at the Holland tulip festival.  I can't imagine trying to walk in them, especially on sand and pebbles.

Okay off to read the next chapters.

[JoanP]

I sometimes find it difficult to imagine a walk on the beach of Lyme Regis...no sand, but rather a combination of stones...and mud.  I can see where those 'pattens' were required footwear.  Can't picture Jane Austen/Anne Elliot wearing them, though.  I guess their walks on the beach meant walking on the Cobb!

Here's a note on my desktop about the body Mary Anning discovered one morning on the beach.  This corpse of the once beautiful Lady Jackson had quite an effect on Mary.  Did this really happen?  Or was it part of Chevalier's fiction?  Why is she crying.  Mary tries to explain her feelings to Elizabeth - "she's just like me." "We'll all become fossils some day."  

I began to think of what this episode meant in the context of the story..  It wasn't long after that that William Buckland came on the scene, a learned professor from Oxford - Mary is looking for information...answers to questions she has regarding the sea creature, and how different it is from crocodiles.  
"Is this one of the creatures Noah brought on his ark?"   "Why would God make creatures that don't exist anymore?"  "Do you think the world was created in six days?"

His answers to her questions weren't enough for Mary - she  thought a learned man would have had some answers...other than to talk about interpretation and mysteries.  He did explain - "after all the layering of rock and the fossilization of animals occurred - then man was created.  That is why there are no human fossils, you see."  (His answers were more responsive than those Elizabeth received from Rev. Jones, though - which wasn't surprising.)  Elizabeth and Mary are looking for answers to the same questions, aren't they?  Do they talk about this to one another, I wonder?

Is that the connection between Mary's discovery of Lady Jackson's - and Buckland's mention of human fossils?   Do you agree there are no human fossils?  Or does he refer to human fossils from the Jurassic Period?

 

[JoanP]

One more question for those of you who have closely read these links...Mary's discovery brought many "hunters" to Lyme Regis.  Were there any more ichthyrosaurus (sp?) fossils discovered after Mary's?  Do hunters still come to Lyme Regis looking for such remains?

[marcie]

William Buckland did give a scientific answer to Mary rather than the "biblical" answer that Rev. Jones gave to Elizabeth.  I don't think either answer satisfied the women. At the time --even later at the time of Darwin -- thinking that "creation" wasn't a literal 7 days was a shattering world view.  I think that people who were looking at the scientific evidence sort of skirted around the issue when they talked about it with others (maybe even themselves). I think that Buckland meant no human remains were found in the Jurassic period which was in the MESOZOIC ERA. Men's ancestors came later, in the CENOZOIC ERA. http://www.esse.ou.edu/fund_concepts/Fundamental_Concepts4/Geologic_Time_Scale.html

[BarbStAubrey]

Marcie you have me reading again, it becomes apparent we take so much for granted as beliefs change it still amazes me - it turns out that the Darwinian Theory had few biologists that believed natural selection was its primary mechanism and Darwin's Theory was only settled in the early 1930s - can you believe it was that recent - it seems  another theory gave it stiff competition called Transmutation of Species written by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck early in the nineteenth century were species morphed into the next level - there was a tree of life that handsomely showed this phenomenon. And so even had Mary asked her questions after Darwin she would not be given an explanation that we understand today.

Vaguely I remember Father Fritz teaching Transmutation however, Father Lynn taught us that a day in the Bible did not represent the same 24 hours that we understand as a day and a day could be a million years. I remember we were shocked into silence - this was new thinking for a bunch of Freshmen in High School during the 1940s.  

Here is the tree of life that was used to explain Transmutation.

[BarbStAubrey]

a brief rundown of William Buckland including his photo as an older gentleman - interesting is the last paragraph.

"One of the less well-known aspects of Buckland's career is his early investigation of dinosaur poop. Another English naturalist, Mary Anning, had noticed that the ichthyosaur fossils she had discovered along the Lyme Dorset coast contained "bezoar stones" that, when cracked open, revealed the fossilized remnants of fish scales and bones. Not only did Buckland correctly interpret these "stones" as fossilized feces, but he was the individual who coined the term "coprolite," which has persisted down to the present day!"

http://dinosaurs.about.com/od/famouspaleontologists/p/williambuckland.htm

There was a Megalosaurus dug up in England in 1676 that no one knew what it was and so it remained nameless until William Buckland in a paper he wrote in 1824 names the dinosaur.

Do any of you remember this sentence in Bleak House: "It would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill." I sure don't.

[BarbStAubrey]

OK here we go - "The idea of transmutation of species was very controversial in the first half of the nineteenth century, seen as contrary to religious orthodoxy and a threat to the social order, but welcomed by Radicals seeking to widen democracy and overturn the aristocratic hierarchy."

Hmm, this theory of transmutation of species thought as an effort to overturn the aristocratic hierarchy. But wait a minute maybe not as subversive as it sounds.

The Supreme Governor of the Church of England is a title held by the British monarch that signifies leadership over the Church of England. Since the English Reformation, the Church of England is a state church and the choice of archbishops is legally that of the Crown. - (today it is made in the name of the Sovereign by the Prime Minister, from a shortlist of two selected by an ad hoc committee called the Crown Nominations Commission.)  

"By the Corporation Act of 1661, no one could enter a civic or municipal office unless he had taken the sacrament according to the rites of the Church of England. Under the Test Act of 1673, all who held offices under the Crown were required to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, sign a declaration repudiating the doctrine of transubstantiation and to receive the sacrament according to the Church of England."

Although the basic concepts in the transmutation of species theory had been around for several centuries the church believed in Revelation rather than Natural theology therefore, any clergy as Reverend Jones would have been schooled under those who held church office under the Crown, who had taken oaths of allegiance to the Crown and received sacraments according to this church that championed Revelation over Natural theology. So it is amazing that William Buckland, an Anglican Minister championed geology and palaeontology which was overturning the aristocratic hierarchy.

I just wonder if Tracy Chevalier included the bit of William Buckland relieving himself out of doors - which think about it what did it add to the story except we see William Buckland as someone who is willing to break with social niceties because researching nature was more important than a refined sense of behavior, helping us see this man was a maverick who would plow ahead regardless of church accepted theology.

[bellamarie]

I had no idea what Buckland urinating on the beach was to bring to the story.  If anything I thought it was totally inappropriate and half expected to read he would make inappropriate gestures toward Mary or Fanny.  The conversation between the girls while he was doing this, showed they were curious, asking if each other had ever seen that part of the man's body. That I felt was to show the girls were at the age of curiosity of the opposite sex.  It just made no sense to put the entire situation in the story.  But then again TC did say,

"By using fewer words, I am also giving readers the chance to fill the gaps with their own. "Less is more" encourages collaboration, which is what a book should be—a contract between writer and reader."

So, I guess we can speculate and fill in the gaps.  I did not see him as a Maverick. I saw Buckland's behavior a bit perverted, him knowing how inappropriate it is to do something like this, knowing two single young girls were close by, and they knew what he was doing, not once, but many times.  TC showed it caused the girls to think about his private part, which in my assessment, in today's world, would be a form of pervertedness, on his part. Maybe we will find out more inappropriate behavior from him in the next chapters.  I am certain that if he would have been caught doing this, he could have been arrested for indecency, not to mention what it would have done to his reputation and the girls, had it been made public.  Mary and Fanny's parents would have stopped them from going anywhere with him. if they would have known.

 

[BarbStAubrey]

Bellamarie I think it is so easy for us to use today's morals to suggest what behavior was appropriate - when I was a kid it was usual for men to stand by a curb to relieve themselves. It is why we kids were taught never to walk in the gutter -

As a kid I lived in several states and visited family where we had lived earlier and this was the way in the cities where there were streets with gutters in New York, Florida and Georgia - yes, today we agree, we would see this as perverted - I remember going to my first public rest room when I was 6 or 7 and asked my Mom why they built it - she said it was to stop folks from using the streets.

So I am thinking what seems inappropriate may not have been in early nineteenth century but then, without any historical reference as  explanation by Chavelier for what purpose was it included in her story - surely not just for us to see curiosity between two girls and if so, why? And I am not sure there are many reading and explaining public behavior that was a norm up through the era before WWII so again, why? This appears to be a book about championing a developing science so why make it appear the Buckland was uncouth? It truly baffles me. 

[JoanP]

I agree, Barb - it was a different time - AND a different place!  When I was a girl, 26 or so, another young lady and I visited the south of France.  I remember posting this in the Pre-discussion.  My friend and I were sitting on the beach in Nice, leaning up against a sea wall, enjoying the view.  We noticed some people staring at us...we thought because they were all in bikinis, and we were all covered up in our full American bathing suits.  After a while, a young man walked up to the wall...and urinated.  Followed by another...and we were out of there!  This was simply what they did there.  Different time, different place.  The men thought nothing of it...never knew they were shocking us or that we were noticing them.  It was simply a bodily function that needed to be attended to.  

I read it that way - that Mr. Buckward was so involved in collecting, that when nature called, he did what he always did.  The fact that these two ladies were watching him...never occurred to him.  I didn't think him uncouth, but rather insensitive to these young ladies, his mind elsewhere.  I think Chevalier included it to show those two were developing a curiosity about the opposite sex...

[ANNIE]

If you look at the links that I left in Post #120, you can see who named the "ichthyosaurs " in 1840 along with a brief bio of the man.

[marcie]

I didn't think that Buckland going down to the ocean with his back to the girls would be seen as inappropriate during that time.

There is a very interesting video on the "history of the bathroom" in England at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inoVg5a1kps&feature=relmfu

It seems there were periods when communal bath houses and public "loos," for men and women together, were the norm (not during Mary Anning's time  ).

[BarbStAubrey]

ah yes marcie, forgot about non-sex public loos - my first was in France and then later in both Switzerland and Germany with several stalls with doors that were about 2 feet high and about 3 feet from the floor - quite an education. Plus paying the woman or man who stood where you entered handing you your allotted toilet tissue.

Hurray I found it - was I ever shocked - it was right up front third sentence out of the box -

Chapter 1 — In Chancery
LONDON. Michaelmas Term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln’s Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snow-flakes — gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers.

Yes, Ann you did find for us some great links, that being one of them - we forget as we read along and come upon this information fresh from another perspective - I think it sinks in a bit more with those of us who scrounge the internet looking and following clue after clue till we hit pay dirt.

[marcie]

Thanks for finding that sentence, Barbara. Very interesting. I didn't remember it, though it seems a remarkable description.

[BarbStAubrey]

following the words about the mud and wet it was as if everything in the story was coming to light from deep in the earth - marcie for me that was the best read this year tied only with Ella's Those Angry Days- I enjoyed both discussions more than most in the past few years - you did a great job with Bleak House and bringing the anniversary of Dickens into our awareness. Having read Bleak House years before and seeing it on PBS, a very fine performance, I expected to be bored out of my skull and instead it was riveting.

JoanP "I think Chevalier included it to show those two were developing a curiosity about the opposite sex..." OK I'll go there but I am still scratching my head why? What is so important to the story to learn their growing interest in the opposite sex - I feel we are missing something - how could their interest in men be tied to this story that centers around fossil hunting and the particulars about how it is done and the selling of them after they are cleaned up. Maybe later chapters will make it clear but for now I do not get the importance to the story of a hint to their curiosity about men. Can you fill in the puzzle...

[bellamarie]

Back on my #905 post I felt TC was showing us that Mary is now growing up and curious about the opposite sex, and also that it gave Mary and Fanny a friendship moment with each other. "Also, what are we to make of Mary becoming aware of her feelings for the opposite sex?  I had to crack up with her conversation with Fanny about seeing a boy/man's body part.  lolol  Our Mary is growing up, and it did not surprise me Molly had to demand a chaperon for Mary's outings."

I understand the point each of you are making, that it may have been common behavior of men back then, in England, to relieve themselves in public. But I still felt uncomfortable reading Buckland would do such a thing, around two young, single girls.  Mary's mother would not approve of this behavior, and I don't feel any parent would, regardless of the era, or place setting.  This is why I have to wonder if Buckland does anything else inappropriate in the remaining chapters.  Guess I will wait to see.

Marcie, "It seems there were periods when communal bath houses and public "loos," for men and women together, were the norm (not during Mary Anning's time   )."

So did parents allow their young girls to go into same sex loos, and actually chance seeing strange men urinating?  This is just so uncomfortable for me to imagine back then.  Look how we protect our children and young daughters today from sexual predators.  Did men not have the same unclean thoughts back then, as they do now?  I don't think so, or why the need for a chaperon? TC makes such an issue in the story about Mary needing a chaperon with her to hunt on the public beach with Buckland, yet then she uses him urinating close by to show the girls are growing up and aware of the opposite sex body parts? This sure does baffle me.           

Thank you for all your information.  I am not trying to convince anyone to think as I do, I am just trying to make sense of this.  It seems very contradictory and strange for TC to place it in the story.

Ciao for now!

[marcie]

It's time to move on to Chapters 6 and 7 but so much in this book is so intertwined that we can continue to talk about whatever has captivated you.

Chapter 6 begins with Elizabeth's reflection that digging Mary out of the sand and rocks to save her life didn't bring them closer together but drove them apart.

I'm still pondering that beginning. It certainly caught my interest. I'm still trying to decipher it to see what Chevalier means by tying their being driven apart to Elizabeth saving Mary's life. What/who do you think are the catalysts that drive Elizabeth and Mary apart?

Barbara, your comments about the first sentences of Bleak House seem very appropriate to Remarkable Creatures too: "following the words about the mud and wet it was as if everything in the story was coming to light from deep in the earth."

[BarbStAubrey]

Well I have some reading cut out for me - have not started the next chapters but will - since this is a novel there is usually devises in a story used as - Metaphors, Symbols, Connotations, Allusion, Allegories, Similes - all along we have not been completely certain what is fiction and what is fact - we do know a few of the characters are factual however, do we actually know how they lived, how they expressed themselves, how the behaved - I have not read where there was a diary left including a day to day account of what they did or said and so I am thinking that is how Tracy Chevalier has fleshed out these characters but writing her ideas based on historical research how they behaved.

Buckland we know to be a real person however, we have no evidence to suggest that Fanny is real. We have agreed some posts back that Fanny probably represents the thinking of the villagers of the day and probably is rounded out with other bits of knowledge about some of the typical activities for young girls during this time in history and so I am thinking that the scenes that feature Fanny are likely to be part of the structure of the story, pushing the story along, allowing those who are real to act and think because a fictitious character is opening an area of life they can fill in. With out fictitious characters it would be a laundry list or litany of events that can be read in Biographies of these characters.

[BarbStAubrey]

As to your observation bellamarie - men having the same unclean thoughts back then, as they do now - Yes, probably so and that is why unmarried women had chaperones - there was a culture that went with chaperoning that men understood because certainly no girl or women could stop a man if he wanted to act -

I also do not think even a flasher thinks sex when he is relieving himself -

Imagining ourselves as best we can in this time period - there were no indoor loos - during dinner parties there was a screen set up with pots for men. Women had time after dinner in their drawing room where again, there was a screen set up with help to assist so women could navigate their dress. Folks were more aware of each others toilet and out of doors all classes used the woods, a patch of weeds, lakes, streams, and the poor just outside their living quarters.

Today those hiking or hunting or fishing use the weeds, lakes etc. not completely private from others passing by - during long hikes everyone knows and they just step off the trail but do not pretend to cover - A TV show last week about a small coastal charter. After fishing for several hours the groups are brought to a mangrove cove known as the place where fishermen stop for a potty break. The groups are mixed men and women and the woman who today runs the charter fished as a child with her parents and grandparents as generations before them all stopping at this cove for their potty break as did others in the area who fish this Southern stretch of the Atlantic. No privacy and no one wants to be wet for the rest of the day fishing in an open boat so it is not like taking a quick swim.

It does force us to stretch if we look at the world through our own experience in our typical neighborhoods. We have to find out how differently folks lived a couple of hundred years ago and how folks live today in various circumstances and various parts of the world, so I think we have to be careful how we interpret what we read in a novel.  

With that, I too wonder why this incident with Buckland, Mary and Fanny was included in the novel - where I do not see it as a concern if the adults were made aware it seems a rough way for Tracy Chevalier to simply introduce to us that the girls were interested in men. I cannot imagine this would be for them new information or at least not for Mary who had at least one brother - her family all lived cheek to jowl as well as, both girls had to have seen other men relieve themselves.

I wonder if the quote from Dickens fits that marcie suggests is also emblematic of this story - I cannot see this episode being used to round out the character of any of the other males in the story except those who are in the wet and mud hunting - is this a way of showing Buckland coming from the wet and mud into the light that symbolically he had to be shown in the wet and mud as he then slowly emerging from the mud - slowly since he is not skilled in getting help quickly for Mary yet, he was attempting to do the work of those who were skilled, familiar with and dependent on the beaches and cliffs of Lyme. Is this incident showing him trying to be the 'tuppence type'.  

I still think that there will be something in the chapters ahead that will have us banging our forehead like a V8 commercial when we put this together.

[Steph]

I honestly did not consider what Buckland did on the beach as anything other than normal. I suspect that Mary may also have relieved herself at times, but probably picked a more private spot.. I too grew up where it was not considered abnormal for males to urinate in semi public areas and all over
Germany and France, it seems to be acceptable out inthe country.
I puzzle onto why Elizabeth thought that Mary was pulling away. I think Mary was simply growing up and that Elizabeth did not seem to take that into consideration.

[bellamarie]

Oh my heavens Barband Steph, you have truly brought to light information I had never imagined.  lolol  Screens for men to pee in pots....lololol  Now that is hilarious as I visualize it.  Ok, for now I am going to stop letting myself wonder about why on earth TC felt it necessary to use this device to make the readers aware of the girls growing up, and becoming aware of the opposite sex and their private parts.  Phew.....now for the next chapters.

I must share a little story before I go on....I own my in home day care, and one day while we were all playing outside at the swing set my little 4 yr old boy, just unzipped his jeans, and lo and behold, shot a stream at my fence.  The little 4 yr old girl just stared and said, "Nonnie, Aiden is going potty on the fence."  She was mortified!!!    I could not believe my eyes, and his older brother said, "My Daddy lets him do that all the time."  Needless to say we had to have a talk about privacy, and proper places for going potty.     

Elizabeth and Mary are drifting apart so it seems.  This does not surprise me, considering Mary is growing up.  Mary has gotten the help she needed to get her fossils beyond Lyme Regis, and many people from all over the world are now interested in coming, to hunt and see the creatures that Mary has found, and what they can also find themselves.  Elizabeth being the age she is, I can not see where their relationship would continue, at the same level as when it began.  Sort of a bit melancholy, but that is how relationships go, is it not?

Ciao for now~

[JoanP]

I've been noticing the little hand-written sentences on the pages preceding each chapter - they seem to reveal the content of the upcoming chapter.  Before Chapter Six:

" A little in love with him myself"

Is that the answer then?  Are Mary and Elizabeth interested in the same man - each thinking she has a better chance?  Mary isn't interested in a Lyme Regis man, but has reason to believe their common interest will bring them closer.  Look how she is primping now, turning to Margaret for advice and beauty secrets.

Elizabeth too, reasoning that they are intellectually suited for one another...similar social standing too.  Is he interested in her though?  Sad the way he forgot her dinner invitation...
It will be interesting to see if he ever becomes interested in a woman by the book's end.  But he's not showing interest in the Lyme Regis gals- other than in their knowledge of fossils.  I don't see him as playing one against another, but I do see him as the catalyst who is driving the two friends apart.

[marcie]

Barbara, good points about the differences in what is acceptable at different times. Maybe the "peeing in the ocean" scene is there to give one more item of information about the times --what was part of the daily life -- as well as to provide another opportunity to see that Mary was growing up and thinking about the opposite sex.

Steph, maybe in this next chapter we will see more "pulling away" between the two women. Joan, some of those sentences preceding each chapter seem revealing to me and some I have had a difficult time figuring out. I think you're right that Mary and Elizabeth may both be interested in the man who is paying attention to their pursuits.  Bellamarie, yes, I too think that it would be difficult to maintain a relationship between them because of the age and "class" difference but they do share a common interest, a deep passion, that no one else seems to understand. I think that something would need to drive them apart rather than their drifting apart.