Night Villa, The ~ Carol Goodman ~ June 1 ~ Book Club Online

[ALF43]

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 to join in.

The book can certainly be read on a variety of levels and each one is great in its own way!---Joan R.

(These topics are only here to spark conversation, choose one or suggest your own and let's discuss:)
Week  3: Through Chapter 24:
It's All in the Cards


What a chapter! Revelations, surprises,  but even more secrets, what did you make of it?

1 Talk about unreliable narrators, what do you think of Phineas? Is he reliable? Is Ely? Do you believe Ely?

2. Who is the yet unnamed operative still at the site?

3. The cards and their meanings are revealed!!  What are two possible flaws in Ely's plan to use them?

4. " I see Agnes, looking not only very much alive but the picture of health. Her cheeks are pink and her eyes glowing as if she'd just finished a morning jog." (page 232). What's going on with Agnes and why?

5.  Are you clear  on how the two parallel plots intertwine here? We've only got a small section left. What has Phineas's part in the rites got to do with the hunt for the Golden Verses?

6.  What do you think Simon was arguling about with Lyros? What do you think he was struggling to say to Sophie?

7. What do you think Maria was doing on the computer?  (page 206) Do you buy her emergency family trip?

8. Betrayal as  a theme has just raised its head. How is it paralleled exactly in the two plots?

9. How much do you think Maria saw when she came to look for Sophie? Why couldn't Ely have taken her to land somewhere instead of the swim?

10. "....be careful not to hurt Agnes or Agnes's woman professor." (page 279). What need has Lyros of Agnes's woman professor?

11.  What do you think is the most important part of this section and why?

12. What does Sophie's dream about Odette mean? What is meant by the wrong pan and the wrong day? (Babi)

13. What's with  the diabetic complication that caused Simon, our artist, to die? (Andrea)

14. "  But why would she make up such a story in order to go report to the Church. She is there as a Church representative, and reporting to them would be natural and appropriate. No,...she must have been doing something else."-- Babi. What do you think she was actually doing?

15. Is this book plot driven or character driven? (Deems) Why?

16. What IS the plot, to you, and what climax would you expect at the end?

17. "Ely sent those cards to Sophie, and if he had not sent the date signifying the day she told him of her affair which caused him to join the cult I would not be suspecting him wanting to harm her.  But I asked myself, why did he include that date?  I don't think he has gotten over her being unfaithful."  How do you see Ely?

18. Do Phineas and Iustia have their counterpart in our little group? (JudeS)

The Temple of Poseidon
Sounion, Greece
Where "Phineas"  got the scrolls

Schedule Chapters 17-24 for June 15 - 22 Chapters 25-End for  June 23 - 30

---

Interesting Links NYC Interview with Carol Goodman / Book Gathering '08 Carol Goodman Homepage The Philodemus Project -- Herculaneum Papyri Fordham Roman Mystery Religions (submitted by Suzie) Cult  (submitted by Marcie) Real or Fictional ? Links to Classical References in the NIGHT VILLA- researched by participants

Discussion Leaders: Andrea & Ginny

Floor Plan of the Villa of the Papyri by Karl Weber, 1750-.




New! If you'd like to borrow Gaetano Capasso's DVD showing the reconstruction of the Villa of the Papyri and Library, email your mailing address to gvinesc@gmail.com and we'll pass it around!

Do you think it's necessary TO identify with the protagonist of every book you read?

OH yes! Yes! Yes!  Love them or hate them I am them!  (What does that say about me?)

That is why I have become aggravated with Sophie, during this trek..  I keep telling her as I read "come on lady, open up your eyes."

Then I begin to chastise myself, telling ME, to "give the girl a break, she's not had much stability in life, albeit M'Lou, men have betrayed her, women have betrayed her, what kind of woman would I be, if I really WAS her?"
I argue back and forth all the time with my characters and I enjoy it.  I seldom say whether I like them or not (because I don't wish to hurt anyone's feelings) but I do have quite a conversation with each of my characters. ..even the men.

"Phineas, you horny little devil."
 John, what big, beautiful, blue eyes you have.
 Ely ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I digress.  I finished the book!!!!
I actually could have read the History of the World while I was in the air.  
We couldn't land in DC or Baltimore, due to horrendous storms, circled for over an hour, round and around until I began to feel dizzy.  grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, stupid flight attendant told a kid ahead of me that we could run out of fuel and "fall from the sky."
I could write an epistle on this trip but I will only say Bill will NEVER fly again.  (That will last until he is invited to fly away for another golf adventure with the guys.)

[joangrimes]

Ok maybe I did not try hard enough. I did get in a hurry to finish the book.  That coudl have been my problem.

Ginny,  I am sure sorry that you are not going to be able to go to Italy this year.  I know that you will really miss it.  I am not going to France this year and I miss it so much that I can hardly stand it. I hope that your leg is getting much better.

Joan Grimes

[ALF43]

Bellemarie,

I just couldn't identify with Sophie, I have known women like her and want to help them or scream at them.  lololol

Bella- bella- didn't you have a sister or a friend that you could have beat soundly for their foolishness?Of course you have but you identify with the person anyway.  You loved her and accepted her for her flaws, right?   Don't be such a harsh critic of this unfortunate girl.
Come on guys, cut the gal some slack. She has been working through
some major trauma, here.

I am with  Babi on this one.

Come on guys, cut the gal some slack. She has been working through
some major trauma, here.

 You do side with Ginny though.

because I didn't see Sophie so much as a catch, I really didn't allow myself to care.

AWWWWWWWWWWWW- you women are cold! Cold!  Poor lil Sophie.
Belle-

As far as trying to outline the plot....For me it was Sophie overidentifies with Iusta in her thesis, she wants information to finish her book, the shooting takes place, Elgin convinces Sophie to go to Italy, cult members are being revealed, Phineas ties the scrolls into the story, Sophie sees Ely, Iusta is NOT so innocent, Agnes murders Simon and the rest I won't go into.  It does seem there were two stories being told, but the mythological one I din't find all that interesting.

Isn't it amazing how we all read into a novel differently?  I love that!  Love it!  
What I liked the very best reading this story was the way that Carol intertwined both worlds.  

I am so happy that you are here reading with us Carol and we are blessed to have you, an award winning author taking time out of your very busy writing schedule to bear our scrutiny.  (With no compensation either, I might add)  

[bellamarie]

Ginny, 

Why can't this character stand alone with her flaws and her perceptions?

Sophie can stand alone with her flaws and perceptions, I personally just didn't like her.  I don't feel I  have to identify with the character in any book or movie for that matter.  I think its a natural reaction for a woman to look at a female character and see if they have things in common.  Not that I didn't find things in common with Sophie, I just found myself disinterested in her.  When she did not take any action in the first pages and then when she came home from the hospital, mowed the lawn and trekked off to Italy so soon after her injuries, I lost any form of compassion for her.  I thought if she doesn't care for her own health and life by putting herseld at risk, then why should I care?  As the story  progressed she just kept doing things that detached me further from her. 

I was more interested in if the scrolls would defame the Catholic church, and if Iusta was freed. When I began suspecting Iusta stole Phineas scrolls the night she slept with him and she felt honored to participate in the rites I found I didn't care if she got her freedom or not.  I just lost interest in the both of them.  Elgin with his flaws and perceptions seemed more the character I cared about, but I wasn't rooting  for him to end up with Sophie because I saw no love story here.

I liked the mystery, just not the characters.   

[ginny]

Bella said For me, since Sophie getting her information to finish her book on Iusta was the plot, I kept my focus there.  That's a good post about plot that you made.

Babi  said SANDYROSE, (and JoanG)  perhaps this is the plot.

sandyrose  said I find it hard to see a plot.

Deems said:
Two plots but I don't see them as parallel.

OK I had to drag out my SparkNotes of Literary Terms.

A PLOT according to them,

is the arrangement of events in a story, including the sequence in which they are told, the relative emphasis they are given, and the causal connections between events.

Elements of the Plot:

1. Conflict: the central struggle that moves the plot forward. The conflict can be the protagonist's struggle  against fate, nature, society, or another person. In certain circumstances the conflict can be between opposing elements within the protagonist.

What are the conflicts here?

2.  Rising action: the early part of the narrative, which builds momentum an develops the narrative's major conflict.

3. Climax: the moment of highest tension, at which the conflict comes to a head.... An anticlimax occurs when the plot builds up to an expected climax only to tease he reader with a frustrating non event. Jane Austen's novels, such as Sense and Sensibility are full of romantic anticlimaxes.

4. Falling action: Also called the denouement, this is the latter part of the narrative, during which the protagonist responds to the events of the climax and the various plot elements introduced in the rising action are resolved.

5. Reversal: Sometimes called by its Greek name peripeteia, a reversal is a sudden shift that sends the protagonist's fortunes from good to bad or vice versa.

6. Resolution: An ending that satisfactorily answers all the questions over the course of the plot.

Oh  and under the different types of plots there is:

Subplot: A secondary plot that is of less importance to the overall story but may serve as a point of contrast or comparison to the main plot.

Given the above I can see two plots, running,  I think,  parallel. This is REALLY clumsy but as Sandy says it's hard.

The main plot to me is  Sophie's plot.  She's got lots of conflicts, if you tried to graph the plot line of her story like a heart line,  and you put it in order (which the book does not, but as Marcie noted:  

I like the technique that Carol is using to reveal information about Sophie's past...a little at a time. It's a good way to keep suspense and provide clues (or misdirections/red herrings) in different contexts. This is a mystery story and it can't be obvious who did what.

If you put what I see as the main plot in order given you've got Sophie as academic, interest in Iusta,  the shooting, trip to Italian villa, translating  scrolls, adventure in the dig,  creepy people, hunt for scrolls... rising conflict  again in the death of Simon, return of Ely, something is wrong, mystery.... Who are the bad guys? What do they want?

Incidental is all of her personal trauma, death of mother, death of baby, abandonment, betrayal, etc. Her story is  the main plot.

Secondary plot of course is Phineas and Iusta, again totally made up. He depends on the main plot because he only  comes to light as an adjunct, only speaking when translated.  He's on a quest also, parallel, to find out what the rites are. He's got a lot of the same issues (betrayal) (curiosity) (in same room) Same grotto, same villa (reconstructed in Sophie's case)....same quest for knowledge and he wants the scrolls back too. So they are all on a quest. The quest centers around the same scrolls and the  same place: the ancient Villa Della Notte (fictitious)  and the reconstructed one.

Incidental are all the other characters and their interests.

 What IS parallel: they are both looking for the scrolls. They are in modern days trying to enact what happened in the ancient times. Sophie is in the room Phineas occupied. They are digging for the scrolls and Phineas is waiting for the rites, something is going to happen in both plots, and the implication is that in the modern time something is going to happen which may...? Recreate the ancient rites? Is Lyros that depraved? IS he depraved at all?

These two plots are the two I see running side by side. Are there others? Is this what you see?

[bellamarie]

Andrea,  Thank God, you landed safely after those storms.  And that flight attendant should be fired for telling that little kid that. grrrrrr is right.

I'm going to say that I think because this book was fiction, I was able to become disinterested and detached from the characters.  I am more of a problem solver, feminist and a take action person.  Because I knew Sophie was not real, I felt I don't have to care.  lolol  I am having more and more difficulty reading fiction lately.  I never once felt like screaming at her to tell her to wake up.  I was just indifferent to her.  I don't see that as "cold".  I have met women like her and would not choose to have them as friends.  I seriously feel the author went too far, for me to care about Sophie or Iusta.  

I found myself only wanting to know what was in the scrolls pertaining to the church, and that Sophie could now finish her book.   

[bellamarie]

Oh my dear Ginny, you just lost me with all that.  Now my head is spinning.      

[ginny]

Bella, those are good points on the female characters.

 Gum said, She may identify with Iusta on a personal level but her professional side is more discerning - doesn't Elgin say somewhere that she is a skeptic and won't accept anything on face value.

Isn't that interesting? I would have agreed on the first part but not on the second. She seems amazingly willing to accept everything on face value, very little spidey senses working. Makes me wonder what Elgin has going on.

______________


For myself, I want to put up a few more half-baked theories 

hahaha Me too, Pat, they are half the fun of a book discussion, you can't help forming them just like you would reading at home.

__________________

Frybabe By the end of the current section, I am still suspicious of everyone, especially Ely for reasons already stated. I don't for one second believe he is the FBI informant.

Stephanie I can't believe you and Frybabe   suspect Ely! I agree falling into his arms was much but ELY as villain? How many of the rest of you see Ely as villain?

____________________

Gum thank you for this Pythagorean theory and the poem:

Never sleep before going over the acts of the day in the mind

And if your actions ill on search you find,
Let grief; if good, let joy possess your mind.
This doe, this think, to this your heart incline,
This way will lead you to the life Divine.

Maybe I'm nuts, but that sounds to me less a life Divine than a life with some kind of Mega Sominex needed. Who in their right minds goes over the negative events of the day? Somebody trying to have sleepless nights and BP issues?

Recipe for BP!

__________________________

Countrymm I bet the Library would love to see the heifers. Thank you for telling us about the eightfold path in Yoga too, lots of tangential things here, very interesting!  No wonder I'm a mess: CLUTTER!!


_________________

JudeS: I wish I could answer one of your super questions. Sex. Obviously Ely is not in a cult now, right?

I liked this one particularly:
On another matter-Do Phineas and Iustia have their counterpart in our little group?

I think Sophie is supposed to be Phineas. I think she's intended AS a sacrifice which is what I think he's going to be. I may be wrong. If so, who is Iusta in the modern group? Good one, going in heading.

_____________________

Joan Grimes, I agree, very challenging discussion. Love it, thank you.

_____________________

I agree with Pat H, too but the second quote is a carefully crafted bit of not-quite-specific.

I agree, I definitely see a plan here. But what IS it? To what end? We're about to find out!

[ginny]

Thank you Joan G, we're all posting together, you're not going to France?  I am sorry, I do know how that feels. Why? (if I may ask?)

[ginny]

Andrea I'm glad you are OK, the storms have been unreal another one yesterday I thought of you actually. Where did you fly into?   Where did you finally land? LaGuardia closes at the drop of a hat. I don't blame Bill, I'm seriously thinking of taking a boat over to Europe next time despite the faux dress up stuff.  I don't care what anybody says, you do NOT sleep on those overnight flights even with a seat which makes a bed which I have had: not enough time, not enough time. VERY tired of jet lag.

OK time to plump down, one way or another:

Ely: good or bad?

Elgin: good or bad?

I say Ely is good (I may be the only one here, maybe this is why I never saw the end coming last time and can't remember it now) and Elgin bad.

[joangrimes]

Ginny,

I feel that I am too old to run off to France alone.  So I am staying home this summer.

Joan Grimes

[ginny]

Oh shame, sorry, maybe next year the Art  Museum there  or some academic group will get up another tour, I do know what you mean tho. We  need to get up a group here. Some of those cruises to the Eastern Mediterranean look super and Oxford is to die for. Those are not France tho!

[Gumtree]

I don't think it is necessary to 'like' or  'relate to' or 'identify with' any of the characters. This is especially so in a novel like this which  as we all know is a mystery and is therefore plot driven. There is almost no character development at all. - well, there isn't in Agatha Christie either is there? We learn bits and pieces about each character's background, their activities and perhaps a little of what may motivate them but they don't grow or develop in any way - everyone stays fundamentally the same as they were when we first met them. Sophie is still licking the  wounds which her life experiences have inflicted, Agnes begins to show her true colours, Elgin is perhaps already settled into his mould, so has John Lyros. We do see two manifestations of Ely - one the thin dark haunted student who left Sophie for the Cult and the other the assured man of the world on his luxury yacht but we don't see him grow from one to the other. Of course all this doesn't matter because the story is about the plot. - finding those scrolls - the holy grail  for Sophie is the outcome of Iusta's story - for Maria it's the Christian story - and for Ely and Lyros it's the Pythagorean Golden Verses - and for Elgin I think it is purely for the science and for Sophie too!

[Gumtree]

Ginny:  When I said about Elgin saying Sophie was a skeptic and didn't take anything at face value he was referring to her professional mode - so was I.  When it comes to her personal life and dealings with others she just takes whatever happens or is said apparently without question.

But then, Carol G is so good at creating red herrings by giving us a reaction from Sophie or perhaps an erroneous conclusion drawn by her which colours how we see an event or action. 

[bellamarie]

Gumtree, 

Of course all this doesn't matter because the story is about the plot. - finding those scrolls - the holy grail  for Sophie is the outcome of Iusta's story - for Maria it's the Christian story - and for Ely and Lyros it's the Pythagorean Golden Verses - and for Elgin I think it is purely for the science and for Sophie too!

I could not have said it better, although I may have already said it, but Gumtree, I like your choice of words better!!!!!!!!! 

Elgin has always been good for me...he conviced Sophie to go for the sake of her finishing her book.  He went to her hotel room in Italy to check on her, and the boat scene approaching the sirens, that did it for me.  He is a my Richard Gere with all his flaws.

Ely sad to say.... my Tom Cruise in Collateral Damage and Eyes Wide Shut (masks and all).  That card signifying the day Sophie told him she had the affair and he left sealed the deal.  He is a man on a mission....get the scrolls and revenge on Sophie.  Why not have sex with her as an ultimate sacrifice.  Denegrating women has been a theme throughout this entire story of the rites and initiations it fit perfect. 

[ALF43]

Gumtree-

I don't think it is necessary to 'like' or  'relate to' or 'identify with' any of the characters

I can't help it! I am a victim of the story.  It matters not which story, I vicariously place myself in their shoes.
I wish that I didn't many times, fiction or non fiction,  I can't help myself.

[PatH]

Ginny asked something about the importance of telling the book in the first person.  Doing so makes possible something that to me is an extremely enjoyable aspect of the book.  Sophie sees things in terms of pictures, and because she is often sick or delerious they have a dreamlike quality to them.  So we get a series of strange, vivid tableaux--the poppy glowing red in the dark outstretched hand of Night, Sophie and Ely spiraling down through the weird underwater light of the grotto, etc.  Yuo couldn't do this in the third person.

[winsummm]

wow what an analysis of PLOT. I never knew.  There was an overall possibiity of a ghost story connecting the two plots but it never happened.   I liked reading most of it though the characters were complex enough to interest me and the setting too.  overall I liked the book. And as for liking Sophie, she has her good points. I could spend time with her, although she might be a little bored with me.

I've never been to any place in Europe, so could not UNDERSTAND as to what it is like for you folks who go almost every year. I did wonder about Sophies not using a cell phone AT ALL?? And I wondered about her macho attitude, stressing heself physically and then suffering from it, more like an athlete than a scholar. In  comparing it to some of her other books, I see that the heroine is up for physical challanges all the time. How about it Carol . . .is that YOU?

claire

[JudeS]

Winsummm
Good point. Sophie is not just up for physical challenges but is drawn to them.  Hard to believe she recently  lost half a lung and had pneumonia.Yet she travels, swims, climbs, has energetic sex... SUPERSOPHIE?

Iustia is also somewhat of a superwoman for her time both physically and mentally.

Is that the connection?

[Deems]

Babi,

Come on guys, cut the gal some slack. She has been working through some major trauma, here.

bellamarie: "Sorry, I can't let that be her excuse to justify her actions and inaction. As the saying goes, "What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger."  I just couldn't identify with Sophie, I have known women like her and want to help them or scream at them. "

Sorry, Babi, if I saw Sophie as working through her problems, I would cut her some slack.  But she never seems to be making any headway--or even trying.

Thank you, Pat H for finding the section that sets me straight on when the affair with Elgin began.  I obviously missed that or I wouldn't have thought that the affair preceded her living with Ely.  Probably the reason I made the assumption can be blamed on my days as a grad student at Maryland.  It was a regular sin city with students sleeping with professors, grad students sleeping with professors, other professors sleeping with professors (one man was ordered to keep his office door WIDE open whenever he was in it--and he was the associate chair at the time).  Those were the days, my friends.

Ginny--I think the problem is that it is hard not to identify with a first person narrator, even one who is very different from you.  In this case, though, I never identified with Sophie except in the opening pages.  She just had too many problems.  I never did figure out why all those memories of her mother taking her to Mermaidland  (or whatever--I know that's the wrong name)  were in there.  Kept waiting for them to hook up to something, but they didn't--I must have missed it. 

[Deems]

Andy--Relieved to hear that you are safely in NY and also that your plane didn't land in DC.  We have had nothing but rain and storms--some really bad ones.  No weather to be landing in around this area. 

I refuse to cut Sophie any slack.  She doesn't give me enough information for me to care.

[bellamarie]

Deems,

I refuse to cut Sophie any slack.  She doesn't give me enough information for me to care.

 
Amen I say to this!!!!

Deems,  

Probably the reason I made the assumption can be blamed on my days as a grad student at Maryland.  It was a regular sin city with students sleeping with professors, grad students sleeping with professors, other professors sleeping with professors (one man was ordered to keep his office door WIDE open whenever he was in it--and he was the associate chair at the time).  Those were the days, my friends.

Its happened since the beginning of time and will continue.  That is why I didn't take it to heart.  I'm NOT saying I condone it, or approve in any way of it, but it is what it is and these young adults are making their decisions and learning along the way.  But it appears Sophie doesn't learn much along her way, and the author can only expect the readers to use her past so far before we say, enough already.  This is why my first question was, Is Sophie supernatural, or a figment of a dream or imagination.  

JudeS ,  

Iustia is also somewhat of a superwoman for her time both physically and mentally.

Is that the connection?

 
I think the connection was they both were seperated by their mother, they both were looking for the scrolls for their own personal agendas.  I think both women saw advantages to their situations and used them.  Sophie went on the dig with Elgin in spite of the reputation she described him to have.  Iusta stole the scrolls from Phineas in spite of the reputation she knew he had.  Both men showed some true care and concern for these two women.  Both men had their flaws, but both women could overlook them as long as they got what they wanted in the end.  Each woman had one thing on their mind, "THE SCROLLS" and no price was too big to pay for them, whether it be their health, self worth, or lives for that matter.  

Deems,[/color]  

I never did figure out why all those memories of her mother taking her to Mermaidland

My only understanding and connection to Sophie going to Mermaid shows and Agnes having the Little Mermaid quilt is Triton and Ursula fought for control of the sea, and Poeisdon and Athena fought for control of the sea, and then you have the cult and the church and Phineas and Iusta/ Calatoria fighting for control of the scrolls representing control of creation.  POWER in all these instances.  Also, I think Agnes slipped up and let Sophie know she knew about her going to the Mermaid shows when she was young and Ely knew that personal info of Sophie's childhood.  Hence, Agnes and Ely have a connection, both members of cult, (clue Agnes has dark circles under her eyes from lack of sleep when Sophie went to her dorm, just like Ely when he spent endless nights reading the books on the Tetraktys).

None of this is any give away to the end, this has been my theory and suspicions from early on and have happened already, in our first two assigned sections.

[Deems]

Thanks, Bellamarie, for this:

"My only understanding and connection to Sophie going to Mermaid shows and Agnes having the Little Mermaid quilt is Triton and Ursula fought for control of the sea, and Poeisdon and Athena fought for control of the sea, and then you have the cult and the church and Phineas and Iusta/ Calatoria fighting for control of the scrolls representing control of creation.  POWER in all these instances.  Also, I think Agnes slipped up and let Sophie know she knew about her going to the Mermaid shows when she was young and Ely knew that personal info of Sophie's childhood."

I was so annoyed by Sophie's return to those memories that I didn't notice the parallels you point out.

[PatH]

If, as Bellamarie hints, it's going to be important that Ely knows of Sophie's memories of the mermaid shows, we have another example of red herrings, because so far, the only person we know who knows of this is Elgin.

[winsummm]

I don't think that Carol wrote the book as a CLASSICS  FINAL. I haven't tried to make that kind of connection. The first person present  grabs me though in any book.  I enjoyed it as somewhat confusing fiction. as for cutting someone slake. If I didn't do  that I wouldn't like anyone at all.  This world is full of SCREW UPS. And that include me . . . .

claire

[bellamarie]

PatH, I have found numerous red herrings, every since someone mentioned there could be some.  Before that I was running around in circles trying to connect everything and everyone.

Remember at the time Agnes mentions to Sophie about the mermaid shows she went to as a child,(pg.165) Sophie is thinking she told Elgin that story on their way to Capri.  NO WHERE in her statement or any where else, does the narrator imply that Elgin in the ONLY person she shared that with.  Sophie has no reason to suspect Ely would have told Agnes because she has only known Agnes for 3 yrs, and Ely has been gone for 5 yrs.  I have been suspecting Agnes is a cult member as far back as when Sophie visited her dorm and said she had dark circles under her eyes and was thinner than the picture of her on the wall (like Ely when he stayed up all night reading the books on the cult and did a strict diet.)  So....I think hmmm, just maybe Agnes and Ely have met in the Tetkratys and Ely could have told Agnes about Sophie's mermaid shows.  At this point I had already been suspecting Ely as a bad guy, but I needed more proof.  When Ely sent the card pertaining to the date of Sophie sleeping with Elgin and he left for the cult scorned, I connected Agnes and Ely together wanting to do harm to Sophie, beause the day Agnes mentioned the mermaid shows is the day she took Sophie swimming and put her in danger.  At first I thought Agnes slipped up and mentioned the  mermaid shows, but then I decided she was toying with Sophie's mind enjoying the fact poor little Sophie would never suspect her the one person she has been so protective of.  I thought oh you little minx, and that is when I saw Agnes is more like Iusta, sly and unsuspecting to those near to them.

winsummm...I don't think Carol wrote the book as a Classic final either, but Carol said herself she used vaious books on classics as references to write this book.  I chose to concentrate on four stories that Carol mentions in NV, The Littel Mermaid, Poseidon, Ovid's Metamorphoses and Iusta, and I tried to connect what is the same in each of them.  Struggling to possess POWER kept leaping out at me.

[Babi]

 True, Bellemarie.  The Pythagorean theory and number in general are key to the structure of the plot; ie., clues and cues. But they are no more than that.
  As to life's traumas, they do make you stronger eventually. But meantime,they do make you more vulnerable, more easily distracted, and less able to make decisions. I would have been more disturbed by the 'too soon' sex scene between Sophie and Ely, if they had not been a couple for so long. I'm not justifying Sophie, simply pointing out that she is human.
 Having said that, I must agree that as a character she does not greatly interest
me.

GINNY

Do you think it's necessary TO identify with the protagonist of every book you read?

 By no means. It has happened that in reading a book, I will be able to identify
with one of the characters, but that is because I find we have much in common.

[ginny]

What great posts. I respect, personally, an author who does her homework. It's a rare thing for those who write about classics in general, TO have accuracy. Usually it's like watching Spartacus and seeing a rolex watch on one of the soldiers, (which does occur in that movie along with about a million other flaws).

Carol has a niche here in that she was a Latin teacher,  so she would know, about Iusta and the Eleusinian mysteries, I'm not sure I have heard a lot of people talking about them recently, but more than that, she has done her homework and researched it thoroughly so there are no holes in the research. Then she's taken them and made a different (Iusta lost her suit and is pawn for these rites) and delightful modern adaptation of several  old myths and stories.

JudeS asks who is the modern parallel to Iusta? That's a good question. Could it be a man, one wonders. I think, still having not read the end,  this time, it's Sophie.

That's a good point Gum on Agatha Christie. What a clever woman she was. She gives just the beginning of a description and the reader eagerly fills in the gaps, and the characterization, it's amazing,  really, almost like the two, reader and author, writing the book. It's eye opening   to reread her. Very clever.

We really appreciate Carol who, we may have forgotten,  IS reading this discussion, as our Guest, and who has been so generous to us the entire time, meeting with us in NYC on her own time: she's gotten absolutely nothing out of this for her time and trouble and we really appreciate it.

As our next week begins on Monday, we'll have to begin gathering up the crumbs and napkins and getting ready to go home from our virtual living room here.

Please have any last questions for Carol to put here Monday our last week.

I may be alone in this but to me Sophie makes perfect sense. Her radar is not out, but as Babi said, she's been under quite a lot of stress. There ARE some people who don't obsess over everything, nor think it into the ground,   but plow on, relentlessly, especially when it's blow after blow, not even allowing themselves to think  like these Pythagoras folks, to think over the day before going to bed that night.  She just keeps plowing on. Just because she's in the first person, does not mean we're privy to her every thought, or are we?  (I agree with Pat H that it does make for great imagery). I think she could have done it in 3rd person,  but it would not have been half as effective, it took us with her on a Disney ride of swirling images. I liked that, very much, you never knew what was up.

She's doing well to get thru the day much less do analytical thinking about what's going on,  she's plowing her interest into the scrolls, sort of...what's the word? Externalizing or pushing away her problems. Again I know a lot of people who do this. Her subconscious catches up with her in the form of Odette and dreams, but she finally outwardly  succumbs to the double whammy of the water, getting stuck (how DID her mother die? Did she get stuck too? ) having an epiphany about her mother's gleam in the eye, and having Ely back.  She's obviously young (we don't know how young) and she falls into a bad decision with him. As Claire says, it happens? It is what it is, maybe it has not happened to all of us here  personally but it does happen.

Tio me this is almost a magic book. Every time I go back and read it I see something  I did not see before, a different slant.. I know nobody has come in, in the night, and rewritten it. I wish I could figure out how I keep getting off the track. Red herrings, indeed! 

 Pat mentioned that Elgin is the only one to this point who knows about her mother drowning but didn't she say somewhere in the beginning something about she and Ely had that in common: drowning, his brother, her mother? Did she share that with him? We don't know who Elgin told. There's a lot we don't  know. I'm looking forward to finding out today when I read the last bit. What fun!

Any last minute thoughts on the first three quarters of the book? Great discussion!

[bellamarie]

Babi, 

The Pythagorean theory and number in general are key to the structure of the plot; ie., clues and cues. But they are no more than that.

I agree, early on when I researched Plato's Pythagorean theory(which I had no prior knowledge of) and personally came to the conclusion it has to do someting with creation and Christ, I started connecting that with the other stories.  I decided to stop worrying so much about the numbers.  The numbers for me was a bit "above my pay grade", as Obama has said before, and I use it when I choose not to continue trying to explain something beyond my comprehension. lolol  It's a great phrase as an OUT. 

[bellamarie]

Ginny,  

Pat mentioned that Elgin is the only one to this point who knows about her mother drowning but didn't she say somewhere in the beginning something about she and Ely had that in common: drowning, his brother, her mother? Did she share that with him?

Ginny I think PatH was talking about Elgin was the only one Sophie told about the mermaid shows.

The link Sophie and Ely had was they both lost a loved one at the same age.  His brother did not drown like Sophie's mom.

pg. 79 "Ely had lost his brother when he was ten.  It was one of the links that Ely believed held us together, that we both lost someone important to us when we were the same age.
pg. 82 "Ely's never said what Paul died of,  
pg.83.  "Cystic Fibrosis ," Ruth said,..."We found out Paul had it when I was pregnant with Ely.

Ginny,

We really appreciate Carol who, we may have forgotten,  IS reading this discussion, as our Guest, and who has been so generous to us the entire time, meeting with us in NYC on her own time: she's gotten absolutely nothing out of this for her time and trouble and we really appreciate it.

How could we ever forget such an astute author is among us!  I have to say from her response she has gotten more than expected from our posts.  She has said we  have helped her see how we find links she didn't realize were there.  We are a clever group!  Carol, if you check in today, please know we all are so very grateful and honored to have you with us.  Thank you so much for giving of your time and insights to our questions.

[ginny]

Bella, The link Sophie and Ely had was they both lost a loved one at the same age.  His brother did not drown like Sophie's mom. You're right, I find upon rereading. Paul had cystic fibrosis. 

And cystic fibrosis is a lung disease, I got this from the Cystic  Fibrosis Foundation:

    * clogs the lungs and leads to life-threatening lung infections; and
    * obstructs the pancreas and stops natural enzymes from helping the body break down and absorb food.

[bellamarie]

Yes Ginny, I happen to be on the board of a newly foundation for Cystic Fibrosis.  My son's best childhood friend had a son born seven years ago with this lung disease.  He and his wife began what is now "Sal's Pals"  named obviously after little Sal.  We have an annual dinner/auction each year, along with a wine tasting event, two golf outings,  and the Great Strides walk in the spring.  We were proud to give a check to the National CF Foundation for over a half million raised.  Our prayers are they will find a cure to help the millions afflicted with this and to find it before Sal reaches the age it could take his life.  My son's other friend lost his sister to this disease a year ago, she was only 23 yrs old.  It has devastated his family, but being a part of Sal's Pals has given him a chance to honor his sister in a way she would be proud.

As we all say at "Sal's Pals"................Until there is a cure!

[countrymm]

GINNY,

Sophie and Ely..... both lost a loved one at the same age.  His brother did not drown like Sophie's mom.[/b] You're right, I find upon rereading. Paul had cystic fibrosis. 

And cystic fibrosis is a lung disease, I got this from the Cystic  Fibrosis Foundation:

    * clogs the lungs and leads to life-threatening lung infections; and
    * obstructs the pancreas and stops natural enzymes from helping the body break down and absorb food.

Both conditions tie in with Sophie's fear of not being able to breathe, of drowning (lungs filled with fluid), and of being trapped under or by water.

[bellamarie]

Yes, countrymm so true.  I was just pointing out that Paul did not literally drown in a lake,  like Sophie's mother.  But essentially it was the lungs that could not breathe for both Paul and her mother, which is Sophie's fear of not being able to breathe and of drowning.

[countrymm]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/20/arts/design/20acropolis.html?th&emc=th

Let's all meet at the new museum in Athens!

[bellamarie]

Thank you countrymm, how amazing it is!!!  Loved seeing Athena.  I needed a little getaway today.   

[PatH]

I can't find it now, but Sophie mentions that Ely had misunderstood his mother's statement that brother Paul's lungs had filled with water and for a long time he thought his brother had drowned.  Ely felt that both of them losing relatives to "drowning" was a bond between them.

[bellamarie]

The mention of how Ely's brother died is on pg. 82 and 83.  Sophie is asking Ruth how Paul died, she says Ely had never told her.  The mother says Cystic Fibrosis.  Earlier when someone else said he drowned like Sophie's mother,  I hesitated,  because I remembered Cystic Fibrosis, because it is a foundation I am involved in.  I did not take the time to point it out back then, I was busy chasing myself in circles for other clues, and forgot to post the page where they had the conversation.

Like Ginny says, "She thinks this book is magic."  We go back and re read and see something new, in some cases we realized we thought we read it or we assumed something by the way the narrator sets us up.  Its easy to do.

Ciao for now................

[winsummm]

this book with all its detail is like a puzzle for a group like this.  We just have to understand every thing in its own slot before going on. 

I let things slide until they start bothering me enough to make me care. Then it's off to google. I expect to go back  into this agsin some time.

right now I'm learning how derivatives work in the stock market by reading FOOLS GOLD  having gotten hooked into this  subject previously by HOUSE OF CARDS.  The politics and the world of trade are an interesting part of this Night Villa book for their time.  I'll be back to it.

There is a personal subject that arose for me while reading about the ancient artifacts etc.  I personalized. As a lifetime artist who has saved a body of work, I began to think that it might be appreciated finally intwo thousand years when at least the ceramics may have survived. It is a form of  immortality.
claire

[Gumtree]

QUESTION FOR CAROL

Most versions of the so-called 'Golden Verses' contain in excess of 40 adages which may be interpreted by adherents as precepts for living.

What led you to choose to use only the three questions a Tetraktys member must ask himself each night:
Where did I go wrong today?
What did I accomplish?
What obligation did I not perform?
in preference to one or more of the more positive precepts.