APS TOGETHER
Day 1
Chapter 1, p. 1-18 (through “She was not sure that she did not find him a bit too familiar.”)
December 3, 2020 by Claire Messud
Jane Bowles wrote this novel during World War Two; Christina Goering’s name is no accident: ‘Christina’ for the woman who “wanted to be a religious leader when I was young”, and ‘Goering’ for the infamous Nazi aviator and Reichsmarschall.
“It’s not for fun that we play it, but because it’s necessary to play it.”
Even as a kid, Christina Goering takes things too seriously, roping her sister’s friend Mary into a game called “I forgive you for all your sins." Who hasn’t known (or perhaps been) the kid who doesn’t understand fun?
Miss Gamelon announces to Miss Goering (on p.9) that “you can make friends more quickly with queer people.” She may or may not mean ‘queer’ in a contemporary sense; but she certainly means ‘unconventional’. And is not, perhaps, wrong.
Bowles’s other serious lady, Frieda Copperfield, shares a surname with Dickens’ dogged, feckless protagonist. Of travel, she says, “I don’t think I can bear it…it frightens me so much to go.” [p.17] Both women are bound to do what most frightens them.
