Thanks for your patience with the unscheduled hiatus. My day job got very busy.
Now, let’s discuss The Cruelest Month, the third book in the Gamache series.
Some starter questions:
The Cruelest Month is Rosa’s first appearance. What do you make of Ruth’s relationships with the ducks?
What do you think of the Hadley House as a setting? As a symbol?
And I’m stealing this one from gamacheseries.com: “We’re told that Three Pines is “only ever found by people lost.” In what way are Peter and Clara, Ruth, Myrna, Gabri and Olivier, and even Gamache and his team of investigators, lost people?”
I always tell people that they need to read at least until the duck appears to get a good sense of the series. What I love most about the series is the characters. And I think that Ruth needs the ducks in these early books to be fully human character. Later books develop her humanity in different ways, but the ducks are part of how we see Ruth as capable of love and loss and not just a crone that can be discarded or used in the story without any humanity.
The Cruellest Month is the book that is really the springboard for character development for several of the key characters. Ruth certainly is one of those and I'm not sure that it would have been possible for there to be significant development of her without introducing the ducks -- and that it's two ducks to begin with is a key part of this. The fact that Ruth takes the duck eggs to hatch is a result of an initial error on her part, which is touching the nest which prevented the ducks from returning to hatch them -- misdirected kindness. The other misdirected kindness is her assistance in helping Lilium to hatch, which ultimately results in the duckling being a weakling and dying. It brings up the unpleasant thought for Ruth that "kindness kills"; however it doesn't prevent Ruth from continuing to care for and love Rosa the "fine and sturdy duck" (I don't know why that phrase tickles my fancy so much). It does provoke the interesting conversation between Gamache and Ruth at the end of the book about love sustaining, versus killing, Lilium. So both Rosa and Lilium open up doors to better understand Ruth and add dimension to her character. I think that otherwise she would have remained a two-dimensional character in the series rather than developing into someone who has a major influence on some of the others.
Ruth has a deep kind inside. I think that beaten-down kindness is unable to hide from a creature in need. Maybe, Penny uses her to show all is never as black and white as first impressions; Gamache's super power, a thread.
Hadley House. Shudder. The neighborhood bully. Can it be redeemed? Do we all have a Hadley House we drive quickly by?
I love what Janet posted about Three Pines. I add. the world doesnt always act so nice to people with spirit. Three Pines seems to welcome, and allow/nurture these people...sigh.
Can we talk a bit about Jean Guy and being born with a caul? I will preface this with saying that I am a midwife, and I have delivered a few babies en caul (within or covered by the amniotic membranes). It's not as rare as the internet would have you believe, mostly because artificial rupture of membranes iis routine in obstetric care (but not, necessarily, midwifery care). I was unaware of the "second sight" aspect of this phenonmenon, because the caul as a talisman to prevent death by drowning is (my circles, anyway) far more dominant.
I see this as part of the struggle Jean Guy has with his rational self and (until this book) buried emotional/intuitive self. He loves his charts and markers and stuff he can see and touch; he's essentially an east-end Montreal kid born of working class parents. Raised Catholic (I love him saying Hail Marys as he tapes shut the door with crime scene tape) but like a large number of Quebecois, not really adhering to the church, but able to shake deeply seated rituals and beliefs. Deeply suspicious of anglos and not entirely comprehending the culture. At the same time, there is some fundamental dysfunctionality in his family (we do get a little of it in Fatal Grace, when at age 6, his sense of safety and security in family is destroyed when he is locked into a small stairwell); that is evidenced also by his mother telling about how, yes, he was born with a caul and how disgraceful that was, how they deliberately ignored him if he said, as a child, anything that seemed to be prescient.
He's clearly not too sure what to make about this -- he adamantly denies any belief in ghosts or spirits at the same time that he struggles with the intuitive nature of the work he does, which he sees in Gamache's investigative process. At the same time, this is the book where he loses control of his exterior self in that startling scene in Chapter 35. He is unable (or, perhaps, afraid) of asking for Gamache's love, the reciprocation of what he feels. But It's pretty evident that Beauvoir is fatherless, lacking that fundamental part of his life, envious of Daniel. I think what is also interesting (trying to keep this spoiler-less) is that Gamache's relationship with his own son is seriously fractured, and so Beauvoir offers that unconditional devotion that Daniel does not.
I do go on. Where *did* Gamache find Jean Guy? This is one of those discontinuities -- in The Cruellest Month, we are told it was Trois Rivieres, but elsewhere (again, trying to avoid spoilers) we are told it's a remote posting. Trois Revieres is not remote -- it's a city of about 100,000 on the north shore of the St. Lawrence between Montreal and Quebec. I wonder if Penny meant Trois Pistoles? It also isn't really remote, but is only 3,000 people. Another mystery.
I think that Louise Penny helps us remember that in some way, each of us are a little lost, and need some help finding our way home. The image of home she develops for Three Pines is a better place than the bar in Cheers, with much better food, drink, and company. Everybody knows your name. Because they are mysteries, someone also knows your darkest secret, or deep shame.
I don't love the Hadley House as setting and symbol. And I think it diminishes as the series goes on. But that may also be because the people who are evil who inhabit it change. There is a mystical reality to the series and that mysticism is expressed at times in objects having "power". But generally the power of objects can fade over time if "used up" or redeemed in other ways. I don't want to talk about the Hadley House in later books, but I think later books take on Hadley house differently as the characters who live in it change. And it raises the question about whether Hadley House changes the people or if the people change Hadley House.
I always tell people that they need to read at least until the duck appears to get a good sense of the series. What I love most about the series is the characters. And I think that Ruth needs the ducks in these early books to be fully human character. Later books develop her humanity in different ways, but the ducks are part of how we see Ruth as capable of love and loss and not just a crone that can be discarded or used in the story without any humanity.
The Cruellest Month is the book that is really the springboard for character development for several of the key characters. Ruth certainly is one of those and I'm not sure that it would have been possible for there to be significant development of her without introducing the ducks -- and that it's two ducks to begin with is a key part of this. The fact that Ruth takes the duck eggs to hatch is a result of an initial error on her part, which is touching the nest which prevented the ducks from returning to hatch them -- misdirected kindness. The other misdirected kindness is her assistance in helping Lilium to hatch, which ultimately results in the duckling being a weakling and dying. It brings up the unpleasant thought for Ruth that "kindness kills"; however it doesn't prevent Ruth from continuing to care for and love Rosa the "fine and sturdy duck" (I don't know why that phrase tickles my fancy so much). It does provoke the interesting conversation between Gamache and Ruth at the end of the book about love sustaining, versus killing, Lilium. So both Rosa and Lilium open up doors to better understand Ruth and add dimension to her character. I think that otherwise she would have remained a two-dimensional character in the series rather than developing into someone who has a major influence on some of the others.
I saw a real shift in Ruth, in the latest novel. That may be outside the boundary of this conversation. I love the duck.
Ruth has a deep kind inside. I think that beaten-down kindness is unable to hide from a creature in need. Maybe, Penny uses her to show all is never as black and white as first impressions; Gamache's super power, a thread.
Hadley House. Shudder. The neighborhood bully. Can it be redeemed? Do we all have a Hadley House we drive quickly by?
I love what Janet posted about Three Pines. I add. the world doesnt always act so nice to people with spirit. Three Pines seems to welcome, and allow/nurture these people...sigh.
They are all looking fort a home, somewhere they are accepted .
Can we talk a bit about Jean Guy and being born with a caul? I will preface this with saying that I am a midwife, and I have delivered a few babies en caul (within or covered by the amniotic membranes). It's not as rare as the internet would have you believe, mostly because artificial rupture of membranes iis routine in obstetric care (but not, necessarily, midwifery care). I was unaware of the "second sight" aspect of this phenonmenon, because the caul as a talisman to prevent death by drowning is (my circles, anyway) far more dominant.
I see this as part of the struggle Jean Guy has with his rational self and (until this book) buried emotional/intuitive self. He loves his charts and markers and stuff he can see and touch; he's essentially an east-end Montreal kid born of working class parents. Raised Catholic (I love him saying Hail Marys as he tapes shut the door with crime scene tape) but like a large number of Quebecois, not really adhering to the church, but able to shake deeply seated rituals and beliefs. Deeply suspicious of anglos and not entirely comprehending the culture. At the same time, there is some fundamental dysfunctionality in his family (we do get a little of it in Fatal Grace, when at age 6, his sense of safety and security in family is destroyed when he is locked into a small stairwell); that is evidenced also by his mother telling about how, yes, he was born with a caul and how disgraceful that was, how they deliberately ignored him if he said, as a child, anything that seemed to be prescient.
He's clearly not too sure what to make about this -- he adamantly denies any belief in ghosts or spirits at the same time that he struggles with the intuitive nature of the work he does, which he sees in Gamache's investigative process. At the same time, this is the book where he loses control of his exterior self in that startling scene in Chapter 35. He is unable (or, perhaps, afraid) of asking for Gamache's love, the reciprocation of what he feels. But It's pretty evident that Beauvoir is fatherless, lacking that fundamental part of his life, envious of Daniel. I think what is also interesting (trying to keep this spoiler-less) is that Gamache's relationship with his own son is seriously fractured, and so Beauvoir offers that unconditional devotion that Daniel does not.
I do go on. Where *did* Gamache find Jean Guy? This is one of those discontinuities -- in The Cruellest Month, we are told it was Trois Rivieres, but elsewhere (again, trying to avoid spoilers) we are told it's a remote posting. Trois Revieres is not remote -- it's a city of about 100,000 on the north shore of the St. Lawrence between Montreal and Quebec. I wonder if Penny meant Trois Pistoles? It also isn't really remote, but is only 3,000 people. Another mystery.
I think that the ducks show a nurturing, human side of Ruth. There was something so tender in her care of the ducklings.
I think that Louise Penny helps us remember that in some way, each of us are a little lost, and need some help finding our way home. The image of home she develops for Three Pines is a better place than the bar in Cheers, with much better food, drink, and company. Everybody knows your name. Because they are mysteries, someone also knows your darkest secret, or deep shame.
I don't love the Hadley House as setting and symbol. And I think it diminishes as the series goes on. But that may also be because the people who are evil who inhabit it change. There is a mystical reality to the series and that mysticism is expressed at times in objects having "power". But generally the power of objects can fade over time if "used up" or redeemed in other ways. I don't want to talk about the Hadley House in later books, but I think later books take on Hadley house differently as the characters who live in it change. And it raises the question about whether Hadley House changes the people or if the people change Hadley House.