Monday, April 27, 2009

What is love?

Why do you think Dennis married Maeve in the end?
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7 comments:

Erin said...

Wow, good question. The book doesn't give us much insight about their relationship, other than the late-night phone calls followed by coffee and cake after putting Billy to bed. You get the impression that Dennis and Maeve sort of bonded over the shared burden of taking care of Billy.

But after Billy is gone, are they both just lonely?

9:12 AM, April 28, 2009
kc said...

Yeah, I think they are lonely. But I also wondered whether Dennis was maybe trying to atone for the "sin" of the lie — by trying to add some goodness to the world to offset some of the sorrow he had introduced into it with the falsehood about Eva. If he married Maeve and gave her a good life, instead of letting her slip into the loneliness of widowhood, he would have redeemed some of his culpability in the tragedy of Billy's (and Maeve's) life.

12:30 PM, April 28, 2009
Erin said...

That's an interesting thought. Do you think Dennis felt guilty about the lie?

9:11 AM, April 30, 2009
kc said...

I don't know if guilt is the right word, exactly, but I don't think he was comfortable with the lie, and I think he realized that the lie had monkeyed with people's lives in a way that he was too young or too naive to foresee. And maybe he saw a chance to redeem his role in it by looking out for Maeve.

I titled this post "What is love?" because I think McDermott is sort of asking that question herself. Is it Billy's passion and undying loyalty? Is it the pragmatism of Dennis' mother (who seemed to marry first (the Irishman) to escape her crappy girlhood, then (the German) to secure a safe, suburban future. Is it the settled married life of Dennis and his wife punctuated with periods of disconnection? The "modern" romance of the narrator who's telling the story, lovingly, to her husband? The devotion of Maeve to Billy? The devotion of Eva to her husband, to whom she gave Billy's money and happiness? Or Dennis' maybe passionless, but extremely caring commitment to Maeve in the end?

10:52 AM, April 30, 2009
Erin said...

Yeah, that's great. Maybe she's saying that love isn't any one particular thing. People can make a life and be contented in a lot of different ways. Or is that too trite?

11:13 AM, April 30, 2009
kc said...

OMG, I think there's a passage to that very effect! — about how people think there's a unique soulmate for them, but actually there are a number of people with whom we could have lovely, meaningful relationships. It's really about who happens to wander into the orbit of your life, not about "destiny." (I'll try to find it when I go home for lunch!)

11:22 AM, April 30, 2009
Erin said...

Oh yeah! I remember that now. The narrative says to her husband that it could just as easily have been one of his brothers that she met that day on Long Island.

11:27 AM, April 30, 2009

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