What did you think of Fabrice?
For me, he was kind of a weak spot in the book. The idea of him was appealing — a rich, imaginative lover for Linda, who had been stuck with such awful duds — but the flesh-and-blood Fabrice was not attractive to me. He seemed kind of domineering and silly, and I'm not sure I bought him as a brave soldier sacrificing for the Republic. It seemed sort of like he had to die, like they both had to die, for that love affair to resonate. Otherwise, Linda would probably eventually have become just another notch on his bedpost. Do you think? Or did you feel more genuine chemistry there than I detected?
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Yeah, Fabrice bugged me. I didn't like how he condescended to Linda, talking to her like she was a little girl, although I did sort of enjoy how he matter-of-factly insulted her Communist clothes.
I felt sort of relieved when they both died. I just didn't foresee a happy future for that relationship. Fabrice didn't seem like the type to make a long-term commitment, and they didn't seem to have enough in common intellectually to maintain one.
No, in fact, I found it kind of jarring that he decided per their war separation that he cared for her after all. She didn't seem to do anything for him that the readers saw as her qualities other than be an amusing ornament. Plus I was just turned off by him from the get-go about his approach. He might have been amused by her plight at the train station, but he helped her, ultimately, to have sex with her.
Maybe we were supposed to be charmed that she seemed to fall for him without appreciating at first that he had money and status beyond her wildest teenage dreams.
She was a good sport about that second pregnancy, which gave the love affair some heft -- did I miss a reaction on his part? Did he know she was pregnant? -- that might have helped.
And them both dying in the end -- that was a little too neat and sentimental for me. "Cold Climate" (which, Erin, I accidentally read first) a similarly neat but far more happily devilish ending.
Oh, and that whole section of the book changed in tone. It was recounted without dialogue (even though the author took liberties of having Fanny be able to relay verbatim the conversations that took place during Linda's other absence, in Spain), and it kind of lost its humor without some of Linda's banter. Maybe it was supposed to seem more serious, but it kind of sagged for me.
Good observations. I wonder what Mitford intended us to feel about Fabrice — if she intended a more sympathetic reception.
The more mature, in-love Linda was not as entertaining/interesting as her earlier searching self, but I suppose she was happier ...
Yeah, that's interesting, cl. That section of the book did have the fewest funny lines, lacking the zip of Linda's banter, as you said.
You would think Mitford would have intended us to like Fabrice, since he is supposed to be Linda's one true love, and also since we know he's based at least somewhat on Mitford's real-life lover. Would he have seemed more appealing in the '50s?
Yeah, I think he would have seemed more appealing and romantic in an earlier era, especially when he represented such a different kind of life than her first two husbands were able or willing to give her.
And maybe Mitford, as astute as she seems to be, was saying something about how true love can make us embrace a situation that otherwise would feel anathema to us. I mean, if Linda didn't deeply love Fabrice, that whole set-up as a "kept woman" being molded by him might have eventually seemed oppressive and repugnant to her.
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