Thursday, November 25, 2010
A time and a place
What did you initially make of the setting of “Hotel du Lac”? It felt English, or Continental, to me right out the gate, but I struggled with getting the time period in my head. Some of it was the very un-American customs: tea in the salon, dress for dinner, like glamorous travel of a bygone era. But more so there was this premise that Edith was in a social exile and that the notion of a woman of scandal being sent away seems so antiquated. Like reading in an Edith Wharton or Shirley Jackson story of a young woman visiting a faraway relative for precisely ninth months and nobody says a word. The copyright date was ’84, and the clothing brands fit with that, but the story almost seemed timeless, like it could have harkened back 40 years or more.
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Oh, great observation, cl. I also struggled with the time period. It felt almost like the 1950s, with the antiquated morality, as you put it. I originally thought Edith's "transgression" was her affair with a married man and was surprised to learn that it was really her leaving someone at the altar. That's a pretty big sin in ANY ERA (that was the timeless aspect to me). Even if she was totally right not to go through with the marriage, humiliating someone like that is pretty awful. I always think it's nicer to just go through with the wedding and stick it out for a brief period (or better, getting your shit together and making a decision well before the wedding date) rather than dropping that kind of bomb on someone. But maybe it isn't. What do you think?
Also, that hotel was just meant to be a place out of time, I think. A classic. Something that offers the comfort of never changing. (I was just at Yello Sub, and it dawned on me that I ate the exact same sandwich there 25 years ago with the same Bob Dylan playing in the background and the same playing cards as pick-up numbers. It's weirdly comforting. Other places long gone I have fond memories of, and it actually makes me feel kind of old to remember them, but Yello Sub isn't a memory yet. It's still ageless ... maybe that was the appeal for the mother-daughter pair in our book — if you frequent a place that never changes/ages, you never really age either).
KC, that's a great observation about how to go back to a place year after year like the Puseys would make them feel the same age.
Agreed -- unsuitable though he was, Edith was pretty cruel to run out on Geoffrey the way she did. Like you have to be more adult and either quietly cancel it ahead of time or get through the ceremony and get it annulled. I mean, she didn't seem like a spiritual person who would have qualms about going through with it and then reneging. Maybe the notion that to officially settle down as a sellout just troubled her spirit too much to see it through.
Or I also wondered if a part of her craved the womanly fuss and approval, and feeling so displaced in her own home on the morning of her wedding just drove it home how out of touch she was with what she wanted.
That's a wonderful description of Yello Sub! You know, I remember the campus location from going up as a high school student for some KU journalism activity. And when I moved here I thought, man, I've got to get back in on some of that action! (But I was thinking food more than ambiance!)
I'm trying to think of other places that evoke that kind of feeling, but I think they'd either be bars. Or in Manhattan. It would be a little weird to go back. I prefer to remember myself with that cool immortality that comes with early adulthood rather than return and observe how young and silly everyone seems -- and how I no doubt behaved!
Yes, the time period was tricky. At one point I even went back and checked the copyright date and skimmed through the first few pages looking for a year reference. It was hard to believe it was the '80s, with the exile of shame, and all the women wearing dresses, and the old-fashioned customs. The result was it was a little hard for me to picture the characters and the setting.
Great point about Yello Sub. (cl, I also have high school memories about going there on journalism trips.) Since returning to my hometown, I realize I have a lot of places like that, places that have remained the same for so long they seem timeless.
Left-at-the-altar stories are so common in books and movies. Do they happen that often in real life? I've never known of one personally. It's so publicly humiliating and dramatic. Surely it would be better to handle it discreetly, as kc suggests. Then again, I can imagine the feeling of looking down that aisle and thinking, "I just can't do it."
The more I think about the wedding, the more I think maybe some part of Edith wanted to wound Geoffrey because he was so smug and bland and rather awful, and he kind of had a way of suggesting that she was lucky to have him instead of vice versa, like she should be grateful to him for making her a respectable married lady and saving her from an ignominious spinsterhood. He didn't treat her with proper regard. He didn't act like he was honored to have her. And maybe some part of her seethed at this — the part that knew what it was to really be passionately in love with someone and how you behave when you're in love. Do you think that's possible, that she wanted to put him in his place a little, or at least didn't mind doing so?
Because, otherwise, as Erin suggested, leaving someone at the altar isn't really done. She could have handled that so differently to minimize the humiliation to him. She could have said she was sick, for example, and that the wedding had to be postponed. Then they could have quietly ended it.
Or maybe she honestly just flipped out a little when she saw him (and her future) from the car and just literally could not do anything.
Isn't it weird that she got in a similar groove with Neville at the hotel? — this kind of turd of a man who didn't offer love of any kind, but just some kind of "mutually beneficial" domestic arrangement. Edith wanted love. She had felt love and passion. The married guy wasn't a relationship she could pursue, but it at least gave her a vision of romance and affection (and life!) that made everything else pale in comparison.
Also, that's a nice observation, cl, about how her feelings coalesced on the morning of the wedding and how the "fuss" and "approval" of the women — more appealing in theory than in reality — probably played some havoc on her emotions.
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