I was absolutely enthralled by the Obscure Object chapters. The tension and the eroticism of some scenes was stunning to me.
I turned the light off. I pressed against the Object. I took the backs of her thighs in my hands, adjusting her legs around my waist. I reached under her. I brought her up to me. And then my body, like a cathedral, broke out into ringing. The hunchback in the belfry had jumped and was swinging madly on the rope.The scene on the porch was also quite memorable. I loved it. But frankly, it all just seemed a bit too sophisticated for 14-year-old girls. Did anyone else have that sense?
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I loved those chapters, too!
“Glory be to God for dappled things.”
This is a quote from Gerard Manley Hopkins inspired by Cal’s appreciation of the Obscure Object’s freckles. It was like autumn looking at her.
But the complexity of her speckled skin was only part. It was like her mind was freckled, too. She was one way in this light and another way in that light; jaded, then innocent, light-hearted, then ponderous; sparkling, then dull; conventional, then progressive; false, then true. Their first meeting in the classroom, she seemed scornful of the schoolwork and maybe kind of dumb in that popular girl way, but then when she read the passage aloud she betrayed the vast intelligence and sensitivity underneath, validating Cal’s original instinct that she was something momentous and special. It was Cal’s first exposure to romantic complexity, to someone having suspected depths — and unsuspected shallows.
When we are young we don’t fully appreciate that the young people we’re spending time with are developing, that they (and we) can very likely become very different people in a year. We mistake the exciting energy of formation for the finished product, and so much frustration and disappointment and joy comes from that. It’s unlike any other time of life. Eugenides has a perfect grasp of this; he understands that things that happen in that period shouldn’t, by all rights, count for anything and how they simultaneously stay with us forever.
The porch scene was phenomenal. It captured the erotic tension, as you characterized it, Erin, not only of that time of life, but of all times of life when one is impossibly happy and connected. It wasn't just the sexual charge, which was really kind of languid and subdued; it was this feeling of being perfectly at home in the world and in your senses. Cal is touching her, but notes: The boats in the bay were part of it, and the string section of crickets in the baking grass, and the ice melting in our lemonade glasses.
Was it too sophisticated for 14-year-old girls? I think part of the sophistication is in the telling. The narrative voice is extremely sophisticated and lends the whole scene a tone of "emotion recollected in tranquility." On the other hand, I think these two girls are supposed to be considered extraordinary for their age. As Cal notes, "real geniuses never talk about their genius." He also mentions how the Object was a blueblood and how "part of coming from old money, apparently, was having old-person habits." And he talks about, in reference to her smoking and heartburn and such, how "the appetite for sophisticated ruin was already there."
Excellent analysis and examples. You're so right about the Object's unsuspected depths.
I guess I was thinking about myself at 14 -- awkward and shy, never kissed or touched by a boy, crying in the bathroom because Isrrael wouldn't dance with me. I had fooled around with a friend at 13, but we never got to the point of enjoying it. It's just hard for me to imagine two 14-year-olds having such a beautiful, enjoyable sexual experience. Perhaps I'm too cynical.
What did you make of the fact that the Object was so passive, though?
I thought we were supposed to have the sense that the Object liked Callie in spite of herself, that she was just so drawn to her that she put aside the notion that this wasn't really the type of friend a cool girl like the Object should have. She really liked Callie, but she couldn't admit it because that would make her gay, so she just passively allowed things to happen to her, pretending to be asleep or whatever, so that she didn't have to take any responsibility for what was happening between them. That was very sad, but I suppose understandable in the time and place.
That's why the porch scene was so damn poignant, because the Object was clearly wide awake. They were looking into each other's eyes. Her green eyes under the heavy lids remained fastened on mine.
And then Jerome shatters their moment with his antigay slurs.
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