INTRODUCTION BY HOPE DELLON
I started working with Louise in October 2006, after the editor who had bought her first three books left Minotaur for another company. At the time, only Still Life had been published. A Fatal Grace was in bound galleys, and The Cruelest Month was a completed manuscript in search of a title.
Since I needed to read three books in a row, it was lucky that I loved them from the start. Although Louise had me from the acknowledgments at the beginning of Still Life, there came a scene in A Fatal Grace that gave me chills in a way that only the very best manuscripts ever have. (I describe that scene in the recap below.) I even remember where I was when I read it. In those days I had an hour-long commute on the train. I know that I started reading the galleys on the train on a Tuesday night, then continued on Wednesday morning, when we always have our editorial meetings. By the time I got to that meeting, I couldn’t stop talking about how amazing Louise was, except perhaps to ignore everyone else and keep reading more of the story.
When I’m asked what makes her books so great, I usually fall back on a quote from Emily Dickinson: “If I read a book [and] it makes my whole body so cold no fire ever can warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. These are the only ways I know it. Is there any other way?” That’s how I feel about Louise’s novels.
I believe I didn’t meet Louise and her husband, Michael, in person until Malice Domestic in Crystal City, VA, in the spring of 2008. By that time, Still Life had won many awards (including the Anthony, Arthur Ellis, Barry, Dilys, and New Blood Dagger) for Best First Novel, but not the Agatha; and we didn’t want to jinx anything by expecting her to win Best Novel for A Fatal Grace. I remember how thrilling it was when she did win—but what I had forgotten, until Louise mentioned it recently, was that the awards banquet happened to fall on my birthday. Now that she reminds me—and how remarkable for her to remember—I know that she and Michael insisted on taking me to lunch on that Saturday, and made more of a fuss about my birthday than they did about her chances of winning the Agatha. They were as warm and brilliant and funny as you might imagine from reading Louise’s books, and it’s been a joy to work with her ever since.
RECAP
Chapters 1-21: The first lines of A Fatal Grace foretell the death of the nastiest woman in Three Pines: “Had CC de Poitiers known she was going to be murdered she might have bought her husband, Richard, a Christmas gift….” The doomed CC has written a self-help book that prattles about love and enlightenment, even though she is actually like the Snow Queen from the fairytale who pierces everyone’s hearts with ice.
Meanwhile, in “the snow globe that was Three Pines,” CC’s 14-year-old daughter, Crie, has sewn her own chiffon snowflake costume for her school’s Christmas pageant, “to surprise Mommy.” She has been on a diet for a month and is sure her mother will notice soon. Except her mother doesn’t bother to show up.
Clara Morrow and her friend Myrna drive to Montreal, where Clara is dying to see the Christmas windows at Ogilvy’s department store that have enchanted her since childhood. She and her handsome husband, Peter, have been starving artists in Three Pines for years, although his precisely detailed paintings have finally started to sell. No one wants to buy Clara’s wilder depictions of warrior uteruses (!) and melting trees.
Hearing that CC knows important gallery owner Denis Fortin, Clara timidly asks if she would mind showing him her portfolio—which CC disdainfully throws in the trash. “Very annoying,” she says to her lover, photographer Saul Petrov. “Imagine asking me for a favor?” CC has much more important things to do: There’s a sale at Ogilvy’s and she wants to buy a special pair of boots made of baby sealskin with metal claws.
Clara’s joy at the Christmas windows is disrupted by a filthy pile of blankets that turns out to be a beggar throwing up. Disgusted, Clara hastens inside to the book launch for her neighbor, Ruth Zardo, the bitter but brilliant old poet whose friends from Three Pines turn up to support her.
On the escalators at Ogilvy’s, Clara passes CC, who says to the man beside her, “I’m so sorry, Denis, that you think Clara’s art is amateur and banal.” It’s a heart-stopping moment. Devastated, Clara shuffles out of the store and sees the stinking beggar she’d ignored on the way in. Impulsively, Clara gives a package of food she’s just bought to the bag lady, who grasps her wrist and says, “I have always loved your art, Clara.” Whoa. This was the moment when I started to feel as if the top of my head was being taken off.
A few days later it is Christmas Eve in Three Pines, with shortbread stars (Louise’s books always make me hungry) and carolers and a midnight service at St. Thomas’s church, where a child starts to sing with angelic purity. The singer is CC’s daughter, wearing a grotesque pink sundress but with bliss on her face. After the service, the whole village can hear CC berating Crie as a “stupid, stupid girl. You humiliated me. They were laughing at you, you know.” CC’s gutless father barely utters a protest.
When Saul turns up at the Bistro on Christmas, Myrna invites him to the community breakfast and curling match on the following day. It’s a perfect setting for the last job Saul intends to do for CC, who wants pictures of herself “frolicking among the natives at Christmas. If possible he had to get shots of the locals looking at CC with wonder and affection.” A pretty tall order.
Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté and his wife, Reine-Marie, make their first appearance in the book on the day after Christmas, when they have a tradition of reviewing unsolved cases. “If I was murdered,” says Gamache, “I’d like to think the case wouldn’t just sit unsolved. Someone would make an extra effort.” (I love this man.) Reine-Marie notices that one of the cases is new: There was a bag lady who had hung out at the bus station for years—but was strangled outside of Ogilvy’s department store on the day Clara saw her there. Astoundingly, a copy of Ruth’s new book, signed “You stink, love Ruth,” was found with the body.
Then the phone rings, and the duty officer for Three Pines tells Gamache there has been a murder. So much for a quiet Boxing Day. Within minutes Gamache and his second-in-command, Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir, are on their way to Three Pines, to investigate the very odd death of CC de Poitiers.
CC’s murder seems impossible: She was electrocuted at the curling match, in the middle of a frozen lake in front of dozens of witnesses. After Gamache gathers his team in the old railway station, Beauvoir recaps the only way CC’s murder could have worked: “A: she had to be standing in water; B: she had to have taken off her gloves; C: she had to touch something electrified; and D: she had to be wearing metal on the bottom of her boots.” Sure, nobody liked CC, but who hated her enough—and had the expertise—to pull off something like that?
Then a new team member arrives unexpectedly: Agent Yvette Nichol—”the rancid, wretched, petty little woman who’d almost ruined their last case”—apparently sent by the Superintendent of the Sûreté. Gamache is furious to see her, and knows that his enemies at Headquarters are still working against him.
With or without the unwelcome Nichol, the team has much to investigate: Where is Saul and what photos might he have taken of the curling match? Why does the coroner find excess niacin in CC’s body? Can it be possibly be coincidence that CC’s book, Be Calm, has the same name as the meditation center Bea Mayer, known as Mother, runs in Three Pines? After Gamache admires The Three Graces, Clara’s painting of Mother and the two other elderly women who are her best friends in Three Pines, she tells him about her poisonous encounter with CC at Ogilvy’s—and he quietly adds Clara’s name to the long list of suspects.
Chapter 22-End: Clues and questions and suspects continue to pile up for Gamache and his team. Having learned that CC de Poitiers, who claimed to be the daughter of Eleanor and Henri de Poitiers, invented both her name and her past (Eleanor de Poitiers, better known as Eleanor of Aquitaine, actually died in 1204), Gamache needs to find out who CC really was. Are there any significant clues to be found in the video cassette of The Lion in Winter that turned up in CC’s garbage after the murder?
Meanwhile, Gamache is astonished when Clara proudly shows him the Li Bien ornament Peter gave her for Christmas, which is exactly like the ball CC supposedly used as the basis for her garbled philosophy. The glass ball is painted with three pine trees, the word Noël, and a single capital letter, L. Was it the picture of the trees that prompted CC to buy the monstrous old Hadley house in Three Pines? Awkwardly, Peter is forced to confess that while he meant to buy Clara something for Christmas this year, he actually found the ball in the Williamsburg dump.
When Gamache meets Émilie Longpré—age 82, captain of the curling team, and one of Clara’s Three Graces—and her dog, Henri, on an early morning walk, she tells him about an encounter with CC at Mother’s meditation center, where CC arrogantly proclaimed that since she was calling her own book and company Be Calm, Mother would have to change the name of her center or perhaps close it altogether. After breakfast, the tiny Émilie gives Gamache & co. a curling lesson that convinces even Beauvoir, who has always scoffed at curling as a sport, that it’s a lot harder than it looks. And Gamache, who finally grasps what it meant when the 78-year-old Mother loudly “cleared the house” at the curling match, suddenly knows how the murderer got away with it.
The questions about CC’s mother keep circling back to the Three Graces. Do they know who the L of the Li Bien ball was, or could it possibly even be one of them? And what might 92-year-old Kaye Thompson, who was sitting next to CC at the match, have seen as she was murdered?
When Saul’s photos are developed, they somehow do not include any shots from the time of the murder. And as eager as Saul seems to be to start a new, better life in Three Pines, he still has one undeveloped roll of film that he hastily throws in the fireplace when Gamache and his team visit him at the chalet he has rented.
With the help of an idea from Clara about the discarded video, the case seems to be coming together, when a raging fire breaks out at Saul’s chalet, and the unlikely trio of Gamache, Beauvoir, and Agent Nichol try to rescue him. Émilie finally tells Gamache the heartbreaking truth about CC’s mother, and the Three Graces prepare to pay the price for what they have done. And then Gamache suddenly realizes there is one last horrible secret in CC’s family.
The book ends at New Year’s, with Reine-Marie’s first visit to Three Pines. Both of them know that the plots against Gamache are growing more sinister, but as they drive home:
In the rearview mirror Armand Gamache could see Three Pines. He got out of the car and stared down at the village, each home glowing with warm and beckoning light, promising protection against a world sometimes too cold. He closed his eyes and felt his racing heart calm.
“Are you all right?” Reine-Marie’s mittened hand slipped into his.
“I’m more than all right.” He smiled. “I have everything.”
FAVORITE QUOTE
Gamache says to Clara, “When someone stabs you it’s not your fault that you feel pain.”
Gamache: “I knew then I was in the company of people who loved not only books, but words. Spoken, written, the power of words.”
CONCLUSION
I am not sure how many times I’ve read A Fatal Grace, but I still find it as extraordinary as I did back in 2006. I think it’s magnificent on so many levels: as a complex and masterful detective story, as a glorious character study, and as an exploration of universal hopes and fears. I love that it can be hilarious one minute and heartbreaking the next.
I also love the way Louise focuses on the power of words, from the literal handwriting on more than one wall, to the hidden meanings of names like Mother, Elle, and Crie (what kind of parents would name a child that?), to the ways that words can kill or heal. I also marvel that someone like me, who is at least as much of a skeptic as Jean-Guy Beauvoir, can find myself wondering about such mysteries as lemon meringue pie.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
- If the village of Three Pines truly existed, would you want to live there? Why or why not? How does Christmas bring out the best or the worst in any of the villagers?
- Who is your favorite character in the book so far?
- In Louise’s books I am always stopping to admire wonderful images or jokes or observations (or descriptions of food!). Were there any lines that particularly struck you in Part I?
- What do you think of Ruth’s idea that “most people, while claiming to hate authority, actually yearned for someone to take charge”?
- Gamache tells Lemieux, “All the mistakes I’ve made have been because I’ve assumed something and then acted as though it was fact.” Have you ever made important assumptions that turned out not to be true?
- What interests you most about the two murder victims, CC and the bag lady known only as Elle, and the way Gamache conducts his investigation?
- There are so many clues hidden in plain sight in A Fatal Grace, I lost count at 6 or 7 (all of which I missed the first time through). Did you spot any of them, and did you solve any of the various puzzles before Gamache did?
- What do you make of Gamache’s relationships with the different members of his team, from Beauvoir to Nichol?
- How do you feel about The Three Graces?
- Near the end, Gamache says, “This whole case has been about belief and the power of the word.” I’ll say. What are the ways in which words have power?
- Speaking of belief, what do you make of the apparent brushes with God: the beggar who loved Clara’s art (which Em maintains she had never seen); Gamache finding God in a diner eating lemon meringue pie; Em’s road worker with the sign saying “Ice Ahead”; Billy Williams, etc.?
- Do you agree with Gamache in Chapter 33 that “when you’ve seen the worst you appreciate the best?”
396 replies on “Series Re-Read: A Fatal Grace!”
I have been following this discussion since it began with Still Life, and continue to be amazed by the emotions Louise brings out in all of us. I have to say, though, that she has spoiled me. No other book by today’s authors bring their characters to life like Louise(I don’t know her personally, just feel like she is a neighbor and friend!) Not only does she introduce them to the story so fully, her other characters continue to add dimension to them, until we either love or hate them. Other authors have not brought out this love/hate relationship for me, nor do their books have the power to keep me reading long into the night. I learned of her books just a few months ago, have read them all including the Hangman, and am now waiting desperately for the latest.
Fatal Grace was not my favorite, although I was completely intrigued by how CC dies. How does one think up these plots? That thought stays in my mind as I read each of her books. How she drops clues, and then ties it all together in the end…never do I get it right! Just brilliant!
Sorry, I did not want to make my previous post impossibly long, so I decided to keep several of my other favorite humorous scenes separate from that. Besides, I wanted to make sure that the place where I get tickled at Jean Guy was still in Part 1, and not in Part 2. So, here’s the set-up. Gamache and Beauvoir have gone to get some information about the game of curling from Em, Kaye, and Mother. Mother greets Gamache and Jean-Guy with ” Namaste.” While Gamache asks about it, we are told that ” Beauvoir hadn’t asked because she was old, she was anglaise, and she was wearing a purple caftan. People like that said ridiculous things all the time.” I just want to fall down laughing at Jean-Guy’s cynicism about Mother. A few lines on down, Kaye tells Gamache and Beauvoir that “Mother had just cleared the house,” and Beauvoir immediately regretted his decision to start with her. Nothing about that sentence made sense. Mother had just cleared the house. Rien, no sense at all. Another wacky Anglo.This one, though, was not a complete surprise. He could see her rolling out of the nuthouse for miles. Now she sat in front of him, nearly submerged under layers of thick sweaters and blankets. She looked like a laundry hamper. With a head. A very small, very worn head. All the hairs on her tiny wizened scalp were standing straight up from the winter static in the house. She looked like a Muppet with strings.”
That description gets me every time, right in my funny bone.
In Louise’s books I am always stopping to admire wonderful images or jokes or observations (or descriptions of food!). Were there any lines that particularly struck you in Part I?
Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. This is going to be one of the most fun questions to answer. Penny fills her stories with so much humor, much of it in unexpected places. Of course, when Ruth and Gabri are together, it’s almost like a vaudeville show, with each one of them trying to outdo the other.
So, to start out, one of my favorite scenes(and a sensational one-liner) comes at Ogilvy’s, where Ruth is signing a copy of her book. Once again, we get the inner thoughts of one of the characters, related in third person: “Ruth needn’t have bothered coming all the way to Montreal for the launch. The only people who showed up were from Three Pines. ‘This’s a waste of time,’ she said, her short-cropped white head bending over Clara’s book.
‘No one from Montreal came…Just you lot. What a bore.’ ‘Well, thank you very much, you old hack,’ said Gabri, holding a couple of books in his large hands. ‘Great.’ Ruth looked up. ‘This is a bookstore,’ she said, very slowly and loudly. ‘It’s for people who can read. It’s not a public bath.’ I’m already guffawing at this point, but down just a few lines, someone asks Ruth if she knows that CC’s written a book. ‘God, that means she’s written more books than she’s read,’ said Ruth. One of Ruth’s best zingers, in my view. I always get a chuckle when I read that line. Skipping a few pages over, in Chapter Six, there’s a description of how Christmas is celebrated in Three Pines. It all sounds so traditional and wonderful, and then at the bottom of page 40(in paperback), there’s this: “Gabri, in his Victorian cape and top hat, led the carolers. He had a beautiful voice but longed for what he couldn’t have. Each year Ruth Zardo visited the bistro as Father Christmas, chosen, Gabri said, because she didn’t have to grow a special beard. Each year Gabri would climb onto her lap and ask for the voice of a boy soprano and each year Father Christmas offered to kick him in the Christmas balls.” I know it probably says something about my adolescent sense of humor, but that just makes me laugh every time I think about it. Notice, too, that this little scene isn’t a one-time thing–it’s become a tradition between the two. I think that tells us that underneath their biting humor, Gabri and Ruth are really quite fond of each other, but would find it difficult to admit that publicly. So they hide their affection underneath their bantering humor.
As for references to food, a few pages over from this scene, there’s a lot of wonderful description of Em’s Christmas Eve party: ” As people arrived food was taken to the familiar kitchen and too many casseroles and pies were stuffed into the oven. Bowls overflowed with candied ginger and chocolate -covered cherries and sugar-encrusted fruit sat on the sideboard beside puddings and cakes and cookies. Little Rose Levesque stared at the buche de Noel, the traditional Christmas log, made of rich cake and coated with the thickest of icing, her tiny, chubby fingers curling over the tablecloth embroidered with Santa Claus and reindeer and Christmas trees. . . The lights on the tree glowed and the Vachon children sat beside it reading the tags on the mountain of brightly wrapped presents, looking for theirs. The fire was lit, as were a few of the guests.(Love the sly humor there!) In the dining room the gate-legged table was open full and groaning with casseroles and tortieres, homemade molasses-baked beans and maple-cured ham. A turkey sat at the head of the table like a Victorian gentleman. The center of the table was saved every year of one of Myrna’s rich and vibrant flower arrangements. This year splays of Scotch pine surrounded a magnificent red amaryllis. Nestled into the pine forest was a music box softly playing the Huron Christmas Carol and resting on a bed of mandarin oranges, cranberries and chocolates.” If THAT doesn’t make a reader get into the Christmas spirit, I don’t know what would. In fact, I’m so in love with that whole scene that I think I must review my previous answer about not wanting to live in Three Pines. If I could be present at one of Em’s Christmas parties, I think I could bring myself to brave the cold of the Canadian winter there(at least for a few days, anyway!)
Jane,
You’ve got a fellow appreciator of puerile humorous exchanges! In Chapter 7 in my book (pp.44 & 45) the ‘gang’s’ gathered at Emilie Longpre’s annual Christmas Eve “reveillon.” The following exchanges cracked me up. I’m going to put Penny’s dialog into a script format:
GABRI (to Ruth): “So when do you plan to take off your Santa Beard?”
RUTH (muttering): Bitch
GABRI: Slut
MYRNA: (looking at a group of young women critiquing each other’s hair) Look at that.. . Those girls think they’re having a bad hair day. Just wait for it.
CLARA It’s true.
(Peter joined them)
PETER: What are you talking about?
MYRNA: Hair
OLIVIER (reaching out to Peter): Save yourself. . . It’s too late for us, but you can get away. I understand there’s a conversation on prostates at the other sofa.
CLARA (pulls Peter down by his belt): Those girls over there all think they have it bad.
MYRNA: But wait ’til menopause
PETER (to Ollie) Prostates?
OLLIE: And hockey
(? ONE of the WOMEN): Are you guy’s listening?
GABRI: It’s so hard being a woman. . . . . There’s our periods, then losing our virginity to you beasts, then the kids leave and we no longer know who we are—-.
OLLIE: Having given the best years of our lives to thankless bastards and selfish kids
GABRI: Then, just when we’ve signed up for pottery and Thai cooking courses, bang—-
PETER (smiling at Clara): Or not.
CLARA (poking him with her fork): Watch it, boy.
OLLIE (in a sonorous CBC announcer’s voice) Menopause.
GABRI: I’ve never told a man to pause.
MYRNA (ignoring the guys): The first gray hair. Now there’s a bad hair day.
RUTH: How about when the first one appears on your chin. . . .That’s a bad hair day.
MOTHER BEA (joining them, laughing): God, it’s true. The long wiry ones.
KAYE: Don’t forget the moustache. (to GABRI as she nods to MOTHER) We have a solemn pact. . . . If one of us is unconscious in the hospital, the others will make sure it’s puled.
RUTH: The plug?
KAYE (eyeing Ruth with some alarm) The chin hair. . . . You’re off the visitors list. Mother, Make a note.
MOTHER: Oh, I made that note years ago.
CLARA (returns with a plate heaped with trifle, brownies & Licorice Allsorts): I stole them from the kids, (to MYRNA) Better hurry up if you want some. They’re getting low.
MYRNA : I’ll just eat yours! (reaches to take one before fork menaced her hand)
RUTH: Addicts, you’re pathetic.
MYRNA pointedly looks at Ruth’s half empty vase of Scotch.
RUTH: You’re wrong there. . . This used to be my drug of choice. In my teens my drug of choice was acceptance, in my twenties it was approval, in my thirties it was love, in my forties it was Scotch. That lasted a while. . . . Now all I really crave is a good bowel movement.
MOTHER: I’m addicted to meditation. (as she eats her 3rd helping of trifle)
KAYE (to RUTH): There’s an idea. . . . You could visit Mother at the center. She can meditate the crap out of anyone.
Silence follows & then discussion turns to CC’s book “Be Calm.’
Being completely honest, when I read the book, both times, and got to the chin hair conversation, I put my hand over my chin. 😉
When Louise first introduced the re-read I think I said something like I’ll be at the bistro but I get to sit next to Ruth! It’s tough to pick out one character because they all feel like friends but I would love to spend an afternoon with Ruth, Clara and Myrna sipping–oh I don’t care: café au lait, Dubonnet–and eating a handful of cashews. An afternoon of insight, laughter, and love. I’d love to live in Three Pines but I’d have to get away once in awhile…I’m not a person of routine though I will admit Three Pines villagers have been experiencing anything but “routine.”
I didn’t remember A Fatal Grace starting off as dark as it did. We sure got pulled into quickly. When I commented on Still Life I talked about how the humor was such a big piece of the books for me–adding depth and “real-ness” to the characters. Plus I love Louise’s style of humor. The first giggle came in the description of Myrna “clumping” up Clara’s path: “the faux-white woman in her puffy pink skin…” Chapter 7 was a giggle fest for me. There were other lines that struck me along the way: “And there it was. Clara’s village. The place she’d go when disappointments and dawning cruelty would overwhelm the sensitive little girl.” It got me thinking about what my own “village” is. Then about Crie “walking toward downtown Montreal, her balance thrown off by the slippery, steep sidewalks and near unbearable weight of the chiffon snow flake.” What brilliant imagery! The slippery slopes of life for Crie. My heart was so heavy for her. Indulge me in one more–a line that could be a teaser for the book: “A layer of pure white was both beautiful and dangerous. You never really knew what lurked beneath. A Quebec winter could both enchant and kill.”
By the way–a thank you to Hope for moderating A Fatal Grace…
Thanks, Diane; it’s been a great pleasure. And the lines you quote would make an outstanding teaser: “A layer of pure white was both beautiful and dangerous. You never really knew what lurked beneath. A Quebec winter could both enchant and kill.”
In reading all of the comments, it helps all of us to dig deeper into why we love this series.
When I first read these books, it is as a starving person, gobbling each one up, but re-reading them we see more of the nuances of each character.
The observation of Peter, made by Meg, really hit the nail on the head. Peter is as destructive to Clara as CC was to her daughter. Why does Clara stay with Peter? What keeps the marriage alive when it appears so stilted by Peter’s ego?
The more I read about Isabelle, the better I like her. She is able to get through to Jean-Guy even when he seems to be on another planet!
I laughed out loud when I read the one observation about wanting to cook after reading these books.
I feel I have entered a new world of reading as I go through all these ideas and responses to these books that have become so important to me. As well as reading the books I have listened to the narrated versions and some I have listened to more than once. They are so entertaining. I too could be trapped in traffic and not mind if I was listening to one of the novels.
I love the re-read. I’m finding beautiful descriptive phrases and sentences that are so well written, such as the one describing the Christmas caroling in one of the early chapters:
“The singers moved from house to house through the snowy village filling the night air with old hymns and laughter and puffs of breath plump with songs and snowflakes.”
You can see it, feel it and hear it all. That’s good writing, when your senses are all awakened with words.
THE THREE GRACES:
Since this book is called “A Fatal Grace” – doesn’t the title beg us to consider the three graces (Emilie, Kaye and Mother Bea) – both in terms of their individual stories that we learned the night of Emilie’s Christmas party – and in terms of Clara’s four paintings of them (3 individual portraits and one large group one that includes all three)? Something else to think about: is the ‘grace’ of the title one of these three women – or a characteristic? Any takers?
THREE GRACES
How do we apply the title as well as Claras art to the women who are depicted as the images of the three graces?
In Greek mythology, the charities (Romans called them Graces) were often depicted as the daughters of Zeus, the attendants of Aphrodite. The most common three were Aglaia who represented beauty, Euphrosyne who represented delight or mirth, and Thalia who represented blossom or abundance.
In Christianity the graces are said to be virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, kindness, and charity.
Is there some analogy here? I have more of an inclination to the former rather than the latter. However, I think this discussion would be more appropriate to the discussion of the second part of our read. I don’t want to leave more spoilers here in explaining my reasoning.
Running errands all day & still musing about
FAVORITE CHARACTER(S) Q!
You know, I can’t just come up with only one or two or three. It’s much easier for me to list ones that I’ve disliked: Yolande, her husband Andre, their despicable kid Bernard the Bully; definitely CC in this book & her husband R. Lyon because he doesn’t protect/defend their child; Pouty Peter Morrow is on my Nuh-uh list too because of how he treats Clara and is soooo self-centered and totally oblivious to feelings of others. Even when it was blatantly proven that he had been duped by Ben Hadley for years, absolutely no self-reflection about his own choices, perceptionz or attitudes. Although he’s not in this book, Ben Hadley makes this list because he was a liar and never grew a pair, never grew up and blamed Mommy for his own failures and lacks.
I really, really like the rest of them and they’re why I keep coming back for ‘the next book.’ Louise Penny’s created characters who engage us, whom we actually care about. Gamache & Reine-Marie seem to be the compassionately moral center of this group with a strong and solid marriage. They obviously adore each other and are absolutely comfortable sharing ideas and feelings with no hesitation.
The “Cop Crowd”: Jean-Guy, I have a soft spot for him. He’s obviously the one whom Armand trusts the most as his second in command. Gamache understands him and his weaknesses. What I find endearing is J-G’s feeling that he needs to protect Gamach , and – though he may not have put it in so many words, sees his superior as a nurturing father figure. What I find amusing about J-G is his lack of patience with the trainee Nichol at times. Isn’t there some line about what we strongly dislike in others often is a characteristic of our own which we don’t want to face?
Isabelle Lacoste is who I want to be when I grow up! She’s managed to establish balance in her own life in terms of home, family and work. She’s the level headed one on the team who can pull Jean-Guy’s feet back to planet earth when he goes off on a strange logic leap. Plus, she’s confident and has a sense of humor and knows who & what she is. Brecault and Lemieux seem to be ‘good guys’ so far too, as well as the coroner Dr. Susan (?)
Yvette Nichol – Yes, a royal pain in the ass. She has so much growing up to do that I can understand partially her bad choices, assumptions and actions. I’m holding out hope for her that she does come out on the other side of her self-absorption.
“The Villagers” – Who’s not to love? Gabby Gabri with his big belly & big heart wit and fearlessness, Cranky, crabby Ruth – I think I associate with her curmudgeoness. (it’s fun to play that role sometimes.) She just makes me chuckle and weep for her at the same time. Clara & Myrna – both good souls and ‘artists’ in their own ways. Clara’s intuition and understanding are revealed through her ‘artist’s eye’ and in her paintings, Myrna’s in her practical understandings of human behavior. Ollie (Olivier) is the only one of the core villagers that I really don’t seem to have a real sense of as a person. He puts price tags on everything, runs his bistro and kissed Gabri’s hand in “Still Life” during the vandalism scene, but that’s all I know about him.
I just can’t choose a favorite. Also can’t pick A favorite book or A favorite film or A favorite stage performance or A favorite song or piece of music either!
Meg – very interesting observation about Beauvoir’s aversion to Nichol as a reflection of his own weaknesses. Is this what Jung called “the shadow”: disliking others for traits that subconsciously remind us of ourselves?
Don’t know, Hope. Really not up on Jung. Know I’ve heard and read the point a number of times over the years.
I could not live in Three Pines because of the cold. My favorite character in the books is Gamache – I love his relationship with his wife, Reine-Marie. I agree with Ruth — everyone bleats on and on about personal freedoms until something horrible happens. Then we want someone to come along who will tell us what to do.
I thought I placed both of the above under Portia’s and Linda Maday and Penny’s comments (p. 3 of discussion) about CC as a one-dimensional character or person. Help!
Thank you, Portia, for your question. I have had the same feeling. And thank you, Linda, for your great answer. I had completely forgotten (or maybe missed) that description of CC’s thoughts. Those memories were heartbreaking. Each time I have read this #2 book of the series, I have read quickly through the parts about CC, especially when she’s alone in her scary head. So, I allowed myself to avoid her private thoughts. This is a good lesson: assume every part in a Louise Penny book is important, really! I found both CC and Yolanda in Still Life to be one- dimensional–now I think it was my lack of attention to them. I have not been dismissive of the feelings/memories/worst thoughts of any of the other characters in the books, so why these? Something for me to think about.
Now I have just read Portia’s comment. Thank you too; more wise, spot-on ideas.
Meant Penny at the end of above.
“A mitten shot out, black with muck . . . ” No on has mentioned, but this image was so vivid! How often we find treasure where we least expect it! Diamonds amongst the rocks, pearls in oysters, the voice of God in a gutter. After a struggle, after being chipped, stained, beaten down, vomited on. There it is! Did we deserve it?
😀 Linda, check back on VICTIMS: CC & ELLE for full quote of that mitten covered with black muck line!
Yes, it was there that I had one of my aha moments. Part of why I love these discussions so much!
3. I’d like to say that it’s the brilliant imagery, the introspective writing and character development, the plotting … but I’m all about the humor. It’s intelligent (of course, I’d think so), subtle, well-timed, and wonderfully in character of each person. The banter is utterly delightful — Gabri is a hoot. Myrna is a self-possessed woman who can blithely send her friend off on a quest to find the hair salon of Sigfried Sassoon. Clara chides her for it while laughing until she cries. And …. Ruth. Ruth could call me anything. Drinking scotch out of a vase (because that’s the size drink she wants and it’s someone else’s scotch!). Even nasty, damaged, sociopathic CC’s wonderful self-promoting monolog about being adored by “Raman Dass.” It’s gratifying when braggarts get it wrong. (I’m assuming she wasn’t referring to the ayurveda practitioner.) I feel privileged to be invited into the Three Pines world where Louise’s characters share their familiarity and affection for each other by calling each other names, pointing out their foibles (which I feel is more a statement of appreciation than criticism). Sorry for being long-winded. Love these books.
My Ohio friends and I are so in love with Three Pines that we went on map quest to make an educated guess as to where it would be and planned a trip to the area. We also ordered licorice pipes from The Vermont Store and Three Pines mugs from the Canadian bookstore and went to the local Tim Horton’s and had coffee and pipes and pretended we had arrived. Yes, we would love to live there.
I actually love Gabri he could easily be my best friend I’d go to him for
fun, to cry, to be a total ass and Gabri could do the same and we would still love each other. In a later book I completely hurt for Gabri, what’s not to LOVE.
I wonder why Ms.Penny chose to make CC so one-dimensional. Did anyone else find this? I kept waiting for some explanation for CC’s nastiness. Ms. Penny is so good at showing all the nuances to her other characters.
In what we’ve read so far, Louise revealed a great deal when CC stood in the hotel room and thought about the ball. “Her mother was on the floor now, rocking and crying, and CC was desperate for her to stop. Desperate to shut her up, silence her, calm her before the neighbors called the police again and again her mother was taken away. And CC was left alone, in the company of strangers.”
So much was revealed here about CC and the cause for the devastation of her life.
I think Linda Maday has focused on the key to CC. She is one dimensional because her whole being has become focused toward defending herself from the nightmare that was her life as a child. This really can happen. A person can make themselves one dimensional in such a way that it becomes very difficult for others to have compassion for the damage that caused them to flatten out their character into a one-sided shield against EVERYTHING. Horrible, she became, horrified is where she started. Another reminder not to judge, because you don’t know what burden the other person is carrying . . . although in CC’s case that surely did not give her the right to abuse others and her daughter in that horrible way. Miraculous are the people who suffer such wrongs, and rise enlightened from the fire.
Beautiful, Penny.
Perhaps we each have a Three Pines within us, a place of centeredness and equanimity. Do we all have a little of each character within us? Including CC? I’m betting they are all there, if we pay attention. The wonder of Three Pines is that it endures despite murder, mayhem, loss and sorrow. It accepts the vicissitudes of the way, adjusts as needed while staying true to itself. And we all need an Armand Gamache to help us stay on course.
Favorite character? Who else but Ruth? The dialogue between Gabri and Ruth is fabulous. Wouldn’t it be grand to have someone to spar with like that?
On assumptions. We all make them. To me, the caveat of the quote is “…and then acted as though it was fact.”
This is fun!
1. I too would love to live in Three Pines, there is such a sense of community, and living just outside Ottawa I am used to the winters. Three Pines feels like a traditional English village, buildings surrounding a village green, just like where I grew up. The Bistro with its good food, drink, soft comfy sofas and armchairs and the roaring fire, to the Book Shop where you could spend an afternoon browsing the shelves, and then sitting on the bench on the green watching the world go by. Perfect!!
2. My favourite character has to be Ruth. She makes me smile with the things she says. I love the way she doesn’t care about what people think of her. She seems like she doesn’t like people, wants to keep herself to herself, however, she’s still goes to the Bistro and is always having supper at Clara’s, so she still wants to be a part of the community and know there are people around her. I can’t wait to find out a little more about her.
4. People need authority, rules, regulations, that’s what we’ve been taught growing up. People like to know who is responsible, who’s in charge especially if there is a problem, it takes away the worry, anxiousness and confusion.
Regarding assumptions based on what we THINK we know, Louise Penny neatly captures readers with one such assumption in the chapter when Nichol packs her bag and returns to Three Pines. It is very cleverly done, and it definitely caught me the first time I read the novel. She does a great job of showing us how we ourselves can be involved in mistaken assumptions as well as exploring those of the main characters.