SUMMARY:
It's now the summer of 1983 and Lou was house sitting for a friend's friend, Mars and Leah Katz. Louisa and Clement keep in touch by writing because when they see each other in person, its awkward and when they call each other, they always end up fighting. Clem has been dating this guy Luke for a while and Lou says they are perfect together except that Clem does not like to be limited to one male in her life. She tells Lou about the other men in letters and Lou tells her sister, briefly, about her fisherman, Sam. Being in the country housesitting, Louisa invited Sam out to see her in June and it would not be until the middle of August that she would hear anything from him. He finally called to say that he was going to be around that area and would love to stop by to see her and this amazing, as she told him, house in the country. However, the day before Sam was going to come, Clem called and demanded direction to the house without much of any explanation. Clem arrived the next day at 2 pm and Sam followed 20 minutes later. When Clem finally did say anything about why she showed up randomly she said she and Luke needed to met on neutral grounds to talk. The four of them rode to the beach where they hung out then they went back to the house to enjoy dinner. By the time dessert cam around, Clem still had not talked with her sister about why she showed up at the house so Lou demanded it out of her. Clem said she was pregnant but it was not Luke's baby but the man that was bringing her mail at the Labrador she was previously at. He turned out to be a Catholic and when Clem told him she was pregnant he asked her to marry him and when she laughed he took it upon himself to punish her. Then Clem lifted up her shirt to expose bruises along her ribs and pulled her hair back to reveal more bruises behind her eye. All Clem said at this point was"Hey, no black eyes!" (Glass, 68). When Clem told Luke, Lou was certain that he would propose too but Lou was already planning, in her head, to allow the couple to stay in her apartment in Brooklyn for a couple of days so they could visit a clinic in the city, she imagined Luke beside Clem holding her hand, consoling her.
In 1986, Clem is now living in California with a new boyfriend Zip. Clem is working 2 jobs and working on her thesis while Zip is a man that is "free of toxin" it makes Clem feel poisonous by comparison. He also is into meditation and karma that he is determined to "save" Clem. Lou came to Clem at this point in time because things were not going as she wanted with her husband Hugh, her boss from 3 years ago. They dated then broke up and out of the blue decided to get married, but not elope to save Clem from having "to wear one of those poufy satin dresses, get up at [her] parents' beach club and make a toast" (Glass, 76). Beside trying to help Lou through this rough patch in marriage, Clem is also trying to catch her mothers worker that is somewhere in California with her price possessions, dogs. Zip was saying that Clem always know what she wants and this made Clem think back to that summer before she left for University and Lou was coming back, the summer with Mike. Clem's version went like this: One day when Mike and Louisa were drinking on the porch she came home on her unicycle, like she always did, carrying a box that held a baby bird. Mike asked a lot of question to Clem about the birds and the unicycle. Two weeks passed and she invited him to the 4th of July cookout. She knew Lou had a dress she loved and borrowed it as she had before. Then Lou came and threw wine on them while they were harmlessly dancing because all she wanted was revenge. She did not even know they had a "thing" going on because neither one of them mentioned it.
QUOTES:
"I could make her do anything. I was supreme, in charge. To be fair, I also took care of her, watched her on the swings, kept my sadistic in check. Then something shifted. She was stronger than me by the time she was seven, a born wrestler. Suddenly she no longer took my threats seriously," (Glass, 53).
REACTION:
When I was reading, I had the idea that the sister had their falling out the summer when Clem was going to college and Lou was coming back, but when I read what Louisa was thinking in this quote it made me realize that their falling out or the reason why these sister act the way they do towards each other started when Clem was a child, when Clem started to stand up to being treated unfairly by her older sister. Also, seeing the two different version of one event makes it evident that one person's remembrance of that event is biased and that makes me realize that because the stories are told from one sister's eyes to the other's, that all the events are going to have an underlining resentment for the other sister.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Sunday, November 21, 2010
I See You Everywhere (3-44)
SUMMARY:
The novel begins with the death of Louisa and Clement's Great-Aunt Lucidite, or Lucy, who lives in Vermont. Lucy was born into the Jardine family along with Verite or Vetty and Aristide, Clem and Louisa's great-grandfather, and they are two years older than Amitie or Amy who is twenty years older than Lucy. Amy had grown up to be a mother of five children and marry a grapefruit czar, Aristide spent most of his time in war and Vetty eloped and ran off with Josiah Monroe to Vermont all while Lucy was just starting to grow up. Five years after Vetty's marriage, she writes to her family in New Orleans to tell them she has separated from Josiah and doesn't know whether to stay or to come back home so Lucy takes it upon herself to get her, with a servant, but a few months later the servant comes back alone without either daughter. Many family members speculated that Lucy was gay and having her way with her sister and the others thought she was just respecting her elders, as many younger people did at that time.
The whole family was going to Vermont to collect the things Lucy left for them in her will and to pay respects. For a month Clem had already been there while her boyfriend went to Alaska and Louisa did not want to come but when she heard Lucy left her and her sister all of her antique jewels she decided she better go because if she did not Clem would have claimed the cameo, an ivory on steel-blue Pacific coral with a woman imprinted on it leaning into a hand holding an iris, necklace both girls longed for since they were kids. Over the couple of weeks Clem had with Lucy she discovered a lot about the woman. Things such as for a 98-year old woman she is very strong and open minded. Clem took Lucy to the bar where she experienced new, to her, musicians like Bob Marley and Al Green, and dressed her in green mini-dresses. After Lucy's first and last trip to the club with Clem and her two friends Ralph and Hector, whom are together as a couple, Clem asked why she stayed in Vermont with Vetty. She told her the reason was that at the age of 19, she was smitten over a man that her parents would never approve of and she got pregnant, her parents, trying to cover the shame, said their daughter was going on a trip to Europe but instead went to Vermont to meet her 37-year old sister a woman she never laid her eyes on to deliver a baby so Vetty can have something to live for. But ince her husband left before she could bear children and her sister Amy was already a couple of months pregnant, Lucy's father came when her baby boy was less than a month old and staged Amy's pregnancy as twins. Clem was shocked because she is the only surviving member of the family that knows this (except for her father but that's not certain). The next day, Lucy wanted to take all her jewelry but her cameo to the bank to keep it safe. Lucy said she wants that to go to cousin Gaia and soon after, Clem realized that Gaia maybe Lucy's actual granddaughter since one of Amy's "twins" is Gaia's father.
QUOTE:
"Christ, I thought, all because of a stupid piece of jewelry and an adolescent grudge, I might die. Actually die. I thought, absurdly, of the clear "picture" Clem had mentioned about the life before her. I had no such picture of mine" (Glass, 42).
REACTION:
This quote is said by Louisa and the jewelry she is talking about is the cameo. The only thing is that she doesn't know that when their Great-Aunt Lucy left her and her sister all her jewelry it does not include that one specific piece of jewelry she is after. The childhood grudge is from the last summer she and Clem lived together in their parent's house and Louisa had a crush or fling with Mike but she learned that he was doing the same thing with her younger sister she was livid and has never let that go and even blames her future heartbreak and her drastic move on Clem, even though she never met him and it happened on the other side of the country when Louisa followed her "soulmate" to Santa Barbara, saying that if they did not have their own fling she would not have rebound and then would not have had to move to be with him. Also, with this novel and the way it is written is a little confusing because the reader is in both of the sister's head and their perspective on life and amount of knowledge is different so I get lost sometimes.
The novel begins with the death of Louisa and Clement's Great-Aunt Lucidite, or Lucy, who lives in Vermont. Lucy was born into the Jardine family along with Verite or Vetty and Aristide, Clem and Louisa's great-grandfather, and they are two years older than Amitie or Amy who is twenty years older than Lucy. Amy had grown up to be a mother of five children and marry a grapefruit czar, Aristide spent most of his time in war and Vetty eloped and ran off with Josiah Monroe to Vermont all while Lucy was just starting to grow up. Five years after Vetty's marriage, she writes to her family in New Orleans to tell them she has separated from Josiah and doesn't know whether to stay or to come back home so Lucy takes it upon herself to get her, with a servant, but a few months later the servant comes back alone without either daughter. Many family members speculated that Lucy was gay and having her way with her sister and the others thought she was just respecting her elders, as many younger people did at that time.
The whole family was going to Vermont to collect the things Lucy left for them in her will and to pay respects. For a month Clem had already been there while her boyfriend went to Alaska and Louisa did not want to come but when she heard Lucy left her and her sister all of her antique jewels she decided she better go because if she did not Clem would have claimed the cameo, an ivory on steel-blue Pacific coral with a woman imprinted on it leaning into a hand holding an iris, necklace both girls longed for since they were kids. Over the couple of weeks Clem had with Lucy she discovered a lot about the woman. Things such as for a 98-year old woman she is very strong and open minded. Clem took Lucy to the bar where she experienced new, to her, musicians like Bob Marley and Al Green, and dressed her in green mini-dresses. After Lucy's first and last trip to the club with Clem and her two friends Ralph and Hector, whom are together as a couple, Clem asked why she stayed in Vermont with Vetty. She told her the reason was that at the age of 19, she was smitten over a man that her parents would never approve of and she got pregnant, her parents, trying to cover the shame, said their daughter was going on a trip to Europe but instead went to Vermont to meet her 37-year old sister a woman she never laid her eyes on to deliver a baby so Vetty can have something to live for. But ince her husband left before she could bear children and her sister Amy was already a couple of months pregnant, Lucy's father came when her baby boy was less than a month old and staged Amy's pregnancy as twins. Clem was shocked because she is the only surviving member of the family that knows this (except for her father but that's not certain). The next day, Lucy wanted to take all her jewelry but her cameo to the bank to keep it safe. Lucy said she wants that to go to cousin Gaia and soon after, Clem realized that Gaia maybe Lucy's actual granddaughter since one of Amy's "twins" is Gaia's father.
QUOTE:
"Christ, I thought, all because of a stupid piece of jewelry and an adolescent grudge, I might die. Actually die. I thought, absurdly, of the clear "picture" Clem had mentioned about the life before her. I had no such picture of mine" (Glass, 42).
REACTION:
This quote is said by Louisa and the jewelry she is talking about is the cameo. The only thing is that she doesn't know that when their Great-Aunt Lucy left her and her sister all her jewelry it does not include that one specific piece of jewelry she is after. The childhood grudge is from the last summer she and Clem lived together in their parent's house and Louisa had a crush or fling with Mike but she learned that he was doing the same thing with her younger sister she was livid and has never let that go and even blames her future heartbreak and her drastic move on Clem, even though she never met him and it happened on the other side of the country when Louisa followed her "soulmate" to Santa Barbara, saying that if they did not have their own fling she would not have rebound and then would not have had to move to be with him. Also, with this novel and the way it is written is a little confusing because the reader is in both of the sister's head and their perspective on life and amount of knowledge is different so I get lost sometimes.
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