The Blue Castle Book Club Chapter 1
If it had not rained on a certain May morning Valancy Stirling’s whole life would have been entirely different. She would have gone, with the rest of her clan, to Aunt Wellington’s engagement picnic and Dr. Trent would have gone to Montreal. But it did rain and you shall hear what happened to her because of it.
So we begin with one of the most memorable opening lines (certainly for LMM works). The first paragraph gives an adult fairytale. It is, however, not a merry beginning; never was there a first chapter so full of misery in LMM's canon.
Right away we can see why Valancy's life is so unhappy, despite it being the morning of her bday--she is 29 and unmarried, living in an environment that is considered a woman's greatest failure. But it's not just that, everything in her life is dull and grey. Her mother doesn't seem to have much love for her and the house she lives in, including her bedroom, is ugly. She is not allowed to do anything she likes; a full grown adult cannot even read novels or withdraw money from her own bank account. She has no choice over her bedroom decor, not even the pictures on the wall. (Trying to find out who this Queen Louise could have been, google gives me Queen Louise, wife of Frederick William III, King of Prussia and Queen Louise, wife of Frederick V, King of Denmark and Norway. The latter was British, daughter of King George II, so I'd say she's the most likely one. Or it was someone entirely different.)
Valancy did not mind so much being an old maid. After all, she thought, being an old maid couldn’t possibly be as dreadful as being married to an Uncle Wellington or an Uncle Benjamin, or even an Uncle Herbert. What hurt her was that she had never had a chance to be anything but an old maid. No man had ever desired her.
Relatable. We can say that male attention means nothing, but well, being desired is nice. We're all human.
So the rain mentioned in the first line prevents Aunt and Uncle Wellington's engagement picnic from taking place, which is a comforting thought at the moment for Valancy. She is the clan's punching bag. We get information about some of her relatives but honestly, none of them would matter had her mother been a loving one. One can endure a terrible family gathering if one then gets to go home and laugh at the ridiculousness of them all with one's mother (or father or a sibling or anyone who understands, really). (Also, and this is a topic for later, but I wonder how many of them are actually happy, in a clan filled with rigid customs; how many of them actually get to be authentic?)
Valancy, so cowed and subdued and overridden and snubbed in real life, was wont to let herself go rather splendidly in her day-dreams.
This is it! Your imagination is something nobody can take away from you. I frequently escaped into it in my not-very-good teenage years.
For one thing she had quite a few lovers in it. Oh, only one at a time. One who wooed her with all the romantic ardour of the age of chivalry and won her after long devotion and many deeds of derring-do, and was wedded to her with pomp and circumstance in the great, banner-hung chapel of the Blue Castle.
Of course! What's the point of imaginary castle if you don't go all in? I love me a knight in shining armour. I have a little figure of one!
And Valancy has another thing that gives her joy--the books of John Foster. She is at least allowed to read those, bc they are not novels. But she can't be seen enjoying them much bc her mother is the worst.
Valancy did not know whether her mind was being improved or not; but she felt vaguely that if she had come across John Foster’s books years ago life might have been a different thing for her. They seemed to her to yield glimpses of a world into which she might once have entered, though the door was forever barred to her now.
Interesting. Why does she think she discovered the books too late? Why would the door be closed to her now?
So Valancy is going to see Dr Trent about the pain she has been feeling about her heart. And no wonder she has been feeling it--living this kind of life has to eventually take the toll on your physical as well as mental health.
vaporwave
origamiaround
turnnoffyourmind
yousharknotpass
dededos
areudirty
romaincrisis
