Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead – Book

From a Google image Search – The Today Show

Maggie Shipstead’s book Great Circle is a multi-saga. It’s a family saga, a historical saga, a saga of a girl with a goal, so a cultural saga of women’s struggles. The only part of her story that is true is the history bits, but Shipstead did her due diligence and she knows the flight records achieved with regularity after Kitty Hawk. Women who flew were a key target of her studies. In the midst of her prose story she will recite a timely fact about a milestone accomplished by a pilot.

Marian and Jamie Graves lost their abused and understandably reluctant mother as infants when the ship their father, Addison Graves, was captaining exploded and sank. Their father was sent to Sing Sing prison for disobeying the code of captains at sea in order to save the twin infants. The children grew up under the neglectful care of their painter uncle, Wallace Graves, addicted to gambling and drinking. When Addison was released he took one look at the young twins and walked away, unable to believe that he would be a good father. (In fact, there are a lot of reluctant parents in this book and perhaps an argument for the individualism promoted by free-range parenting.)

Years later, in 2014, if you go by chronology, we meet Hadley, a young actress whose life parallels Marian’s. She also lost her parents and was raised by an uncle. Her parents died when their plane crashed into Lake Superior. In the midst of a boyfriend scandal, Hadley, hoping to rehab her reputation takes on the role of Marian Graves, a heroine of her childhood from a book recommended to her by a school librarian. So, the story becomes a two-fer and the modern “Marian” is not necessarily having an easier time of it than the Marian of the last century who tried to navigate a life that went against the cultural grain.

Great Circle is not just a fictional saga though. Marian’s story tells us about obstacles women face when they don’t feel comfortable within the narrow norms that circumscribe women’s lives. Marian’s fascination with the poles, the ultimate test of cold places which was a male domain, and her encounter with a married pair of barnstormers who stay with her uncle and take her up for her first flight, sets the course for her life. Her uncle cannot hold on to money. In order to learn to fly Marian delivers bootleg liquor and wine during Prohibition. She is young and slight. She can pass for a boy if she dresses in overalls and pulls a hat low and tries not to make eye contact. This works until she meets Barclay McQueen, a wealthy, powerful and seemingly respectable criminal. He is fascinated by Marian but she is too young. He woos her with pilot lessons and airplanes, wins her reluctant hand in marriage, and tries to control her and tame her by forcefully raping her until she is pregnant. Once Marian wins her freedom she flies, literally and figuratively. Her life’s trajectory faces the constant limits on what is allowed for women. Marian always finds ways to fly. She even finds ways to love who she loves, finding herself in love with Ruth and Caleb at the same time.

Hadley, our modern “Marian”, star of the movie Peregrine about Grave’s life and disappearance/death, still, in the twenty-first century, finds herself, at the beginning of her career in a #metoo moment. Even later in her career she finds herself in the midst of sexual shaming, which leads to her losing her star role in a TV series called Archangel. However, she has gained some equanimity over the years and is freed to accept the role in Peregrine, a possible future indie success with greater heft than her former roles.

The novel is readable and long, although it doesn’t really seem long. Do the themes justify the length? There is some really good writing in there. It gives us two great stories and many side stories. Could the author had made more of the great circle analogy so that when the moment came for Marian to tackle her dream it seemed like a true culmination? Possibly. The novel still accomplishes a lot and the characters may have longevity and enter that group of fictional people who we perceive as real. Only time will tell. Is Marian’s Great Circle dream ever realized? Perhaps. But culturally our goals might rather be to break some great circles, send the lines off in new directions that offer far more freedom from gender roles and rules.

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig-Book

From a Google Image Search – BiblioCoach

Nora Seed is depressed. She has lost so many things recently. When a man she is attracted to knocks on her door in the midst of her despair, she thinks things might be looking up, but he is just there to tell her that he thinks her cat, a ginger tabby named Voltaire, is dead at the side of the road. He stays to help her bury the cat, but then she is late for her job at String Theory, a shop that sells albums and musical instruments, so she gets fired. Her only piano student’s mom tells her that Leo will no longer be taking lessons. She looks back over her life and sees that she has been unable to commit to anything and that this has caused pain to her brother Joe and to others in her life. She tips over the scary edge and swallows enough pills to end her miserable life, but she ends up in a limbo between life and death (with lots of talk about Schrodinger’s cat) in The Midnight Library with Mrs. Elm, the school librarian who helped her when she was younger.

The Midnight Library is a place we might all want to visit. Nora is faced with a big book of her regrets, which become far less of a weight once she has made it through the book. The shelves are infinite and all the books are green. Nora is able to go back to each moment in her life when she chose a path and see what would have happened if she stayed on that path. The Midnight Library is not endlessly patient. There are rules that can be broken with existential results. Nora has a degree in philosophy and knows all about existential results. But she longs for an authentic life such as that of Henry David Thoreau.

Matt Haig is the author of this book and we readers always get a little nervous when a male author chooses to feature a female character. Did Nora Seed have to be female? Perhaps in this tale the gender of the main character doesn’t matter as much because, although this is an interesting concept and a good story, it doesn’t have the literary heft or the philosophical depth that it could have had. There is a certain Faustian quality to Nora’s library research. She doesn’t have to sell her soul, but she has to remember that her corporeal body is alone in her apartment flickering between life and death. The concept of The Midnight Library is interesting and the plot resembles time travel, but the overall effect is quite quotidian and therefore a bit disappointing. Enjoyable, just not profound.

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab-Book

From a Google Image Search – Book Club Chat

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab warns us to follow her neighbor Estelle’s advice and never make a deal with gods who answer after dark. The tale of Adeline LaRue shows what can happen if you make such a deal, even by accident, or because you are desperate. Adeline ends up making a very bad deal with a tricky god who takes on the appearance of Adeline’s perfect partner, a made up figure she has been drawing for many years.

Adeline grows up in the 18^th century in a small village called Villon in France. It is practically impossible for a daughter to avoid a local marriage and the life of a wife and mother, hard and full of toil if you are not from a wealthy family. Adeline doesn’t want this life. She wants to be free, in a time when freedom for women was also something that might be marginally possible only if you were rich. Adeline’s family is not rich. Her father carves small, and quite desirable figures from wood and sells them at local markets.

Be careful what you ask for.

I almost put this book aside because I don’t usually read fiction about the occult or magic but I was ready for light entertainment and so I kept reading. Adeline’s deal means that she gets to live a long life as a ‘free’ woman, but no one remembers her. She can’t rent a hotel room or own any thing or have a normal relationship because she is always unknown. Everything is temporary. She can’t even say her own name. She is not really free at all because she sold her soul to ‘Luc’ for a freedom that is worthless. Luc visits Addie frequently to see if she is ready to give up her soul yet, but she is a stubborn girl. The more he tries to get her to give up, the more determined she becomes to go on. Three hundred years later, looking back, she acknowledges the things she has gained from her long life. Certain pieces of art work seem to give credence to Addie’s story. But she is tired.

In 2014 she finds a way to change the deal – at least temporarily. How does that happen? Read and find out. This was an inventive and entertaining piece of fiction, although the word ‘palimpsest’ cropped up a bit too often perhaps. Good job, V. E. Schwab.