Great question, kc. I wondered about that too. Even Irene admits that "She had seen nothing, heard nothing. She had no facts or proofs." At the same time, is an affair something that you can prove, if the involved parties are sufficiently discreet?
In the end, I wonder whether we even need to know - because Irene's suspicions showed how her marriage had deteriorated to the point where neither she nor Brian could trust (or really love) the other. Maybe if Clare didn't cause that through an affair, she certainly exposed that estrangement.
That's a brilliant summation, Shanxi! — how the affair, real or imagined, is beside the point. Maybe a large part of Irene's resentment toward Clare is not the race issue or because she's competing for her husband, but, as you say, because Clare's arrival on the scene "exposed the estrangement" that was already there.
And as you say, two very discreet people could hide "proof" of an affair almost indefinitely. In any case, I think Larsen did a really great job of giving enough to go on circumstantially that you don't think Irene is completely paranoid for being suspicious, but not enough to make you feel justified in accusing Clare and Brian outright.
In the end I couldn't really decide whether I thought the affair was real or imagined. I also thought Larsen did an excellent job of building the paranoia without actually giving anything away. It remained completely ambiguous.
And it seemed as though Irene and Brian had significant troubles bubbling below the surface even before the story began. It's very possible that they were on their way to that level of estrangement anyway.
I took for granted that it was going on -- I guess we don't need to know whether it was true any more than to guess how Clare fell out the window.
I thought the clues in Clare's behavior were the most telling ... that if she wanted something she just had to have it, that she was relentless and mostly unconscionable. So the tipping point for me was when she broke down in tears in front of Irene about something she was going to do, because maybe Irene's friendship was still worth leaving off the affair but that ultimately Irene would be hurt, too. Otherwise that part didn't really hang together at all.
But she would hardly have upset a happy marriage, as you both noted. Clare was a catalyst for those feelings to come up. She wasn't just a beauty, she was this enormous -- enormous -- risk-taker, and that would have appealed enormously to Brian because he felt stifled in his own family life.
Glad you brought that up, cl, about Clare's "confession" that she was an unscrupulous person who would find a way to have what she wanted. She's such an odd, manipulative woman that she could have been talking about any number of things, but, yeah, I suppose the conversation was in there to plant suspicions in the reader's mind about an affair. I don't know why she would want to plant suspicions in Irene's mind, though. What's her interest in tipping her hand that she's about to do Irene great harm?
KC, good question. Maybe Clare was having a rare moment of guilt, or she wanted to soften the blow. She was very confident, though -- that persistence of hers, I don't know she had much to risk by warning Irene, if that's what she did. She knew she had the man.
Yeah, I could see Clare doing that to soften the blow. In that scene she was acting like she just couldn't help the havoc she wreaked through her self-serving actions. It could have been an advance apology.
Great question, kc. I wondered about that too. Even Irene admits that "She had seen nothing, heard nothing. She had no facts or proofs." At the same time, is an affair something that you can prove, if the involved parties are sufficiently discreet?
ReplyDeleteIn the end, I wonder whether we even need to know - because Irene's suspicions showed how her marriage had deteriorated to the point where neither she nor Brian could trust (or really love) the other. Maybe if Clare didn't cause that through an affair, she certainly exposed that estrangement.
That's a brilliant summation, Shanxi! — how the affair, real or imagined, is beside the point. Maybe a large part of Irene's resentment toward Clare is not the race issue or because she's competing for her husband, but, as you say, because Clare's arrival on the scene "exposed the estrangement" that was already there.
ReplyDeleteAnd as you say, two very discreet people could hide "proof" of an affair almost indefinitely. In any case, I think Larsen did a really great job of giving enough to go on circumstantially that you don't think Irene is completely paranoid for being suspicious, but not enough to make you feel justified in accusing Clare and Brian outright.
Great, Shanxi! I love that analysis.
ReplyDeleteIn the end I couldn't really decide whether I thought the affair was real or imagined. I also thought Larsen did an excellent job of building the paranoia without actually giving anything away. It remained completely ambiguous.
And it seemed as though Irene and Brian had significant troubles bubbling below the surface even before the story began. It's very possible that they were on their way to that level of estrangement anyway.
I took for granted that it was going on -- I guess we don't need to know whether it was true any more than to guess how Clare fell out the window.
ReplyDeleteI thought the clues in Clare's behavior were the most telling ... that if she wanted something she just had to have it, that she was relentless and mostly unconscionable. So the tipping point for me was when she broke down in tears in front of Irene about something she was going to do, because maybe Irene's friendship was still worth leaving off the affair but that ultimately Irene would be hurt, too. Otherwise that part didn't really hang together at all.
But she would hardly have upset a happy marriage, as you both noted. Clare was a catalyst for those feelings to come up. She wasn't just a beauty, she was this enormous -- enormous -- risk-taker, and that would have appealed enormously to Brian because he felt stifled in his own family life.
Oh, I forgot about that scene, cl. I thought, too, that when Clare broke down in front of Irene, the affair seemed more likely than not.
ReplyDeleteGlad you brought that up, cl, about Clare's "confession" that she was an unscrupulous person who would find a way to have what she wanted. She's such an odd, manipulative woman that she could have been talking about any number of things, but, yeah, I suppose the conversation was in there to plant suspicions in the reader's mind about an affair. I don't know why she would want to plant suspicions in Irene's mind, though. What's her interest in tipping her hand that she's about to do Irene great harm?
ReplyDeleteKC, good question. Maybe Clare was having a rare moment of guilt, or she wanted to soften the blow. She was very confident, though -- that persistence of hers, I don't know she had much to risk by warning Irene, if that's what she did. She knew she had the man.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I could see Clare doing that to soften the blow. In that scene she was acting like she just couldn't help the havoc she wreaked through her self-serving actions. It could have been an advance apology.
ReplyDelete