We Never Actually Got To See Alastair And Elias Interact On Their Own... Why

i agree the dave thing is so funny, especially when laurie gets distracted from Andrew’s story about his awful depressing childhood to be jealous about dave’s entire existence, and then has to spend a few mins convincing andrew he’s still interested in his story and it’s not boring 😭 that bit kills me, i don’t know why some people say Mary isn’t a funny writer! but my personal interpretation, mostly based on the end conversation with dave, is that he must give off ~vibes~, just based on when dave says “i think you’ve misunderstood things between andrew and I” and then couple that with him being in love with bertie. and we do know that laurie can pick up on vibes, because he’s actually pretty good at picking up on andrew.

I think Laurie is generally hilarious, at times intentionally, at others not! There are lots of scenes I remember laughing at as I want along 😭

I do think you're right about vibes and about them being important, and of course Laurie is good at picking them up, kind of because he has to be. Honestly, I think most characters in this book have to be vibe-masters 😭 that's what I feel like many of the conversations with meeting new characters is like: simply vibe-checks 😭 That being said, I did really like the explanation regarding some weird-misplaced idea of influence that Laurie puts on Andrew, because in the scene that makes me laugh and another before it, Andrew actually does establish that Dave influences him, the only problem is that Laurie assumes there must be something romantic behind it. Those are the vibes he was getting, and you're right, he could've just picked up on Dave and connected dots, but I think there's more to it than that. The next few scenes after this one (the hilarious Reg-seduction scene and also tea with Adrian) kind of offer some more interesting insight; in both scenes, the idea of influence is referred to and explored, with Andrew being the center of it in the former. It seems even Reg has an idea that Andrew ought to be 'positively influenced'

I don't know 😭 I have this theory developing in my head, but I don't know if it's wrong because I haven't finished the rest of the book. And this book specifically is so cool because every time you think you understand a part of it, something else happens and you have to go back and recontextualize everything 😭 regardless, thank you for sharing your interpretation with me! It really makes me think about everything I've already read, and try to see what I could've missed and need to think more about.

“Give me to be beautiful within,” Socrates had prayed, “and for me let outward and inward things be reconciled together.” (99)

A little tribute piece to what is probably, definitely my favorite comfort novel, The Charioteer by Mary Renault.

I completely forgot about the scene where Laurie seems pleased to be perceived as older! And while I was reading, I never even thought of the idea of molding, or Laurie thinking it's possible or trying to do it 😭 When I read Charlot's scene, I took is as the moment when Laurie finally has to confront the reality of who Andrew is and how different they really are...I will definitely be reading that scene more closely now that you mention it here!

You're definitely right that Laurie should've seen it coming with Charlot 😭 it's not as if Andrew hadn't told him who he is, but I don't think he ever had to really confront it until then. It's one thing to hear about the spine of steel, but another thing completely to rush into it headfirst at 80 miles per hour 😭

I don't understand why Laurie immediately interprets the relationship between Andrew and Dave as anything other than father/child or even just uncle/nephew. I'm rereading chapter 5, where Andrew is telling him all about his father's death and despite the fact that he clearly explains Dave is old enough to have known both his parents, Laurie is insanely jealous of Dave and thinks the whole situation gives him a 'headstart'... why?

I'm trying to think through the rest of what I know happens in the book, and the only other scene I can connect it with is the one where Laurie's sitting with Mervyn and thinks suddenly about how Sandy's friends could misinterpret the situation if they walk by. I don't know if there's supposed to be a connection or anything, but I really do not understand the vibes Laurie is getting at all 😭

Hello! OK this is more an ask about a question, but you know you on the tag game when you mentioned Bunny and what happened in the car, you made me think. I'm not sure if there was actual contact, I tended to think of it as Bunny 'trying it on', but when I re-read it, it's clear Laurie is genuinely scared, and perhaps he suddenly realises he has no real idea who this guy is but he's also trying to make light of it. And then the little internal monologue is so pompous I find it hard to be sympathetic with him! But anyway, I wondered what you thought about it?

Hey! Thanks for this ask! I was debating making a post where I talked about it because it really confused me but you beat me to it with this question! When I went back to reread that scene, I didn’t expect to be so confused. I definitely agree that Laurie’s got some huge pompous lines in this one, but that wasn’t really the part that captured my attention or confused me. I was expecting the lines because I remembered reading them the first time. What I didn’t remember was getting the sense that Bunny was a real threat to Laurie. I think this is because I didn't realise how impossible the situation was?

The part that really made me think twice about Bunny and the car scene was this:

“Something primitive stirred in Laurie, as in a solitary man beset by the creatures of a swamp or forest “Oh, no,” he said. “I shouldn’t take that tone, if I were you.” This, thought Laurie, is what he doesn’t tell everyone. The practiced inflection had held many chapters of inadvertent autobiography. “You know,” he said, “Ralph’s going to wake up before long and ring the hospital to see I got back all right. If I haven’t, what do you expect me to do tomorrow? Back up your story?””

The line that caught my eye here was 'The practiced inflection had held many chapters of inadvertent autobiography.' I don't know why it did, but based on the situation as a whole, it kind of seemed to imply to me that Bunny was someone who coerced others?

So, if you think about it: here we have Bunny who puts Laurie in an impossible situation. Laurie is physically disabled, and needs to be conveyed to the hospital. They're out in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere when Bunny makes advances and is rebuffed. Angry at this, he tries to throw Laurie out of the car. Again, they're in the middle of nowhere, in the dark, and Laurie cannot walk. At this point in the story, he can barely be on his leg for an hour or two (at most) without his pain flaring up. So, there is no way Laurie can leave that car and get to the hospital safely. Only Bunny can get him there; he is entirely dependent on him. This is the situation he finds himself in. Bunny knows this, and after Laurie refuses to leave, responds saying: "I shouldn't take that tone, if I were you.' These words make clear that he knows Laurie is at his mercy, and is also warning him to be more agreeable. And it's not even just the words apparently, because Laurie says: "The practiced inflection had held many chapters of inadvertent autobiography." In other words, this tone of warning is itself practiced and reveals something about the one using it; based on everything above, I assumed it revealed that Bunny had done this all before, i.e. put others—who may not have had a Ralph to threaten him with—in similar impossible situations where the only way out would be responding favourably to his sexual advances.

I don't know if I'm reaching or reading too much into it, but this was what I got when I read it. I hope this made at least some sense. What do you think? And of course, thank you for the ask!

I may be reading too much into this passage, or maybe someone's mentioned it before but I think it's so funny; it seems to me he's just describing Ralph and Andrew when talking about Hamlet and Brutus (and how he dislikes them 😭), and it seems to say a lot about how different Laurie is when we see him after Dunkirk.

people in period clothing doing modern things is my aesthetic

I forbid ye maidens all who let fly your lovely hair to go down to Carterhaugh for young Tam Lin is there

if Cordelia really did give Cortana to Alastair, that would solve the mystery of how the blade stays in the Carstairs family and reaches Emma. Cordelia might even be able to wield it later on (assuming she finds a way out of her situation) but I think she might just tell Alastair to keep it in the end, if not for himself then for their sibling.

The way it was talked about before the book came out made me think there was going to be more of Elias and his interactions/relationship with Alastair and Sona. I mean, there must've been a scene where they each first interacted with him alone. Idk, it felt really meh to just have a total of about 3 scenes wherein Elias was either being weird, drunk or just horrible and then he dies. Like, "here hate him for being bad before I kill him." I think the whole thing should've been explored more, idk.

We also get one line that suggests he doesn't want to have the new baby, which is another thing that was hinted at a bunch and which I thought would actually be talked about openly at some point and explored, not just tucked away in a rant before he dies and never really formally addressed. And I might be misremembering, but weren't Alastair and Cordelia going to have secret and important meetings about him or something? There was one scene where they talked after dinner but that's it? And Sona was so sure he'd changed and needed to be given another chance - - why?

I realize the writing must be based around whatever drives the plot, so such scenes would seem add-on but that only calls into question why Alastair isn't so much more important to the plot 😤 smh,,,, I just think there could've been a lot more Carstairs scenes in the book that would've helped in understanding each of the Carstairs characters.

why couldn't it just be that jem saw Jessie get belial's marks stripped off of him and that's what he was talking about when he told Emma about it