Just finished "I capture the castle" ...

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

Such a lovely book!  But the ending!!!  I hate when things are left hanging in the air!  I'm much more of a "and they all lived happily ever after" type.  But the prose was just swoon-worthy.  So beautiful.

 

Thoughts?

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

Also, I felt certain it would be revealed that her journal gifts were sent by Stephen, but if it was, I missed it.  Were they from Stephen or Simon?  I listened to it on audible, so I could have missed a bit.  

[Farrar]

I can't remember now who sent them... but I don't remember it being a mystery. It's been a couple years since I reread it.

This is one of my favorite books of all time. I love the opening scene where she's describing everyone and nothing happens and then... something happens. I love the stuff about her father and how she locks him up and he makes such a fascinating sounding new novel. And I love her step-mother, who is such a character. I think she says that they were surprisingly "presented" with a step-mother, which is hilarious.

[Farrar]

As for the ending... open endings are one of my favorite things when done right. Life doesn't wrap up neatly so I really enjoy them when they feel right. This one does to me. I think they're a big literary risk - life isn't a novel and vice versa. It can't feel like... say, like the TV show Lost where they were just introducing things for the heck of it with no plan. It has to feel like everything comes together and yet isn't wrapped up neatly. For me, this does. I mean, most of the plots are wrapped up... it's just that her plot isn't, which is great, I think.

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

Now that we're talking about the ending and I've had 30 seconds to think about it, i wonder if it is symbolic of how she feels when Rose becomes engaged- she feels she would be sad to not have new adventures to look forward to, nothing to hope for.  Maybe leaving us with an open but optimistic ending like that it to suit Cassandra's own preference of not having every neatly tied up in a bow with nothing left to hope for.  🙂  

I loved Topaz.  What a unique literary step-mother.  A good step-mother, but  not a martyr or a boring background presence. 

Everything about it was just lovely.  The pacing, the description, the movement from a wandering mind to precise capture of detail.  

Sigh.  

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

The notebooks always arrived without a note.  She assumed Simon, but I felt sure we'd find out it was Stephen.  But then again, I was sort of pulling for Stephen for most of the book, so I might have been biased.  

[Farrar]

I was never pulling for Stephen. They were very poorly matched and she makes it very clear. He seems like a great guy and all... but she feels nothing for him. He's a bit like Haresh Kapoor in A Suitable Boy - the dull, solid love option - the practical choice with whom she could build a good life. But where Lata eventually decides that Haresh will balance her headstrong, romantic, poetic side, I never felt like Cassandra could give up her poetic, romantic nature. She is too young and too idealistic to be content with settling. Maybe several years down the line she could be, but by then it would be for someone else entirely, I think. I often pull for the "practical" choice in love triangle stories... I was Team Peeta all the way, for example. But we're so in Cassandra's head and I never felt that they would be right together. She's too adventurous and he's too devoted.

Simon... I don't know. To extend my (likely weird) literary comparison to A Suitable Boy... he's no Amit Chatterjee (sigh and swoon). I think it's clear throughout that he's not all that - that Cassandra has fallen for the idea of him more than anything and that she sort of knows that. But she still feels it so strongly. I think this is why it's better open ended in a way.

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

28 minutes ago, Farrar said:

I was never pulling for Stephen. They were very poorly matched and she makes it very clear. He seems like a great guy and all... but she feels nothing for him. He's a bit like Haresh Kapoor in A Suitable Boy - the dull, solid love option - the practical choice with whom she could build a good life. But where Lata eventually decides that Haresh will balance her headstrong, romantic, poetic side, I never felt like Cassandra could give up her poetic, romantic nature. She is too young and too idealistic to be content with settling. Maybe several years down the line she could be, but by then it would be for someone else entirely, I think. I often pull for the "practical" choice in love triangle stories... I was Team Peeta all the way, for example. But we're so in Cassandra's head and I never felt that they would be right together. She's too adventurous and he's too devoted.

Simon... I don't know. To extend my (likely weird) literary comparison to A Suitable Boy... he's no Amit Chatterjee (sigh and swoon). I think it's clear throughout that he's not all that - that Cassandra has fallen for the idea of him more than anything and that she sort of knows that. But she still feels it so strongly. I think this is why it's better open ended in a way.

 

Yes, I do wonder if, in some fictitious future, if Simon came back... Cassandra would have outgrown him.  (And Stephen, meanwhile, having become a Hollywood star, might now be more interesting. 😉 ) 

I will have to check out A Suitable Boy... haven't read it!