Literary Tirra Lirra by the River by Jessica Anderson

[fantasyfan]

Re-reading passages of the novel and thinking more about it--especially in the context of other readers' insights has convinced me that my original assessment was too low. I have added a star to it in my Goodreads review.

[sun surfer]

To my mind this was a delicate masterpiece. I see the book as about yearning for something more, escaping expected societal conventions, and unrealised potential, but it's difficult to settle on any one specific theme because the book was like one of Nora's tapestries, weaving many various strands into one small beautiful whole, and looked at in different lighting or at different points in life will reveal different things.

Originally Posted by fantasyfan

I read the Kindle ebook. It has a very thorough analysis in an "Afterword" by Anna Funder. It is, in my opinion, almost essential reading if one would like to probe more deeply into this novel. While I think that Funder overstates some of her views, they are always worth consideration. She does an excellent job in developing the significance of "The Lady of Shalott" (one of my favourite poems) in terms of the novel.

I read the Afterword too and agree; while insightful it was self-indulgent. I also think she lingered too heavily (almost entirely) on the theme of feminism - female societal constraints and expectations are certainly a major part of the book but there's also much more there.

Originally Posted by caleb72

...I loved Nora. She seemed so real to me. I really felt like I was inside her head and sifting through those memories she might previously have flinched away from. Her bitterness, her weaknesses ended up being precious to me as I progressed. This is another novel that demonstrates that a book can be engrossing without having any "action". I felt the same after reading Remains of the Day.

Yes, completely. Nora was a very human, very complex character and I loved her for it. She was also brutally honest in her assessments of herself and that was so refreshing, and disarming really. Without that she may have been insufferable but as it was she was almost a model of a realistically honest inner portrayal.

I love books like this and Remains of the Day. You are spot on with the comparison of the two as they have a lot in common.

Originally Posted by Hamlet53

First I have read Dolls House and do not really see the clear parallels that others here say they see. Specifically I do not see that Nora's character was significantly altered by the experience of her marriage. Nor that here marriage was the source of her unhappiness or feelings later in life that she had been denied happiness. Her longing for a bright future that never materialized was there before she even met her husband, continued during her marriage, and because she was not really married for that long, continued for the greater part of her life which occurred subsequent to her divorce. Just as an aside I read the section from how she first met her husband (she found herself attracted to his father actually, rushed off in confusion, and on return found that the father was gone and her eventual husband was there) through their divorce twice to try and understand it. Little explanation was provided as to why she married him. In her account there never seemed to be much indication that she ever felt any great love for him. In fact through out her life other than that marriage as far as emotional and sexual intimacy she preferred men who were for one reason or another just not available for that; gay, not interested, or married. Before, during, and after her marriage.

I'd go further and say that I wonder if anything would have made her happy in life. She really seemed to always be an emotionally distant person with everyone through out her life.

I don't see Nora as exactly a sympathetic character and I think that was by design.

I don't see her as the victim in her marriage. I see her as a willing participant in her own misery. Perhaps if the circumstances had been different, but she got married of her own accord without being in love and used her husband only as a means of escape. I think she and Colin were equally at fault in their marriage.

Originally Posted by caleb72

There's some strong parallel's between the poem and the novel; trapped in the house, seeing a different world through the window (from a certain angle), the tapestries etc..., but there were some other elements I thought were interesting to explore.

This book to me had a lot to do with artistic inclination (as Funder also discusses in the Afterword), the impulse to create, as the Lady does. I was interested in the fact that in Nora's constrained youth she made such lovely tapestries and couldn't match that artistry once she was freer. The question is, why?

In the beginning Nora said:

"‘Refined’ and ‘artistic’ were words often used about me. I frowned when I heard them; I aspired to something of greater intensity."

Some say we should go for our goals and reach for our dreams, while others say we shouldn't chase after the stars and rather learn to be happy with whatever life has dealt us. Can they all be true? I think it depends on the person and their nature. Nora is an example of someone, so rarely portrayed, who tries to go for her goals but because of her nature can only succeed in certain minor victories while largely leaving her potential unrealised and even frustrated.

I'm not sure I see Nora as necessarily very intelligent. She is intelligent and very perceptive in many ways but there's so much she misses, ignores or represses. This is why I so highly value her laying it bare for us to see.

...Eventually, she really does start to deal with everything, but only when she is back in her prison. I tend to think this suggests an enlightenment that could have come earlier - but that did come.

Isn't it interesting though that her best artwork when she was young and her enlightenment when she was old, and the beauty she found in the back rooms of the house and the back garden, came at the place she considered her prison?

The contrast I see is between Nora and Dorothy. Dorothy seems to be a kindred spirit to Nora - trapped in a town, walking as if testing the boundaries of her prison. She does not break out in the same way that Nora does, but although the appearance is that she is happy with her wonderful husband and children, the reality is, at the end, a grim one.

Where was Anderson going with this contrast? Both looked like they started in the same prison. The connection with the poem makes one think that Nora might be leaving to her death - and almost does - but survives. Dorothy, never escapes her prison, but the prison doesn't equate to safety and she ends herself and nearly all of her family.

I saw it as a triple contrast between Dorothy, Nora and Olive, Dorothy being the rock bottom version of Nora and Olive the more successful version of Nora.

Dorothy is interesting because Anderson does allude that Nora ended up making her best progress at home, though Olive did not. I did like this passage about Dorothy (paragraphs condensed by the note-taking software into one):

"‘She was so gentle,’ says Betty. ‘She was anxious to please, I remember that. She can’t have been gentle.’ ‘Gentle when she was her true self.’ ‘Perhaps when she was one of her true selves. But how many selves did she have? And how many of those selves did her life call upon? We can only know this—one of them was not gentle.’"

Maybe the violent murder-suicide was to show that this severe repression of what the spirit longs for can not only hurt or even destroy the one person but possibly others around them as well.

Olive on the other hand was interesting because after her first success Nora found her more prudish and naive than expected, yet she still succeeded and her art continued an ascent. Does her inheritance giving her a financial support to an easier freedom help explain it?

Originally Posted by fantasyfan

The "curse" is that the Lady of Shalott has been so long in a self-contained prison that she cannot now adapt; she can only die. In the novel Dorothy dies--but not in the passive sorrowing way of Tennyson's Lady, but in a savage doomed assault on the "Four gray walls, and four gray towers" of her life.
Nora lives but like the Lady is unable to find a new and powerful meaning to her life and like her she drifts drifts helplessly away into the future.

That's an interesting idea fantasyfan. If Dorothy with craziness and suicide is what would've eventually happened to the Lady had she not disobeyed and Nora with freedom but at a price is what did happen to the Lady, then perhaps Olive is the Lady if she didn't have the curse.

Does anyone mourn Dorothy or Nora?

This isn't really a fair question because there were people who might have mourned Dorothy if she hadn't killed them. Nora though, I think her acute emotional detachment did her in. She wasn't interested in making any deep or meaningful bonds really or having a family. Although, I do like this quote of hers:

"Well, I am what I am. The tenderness and indulgence stirred by the recollection of Arch still lingers in me. I forgive myself everything."

[Bookpossum]

Thanks for the really interesting comments, sun surfer. I don't have anything to add, but I have enjoyed the discussion on this book very much. A great choice!

[sun surfer]

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

...I have enjoyed the discussion on this book very much. A great choice!

I agree - great nomination ccowie!

By the way, Funder points out in the Afterword that Bomera, the house/mansion that Nora and Colin rented a flat in, is still standing. It's now in its full restored glory but in "Up" film style it's also now surrounded by the urban city.

This article talks about its history and has more photos.

[Bookpossum]

Thanks for that, sun surfer. So sad to see these grand old places surrounded by all the other buildings, but it seems to happen everywhere.

[HomeInMyShoes]

I'll take it upon myself to arrive fashionably late.

My library completely ignored my hold request. I did a search for random things and wanted to know where the book was. Turns out it was at my branch on the shelf. I really shouldn't complain in the hundreds of books I've requested this has happened twice.

The book was a slow starter for me, but once I got to around page forty it had me. The middle and end sections were brilliant. I really liked the passage with respect to people and how our initial dealings set the tone for all other interactions. I can't quote it right now as the book is not around, but I marked it on page 59 in the edition I read.

[Bookpossum]

Better late than never! Good to know you enjoyed it.