APS TOGETHER
Day 9
Chapter 3, pp. 159-176 (from “She noticed with a faint hear” through “shortly she fell into a deep sleep.”)
December 11, 2020 by Claire Messud
Andy, to whom Miss Goering will attach herself, explains straight away that “I have a habit of never paying attention to whoever I am talking to.” (p.159) His honesty perhaps surprises; but his way of being is eminently familiar is “his way of attributing qualities to her which were not in any way true to her nature” (p.160), which makes her feel “inconsequential.” What woman hasn’t had that “eerie” experience?
The opposite of utilitarian, Andy, “Citizen Skunk,” threw over his sweet girlfriend on account of his sexual fantasies about Belle, the woman with no arms or legs. Dostoevskian, he has ended up “in the mud” (p.167) – not unlike Miss Goering, indeed…
“One must allow that a certain amount of carelessness in one’s nature often accomplishes what the will is incapable of doing,” Miss Goering thinks (p.170). When the super-ego is relentless, the id must occasionally intervene…
“It is absolute nonsense to move physically from one place to another,” Arnold advises. “All places are more or less alike.” (p.174) On one level this statement is mad, of course; but on another quite true.
