But we can make this work.
Together, he and Kate have a sweet, simple house that Kate likes immensely. Binx is clearly her life raft as she continues to struggle with fear and anxiety, but she is making it.
Binx, as I recall, has entered medical school, but maybe I'm remembering incorrectly.
His Aunt Emily, now, she has come to terms with a new understanding of Binx. She is cordial toward Binx but she does not invite him into her conspiracies and manipulations and schemes – I make it sound as though she were an evil person, and I don't believe she is. But in that way that some matronly women are, Aunt Emily tries to run the family like she runs a household, or like clumsy puppets on strings.
I think Binx's main flaw throughout the novel is that he is a quiet, retiring, introverted sort of person, but even keep-to-themselves sort of persons hope for some excitement, hope for some adventure. So he goes to the movies, but he's disappointed when the characters resolve their adventures and settle down to marriage or to a normal job. But he himself does no more than try to take girls to the beach in a convertible. In fact, once when he tried to take one of his secretaries to the beach, the car ride was so deathly quiet, the magic was lost and it was an awkward journey rather than the thrilling chance he was looking for.
He doesn't even want to travel to Chicago, although that would be excitement. He does, however, and his trip with Kate – the climax perhaps – is something very dumbed down in language but would have been very emotionally charged in reality. Had to have been. Kate was talking on and on about how she felt and her impressions about how she felt, and about what she wants or thinks she wants. And then, from all I could tell, they make love on a train. And next thing you know, they're getting married. The only time you, the reader, sense that Binx has any feeling of his own is when he is waiting for Kate to arrive and he becomes very anxious himself. I suspect he didn't know if Kate would actually marry him or if she would go off the deep end or what!
But having the complete trust of Kate by her own will grounds him, I think. He stops looking for the magic possible in circumstances, and he comes to realize that he has to face life fully, in its reality – whether dull or actually not.
It's an interesting novel. It inspires in me ways in which one might write about a very shy or very reserved character, which I have struggled with in the past. But it's interesting that so much is going on, so much emotion is being wrangled with and the language is so flat. I think it's done intentionally. I think Percy, through Binx Bolling, is trying to hide what everything appears to be so that you get lost in what characters tell you it is - descriptions that often make no sense. – As our impressions of our own emotions often don't make sense. – And Binx himself finds life dull compared to "the search" in the movies, the excitement and the exploration – and so the style of the writing is dull and unemotional, even though written in first person. It's not an emotional read - it's an intellectual one.
Phew! Having gotten through that book, I'd really enjoy something less intellectually pleasing and more entertaining! I'll have to see if I can find something while I'm here at home.
Next week will be an introduction to the new book choices. I'm afraid I can't give them to you now or I would! But next week, for sure. And that'll be the start of the new book club "session," if you will.
Enjoy your week!