vol 8 issue 1

Hello fellow readers! So, what did I tell you, huh? That’s how you start a novel. Let me say from the outset, that it’s been great to hear from several of you this week, expressing how much you’re enjoying Great Circle thus far. I too have enjoyed returning to the world of this novel, and I was struck by something about the pacing.

I didn’t do this on purpose (though perhaps I should claim that I did), but leaving off our first week with Marian’s first time in a plane, seems oddly fitting. I had forgotten — and I marvelled all over again — at the breadth of canvas with which Shipstead is working here. As I mentioned in last week’s introduction, from my experience of her prior works, their scope is narrower. Here, it is almost comically grand: in 107 pages we get a sinking cruise liner, bareback horse-riding, a cross-Atlantic flight (albeit Lindbergh’s), and — we mustn’t forget — ‘An Incomplete History of Missoula, Montana c. 13,000 BC-February 1927’! It’s a lot, and it speaks to Shipstead’s absolute command of her story that she’s confident this material will feel compelling and relevant to the reader. I don’t know about you, but I was swept up in all of it.

You may notice something missing from the list above, and that’s any mention of Hadley Baxter. Let’s talk Hadley in a moment, because — at this point — she feels like the odd one out. Every other strain of the novel so far, is directly related to Marian. You may not have expected the first section of the book to be more focussed on the main character’s parents, than directly on her, but I hope you’re starting to see that pay off already, in Shipstead’s characterisation of Marian herself.

A theme that I’ve noticed Shipstead setting up early on is that of intentionality. The text is already very interested in the extent to which characters’ will shapes their actions and their lives. Or, conversely, the extent to which they do not actively instigate things, instead allowing them to happen. This dynamic, between action and passivity, feels core to several characters, not least of all Marian. Already, as a young girl, she is defined by her will. It is the element of her personality that worries her father:

with her skeptical gaze and small, reluctant smile, [she] bore a resemblance to Annabel that, coupled with Wallace’s stories of her wilfulness, disturbed Addison (p62)

The picture Shipstead paints of Annabel is one of frustrated will. Her father makes her take the voyage on which Marian is conceived, and on it Annabel contemplates suicide. Her husband makes Annabel bring Marian & Jamie on the voyage that sinks the Josephina Eterna. And, here again, she contemplates suicide. In both cases, the will of others is shaping her fate, and suicide seems like an escape. In both instances, however, she subverts her own impulse by instead electing inaction. She simply stands and contemplates the water. It is the same technique we see her employ postpartum, so as to prevent herself from harming the children. Inaction, here, is a defence against taking the wrong action.

We also see this theme framed, by their uncle Wallace, so as to contrast the two siblings:

Marian can already do everything except reach the pedals and see over the steering wheel at the same time. It’s still one or the other. Jamie is less interested in learning — less insistent about learning… (p58)

This same comparison reappears towards the end of the week’s reading, revealing that Marian herself is aware of it:

Usually Jamie’s presence gave Marian a sense of symmetry and rightness, of having been properly balanced. Without him she was like a too-light canoe, at the mercy of the current. He was the calmer one, less impulsive. (p102)

Here we see Marian struggling with the potency of her own will: her wants and desires. She is aware, even at this age, that left unchecked she may be swept away by them. It is the same fear that we see in her fascination with the way passion turns men into ‘beasts’. It is also why the character of Renfield (in Dracula) disturbs her: he is partly a cautionary tale about abnormal appetite, and compulsion — of being driven by one’s own will, to do something beyond objective reason.

Through Wallace, at one point, Shipstead uses perhaps the perfect word to summarise this dilemma: ‘She has an avidity that unnerves him’ (p91, my emphasis). Avidity is finely balanced in its meanings, between ‘keen eagerness’ & ‘consuming greed’ — it acts as a perfect fulcrum upon which Marian’s personality balances.

This, perhaps, is where Hadley fits most neatly into the book thus far. In stark contrast to Marian, she is a portrait of aimlessness and lack of direction. When her agent asks why she jeopardised her career by publicly hooking up with someone other than her boyfriend, she admits to a complete lack of reason:

“Was it just a rogue impulse?”
“Isn’t everything?”
She didn’t say anything.
“You want to know why,” I said. “I don’t know why…” (p71)

Hadley’s life, despite (or, rather, because of) her wealth and fame, is one in which she has very little control. Others’ attention, and expectations, weigh in upon her constantly, and her reaction (at least as far as we’ve observed it so far) is either relatively passive, or aimlessly self-destructive. Where passion and will is Marian’s drive, Hadley’s here is simple impulse. Do we even believe her when (at p77) she is asked what she wants, and — after struggling for an answer — replies with the predictable image of herself holding aloft an Oscar? This is, of course, what she thinks she is supposed to want, but it doesn’t ring true to the reader for Hadley herself. She simply does not know what it is that would help her move towards happiness.

I also made note of two further themes in this early part of the text, to keep in mind. Briefly then:

First, the dynamic between darkness & light. Not exactly groundbreaking thematic analysis, I’ll admit, but I found the way Shipstead has been implementing it to be interesting. An incomplete list of things described as ‘black’ so far, includes: waves, coal dust, Annabel’s mood, grief, the cat upon which Annabel fixates during her postpartum psychosis, and water. This last is particularly prominent, and comes up frequently, including in one of the novel’s most bravura pieces of prose thus far:

Below her lights and honeycombed cabins, below the men toiling in red heat and black dust, below her barnacled keel, a school of cod passed, a dense pack of flexing bodies in the darkness, eyes bulging wide though there was nothing to see. Below the fish: cold and pressure, empty black miles, a few strange, luminescent creatures drifting after flecks of food. Then the sandy bottom, blank except for faint trails left by hardy shrimp, blind worms, creatures who would never know such a thing as light existed. (p22)

These are consuming darknesses, into which to disappear. By contrast, lightness is often intrusive and overbearing: it is the flash of paparazzi cameras, that which lays you bare to the panopticon’s gaze.

Second, the idea of completion. It is present in the very first page of the text, when Marian writes of ‘bringing the end to meet the beginning’ (p7), and echoed later in the evocative phrasing: ‘Ulysses S. Grant binds the continent to itself with a golden spike’ (p83). There is present here an idea of completed circuits, but also of finality and perhaps even entrapment. We must balance this against Marian’s statement in that final logbook entry: ‘now I doubt that anything can be completed’ (p8), and Hadley ruminating ‘Who was the first person to say that nothing lasts forever? Who was the first to notice that nothing does?’ (p69) — what do each of these ideas tell us about the characters’ attitudes towards completeness and finality?

OK, that’s quite enough of my analysis for one week. Let’s turn to a couple of contributions from others. Firstly, LC wrote to me to express how much they had enjoyed the novel so far, but particularly its cast of characters:

There are so many characters we have been introduced to that it’s hard to pick out a favourite. I always want to have a hero (or heroine) that I feel an affinity with. Of course Marian immediately springs to mind, but I really felt for her parents as well. I’m sure I’ll grow to like and understand the troubled Hadley Baxter - time and pages will tell.

It’s true that almost every character Shipstead introduces is captivating in their own way. You might not like Lloyd Feiffer, but there’s something compelling about his greed and selfishness. You might want to have a meal with Sir Hugo, and hear a few stories. Maybe you’d like nothing more than to let Felix or Trixie take you up in a loop-the-loop. There are, as LC says, many options to choose from, and — I can tell you without fear of spoiling anything — plenty more to come! The most interesting thing about this comment, to me, is that it raises the question of how the reader’s feelings about Hadley might change throughout the novel — that’s certainly something we should keep an eye on.

Elsewhere, SVR is reading with us from The Netherlands, and probably has the best bookmark, and MC is reading in Porto, so probably has the best… francesinha?

In closing, a few bullet points:

• Don’t forget, Great Circle is in the running for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, which will be awarded this coming Wed, 15 Jun. Keep an eye out that evening to see if Maggie wins the whole thing. 🏆

• Here’s a podcast episode about dazzle-camouflaged ships (as mentioned on p48) ⚓️

• If any of us are London-based, or London-adjacent, Maggie Shipstead is appearing at Waterstones, Piccadilly on Friday — give her a high-five for me ✋🏻

And that’s week one in the books (pun, regrettably, intended). I hope you’re having a good time with Great Circle, and that the week of reading ahead only deepens your affection for the novel. As always, if you have comments, questions, or photos of you reading the novel in exotic locales, you can send them to mail@sipped.ink

I will write to you again next Sunday, to discuss up to p214 of the novel, specifically the paragraph break on that page which ends, ‘Probably I’d better,’ is all she says. I’m absolutely positive none of you will have a problem stopping right there, and not reading at least the rest of the chapter 😉

Until then,

✌🏻

— Adam