vol 8 issue 3

Hello fellow readers, I hope your week of reading was good. This time around I’m going to ease off a little on the sort of textual & thematic analysis that we’ve done in the previous couple of issues, and instead pay some attention to the structure of the novel as a whole.

So, why not start there? I’ve noted in previous weeks that there is an admirable breadth to Great Circle. For a novel ostensibly concerned primarily with a circumnavigational flight, it starts with the commissioning of (and then sinking of) an ocean liner, and encompasses subjects such as multi-millennium overviews of landscape change, and the history of an 18th century native trans man. There is something coy in Shipstead’s decision to include in the title of these chapters the phrasing ‘An Incomplete History of…’, as though she is winkingly predicting the reader’s possible reaction: what has this got to do with Marian flying around the world? There certainly could be a version of this novel focussed entirely on Marian, and which does not make room even for Hadley Baxter’s narrative, let alone alone those subjects yet further removed. Indeed, that version of Great Circle looks a lot more like Shipstead’s previous novel, Astonish Me (2014): it is interested in worldly events only insofar as they impact the novel’s central character, and inform a narrative anchored firmly to them.

My sense is that reactions amongst our group to Hadley Baxter as a character, and the inclusion of her narrative as a substantial portion of the novel, are mixed. At this juncture, I suppose I’ll say only that my hope is — by the time we reach the conclusion of the novel — that those who are cold on her, may at least acknowledge that, structurally and thematically, her place in the book is worthwhile and well considered. I actually want to leave that here at the moment, because I think it’ll be more beneficial to discuss it in detail further down the road. Instead, let’s talk about Jamie. Perhaps, 200+ pages into Great Circle, you had thought you’d got a handle on the novel’s scope: it was going to be balanced between Marian & Hadley; Jamie was perhaps a supporting character in the vein of Addison Graves, Uncle Wallace, or Caleb. But, Shipstead once again tugs firmly on that rug, giving a significant portion of this week’s reading over to Jamie.

In this section we get a much clearer insight into Marian’s twin than we have had before. We find that, not only is he sensitive and principled — as we already knew him to be — but, concomitantly, he carries a great deal of insecurity and self-doubt. ‘Had they gone off and laughed at him?’, he reflexively wonders after the girls forget to pay him for their portraits (p258). When this proves untrue, and he is subsequently admitted into Sarah Fahey’s life, his feelings of inadequacy and imposture still define the experience from beginning to end. His longing for Sarah is cut with a belief she could not possibly see anything of value in him. Later, he finds it necessary to lie and omit when answering Mr Fahey’s enquiries about his life, his family, and his experience. All of this, of course, culminates in an excruciating dinner scene, wherein Jamie’s reluctance to eat beef reveals plainly the myriad ways in which he is ill-suited to the Faheys’ company. It’s a trap well-orchestrated by Shipstead, forcing Jamie into a situation where what he wants (to be with Sarah) is in stark opposition with his values (opposition to her family’s industry vis-à-vis animal cruelty). We’re left to read through our fingers, fairly certain by this point that we know in which direction Jamie’s convictions will compel him.

Much has been made to this point in the novel, about the balance between Marian & Jamie. I have mentioned here before, instances of both twins noting it themselves. As the plot has unfolded over the last week, we see in Jamie’s dilemma a parallel to that of his sister. It is increasingly clear to the reader, that the bargain into which Marian has entered with Barclay, is an onerous one, ultimately to her disadvantage. What’s more, having feared some form of snare since the beginning, Marian herself is now becoming aware of the mechanism by which Barclay intends to entrap her. As with her brother, the equation with which she is met is between her passion (to fly) and her values (her independence). Her situation, obviously, is more complicated than Jamie’s. She has already received a great deal from Barclay, and feels indebted. She is finding that her agreeing to marry him has not adequately defrayed those debts, and indeed more is expected of her: namely that she give up flying, and have children. This is a stark matter for Marian: a baby would mean nothing less than the complete refutation of everything she knows herself to be. Both she, and later Jamie when she confides in him, know that the prospect represents an irreversible redirection of Marian’s life, away from that which she has loved and chosen to focus it upon.

In the midst of this predicament we see Marian occasionally, uncharacteristically wavering in her self belief. Aboard the ocean liner to Britain she thinks of how her absent father may have been proud of how quickly she found her sea legs:

An undertow of self-pity caught her. It would be nice if somebody were proud of her. (p306)

Similarly, we find her increasingly driven not by her passion (as has been usual), but by the wish not to further complicate or worsen her situation:

She hadn’t anticipated how much of her behavior after marriage would be motivated by a wish not to argue. (p308)

The situation motivates her, for perhaps the first time, to render her passion for flying in terms of a potential weakness: in her letter to Jamie, she writes ‘I was blinded by my desire to fly’ (p319). Where Jamie is saddened by the loss of Sarah affected by his adherence to his values, Marian finds herself more complicatedly entangled by the compromises she has made. One of the ways in which Shipstead reflects her situation in this section of the novel, is to remove her, for long stretches, from the cockpit of an aeroplane. Instead she is taken aboard boats, left to wander alone the streets of Edinburgh, and then driven around in the back of luxury cars, to stately homes where she will be sniped at and judged, by her husband’s family. This is Marian out of control, similar in some respects to the ways in which Hadley Baxter has expressed feelings of her life being something other than her own. Their situations are, of course, quite different. But, in both cases, these are women feeling less than in command of their own circumstances and destinies.

‘“Don’t offer yourself”’ Barclay tells Marian when she first signals her willingness to repay his kindness with physical intimacy (p219). He may think that he means this out of a desire that Marian not be debased. In fact, it is more accurately because he desires the power of buying and owning her. ‘“What you don’t understand is that I’ve bought your uncle and he isn’t for sale,”’ he tells Marian at one point, revelling in the power he perceives that his ill-gotten money gives him over her (p310). Slowly but surely, Barclay’s role in the novel has transformed from that of catalyst (the means of providing Marian with the teacher and plane she was so certain would come) to that of obstacle; he is now that which stands between Marian and what she has always wanted: to fly, and to shape her own destiny.

A couple of miscellaneous notes for the week:

• Hereford, after which the Fahey mansion is named, is not just a breed of cow! It’s a place, it happens to be my home city, and it’s lovely, you should visit.

• SS sends a description of how their reading has been punctuating mornings & evenings whilst walking in Shropshire:

We’d been up on The Long Mynd on Wednesday and by late morning were walking SW towards the Midland Gliding Cub, that sits some 450m above sea level towards the end of the line of the hill. As we approached, gently losing about 50m of hill, we could see about a dozen gliders lying on the ground. As we almost reached the airfield, the wind direction and speed must have reached an optimum, as over the next 10 minutes or so, about 6 gliders were “catapulted” into the sky, presumably from a very powerful winch somewhere in the distance… it was quite a sight, and almost silent… the only sound being the huge cables whistling in the air as they fell to the ground, not that far from us!

• MC initially wrote with a comparison between Great Circle & Top Gun, re. ‘the conservative Protestant ethic of the self-made hero’ (following a piece on the film by Jo Ellison in Life & Arts, 11 June). Later in our correspondence, they made this (eminently quotable) observation about Marian, which I found worth noting for you:

I have admiration for Marian, I am not sure I like her yet. She is definitely a scrapper and I am admiring her understanding and awareness of the compromises she needs to make to access life’s opportunities. Time will tell, I may even grow to love her.

We are almost exactly half way through the novel now, and Marian’s journey is really only just beginning. As you know, this is a re-read for me, and when I think about the most memorable sequences of the book, many of them lie ahead of us yet. I’ve also been enjoying a greater sense of how the pieces of the narrative fit together and complement one another. That’s something I’m excited to continue exploring with you in newsletters hence!

Remember, you can always send your thoughts, questions, and comments to mail@sipped.ink; I will meet you back here next Sunday, to discuss the novel up to p442. Have a great week!

✌🏻

— Adam