Reading the Chunksters discussion

Slowly bu surely our literary journey is coming to its logical end. Today I am posting a belated thread to discuss chapters 36-43, and tomorrow, if time permits, I will post the final thread.

1. It looks like the major character is Charlotte Reckitt, and if it had been a tabloid article, her name would have been on the front page in huge font under some ambiguous photo.
Luckily, we are dealing with literary fiction, so hopefully the content is different.

Charlotte, as we figured out sometime ago, is alive. Charlotte has also been confirmed as a femme fatal in these chapters. Her actions are violent, impulsive, but also well-planned and cold-hearted.

Do you admire her as a character, and I mean her resourcefulness, her tenacity, her criminal intelligence? Does she deserve our condemnation?

2. Why is Foole, who is also Shade, repeatedly called Foole? Is he a fool to trust and love Charlotte?

3. Another interesting point is the allusion to the deductive method that was popularized by Arthur Conan Doyle and his immortal Sherlock Holmes. Breck is definitely a tribute to Sherlock and his method of deduction.

On the other hand, the novel per se is not the novel of deduction and criminal investigation. It is the novel of revelation. Even crimes are revealed and are NOT investigated. The author uses criminal deduction only once, and after proving how effective it is, he quits relying on it as if he is telling us that revelations, hunches, and gut feelings are more exciting in literature.

Do you agree ? If yes, do you think that hunches are more beneficial for fiction in the long run because they allow to explore not just the procedural part of crime, but also its moral and ethical side?

Post away, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

This was a great section, many short chapters. I love seeing how Charlotte has flipped everyone's expectation on her head. I had started wondering for a bit if the child was actually Martin's... I'm still not convinced it wasn't really, but who's to say. I have trouble believing she's really gone for good. I think Foole and the rest were smart to question whether she lured him here for Pinkerton. She's a smart cookie!

As for William, he's still puttering around looking for Foole/Shade. Such single-minded persistence! You'd think now that it's been confirmed it was a different person in the water, he'd be wondering a lot more about Charlotte and her involvement.

Speaking of... I suspect maybe he's also right to question whether it was a coincidence that someone who happened to look a bit like Charlotte was killed in the river the same night Charlotte herself jumped in and vanished... will we ever know for sure whether she tricked the husband into murdering his wife? Ahhh!

As for your question about whether the gut feelings are more exciting in literature... yes, I suppose so, to a degree... but in the end, that gut feeling has to be backed up by a logical explanation or I think we as readers feel cheated. If we couldn't have solved it with the evidence presented, it just came out of nowhere... I don't think that goes over as well with readers. One can just look the popularity of Sherlock Holmes himself to see that readers like the analytical style.

Nice post, Zulfyia.

The reuniting (not the right word) of Adam and Charlotte is rushed and unsatisfying. She lies to Adam about her motives, and, I think, about more than that. I may have the timeline wrong, and if I do please correct me, but if I am right, then Charlotte lied to Adam about her child too.

After the diamond heist, when they are to reunite, only Martin shows. It was either then or when Adam visited Martin in prison that he told Adam she did not come because she was pregnant, which I believe, although I cannot prove. The story Charlotte tells doesn't match Martin's. She indicates she met the father after Martin was imprisoned, when she was destitute. I believe she was lying to Adam about the child, and if I'm right about the timeline, then I hope this gets resolved.

Another point: Charlotte tells Adam she knows he was going to keep the jewels for himself -- that she was told that -- which makes no sense. If he wanted to do that, all he had to do was not show at the appointed time and place. Yet Foole does not protest Charlotte's accusation. Strange.

Has anyone besides me noticed that all the relationships are ones of pain and incompleteness? Adam and Charlotte, Adam and Molly, William and his father, Adam and Williams father. It is as if they all commit so far, but no further. Something inside prevents each from taking that one extra, necessary, needed step to express their true feelings. These are all flawed and tragic figures.

Foole is being the fool. He's rushed the theft of the painting, left his fingerprints, and is present at a murder and doesn't take care to clean his shoes or change, something the narrator makes note of. Things aren't looking good for Foole.

Also, in one of these chapters, Charlotte tells him he is being foolish.

I'm not sure how I feel about Charlotte, but it appears that the Charlotte Adam knew in South Africa is dead. We don't know all yet, and she has more to tell. Why did she write to Adam after all these years and then appear at his home? She says she needed his help, but other than for possibly unlocking the shackles, and I'm sure she knew someone who could do that, I don't see why she needed him. Now Foole could go down for a murder she committed. But she does ask him to leave with her.

Also, Molly really doesn't like her. Hmmm . . .

I love guessing.

Lastly, if I'm doing my math right, Foole is only in his late thirties, yet his hair is white or gray, and his face is described as much older. Yes, late thirties. He joins the war at 14, which would be 1860 or 1861. It is now 1885. That would make him 38 or 39, the same age as William. Charlotte is even younger.

Just thought of something else. Is it possible William wants to capture Shade because his father never did? Could he be proving to himself he is a better detective than his father, and by doing so freeing himself from his father's dominating presence? If so, then maybe he isn't finishing what his father started out of loyalty but out of selfish need. William loves his father, or so he says, but he also fears him, and maybe loathes him a bit.