Well, we’ve reached the end. For those who read along, thanks for joining me. One more time into the breach and then onward:
In which it all comes down to the seal. And hair?
Okay, so we’re picking back up with Kate in Maureen’s flat. Or rather, at first we’re back with Mrs. Brown, who’s fit herself back into the societally acceptable mold and is once again being treated with warmth and deference by shopkeepers and waiters. One wonders how long she’ll persist in what feels on the one hand to be her full recovery from her illness and on the other hand a sort of backsliding into the role she didn’t want for herself anymore, the role that stifled her true self. With a little less than seventy pages to go, clearly we aren’t seeing her in her final stage of development.
And sure enough, the very next day she’s forced to confront herself in another woman in her same position. Lessing even says, “Kate was following herself slowly.” Kate sees herself—or believes she is seeing herself—through others’ eyes as she witnesses, and judges, this other middle-aged woman. When she gets back to the flat, she sheds Mrs. Brown, in a sort of experiment.
There’s a remarkable moment on page 227, when Maureen insists that she isn’t going to be like her own mother, or like Kate, and Kate says, “And so you won’t be. The best of luck to you. And what are you going to be instead?” That’s the question, isn’t it, that Maureen is trying in answer in who to marry or whether to marry at all, but it’s also the question that we see Kate wrestling with throughout. Who is she if she isn’t the mother, the wife, the caretaker? What is her true identity within or apart from that?
On p 231 finally we get an explanation for those moments of “a woman.” It has indeed been an evasion, a distancing on Kate’s part. When recounting her seal dreams to Maureen, she begins with “A woman,” and then stops herself because “[t]here was a falseness. It was because she was evading something by putting it in the third person. She was trying to protect herself from the force of the dream by A woman who...”
Ultimately Kate does get the seal to the sea, and the seal joins countless other seals and swims off without a backward glance. And Kate returns to her family, having decided to not dye her hair again. Okay... Well... Hmmm. That’s her true self? That’s what she’s realized? That for the most part none of it matters, but her gray hair is a reflection of who she truly is? She thinks of her hair as a statement of intent, but at the end of the novel, I’m still not entirely clear on what that intent is. What am I missing here? I wanted to reread this book because I recalled loving it the first time around. The second time around, I still had a wonderful time with the prose, but am left feeling a bit unsatisfied with where we’ve landed.
What do you think?
Well, I just finished the book yesterday and while I couldn’t keep up the same schedule as your substack, have really enjoyed all these comments!
For me while reading the book, carrying the seal around was a representation of the weight of caretaking that kate/Mrs. Brown had felt through motherhood, it’s scars and precarious moments the fear we carry for harm that may come to our children. She’s wrestling with the fact of the responsibility ending as her children were now independent and scattered all over the world, and what her usefulness will be then. So it was a very peaceful ending to see the seal sliding into the sea, like an all too perfect metaphor for her job as mother successfully done, ready to move into a new chapter, and all the mixed feelings of loss and joy that this entails. A small section where she recounts her children’s’ baby days to Maureen, as a mother oy I felt that because my kids are now 9 and halfway to 18 and therefore DONE with me…twist the knife. (Not that kids move out at 18 anymore or that we are ever really done…)
And alongside this accepting the grey hair a tangible signal of letting go of all the “shoulds” that women subject themselves to regarding societal expectations of ageless beauty, serving as decor for men, etc. But now realizing there is even more here and this interpretation possibly too literal!
Also enjoyed the sections that to me felt like pondering the many ways a marriage can be considered successful, her and her husbands’ affairs, comparing hers to her neighbor Mary, and possibilities for Maureen as she contemplates choosing a spouse.
I spent the first prob half of the book wondering if it’s too late for me to learn three languages so I too could travel Europe and get a piece of that bottomless Global Food money.
I know I’ll be thinking about this book for a long time to come and since it’s winter here in the southern hemisphere, the perfect time to explore more of Lessing’s work!
The edition I read from the library (UK first edition) was last borrowed in 2019, and has a history going all the way back to July ‘74, 2 years before I was BORN, so that’s just a fun little fact for everyone. :)
Thanks again for this Cari!
Ha! I read a little about Lessing’s personal life and I now agree that she probably wasn’t aiming to give the pro-marriage message I hypothesized.
Thanks for providing context and for creating this reading experience for us, Cari. I enjoyed learning more about Lessing. Happy summer!