Part Five: Nicholas Freeman's Story

[Werner]

This will be the final thread posted for discussion. Note that the discussion won't necessarily need to end after March 31 --there's no law that says it can't keep going as long as people have ideas, questions, etc. they want to share! :-)

[[deleted user]]

That is very true and someone may join the group in the future and read this and have some comment or question.

[Werner]

Of those of you who are reading The Town House (and haven't read it already) is there anyone who's not finished with it at this point? (If not, we can safely make comments that might have a spoiler effect if some people were still reading! :-))

[Barbara]

No, I'm happy for any 'spoilers' having read it so often, thank you

[Werner]

The Town House was the first Lofts book I read, and at the time I was very pleased with the ending; I was glad Maude didn't wind up with Nicholas (whom I dislike as much as Barbara does, and whom I considered completely wrong for Maude), and glad she and Henry Rancon would marry for love. (Male readers can root for love as enthusiastically as our female counterparts --we just tend to favor more restrained and less florid verbal depictions of it, so Lofts' style is appealing on that score. :-)) So, I was disappointed years later to learn, in the sequel (The House at Old Vine), that Maude and Henry's deep love for each other (or what they thought was love) didn't endure, and that he finally wound up cheating on her. That, of course, isn't what long-term marriage is meant to be like.

The type of sexist attitudes fostered in the society Maude and Henry lived in (and not dead even today), though, very definitely militate against a marriage being what it was meant to be. When a male has a stereotypical, limited view of women, it's virtually impossible for him to get to genuinely know one well enough to really love her, to respect her as a full human being, and to really share all aspects of his life with her, no matter how infatuated he may be for a time. Full conformity to the marriage vows is only possible between equals; couples who can't see each other as equals inevitably wind up settling for something less. Given what many medieval marriages became, it's understandable that Maude thought herself relatively lucky in what she settled for.

[[deleted user]]

Good points and thanks Werner for leading this discussion. I am very glad to be back from our trip.

[Werner]

Thanks, Alice; it's good to have you back! I didn't do much as a discussion leader --all the different people who comment are the ones who really make a discussion work. :-)

[Barbara]

Werner wrote: "Thanks, Alice; it's good to have you back! . :-)"
Yes likewise Alice , missed your enthusiasms , I hope you had a good time.
I was pleased the perfidious Nicholas didn't get Maude in the end too. He became a Cardinal didn't he? Maude 'saw' his image in the Rune stone in the Beauclaire maze. Which reminds me, where did Maude's second sight come from? Her father was (I maintain ) Denys the routier and her maternal line the Blanchfleurs of course. Unless I must let go my pet theory about her father and accept that Richard ( son of Magda) was her father. In which case, why did Anne her mother hate her so much ?

Maude was born to love, 'not wisely but too well' wasn't she- Melusine, Henry, and finally her son, was Walter his name?, who almost married his half sister Josiana.
A pity the chivalrous Henry didn't extend his honour to marital fidelity I do agree, though I imagine it was commonplace in an age where women possessed no rights whatsoever..
PS Werner, I detest florid and graphic love descriptions too and have never willingly read a book or watched a film in which they feature. All hail NL, who is never guilty of such bad taste!

[[deleted user]]

Very glad to be back! I was ready to kiss the ground and never plan to take such a long trip again. I copied and pasted someone else's comments at yahoo on the Grand Canyon train from Williams as they expressed so well how I felt and I wasn't up to a decent review at all. We got sick possibly due to severe bad winds on 29th. Victor is much sicker than I am. I did enjoy El Morro National Park; think its a National Park. We saw a lot of them. The Painted Desert and Petrified Forest, etc.

I agree with you Barbara that Maude's father was Deny's. There are so many hints and then also that her brother was Richard's. At first I thought Deny's was the father of both. If I remember right each child looked like its father too. I wish that Walter and Josiana had got married, that broke my heart reading about those two. I saw a TV show a few years back about siblings who had married and were fine. (not all genes show up as bad in close relationships) Maybe Walter would not have been such a fanatic if they had married but she did turn out to be just like him didn't she?

SPOILER: Jumping into the fire too?