The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue: Final thoughts

[Sheri]

This is the place to put thoughts about the book as a whole. Spoilers are allowed in this thread, so do not read until you're finished! Questions mostly taken from the official reading guide.

What are the best and worst things about Addie’s invisible life? What is the
emotional toll of being unable to imprint herself on the heart and mind of another person? When does it give her an advantage?

Addie slips into the homes (and even the clothes) of people from all walks of life. Which abode did you like the best? If Addie borrowed your house, what would she enjoy the most about the contents of your cupboards and your closets?

Belief plays a central role in the narrative, specifically in the shaping of foundational identities, from the LaRue family’s rigid Christianity to Estele and her faith in the old gods, to Addie, whose belief in a fantasy shapes the physical representation of Luc, to Henry, whose loss of belief leaves him feeling adrift. How does Estele’s immersion in the spirit world compare to Henry’s studious theology?

How do Addie’s and Henry’s deals with Luc complete each other (the freedom of eternal youth paired with perpetual impermanence; constant acceptance paired with the obliteration of the true self)? If you could receive one of their “curses” for just twenty-four hours, which would you choose? Have you ever been pushed so far to the brink that you might have made a deal with Luc? (I left that last part because it's part of the official guide. However I realize this can be a deeply personal question, so I want to make it clear that there is ZERO pressure to share your stories if you do not wish to.)

As the chapters unfold from the seventeenth century to modern times, and as the novel oscillates between rural life and spectacular cities, what timeless, universal aspects of human nature emerge? From warfare to popular culture, revolution to liberation, how much progress does Addie witness? To what degree does she also watch history repeat itself?

Any further thoughts?

[Daniele]

Best: infinite possibility to see and experience the world.
Worst: absolute inability to secure a home base that meets basic needs of shelter and food, even for a short time.

Addie's break from solitude is forever superficial and fleeting. It's an advantage to get to retry or reexperience things when they go sideways, or to get away with whatever she needs to do to survive.

I don't know that I paid much attention to where she resided. I'm not sure she did much either, other than that one squat she managed to maintain for awhile. I doubt Addie would enjoy my house much. I look around my neighbourhood and think this would be the last place she would investigate!

There are two approaches to spirituality among all the characters, sort of a book smart/street smart split. The book smart types (the LaRues, the Strausses, and Henry) have a sterile relationship with the gods. Addie, Estele, and in a certain way even Luc, have a visceral, experiential interaction, which does yield results of varying success.

The two curses are like two sides to a coin, with both resulting in the invisibility of the cursed. I would rather experience Henry's curse, provided it was for a short while. It appears more freeing in the short term than Addie's. But I've never come close to wanting to make a deal with a proverbial devil.

Is it Buddhist philosophy that says time is a spiral? It's never the exact same path, but it follows the same curves and the same patterns emerge. Addie sees much technological progress, and even philosophical progress, but man's basic inhumanity to man lives on.

4/5 stars, would recommend

[Rebecca]

I think Addie's curse has three types of advantage: immunity from harm, which would be nice for daredevil types or the accident prone; lack of aging, which allows her the time to explore the world and learn things; and the Groundhog-Day-style ability to retry encounters and get out of trouble. The disadvantages are the inability to form relationships or to participate in society.

Addie wouldn't be particularly impressed with my place. We've got beds and showers, and there's (mostly caffeine free) tea, but we don't keep a lot of snacks, so if we were going to be away for a while there wouldn't be much food in the house. I do have a copy of Chéri, but I don't have that many books, just some old favorites and library books. If she can't use touchscreens, the Kindle wouldn't help her. I don't think I got a good idea of Addie's clothing aesthetic or size, but if she likes small graphic tees (many book-related) she's in luck.

I definitely would rather have people love me unreasonably for a day than get kicked out of my house because my husband didn't recognize me. The disadvantages of Henry's curse, and the advantages of Addie's, become more apparent over a longer period.

I'm glad I read this book, and I don't think I would have without this book club. (Certainly I wouldn't have put myself on the wait list this year.) I liked the writing and the theme of the power of ideas.

[Megan]

The best part of Addie's life is the freedom - she can try things without fear of physical injury/death, and without having to worry about any long-term repercussions to others' feelings, since they won't remember her anyway. The downside is the logistics - it must be exhausting to have to always be thinking about where you can stay, what you can eat, etc. Although I was a bit bummed (although not surprised, since it wasn't really that kind of book) that she didn't take advantage of the overly easy access to credit in some periods of modern times.

It also must be exhausting to have to keep re-introducing herself to the same people- that would have to take an emotional toll. But it's an advantage in that she doesn't have to worry about long-term consequences of any of her actions in her relationships, so she can come and go as she pleases.

I am not one of those people who has any interest in revisiting earlier eras without air conditioning and indoor plumbing, so I definitely would go for the more recent places she crashed - if she fell in with the right crowd, she probably could spend years bouncing between various vacation properties where nobody would notice missing food or moved objects. She'd be pretty SOL trying to pass unnoticed at my house, since I've been home pretty much continuously since March, but we've got plenty of food and entertainment options so she'd be all set on that front. She'd probably need to find clothing elsewhere, though, since I get the impression that she is considerably smaller than either of us.

I didn't really take the LaRue family to be unusually religious - they seemed pretty typical of their time and place. And I also didn't think that Estelle's lifestyle was as much a reflection of deep beliefs as a recognition that the Christian social structure wasn't going to work for her as a single woman, so she needed to find something that would. Even Addie herself was more interested in solving her worldly problem of not wanting to get married than in any broader spiritual issue. So I don't know that I would consider belief to be a main point of the story, personally.

Addie and Henry's deals were a little too extreme and symmetrical to be interesting to me. The "deal with the devil" type stories that I enjoy are all about finding the loopholes, and that wasn't really something this book got into. I'm sure most of us have been in some situation of physical or other type of danger that we would make whatever deal we needed to, but even then I think I'm too legalistic to let someone else set the wording when I have a chance to do it. Of the two, I would definitely take Addie's - I don't really care what (or if) other people think of me, so I think one of my main problems with the book was struggling to understand the downside.

Even in a normal lifetime, once you hit a certain age you start to feel like you're meeting the same people over and over again, so I was actually surprised by the extent to which Addie was able to be surprised by and interested in new people. I was glad that it didn't go in a Forrest Gump direction of putting her in the middle of every major event that happened in her lifetime - that part actually felt fairly realistic. Obviously she had to adapt to huge changes in nearly every aspect of technology, social norms, etc. over time - not being remembered by anyone might have actually made that easier, since she didn't have to explain her occasional surprise or confusion to people who might find it inconsistent with what they knew about her age and experience.

I enjoyed the book, and I'm glad to have read it as part of this group - I don't think I was as wowed by it as some folks seem to have been, but that's why it's nice to read a variety of things. :)

[Shel]

I just finished this and am still processing it, but it definitely goes on my list of best books of 2020. I’ll come back to all of the questions if I have time and energy!

[Trystan]

i was not ready for Addie's own deal to save Henry - it got quite dusty as i was reading! but when we see her again later, it's all part of her master plan. and now she has a lifetime to needle Luc.

in the meantime, i'm also still processing what I've read, and i'll see if it doesn't needle me back and i come back and write some more.

I've learned that one thing I've always done is i read the book in the moment, and retain some of the scenes, characters, facts, information about the book... but over time the details fade, and i'm left with just general impressions, much like Addie's face in Henry's pictures. but it's also why i love pretty much everything i read. :D