The Story of Lucy Gault - Nov BOTM

[Diane]

Review thread: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

[Diane]

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS by Penguin Random House

1. The Story of Lucy Gault is as much about what doesn’t happen, or what almost happens, as what does. Lahardane is almost set afire, Lucy comes close to marrying Ralph, Everard writes letters to Ireland but does not send them. What other instances reveal the significance of things not happening? Is the novel saying that what we do not do shapes our lives as much as what we do do?

2. What role does chance play in the novel? What crucial turning points are brought about by chance occurrences? Does this preponderance of chance events suggest the hand of fate directing the characters’ lives, or rather a meaningless randomness, the absence of fate?

3. Lucy blames herself, her rash decision to run away, for her parents’ leaving; her parents blame themselves for not being more sensitive and honest with their daughter. “We told her lies,” Everard says (p. 31). How should the blame be apportioned between Lucy and her parents? To what extent are larger historical and political forces to blame for what happens to the Gault family?

4. Lucy’s mother and father conclude that Lucy is dead when they find some of her clothes along the ocean’s shore. What are the tragic consequences of this misreading? Why aren’t they able to search the woods, to think of other possibilities? What is the novel saying about the role of misinterpretation in our lives?

5. Why does Lucy reject Ralph’s impassioned marriage proposals? What are the consequences of this rejection, for her and for Ralph? Was she mistaken to turn Ralph down, or was her rejection her only real option, given her peculiar history, her character, and the circumstances of her life?

6. Heloise Gault imagines uncovering her feelings to her husband: “She heard her voice apologizing, and talking then of all she didn’t want to talk about; before she closed her eyes she found the sentences came quite easily. But when she slept, and woke after a few minutes, she heard herself saying she couldn’t have that conversation and knew that she was right” (p. 84). Why can’t she have that conversation? How might it have helped her? Where else in the novel does the inability to communicate openly and directly have disastrous consequences?

7. Why does Lucy visit Horahan, the man who as a boy helped set in motion the events that caused so much pain, after he’s gone insane and been confined to the asylum? Are her visits an act of forgiveness? What effect do these visits have on Horahan? On Lucy herself?

8. In retelling the story of the Gault family, travelers and people in the surrounding towns embellish the narrative. “In talk inspired by what was told, the subtleties that clogged the narrative were smudged away. The spare reality of what had happened was coloured and enriched, and altogether made better. The journey the stricken parents had set out upon became a pilgrimage, absolution sought for sins that varied in the telling” (p. 70). What are the subtleties that clog the narrative? Is the parents’ journey a kind of pilgrimage? Have they sinned? Why are subtleties so important in truly understanding a story?

9. Compared to much contemporary fiction, The Story of Lucy Gault is an uneventful, quiet book. How does it achieve such power in the absence of dramatic action? How does Trevor draw out the spiritual implications of his story? What are those implications?

10. At the end of the novel, the nuns visit Lucy, drawn by her extraordinary peacefulness. “Her tranquility is their astonishment… Calamity shaped a life when, long ago, chance was so cruel. Calamity shapes the story that is told, and is the reason for its being: is what they know, besides, the gentle fruit of such misfortunes’ harvest? They like to think so….” (p. 224). Are the nuns right in sensing a transcendent calm in Lucy? If so, how has she achieved this peace? Can her life be said to have been, on balance, a good life?

[Kristel]

Completed reading in one day.
1. Whether the author is saying this or not what we choose to not do is much a factor in our lives as what we do.

2. I don’t believe in chance, but I believe in consequences. The boys chose to do what they did and there was consequences. The parents chose to do what they did and there were consequences. Lucy chose to do what she did, etc. Choice and consequences.

3. A nine year old girl can hardly be held to such standards. Parents need to be more honest with children but I would not blame them. The political decisions to harm is a huge factor and people who choose politics and harm others are responsible. The book is about political responsibility which no one takes responsibility or apolizes but the personal blame that individuals take because of this political action is what the book is about.
4. I think it is understandable but I think somewhat of a stretch. I think any parent would search for their child rather than believe the worse possible scenario.
5. Lucy has some thought that she needs to be forgiven in order to have happiness and because of this she loses out.
6. Inability to communicate between husband and wife in times like these is not uncommon and often causes great damage.
7. It’s like the only thing that she has that ties her to her past.
8. More like running away from memories
9. Story of grief and guilt
10. Lucy chose to accept her life and that gave her peace. She didn’t live in anger, regret, etc.

[Gail]

1. The Story of Lucy Gault is as much about what doesn’t happen, or what almost happens, as what does. Lahardane is almost set afire, Lucy comes close to marrying Ralph, Everard writes letters to Ireland but does not send them. What other instances reveal the significance of things not happening? Is the novel saying that what we do not do shapes our lives as much as what we do do?

I believe that the novel is focusing on ramifications of misunderstanding, missed communication, missed moments when life could have made a different turn. The largest thing that simply does not happen is that Lucy's parents don't tell her specifically why they are leaving in order to allow her to understand the need to go. Then, of course, they do not come home, not even to experience a moment of being close to where Lucy had been.

2. What role does chance play in the novel? What crucial turning points are brought about by chance occurrences? Does this preponderance of chance events suggest the hand of fate directing the characters’ lives, or rather a meaningless randomness, the absence of fate?

I like Kristel's comment above about consequences. Trevor does not present the actions and non-actions of his characters as being directed by chance or fate. The word "directed" is wrong. There is chance and also the word calamity, but it does not direct a life as much as it is a waypoint in a life. Here is the quote from the book: "Calamity shapes a life when, long ago, chance was so cruel. Calamity shapes the story that is told, and is the reason for its being". And this is a quote from Trevor: “A person's life isn't orderly ...it runs about all over the place, in and out through time. The present's hardly there; the future doesn't exist. Only love matters in the bits and pieces of a person's life.”

3. Lucy blames herself, her rash decision to run away, for her parents’ leaving; her parents blame themselves for not being more sensitive and honest with their daughter. “We told her lies,” Everard says (p. 31). How should the blame be apportioned between Lucy and her parents? To what extent are larger historical and political forces to blame for what happens to the Gault family?

Trevor clearly presents us with a tale about the consequences, some intended and some unintended, of war, in this case a colonial war. Lucy was a child and therefore without blame. However, the parents did seem to act strangely to me. I think they would have looked longer and farther afield than they did. I think hope alone would have driven them to think about other places Lucy could have gone. It is very unlike parents to give up the way they did even in the face of evidence of drowning. Again, the word blame, is not quite the right word.

4. Lucy’s mother and father conclude that Lucy is dead when they find some of her clothes along the ocean’s shore. What are the tragic consequences of this misreading? Why aren’t they able to search the woods, to think of other possibilities? What is the novel saying about the role of misinterpretation in our lives?

As noted in the answer for question 3, I don't think this was a realistic reaction to the situation. Trevor is leaning on how humans often give up hope in the face of despair, how they misinterpret things to fit their own preconceived emotions or thoughts. However, what is needed for this "story" doesn't ring true to me regarding real life.

5. Why does Lucy reject Ralph’s impassioned marriage proposals? What are the consequences of this rejection, for her and for Ralph? Was she mistaken to turn Ralph down, or was her rejection her only real option, given her peculiar history, her character, and the circumstances of her life?

Obviously, Lucy felt that she didn't have an option although later she came to regret that feeling. I understand that Lucy did not feel completely whole and that she felt that she could not move forward with another life without first bringing a conclusion to the one that she had experienced growing up. She believed herself to be in love with Ralph, but perhaps growing up without parents meant that she was not clear about what love meant, what compromises and sacrifices love entails. Perhaps she felt that she was not able to make anyone happy because no one had come back to make her happy.

6. Heloise Gault imagines uncovering her feelings to her husband: “She heard her voice apologizing, and talking then of all she didn’t want to talk about; before she closed her eyes she found the sentences came quite easily. But when she slept, and woke after a few minutes, she heard herself saying she couldn’t have that conversation and knew that she was right” (p. 84). Why can’t she have that conversation? How might it have helped her? Where else in the novel does the inability to communicate openly and directly have disastrous consequences?

Trevor here does capture a reaction that I believe is true to life. I have witnessed people attempt to protect their partner by not communicating what would be better shared. Also, Heloise, had lost her grounding, and the only thing that she had to lean on was her despair which she tended to savor. If she could have communicated with her husband they might have found a new way forward. Lucy and Ralph have a parallel miscommunication although they at least tell each other they love each other. Horahan also didn't communicate about the demons that were torturing him. If he had been able to communicate and even confess he may have been able to shake loose the belief that he was a murderer.

7. Why does Lucy visit Horahan, the man who as a boy helped set in motion the events that caused so much pain, after he’s gone insane and been confined to the asylum? Are her visits an act of forgiveness? What effect do these visits have on Horahan? On Lucy herself?

I did not read her visits as an act of forgiveness as much as something that she could do that may help another person impacted by a strange string of events. Henry and Bridget felt as if Horahan should not be forgiven but Lucy didn't blame him as much as she saw him as another victim.

8. In retelling the story of the Gault family, travelers and people in the surrounding towns embellish the narrative. “In talk inspired by what was told, the subtleties that clogged the narrative were smudged away. The spare reality of what had happened was coloured and enriched, and altogether made better. The journey the stricken parents had set out upon became a pilgrimage, absolution sought for sins that varied in the telling” (p. 70). What are the subtleties that clog the narrative? Is the parents’ journey a kind of pilgrimage? Have they sinned? Why are subtleties so important in truly understanding a story?

It becomes a much better story when Lucy is a helpless waif abandoned by mourning parents who travel to forget and to somehow find solace for their souls. Lucy grows up almost a ghost of the girl that she could have been. The clogs start forming when you throw in the war and why the parents were leaving in the first place, why Lucy didn't feel as if she was a normal girl and how she was left out of almost all of a normal life. The subtleties of why Lucy made the choice to continue to be this ghost rather than move on, both gives the book its haunting nature and its subtle tension.

9. Compared to much contemporary fiction, The Story of Lucy Gault is an uneventful, quiet book. How does it achieve such power in the absence of dramatic action? How does Trevor draw out the spiritual implications of his story? What are those implications?

The tension, for me, revolved around the nature of guilt and loss and how guilt can be a poison. Life almost always involves loss but in this story, the loss is the fulcrum where by Heloise can not recover, her husband can not motivate his wife toward a home he would prefer to go to, and how Lucy can not bring herself to have a full life. The loss permeates the story and haunts it. The characters let loss define themselves and control themselves and the reader is kept engaged by a deep desire to have at least Lucy break free in some small way which, depending on your reading of the story, she maybe does.


10. At the end of the novel, the nuns visit Lucy, drawn by her extraordinary peacefulness. “Her tranquility is their astonishment… Calamity shaped a life when, long ago, chance was so cruel. Calamity shapes the story that is told, and is the reason for its being: is what they know, besides, the gentle fruit of such misfortunes’ harvest? They like to think so….” (p. 224). Are the nuns right in sensing a transcendent calm in Lucy? If so, how has she achieved this peace? Can her life be said to have been, on balance, a good life?

Lucy, tells her father, later in her life, that being lonely isn't so bad. She also does find some small purpose with her embroidery and her visits to the insane asylum but mostly she has simply mastered the role of being a ghost of a person. She has moved through guilt and therefore probably does generate a sense of calm, but I don't think it was a good life, although it may not have been a bad life. It was a life, and that may be all that matters.

[Pamela]

1. The Story of Lucy Gault is as much about what doesn’t happen, or what almost happens, as what does…Is the novel saying that what we do not do shapes our lives as much as what we do do?

The novel is showing how there are different paths through our lives and at each point our life can take a different turn. The things we do not do shape our lives - words unspoken, letters not sent, fear of making things worse - because they are choices as much as the things we do opt to do.

2. What role does chance play in the novel? …Does this preponderance of chance events suggest the hand of fate directing the characters’ lives, or rather a meaningless randomness, the absence of fate?

There are some chance events - such as Lucy’s clothes showing up on the beach - but many of the events look like chance but are actually choices, such as Heloise’s decision not to go to England which means the letters don’t reach them. To me it doesn’t suggest fate directs their lives, rather that they react to events and that moves their direction.

3. How should the blame be apportioned between Lucy and her parents? To what extent are larger historical and political forces to blame for what happens to the Gault family?

Lucy is just a child who doesn’t really appreciate what is going on, she is silly and headstrong but not culpable. Her parents are too easily blown off course by events, and irresponsible not to maintain contact with either Henry or the solicitor. Historical and political forces set the backdrop for the events, but the characters make their individual choices.

5. Why does Lucy reject Ralph’s impassioned marriage proposals? What are the consequences of this rejection, for her and for Ralph? Was she mistaken to turn Ralph down, or was her rejection her only real option, given her peculiar history, her character, and the circumstances of her life?

Lucy feels obliged to keep faith with her internal promise to her family to wait for them and gain forgiveness. She has already decided her love for Ralph has no future and is storing up memories for when she is alone again. From the outside, she is wrong to reject Ralph as they could have been happy together, but she is convinced she doesn’t deserve his love.

7. Why does Lucy visit Horahan, the man who as a boy helped set in motion the events that caused so much pain, after he’s gone insane and been confined to the asylum? Are her visits an act of forgiveness? What effect do these visits have on Horahan? On Lucy herself?

Horahan has become literally silent so Lucy cannot discuss the past with him, she provides companionship and routine. The staff at the asylum feel her visits have helped him and given him something to look forward to, but we don’t know this from Horahan. Lucy’s presence might be partly an act of forgiveness but for me it is more that she is making the connection that her father failed to do, and recognising him as as a victim

9. Compared to much contemporary fiction, The Story of Lucy Gault is an uneventful, quiet book. How does it achieve such power in the absence of dramatic action? How does Trevor draw out the spiritual implications of his story? What are those implications?

It is powerful because it is a universal story about loss and grief, and how it blights the life of the characters. There are small moments of hope but these are snuffed out, and this is sad. Heloise gains some comfort from art and the paintings of saints, but her guilt and fear keep her trapped.

10. At the end of the novel, the nuns visit Lucy, drawn by her extraordinary peacefulness….Are the nuns right in sensing a transcendent calm in Lucy? If so, how has she achieved this peace? Can her life be said to have been, on balance, a good life?

Lucy is calm because this is how she has been over many years - since her childish rebellion she has been leading a quiet lonely life reading, embroidering, driving to the shops etc. Her life hasn’t been as good as it could have been, but she has been cared for by Henry and Bridget, known love, rebuilt a relationship with her father, and made her peace with Horahan, so it hasn’t been meaningless either.

[George P.]

I have this on my to-read list down in the maybe-some-day range. You have made it sound pretty interesting. I liked Trevor's Fools of Fortune that I read a couple of years ago.

[Jenna]

1. A novel about what does not happen.

I saw this as a story about the tragedy of failed communications - with ideas of guilt and responsibility destroying lives in the tradition of Maupassant's The Necklace. Grief and withdrawal compound the errors but I have to say I agree with Gail and it did not really ring true to me that parents would behave like this.

2. Role of chance.

I don’t see chance really playing a role – I think that rather it is the effect of lack of openness all around. For example, “chance” finding of her shirt and sandal are because she swam without telling anyone and because no one wanted her to have to dog so she didn’t tell anyone that it was on the beach with her. The decades without contact from the parents actually required quite a bit of effort, no chance there.

3. Blame
That this was set in the 1920s was appropriate, but that it was written in the 21st century struck me as odd, because the behavior of the characters, and parents in particular, really does not have a lot of modern resonances, and it left me quite flat. Who would be so totally uncommunicative and impossible to find for 30 years while still owning the property?

4. Why aren’t they able to think other things?
To this I have no answer. The narrative is a remote 3rd person and we have minimal insight into their thought processes.

5. Lucy rejects Ralph
Lucy’s growing up story is tragic, but for me also a bit flat. It is very religious seeming to me - the life-time of renunciation as the child grows to old age, ultimately achieving serenity through the sacrifice of a personal connection to anyone in penance for the tragic consequence of her youthful anger,

6. Heloise Gault can’t communicate
This is the key to whole problem. Her withdrawal dooms the family, pulling Everard away too. Again I feel like we have minimal insight and I don’t have any sympathy for her reaction.

7. Lucy visiting Horahan
See my answer to 5 above, this is all of a piece for me with the religious redemption narrative

8. Embellishing the story
I was waiting for this to come back as a threat to Lucy in the form of Troubles violence because of the embellishments about what her parents had done, but this went no where. I’m not sure that this passage added anything overall, its mostly just about gossip.

9 and 10. Spiritual implications and the end of Lucy’s life
In real life, I'm glad if someone can finally feel peace at the end of her life, but I don't actually believe that redemption through sacrifice and maintaining silence is the necessary answer to the fact that humans have emotions and the rash actions taken from those emotions can cause others pain. I clearly remember my children's preschool instruction to "use their words" and seeing two kids screaming at each other one day at pick up being taught myself that this was the first step - they weren't hitting after all - and that learning calmer exchanges follow. The father tries in the opening chapters of the story to take the direct approach to fix the event that triggers all the others, to apologize and use words and is rebuffed and so the book reinforces right from the beginning that communication is doomed. And then multiple times through-out characters in various ways fail to communicate - the parents acknowledge right away that they didn't tell their daughter enough about what was happening. Letters are written and not sent, or torn up by spiteful people; others only imagine speaking but never do. So silence reigns and the isolated actions that break through are seen to result in bad outcomes so passivity is reinforced for all.

It seemed a bit odd to me about all this is that it started out as set against the backdrop of the Troubles and then there really wasn't any violence. So I wonder whether the desire for this sort of non-communication and redemption through devotion to place, while sacrificing personal goals, might be a reaction to the history of violence, a way of trying to think about how to move on from actions that had destroyed social cohesion, and if the whole thing is sort of allegorical.

[Jane]

1. The Story of Lucy Gault is as much about what doesn’t happen, or what almost happens, as what does. Lahardane is almost set afire, Lucy comes close to marrying Ralph, Everard writes letters to Ireland but does not send them. What other instances reveal the significance of things not happening? Is the novel saying that what we do not do shapes our lives as much as what we do do?
The example that immediately comes to mind is Ralph almost going to visit Lucy after he is married. Trevor even misleads us into believing that he has come to see her, when it is actually Horahan. In this case, Ralph’s decision to not do something (hopefully) means that he has finally let go of the past and will be happy with his wife and family. Then again, he could live the rest of his life dreaming about Lucy, discontented and resentful, as we last see him. I’d like to believe the former.

2. What role does chance play in the novel? What crucial turning points are brought about by chance occurrences? Does this preponderance of chance events suggest the hand of fate directing the characters’ lives, or rather a meaningless randomness, the absence of fate?
As others have pointed out, Lucy reflects on chance at the end of her life. Whereas the nuns want to believe in calamity and mystery, Lucy seems to believe chance was “in charge” when many significant things occurred, e.g., her father happening upon her lost clothes on the beach. Certainly, it is chance that Ralph comes upon Lahardane and meets Lucy: “They would not have met if he had not lost his way.” And she also seems to believe it is chance that she happened to see a bicycle on the sea-wall, which inspired her to find out what happened to Horahan.

3. Lucy blames herself, her rash decision to run away, for her parents’ leaving; her parents blame themselves for not being more sensitive and honest with their daughter. “We told her lies,” Everard says (p. 31). How should the blame be apportioned between Lucy and her parents? To what extent are larger historical and political forces to blame for what happens to the Gault family?
I don’t think either child or parents are to blame; both made minor mistakes that unfortunately created a “domestic tragedy” (as Captain Gault describes it). The conflict between Irish and English seems to be a motivating factor in the initial event. If the boys hadn’t tried to set fire to the house, the Gaults may have lived a happy life in Lahardane. I initially assumed “the troubles” would play a bigger role in the book but, as others have pointed out, it kind of disappears.

4. Lucy’s mother and father conclude that Lucy is dead when they find some of her clothes along the ocean’s shore. What are the tragic consequences of this misreading? Why aren’t they able to search the woods, to think of other possibilities? What is the novel saying about the role of misinterpretation in our lives?
It didn’t strike me as a weird assumption when I read it, but I guess they could have searched more. As elsewhere in the book, a relatively small/subtle decision – Lucy keeping secrets from her parents (about swimming alone, the dog stealing her clothing) – has major consequences.

5. Why does Lucy reject Ralph’s impassioned marriage proposals? What are the consequences of this rejection, for her and for Ralph? Was she mistaken to turn Ralph down, or was her rejection her only real option, given her peculiar history, her character, and the circumstances of her life?
She believes she needs to be forgiven by her parents before she can move on with her life: “I have to live with it until they return,” she tells him. She feels terribly guilty about the grief she has caused them and feels she must atone for this before she can find happiness herself.

6. Heloise Gault imagines uncovering her feelings to her husband: “She heard her voice apologizing, and talking then of all she didn’t want to talk about; before she closed her eyes she found the sentences came quite easily. But when she slept, and woke after a few minutes, she heard herself saying she couldn’t have that conversation and knew that she was right” (p. 84). Why can’t she have that conversation? How might it have helped her? Where else in the novel does the inability to communicate openly and directly have disastrous consequences?
I agree with Jenna on this: we don’t have a lot of insight into Heloise. I’m not even sure what the content of this conversation would be. I’m guessing they would discuss Lucy’s apparent death, perhaps the miscarriage, why she can’t return to Ireland…? Ralph has similar imagined conversations in which he tells his wife about Lucy.


7. Why does Lucy visit Horahan, the man who as a boy helped set in motion the events that caused so much pain, after he’s gone insane and been confined to the asylum? Are her visits an act of forgiveness? What effect do these visits have on Horahan? On Lucy herself?
Immediately before she visits the asylum for the first time, Lucy has tea in a shop where only one of the girls doesn’t know her. She reflects on how much of an outsider she is: they call her the Protestant woman. And given her past, “…she among such women was more different still.” I think she realizes in that moment how much she and Horahan are alike – both are subjects of gossip and held at arm’s distance from the rest of the town. Because of this, she realizes how much simple companionship would mean to him. If I remember correctly, Horahan didn’t realize who she was, so in that sense, her visits could not have assuaged his guilt. However, he obviously appreciated the visits, if only for the companionship.

8. In retelling the story of the Gault family, travelers and people in the surrounding towns embellish the narrative. “In talk inspired by what was told, the subtleties that clogged the narrative were smudged away. The spare reality of what had happened was coloured and enriched, and altogether made better. The journey the stricken parents had set out upon became a pilgrimage, absolution sought for sins that varied in the telling” (p. 70). What are the subtleties that clog the narrative? Is the parents’ journey a kind of pilgrimage? Have they sinned? Why are subtleties so important in truly understanding a story?
I believe this refers to small events/details that outsiders couldn’t possibly know about that may explain certain actions or may complicate the narrative. For example, Heloise has been orphaned, has a cold and distant aunt as her only relative, has suffered several miscarriages. All these details are unknown to anyone other than her husband (and they don’t even talk about it, as noted above). These contribute to her refusal to return to Lahardane, where her only child died. So, it’s not a pilgrimage as much as an escape. As I also mention above, I don’t think anyone has “sinned.” Unfortunately, minor mistakes and chance occurrences snowball into a real tragedy.

9. Compared to much contemporary fiction, The Story of Lucy Gault is an uneventful, quiet book. How does it achieve such power in the absence of dramatic action? How does Trevor draw out the spiritual implications of his story? What are those implications?
I didn’t think a lot about spirituality until the end, when the nuns are so inspired by Lucy’s example of mercy and forgiveness. Still, Lucy seems to dismiss this idea, musing, “What happened simply did.”

10. At the end of the novel, the nuns visit Lucy, drawn by her extraordinary peacefulness. “Her tranquility is their astonishment… Calamity shaped a life when, long ago, chance was so cruel. Calamity shapes the story that is told, and is the reason for its being: is what they know, besides, the gentle fruit of such misfortunes’ harvest? They like to think so….” (p. 224). Are the nuns right in sensing a transcendent calm in Lucy? If so, how has she achieved this peace? Can her life be said to have been, on balance, a good life?
She does seem to have achieved peace and yes, it seems to me a good life, despite her isolation. As noted above, Lucy even finds a way out of that isolation by visiting Horahan. I read the last chapters several times trying to decipher the significance, and I think it is revealed in the statement, “She should have died as a child.” To hear about this would lower the nuns’ spirits, but it raises Lucy’s spirit because “instead of nothing there is what there is.” Whatever heartbreak and distress she faced after her accident, she lived; she had a life with all its joys and sorrows, and she is grateful for that. We all should be so lucky to be grateful for what we have :)