I’ve been thinking about the discussion of Alison Pick’s Far To Go last night at the book club I frequent. I’m in the process of revising my interpretation of the principal narrator, Marta. Opinions about the book differed, but with reasons as all differences of opinion worth pursuing do. Some had high praise for the novel, especially its careful imagery and beautiful prose. I was in that camp, but I also had a few reservations. (None, however, that would prevent me heading out as soon as possible to read the author’s previous novel, The Sweet Edge, or whatever novel comes next for that matter.) I want to concentrate on just one of these because my afterthoughts have me rethinking what I said.
It struck me as odd, even jarring, that the Bauer family had a “governess” such as Marta. In the first half of the book this is the most typical term used to describe her role. Latterly, the narrator uses “nanny” frequently and then predominantly. What troubled me was that the Bauer family that employs Marta are supposed to be wealthy industrialists and socialites. They speak multiple languages. Their young son, Pepik, is 5 as the novel begins and turns 6 before he leaves on the Kindertransport. Marta is an uneducated, unworldly young woman, the child of farm labourers. Why would wealthy, worldly, sophisticated industrialists hire this woman as a “governess”?
Is Marta even literate? Yes, I think so. But it is clear that at 5 Pepik cannot read. And he still cannot read at 6. Just what kind of governess is Marta?
So that was bothering me, the decision to describe Marta as a governess. But now I think it might be more complicated.
Toward the end of the novel we learn that the story and its narrative frame are due to a female academic living in Montreal named Anneliese. This Anneliese is the daughter of Marta and her employer, Pavel. She is named after Pavel’s wife. (Pavel and his wife both die in the concentration camps.) Most important, however, is that this Anneliese is only 6 or 7 when her mother, the Marta of the story, dies. We learn that the entire book is supposed to be Anneliese’s imaginative exploration of her mother and father’s lives. This needs to be contrasted sharply with the letters and other documents that Anneliese has unearthed in archives from the time period.
What does this information tell us as readers? That’s what I’ve been thinking about. The purported “author” of the imaginative rendering is an “interested” party. She is the daughter of the main character and, so far as we know, has very little if any first-hand knowledge of her mother’s actions. Now I begin to think that maybe this narrator isn’t quite as trustworthy as she initially appears. Maybe she has coloured Marta’s tale, at least at first, to put her in as good of a light as possible. Hence the references to Marta as Pepik’s governess. Later in the tale it becomes less and less plausible to refer to Marta as a governess and so she takes on her more appropriate title as nanny to Pepik. A confusion which is taken further when Pepik, after a delirious transport to Scotland, associates the new English word “mother” for Marta when she is pointed at in a photo which he bears.
Now this, to my mind, makes the novel more interesting. Also more challenging than it first appears. It also washes away a number of other minor concerns I had. But is it the right reading? Is it even a better reading, at least better than I had before? Perhaps.
One thing is certain. I now look forward with special keenness to Alison Pick’s visit to Waterloo on 11 November. Maybe she will resolve some of these things I have been wondering about. Even better if she prompts new ones.