Notes and dispatches from Sunset Towers
Thing the first: I am unaware of how well-known this is, but I found it yesterday while trying to track down an ebook from any library I could -- I now, naturally, have finished reading that book and now have a tab open with a book that is probably on the shelf less than a yard away from me right now -- but you can borrow scanned-in-copies-of-paperback-books from the Internet Archive. All this is just to say, this is the copy of the Westing Game I have (also on that shelf!) and it just pleases me so much to be able to point to it and be like "that's mine! that's the book I have! And in roughly the same shape, too!"
Thing the second: my Westing Game prompts for my Yuletide letter turned more into a nattering meta post, so we are RUTHLESSLY CUTTING and putting it here, in hopes that my Yuletide letter can turn instead into writing prompts instead of Feelings. ...I make not many promises of that. But! Various thoughts on The Women Of The Westing Game!
- Judge Ford is the only adult Westing heir to not have any romantic relationships (Doug is the only other heir not to). Are we meant to believe she chose Career?
- But speaking of choosing Career, every single female heir in this book has a job or, through the Game, gets one she likes better.
Career/marriage details of note:
Crow drops out of school to marry Westing at age 16. She gets divorced at 40. Starts a soup kitchen and works as a cleaner. Had, overall, what sounds like a sucky marriage, and she wanted a good marriage for her daughter as a way of improved stability, this did not, uh, end well. Her first marriage did not improve her life in the long term. Hopefully her second one was better.
Sydelle Pulaski, age 50, lived with three elderly female relatives before moving into Sunset Towers. Works as a secretary, ends up marrying her boss. I fully 100% believe she married him for financial security. Mind, I don't know what pension/retirement options were there in the late 70s/early 80s in Wisconsin for her, but she didn't get all that much money all-told from being a Westing heir, and marrying a guy who owns a company is better .
It'd be really really cool to see Sydelle and Judge Ford have a serious conversation about life paths and all of this, but I don't know if I could see that happening. But it'd be cool. They have such a contrast in what they want and how they treat the game. Sydelle wants to be noticed, that's her driving goal, whereas Judge Ford looks at the Westing Game not an as opportunity, but as something that's actively dangerous.
Angela Wexler: "the pretty one". Wants more to life than marriage, feels very stifled, and, uh, has a lot of feelings about it that she can't express. Her happy ending is getting to go to med school. And then after that, she marries the guy she'd been engaged to. It wasn't marriage to him that was the whole problem, it was the box she was put in and the lack of choices. Angela is Violet
And then Turtle. Who has the career that Judge Ford looks in the eye and completely rejects. - But for all that Turtle and Judge Ford are similar characters, the mother figure Turtle gets out of the game is Mrs Baumbach, for whom she is a replacement daughter figure. The book has two mothers who have lost daughters: Crow and Mrs Baumbach. They each get one of the Wexler girls, essentially.
Judge Ford has no daughters to replace. She develops something of a mentorship/sponsorship* role with Chris and pays for his education (thus becoming his Westing, but without the mind games). But that's not narratively satisfying enough for me, since she and Chris don't have much in common in their narrative places. It'd fill a hole in my heart if Judge Ford mentored Turtle.
Also, going back above to Choosing Career, yes, there are many reasons for Judge Ford to not have any romantic relationships mentioned, but I'd so love queer!Judge Ford being a mentor to queer!Turtle. Queer mentorship ftw. - *Notably, she pays for this by selling her share in Sunset Towers. Judge Ford kept no money from the game. She signed her checks over to Sandy. Westing's final gift to them was ownership of Sunet Towers. Judge Ford sold her share and gave the money away. Judge Ford is here to say to Sam Westing: fuck you and your money. She may owe her education to Sam Westing but she won't let him have anything more from her.
And finally, new icon! Because if I'm gonna keep talking about this book, I may as well have an icon for it.
This entry was originally posted at https://lannamichaels.dreamwidth.org/1152951.html.