In which I finally talk about The Likeness (and also talk a bit more about In The Woods)
Once again, there's an element of near-to-but-not-really-fantasy to French's work, and with The Likeness the premise is quite a bit more uncanny, and is the driving force of the plot rather than something winking from the edges
( Read more... )
I guess I found it comforting to see that Cassie was as distraught as I was that the second story didn’t involve him LOL Yeah, totally. In some ways it might have been a much more depressing read if Rob was hardly mentioned at all. I do love that Cassie has a mostly rigid way of remembering him, because it's just so Cassie and it makes it all the more affecting when there are these little moments when you feel like she would really do anything to make things go back to how they were before.
When it mentioned that she had to take the boat to England, I literally went "OH MY GOD" right out loud. It's quite a bomb to get dropped right up at the end, and I still don't really know what to think of it. The fact that that was the last time in the book Rob is even mentioned (excluding that "I wanted to tell her that being loved is a talent too" thing, which I can't help thinking was very inspired by him) made me very sad, but it was almost like it was the one thing Cassie could remember about her and Rob that was so ugly it made it possible for her to make Sam that promise and really mean it.
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Yeah. Given how the Cassie and Sam’s relationship is depicted throughout the book, her realization came across as a bit OOC, but... I don’t know. I struggle so much with the fact that Cassie and Sam seemed to have zero chemistry (as much as I tried, I couldn’t get invested at all in their relationship). I am sure Tana could have made us care a bit more about Cassie and Sam if she had decided to go this route, so I have to assume that the their dynamic was a very calculated decision by her.
Thinking about Cassie’s characterization, though, I think my big issue with her in TL is that I couldn’t quite read her… You can only guess. Her voice is very similar to Rob’s but, at the same time, I have the impression that she is more guarded and elusive -as if she is keeping certain things only to herself, or doesn’t allow herself to be completely honest. Rob was crystal clear to me, but Cassie is another matter entirely, she is quite enigmatic (the fact that, by the end of the book, I couldn’t quite grasp if she was in love with Sam or how she really felt about Rob makes me nuts). But I like to think that this was mostly deliberate, since this trait fits so well with Rob’s portrayal of her in ITW.
excluding that "I wanted to tell her that being loved is a talent too" thing, which I can't help thinking was very inspired by him)
Oh, I like to believe that Cassie was referring to Rob. If the book had ended right after the proposal (“It’s all over now”. Nooooo!), I would have been utterly devastated, but I found Cassie and Abby’s conversation oddly soothing, it helped me to get some closure on the Cassie and Rob front. It didn’t strike me until that moment, how similar Cassie and Abby actually were.
As for the abortion issue, I am so torn. Your take is somewhat comforting, but the whole thing is so fucked-up and sad and… melodramatic? I don’t know *shrugs* (on a shallow note, though, it makes me wonder if Rob and Cassie used protection (which honestly doesn’t seem the case). It seems kind of OOC if they didn’t, but at the same time --in a very twisted way, I know, heh-- there’s something so hot about them just going for it and not caring at all about anything else at that moment).
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I also found the very end a little comforting. For one thing, there's a hint there that that takes place some time after Rob calls her in the middle of the night (Rob finds out she's engaged when the department is talking about sending them a gift, and she's gotten the gift by then), and because of that one line, I feel like her regard for him has softened a little bit, even though her attitude is still very cryptic. And I couldn't help smiling at that last paragraph about Lexie...Even at the end, Cassie has this vicarious comfort in thinking about a person who was willing to up and leave so many times in her life. It left me with this bittersweet feeling that Cassie still wants to escape but knows that she just isn't quite built that way.
(I didn't mention this in the post but should have: That part when she remembers going to pick up Rob on her moped and how she has this fantasy that the two of them could have just kept riding along the roads forever? It seems to give you this idea that Cassie doesn't just want to get away from everything but wishes she could have done it with him. And it's all the more interesting because I remember at that point in INW, how Rob had this foreboding reflective voice in that scene, like he himself wishes in retrospect that they could have gone on like that forever. Unless I'm just imagining that...)
You know, in a definitely fucked up way, one of the things I liked about Cassie apparently getting pregnant was the implication that they didn't use protection. It does seem very OOC, but the implication that she was in as reckless a place as Rob was at the time says a lot more about the experience than Cassie is willing to divulge. Fuuuuuuuuu, these two...
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Oh, that last bit is just so wonderful. I don’t usually cry when reading, but those lines brought tears to my eyes, which, truth is, caught me a bit off guard. I didn’t expect to care so much about a character that was a ghost throughout the book, yet I realized then that I did. But I found that passage so beautiful and evocative (it literally transported me), and also, so perfectly Cassie, it left me with this aching bittersweet feeling ever-present in all Tana’s books.
Oh, and I hadn’t made the connection you mention! (I read ITW almost a year ago and I don’t remember some details. So I had to check out, and you are right, both passages are hauntingly similar). Very interesting. That part from Cassie’s POV is crushing, because it’s the only one moment where she lets herself be weak about Rob, and you understand how, despite everything, she wishes she could have frozen that moment and be with him in their special limbo forever. Gah.
that she was in as reckless a place as Rob was at the time says a lot more about the experience than Cassie is willing to divulge
Absolutely, I love the thought of Cassie being as reckless as Rob. Maybe I am delusional, but I like to believe that both wanted that kind of intimacy badly, and that night uncovered a longing they had spent their entire friendship trying to sublimate. So, when the inevitable finally happened, they got a bit… carried away :)
Dude, these two are just my kind of OTP material, star-crossed detectives FTW. Where is Tana French fandom? I wish there were fic about them!
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