Book Club Monday- Till we have faces chapters 8-14

I have until 5:30PM with my copy of Till we have faces.
I could return it late. It wouldn't be the first book I return late. But since I've learned more about the NYPL website I KNOW when my books are due.. And this one is due today. So I just put an hold on the book. There are 12 copies turning right now. I hope I'll get a better one next time :)
Last time, we left Psychee and Orual on their "last talk".
Well in chapter 9 we found out it was not their last chat.
Orual goes to burry the remains of her beloved sister/daughter. Chapter nine is a beautiful reflection about grieving and mourning:
" I had the wish to put off my journey as long as I could. Not for any peril or labour it might cost, but because I could see nothing in the whole world for me to do once it was accomplished"
I think Lewis really does a good job at describing the attraction to nothingness, the aquaintance with death (=the teenage years?):
" A fat fly was crawling up the doorspot. I remember thinking that its sluggish crawling, seemigly without aim, was like my life, or even the life of the whole world."
As we're quoting, I loved this one from Bardia:
"Your shield is a weapon, not a wall" What a good motto!
After the (short) joy of the reunion, the gap between the sisters grows fast and deep. " We were two ennemies met for a battle to death". As Psychee lives in a castle that only her can see. Orual has doubts: did she catch a glimpse of it or not? She can't tell for sure, and this doubt tortures her. She wants to want to believe her sister's story, but she can't accept it. She wants their lives to be back to their "before" states. Orual is easily convinced by Bardia, then by Fox, that they have a better understanding of what's going on on the mountain. Yet she can't get satisfied with either of thoses "truths".
" I now saw that I had, strangely, taken both Bardia's explanation and the Fox's (each while it lasted) for certain truth. Yet one must be false"
Personal projection: I don't think she believes either. I actually don't think she cares much. I think Orual lost it. All she ever had was Psychee and the Fox 's friendships, but Psychee was really "hers". And now, whether madness or a godness, she lost her power over Psychee.

I was not surprised when she talked about killing her sister.
" It shall not have her"
"I was indeed her mother and her father, all she had of either, my love must be grave and provident, not slip-shod and indulgent, there is a time for love to be stern. Children must obey"
I agree with the previous sentence on a parenting level, but I really read it as if Orual lost her mind, like the guy in Psycho who pretends to be his own mom... see what I mean?





The second encounter of the sisters on the mountain increase my feelings, when Orual hurts herself she says of Psychee:
"The look on her face now was one I did not understand. I think of a lover might look so on a woman who had been false to him."
Psychee accepts the lamp because : "I think of him better than of you. He cannot be cruel like you. I'll not believe it. He will know how I was tortured in my disobedience. He will forgive me."
" You grow more and more a stranger to me at each word" " If this is the price you have put upon yourlife, well I must pay it. The sun is down, you have saved your life, go and live it as you can." Psychee may be crazy, but she has class!
Anyway, if I follow my very loosy assumptions, she just signed her death certificate, Orual understood there that she won't get her back, "as before". The only way out seems more death...

Time to give that book back. Hopefully to be followed next week!


Other Book club members:
kalanna
rural hearts
Kate