The Snow Child
First order of business when we met to discuss The Snow
Child, by Eouwyn Ivey, was for Priscilla to tell us about the name
"Eouwyn." The author was named after a J.R.R. Tolkein Lord of the Rings character. Without
researching, I'm guessing that this is an Elfin name, which I think is
important to our discussion because the author's Faina character seems so Elfin
in so many ways. The author grew up in Alaska and still lives there. She has
some photos of Alaska posted on her blog. Oddly, there are no photos of the
dead of winter, when footprints disappear under blizzards as soon as steps are
taken.
The Snow Child was a deceptive mixture of straightforward-reading
story and inexplicable fantasy. We uncovered both aspects in our discussion. First
we talked about why Mabel and Jack moved to Alaska to farm as middle-aged
adults who had never been to Alaska. Patty noted that it was Mabel's idea
because she was unhappy among all her friends and relatives at home who had
children, because she had lost a baby and not gotten over it. Dennis said that
at the time when the book took place, there was probably a lot of publicity
encouraging people to move to Alaska, some of which probably painted a prettier
picture of Alaskan life than reality could offer. We talked about Mabel's
changing moods and her rising to the occasion when Jack was injured and needed
her help in the fields.
Patty told us that she had visited Alaska on her travels in
the spring, and she noticed that there were no pharmacies or doctors in cities
smaller than Juneau. So, we could think of Alaska as being a lot like the way
it was in the story. Visiting Alaska during the summer months and not needing a pharmacy or doctor is nice to think about...
Then we got into the main question of the story: Did Faina
exist or was she a figment of Mabel's imagination? Patty said she was unsure
throughout the beginning of the book as to whether Faina was real. Dennis
noticed that there were no quotation marks in the book when Faina talked!
Marsha suggested that Mabel created Faina. Dennis reminded us about Jack
burying Faina's father, which added to the argument for realism. Dennis then
presented the term "Magical Realism," and this began to be a theme
of our discussion. Janice thought the author meant Faina to be more than just
Mabel's imagination but a magical character. Patty remembered that Mabel said
something like, "You have to believe in miracles." The first episode
with Faina came up, where there were tracks leading away from the snow child
that Mabel and Jack had built but no other tracks in the snow. Pam joked that
Faina was heavier after putting on the scarf and gloves than she had been when
arriving at the snow child, and that was why she had become heavy enough to
leave tracks. Carla's opinion was that part of the charm of the story was that
the reader could draw their own conclusion as to whether to think of Faina as
real or magical or imagined.
We had more ideas and references to the story concerning whether
Faina was meant to be considered real by the reader. Put to a vote, most of us
said we had at some point in the book gone with the idea of Faina as a real
child. This book gave all of us a delightful story, and our conversation brought
out so many aspects of the story and angles about the ephemeral Faina that I
doubt many of us thought of all of them while reading. This discussion was one
of those magical ones that add to the pleasure of reading the book and make you
glad you braved the sunshine to sit in the air-conditioned cafe with good
company and coffee and cookies!
