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chris (Japan) (2013/01/02):
I am struck from the start with the eerie déjà vu of this strange tale, two sisters reunited in the rambling Victorian home in the Dorset countryside after fifty years. Ginny has always lived here, but for a few years of schooling with her vivacious younger sister. Vivi left home long ago, not content to bury herself in her father's extensive interests in lepidopterology, the scientific study of moths and butterflies. Many rooms in the rambling Bulburrow Court are dedicated to such study, an entire library of specimens, as well as the artifacts of generations of relatives, the mansion grown thick with antiques, furniture, books and priceless collectibles. Like a colorless moth, Ginny has clung to this place since her youth and through the death of her mother, Maud, who falls to her death down the cellar stairs. Later, when her father, Clive, sinks into dementia, Ginny remains the sole inhabitant of a slowly decaying fortress against progress.It is this author's skillful weaving of subtle threat and poisonous jealousy that fills the chapters with an aura of unsettling, indefinable menace. Ginny's voice carries the narrative, recounting childhood memories of Vivi, the steadfast, reliable elder sibling who holds the family together when Vivi sets out to conquer the world. The sad results of a childhood accident taint the joy of Vivi's existence, robbed of the one thing she desperately wants but cannot have. In her endless capacity for appeasement, Ginny endures a great personal sacrifice on her sister's behalf, but as we eventually learn, she exacts terrible payment from those she favors. Ginny's reaction when Vivi returns home to share their final years together is surprising only in how quickly the sisters revert to a lifetime pattern of leader and follower, the patient Ginny deftly honing her passive-aggressive skills. This insular family interacts with the world only through Clive's scientific forays, Ginny his proud understudy; for a long time the gregarious Maud is the center of the home in social matters, mindful of the needs of friends and neighbors, complementing a pedantic husband, a colorful peacock who infuses cheer into an oppressive home. But Maud falls victim to the burden of her household, her indomitable spirit turned morose, then angry for lack of appreciation. Adams beautifully portrays Maud's descent into unhappiness, the slow unraveling of a positive, tenacious woman. Ginny is always there to soothe and interpret, a role-reversal of the competing personalities of the sisters in "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" Like the film (perhaps also reminiscent of "The Bad Seed"), something is seriously amiss in this union, Vivi bursting onto the scene only to be confronted with the most terrible of realizations. Other than the often ponderous, if important chapters on the development of moths and butterflies ("I see the inequity of life, the immorality of nature"), the unspoken menace is pervasive in Adams' fine psychological thriller.
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