A new month, a new book for the Cat Who... mailing list to discuss - this time, The Cat Who Talked to Ghosts, which (surprisingly, due to its popularity in the "favorite book" poll on the site) is receiving a heckuva lotta criticism about Braun killing off Mrs. Cobb in general (an event popularly derided as a "cheap plot device") and Qwilleran's actions in the wake of her death in particular. Folks are UPSET about Qwilleran's cool, seemingly unfeeling demeanor in the face of the demise of such a close friend - not showing much outward sadness or emotion, being so "eager" to move into Mrs. Cobb's old residence at the Goodwinter Farmhouse Museum, etc. I haven't heard one positive comment on the list yet about the book, and as a great admirer of The Cat Who Talked to Ghosts, I feel compelled to provide a counterpoint in Qwilleran's defense. I'm not convinced that we're dealing with, to use X-Files fan lingo, a HeartlessJackass!Qwilleran here; his reactions and behavior in the wake of Mrs. Cobb's death may seem unusual, but they're not out-of-character or motivated by callousness.
First off, Qwilleran has never been one to really "dwell" on losses. I am not saying that he doesn't feel them; rather, I am saying that he's more the type to learn from a bad experience or situation, do what he can to rectify it (hence his eagerness to move into the farmhouse and thus get to the bottom of the circumstances of Iris's death), and move on (witness his divorce and his past bout with alcoholism - he seldom talks about the events themselves, only the effects they've had on his life and the cautions he takes to avoid repeating them - his teetotaling, his avoidal of marriage because "I've learned that I make a lousy husband", etc. The only time he really goes into deep detail about the mistakes and low points of his past is in The Cat Who Lived High, and the reason he does so there is in the hopes that his sad story will inspire - or frighten - another drunk to get off the bottle). In this sense and circumstance, he's a man of action, rather than one of deliberation. (The only time he's ever really been paralyzed by bereavement is his period of "she's not really dead, she'll come back like before" denial pertaining to Joy in The Cat Who Saw Red, which, considering the circumstances and the involvement and repetitiion of the first real personal loss in his life, is understandable - and he does pull himself together to seek justice for Joy in the end.)
And there are clear signs that he does deeply fell the loss of Mrs. Cobb - one of them, actually, I believe, being Qwilleran's discomfort with the presence of her possessions in the bedroom where he is to stay. I must say that I've had a similar situation arise in my own household with my mother's reaction to the death of her husband (my stepfather); one of the first things she did after her husband's affairs were settled - one of the first things she felt she had to do - was to get his things out of the house. Why? For the same reason I suspect Qwilleran didn't want Iris's personal effects around the house - the possessions serve as a constant reminded of the deceased, of the fact that they're never coming back, and of the vacancy their passing has left in your life, and you have to confront that loss and pain over and over again every time you look at them. It just hurts too much to have them around - especially for someone like Qwilleran who, as discussed above, is unused to and profoundly eneasy with staring his losses straight in the face (indeed, Qwilleran goes through considerable emotional difficulty when he has to pack away Iris's belongings). Now, everybody grieves in a different way, of course - but Qwilleran's actions are not inconceivable or incomprehensible. For those who press for traditional, more blatant expressions of sorrow and fond, respectful remembrance of Iris from Qwill, there are plenty to be found in chapters two and three - his numerous lamentations of "Poor Iris!", the laudatory obituary he writes for her, "for which he needed no notes", his rueful reflections after finding the body that she would die just when everything was finally going right for her, and especially his defense of Iris's wits before Dennis, claiming that Iris's willingly played the dupe to "ghostly" tricks that she knew her husband had faked just to allow him to get his kicks and that hers was the "real devotion" in the marriage, his guidance during the funeral plans and instant knowledge of _exactly_ what Iris would want based on past experience and insight into her character, his "pink to the very end!" - Qwill's knowingness that that's just like Iris, that just what this friend would do, connotes a caring intimacy brought about only by a great bond between true friends (the Qwilleran/Iris scene in Sniffed Glue, both of them sitting by the fireplace, relfecting upon what they've been through together, both so aware of how much they mean to each other without saying any words, haunts me here). And in the end, his somber comments about how he could "almost feel Iris's presence", half-expecting her to walk back in the room with a tray of cookies, and asking Koko if he was indeed talking to a ghost when he was apparently talking to himself, portray how the impact of her death has hit him now that the business of bringing her murderers to justice has been dealt with and only the emptiness of the loss remains.
The only other place in the book where I can see that Qwilleran's behavior might be misinterpreted as grossly unsensitive in the first chapter, which is a rahter matter-of-fact first-person account, rather uninflected by emotion, of the events leading up to his discovery of the body. Actually, Qwill's detached narration makes the passage more effective and touching for me, as he is looking back upon an experience so staggering than it barely seemed real to him, and coupled with Qwill's personal recollections of Mrs. Cobb's personality and their past together intermingled with the narrative, it sounds much like a shocked close friend's recollection of a life-changing, memorable, unsettling event that was the final chapter of an enduring relationship. And besides being effective storytelling technique, Qwill's first-person retrospective recount serves Braun's need to have Mrs. Cobb's death already happen before the start of actual action of the book, which is important thematically. The Cat Who Talked to Ghosts, as the title implies, is not a book about living relationship, but about dead, dying, or long-forgotten ones and how they haunt a person - the hold Ephraim Goodwinter maintained over the county he once owned decades after his death through his lingering notoriety, the aftereffects of his misdeeds, and the powerful legends that sprung up, accurate or imagined, in the wake of his "hanging" - and the acts they compel those who believe in them to do; Larry Lanspeak and Susan Exbridge's horror at the possible public disclosure that they're related, however distantly, to to such a crass, boorish man as Vince Boswell, and the lengths they go to (and the damage they're willing to do to the farmhouse museum) in order to keep this long-lost relation covered up; Kristi Waffle's forced reconfrontation with her loser husband, her moment of weakness, and the impact it has on her life; Vince and Verona's toxic "marriage", which can be considered a dead relationship as there is no love in it. Qwill's retrospective account of Iris's death establishes this theme; his memory of her galvanizes it and provides the plot with a unifying thread and tone and Qwill with drive and guidance as he wades through the emotional wreckage of the past to find the truth.
Mrs. Cobb's death touched me as much as anyone - she was a sweet, loving, generous soul and one of the series's truly memorable characters, and I can understand why Talked to Ghosts is a difficult book for some folks to take (I used to dislike it for similar reasons, in fact). I must take issue, however, with categorically dismissing it as "the worstest Cat Who... book ever!" just because a painful event transpires in its course; even though the wisdom of dispatching Mrs. Cobb is debatable, Braun does treat the event of her demise with respect and dignity and as integral to the themes the book undertakes. (Indeed, I find it intriguing that the same folks who're accusing Iris's death of being a cheap gimmick rigged to pull the readers' heartstrings are complaining about the lack of overstated schmaltz in regards to Qwilleran mourning Iris.) Talked to Ghosts contains some mature, well-considered explorations of ideas about loss, the past's effects on the present, the attitude Moose County folk have toward outsiders, and the power of belief overcoming that of truth and some of the best, most measured characterization in the series, and I'd hate to see their worth overlooked and thrown out just due to some discomfort with the fact that Braun decided for one book to largely eschew the cheery and charming for more comtemplative and grave subject matter.
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