Can a woman understand a man falling in love?

Yeah, so what do you think of the first 15 chapters?

I'm really excited to read more because I want to see what's in that diary. And I think, I think when we first started reading, you were like, oh, are you okay with the— there's like abusive content. And so far I was like, where's the abusive content? But I think it's going to be in the diary. I think it's going to be part of Helen's past.

Just regarding eager to get into the diary, I have not yet started, but I was, I am eager. I was like, oh my gosh, what's gonna happen? What is she gonna say? So I think it has been set up well. So yeah, what do you think of Gilbert and this whole relation, you know, the Gilbert, Helen Lawrence thing? What's your take on what's going on there?

Well, I, to be honest, reading, reading it, I was a little confused by Gilbert and Helen's relationship because at first he's not in love with her, he's just trying to get to know her, and then he wants to be around her but he says he's not in love with her, and then he says he's in love with her but then like, um, changes the style of his conversation based on what, how she reacts, you know what I mean? Because he's trying to make her— him— he's trying to make her like him better by making her comfortable with him. I think that's it. And then when Lawrence comes along, he feels like— he feels jealous and attacked, kind of, by Lawrence because, oh, there's another guy and she knows him and feels— seems and feels more comfortable with him than me. You know what I mean?

So what do you make of Gilbert attacking Lawrence? Not—

I mean, apparently not out of pocket for him. I was a little surprised because I thought Gilbert had a cooler head on his shoulders, but, um, maybe love does— makes guys do scary things. I don't really know. But I think he was also just really mad because he had spent all this time and done all this work, and then he sees them holding hands in the forest or whatever. If I were him, I wouldn't jump to conclusions, especially because all they did was like hold hands. And to me, it seemed like the recognition they had was not like love. So I didn't really jump to that conclusion immediately in the beginning, but he did, and he attacked him, and with a whip too. That's kind of bad.

It's very bad. Bloody by the side of the road.

Yeah.

So if I'm not mistaken, I think this is the most detailed description of a man being in love we've had across the various books we've read. You know, the Jane Austen, I think it was mostly from a female character's point of view. Jane Eyre, clearly from Jane's point of view, but I think there are points when, um, Rochester was telling Jane how much he loved her, that that was sort of Jane imagining what a man might say. I mean, maybe they saw this all the time, so maybe it's not imagining. In Wuthering Heights, I don't think we really got much description. I mean, we have, you know, Heathcliff, you know, standing outside waiting all night, but in terms of the process of falling in love, Does it seem accurate that this is the most detailed inside a man's head process of falling in love we've seen?

For sure. It's also from a man's perspective, so that helps a lot.

That's right. That's right. The male— there's a male narrator. So let's pause on that. Do you think that the author is— I mean, is it hard to get into the other gender's perspective? Do you think that she is doing a good job of being inside Gilbert's head? Do you think maybe she had a male read it? Do you think that she is just way off base? What do you make of a female author, you know, doing this from the male perspective? Any idea?

Well, I think she's doing a great job. Honestly, most of the books I read are from female perspectives. So this is also a new thing for me. But I mean, I can't imagine there's too much difference. Maybe just the way he thinks or the expectations he's held up to or something like that. Like, his mother's always like, who are you gonna marry? Is it this girl? I thought it was going to be this girl. And that's same same but different, I feel like, for a female. For men and women, I feel like, in this type of— in this era and this genre. But I think she did a good job, for sure.

No, fair enough. And just thinking through it, you had talked about how it was sort of confusing that Gilbert kind of did not like Helen, then kind of liked her, and then liked her but not like that, and then basically became jealous, was in love with her. But similarly, actually, a lot of our female characters initially didn't like the love interest, you know, and it does seem— I don't know that this is going to be a romantic comedy. This might be a romantic tragedy, or I don't know where this is going. But, you know, it seems like this tension between not in love and then kind of in love and sort of in love is sort of a typical trajectory. So to that extent, does the Gilbert/Helen dynamic follow or at least seem somewhat similar to earlier trajectories?

Yeah. Yeah. If you're thinking about how they never really fall in love at first sight, I think this kind of follows it for sure.

Did you— would you say that you saw it coming or were you surprised when it happened?

When Gilbert fell in love with Helen, I think I saw it coming because he always tried to be around her and go on walks and say hi and befriend her son. Um, and I didn't think he did that to be just to be nice, like neighborly. So I thought something like that was coming for sure.

And how about Gilbert dumping Eliza? Did you see that coming or did that shock you?

Because of all the time he spent with Helen Um, that did not shock me for sure.

Do you think that he was a jerk with Eliza, or did he handle that well?

I don't really know, honestly. I, I think he did it okay. Um, I, I don't really know how to handle that kind of situation, but yeah.

Yeah, it's hard to know what's a good standard. He wasn't an absolute jerk, but I was— I found myself feeling for Eliza. I was like Hey Eliza, this is not going your direction. How about the gossip in the community against Helen? Any, uh, have you sort of seen situations where there's all this kind of negative gossip or not so much?

Not so much, or not quite like that. Um, I felt, I felt bad because I had grown to kind of like Helen and like want her to be okay and stuff. And when I, when I read about the gossips, I felt bad, and I instinctively immediately didn't think it was true. Maybe I was just trying to like try and tell what was going to happen later on, but I didn't think they were true immediately. But yeah, it sucks to have bad gossip spread about you. So I hope that never happens to me.

You've never lived in a small town, have you?

No, I've lived in San Diego my whole life.

Yeah, that's what I thought. I mean, obviously you can have gossip in a big city, but in a small town, especially like in the countryside when everybody sees who's going to whose house, you know, and a lot of people in the countryside do that, you know, they see, oh, you know, Alana went to such and such house at 5 PM and stayed until 7 PM. People in the country gossip like that all the time.

Good point.

You can see how it's just the situation, whereas cities, actually, people go to cities in part, or they used to, to be anonymous. That is, you know, you get in your car, you go across town, nobody has any idea where you are. So yeah, the gossip thing in small towns is extreme. So do you think that Helen has something shady in her past, or how do you—

How do you—

do you think the gossip is entirely unfounded, or there's something to the gossip, or what's your thought?

I don't— I think that the gossip is not true. Uh, I think there's other— I don't know if shady is the right word to describe it, but there's other bad stuff in her future, uh, including the abusive whatnot things that we read about. And I think that's gonna come from her dead, or maybe she like ran away or something, husband, um, because they say she's a widow. I'm not too sure of the role of Lawrence yet, um, but they seem to know each other, so maybe they connected in the past too.

And you said in the future, but I think you mean going forward in the book, but it's her past. Yeah, I just wanted to correct that. Um, so would you say that you, uh, are hoping that Gilbert— are you hoping that Gilbert and Helen will get together, or Gilbert and Lawrence, or none of the above? Or you don't go in for hoping that people get together in these things?

My only hope is that Helen gets to live a nice life, and don't know if that nice life is going to be with Gilbert after he attacked Lawrence. That made me not really like him, to be honest. So it's still up in the air for me, I think.

Yeah, no, it was, it was, it was pretty outrageous. It was horrible. And yeah, you mentioned that maybe, you know, love can make people do crazy things. Have you either seen or read or heard about love maybe making people do so, or jealousy? Maybe it's jealousy making people do such crazy things, or does this seem like way beyond the bounds of human experience?

I'm— I think this is pretty realistic. Um, I've never seen it in real life, but I've read about it for sure. For example, Wuthering Heights, um, Heathcliff jealousy, that sort of thing.

Yeah.

And I've read about something like that in a couple other, like, romance type books, I think. But I don't think it's completely out of pocket for a human.

No, I, I think that's right. And I don't know if that there is good data, but I think a significant percentage of male violence is associated with competition over females one way or another.

So, natural, I guess.

Yeah, it is natural. Maybe at some point we can go back and read some more evolutionary biology or evolutionary psychology, but I take it you're enjoying the fiction for now.

Yeah, yeah, this is super fun.

It is super fun. I would say, you know, we'll see by the end, but I would say so far I think this is my favorite of all the ones we've read.

Yeah, it's just easier to read, honestly.

It's easier to read and relatedly kind of a rush. It couldn't be easy to read and boring, but you know, some of them, I mean, I would say this book is getting, again, for me, often books start out with a slow setting of the story and then kind of rolling down the hill and picking up speed. And I feel as if this one got into the rolling downhill and picking up the speed, you know, maybe at chapter 6 or 7, you know, getting to the point where you can't wait to read the next chapter. Whereas I think some of them, it took like 15, 20 chapters to get there. Is that sound good?

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, well, I'm excited to read the next section. I'll communicate via WhatsApp. I'm thinking it's summer, maybe we go— my understanding is there is a section on her diaries, and then there's an end section. You ready for maybe a larger chunk and go all the way through her diaries for next week?

Yeah, sure, that sounds good.

Yeah, again, I think it's going to be fun, intense reading. So, all right, we'll— I'll confirm chapter, uh, via WhatsApp, and we'll see you next week.

Okay, awesome. See you next week.

Have fun. Yep, bye.