finns det nån därute som kan svara

"––I want to tell you that you have acted an iniquitous part in luring this weak and unfortunate girl away from her home and friends, and––"

From the wonderful world of Jane Austen analysis, I've learned that sometimes back in Ye Olden Days, even close relatives could be referred to as friends (I think in Pride and Prejudice, someone talks about Lydia's friends when they clearly mean her relatives)... but even if that was still the case when The Blue Castle was published, friends, huh. Such hypocrisy on Uncle James's part to use that word. So very friendly you've always been towards her!

~

"Then Cousin Georgiana came—on her own initiative, for nobody would have thought it worth while to send her."

I'm really starting to get the vibe that all of the Stirling women would be so much happier if they dared to follow Valancy's example and free themselves from the clan.

~

Fun facts about the Free Methodist Church: one of their founding principles was freedom for all people from slavery, and they started ordaining women as deacons (a lower rank of clergy that's not eligible for senior leadership roles) in 1911. Wonder which one of these things weighed more heavily on Mrs. Frederick when she took to her bed after hearing the rumours of Valancy's conversion?

~

Though I obviously don't enjoy Valancy being in danger for a while here, I do like that she's shown to be a bit naive about certain things in life. She has lived a very sheltered life in many respects, it feels very realistic that she doesn't really understand how a drunken party might turn out to be like.

What doesn't feel realistic, to be quite honest, is Barney. He arrives just when he is needed, saves Valancy by decking a would-be molester with apparent ease, and we've already found out he's a perfect gentleman who never forgets to bring oranges to a dying woman, an adventurer, and also a friend to all animals. Feels a bit Gary Stu-ish, dare I say?

But then again, I guess there are the rumours of Barney being reputed jail-breaker, infidel, etc., etc. Perhaps the fact that he has a bad reputation and the idea that he might be hiding something are supposed to balance out the overflowing Prince Charming qualities.

~

Translation notes:

"Roaring Abel crossed the kitchen at a bound, caught him by his collar and his trousers, and hurled him through the doorway––"

In Finland, we have a word for this specific manouver: "niskaperseote" = "neck-ass-grasp". Sadly, the translator does not use it here.

I think we would all feel better if we thought of soulmates less like there's only one special person for you in the entire universe and THAT'S IT, and more like kindred spirits à la Anne of Green Gables.

Like. Consider that maybe you don't have a single soulmate, but instead, there's whole bunch of soulmates out there just waiting to cross paths with you. Consider that perhaps a monogamous romantic relationship is only one possible way of being together with a soulmate, and that you can even have several soulmates be a part of your life at the same time, each meaning something different but equally as important to you. Consider that spending the rest of your life together with a soulmate is not a requirement, and that just touching each other's lives for a brief amount of time can also hold a lot of power and meaning.

Granted, I'm not good at keeping track of visual details and usually have a hard time remembering the colour of anyone's eyes... but even so, what first appeared brown turning out to be dark violet of all shades feels somewhat mystifying to me.

Of course in fiction, anyone's orbs can be whichever hue happens to please the author, but I like to keep things grounded personally... and unfortunately, according to all reliable sources I've been able to find, in real life violet eyes only occur in humans due to albinism. (Also, according to one source, real violet is invisible to us, and the colour that's also called purple doesn't exist. Is the purple dinosaur even real or did we all collectively hallucinate him.)

My conclusion: Barney is either a magical being or was born with Alexandria's Genesis. I'm leaning towards magical, seeing how he was already likened to an amused gnome earlier, and also his mysterious animal sorcery.

~

The focus is definitely shifting towards Valancy and Barney, but I think the thing I enjoy the most about this chapter is the little glimpse we get of Valancy and Cissy's friendship: Valancy reads John Foster's books to Cissy, who loves them.

This genuinely makes me so happy. I think sharing a piece of art that you enjoy with a friend is such a joy, and it delights me that Valancy gets to expose Cissy to literally the entire oeuvre of her fav author.

~

Lady Jane Grey, the Nine Day Queen of a heartbreakingly sad fate... and also an old car that makes terrible noises you can hear miles away. Why not.

~

Translation notes:

The Finnish translator is sceptical of Barney's violet eyes too, tossing whimsy and Tumblr legends out of the window and just giving him dark blue eyes instead. (Edited to add: I wonder if this is less because the translator found the detail implausible, and more because he didn't have a good word to use? Before we borrowed the words "violetti" and "purppura" into Finnish from other languages, we used to call purple things "sinipunainen" = "bluered". Of these three words, "violetti" is really the only one that I'd ever want to use myself to describe the eyes of a heroine's beloved – "purppura" usually refers to reddish shades and "sinipunainen" is such a clumsy and ugly word, it just wouldn't work! But maybe "violetti" wasn't a common word yet back when this book was being translated.)

"In the long, wondrous, northern twilights––"

This immediately made me wonder, so I checked: on June 9th in Muskoka, the sun rises at 05:31 and sets at 21:02, so they have a total of 15 hours and 32 minutes of daylight. The nighttime comprises 4 hours and 59 minutes of the different shades of twilight (civil, nautical, and astronomical) and 3 hours and 29 minutes of true night.

For comparison: on June 9th in Helsinki, Finland, the sun rises at 03:58 and sets at 22:41, so a total of 18 hours and 43 minutes of daylight. The nighttime is 5 hours and 17 minutes of twilight, without any true night at all.

(It's almost silly how subjective this daylight stuff is. I know that some people living in northern Finland – or in the northernmost parts of Canada, for that matter – think that we here in southern Finland are weaklings for getting seasonal affective disorder even though here, the sun both rises and sets every single day of the year. On the other hand, I genuinely felt a lil bit distressed at how dark the evenings were when I once visited northern Germany – between Helsinki and Muskoka in the summer daylight graph – in July. Anything's normal once you get used to it, I guess.)

So: Valancy and I are getting a nearly identical amount of long, wondrous, northern twilights in June – they're just situated a bit differently, so that sticking to a regular sleep schedule prevents me from enjoying mine almost completely.

~

Both Cissy and Valancy are doing a bang-up job carpe-ing their diems here. If I was Valancy, I think I would be starting to absolutely lose it about now, both about my own time running out now that I've figured out that life doesn't have to be awful all the time, and about my newfound bestie being at death's door. Not these ladies, though! They're just out there, making each day count, not falling into anxiety attacks about their impending untimely deaths.

Then again, I'm sure having a literal deadline makes it easier for Cissy and Valancy to deepen their friendship. There's too little time for the more typical, glacially paced progression where you first spend weeks or months or even years talking about lighter topics before finally delving into more personal subjects – it's either leveling their friendship up every single day or never getting to experience the sort of deep-heart connection they are both longing to have.

In any case, it's really sweet that Valancy gets to find out that Cissy liked her when they were younger (I don't blame her for not figuring it out earlier, I agree with the tags @bewareofitalics put on my chapter 16 post that said Valancy was so used to being not being liked that she didn't even notice when someone actually liked her), and it's admirable how she dares to be so vulnerable and tell Cissy about her Blue Castle.

~

Translation note:

There's a sentiment I've ran across quite often when reading the Finnish women's magazines my mom likes to buy: it's a sign of true friendship when, even after you've spend years apart for whatever reason, you're able to continue your friendship like no time has passed when you finally meet each other again.

That's the vibe I'm getting from Cissy and Valancy in this chapter. Instead of faulting Valancy for never visiting her, Cissy just feels happy that she is here now. As a reader, it's hard not to think how much happier both of their lives would have been if they had been able to stay friends all this time... but it seems that Cissy and Valancy know better than to waste time thinking about that and are able to live in the moment instead.

It does make me wonder, though – it seems like Cissy felt a stronger sense of affection towards Valancy than Valancy ever felt towards Cissy, doesn't it? I mean, Cissy still remembers Valancy being sweet to her, and even Roaring Abel was aware enough of Cissy liking Valancy to roast Valancy about it a couple of chapters earlier ("And she used to like you so well"), but we've been told Valancy thinks that she has never had a friend in her life...