The Keeper of Stories

“The truth is, Janice is a worrier. […] She worries about the state of the oceans, plastic bags, climate change, refugees, political unrest, the far right, the far left, people who have to feed their children from food banks, diesel cars, could she recycle more?”

This rhetorical question demonstrates the usage of the third-person limited viewpoint while it lists the concerns that Janice feels consume her. Significantly, these growing worries paradoxically demonstrate that Janice is a passive person early in the story—she senses the worries piling up but directs no thoughts or actions toward controlling them or improving the worldly issues that drive them.

“There is a darkness hidden in the story—a huge unspoken issue that she thinks is being ignored. Something is lurking. This makes her uneasy, lending her to think of her own childhood, and if there is one place she has no wish to be, it is back there.”

Janice’s interior monologue regarding Fiona’s traumatic loss of her husband presents a tone of dark and ominous foreboding. It also foreshadows future points in the narrative when Janice will be forced to face her own past. Janice indicates to Mrs. B that her story is not worth telling, but readers already know that Janice has hidden secrets. This dramatic irony increases suspense and reader interest. Janice’s cryptic recall of her childhood based on Fiona’s current conflict supports the theme of Storytelling as a Means of Connection.

“Of course, this is Becky we’re talking about. And all that story, all the talk of family and brothers and bravery, well naturally, it was all lies.”

Mrs. B alludes to the complex character of Becky Sharp from Vanity Fair, but she establishes that her story refers to a real woman for whom she borrows the name Becky. That Becky’s pronouncements are “all lies” increases the suspense of Becky’s story (a key part of the motif of stories within stories) for the readers; it also hooks Janice’s attention, providing her with a realistic motivation to return to Mrs. B’s home.

“All she has is the here and now, and in the face of Carrie-Louise’s courage, she feels the least she can do is to keep playing the game.”

Each time Carrie-Louise is seemingly bested by her friend and foe, she manages a one-up and comes out the victor. That Janice admires Carrie-Louise’s bravery indirectly reveals Janice’s high regard for the qualities of inner strength, self-respect, and making the best of a situation. Janice’s daily “here and now” reference suggests that Janice has no intention to change, which sets up her actual change later as a more significant juxtaposition. Her metaphorical use of “playing the game” shows that she considers small, false niceties between people a necessary if silly part of human interaction.

“Janice has not asked Mrs. B about Becky’s story, although she dearly wants to hear it. Nor has Mrs. B broached the subject, despite the fact that Janice is pretty sure she wants to tell it. It has become a game of chicken. Mrs. B is the first to break, which surprises Janice. But at ninety-two, maybe she feels she hasn’t got any more time for any of this shit.”

Janice subtly prides herself on reading others’ goals, motivations, and emotions, which helps her glean one’s story details. This passage indirectly suggests that Mrs. B is a tough cookie for Janice to figure out. Mrs. B’s choice to give in with the Becky story takes Janice by surprise; that Mrs. B’s motivations for doing so are a guessing game for Janet shows the complexity of Mrs. B’s objectives. The writing style, typically demure and measured to reflect Janice’s voice, offers a curt use of profanity to clip this passage, representing Mrs. B’s tendency for surprisingly impolite comments. Janice’s attempts to “read” Mrs. B support the theme of Storytelling as a Means of Connection.

“Yes, every story ends in death. And I’m afraid his story was a very short one.”

Mrs. B, speaking here about Becky’s baby brother who was killed on Becky’s watch, sums up life by putting it in terms of death. She uses the metaphor of a story briefly told to represent the life of this young child, showing an ability for symbolic thought. Her comment also helps to develop the theme of Storytelling as a Means of Connection.

“I mean, she’s such a…well, a quiet nothing.”

Situational irony comes into play with Mr. NoNoNotNow’s dialogue about Janice. He speaks to his wife, but Janice overhears; this is ironic since she recently insisted to Mrs. B that she would never eavesdrop on clients. His words are also ironic because, since the story is almost exclusively told from Janice’s point of view, the readers know Janice’s depth of thought. The Complexities of Self-Worth might keep Janice quiet frequently, but she is far from a “quiet nothing.”

“And for this half an hour at least, she genuinely believes he has shaken off his terrible burden. She watches as he wallops through the undergrowth, springing off logs, shouting encouragement to Decius to get a clear round. In a small, unexpected way, it is a perfect moment.”

At the beginning of Chapter 14, Janice silently analyzes “perfect moments” that bring couples together, but this later passage juxtaposes those examples with the perfect, simple sight of a boy and a dog. Janice demonstrates open-mindedness when she includes such a relationship in her “perfect moments” category. The author employs alliteration (“watches as he wallops”) and action imagery (“springing off logs”) to convey the scene that Janice sees as it plays out.

“She wonders, if it comes to war, whose side will she be on?”

Now that an external conflict has been established (Tiberius’s intent to take his mother’s home away from her), the author draws focus to it through the use of this chapter cap in Janice’s interior monologue. Janice finds both Mrs. B and Tiberius not particularly moral, so this rhetorical question increases readers’ interest and suspense. Now that the mention of war has been named by Janice, the symbolism of the son’s name—Tiberius—comes into sharper focus; Tiberius Julis Caesar Augustus ruled the Roman Empire in the first century CE and helped to expand the empire’s borders through military conquest. The novel’s Tiberius parallels this historical Tiberius in that he behaves strategically to “conquer” his mother’s home.

“But sometimes when you’ve spent all your energy trying to see both sodding sides of it, trying to find the good in your shit situation, you don’t want some old woman who doesn’t know you telling you to get it in proportion.”

This telling bit of dialogue from Janice to Mrs. B reveals the extent of emotional turmoil that Janice keeps inside, contributing to her internal conflict about her marriage and life. Mrs. B’s flippant opinion that no one is all good or bad is the kickstart that prompts Janice’s breakdown; it is ironic that while Mrs. B makes her claims about human nature in an insensitive way and challenges Janice to disagree, she then demonstrates great concern for Janice’s emotional state, fetching her a blanket and brandy. This moment for Janice is one of several low points in her character arc that connect to the theme of The Complexities of Self-Worth.

“And how could she leave Decius? Even the thought of it makes her feel panicky. Then there’s Fiona and Adam. Doesn’t she want to stay in touch with them too? Not forgetting Mrs. B, and people like Carrie-Louise and Geordie.”

After her emotional breakdown in front of Mrs. B, Janice shows the extent to which she loves her “found family” by naming them as reasons to not leave Mike in her interior monologue. Indirectly, this shows how Janice yearns for family, having become—mysteriously—estranged from hers. She chooses to not risk losing those she is close to, even to end an unhappy marriage.

“It is only when she is opening the door to Carrie-Louise’s flat that she realizes she does not know the geography teacher’s name.”

This brief chapter cap heightens the growing irony that has started to shape Janice’s story: She craves love and understanding and fantasizes repeatedly about a stranger (the bus driver). Situational irony piques when the driver searches her out and asks to take her out for tea but Janice neglects to get his name.

“Can’t you see that with your cleaning contacts we could be selling my range into all the places you go and into clients’ networks?”

This line of dialogue from Mike propels Janice into action; structurally, it serves as a mini climax within the important climactic scene in the story of their marriage. Janice’s actions when Mike inserts himself and his neediness into forbidden territory (her client relationships) indirectly show her inner strength, her resolve, and her desperation for change, illustrating The Complexities of Self-Worth.

“After all, as Nat King Cole points out, there may be trouble ahead, but she could always face the music and dance.”

Janice’s interior monologue here caps the third section of chapters and steadies the mood and pace of the novel before tension and surprises resume. The allusion to Nat King Cole, an American jazz musician and singer, regards his song “Let’s Face the Music and Dance.” This song title is a spin on the common idiom about “facing the music,” a metaphor that means accepting the consequences of one’s actions. Cole’s song tells listeners to react with joy while they can despite the trouble brought by one’s actions.

“He sighs, exhausted, like a man who has climbed Snowden.”

Euan must work hard to get Janice to agree to see him a second time despite how badly Janice wants to get together again. This reveals indirectly how Janice’s low self-esteem and significant self-doubt about her story weigh on her decisions, in support of the theme of the complexities of self-worth. When she finally says yes, Euan is relieved and “exhausted” as though convincing her was a hard job. The simile comparing him to a mountain climber is a coy comparison and witty irony since Janice always thought that Euan looked like a man who climbed Mt. Snowden—and he has. Mt. Snowden is a mountain in North Wales; its Welsh name is Yr Wyddfa.

“It comes from spending so much time in the company of Scheherazade.”

Mrs. B’s allusion to the famous storyteller in Arabian legend is not the first time she mentions Scheherazade’s name. Earlier, Janice tries to suggest that Mrs. B is similar to Scheherazade because of the way she tells the Becky story in installments. Mrs. B is quick to correct her—showing her shrewdness and need to always be in the right—by explaining that Scheherazade knew many stories (like Janice), not just one. Here, Mrs. B uses the line as a backhanded compliment and a cloaked statement of respect for Janice; the two are becoming better friends, but Mrs. B does not yet speak kind comments directly. Scheherazade, a princess who told stories nightly to a murderous husband, did so to stay alive.

“But the truth is that Augustus and I were complete in each other’s company and I realize now that must have been hard for our son.”

Mrs. B offers this statement to rationalize the distance between her grown son and herself. The line follows a brief verbal spat that she and Janice have about the reasons for sending one’s child off to a private boarding school, as they both did but for different reasons. Eventually, they commiserate over the “mom guilt” inherent in such a decision. This line connects to The Paralyzing Effects of Guilt.

“I listen to the quiet voices.”

Euan’s simple declarative dialogue reveals indirectly that his character is empathic and calm and that he steers away from loud melodrama even when it is directed at him by unhappy passengers on his bus routes. Moreover, the line is a hidden bit of comic relief, as he just recently told Janice that a woman he proposed to never heard his question since she was talking on and on. The idea of a quiet voice also foreshadows Janice’s own voice in telling her story in the final chapter set.

“Immediately she knows her mistake. She cannot clean this up, cannot tidy it away into a cupboard. The inflection reverberates and she trembles with it: not she, but she. The she that tells of something shared. Janice wants to take that word and bundle it into a dark place where no one will ever find it.”

Janice’s third-person limited point of view takes readers through her reaction to her awful mistake. The metaphors of cleaning and bundling are suitable to Janice, fitting her character voice; the image of a secret being “a dark place” builds the suspense. Ironically, Janice’s own quiet voice, one that Euan would love to hear, betrays her. Unable to take back the truth she utters here, Janice prepares to share her story in support of the theme of Storytelling as a Means of Connection.

“That’s when the girl saw the weights that the man used to keep him strong; they were behind her on the landing.”

Situational irony exists in the events of Ray’s death; Janice, only a young girl at the time, managed to kill this abuser with the very weights he used to make himself strong. This line also exemplifies the perspective in which Janice tells her story’s ending to Mrs. B; to gain some emotional distance, she switches from first person to third person limited and refers to herself as only “the girl.”

“I don’t think guilt asks permission to come in. I don’t think it knocks and waits politely on the mat.”

Janice shows her understated dry humor with this metaphor, which she uses to describe how and why the guilt over her mother’s fate rests so completely within her. At the same time, she uses the statement to reject Mrs. B’s insistence that she willingly accepts guilt. They do not come to a reckoning on their disagreement over Janice’s guilt until Mrs. B tells Euan Janice’s story, compelling her to choose between a guilty and lonely future or a fulfilling, happier one.

“Do not ever, ever presume to touch me again.”

Janice feels her inner lioness rear its head when Tiberius pompously grips her arm to get her to answer his inquiry about the brandy he confiscated from his mother. The revelation of her personal history and crime to Mrs. B has boosted her courage, as seen here in her newfound ability to talk back to this boss she has always tried to avoid. However, it also leaves her gutted emotionally and floundering for direction and objective, also seen here—as her impulsive words get her fired and consequently cut off from her beloved Decius, exemplifying The Complexities of Self-Worth.

“Jarndyce versus Jarndyce.”

This allusion to Bleak House by Charles Dickens is briefly mentioned early in the novel as a plant for Mrs. B’s reference here in the closing pages. In the legal case in Bleak House, the money gained in a suit is spent on the lawyers’ fees paid to win the case. Mrs. B alludes to this situational irony as she explains that Mycroft’s fees will undercut—significantly—the profit that Tiberius expects to make on the sale of Mrs. B’s house to the college.