Hi guys,
Just finished Only a Kiss, from Mary Balogh, Book 6 in the Survivor's club series. This was a particularly enjoyable story, probably my second favorite from the series so far. It follows Imogen and Percy, who has now inherited the title that would’ve been her ex husband’s should he have not died in the peninsula.
I’ve enjoyed all of Mary Balogh’s books, but I particularly enjoy the ones with older couples, there’s a frankness of discourse and a certain maturity that makes for a very nice flow of conversation, the challenges are different and both Percy and Imogen being older, makes this one of those stories.
There are several interesting ideas that I wanted to share with you guys, I will leave out the big reveal out, even though some of you might've read it already, but for those who haven't I do not wish to take that moment away from you. So, on to the spoiler (ish) section.
Thanks for reading! Now, onto Only beloved.
There's a few more observations that I've made about the series as a whole, but I will wait to share them until after I've finished the series.
Just finished Only a Kiss, from Mary Balogh, Book 6 in the Survivor's club series. This was a particularly enjoyable story, probably my second favorite from the series so far. It follows Imogen and Percy, who has now inherited the title that would’ve been her ex husband’s should he have not died in the peninsula.
I’ve enjoyed all of Mary Balogh’s books, but I particularly enjoy the ones with older couples, there’s a frankness of discourse and a certain maturity that makes for a very nice flow of conversation, the challenges are different and both Percy and Imogen being older, makes this one of those stories.
There are several interesting ideas that I wanted to share with you guys, I will leave out the big reveal out, even though some of you might've read it already, but for those who haven't I do not wish to take that moment away from you. So, on to the spoiler (ish) section.
He moves in to his home, in which she’s staying and the story progresses from there, he propositions her for an affair, she decides to take a vacation from her life of solitude and accepts, as a result of their conversations, mostly pushed forward by her frankness and his bold curiosity, they get to know each other and fall in love.
She runs away, afraid of living and thinking herself unworthy of life, and he goes after her, asked her for a chance in a very powerful scene, very powerful! And they marry.
I will try not to spoil the big reveal, indeed I’ll do my best as I feel everyone should read it on their own, but it matters to their story.
Throughout the series, Imogen is always shown as the most put together of the survivors, the most disciplined, the most civil but this was a facade.
Percy calls her a marble lady, wearing a mask of marble. Though she retorts with the observation that Percy, instead, wears a mask of charm. And it occurs to me that this is a perfect description of what G would call our personality, our interface with the social world.
The structure we build to interact with it, our facade, created sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously as a way to respond to the happenings of our lives, or our previous choices.
This is a central theme in the story, at one point they’re talking about innocence, and whether it’s possible to regain it, Imogen thinks not, Percy disagrees. Because of her experiences she thinks that such events have shaped her unavoidably into who she chose to become.
There’s a conversation about this very topic, upon realizing what a jovial bored man he had been, always seeking thrill and immaturely simply existing. He asks her if it was possible to change, she responds that it is, though it sometimes takes a great calamity, as it happened to her.
This is interesting, for she’s not wrong, a great calamity brought her life from one point to another, charged her priorities and her outlook as well as her self perception, so this is true... calamity can and indeed changes us, but it could also crystallize in us the wrong change, the wrong personality and the wrong habits. So this is one of those points in which we sometimes identify with our defensive programs, born out of trauma, and become them. But it’s not the only way to achieve change.
Change can also be achieved through inspiration and allowing the light of others to shine upon us, something he says to her at the end. When she’s telling him that she’s full of darkness and would drain his light out of him, and he responds that he would fill her with it, light that is (and this is really beautiful) so that he may find his way to her in the dark, as she’d be glowing.
That’s a beautiful thought, it could sound like you're saving someone, and maybe, but also if that someone is willing to accept the light that you could offer them, then it does end up residing on them and shining back out to the world. I think that I read somewhere that there are a few ways to achieve immortality, and one of them is by living in the people that survive you by what you gave them in terms of knowledge, which is light, which is love. So in a way, what we do, and teach others, can shine on them as they live and pass it on to others.
Specially in the context of the scene, Imogen, after running away, refuses to see Percy, but Vincent, the blind survivor, comes to her and tells her that her wishes will be respected, if she refuses to see him. But that she should realize the following
We all have the right to make ourselves miserable, but that we’re not all alone and do not have the right to make someone else miserable. We’re all in this life together for better or worse (paraphrasing)
The impact of our darkness, chosen or unconscious, or that one of our light, on someone else is something we ought to attempt to be responsible for, or at least recognize. What we do, and how we do it, matters whether we realize it or not.
And that is external consideration. And with a loved one, friends, fellow members or partners, it’s an even larger effect.
There’s another aspect that I wanted to speak of and that is guilt, Imogen chose to do something that marked her for life (I won’t spoil it) and that had been her impetus for stopping to live and love. She had chosen the rest of her life to be her penitence for her actions.
And guilt can and more than likely is a very covert ego thing, it is even mentioned in this story, we wear our wounds ostentatiously in order to put ourselves above others. I’ve seen this at work, and in society in general, the whole victim mentality is precisely this. Find a deeper wound to increase your specialness. This has been discussed at length elsewhere.
But, they also explore something interesting about guilt, it’s also built upon the stories we tell ourselves, about what happened and about ourselves.
Without Percy’s curiosity, Imogen wouldn’t have been pushed to complete her story about herself to him and her, she wouldn’t have been able to escape the constant narrative she had created. We all need to add another point of view to the stories we tell ourselves about us, those that hold our guilt firmly in place. We need complete stories indeed, otherwise we shall be prisoners of the bits of it we tell ourselves.
Without this, a mistake becomes a monstrous act and defines us going forward, instead of simply being a mistake, an act of innocence, ignorance or lack of vision.
It made me ask myself a few questions: What stories do we tell to/about ourselves? and how do we narrate our lives to ourselves? What do we leave out? What do we put special focus on? How are those stories, and the way we’re telling them, defining and holding, something like guilt, shame or resentment in place? Or greatness and vanity?
And how are all those stories and their mode of speech, the mask of marble or charm that we use to either make ourselves or someone else miserable, all the while feeling completely grand about our wounds?
Does that make sense? We narrate events and choices in a way that’ll make us, inForm us, in a specific way, and thay way we construct us to ourselves and others, sometimes justifies something about ourselves we wish to hold on to.
But if one curiously pokes through these stories, with the goal of truth, the whole stable structure can fall apart and out of that calamity, change is possible.
This is beautifully depicted in this story through Percy, he’s a very likable guy, he’s funny, curious, witty and inventive. His self dialogue is one of the funniest and most engaging I’ve read in a long time, I really liked him. And one spends quite a bit of time with him and his thoughts, it's great.
As a tiny example, there's this one part of the book where he's nagging about things and he goes "I'd bet half my fortune that this would happen.... I'd bet half my fortune that this is so.... I'd bet half my fortune that... wait, that's three halves... no matter.. that this is so"
But the way it’s depicted it’s through the background of their love affair (which mirror's their dynamic), this book is also a detective story of sorts. Up until the point that Percy showed up and started to question the stability of his property, he didn’t discover a smuggling business that extended far away enough, even to cause Imogen's late husbands death, it wasn’t until his curiosity started poking, with the goal of protecting her, and finding the truth, that the stability that seemed unbreakable and better left alone (even though It was causing pain), wasn’t brought down.
And it occurred to me that this is a good idea to meditate upon, sometimes it’s all it takes to break down the structures we create about ourselves. A bit of healthy curiosity with the goal of truth, without taking ourselves so seriously, might be an easy way to navigate some of these things that we’ve had trouble with.
We can't change something that has troubled us without questioning it, and without changing our mindset about it. We can't ignore things just because we've reached a point of contentment and complacency with aspects of ourselves.
As a last thought, to summarize, we all tell ourselves stories about ourselves, but it sometimes helps to see ourselves through someone else's eyes, so that we may take on their light and thus, have complete stories. Sometimes the stories we hold on to and refuse to question, are the ones hurting us or someone else.
A curious, and funny approach to questioning these stories might be the easiest way to get there, as we wouldn't be taking ourselves too seriously.
And we all need complete stories, because how we remember ourselves might not be the truth at all, and sometimes writing these stories can be painful and shameful, but it can also be quite liberating and serene.
She runs away, afraid of living and thinking herself unworthy of life, and he goes after her, asked her for a chance in a very powerful scene, very powerful! And they marry.
I will try not to spoil the big reveal, indeed I’ll do my best as I feel everyone should read it on their own, but it matters to their story.
Throughout the series, Imogen is always shown as the most put together of the survivors, the most disciplined, the most civil but this was a facade.
Percy calls her a marble lady, wearing a mask of marble. Though she retorts with the observation that Percy, instead, wears a mask of charm. And it occurs to me that this is a perfect description of what G would call our personality, our interface with the social world.
The structure we build to interact with it, our facade, created sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously as a way to respond to the happenings of our lives, or our previous choices.
This is a central theme in the story, at one point they’re talking about innocence, and whether it’s possible to regain it, Imogen thinks not, Percy disagrees. Because of her experiences she thinks that such events have shaped her unavoidably into who she chose to become.
There’s a conversation about this very topic, upon realizing what a jovial bored man he had been, always seeking thrill and immaturely simply existing. He asks her if it was possible to change, she responds that it is, though it sometimes takes a great calamity, as it happened to her.
This is interesting, for she’s not wrong, a great calamity brought her life from one point to another, charged her priorities and her outlook as well as her self perception, so this is true... calamity can and indeed changes us, but it could also crystallize in us the wrong change, the wrong personality and the wrong habits. So this is one of those points in which we sometimes identify with our defensive programs, born out of trauma, and become them. But it’s not the only way to achieve change.
Change can also be achieved through inspiration and allowing the light of others to shine upon us, something he says to her at the end. When she’s telling him that she’s full of darkness and would drain his light out of him, and he responds that he would fill her with it, light that is (and this is really beautiful) so that he may find his way to her in the dark, as she’d be glowing.
That’s a beautiful thought, it could sound like you're saving someone, and maybe, but also if that someone is willing to accept the light that you could offer them, then it does end up residing on them and shining back out to the world. I think that I read somewhere that there are a few ways to achieve immortality, and one of them is by living in the people that survive you by what you gave them in terms of knowledge, which is light, which is love. So in a way, what we do, and teach others, can shine on them as they live and pass it on to others.
Specially in the context of the scene, Imogen, after running away, refuses to see Percy, but Vincent, the blind survivor, comes to her and tells her that her wishes will be respected, if she refuses to see him. But that she should realize the following
We all have the right to make ourselves miserable, but that we’re not all alone and do not have the right to make someone else miserable. We’re all in this life together for better or worse (paraphrasing)
The impact of our darkness, chosen or unconscious, or that one of our light, on someone else is something we ought to attempt to be responsible for, or at least recognize. What we do, and how we do it, matters whether we realize it or not.
And that is external consideration. And with a loved one, friends, fellow members or partners, it’s an even larger effect.
There’s another aspect that I wanted to speak of and that is guilt, Imogen chose to do something that marked her for life (I won’t spoil it) and that had been her impetus for stopping to live and love. She had chosen the rest of her life to be her penitence for her actions.
And guilt can and more than likely is a very covert ego thing, it is even mentioned in this story, we wear our wounds ostentatiously in order to put ourselves above others. I’ve seen this at work, and in society in general, the whole victim mentality is precisely this. Find a deeper wound to increase your specialness. This has been discussed at length elsewhere.
But, they also explore something interesting about guilt, it’s also built upon the stories we tell ourselves, about what happened and about ourselves.
Without Percy’s curiosity, Imogen wouldn’t have been pushed to complete her story about herself to him and her, she wouldn’t have been able to escape the constant narrative she had created. We all need to add another point of view to the stories we tell ourselves about us, those that hold our guilt firmly in place. We need complete stories indeed, otherwise we shall be prisoners of the bits of it we tell ourselves.
Without this, a mistake becomes a monstrous act and defines us going forward, instead of simply being a mistake, an act of innocence, ignorance or lack of vision.
It made me ask myself a few questions: What stories do we tell to/about ourselves? and how do we narrate our lives to ourselves? What do we leave out? What do we put special focus on? How are those stories, and the way we’re telling them, defining and holding, something like guilt, shame or resentment in place? Or greatness and vanity?
And how are all those stories and their mode of speech, the mask of marble or charm that we use to either make ourselves or someone else miserable, all the while feeling completely grand about our wounds?
Does that make sense? We narrate events and choices in a way that’ll make us, inForm us, in a specific way, and thay way we construct us to ourselves and others, sometimes justifies something about ourselves we wish to hold on to.
But if one curiously pokes through these stories, with the goal of truth, the whole stable structure can fall apart and out of that calamity, change is possible.
This is beautifully depicted in this story through Percy, he’s a very likable guy, he’s funny, curious, witty and inventive. His self dialogue is one of the funniest and most engaging I’ve read in a long time, I really liked him. And one spends quite a bit of time with him and his thoughts, it's great.
As a tiny example, there's this one part of the book where he's nagging about things and he goes "I'd bet half my fortune that this would happen.... I'd bet half my fortune that this is so.... I'd bet half my fortune that... wait, that's three halves... no matter.. that this is so"
But the way it’s depicted it’s through the background of their love affair (which mirror's their dynamic), this book is also a detective story of sorts. Up until the point that Percy showed up and started to question the stability of his property, he didn’t discover a smuggling business that extended far away enough, even to cause Imogen's late husbands death, it wasn’t until his curiosity started poking, with the goal of protecting her, and finding the truth, that the stability that seemed unbreakable and better left alone (even though It was causing pain), wasn’t brought down.
And it occurred to me that this is a good idea to meditate upon, sometimes it’s all it takes to break down the structures we create about ourselves. A bit of healthy curiosity with the goal of truth, without taking ourselves so seriously, might be an easy way to navigate some of these things that we’ve had trouble with.
We can't change something that has troubled us without questioning it, and without changing our mindset about it. We can't ignore things just because we've reached a point of contentment and complacency with aspects of ourselves.
As a last thought, to summarize, we all tell ourselves stories about ourselves, but it sometimes helps to see ourselves through someone else's eyes, so that we may take on their light and thus, have complete stories. Sometimes the stories we hold on to and refuse to question, are the ones hurting us or someone else.
A curious, and funny approach to questioning these stories might be the easiest way to get there, as we wouldn't be taking ourselves too seriously.
And we all need complete stories, because how we remember ourselves might not be the truth at all, and sometimes writing these stories can be painful and shameful, but it can also be quite liberating and serene.
Thanks for reading! Now, onto Only beloved.
There's a few more observations that I've made about the series as a whole, but I will wait to share them until after I've finished the series.
