Mahler vs. Anna

[Wolfchild]

I know that in general this is a novel about love and how love leads us to deal with death - or perhaps vice versa. It seems clear to me the JAL was drawing a contrast between the love that Anna had for Elias and the love that Mahler had for him. I'm just having trouble making that contrast become clear in my mind.

Mahler's love seems to based in part upon guilt at his being an absentee father to Anna. Perhaps that is too harsh a characterization; he also did love Elias as a grandfather would love a grandchild. However, if each major character is to represent some "flavor" of love, then what things are particular to Mahler's "flavor"? For Mahler I would say that guilt is a component. This certainly seems to be Anna's view of him. So what, then, is Anna's "flavor"? This is the part that I am having trouble getting my mind around.

I suspect that the key to understanding what JAL is trying to tell us about Anna's love for Elias lies in the epiphany that she has while she is lying in the moss. Before that scene, Anna seems to have had trouble accepting the fact of Elias' death, that he was gone. Her belief that there was no afterlife blocked her from accepting his passing - she couldn't accept that Elias no longer existed. Thus she insisted that he not be creamated. Then once Elias was reliving, even though she said, "That is not Elias," she joined Mahler in caring for him and hiding him.

But what happened to her in the moss? Did she come to accept his passing? His return? That there was some sort of existence beyond death? And what exactly was JAL trying to illustrate about Anna's "flavor" of love with this?


I have only read through the novel twice, so perhaps I am misremember certain things. Or perhaps I just have a totally incorrect impression of the entire story and I am looking for things that are not there. It wouldn't be the first time.

[Jiang_Shi]

There was that scene where Mahler becomes angry at Elias and Anna tells him that he's not allowed to be angry, that Elias is dead and that's the reason why he acts the way he does. I think maybe her epiphany probably was that, it's Elias but as an undead. Also I think guilt was part of both their motivation, Mahler for not being there for Anna and Anna for allowing her son to die. So a lot of parental responsibility...

Seems both begin their task to hide and care for him as a form of redemption but becomes self forgiveness when they find that Elias isn't the one who needs the apology. (Kind of that interesting parallel of the undead being a manifestation of people and their inability to let things go and accept that change has happened.) But I suppose Anna's love is to preserve what's left of her child while Mahler sees it as a chance to fix Elias to be what he was?

[Wolfchild]

I dunno. I don't see Mahler as much redemption. He was more or less the same at his end in the novel as he was at the beginning. Over the course of the story, he didn't seem to change much at all. Of the two, Anna was the character who evolved. But why was Anna different? Why was it that she could hear Elias' thoughts and Mahler couldn't? For that matter, why was it that she could hear Mahler's thoughts but Mahler could not hear hers? Why this difference between them? What was JAL trying to illustrate with this difference? JAL seems too meticulous in constructing his characters to have this difference be there just to make a good story.

[Jiang_Shi]

I think you're right that Anna's ability to hear those thoughts was done on purpose. Though she does seem like the only one to accept the idea that the undead could not be the same people they were before. Maybe people have to be really listening to hear them talk, but not in the conventional way. The fact that Mahler couldn't hear any of it makes me wonder if he was the one that was different.

[EEA]

Well I think that both start to feel guilty for Elias death and the way both of them treated him when he was alive. Then as the story continues Anna becomes the one that knows what to do while Mahler is left out since know she is the only one that can hear Elias thoughts. Though I am still confused about why Anna is the only one who can hear Mahler's and he cannot.

[a_contemplative_life]

I need to re-read the book, but as I recall Anna is Elias' mother an Mahler is his grandfather. A deep, maternal connection alone could explain why she was able to hear him.

[Wolfchild]

In f act, I believe that Anna was the only character in the entire story who could hear the thoughts of any reliving. So the question is not only what makes Anna different from Mahler, but what makes Anna different from every other character in the story?