How to Be Both

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death, gender discrimination, and graphic violence. 

“Consider this moral conundrum for a moment. […] Imagine it. You’re an artist.”

The novel opens with George’s mother, Carol Martineau, proposing a “moral conundrum” to her daughter based on Francesco del Cossa’s life. Versions of this quote are repeated in varying iterations throughout the first part of the novel, showing the lingering impact of Carol’s words to George after her death and the connection that Francesco del Cossa’s art has created between George, Carol, and Francescho the character. The use of imperatives in this quote shows the forcefulness of Carol’s personality, while the hypothetical nature of the proposed exercise in empathy blurs the line between reality and fantasy, introducing the theme of Ambiguity as an Inescapable Feature of Life.

 “George’s room, given time, enough bad weather and the right inattention, will open to the sky, to all this rain, the amount of which people on TV keep calling biblical. […] Her room will be stained with the grey grease and dregs of the dirt the rain has absorbed and carries, the dirt the air absorbs every day just from the fact of life on earth. Everything will rot.

She will have the pleasure of watching it happen. The floorboards will curl up at their ends, bend, split open at the nailed places and pull loose from their glue.”

The leak in the roof of George’s bedroom is a symbolic manifestation of her grief. The detailed, hyperbolic description of the physical consequences of the leak reflect the strength and tumultuousness of George’s emotions, while the use of visceral negative vocabulary such as “rot” and “dirt” emphasizes her current negative state of mind. That George intends to take “pleasure” in the destruction hints at her desire to escape the everyday burden of bereavement and embrace a self-destructive sorrow.