THIS is what happens when you become a ghost: At first, you are little more than vapour. You rise and fall with temperature, which is all you want to do anyway because you tire easily. Over the months, your particles coalesce.
Then one day, you look down and you see your feet. The rest of you follows until you are returned to the form of the body you died in. You assume you have a face but you will never see it again because you have no reflection. And this will be more disturbing than you know.
Despite the dreadful title and all the ghost story elements – single sisters move into a haunted flat next to London’s Highgate Cemetery – Her Fearful Symmetry is more like a beach holiday; a warm, easy-paced getaway from reality.
Just before reaching adulthood, Julia and Valentina find they have inherited a flat from aunt Elsbeth, whom they had never met. Like the girls, their mother and their aunt had been identical twins. Julia and Valentina are so much a part of each others’ lives they cannot imagine what caused their mother to break ties with her own twin sister, nor why one of Elsbeth’s conditions on their inheritance is that their mother never set foot in the flat. Their mother refuses to discuss it and they can hardly ask their dead aunt for an explanation. Or can they? When they turn 21, the twins leave America and move into the flat – which Elsbeth has not quite vacated, it seems.
Audrey Niffenegger is the best-selling author of The Time Traveller’s Wife, which was also a movie recently released in local cinemas. Part of the charm of Niffenegger’s stories is that she does not delve into technicalities. Ghosts, like time travel, are treated as a given, something that is what it is and so is accepted by those who know. For instance, unlike your typical superhero who keeps his or her powers secret, The Time Traveller’s Wife’s Henry DeTamble’s friends and family know and are understanding of the genetic disorder that can cause Henry to disappear at any moment, leaving only a pile of crumpled clothes where he stood. His time travelling is treated as little more than a disability; inconvenient, but something Henry and those around him have adapted to.
Likewise in Her Fearful Symmetry, Niffenegger writes about the paranormal as if it were normal. Her description of becoming a ghost is so natural and confident that the reader takes it as fact. If anything it is the twins who are more unsettling than the ghost – pale, waif-like creatures who dress identically and walk around arm-in-arm.
Julia and Valentina are mirror twins, which means that they are identical not side by side but face to face. If one has a birthmark on her left shoulder, the other has it on her right.
Julia believes they also share the same interests and dreams. That the one difference between them is that Valentina is weaker and needs her sister’s protection. This deafens her to Valentina’s true wish for some individualism, to wear her own clothes and make her own decisions. And Julia is unaware of her resentment.
There is something of the eccentric in all of Niffenegger’s characters. Like the two tenants that the twins share their inherited property with: Robert is Elsbeth’s much younger ex-lover who would be quite ordinary if he wasn’t half mad with grief. And if he didn’t like sneaking into the cemetery in the middle of the night.
The other tenant is Martin, who would be pointless to the story if he were not so interesting. His wife leaves him shortly after Elsbeth’s funeral because Martin is obsessive compulsive and she could no longer tolerate windows taped over to keep out the light, having to enter rooms right foot first, or belongings worn down from being scrubbed too much.
Martin’s job is creating crossword puzzles. He is a nice guy, but his illness prevents him from leaving his flat, which makes him as much a prisoner within his walls as any ghost. Like Elsbeth, he depends on a tiny group of friends visiting him.
As Valentina draws further away from Julia, Julia’s need to care for the wounded turns her attention to Martin and they too become friends.
With time, Elsbeth gains enough strength to move light objects and unexpectedly finds one person, and only one, who can see her. Though confined to the flat, Elsbeth’s inquiring mind keeps her experimenting with her new form. She finds that though there are many things she cannot do as a ghost, there are things she can do now that she could not as a human.
And one of those things is quite macabre – a request for her to use her ghostly powers suddenly turns the book quite chilling. And there’s a book-dropping surprise at the end worthy of Roald Dahl himself.
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