Friday discussion summary

Yet another fascinating discussion. Here are some of the brilliant points that you all brought up (under Robert and Yu's capable guidance):
- what/who is responsible for the mysterious voice? Could it be the elder (dead) Wieland's spirit protecting/guiding his daughter? Could it be some other supernatural being?

- analogy between God creating Eden for Adam and Eve and Wieland the elder creating Mettingen for Theodore and Clara

Are we and/or the characters in the novel being too hasty in ruling out supernatural explanations?
People often hear these disembodied voices but they don't SEE anything---that is, they're trusting one sense without the support or confirmation of other senses.

Pleyel transforms, perhaps even more than Clara, from a skeptic who trusts his senses (p. 28, p. 85-86) to a man blinded by rage and overcome by passion (p. 152). As Roman pointed out, Pleyel may also have been a passionate creature in Germany with his ladyfriend; we don't know whether he was rational then because that's outside of Clara's purview.

The novel dwells on the psychological paradox of knowing our own mind. Because our minds have access to data from our senses (especially hearing, in this novel) and memories of our experience, we think we know ourselves very well, much better than we know the minds of others (for whom we lack sensory and experiential data). This novel points out the fallacy in believing that our own minds are transparent to ourselves. In fact, we are often confused or mistaken about our motives, our feelings, our opinions, etc.

When Clara believes that someone is listening to her (when she becomes aware that she has a guardian), she feels a greater level of accountability, because she feels she is always being watched and judged. This perhaps makes her more self-aware and self-critical.

How important is Clara's gender? Is she a typical late-18th-century woman? Is she a strong female character?
- she flip flops and seems indecisive at times, but Pleyel is equally so

Both Clara and Pleyel have also engaged in a lot of game-playing and flirting with others to make their primary love interest jealous. Is the novel warning us about the dangers of not being open, honest, and direct about one's emotions?

Have Clara and T. Wieland (younger) inherited their father's psychological traits? Are psychological traits hereditary?
Or does the trauma of seeing their father's mysterious and shocking death perhaps account for their psychological makeup instead: they're suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome, or they are living in terror of repeating their father's death, which makes them more like their father, especially right before he died.