The Hypnotist's Love Story

The quote regarding hypnosis (p 1) is an excellent introduction to the topic. Have you ever been in a trance? How did it feel, in retrospect? What did you remember of it? Were you alarmed or excited by the fact that you were able to enter such a different, rather dream‐like zone, whilst being awake? The ethics of therapy (p 175) is another topic in the novel. Ellen crosses a line in treating Patrick. Discuss.

‘Rejection by a lover or even only a potential lover was so tough on the Inner Child. Fears of abandonment, memories of past hurts, feelings of inferiority and self‐loathing all rose to the surface in an unstoppable torrent of feeling.’ (p 6) When Saskia reflects on her mother’s death (pp 159–60) we realise how devastating Patrick’s abandonment was only four weeks later. As adults, do we burden our relationships by viewing them through the prism of this childhood fear of abandonment?

‘It sometimes seemed so peculiar and wrong to her that you could be that intimate with someone, to go to sleep with them and wake up with them, to do really quite extraordinarily personal things together on a regular basis, and then, suddenly, you don’t even know their telephone number, or where they’re living, or working, or what they did today or last week or last year ... That’s why break‐ ups felt like your skin was being torn from your body. It was actually strange that more people weren’t like Saskia, instead of being so well‐behaved and dignified about it.’ (p 24) Break‐ups are painful because love turns to hate or indifference so easily. Discuss.

‘Each time she clicked on to the website she felt like she was doing something vaguely unseemly. Unseemly for her. That was the crux of it. She didn’t think there was anything unseemly about anyone else doing internet dating. Oh, no, it was fine for the unwashed masses! But Ellen helped people with their personal lives for a living.’ (p 25) Is internet dating really any different to the random way in which we meet and choose life partners?

Ch 4 opens with a legal definition of stalking. Have you had any such experience? ‘ “You mean she’s making women look bad?” said Ellen. “It’s normally men who do the stalking. It’s good. She’s showing women can stalk just as effectively as men.” ’ (p 42) Discuss the implication of Ellen’s statement. Julia puts a ‘human’ face on stalking when she confesses to having rung her teenage boyfriend’s new lover a number of times: ‘I felt as if I didn’t exist anymore. Ringing her up somehow made me exist. It was like an addiction.’ (p 44) Does this justify her actions? And has cyber stalking added a new complexity to this topic?

‘There was no problem practising mindfulness when you were at the start of a relationship. It happened automatically. All that sex. All those chemicals zipping through your body. And all that appreciation.’ (p 40) Is love a form of trance? And what happens when we wake up from it?

‘This was the problem with being friends with someone who knew you when you were a teenager. They never quite take you seriously because they always see you as your stupid teenage self.’ (p 46) Julia and Ellen’s relationship (Ch 4) dates from being schoolgirls together. Discuss the differences between teenage friendships and those forged in our more mature years.

‘It was true that she wasn’t unhappy about Patrick being a widower. She quite liked the fact that it made it more complicated.’ (p 46) Is Ellen’s admission typical of women? Or is her need to deal with complications driven by her professional interests? ‘Every time she was with Patrick, part of her was imagining how Saskia would react if she was there, watching. It was as if she were performing in her own reality TV show with an audience of just one.’ (p 102) Is Ellen’s interest in Saskia unusual? Or would any woman have found this stalker fascinating? 7

Patrick’s sudden announcement that Jack is coming to dinner (pp 48–9) throws Ellen amusingly into a panic. Is this reaction typical of a woman in such a situation?

Saskia became a surrogate mother to Jack and was in the role ‘Long enough for him to call for me whenever he had a bad dream. Me. Not Daddy. He always called for me.’ (p 97) Is there a hint that perhaps Patrick was jealous of Saskia, although he never admits to that? ‘When you’re responsible for a child, when your days are filled with the tiny details that make up a child’s life – his lunch box, his school bag, his shoes, his favourite T‐shirt, his friends, his friends’ mothers, his TV shows, his temper tantrums – and then you’re told that you are no longer responsible, that you are no longer wanted, that your services are no longer required, that you have been made redundant, like an employee walked to the door by security, it is difficult. It is quite profoundly difficult.’ (p 262) Saskia was virtually made redundant as a mother; this must happen often; discuss how you would feel in this circumstance.

‘I never understood alcoholics or gambling addicts before. Just stop it, I always thought, when I heard about somebody wrecking their life because of a stupid addiction. But now I get it. It’s like telling someone to stop breathing.’ (p 98) Discuss addictions.

‘Dying was final and mysterious and gave you the last word forever.’ (p 113) Discuss.

‘That was the problem. Much too soon. He never grieved. Men are terrible grievers. Whenever they feel anything bad they just try and stomp it down.’ (p 120) Discuss.

‘If I didn’t hate him so intensely maybe I would have been able to stop loving him.’ (p 263) ‘The only way for me to not be crazy would be to disappear from his life. Like a proper ex‐girlfriend is expected to do. To discreetly vanish into the past. And that’s what drives me . . . crazy.’ (p 90) ‘But what life? Patrick and Ellen are my life. Without them, there’s just a job and a flat and a car that needs a new automatic transmission and that’s about it.’(p 201) Discuss Saskia’s obsession, with reference to these three quotes.

‘They all sounded ever so slightly American, and there was an amused casualness about the way they saw the world, as if nothing was beyond them. Maybe it was technology. It put power in their fingertips.’(p 143) Is this an apt description of Gen Y?

‘ “Hindsight,” said her father. “It’s always just a fraction too late.” ’ (p 429) Discuss.

‘ “Children think they’re the centre of the universe,” said Ellen. “That’s why they blame themselves.” ’ (p 403) When Patrick realises that Jack had thought he was responsible for Saskia leaving, he realises that the breakup was his as well. Do adults tend to focus on their own feelings and underestimate those of children?

Ellen and Patrick seem to have discovered equilibrium in their relationship at the end of the novel, and Saskia has made new friends and put her grief behind her. What is the key to their contentment, and is it likely to last?