The Seven Sisters by Margaret Drabble

ISBN:9780156028752

About the book:
When circumstances compel her to start over late in her life, Candida
Wilton moves from a beautiful Georgian house in lovely Suffolk to a
two-room, walk-up flat in a run-down building in central Londonand
begins to pour her soul into a diary. Candida is not exactly destitute. So,
is the move perversity, she wonders, a survival test, or is she punishing
herself? How will she adjust to this shabby, menacing, but curiously
appealing city? What can happen, at her age, to change her life?
In a voice that is pitch-perfect, Candida describes her health club, her
social circle, and her attempts at risk-taking in her new life. She begins
friendships of sorts with other women-widowed, divorced, never married,
women straddled between generations. And then there is a surprise
pension-fund windfall . . .
A beautifully rendered story, this is Margaret Drabble at her novelistic best.
About the author:
Margaret Drabble was born in Sheffield, England, in 1939 and read English at Cambridge
University. She is the author of many novels and the editor of The Oxford Companion to English
Literature. She lives in London.

Discussion Questions:
Q. In what ways has Candida been betrayed, and in what ways might she have contributed to
those betrayals or have betrayed others? What circumstances, reasons, and consequences are
associated with each betrayal in Candidas story? What instances of forgiveness and
reconciliation are there?
Q. What does Candida mean when she says, referring early on to her life in gloomy London, "in
this trap is my freedom"? What images and circumstances of entrapment and imprisonment are
presented in The Seven Sisters, and what images and circumstances of freedom? To what degree
is freedom acquired?
Q. Candida favors solitaire with real cards over computer solitaire because the former lets "you
lift a card to see what might have been." Computer solitaire "wont let you follow an alternative,
unchosen route, even out of curiosity." How important are unchosen routes? What alternative,
unchosen routes does Candida recognize in recounting her past and confronting her present?
Q. Candida remarks of her arrival in her London flat, "As a nun enters a convent in search of her
god, so I entered my solitude." With which specific women does she compare herself, and what
other references to "her god" occur? How might we interpret the final sentences of "Italian
Journey"? "Who is that waiting on the far shore? Is it her lover or her God?" What does Candida
reveal about herself with these comparisons and references?
Q. Speaking of the flaw in her windowpane, Candida comments, "The flaw in the glass is always
there." What flaws or distortions in seeing things occur in the novel? In what ways is Candidas
vision-actual and metaphorical-flawed, limited, or distorted? What are the results, negative and
positive, of distorted vision?
Q. What is the significance of Virgils Aeneid to Candida and her sense of herself and to the
action and movement of the novel? In what ways do the events of Candidas life parallel the
adventures of Aeneas, from exile from his homeland, through a descent into the Underworld, to
the establishment of a new life in Italy? To what extent is Candida correct in concluding, "My
journey, like that of Aeneas before me, was foreordained"?
Q. What does Candida mean when she refers to "my other self," as opposed to "my former self"?
What or who prompts the emergence of this other self? What might be the relationship between
ones circumstances and the self that one recognizes as ones own and presents to the world?
What might be the significance of "the ghost self" that Candida envisions in connection with the
ghost orchid?
Q. Drabble writes of the "shapes and patterns" of the Mediterranean, in relation to the "cold and
bitter children of the cold north," as "the very shapes and patterns that are carved upon the
antique heart, and you know them as your birthright." What comparisons and contrasts does she
establish between the worlds of the North (Britain and Finland) and the South (Africa and Italy).
In what way are the shapes and patterns of the Mediterranean Candidas birthright? What does
she learn regarding the energies, dangers, and rewards of life in the two worlds?
Q. How did you react to the shift from the first person of "Diary" to the third person of "Italian
Journey"? What was your further reaction when you learned that Candida wrote both parts, and,
later, that she also wrote "Ellens Version"? Why does Drabble construct her novel, alternating
between narrative voices, in such a way as to call into question, with each new section, the
accuracy and reliability of what has gone before?
Q. Of the seven Virgilians, Drabble writes, "These women keep faith with the past, they keep
faith with myth and history." In what ways do the seven sisters keep that faith? To what extent
do the past, myth, and history repay their faith? How important is it to candidly weigh the
relation of the past personal, cultural, and historical-to the present? How successful is Candida in
this regard?
Q. "Submit, whispers the wizened Sibyl . . . Be still . . . Be still. Submit. You can climb no
higher. This is the last height. Submit." How might we interpret these whisperings? How might
we interpret the statement and question that follow? "But it is not the last height. And she cannot
submit"? Where do the Sibyls whispers originate?
Q. In addition to the Seven Sisters area of London and the seven travelers in Tunis and Italy, to
whom and what might the title phrase refer? What actual implied or expressed references occur
in the novel? How might the most significant of these references be related to Candida and her
storys primary themes?
Q. What does Candida mean when she writes, at nearly the end of her account, "This is simply
the place where I wait"? How do you further interpret her closing statements? "I am filled with
expectation. What is it that is calling me?" and "Stretch forth your hand, I say, stretch forth your
hand."