This book upset me for many different reasons. For one, a lot of the characters seem either perfect or imperfect. For example, in the beginning of the book, Kitty seems like a normal, likable character. However, by about halfway through her and Jenny's talk with Mrs Grey, Chris' past lover, a conceited, more vicious part of her comes to light and we start to take pity on Mrs Grey because of this. Mrs Grey is on the other side of this spectrum, though, for even in the end of the book when she could try to keep Chris for herself, she does not. Mrs Grey is the perfect character who could do no wrong and Kitty is the evil wife who is separated from her husband and everything she loves. Deciding whose side to be on seems easy but for me, I pitied the wife more personally. Mrs Grey messed up and lost him where Kitty almost lost him because she did not try harder to find him. This is the only actual flaw that I see in her character. I would not be able to imagine letting my husband who I had already had a child with anywhere near another woman with the intentions that Mrs Grey had or might have had, even considering the circumstances. I would have at least tried to fix him myself first.
Another thing about this book that confuses me is why didn't anyone really try to just tell him everything in his life that had happened since his last memory? Yes, Mrs Grey would not have wanted to but it was selfish to anything else. She was married to someone else; did she think that if his memory did not return, she and Chris would be able to run away and be happy together? If she did, this would have been the worst thought that anyone could have had, especially for someone with a character as perfect as hers was portrayed as being.
I agree with you that the personalities are hardly agreeable. Jenny herself had moments that disgusted me. But I also think that in the end, Jenny posits that each of the characters hold "deep internal" qualities that render them of equal importance in the way the story is able to work out the way it does. However, to my disgust, Jenny states on page 74, "The deep internal thing that had guided Chris to forgetfulness had guided her to poverty so that when the time came for her meeting with her lover there should be not one intimation of the beauty of suave flesh to distract him from the message of her soul", that essentially Mrs. Grey is poverty stricken and ugly because that is the way it is supposed to be, and that is what she sacrificed to make this narrative work. It's a backhanded admiration that I loved and hated at the same time.
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