“The lowest point of your life can lead to the highest.”
Every guest is undergoing a sort of existential crisis that drives them to retreat at the Tranquillum House. Napoleon makes this statement much later after their bizarre ordeal at the sanatorium under the care of Masha. To backtrack ten years earlier, Masha has a brush with death that transformed into a life-changing experience. Fast-forward, the nine strangers are at their lowest point in life and are seeking means to enjoy life again. For others is grief or unhappiness while for some is a career and financial problem; either way, they want a solution. After the ten-day retreat that was a traumatic experience in itself, they come out the other side triumphant having solved their issues. Thus, the quotation encapsulates the common motif in the narrative and the subsequent lives of the guests.
“Sometimes your life changes so slowly and imperceptibly that you don't notice it at all until one day you wake up and think, 'How did I get here?' But other times, life changes in an instant with a lightning stroke of good or bad luck with glorious or tragic consequences.”
Though each guest has a unique issue that has brought them to the health resort they also share quite a lot in common. They come to understand that their individual problem was either gradually intensifying in the background or just exploded. Nevertheless, they all ask themselves how their lives got to the current point whilst looking back at their past mistakes. For instance, Ben and Jessica won a lottery which is supposed to be a great thing but ends up having tragic consequences. Whether domestic, career-wise, or marital, the other guests’ problems fall under the criteria made in the statement.
“Women and their bodies! The most abusive and toxic of relationships. Masha had seen women pinch at the flesh of their stomachs with such brutal self-loathing they left bruises. Meanwhile their husbands fondly patted their own much larger stomachs withueful pride.”
The narrative focuses on the subject of beauty through the female characters and its effects on their inner lives. Both Carmel and Frances are middle-aged women contending with their physical appearances as much as their existential crises. Moreover, the much younger Jessica is obsessed with plastic surgery in hope of maintaining or achieving the ultimate body. Unlike Frances, who is actually much heavier, Carmel is self-conscious about her weight exasperated by her husband abandoning her for a younger woman. The narrative highlights the notion of aging and standards of beauty for women that their male counterparts barely have to deal with.
