13 Little Blue Envelopes

“The news…the illness…it was all very distant to Ginny. Somehow, she’d never really believed it. Aunt Peg was still out there somewhere in her mind. And Ginny was somehow speeding toward her on a plane.”

The Personal Nature of Grief is an important theme in the novel. Ginny handles her grief for Aunt Peg, who died a few months prior to the events of the novel, by imagining that she isn’t really dead. This tactic of denial is evidence of Ginny’s youthful immaturity and also of the depth of her grief. Ginny’s denial is furthered, for a time, by Peg’s letters. Having a stack of unread envelopes from Peg makes it feel like she is still around, sending Ginny on exciting adventures and offering her advice. It is only when the letters are all gone that Ginny finds she can no longer ignore the reality of Peg’s death.

“Late for what, I couldn’t really tell you. But this feeling was so intense, I couldn’t shake it. I called in sick. I wandered around my apartment in circles. Something wasn’t right about what I was doing. I’d been comfortable in my apartment for too long. I was doing boring jobs.”

This passage is taken from Aunt Peg’s second letter to Ginny. The letters, written by Peg before she died, offer insight into Peg’s thoughts and allow the author to vibrantly characterize Peg by letting her speak for herself. The feelings that Peg is describing here exemplify Peg’s personality as a creative, unconventional artist who always longs for new experiences and who rejects a stable, traditional life.

“It was strange to be waking up here—not only in a different country (different country…everyone an entire ocean away…she was not going to panic). No, it wasn’t just that. This room really felt like a moment from her past, like Aunt Peg had just walked through the room, covered in blotches of paint, humming under her breath.”

At the urging of Peg’s letters, Ginny travels abroad for the first time. Here, she is waking up in Richard’s house in London, groggy from jetlag. Ginny imagines that Peg might be nearby because Richard has kept Peg’s room exactly how she left it. This passage marks an intersection of Ginny’s grief with Richard’s; in their own way, they are both trying to process and move on from Peg’s death. Richard is stuck in the past and hasn’t changed Peg’s room as a way of holding on to her memory. Ginny is in denial and imagines that her aunt might appear at any moment.

“Why…why in the middle of what was possibly her first real romantic moment…had she decided that the correct response was to throw a handful of money on the table? Sweaty balled-up money and coins? And then ask to leave?”

Like many coming-of-age novels, 13 Little Blue Envelopes includes a romance, this one between Keith and Ginny. Ginny reveals her youth and inexperience in many of her encounters with Keith. In this passage, Ginny has just created an awkward situation with Keith by offering him hundreds of dollars without providing an explanation. Feeling shy and insecure, Ginny then demands to leave, not knowing how to recover from her awkward blunder. As the novel progresses, Ginny becomes more confident and relaxed in Keith’s presence, finally feeling brave enough to ask him if they are dating in the closing chapters.

“That’s the entire task. I don’t need to be any more specific. You don’t need to ask her anything. Mari is the Master, Fin, and she’ll know what you need even if you don’t. Her kung fu is that powerful. Trust me on this. School is in session!”

Within the recurring motif of art and artists, Johnson explores the mentor-student relationship between artist characters. In this letter to Ginny, Peg is tasking Ginny to visit Peg’s artistic mentor, Mari Adams. Mari subverts the expectations established here because she does not offer Ginny any explicit advice or guidance when Ginny visits. In keeping with the theme of The Power of Artistic Expression, Mari instead draws a lion on Ginny’s shoulder and invites Ginny to consider that artists make art because they want to remember and be remembered.

“Mari was just getting to something that seemed like a clear message—something Ginny could wrap her head around. We want to remember, and we want to be remembered. That’s why we paint. But then Mari went on.”

These words are reinforced by Mari and Peg’s observations of paintings by Manet and van Eyck; Mari encourages Ginny to consider why people make art. Ginny hopes that this observation will help her understand Peg better, but the full conclusion eludes her until later in the novel when she is better prepared to process her grief and when she more fully understands Peg’s story. This passage also underscores Ginny’s desire to make meaning and connections in all of her Peg-inspired travel adventures. Sometimes she succeeds, and sometimes she fails. The novel never confirms whether Peg planned all of these lessons for Ginny or if the meaning making is inspired by Ginny’s own personality.

“It was quiet in her little room. It made her heart pound. She suddenly felt very, very alone. She told herself to stop thinking about it, changed for bed, and lay awake, listening to the Roman traffic out on the street.”

13 Little Blue Envelopes is a travelogue and celebrates the act of Travel as Self-Discovery. In addition to exploring the positive aspects of travel, the novel highlights some of the difficulties inherent in travel. As she does in this passage, Ginny often feels lonely and isolated on her trip. She longs for a companion or someone to talk to, as well as for someone to help make decisions or to help solve problems when things go wrong. In this scene, Johnson contrasts the quiet solitude of Ginny’s hotel room in Rome with the business and noise on the street. The contrast echoes Ginny’s feeling of isolation.

“She grabbed the button that Beppe had been reaching for and yanked it from her shorts. She leaned over the metal bar that kept people back from the statues and tossed it onto the ground between two of the most complete ones. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘From one virgin to another.’”

Ginny’s encounter with a Roman man named Beppe underscores some of the dangers of solo travel and reinforces that Aunt Peg’s letters ask Ginny to put herself into situations that she would not seek out otherwise. Ginny’s encounter with Beppe frustrates her; he wants to go further into a sexual situation than she is willing to, so she leaves his apartment. Since he was trying to unbutton her pants, she revisits the statues honoring the goddess Vesta and her virginal acolytes and offers them the button as a gift. The encounter encapsulates not only Ginny’s youth and inexperience with sexual situations but also her growing self-confidence and her ability to stand up for herself when the need arises.

“The air was warm, and as Ginny leaned against the side of the Pont Neuf and watched a dinner boat slide along the Siene under her, she thought that this was a perfect Paris night. But she didn’t feel perfect. She felt alone, and the only thing she could think to do was go back to the hostel.”

After spending time with Keith and Richard in London and Edinburgh, Ginny hits a slump in Paris and Rome. These are the only cities that she explores completely alone, and the novel highlights her sense of loneliness and isolation. Ginny’s loneliness is an example of how Aunt Peg’s travel game forces Ginny into some uncomfortable situations that challenge her to grow, furthering her coming-of-age experience but also potentially betraying Ginny’s trust by insisting on hard situations without having given her any warning. Much to Ginny’s joy, Keith surprises her by showing up in Paris the morning after this passage takes place.

“Very strange, but right. This was possibly the best description of her aunt that Ginny had ever heard.”

“Very strange, but right” are the words that the cafe owner at Les Petits Chiens uses to describe Aunt Peg. The words ring true for Ginny, who credits Peg with the wisdom and power that come with artistic expression. Characterizing Peg in such a light reaffirms her trustworthiness, even if her travel game and her other unconventional behaviors sometimes hurt or confuse her loved ones.

“I liked you because you were mad. And you’re pretty. And pretty sane for a mad person.”

Keith says these words to Ginny after she asks him why he likes her. The conversation, though awkward and characteristic of Ginny’s inexperience, is an important one in their relationship. Ginny’s willingness to ask the question is evidence of her growing confidence. The contrast in Keith’s statement “pretty sane for a mad person” highlights the contrast in Ginny’s whole adventure: She’s following Aunt Peg’s instructions, which means that she’s doing some eccentric things. However, she’s still herself, so she goes about each task with a practical and level approach.

“She had no choice but to give up and rejoin the Knapps, who had absorbed the massive museum to their satisfaction. They headed to the Van Gogh Museum. Mrs. Knapp had scheduled only one hour for this, but even this was too much for them. They looked weary in the face of such swirling, hallucinogenic paintings.”

The Knapp family represents a different approach to travel than what Aunt Peg has offered Ginny. The Knapps have detailed daily schedules with allotted time to hit each “must-see” destination. Although Ginny is grateful for their hospitality, she feels incompatible with their method of travel. The author includes characters like the Knapps to further explore the theme of Travel as Self-Discovery; it is not apparent that the Knapps discover much about themselves through their travels. The Knapps are juxtaposed with the Australian travelers who Ginny meets in Copenhagen and who take a completely improvised approach to travel.

“What was she doing? There was no hidden message here. Aunt Peg had screwed this one up. There was no Charlie. Piet was clueless. And now she was reduced to trying to string together some kind of theory about what this was all about—a theory based on nothing but snippets of conversation.”

In Amsterdam, Ginny encounters some of her first real challenges with Aunt Peg’s instructions because Peg’s friend Charlie no longer lives at the address that Peg provided. This, combined with Piet’s lackluster response, makes Ginny doubt Peg and generates some internal conflict for Ginny.

“The effect was kind of remarkable and seemed to solidify in the Australians’ minds the idea that Ginny was a very special being. This was a very foreign feeling, and not a bad one.”

Copenhagen is a turning point for Ginny. After the hardship of Amsterdam, she makes some new friends and even enjoys doing something outside her comfort zone by singing karaoke. Here, Ginny’s new friends admire her bravery once she reveals to them that she is traveling alone at the behest of Aunt Peg’s letters. Ginny’s appreciation of their attention is evidence of her growing confidence in her process of self-discovery through travel.

“After about eight hours of this, it finally dawned on me that I was a grown woman wandering aimlessly around a store like a little kid. A little kid who had run away from home in a snit. I had done a serious, potentially disastrous thing.”

This passage is taken from Aunt Peg’s final letter in the novel (because her true final letter, #13, is stolen). She is describing her emotional breakdown in Harrods after her irresponsible behavior in running away from home really sank in. This passage includes one of the iterations of the motif of art and artists that the author uses. In this case, the negative sides of the archetypal artist are being explored. Peg acknowledges to herself and to Ginny that her actions were harmful and put her and her family in a tough situation in the name of her creative lifestyle.

“All the early morning gray and lavender was burning off fast, and a bright blue sky blossomed above her. It was matched by the color of the sea. In fact, she could just about tell where the horizon was. She was in the water, and the water was in the sky—it was kind of like she was at the beginning and end of everything.”

Johnson uses poetic language to describe the setting for Ginny’s epiphany, with the setting mirroring Ginny’s internal realization. This is the moment when Ginny realizes that her trip is over and that she needs to return to London to speak more with Richard. She has not yet processed her grief or realized that Aunt Peg left a collection of paintings behind, but she realizes in this instant that she’s gotten all the benefit that she will out of this portion of the trip.

“She hated Aunt Peg at that moment. Hated her completely and totally. It wasn’t her fault that the envelope had been stolen, but it was her fault that she was here, that Richard was forced to rescue her and explain these things that he obviously felt awkward about.”

Ginny’s grief transforms into anger after Richard tells her that he and Aunt Peg were married. This is the climax in the subplot of Ginny’s healing process and is an important moment in the novel’s exploration of The Personal Nature of Grief. After this tipping point, Ginny and Richard will offer mutual support in processing their grief together. Ginny’s anger highlights one of Peg’s character flaws; Peg’s flightiness and poor communication led the people she loved most to this awkward discovery about her marriage.

“She’d stared at this poster so many times before…but like Piet, she’d never noticed much about it. Aunt Peg had explained it, but she’d never gotten it. Now the girl’s flat expression in the midst of all the activity, all the color…it made a lot more sense. It was a lot more tragic. All of that activity in front of her and the girl wasn’t seeing it, wasn’t enjoying it.”

In this passage, Ginny is studying the Manet poster in Aunt Peg’s bedroom. In the next moments, she will discover the key that Peg hid behind the green slippers in the painting. Here, Ginny pauses to truly look at the painting. Because it is Peg’s favorite painting, this moment is an important moment of characterization for both Ginny and Peg. The novel does not draw any conclusions in this scene but instead asks the reader to consider why Peg might love a painting depicting a woman who is detached from the flurry of activity around her. The woman in the painting looks isolated and bored. It might be that Peg identified with that feeling, having experienced it herself, or perhaps Peg feared that feeling greatly and built her life to avoid it. The author uses the motif of art and artists to open these questions for the reader without providing concrete conclusions.

“The work was clearly Aunt Peg’s; bright, almost cartoonish representations of now-familiar sights. There were the Vestal Virgins, the Eiffel Tower, the white-paved paths of Greece, the London streets, Harrods itself. A few were almost direct copies of the pictures on the envelopes.”

After Ginny discovers Aunt Peg’s collection of paintings in Harrods, the parallels between Ginny’s journey and Peg’s are reinforced. Ginny also realizes how Peg had been using the letters and the drawings on the envelopes to prepare her thoughts while she painted; creating the travel plans for Ginny was part of Peg’s artistic project, not separate from it. It is likely this realization that makes Ginny consider holding onto the paintings and then decide, in the end, to sell them. Ginny has the memories from her travels, which are also something Peg helped create.

“You must know that she was fully aware that the collection’s value would increase after her…passing on. That is the way of the art world. She deliberately delayed the sale.”

This quote is spoken by Cecil, the art dealer with whom Peg arranged the mysterious sale of her paintings. Cecil’s words confirm that Peg’s final act was to leave a gift of money for Ginny; she did so intentionally. This final act of love reconfirms Peg’s trustworthiness and the great affection that she held for Ginny. It also provides Ginny with a means of expressing that love to Richard, as she gives half the money to him.

“Richard hadn’t lifted his head from the program that sat closed on his lap. Ginny reached over and found his hand, and she didn’t stop squeezing it until the bidding stopped at seventy thousand pounds.”

In the final pages of the novel, Richard and Ginny find much comfort in each other. Although the novel asserts The Personal Nature of Grief by depicting the characters’ unique responses to loss, the novel also argues that love and empathy are essential to healing after grief. The auction is an emotional experience for both Richard and Ginny, but it is more tolerable because they are together.

“Peg was full of wonder.”

This simple sentence, spoken by Richard, sums up the artistic curiosity that characterized Peg. The sentence is a testament to Richard’s love for Peg because it demonstrates thoughtful observation of Peg’s worldview. The sentence is also exemplary of Johnson’s straightforward style, which encapsulates big, rich emotions using simple words and simple syntax.

“Judging from the look on his face (she thought his eyebrows might come loose from all the wiggling up and down), Ginny knew that he hadn’t known this. And she also knew that now, she was really done. She suddenly felt very light. In fact, she wasn’t even embarrassed when Richard came over to her side of the table and wrapped his arms around her.”

In the final scene of the novel, Ginny and Richard are together at Harrods. Their mutual grief comes to a resolution when Ginny takes the initiative to tell Richard that Peg loved him. The revelation brings them both comfort. This scene demonstrates the closeness and trust that Richard and Ginny have established in what is a relatively new relationship. The novel ends on a high note, underscoring The Importance of Trust in Relationships.