The Novel Answers All One's Questions About The Film!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                                      "Does Tina know she was not wanted?"
                                                          --Bette Davis, as Charlotte Vale, in
                                                        "Now, Voyager" (1942).


                                      The most surprising thing about reading this novel, after having grown up with the film, is that much of its iconic moments, which I thought Hollywood invented, are right here in the novel.  Besides the Tina line, the cigarette lighting scene, and one of the great closing lines in film history--"Oh, Jerry, don't let's ask for the moon!  We have the stars!"--are in the text by Olive Higgins Prouty.

                                       The movie is actually faithful to the novel, though structured in a different way.  The reader does not meet Mrs. Vale face to face, until halfway through, when Charlotte returns home.  That is because the earlier sequences of the story--done linear on screen--are seen as flashbacks in Charlotte's memory, as most of the first half of the story takes place on her cruise.

                                           The novel, like the film, dwells on that telling picture of Jerry Durrance's family.  Tina is instantly recognized by Charlotte as the infant version of herself, but what is surprising in the novel is that Isobel, Durrance's dreaded wife, becomes more of a visible, manipulative, and not nice character, through words alone, and that Durrance himself has had a nervous breakdown--and after reading about Isobel, it becomes apparent why.  Characters that appear briefly in the film--Lisa Vale, her daughter, June, Elliot Livingston, and Mack and Deb, are fleshed out and developed fully, so that, going back to the film, one can do so with the knowledge of who these people actually are.

                                          Those only having seen the film must read the novel.  And vice is very much versa.  I used to say all gay children were Tina,  all gay young adults are the pre-transformed Charlotte.  I know I myself felt that way about myself at those life stages.  But, then, consider the tenor of the times.  Hopefully, that has changed today, but for those emotionally trapped in loneliness and isolation, "Now, Voyager" could be not just a boon, but an inspiration for said individuals to grow and change.

                                           In the film, Mrs. Vale (magnificently played by Gladys Cooper) remarks how all late children are "marked."  I always wondered about that, being a late child myself.  The novel actually digs deep with an explanation for this, saying, in essence, that such children are born with old souls, so that very early they become juvenile versions of the adults around them, hence never quite fitting in to their own age group.  Which was my situation, exactly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                             The "Tina" section still breaks my heart.  The reassurance comes not only from Tina's transformation, but that it is coming earlier, being surrounded by people with love and insight; something the younger Charlotte never had.

                                              I must also site the glamorous plain this novel exists on--just my kind of world--one of luncheons, bridge parties, club meetings, and charity work.  Who, but June, works?
Who the hell has to?  And why should they?  If "Now, Voyager," had been set in New York, it would undoubtedly had taken place on the Upper East Side.

                                                 Oh, yes, June, first Charlotte's tormentor, then her champion, is nicknamed "Roly-poly" by her aunt, in the novel.

                                                   Girls, it is a story for the ages!  Now that it is available in print--at one point, it was one of the most difficult works of fiction to find--you have simply GOT to read it!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                                      You will never watch the film in quite the same way, again!!!!!!!!!!!

                                         Now, you can have both the moon, and the stars, darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!