Big Swiss

“Greta called her Big Swiss because she was tall and from Switzerland, and often dressed from top to toe in white, the color of surrender.”

The first sentence of the novel emphasizes Greta’s immediate attraction to Big Swiss as a caricature and not a person. Greta’s name for Flavia, Big Swiss, is a projection of Greta’s attraction to her. Because Greta doesn’t yet know what Big Swiss looks like, she imagines a stereotypical Swiss woman. The color white, “the color of surrender,” is also important because it immediately introduces Greta’s desire for Big Swiss to be submissive to her sexually and emotionally.

“She’d held on to the equipment all these years because she’d genuinely enjoyed the eavesdropping aspect, the isolation of working from home, the not speaking for many hours at a time. She’d been a listener all her life and tended to surround herself with people in love with their own voices.”

This quote contextualizes Greta’s immediate obsession with Big Swiss based solely on her voice. Greta’s voyeurism is introduced as a strength of her character: She is a good listener, by her own account. Greta’s desire to listen and never speak foreshadows her guilt for her mother’s death, in which she blames herself for speaking aloud her desire for her mother to die by suicide.

“Anorexia was about control, Greta remembered having read somewhere, and Sabine lived in chaos. Perhaps exercising control over what she allowed into her body made her life feel less crazy.”

Greta suspects that Sabine is anorexic because Sabine is losing excessive amounts of weight. Sabine’s life, like Greta’s, is largely out of her control. Both women come together at a time in their lives when many of their formerly relied upon structures have imploded. Greta deals with her stress through voyeurism, while Sabine deals with her stress through self-harm.