First, to get the big thing out of the way, the Rape scene appeared on page 45. So many of my questions have now been answered. The rape was (technically) consensual. That is to say Helga was willing, rather than being raped by force or extortion. She smiles, she experiences pleasure, she pulls her own body closer to his. But, she is also "a girl becoming a woman." Helga is young (how young?), and a married man with another mistress has taken advantage of her childishness. Also, the opening page seems to suggest that X is some kind of legal superior to her. So, this is a rape. X is a villain. But he is, perhaps, a softer villain than he could have been. Or I'm giving him credit because if my own American desire to find the central character of a work of literature sympathetic
Microcosm of the Novel
Today's reading was interesting in that it seemed to encompass all the important themes of the novel in one sitting. The first page featured Dagmar walking through the city streets (a common event on the novel), this time on her way to "this first meeting." She is, as usual, effortlessly beautiful despite herself and this seems to be her first romantic meeting (date) with X. This is the beginning of their romance. The second page contains a car wreck (another?) in which "death is so gentle it makes indifference easier." Who's death is unclear. Of course, most vague personal references in the novel seem to point to X, but that seems hard to accept in this case. This may be the "end" of Marianne. At any rate, it is an end. And this end just happens to occur the page after a beginning.
These two pages, then, create a sort of merism--the entire novel could take place between this beginning and this ending. The rest of today's reading seems to fall naturally between these two events, and the events on these pages represent the most important themes of the novel. Page 43 addresses the macro-cosmic events of the war, as anti-Nazi leaflets are dropped from a high window at Sorbonne (the University of Paris). Page 44 contains a description of Dagmar's apartment/studio where hangs her unfinished work Composition No. 1. Finally, page 45 (the last page of this session) contains the Rape scene--THE unifier of this novel.
If this had been a narrative strategy, it would have been a very interesting one. Narrate the beginning, then the end, then all the stuff in between. Of course, here, it's accidental, and is perhaps even an accident of my own interpretation.
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Wicked Foreshadowing, and Histories
So the introductions have been written, the pages have been shuffled, and now the reading begins. Thus begins the book for me:
This was an ominous way to begin the novel. By reading statute without any connection to any act, the reader is left with a sense of foreboding. This must be foreshadowing, obviously. It also suggests an event so large and destructive that it must cloud the whole novel.
On "page 2" Helga sits in her room, which is "full of bric-a-brac" yet " meticulously clean." She is stooped over a letter. We are not told what the letter is about, or even who Helga is, but of course I could not help but connect the scene with the statutes on page one. What is Helga's role? Was she a victim? Does she know of a rape we don't yet know about?
The theme of sexual perversion (not quite the right word) continues on this page, which goes on to describe an odd painting in which a female "saint" waits on a huge bed, apparently for a knight in another part of the painting.
"Page 3" features Marianne laying in her bed where she has spent the last three hours crying. She answers (who or what we do not know) "you know perfectly well what you've done," and later "why did you do it?"
The narrative is unclear as to what she is talking about, or who she is talking to. But here again, I cannot help but to connect this scene with the suggestion of rape given on the first page. For the potential or past rape clouds all. It seems that it will oppressively rule over the narrative. Thus is the importance of the first page!
On "page 4," a German patrol looks for members of the [French?] resistance. Prisoners are led to a truck or, if they fall, shot on sight. Jeanette, who has been silenced previously screams. A roof collapses. A building burns. We know very little of what actually happened in this scene. It is very visceral and fragmented, as if we are seeing only parts of something happening under a swinging light. But we do now know that something bigger is happening. The war is apparently on.
"Page 5" contains a jumbled conversation containing accusations that someone is mistreating his wife. Lucas talks of "confessions"of resistance fighters stored in a nearby drawer. Finally, an anesthetist, a nurse, and a driver speak, suggesting that there has been an accident in which someone has been badly injured.
Synthesis of Day 1:
A scene in which resistance fighters are being defeated and exterminated by German soldiers is intermingled with passages about car accidents and a rape, both personal tragedies to be sure, but no where near the scope of a World War (if that's what's happening here). This intermingling of macro- and micro-histories illuminates how intimate human events are caught up in and often drowned out by larger historical events. We humans live our lives, we grow up, we love, and we suffer under the sweeping blindness of history. And though it is we, as a people, who make history, as individuals our lives and all of their events are small and unnoticeable. We are both a part of history, and an uninvited guest in it.
Article 332: The crime of rape shall be punishable by ten to twenty years. . .This "first" page goes on to include Article 333, which deals with suspects in close and unequal relationships with the victims (people in authority, master/servant relationships, ministers, older relatives). The page concludes with a caveat that "the professor of criminal law" acknowledges difficulty in distinguishing what constitutes a use of force in committing the act.
This was an ominous way to begin the novel. By reading statute without any connection to any act, the reader is left with a sense of foreboding. This must be foreshadowing, obviously. It also suggests an event so large and destructive that it must cloud the whole novel.
On "page 2" Helga sits in her room, which is "full of bric-a-brac" yet " meticulously clean." She is stooped over a letter. We are not told what the letter is about, or even who Helga is, but of course I could not help but connect the scene with the statutes on page one. What is Helga's role? Was she a victim? Does she know of a rape we don't yet know about?
The theme of sexual perversion (not quite the right word) continues on this page, which goes on to describe an odd painting in which a female "saint" waits on a huge bed, apparently for a knight in another part of the painting.
"Page 3" features Marianne laying in her bed where she has spent the last three hours crying. She answers (who or what we do not know) "you know perfectly well what you've done," and later "why did you do it?"
The narrative is unclear as to what she is talking about, or who she is talking to. But here again, I cannot help but to connect this scene with the suggestion of rape given on the first page. For the potential or past rape clouds all. It seems that it will oppressively rule over the narrative. Thus is the importance of the first page!
On "page 4," a German patrol looks for members of the [French?] resistance. Prisoners are led to a truck or, if they fall, shot on sight. Jeanette, who has been silenced previously screams. A roof collapses. A building burns. We know very little of what actually happened in this scene. It is very visceral and fragmented, as if we are seeing only parts of something happening under a swinging light. But we do now know that something bigger is happening. The war is apparently on.
"Page 5" contains a jumbled conversation containing accusations that someone is mistreating his wife. Lucas talks of "confessions"of resistance fighters stored in a nearby drawer. Finally, an anesthetist, a nurse, and a driver speak, suggesting that there has been an accident in which someone has been badly injured.
Synthesis of Day 1:
A scene in which resistance fighters are being defeated and exterminated by German soldiers is intermingled with passages about car accidents and a rape, both personal tragedies to be sure, but no where near the scope of a World War (if that's what's happening here). This intermingling of macro- and micro-histories illuminates how intimate human events are caught up in and often drowned out by larger historical events. We humans live our lives, we grow up, we love, and we suffer under the sweeping blindness of history. And though it is we, as a people, who make history, as individuals our lives and all of their events are small and unnoticeable. We are both a part of history, and an uninvited guest in it.
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