Thursday, September 24, 2009

More listening to Jeremy Irons as HH, which was quite enjoyable. If one was to request for a particular passage from it to be read, I think I'd request chapter 16 of part 1, wherein contains Charlotte's confession, HH's reaction and a Quilty reference, among other things. There are many other passages

Much of class today was spent detailing Clare Quilty(or "Cue")and his purpose in the novel. His last name, interestingly, bares resemblance to the French phrase Qu'il te? , meaning "Who is he?" This is the sort of reaction Quilty would provoke, in disgust, from a casual observer. Because he is, in no uncertain terms, a disgusting pervert. As is HH, of course. Really, Quilty is HH. without the poetry, all that is most vile and repugnant about HH distilled into living form. Which HH purges from himself when he kills Quilty? Interesting thought.... Well, since N. apparently wrote the death of Quilty before he wrote anything else, perhaps it does have a stronger significance for the rest of the novel. Perhaps I will explore this more later.

It was also brought up in class what appears to be an Actaeon reference in chapter 10, section 5 of Speak Memory, where N. while "hunting" for butterflies, comes across the coachman's daughter and a few other girls swimming naked in river. Ah ha!

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