Discussion - Week Six - Hopscotch - Chapter sequence 97 - 27

[Jim]

This discussion covers Chapter Sequence 97 – 27
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More entries about fictional writer Morelli. His ideas seem to generate a lot of conversation in the Serpent Club.

In this second reading of the Berthe Trépat section, did anyone sense Oliveira’s declining grip on reality? Is this because we now know that he’s headed for the asylum in Part Two?

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

What I was struck by was Morelli changed for me. He went from being a bunch of ideas discussed by pretentious intellectuals to a flesh and blood man who puts his pants on like all men. I don't believe he would have liked the Serpent Club. He seemed more well-rounded by the extra chapters, not trying to fit reality into his intellectualism.

Nothing changed for me in my understanding of Trepat's despair of the public 'getting' her or Oliveira discovering he was quite past the point of No Return in touching the fabric of reality, but instead the audience's rejection of Trepat's masterpiece ( which was simply a medley of real masterpieces) struck me more sharply. Trepat did not recognize that a music medley by geniuses did not make her interesting or a genius. It was this chapter, though, which clarified the Serpent Club for me and why this reader started to get a curled lip and a raised eyebrow, and a feeling for the hollow nature of this type of intellectualism. Did La Maga disappear because the death of her child opened her eyes to the mental sterility of philosophy, without taking into account blood, flesh and tears? I never had a child, but I know I had an aha moment myself when I took a philosophy class and initially had stars in my eyes until the in-depth studying of the various philosophies.