Discussion - Week One - Desperate Characters - Chapter One - Eight

[Jim]

This discussion covers Chapter One – Eight, page 21 – 117



The hand that feeds gets bit…

[Celia]

........'when you feel you have someone eating out of your hand; it's as well to count your fingers'

[Voorneveld]

For what it's worth...my thoughts are not so structured. I find it hard to put my finger on exactly what the author is doing and how she is doing it, but here are a few things I though about.

In a way, Sophie supposed, Otto had defined his own nature by contrasting it with his old friend's. (p. 77)

Contrasts seem to be a central theme of the book. When I first read it, I made a note: "Look for signs of/words like debris, disorder, chaos, turmoil, radical change, garbage, meaninglessness, aging on the one hand and culture, purpose, conspicuous consumption, exclusive materials, etc. on the other."

Once you start looking, they're everywhere. Just on the first few pages, we have "the stained glass of a Tiffany shade", "a stainless-steel sink", "the complete works of Goethe and two shelves of French poets", "a Victorian secretary."

Contrast this with the "slum street" across the yard and the cat with "its scruffy, half-starved body" and its "unprincipled and grotesque" head.

On the fifth page, the cat bites Sophie. I don't find the right words for this (English is not my first --- or even second --- language), but from that point onward, the turmoil in their lives (fear of disease, marriage trouble, Otto's work conflict) seems to be mirrored by the external turmoil. As if the bite signals the "ugliness" of the outside world getting inside Sophie.

A final observation: Otto, a lawyer. Symbol of law and order, the precious order in their affluent upper-class life that starts to fall apart ("Things fall apart", a pity that that title was already taken)? Even the name is a palindrome.

[[deleted user]]

So far I have only read the sample. I am waiting for my order. At 0.01 GBP I shall hardly be disappointed.

I have a problem with the language. I expect simple words to be in short sentences and long sentences to have long words. I don't know what Fox is doing yet.

I have a problem with a novel that starts by describing what the nice middle-class couple had for dinner and where they got their nice middle-class furniture. I have no sense of solidarity with the middle class and little sympathy with their problems.