| Comment: | This is the chapter of evil: Gallie and Karen become fused with the two aunts, the representatives of evil. It comes shortly after the information that Drijk and Gallie do it together. Howard accuses Gallie of being responsible for everything bad that ever happened to him. The chapter is loaded with religious imagery and imagery of good and evil: Salvation, Hell, Bible vs. Satanic Verses, a black cat, poison, etc. Even the small details give the reader that sense, especially the way the aunts are desribed is powerful: their gnarled larynxes, their scowling, craggy faces, pale skin, The final sentence leaves one with a frightening sense of pure hatred and evil. I wonder where this novel is going to. Even the tea is bitter. Also interesting is the monologue in the middle, set apart from the rest of the chapter by its tone, its style, and its seemingly neutral stance on the events described. Placed in the middle of a violent scene in the novel, it talks of the power of the artist and the unknowable. The relation with the plot is the fact that Howard has in fact been unburned of his senses, or, less euphemistically, he has been knocked unconscious by Drijk. I'm hoping for a more positive and less gloomy ending. |
