[lit-ideas] Re: The Iceman
- From: "Judith Evans" <judithevans1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2007 17:05:16 +0100
Take Julien Sorel. He tries
> to kill someone, then allows himself to be arrested, makes no
effort to
> defend himself, try to escape or agree to a lighter sentence
than
> death. I don't care to know what's going on his head so much
as I want
> to know how this behavior is viewed by his fellow countrymen.
How do
> _they_ explain his behavior? Do they approve?
I'm not sure quite how you're going to link the literary
depiction and external cultural disapproval -- OK, I'm not quite
sure what the question is. Are you asking whether
if this happened "in real life", French people would approve
(etc.)? It seems you think you can't simply infer that from
literary depiction, yet literature is (presumably) inextricably
linked to "real world" culture (and it's literature you want to
focus on here).
In Gide's _Les Caves
> du Vatican_ Lafcadio commits a murder, an 'acte gratuit', and
suffers no
> consequences at all.
there's an Agatha Christie (I hope she's allowed!) where Poirot
lets the murderer walk free; it was
a crime passionel. But "suffers no consequences" is totally
wrong, though that isn't why Poirot shows "mercy" -- it's because
of the pre-crime suffering. So, how do we
define "no consequences"?
I'm a bit fuzzy at the moment, I need to think a bit more about
all this.
Meanwhile
http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/comment/0,,2062600,00.html
also (afterthought) Ruth Rendell may have a Ripley
Judy Evans, Cardiff
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