Hmm - that is an interesting thought. At the moment I am still wondering whether the Italian author is an aspect of Hoja's personality, or whether there are indeed two men and one is in the process of assuming domination of the other. On page 12 of Chapter 5 it says:
Quote:
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But the more he read about my sins and increased his petty, infantile punishments, the more I became wrapped in a peculiar sense of security; for the first time I began to think I had him in the palm of my hand.
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It reminded me of
The Servant by Harold Pinter, and the Ingmar Bergman film
Persona, both of which I saw a long time ago. However I'm not going to confuse myself further by looking them up at the moment!
One thing I just went back to check in the Preface was the title given to the document:
The Quilter's Stepson. That suggested that the "I" of the book was this person, but it is Hoja who was the stepson of a quilter. So is he "I"?
Thanks for the Proust quote and translations, Bookworm_Girl. Interesting how different the two English translations are, but the original seems to me to be quite complex, so the second translator is trying to cram in every possible nuance and gets a bit clunky. No wonder I never managed to read any Proust!