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Originally Posted by gmw
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Therefore I could not lose him. Therefore I should not be alone.
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This seemed to me to tie to the drug and visiting the past. A similar sort of relationship, particularly with the house and Roger. |
It's also a very succinct comment on his marriage, if he thinks he'll be alone without Magnus' presence in his life.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw
I guess he might have been thinking of more romantic solutions (astrangerhere brought up the idea that Dick and Vita might be swingers - I don't really see that)
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I think astrangerhere is on to something. I think the heavy petting session with each other's spouses implied swinging; perhaps (given her typical readership) du Maurier didn't want to be more explicit. I also think it shores up the notion of Dick as a repressed gay man; sex with yet another woman could be much more of a burden than an enticing erotic extra.
Ultimately, all three main characters in the modern part are highly unlikable, whereas the fourteenth century was populated with good guys and bad guys. Perhaps a point of the scene with the young father and his disabled daughter at the end (I don't have the book any longer and I can't remember his name) was not only to serve as part of the general blight that had taken over the "romantic" past, but as an example of pure, disinterested love. None of the moderns demonstrated that.