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Originally Posted by gmw
What is it with the idea that a man having a gay friend must be a repressed gay himself? It's this, if anything, that speaks of some sort of phobia on the part of the author (as opposed to one of her characters) - if we assume this is what she intended the reader to infer when Dick tells us that he and Magnus had been watching a choir-boy. I was inclined to ignore that because Dick's heterosexual preferences seemed otherwise more prevalent through the text.
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I think you're right at that. Dick's obsession was with Isolda and not with Sir Otto; it was an emotion he shared with Roger.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw
I had the impression that Dick's relationship with Vita and boys was good prior to the events of this book. There is an implicit trust and comfort among them in the early stages that speaks of better things in earlier times. Yes, I see Dick floundering when we meet him, but while some of that is the pressure of his choices, it remains unclear how much is the influence of the drug - and Magnus, for that matter. It seems apparent to me that Dick, and his relationship to Vita and boys, has already changed under the influence of all this by the time we start the book, and all we get are small glimpses of what it was like before, for the brief periods when Dick is able to put aside his obsessions/addictions.
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One of Dick's comments about the boys, "But I could have done without them," seemed exceptionally cold to me. Especially given their father was dead; it would be more complicated with a living father. The boys' names, too, were significant, both American and infantilizing and even less than human. Impossible to see them with thinking Mickey Mouse and Teddy bear.