[ilds] Revenge and the Persian Lady

[slighcl]

On 2/28/2008 2:54 PM, Bruce Redwine wrote:
> And the disjunctive line, the anacoluthon, "It would have been simple---three paces apart!"  What does that mean?  I suggest, "It would have been simple" has the common, colloquial meaning of crime fiction, i.e., "It would have been simple" [to have hit her, stabbed her, strangled her, shot her, etc.]  I.e., some act appropriate to the man's feeling that he's been "dis-figured" by her gaze.  This is a dueling pair, three paces apart.
>   
I will pitch in here, Bruce, despite the fact that I have not read ahead 
to the subsequent posts I see piled up in my inbox. 

You present a very strong biographical reading of "The Persian Lady," 
and I applaud its gusto, though I would ask, if the poem refers to Eve 
the Jewess, why use the Persian mask?  If it refers to the consummated 
relationship with Eve, why imagine /not /engaging in the affair?   But I 
suppose license can be given for that if we follow Michael's revelations 
about Durrell extensive use of Coptic culture as a mask for Zionist 
enterprises.  And nothing expresses the value of something beloved like 
imagining what things would be like if it had not been.

Your (perfected) dark reading also makes me think that you should say 
Durrell is imagining canceling the Eve years with this poem.

Still, I will hazard to guess that Bill will respond by reading the poem 
as a discrete entity, a thing unto itself, well wrought or otherwise.

For my own part, I hope that I am not naive to think that this poem 
relates a love affair missed and something more, something even 
sadder--a rationalization of the decision that reveals a 
self-swindler.   Everyone can relate to self-swindling, I hope.

Charles

-- 
**********************
Charles L. Sligh
Department of English
Wake Forest University
slighcl at wfu.edu
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