Yes, I think Clive is being very hard on Maurice. I'm currently toying with a theory that Clive was more in love with the idea of love than he was capable of actually feeling it. Or, to be more gentle, he just wasn't, deep down, that interested in the practical, every day concerns of being with another person in that way.
If I was being very blunt and harsh, I would say that Clive had acted out his romantic notions with regards to Maurice and Maurice's rejection was part and parcel of that - thus leaving Clive to continue to treat Maurice poorly. I think (going back again to Chapman's comment about Clive becoming bored with people) that Maurice had outlived the romantic daydream and become a little too real for Clive to want to deal with. Clive is happiest when immersed in 'books and music' and I think his hardness (which I don't believe is intended) stems from that. Yes he wants Maurice to reciprocate his love, but that love isn't the kind of love that Maurice either envisages for himself once he's worked things out in Ch 10, nor is it the kind of love he needs as a person.
I think I've said before that Alec later in the book provides Maurice with the physical aspects of living, and by that I don't just mean sex, but the whole gamut of what I see as 'movement' in a way, whereas Clive always seems to me to be somewhat stagnant in comparison.
As for the Symposium, I think this is a very good example of what I've been saying about Clive - to him the Symposium meant something in terms of 'love', but to expect Maurice to see it (especially as Maurice was studying Classics anyway!) was expecting quite a lot.
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Date: 2009-06-14 05:07 pm (UTC)If I was being very blunt and harsh, I would say that Clive had acted out his romantic notions with regards to Maurice and Maurice's rejection was part and parcel of that - thus leaving Clive to continue to treat Maurice poorly. I think (going back again to Chapman's comment about Clive becoming bored with people) that Maurice had outlived the romantic daydream and become a little too real for Clive to want to deal with. Clive is happiest when immersed in 'books and music' and I think his hardness (which I don't believe is intended) stems from that. Yes he wants Maurice to reciprocate his love, but that love isn't the kind of love that Maurice either envisages for himself once he's worked things out in Ch 10, nor is it the kind of love he needs as a person.
I think I've said before that Alec later in the book provides Maurice with the physical aspects of living, and by that I don't just mean sex, but the whole gamut of what I see as 'movement' in a way, whereas Clive always seems to me to be somewhat stagnant in comparison.
As for the Symposium, I think this is a very good example of what I've been saying about Clive - to him the Symposium meant something in terms of 'love', but to expect Maurice to see it (especially as Maurice was studying Classics anyway!) was expecting quite a lot.