Book discussion: Chapters 9-11

[queen_ypolita]

Chapters 9-11

In Chapter 9, Maurice realises that he's lost the sensivity to Clive's moods and behaviour he'd have interpreted without any problem before the Easter break. Despite this, they found themselves closer than ever, embracing for the first time, when they are rudely interrupted by Maurice's other friends. At the end of the chapter, later that day, we find that Clive assumed Maurice's affectionate gestures earlier were purposeful and informed by his reading of the Symposium. But Clive got it wrong - Maurice never connected to the Symposium to his friendship with Clive, and is deeply shocked, "to the bottom of his suburban soul", and calls Clive's confession of being in love as nonsense. In Chapter 10, Maurice goes through a turmoil of emotions when he processes everything that happened with Clive so far and what it means. He's upset that Clive's not talking to him unless it's necessary to maintain the illusion of nothing being wrong. But after a frantic night he wakes up with the knowledge: "He loved men and always had loved them. He longed to embrace them and mingle his being with theirs."

Chapter 11 presents us with Maurice's attempts to talk to Clive who is not being very receptive, assuming that Maurice is not being serious. He tells Maurice to "[g]et married quickly and forget", which we the readers, with access to Maurice's thoughts, know he's not the least likely to do. When Maurice pushes on and says he's always "been like the Greeks and didn't know", words still fail him when Clive asks him to explain what he means. What follows is another night of turmoil, and the chapter ends with a dream calling him to Clive.

A couple of questions for you:
Do you think Clive's approach of assuming that Maurice understands the implication of why he was asked to read the Symposium was sensible? If not, what do you think he could have done?

Do you think Clive is being hard on Maurice?

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For the full schedule of the Maurice book discussion, see this post.

Photo credits:
Two young men: YlvaS on Flickr, used under Creative Commons By-Noncommercial-No derivate licence

Punt on the Cam: f.m. suchanek on Flickr, used under Creative Commons By-Noncommercial-No derivate licence

Comments

[into_the_greenwood]

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.

[queen_ypolita]

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.
Yes, this makes an awful lot of sense. It's quite difficult to discuss these couple of chapters without reference to Ch12 which gives a few details of how Clive became who he is. There's a strong sense of him building up this ideal scenario along his interpretation of Phaedrus and of course nothing he ever experiences with anyone can live up to it. Partly because it's his dream and his rationalisation of what he had until then seen as the Great Taint (or whatever words he'd used), one that he had arrived at on his own rather than with somebody.

In a way, I think Clive's dream of the right kind of companionship would only ever have been possible at Cambridge (or alternative academic surroundings where classics can become a central part of your life) and once he's out of there, it dies completely.

[into_the_greenwood]

I think Clive's dream of the right kind of companionship would only ever have been possible at Cambridge (or alternative academic surroundings where classics can become a central part of your life)

Yes! The Classics and what some of them mean to Clive play a BIG part in his viewpoint (re: homosexuality etc.)