Belo, Sartre, Jones discussed on The New Yorker: Fiction
Automatic TRANSCRIPT
I mean, it's the same idea except Sartre uses men and Belo uses just like people wear the same. We're the same a pair of spirits, practically alike. I don't know, I think it struck me on my first read because I think it's a very famous sentence to French ears. But yeah, apply to a love relationship or a male and female relationship. It's different. It's very strong. Yeah. I feel like there's such a shifting view of women in the story. I mean, in the first half, I think every woman who appears is referred to as difficult. His mother's being difficult, Jones, so difficult. Even though women, the mother on the subway with the little girl, she seems really difficult. And so there's sort of a distaste for women. He doesn't like the cousin Jones lives with. He's feeling put off about women and how they behave. What they ask of him, I suppose. And then you get the kind of his sort of cry for equality. Yeah. But at the same time, his cry for mothering and nurturing. And when he finally gets it, at the end, that's what calms him down. That's what brings him back, you know, from the sort of abyss, his mind has fallen into. Yeah. Yeah, I feel it. I feel like if the story continues two minutes later, he's again angry about something else. But it's nice that it stops there, but I don't think this hair wash is going to solve everything for him. But I almost see it in light of the last monologue that he actually doesn't give to Joan. It's almost like all the women being seen as difficult before. It's almost like he's jealous of them. Because they don't have the same burdens that he does, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I mean, not that it excuses his nastiness, but it's an explanation. Yeah. I mean, luckily, all of his nastiness is internal..