DFL’S COMMENTS ON ‘ODALISQUE’ BY PF JEFFERY
Chapter Ten - Barbarians
A lovely quiet beginning to this chapter:
The confined space was filled with a sweet, floral scent. An unfamiliar but beautiful tune drifted on the wind, before being drowned in the drumming of heavy rain on canvas. The waxy taste of lip colour reigned unchallenged in my mouth. Drips chased one another down the fabric of the tent from a point at which the waterproofing had evidently worn thin.
but a prelude to forced sex on our heroine by a man! Described so that even the reader almost feels the cruelty involved for real – followed by a scene where she is comforted by the rapist’s daughter in a more amenable sexual way!
Kneeling once more, the girl placed one arm about my shoulders, while cradling my knees with the other. She rose to her feet, lifting me as though I were a doll, or a baby. Her strength was comforting. Still carrying me, she stepped from the tent and through the compound beyond, where both of us were soon drenched in the continuing storm.
Many great passages of prose depicting Tuuerqui’s helpless onward forced march through destiny, often pleasurable and wonderfully human. There is a mix of emotions in this novel that the reader needs to learn and take for granted. The process is achingly enticing, although one questions oneself all the time as a result.
Tuerqui may not be a semi-colon girl (as claimed by the author behind the narrative) but she certainly is very learned and able to pronounce difficult words to others like ‘depreciation’ and in this telling passage:
The phrase was one I’d learn soon enough. It should have been ‘slavery efficiency consultant’, a class of person universally hated by slaves. Cold efficiency is harder to bear than a more severe hot blooded cruelty.
A lovely and possibly foreboding ending to the chapter:
“Do you think we’re going to have babies?” I whispered to Wirquibelle.
“What do you think?” was her unsatisfactory reply.
My shiver may have been no more than the Dankfog chill – it was certainly not a warm day. Several of the slaves were singing softly as they worked, a half familiar melody that I couldn’t identify. A lean cat entered the tent and mewed, an overseer tickled it behind its ears and found a morsel of food. From outside, there sounded the plaintive cry of a crow.
Query
I was brought up short by this phrase:
each presented as provocatively as me
‘as I was’ (instead of ‘as me’)?
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Posted by: newdfl on 7/11/2008 3:15:46 AM , 6 comments
Submitted by Pet at 7/11/2008 5:23:22 AM
Thank you for that. The text seems to be working, at this point, pretty much as I'd hoped.
It seems to me that both of these are gramatically correct:
1) each presented as provocatively as me
2) each presented as provocatively as I was
In the first, "me" is an indirect object of "presented". In the second, "I" is the subject of "was". The difference, I think, is largely that the latter places a greater distance between the "I" or "me" and the provocative presentation. I wonder whether this is the source of your being brought up by the phrase -- that, as a reader, you wished to place a greater distance between the narrative "I" (Tuerqui) and the provocative presentation (which is imposed rather than truly being her). Does that make sense? Whether I should have given the reader the comfort of that slight distancing is an open question.
But perhaps you think that one is grammatically preferable to the other?
Submitted by des at 7/11/2008 6:24:06 AM
I don't know. It just didn't sound right. It was like 'me' was a noun-thing - a 'me' rather than simply 'myself'
'Myself' would have been better than 'me', perhaps - but 'I was' is better than 'myself' and 'me, to my ears.
Submitted by Pet at 7/13/2008 5:58:20 AM
To my mind, "myself" would be definitely wrong in this context. "Myself" is a reflexive pronoun -- that is to say used as object where subject and object are the same. These are correct:
I did it to myself
She did it to me
We all did it to me
I have a strong antipathy to the use of "myself" as object where the subject is not the same as the object.
Submitted by des at 7/13/2008 7:00:47 AM
Well I personally wouldn't be so prescriptive and/or proscriptive about 'myself' in that context. To my ears (perhaps to my ears alone!) 'myself' within the sentence in question sounds better than 'me'.
But I still stick to 'I was' as preferable to both.
Submitted by des at 7/13/2008 7:14:28 AM
Having said that, I think you might agree that it is not a crucial point - and the novel is a masterpiece. I know it is a masterpiece and, if justice is done, others will end up thinking so, too.
And having said *that*, it is an interesting discussion point ('me', 'myself', 'I was') in itself, and I have learned things from what you've said. But I still hold by what I said.
:-)
Submitted by Pet at 7/13/2008 1:06:12 PM
Thank you.
And, after the debate on "we" versus "us", there is no room for me to be overly prescriptive on pronoun use!
