Peter | The Great Fire

Clear Literary/Mythological References to Love

-The name Helen -- struggles for her affection…

-Direct reference to Romeo and Juliet

-“He wondered if there was to be an elopement. He couldn’t recall what had happened to Romeo and Juliet.” (220)

Techniques/Strategies

-Navigates a vast amount of time in space through memories, letters.

-Directly address political issues and actors by name, but often in thought, dialogue, or letters/diary entries.

-Use of very brief dialectic parentheticals within greater blocks of thought is an effective technique to relay a lot of information about a character or a place succinctly:

i.e., “Jason had been ‘out’ to Kenya three times, finding animals and landscape revelatory; but oppressed by the colonial life (‘Boozing can be a bore, you know’) and, it might be guessed, by father and stepmother. (89)

-Heavy use of letter writing mixed with personal diaries allow for fast an explicit shifts between internality and externality of the character. (49)

Phrases/Fictional, Poetic, and Essayistic Thinking

-“…but his first engagement with loin grief and its transformation” (92)

Dialog language

-In general, the dialog is pretty straight forward (but it’s great, although sometimes hilariously on the nose or beautiful). However, she certainly gets right at the point. The language, in general, is stronger in the letters and diary entries.

- “I have no preference”

“I’m a decisive person” 28

-“We don’t go in for conversation here: we like plain talk. We Australians are easygoing”

“We’re a good natured lot. Have our faults, like the rest of you. But the old heart’s in the right place.” 28

-“A girl has become dear to me. Something unsought, and impossible.”

“Is it the changeling?”

“Of course.” He said, “Her name is Helen, and she is roughly half my age.” (128)

Passages I Enjoyed

-“Exley, later, had no clear memory of seeing Roy Ryson for the first time… He remembered that he was reading when Rysom came in and set the Jazz belting, dragged off his boots, flopped on his bed, and began twitching to the music. Rysom’s foot in its dank sock stuck out from the military blanket, toes curling and uncurling erotically to the music; his fingers convulsively beat on his chest, like hands of the dying. Peter Exley had watched men clutch themselves and die, and be covered up by regulation blankets. Men shot to bits in the desert, blown in half by land mines, festered with infected wounds: the whole scarlet mess covered by the military blanket” (69)

-“Rysom was forever doing imitations: of a language, an accent, a personality; a man.

Rysom had dreams from which he woke shouting: dreams, like Exley’s own, of men dismembered and sheets of flame. Each, in the night, now fought alone the was that neither could survive.

On his cot at the barracks Exley realized how much of his soldiering was spent flat on his back, waiting for war. War had provided a semblance of purpose, reinforced by danger. Danger had been switched off like a stage light, leaving the drab scenery. And there they were at the barracks, he and Rysom, two years into peace and bored to death by it. Each must scratch around now for some kind of compromise and call it destiny.” (70)

-“He [Peter] earned a little money with weekend tutoring; had a stealthy brief affair with a professor’s wife called Norma, who laughed a lot; and a protracted misunderstanding with a student named Hazel, who often cried.” (121)

“-Leith amused himself thinking that Peter Exley was the only person in the world who knew his whereabouts; who, having cautioned him about grenades and hatchet men, would in the event have to come and find him. To save his life in fact. Then they would be quits; a relief to both” (117)

-“The scholars passed, slippered and gowned, the sun-colored Buddhists, and the French nuns in sky blue under the white and mediaeval headdress. And the tourists, with wallets rashly displayed, filing into the Swatow Lace Company” (109)

-“In August, Peter Exley was assigned to the interrogation of a Japanese officer charged with atrocities to prisoners of war. He had already noticed the man in the exercise cages behind the barracks, on a private road that lead through the trees to the general’s house. The prisoner was listless, slight, still young; short limbs, cropped dark head. Sometimes the inexpressive eyes met Exley’s. It was difficult to say, then, who was the accused.” (76)

-“dreams… of men dismembered and sheets of flame.” (70)

-“War had provided a semblance of purpose, reinforced by danger. Danger had been switched off like a stage light, leaving drab scenery.” (70)

Words to Use:

- Heraclitus!

- Facetiously obscene

- Malodorous

- Patina

- Cenotaph

Ideas for my story/plot:

“He had not spoken with the deceased, nor seen him for more than moments on the day of his own arrival.” (43)

-The early suicide resonates b/c of all of the suicide research I’ve recently undertaken. The image of the body ((“The head had not been severed: the youth had acted alone.” (43)) is brief, effective, and telling of the nature of the death. The bigger question, with which I continue to struggle, is the idea of writing about the deceased w/out knowing them. The quote above, I think, is very telling of the trouble. This book is obviously a work of fiction, but the same trouble presents itself, how can the dead be properly captured – and respectfully – without actual knowledge (Even when supplement with research and interviews). On the next page, when Leith sits down to write his account of the suicide, and reflects that the man may still be alive had he intervened will – undoubtedly – stick in my mind. There’s a huge amount of literature (academic) that suggests even merely writing about suicide, or widely reporting suicide has correlated to increased suicides in the past. Conversely, this literature and speculation has been refuted and accused of serious analytical shortcomings. Second, I really like how understated the suicide actually is on 43. I don’t think any additional description of the body – although well written – is necessary to present the chilling image. I continue to struggle with the notion of what is an acceptable/correct level of description re: gruesome self-inflicted violence.

-The other idea, which I still can’t shake, is the notion that people would visit post-bomb Hiroshima as a somewhat touristic endeavor (even as research for the book in the book). It’s such an offhand, but great detail about the characters/place/thoughts.

-Also, definitely going to start using – or experimenting – with dialogue within parentheticals.