Wednesday, December 01, 2010
Mr. Neville
One of the things I liked about Mr. Neville — indeed, all of "Hotel du Lac's" characters — was their ambiguous shading. Are we dealing with someone with good or bad intent, kindness, selfishness? Mr. Neville seemed politely honest, keenly perceptive and appeared, to the near the end of the story, to have Edith's "best interests" at heart. What did you think of him? In any case, despite his surprise failing at the end, I liked how he wasn't a cardboard caricature of the man waiting in the wings.
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I liked him, too, at first. And I even thought it was possible that a match of convenience between him and Edith could eventually morph into a love match. They seemed to have some chemistry. I especially liked him when he confessed that his wife had left him for a younger man, that she had no regrets about it and that she was now "radiantly happy." That sort of admission required a fair bit of generosity and graciousness, I thought, not to mention a pretty sophisticated outlook on life. I liked him for that, but then I slowly started to feel that his "honesty" was largely self-serving. And maybe that's the genius of his character, that he admits to and even advocates being self-centered (they have that whole discussion about looking out for No. 1) and yet still manages to seem deceitful and rather slimy.
Toward the end of the book Neville is described as "attractive in sort of a bloodless way," which is kind of how Geoffrey seemed too. Is that another way of saying "good on paper, dull in bed"? David, I gather, is the opposite.
Same story here. I liked him at first, too, especially the part about his wife leaving him. But then he really seemed to pick at Edith a lot. Like he always seemed to be saying, "You know what your problem is, Edith?" Which, I think, is never an attractive attitude. He reminded me somewhat of Fabrice in "The Pursuit of Love." They both seemed to think they knew these women and what made them tick about 10 minutes after meeting them. Arrogant and annoying.
Oh, great comparison to Fabrice!! And both women fell under the spell of these know-it-alls when they were at a particularly vulnerable point in their lives and the men offered a semblance of "rescue."
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