Bridge of San Luis Rey: Yet more.
(ed. note: I, too, can hardly believe it, but there is yet more of our chat on Bridge. DP has voted for completism, so here’s part 4, with *gulp* more to come once I get done transcribing it.)
Diablevert: But what did you think about this idea of it being all about love being thwarted? It seemed so sad to me, that none of these people ever came close to achieving that fulfillment. And that seemed to be part of the point somehow.
Dreadful Penny: It is, it’s a very sad book. I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say it’s tragic, because it might be too slender to be tragic, but it is. Even the characters who are left behind — the actress who enters the convent, or the daughter, who ends up sort of sad and remorseful for her scorn — there are a lot of characters in this book who end up sort of sad. But it’s not a hopeless book. It feels like a book that’s very full of hope.
Diablevert: I dunno, I think a lot of it was about all the characters accepting that they’re never going to get what they want. You know what I mean? That kind of happens to everybody. It’s like the actress’s idea…her face is ruined and she’s never going to attain that fame, and her art doesn’t mean anything to her anymore, and so she throws herself into good works, but that’s kind a limited, and a very different thing from what she had hoped to achieve. And even the nun, who had hoped to see her work carried on, is like, okay, her protégé is dead, and that’s never going to happen for her, [and she comes to accept], I’m not going to change this society permanently, but I can do this little thing that I can do, I do that the best I can and that’s it.
Dreadful Penny: And Uncle Pio has this great love for the actress, and he’s killed, and the twin, nobody gets any in this book, or you’re right, it’s all offscreen. I mean, it’s not so scared of sex as, say, the Bromfield, where people literally went batshit insane of, you know…
Diablevert: Sidebar on Bromfield: Did you ever see Cold Comfort Farm?
Dreadful Penny: Yes, I did see that movie, yes.
Diablevert: Do you know Stephen Fry’s character in the movie*?
Dreadful Penny: Yes. Yes, I do.
Diablevert: I think Bromfield might be a bit like that.
Dreadful Penny: Oh no! <She dissolves into giggles.>
Diablevert: Do you know what I mean? Because Stephen Fry’s character is very much — it’s a very good book, also, Stella Gibbons — but his character is like, “It’s not that you don’t like me, it’s that you have these tremendous hang-ups about sex, and if only I, this virile gentleman, could just get you to get over this….”
Dreadful Penny: Which is so funny because Stephen Fry, I mean, that character…
Diablevert: Oh, I know, exactly….but the whole idea of this pig-headed, blind, “God, these sheltered, hopeless, foolish, blocked people! If only they would just Embrace the Life Force!” Bromfield just struck that note for me, and I mean…the [Courant] review had a good headline, ‘Pummelling the Puritans’—
Dreadful Penny: “Pummells the Puritians….with his weiner.”
Diablevert laughs.
Dreadful Penny: Good job, Bromfield.
Diablevert: Yeeeah….
*Note: He show up 2:39 into the clip.
