Thursday, October 27, 2011

MM 4 : Hippe Hippe Hurrah

Chapter finalizes the cheerful Sunday! The cousins are watching Clavdia and Marusja in the carriages. “Russians (particular Russian ladies) love to go for rides”.
On Monday, Hans decides to take an extended walk, all by himself. This is perverse and ill advised. He exhausts himself terribly and after a while will rests on bench near a brook. His nose starts bleeding and Hans has something like a minor epiphany.

  1. Bildung
It is forbidden not to attend Krokowski’s lectures! Settembrini is absent.

  1. Death
The Austrian Horseman’s cough he hears every day, lest he would forget where he is.

“The nose bleeding left him in a state of strangely reduced vitality”. This pseudo death announces another one later, more dangerous. This time HC suddenly remembers where he has seen the eyes before, finally telling us who he recognized in the dream he dreamt in the chapter “Satana makes shameful suggestions”

Notice HC’s body described as “lifeless”

  1. Eros
Hans is still puzzled about who or what he was reminded of each time he sees Clawdia’s eyes. Hans notices again the effect Marusja has on Joachim.

Krokowski’s lecture “Love as a force conducive to illness”

Remembering Pribislav Hippe, Polish first name, Slavic blood, bluish grey or greyish blue eyes ( like distant mountains, the Caucasian Mountain range no doubt ), curious, narrow slanted shape ( Asian ) with prominent distinctive strong cheekbones.

Hippe in German is the scythe wielded by Death, the grim Reaper. Hans is attracte to death ?

Kirghiz eyes, Kirgizstan in the Caucasus? Is that not where Clawdia comes from and where her French husband is working? Where do German schoolboys know Kirgizstan from? Their reading of the Russians? Tolstoy? Lermontov?

“HC did not worry about the intellectual or emotional basis of his reaction or even what name he would give it if he had to. It could not be called friendship…” It is love of course, it is attraction, it is infatuation. See how many times the word “loved” is used indirectly when speaking about the attraction Hans feels for Hippe. He loved the emotion, he loved the satisfaction, he loved the disappointments. This homosexual attraction cannot be pronounced. It is too adventurous, too risky…

Exchange of the silver and red phallic symbol: “Could you lend me a pencil?”, both heads bent in a joint communion. Hans the fetishist collects the shavings.

“Intimate relationship with Hippe”.

And he looked so strangely like her…The heterosexual attraction Hans obviously feels for Clawdia is a remake of an attraction of an earlier platonic and homosexual Love Hans felt for the beautiful boy Hippe.

  1. Time
The epiphany is like a time warp

  1. Geography
Lovely people have ( Central Asian ) Asian blood.

Listen while reading this chapter to : Prélude to L’après midi d’un Faune by Claude Debussy