the plumed serpent -- chapter I part III

Even before the bullfight begins, Kate feels "a chill of disgust."

It's ironic that both The Plumed Serpent and the other big bullfight novel, The Sun Also Rises were published in 1926; but whereas Hemingway's bullfights were honorable and manly-ish, Lawrence's is base savagery.

For one, "there was no glamour, no charm" to the audience; the Mexican plebs and patricians are contemptible little rotters, as are the protagonists, and the fight itself descends from confusion into utter brutality.

The bull is simply looking for a way out of the arena; ignoring the handlers until he makes his way over to one of the picador riding a veiled, "lean old" horse "that would never move till Doomsday, unless someone shoved it."

The picador pokes at the bull with his lance and the bull reacts by stabbing the horse in the abdomen, spilling his entrails.

Kate almost passes out from the horrific scene while a Bolshevik Pole nudges her, insisting that, "Now you are seeing life!"

Owen gets a bit nauseated, but Villiers eats it up, and Kate finds herself equally repelled by him. She asks why the horse doesn't simply run away, and Owen explains that the horses are intentionally blinded and feeble because that makes them better bull fodder.

Kate once saw bulls as fearful creatures and treated them with reverence, but now, within the cowardice and silliness of the fight, that illusion is shattered. She shouts at the bull to take out some of the picadors, but Villiers tells her that that's hardly ever the case.

'They say no toreador will face a cow, because a cow always goes for him instead of the cloak. If a bull did that there'd be no bull-fights. Imagine it!'

The whole scene seems like a pretty Marxian metaphor--with the picadors representing the bourgeois and the bull and horses the proletariat. The animals just want to escape while the humans make them kill each other for their own amusement. But so far it seems like the narrator has a pretty dim view of Marxists/socialists/Bolsheviks, so I'm not quite sure what to make of the analogy.

It's not really analogous with the characters--the bull and horses being the Mexican people and the picadors being Kate, Owen, and Villiers--because the three haven't done anything abusive to the Mexicans, or at least haven't done anything abusive that the reader knows of.

In any case, the bull gores another horse and Kate has enough. She leaves, and the audience gets pissed--leaving a bullfight, even one as pathetic as this, is a national insult.

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ACTION! The picador pulled his feeble horse round slowly, to face the bull, and slowly he leaned forward and shoved his lance-point into the bull's shoulder. The bull, as if the horse were a great wasp that had stung him deep, suddenly lowered his head in a jerk of surprise and lifted his horns straight up into the horse's abdomen. And without more ado, over went horse and rider, like a tottering monument upset.

SUSPENSE! 'Why doesn't the horse move? Why doesn't it run away from the bull?' she asked in repelled amazement, of Owen.

QUEER UNIFORMS! Two horsemen in gay uniforms and bearing long staffs had suddenly ridden into the ring.

All in the next book-blogging installment of The Plumed Serpent

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the plumed serpent -- chapter I part II

Owen gets padded down by the ticket-taker "feeling for firearms"; the narrator uses the verb "pawed," suggesting that the Mexicans are animals and hinting at some military unrest. Kate, ever the prude, feels a "shock of horror" wondering if she'll be padded down, too, before the group is lead through the cold concrete tunnel into the amphitheatre.

Owen shrugs the pawing off, unconcerned with the threat that's implied, but Kate feels trapped and uncomfortable. Obviously she doesn't want to be there, but she takes it in stride: "I think it's thrilling." Villiers, on the other hand, is looking for a thrill, which the narrator says is due to his age. Villiers is in his early 20s while Kate and Owen are in their late 30s and have what the narrator describes as a "will-to-happiness."

It's interesting that the narrator tells us so little about the three and even about the setting--the details are sparse, and while we probably know as much about Mexico as Kate, Owen, and Villiers, we know almost nothing about them save what we can guess from their dialogue and actions and what the narrator tells us.


The three are led to their seats in the "Sun" section, which is obviously meant for the lower classes, meaning the Mexicans themselves. The upper-class seats are in the "Shade" section, which is another dichotomy. "Sun" implies that the lower-classes are out in the open, in the light, and have nothing to hide, as opposed to the "Shade." However the Shade seats are located at the top of the amphiteatre, far away from the bloody and brutal action. And even though the three are seated "out in the open," they share little in common with the others seated there, which I think is symbolized by the fact that it's overcast; even though they're exposed, they're not, per se, in the light.

Other attendants, mostly male laborers and black-suited clerks and factory hands, file in, and the narrator describes them as "fattish," and "dark-faced," the women's faces are powdered, which suggests a similarity with Kate: They're both pretending to be something their not; the Mexican women physically, Kate psychologically.

The crowd amuses themselves by snatching a straw hat from an attendee and passing it around, to which Owen remarks, "Isn't that fun?" "That" instead of "this"--Owen's merely observing the action, not taking part in it.

Kate says she hates the common people and is reproached by Owen, who feels the same way but doesn't want to say it.

A military band enters and, at the urging of the mob, plays a song, which ends up being very short. Soon after, the seats begin to fill up, and Villiers stares down a filthy Mexican for taking the seat in front of him. The Mexican maintains that his seat is only temporary until he can join his friends, but Villiers is adamant about having a place to rest his feet.

And the narrator goes hog-wild:

Oh, home of liberty! Oh, land of the free! Which of these two men was to win in the struggle for conflicting liberty? Was the fat fellow free to sit between Villiers' feet, or was Villiers free to keep his foot-space?

I honestly have no clue what the narrator or Lawrence is doing here--he's not really taking anyone's side in the scuffle; he's just mocking them. In context I guess it kind of makes sense, as this is a light skirmish foreshadowing the dramatic bullfight, and it's ironic since the three insisted on sitting in the "common" section to be among the "common" people despite quite obviously having nothing but contempt for them.

But it's alienating because the reader doesn't really have anyone to identify with--not the Mexicans, not the three protagonists, and not the narrator--which makes the first chapter difficult to get into.

Anyway, Villiers puts his feet down--literally--and the Mexican sits on them. Force doesn't work, so Kate begins venomously insulting the Mexican's clothes, which finally gets him to leave. Meanwhile Owen simply glares at the Mexican in front of him. Brute force doesn't work, so the gang resorts to condescending insults.

Next: The Bloodiest Bullfight Ever Described!

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book blogging: the plumed serpent -- chapter I part I

I've never finished the whole thing, so maybe writing about it will get me to do so.

I don't own a copy, so I'm working from the edition posted on Project Gutenberg

The book opens in Mexico City the Sunday after Easter, on what is the last bull-fight of the season. Evidently this is a pretty important bullfight because we're told that four special bulls have been brought in from Spain, Spanish bulls being "more fiery" than Mexican bulls.

Perhaps it is the altitude, perhaps just the spirit of the western Continent which is to blame for the lack of 'pep', as Owen put it, in the native animal.

And with that we're introduced to the first character in the novel--Owen--and the first thing we learn about Owen is that he's "a great socialist" and that he disapproves of bull fights.

The first few paragraphs of any novel usually establish the major themes, and while it's too early to say what's important or what means what, already there seems to be a dichotomy between Easter, or the celebration of the rebirth of Christ, and a bull fight, which is a celebration of death. The significance of this will no doubt become apparent.

The absence of "fire" in the Mexican bulls seems important, too. Bulls are strong, sturdy, and virile beasts, and we don't usually think of them as lacking "pep." And since this is a D.H. Lawrence novel, I think it's safe to say that unpeppy bulls symbolize impotence, more specifically Mexican impotence.

But let's get back to Owen. "Owen" is a Welsh name, so it's a safe bet Owen's not a native to Mexico. That and the fact that he "shall have to go" to the bullfight even though he disapproves of them suggests that he's just visiting Mexico and wants to catch the sights. It also sets him up as a hypocrite.

His companion, Kate, agrees."Kate" is derived from Greek, but it's a common name throughout Europe. "Neither she nor Owen spoke much Spanish" confirms them both as tourists, but are they a couple on holiday? The narrator introduces them so offhandedly and provides so few facts as to their personal lives that we won't know for a while. In fact, right now we don't even know that they're traveling with a third companion, Villers.

As Kate and Owen reach the ticket counter, "an unpleasant individual" waits on them in American, further identifying the two as Anglo-Saxons. The ticket man (as well as the onlookers) insist they buy the premium tickets, but Owen, ostensibly under the guise of preferring to "sit among the crowd" opts for the cheaper tickets.

As soon as they do, Kate has second thoughts, but Owen, despite his disapproval of bullfights continues to insist they see one:

I don't believe in them on principle, but we've never seen one, so we shall have to go.

Owen's starting to look like a real douche.

Owen was an American, Kate was Irish. 'Never having seen one' meant 'having to go.' But it was American logic rather than Irish, and Kate only let herself be overcome.

Now we know the nationalities of the two, and though we still don't know what the nature of their relationship is, we see that Kate's subservient to Owen.

The next paragraph introduces Villers, who's the youngest of the group, also American, and the keenest on taking in the fight.

The three of them drive through the dilapidated streets of Mexico City, with the narrator placing particular emphasis on the "dreariness" of the day and the buildings. The Mexicans aren't much different either: The words used to describe them--"unpleasant," "lousy," "gutter-louts"--don't paint a very flattering picture. Nor are any of them named, either. They come off as vermin, scurrying around a run-down, cold, dreary city (which makes you wonder what the Hell the three protagonists are doing there).

Kate felt she was going to prison. But Owen excitedly surged to the entrance that corresponded to his ticket. In the depths of him, he too didn't want to go. But he was a born American, and if anything was on show, he had to see it. That was 'Life.'

But as bad as the Mexicans come off, Owen doesn't seem much better, maybe even worse, because even though he's a "great socialist" he doesn't feel anything for these people or even admit he's uncomfortable around them--to him it's all a show; it's not life but rather the idea of life.

And that's where I'll stop for now.

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