[BLANK_AUDIO].
So, one of the first questions that came to my mind after reading this book is
whether in the end, Manon truly loved des Grieux.
>> And whether her signs of affection were one of genuine feelings or a
slightly manipulating his own position and so on.
I was wondering what's your stand on that?
>> Well, it seems to me that, that for, for Manon love is something very
different than it is for des Grieux. And that it's something very situational
and I think she does love him but I'm not convinced that it's just she loves him
absolutely but she loves him because she's in the situation, New Orleans where
she's isolated with him and that's, that's just that just falls into place
for her because it seems like the only option.
>> If you were to ask her, i mean she says that she loves him.
But, the reason that the question makes sense is that her actions, in particular
running off with other men, seem to call that into question.
Maybe the emphasis is un seen. I mean is it possible to run off, to have
to go off with somebody else each time you're out of money and to be believable
when you say you still love them? >> Somebody.
>> I think Manon just separates love from sex.
And she thinks that it's possible to love somebody, and still be with other people.
Especially for, like, financial gain. Especially when it's necessary.
And I don't think she sees it, at first, as a betrayal.
Because she just sees it as, like, a business as usual.
>> Or something that you have to do. Just as if she had to, I don't, take a
demeaning job or something, to get money to like pay for her family because that
was the situation she was in. But she's just using the means at her
disposal to do that. >> But I don't think she's paying for
her family. I think what it comes down to is like she
may love him but at the end of the day she loves pleasure more.
because she's never, it's never about the money.
It's always about what the money brings. >> That would also be consistent with
the possibility that she seems to convert in New Orleans where there's not much
room for pleasure. In other words, their circumstances are
so straightened that one, one could cynically claim that why not [LAUGH] you
know love him now because. >> You've got [CROSSTALK].
>> It's really the only pleasure in her life at that point.
>> Mm-hmm. >> It's like coming from him.
>> Mm-hmm. >> Like, it's not coming from any
external, sort of like, good or, or,you know, like you said, it's just such a
straight, kind of community >> It is, and, and, and, then, what,
what sense does one make of the fact that that that gets punished by this novel?
>> I mean, people have said. Finally, he thinks, finally, there's a
conversion. And she seems to really be
credible in saying how much she loves him at the end.
And then uh, Prévost drops you know, the boom on him.
And it's, it's doomed, it fails. >> Well, I, Yeah.
>> I don't, I don't think her conversion is authentic in the sense of,
like The, this, the type of decision that he bares for example, it of wanted
[UNKNOWN] to make. I don't think it's, it's a concious
decision so I don't think that in the novel it's rewarded because it's, it's
more of a resultive circumstance. >> What if you took the view when a
character dies in a novel. It's not totally crazy to say that it's a
murder, it's an authorial murder, that the author has elected to off this
character. So, I mean is there a kind of, there's
something being coded or implied in the fact that this fails, are we supposed to.
I mean I agree with you that in a sense those are two different propositions, how
she alters and then what the plot ends up doing.
And yet I think that that plot is pretty grim.
>> Well if she, if she were never, like, murdered, or killed off, like an
authorial murder We would never get the story in the first place.
It's like, because of her death and because he's sort of come back and is
telling the story to anyone who will hear it.
It sort of feeds into this obsession. Like this, sort of in-, like, Dante's
Inferno, like spiralling downward. >> Mm-hm.
>> Like, even after she's dead, like he can't stop telling the story.
It's like a compulsion. >> so if she hadn't died, you would
still be like, living happily ever after.
>> You'd still be, right. >> You know, in New Orleans.
So, she sort of has to die in order for us to get the story.
>> That's an interesting view of narrative isn't it?
That it sort of takes a death to trigger the recapture of the story, or the
repossesion of it. Well it seems, it seems to me that we
don't care as much about Manot's love life for its own sake.
So it's not necessarily of, of the author rewarding or punishing her actions, her
death is more of an instrument just to torture des Grieux, which is sort of
Prévost's whole mission with this book is, is authorial torture of
des Grieux.
>> [LAUGH] Go ahead. >> Just going to say, it could also be
making a statement about how utility of how to change your nature.
I think it's in her nature to seek pleasure and once she repents from that,
she gets the ax. >> Some readers have thought that she
stops becoming interesting once she converted it.
In a sense her, her appeal, not so much to him, but as a character is the fact
that she's untameable, she can't be domesticated or possessed or whatever
term you want to use by him except when she dies.
Or maybe that's a marvelous form of appropriation, when somebody is dead.
>> They can no longer really challenge your views of them, you're, you're in the
driver's seat. >> The only thing that comes to my mind
is that her end actually marks the end of his torture, the end of
des Grieux's torture, and although, her death is for some, somewhat like an
end to his like pleasures, it's also the beginning of his torture, and he's back,
he's going back to virtue, but if she had lived on she, they would still have, he
would still be in this he would still have like outburst of love and he would
still eh, stay in the cycle of of breaking up and trying to find ways to
>> So the separation reunion, sort of serial chain would not, would continue,
even in a much more straightened, New Orleans scenario.
>> There seems to be, as he calls it, he calls it a faith or he calls it
heavens. >> wish.
But in the end it's, he's, he's the dealer of his own fate, so.
>> Is a theory of desire, by the way?
That separation is what keeps her alive and that.
I mean, could Prévost have told the story, well now they're living in a
little hut somewhere outside of New Orleans, and they have their little
garden. And he fantasizes about that, that he
could be happy being outside of Paris, etcetera.
>> I'm not sure that that's a writable story or an interesting story.
That anybody would particularly care about it that way.
>> I, I think it's sort of, the whole premise of the novel is a chase story,
it's a pursuit, it's a hunt, and, and continually des Grieux is chasing
Manot. And by the end when she dies, I think
that he kind of wants to chase her into death.
And that's what we sort of see happening, that he has this sort of death of the
soul and that >> Maybe he, he's lost interest in
life. I mean I know, he, he pays some lip
service to religion and virtue but I think at that point he wants to keep
chasing her. That's just another way to lure, lure him
into a trap. >> How far can you chase someone who's
dead? I mean, you can tell the story.
Or we could just head into the underworld [LAUGH].
>> It seems like he's almost there. Manot!
>> Well I think when she dies she ceases to live in the present, Makes him
a narrator. >> Exactly.
>> Yeah. >> Well on that note what is the
significance of the story being framed. >> By an outside person whose going to
tell you a story. Does that say something about how, he's
just gone and told this, des Grieux has gone and told this story to everybody
he's met. And so it's just bound to happen that one
of them, wrote it down. >> It's called the Memoirs of a Man of
Quality and so the. Shadow sort of figure who is telling all
of this. because this is one book out of a series
that Prévost wrote. no readers today have any interest in
that larger series of novels. And so, and so there this, this fellow
who is sort of the first narrator disappears, but he's obviously a device.
>> To have des Grieux sort of, you know, usurp the scene and be the compelling
figure. And people have said you know, this is
really not very credible if he is a kind of realistic appraiser, he tells his
whole thing into, I mean people have gone to sleep, into long tellings about
his you know, his love life. >> And in the original French it
doesn't have any breaks in it either, does it?
>> Not in the same way, no. >> But it still has those two large
parts, but its been broken into more, sort of, you know, digestible segments in
the, in the English rendering. >> Touching upon the theme of the very
end of the story when she dies and he cries and has an outburst of grief upon,
upon her grave I think looking at these scene from different points of view.
I had a chance to look at it. I read it in the spring of 2012 and after
year I reread it again and saw it in different light.
I think depending on your own state of mind, your own state of feelings you
might feel, you cannot help not to feel. sympathy and kind of shared grief, if you
in a similar state of mind with someone you had in relationship whereas later on,
if you kind of get over that you might find that the same scene goes through kind
of a, different, different type of feeling, different kind of response
emotions also together you become. >> You kind of corner him for being
sometimes foolish right before the end. >> So you're saying the second reading
of it, gives more distance to you. >> Give, give more distant, still, I
could have feel sympathy. I could have imagined the scene but at
the same time Luchi had permit, first time I was reading it, at the first
instance I was really engrossed where as the second one.
I kind of share the same view that the author of the introduction mentioned that
degree of the nine months of tragedy had enough power to tell a story that was not
that attached to the recent events and not as detached.
>> From while that he. >> So he's exactly in that sort of
middle position... >> So you, I think reading yourself,
its about the reader that I think Prévost is aiming for the reader and
he's hoping to touch different circuits of life and different states of mind,
with the book and that
might, yeah.
>> Well, yeah I think its kind of an interesting dichotomy there or an
interesting. Sort of two elements of narrative that
you're getting at. Because one of them is the element of
reflection, and some critics have said, this story, given that it is in
retrospect, so much of it. This story could have a lot more irony in
it, where we could see des Grieux being the kind of narrator, says that, I
thought then but I know now, that kind of thing.
But the other side of that, or the other, you know,
>> Part of where the pendulum goes is that the book is so invested in conveying
the immediacy of this man's feelings. The sort of thing you felt the first go
around when you were so engrossed. >> Yeah.
>> That we're meant to feel like this is sort of the present tense of this
narrative. I think one of the reasons the, that the
book was such a, you know, a hit is that. Prévost really was one of the first
writers to deliver that kind of sensuous immediacy.
You know, all of those spectacular outbreaks, outpourings of emotion.
And he weeps and he gnashes his teeth and he lies on the floor and he screams.
All of that, of course, is quite the opposite of sitting and reflecting and,
you know, having a more ironic stance or a more
>> You know, a sense of what you have learned afterwards, the retrospect.
So the book, the book doesn't quite choose between them but I suspect it's
fame relies more on its conveying of the immediacy, the drama, rather than what he
may have learned. >> I'll only correct myself that,
obviously before Before Romantic Age, people did not
sympathize as much with outbursts of love, as you said whereas now we, post Romantic
Age can easily identify the justification of love for any kind of action.
So people, of that age, the nobles, are still cursing might not,
Found, find this as appealing or cannot, could not put themselves in to the, in to
the shoes of des Grieux more likely to, to sympathize.
>> You have really articulated the reception of that text because any.
aristocratic reader of novels, and there weren't very many, the novel is not a
reputable genre in 1731. but,let's imagine that there, there were,
I'm, you know, the, the philosopher Montesquieu read this and he thought that
it was an embarrassment. That and no, exactly as you said, he
would not have identified with all of those outbreaks of passion and emotion.
It does take another century almost before that has a kind of evident
authority and credibility. But that, of course, is what makes this
book so provocative is that it is, I think, the makings- Of a new Ethos or of
a new love code and this man argues it right and left, you know, particularly
all the arguments with [UNKNOWN] that romantic love is the alternative to
religious faith, it's and except that it's better because you get your bliss
here, instaed of waiting for it later. I'm not convinced though that we're
really supposed to sympathize completely with the character of [UNKNOWN].
I mean, and maybe this is, this is my being judgemental but a lot of it seems
like temper tantrums and he makes this view of love seem very unattractive and
immature and out of sync with this world. So, I'm not sure that's some sort of
tragic hero figure, but to me, it more seemed.
>> Like he was that, that Prévost was, at some point, almost ridiculing des
Grieux for his obsession. >> But at the same time, I think, like,
the very nature of the text being, like, [INAUDIBLE].
Like, the face that it's being told by someone else who does sympathize with
them, sort of, like, gives him an element of validity.
It's If it were just him telling the story we could easily look at him, and
say like, oh, these are temper tantrums, like, the reliability of the narrator,
like, do we really trust him? But the fact that he told has the story
to someone else, and that person thought the story was so important that he had to
go and write it down, sort of. >> It adds to that feeling like, if
someone else sympathizes with it, then it must, sort of have some kind of power.
>> And it's not accidental, young people within the story, [UNKNOWN] and
people like that, with all these initial names, they have no trouble sympathizing
with des Grieux. It's generational, the older folks think
this is a abominable, including his own father.
What he's doing, but its like the next generation, his own peers, many of them
find that this is an irresistible story. I don't think you're wrong Hannah,
nonetheless because I think Prévost is twisted a little.
If you read, the preface certainly suggests that its judgmental, I don't think, he
believes that des Grieux is ridiculous but I do think that he says as much in the
preface that I, my project here is to display a man who refuses.
To behave properly, or even refuse his happiness.
Which is, to me, a little bit incredible, because I think that's what des Grieux
is in fact seeking. But it's, it's one reason not to trust
prefaces. Because I, who's to say that the author
is the best judge of what he, you know, has written [SOUND].
One could argue that it is a century later, that the book gets its proper
validation, Prévost could scarcely have known that there were going to be
operas of this or that his title character would end up in a kind of, you
know, almost short hand for passionate love etc.
He couldn't have known those things. So that's one of the accidents of, it's
you know what Borges would have called the Forking Path, that it's only later
that these things acquire a different valence or begin to have a kind of
centrality, whereas here, they're looking perhaps aberrant or punishable or
certainly problematic. I, I think it's interesting that, as the
reader, it, it's very easy for us to identify that Manon is driven by
pleasure. And because, for her, pleasure has a lot
to do with material wealth and comfort and luxury, in addition to sex.
But for des Grieux, it's, it's tempting to categorize his passion as something
more noble, but, but I think, I think he's, he's pleasure seeking too.
It' s just that all pleasure for him is embodied.
>> In Manon Lescaut. So, so they're, they're seeking the same
thing. >> Well, would you want to distinguish,
I mean, how severe are you going to be here?
Would you want to distinguish between love and pleasure?
Not, let me rephrase it. Not distinguish them, but you wouldn't
want to make them incompatible with each other, would you?
Or would you? >> No, no, I don't think so.
It, It's interesting that, I don't know. In the, in the, in the modern day, we, we
tend to, >> Categorize maybe, maybe men as
having an easier time distinguishing between sex and love.
>> Mm hm. >> and this book takes exactly the
opposite perspective. Since Manon Lescaut does that very
willingly. And des Grieux really struggles with it.
>> Why does she stay with him if her only interest is in pleasure?
Because, presumably, unless we're going to say sex.
Which would be not a bad answer. That she has, she says that with him she
tastes a kind of of use douceur, I think is the French, a softness a sweetness that she has
experienced nowhere else. But one could easily that she could find
lots of rich men, older men in particular to keep her and keep her in funds.
But she does come back to him or if, if he retrieves her, she stays with him for
a while. So, I'm not sure this a material angle
for her in being with him. >> I will completely agree with what
you said but it, there's only one instance that made me doubt her, some of
her genuine love. I think in generally she, she did have
true feelings for him but the only thing that I thought was suspicious about the
nature of her feeling is when, only when she was sent or she was given an order
to, to go to New Orleans. And when, in that point of despair, when,
desperation when she was in the, in the wagon and
>> And she know that there, there, there will be no luxury, no more
pleasure, no more amusement. She, she saw only des Grieux as willing to
go into and having the same faith, and only then, she felt this true devotion,
which I sometimes inter, which I at the beginning interpret, interpreted as, as
guilt and. As pity.
As she, she says, she says herself that it's only that she felt pity and she felt
humbled by, by such action. And, in that moment, I thought that the,
the feeling that she was harboring was not love but guilt.
And >> I think that in a way, it let her, I
wouldn't say that's absolute what she felt but I think it had played a crucial
role in in the love that she might have [INAUDIBLE] Mm-hmm, and it's elevated to
a moment of recognition, and I think you're right that, it takes those really
drastic circumstances where it finally breaks through to her.
That he is, the true lover, and that so the guilt, because she has shown I, I
think you're saying this, she's shown very little guilt up until then.
But, let's return to where we started you know, was your first question do we, you
know, do we really believe that he, that she truly loves him
>> And I think that, that, that to me is a tough, good question, because, first
of all, no book, you know, is a live person, so you couldn't get them against
the wall and say, now tell us how you really feel.
>> [LAUGH] And you could say, if you had a real person, you wouldn't find it
out either. But we certainly cannot, you know, we can
psychoanalyze a text but But nonetheless we're doing all the work and it, so we
won't know how true her feelings are but we do know that she says to him that the
fidelity I want from you is the fidelity of the heart, which tells me that it's a
really different code altogether. That, that, and this work, as I said,
we're going in a circle but I think it's productive.
Which is that is it possible that you could have a if necessary because only
necessary a sex life on the side and still find out that does hinge on her
love for this man. That's you know, that's pre-guilt.
She's saying that these don't relate to each other.
That what I have done there was required by necessity.
But you're wrong to think that it somehow means that I don't love you.
And, of course, I think it's a great- >> Great sort of challenge to, to
readers just as it is to him. He can't get his head around it.
>> But I think that's what makes her so appealing, is that she is so upfront.
In saying, like, this is what I want from you.
This is what I expect. And you're watching him struggle with it.
>> Mm-hm. >> But at the same time, you can't
really hate her because she said it. You know she's like, she's laid down the
law, like she's sort of like, outlawed the rules of the game and she said like,
"Are you going to play or not" and he agrees to play, but then struggles like
so much with it and you're watching this figure, just like, like cast himself into
misery and pleasure and back and forth, and like, all over the place.
>> But she's lined it out from the beginning.
>> She has, and does it does it suggest that maybe monogomy is a is a kind of
luxury item in her view? I mean, that it's not something that,
that they can afford, or that she can afford, and that I guess one of my
questions is How does that resonate today?
I mean are we living in a time where this seems, you know, immoral, promiscuous
something that we should condemn? I mean we started with the question, do
we really believe that she loves him? But is it, you know, how have, you know,
people's sense of morality or of love. How's that evolved since 1731?
People usually say we have a much more liberal view about sexuality but I get
the sense that. I, I know in teaching this book that
people come down you know, with a hammer on her.
That they think of her as either a hypocrite, or as a prostitute, or.
You know, as a liar and and I think you're raising the, as you're saying,
she's she announces it right on out and she doesn't quite make a program of it
but she says, this is the way it is, and it doesn't impinge on my feeling for you.
Does that stick in your craw? I mean, you know, how would one?
>> I don't want to, you know, say, is this relevant today?
But, but, the point is, it, it seems to me that.
Almost at two centuries, you know, three centuries distance.
It's curious to know what we make of this declaration.
>> My first section on this book, I got into a screaming match with one of the
other kids online. Over that very issue.
>> huh. >> Because he was saying, you know,
like, she's a prostitute. She's a floozy.
Like, she's abominable. And I think it's interesting.
And it also came up in our section, how little respect we had for the Chevalier.
And I think it's so funny because like you said at the begining, we typically
associate the seperation between sex and love as a very male.
Dominate kind of thing. And you have this character who's just
like, it's sort of role reversal. and it's funny we think with all this
time's distance, you know, that we have some kind of different perspective.
That we've become more liberal about it. But, I think the very nature of her being
a woman was what was getting under the skin.
>> That's right, but one of the key principals of, at least a certain trains
of feminist thought. >> Is that women own their own bodies.
Isn't that sort of what she's claiming? She's not quite saying you have no
jurisdiction over me. But I mean isn't that somewhat an issue
here, is that this is her body and she challenges his, his assertion that well
this means that you must not love me. And you, this is so gross of you to
behave like this. >> And yet I can't imagine a feminist
reading really look at, looking at sort of the commodification of her body and
saying like, you go girl. [LAUGH] You know like.
>> I feel she's, she's stepping on everyone toes.
>> What, what kind of kind corrective criticism would there be.?
What would one, how could one want to straigthen her out if one wanted to
reform her to some degree. I mean you could the book tries to do
that with Dianna. >> But that's when she loses all
interest you know. She's not an exciting person anymore.
I think it's the, the commodification and the selling that makes it reprehensible,
not the fact that she wants to like have sex with other men.
But I guess it's I, I feel like that's where the criticism would be coming from.
But again, you said in your lecture like that's her only capital so what else is
she to do. I think the book implicitly, I don't
think this was ever explicit or intended, exposes this as sort of bravada or
inflatedness of, of, of, the, of des Grieux's conception of love.
That, I mean, there's a, it, it, it's not just that she's a pragmatist, she's a
materialist. She said early on that if we stop having
money. did you think we could ever be happy
without enough to eat? To me, that's a profound statement.
it suggests that maybe our romantic view of love is, is a very, is, is sort of a
luxury item that presupposes we're not in dire necessity.
Presupposes that we have other assets than our own bodies, so that the you
know, the, the sense that this is the only item for trade that she got I don't
know any society that doesn't commoditize people, in, in one fashion or another.
>> Right I feel like des Grieux is really like drinking the courtly romance
coolaid of like. >> [LAUGH] I like that.
>> Well, he. >> Like in the middle ages, idea of the
man going through all these trials and tribulations for his woman.
>> For the lady, yes. >> The lady and I feel like, there's a
lot of aspects actually that go along with that.
Like the first time he sees her, like the courtly love idea is that the woman's
image. >> Actually goes through the man's
eyes. >> Right, right.
>> Into his body. >> Correct.
>> He falls in love, and that's the way their meeting is described.
he talks about his passion declaring itself through his eyes, and all that.
But the difference is that they're not both, ca, cause in this courtly love ideal
they'll be two people that are noble. >> And it's usually a love triangle
between a married woman and like, a Chevalier.
>> Well, we have something of a triangle here, even though it's not
spelled out. Tiberge is the other contender for
des Grieux's, not quite his affections but people have said, "This is a strangely
triangulated plot in it's own way, that." >> He's pursuing Manot and
Tiberge is pursuing him. >> And there is kind of an element of
like, what's going on between them, it's like when they first talk about Tiberge,
they say, like, they develops the kind of friendship that so many boys at boarding
school develop. [LAUGH] like there's sort of this
undertone of like, "What going on there guys?"
>> Well and take a look at the end, I mean the guys goes Tiberge around the world,
he gets. Talking about pirates and its as if
Prévost said he's going to unpack everything he can to throw at this
plot. But Tiberge, you know, nonetheless, is
tried and true, he shows up at the end as well.
obviously, Prévost, you know, is incapable of imagining a homoerotic subplot there.
But you know just like I asked you has our own view on sexuality or particular
women's behavior altered so much in past three centuries.
Likewise, I think our sex male sexuality are quite different from you know one
could of anticipated in 1731. So we can, you know, make the boarding
school, you know,reference, which is quite nice we, we can read the text, you
know, in kind of a smokier way. That there's something, you know, there
is some kind of drive, that, that he is the ruling passion in Tiberge's life.
We really don't hear much about Tiberge's ambitions for the church, this
is his mission. >> Is to save this man, des Grieux, save
his son. It's funny.
>> And the life triangle seems to shift between of course, on one side, among
Manot and des Grieux and one angle is always one of the rich, wealthy
I guess, noble class man who is trying to impress her.
Manon, with his riches. And I was, I was somewhat appalled, let's
say, with a quantification of love that was shown in the book.
That, how easy des Grieux could suspect. That Manot would leave him just for
sake of a better life, more comfortable life of pleasures.
And he's seriously being, like a, the, the, riches of of of her perceive,
someone who's pursuit, pursuing her, and, and himself, as if the love and the
riches can match and I think per voice suggesting this changing nature of of of
value between noble class and the urban class in what actually makes a man
successful. Is it his internal feelings, internal
quality, refinement or that he's success and the.
>> The new world of making a self made man.
>> Right, in his bank account. Right because well, I think that, that
that cluster is worked throughout the book, at the very end, when they're in
New Orleans, under stange circumstances, she says to him, it's part of that sort
of conversion moment. And she evokes Midas, you know, that you,
you were the richest man in the world, now.
if you're willing to think that our love is the source of enrichment.
So it takes that entire, sort of analogy between money and love and converts it
all to the side of love. Whereas most of this plot.
Has been driving in the other direction. That short of money love is really a kind
of a unsustainable fantasy of sorts. Or it can't be main, it's not
maintainable. And to me that is you know, I've said I
think that's a provocative view. That, that maybe love is a kind of
>> Sweet superstructure that we apply on to material circumstances, but when
they get really harsh things show in different colors altogether.
>> And yet she's never, you know, screwing around for bread, you know, it's
always like jewels and, and riches and it, it's always superfluous.
I think that's why we have kind of a problem with her.
>> Mm-hm. >> Is, 'cuz you never see these, like,
scenes of hunger and desperation. >> No, they never get that poor.
>> Except in New Orleans,
where she dies. >> Exactly, which is when she dies.
>> Mm hm. >> But you always see her taking,
taking things that she doesn't need. And I think that we.
You know that idea that there can love exist you know, like when you have
nothing, they never have nothing, so that's why you don't feel that
bad for her. But like one of my favorite scenes of all her suitors is when, comes like
a moment when they say like she took the pearls that she had already taken
from the man's side. [LAUGH] .You know it so cyclical, its so
cyclical that she is actually taking back.
>> Gifts that she had -- Mm-hmm. >> -- already received from someone
else. >> Mm-hmm.
But that makes it all the more delicious. >> Exactly.
[LAUGH] >> Yeah.
There's a certain type of kleptomania --
>> And then she's supposed to give them back -- Yeah.
>> -- y'know, like -- So you were talking -- Kleptomania, almost.
[LAUGH] >> Yeah.
>> she, she just gathers up everything she can.
But I, I really think that's mentality she developed, probably.
Growing up in a lower class environment where she felt she needed to gather
whatever was available and I think that's the real issue to the courtly romances.
That he's drinking this cool aid and he has this image that he can go slay the
dragon and collect her from the castle but, I think she's the one whose really
getting the obstacles out of the way and it's not him.
And I think that's very hard for him to accept that.
>> That she's supporting him and that she is very progressive in that regard.
>> That's right, he. >> She doesn't really want to be
rescued. >> No.
>> I mean a lot of the time either, you know like she isn't held up in a tower,
it seems like she's already found the back door.
>> And also, I'm struck by your remark that they are never really in penury.
At least we don't see them starving, etcetera, which would make it a very
different kind of novel. But, you don't have that.
On the other hand, it's of a piece with consumerism.
I mean, she liked jewelry, okay? Well, a lot of people like jewelry it
seems to me. We wouldn't have the kinds of industries
out there that service people with with significant material appetites.
today, if, if our culture were not also, drawn in that direction.
He wants, he suggests to her that they should leave Paris, and, Texas, very
subtle. It says she hinted that she might not be
very happy away from Paris. But that's not merely that she's going to
go to the great restaurants. She wants to go to the theaters.
There is a interesting sense which she says modern character.
I don't know that she is a kleptomaniac, I mean she does like goodies but I think
Prévost has stumbled into a new kind of mentality, a kind of urban mentality
that likes the good things, the good material things, that
>> The stimulating, the stimuli of modern life, I mean Paris is sort of the
unstated sort of center of this book in some ways.
And that's why New Orleans is its opposite, its other, and they won't
manage there at all. >> And I think it's something that we
don't really accept in ourselves which is why we don't accept it in her.
>> I think everyone can sort of relate to her on some level of wanting those
things, but I don't think its something that we like about ourselves.
It's like, its not, like you're never going to say like, I'm a consumer and I'm
okay with it, like you're going to sit there and critique consumer culture,
while buying into it at the same time. >> Right.
But that's perfect level attitude. One is an attitude and the other is
behavior. >> Well I mean, we go to Brown University. We all sit around and
talk about like consumer culture, isn't it awful, we're all still here, we're all
still buying into it. >> She's probably a lot more in touch
with herself than some of us. >> And perhaps a good bit more so than
he is. >> Hm.
For sure. >> Because, I mean, he comes across as
the deluded character of the book, it seems to me.
And I can't, don't have a clue whether Prévost saw him that way.
Prévost does say in the preface that he's a man who chooses not to be happy.
But I think he is blinded by a lot of other things too.
And that he misconstrues the world that he's in.
He, you know, he indicts the gods and fate and fortune.
Whereas, we can read the book and see that he's short of funds.
And mind you too, she is the source for them.
But it's a, you know, this really suggests to me, at least I would want to
believe, that this book- Touches a nerve in some ways that it sheds a light on
some pretty unresolved ambiguities in modern culture as well.
Between our principles and the fact that willy nilly, if we had a university like
this, but, but if, but if we are just living a modern life and not starving we
probably made some compromises in maternal requirements.
>> What is expected of us and that are not totally consistent with high flying
idealism. >> But also, looking from, from the
other hand. I think, we haven't lost the principle of
some principles that are mentioned in the book.
That education and like, self self kind of cultivation that.
Uh, Tiberge is arguing for, in order to have a degree on his side, the side of
virtue and we still value, that's why we're here, we value education as
something that can shed light to whatever path that we choose and I think Prévost
is kind of alluding to. >> to which as being analogous to,
to self-cultivation, self. >> Mm hm.
>> Self-education really. And that you learn from experience.
>> Yeah.
Well, that's the point. Experience, it seems to me, is the tricky
feature here because this story does depict an education.
You know, Flaubert called one of his novels L'éducation sentimental.
And it would apply to this work. Sentimental education, sexual education, moral
education, urban education so there is lot of learning going on, whereas there's a lot of
learning going on in ways Tiberge's not equipped to gauge, he has got a much more traditional view
about what that consistent what i mean what protagonist, is I think being schooled.
For life and and it it doesn't conform to his expectations or his norms.
And I think that's part of the disarray of the book is that he's stumbling, he's
off-balance, he you know, he, it's it's, that's what's alive about this book it
seems to me. But about virtue.
I mean, it, I'm going to make a cynical claim here.
Isn't virtue always more a rhetorical than an active thing?
In other words, no one is likely to say that I don't believe in virtue.
except Iago, says that, virtue a fig, he says in Othello.
But in general we all subscribe to it. But to get back to this university, none
of you was admitted because of your virtue.
That, that and I have no idea how virtuous you are, but that wasn't, that's
not what showed up on your SATs, or the, even the letters, I suspect, written in your behalf,
that you're at a place like this, because of the sort of measurable you know,
quality of, of your intelligence and of your achievements, along those lines.
And in that light, you know, Manon is a very intelligent character.
You know, she is, in a sense, the one lucid character in, in the novel.
And I would like to suggest that that too is a virtue, even though it's utterly at
odds with virtue with a capital "V," you know.
>> So I don't, I don't, you know, it's tricky that way.
>> But no one is telling Tiberge's story.
>> No. >> You know, like he's the one who
will live forever. Like in the,
>> That is correct. And wouldn't you be willing to go a
little further, he comes across as dunce, Tiberge?
I think, I mean of course he stands for the right things, the traditional things.
Bu he, he is treated as Dupe, he's the go, he's the one that des Grieux is
systematically going to exploit, to have his way.
Now we can come down heavy and say, "Oh, this is so unfair to poor Tiberge", but I
think, more sophisticated readers, they don't think that Tiberge has it coming
but they can see that, you know, he's not exactly the cleverest fellow in the room.
>> You see that suggests the obsoleteness of religion at any time.
>> I would. >> But it sort of makes it silly, like,
I, I mean that you, you look at the Chevalier and, and he's like an addict.
You know, he's, like, calling on the same person over and over again.
And, like, most addicts, they wear out the people who they rely on.
And this is the person who's always there, always coming back.
It's like he's almost as addicted >> To being used?
>> To being used as, I mean he's an enabler but its, he's sort of like
falling into that cyclical addiction compulsion kind of category as well.
>> The Stockholm Syndrome, [LAUGH] that he, he needs this, you know, but that is
his grand project, to save this man and therefore He's not quite a cash, you
know, cow for them. He's definitely abetting him.
He's not enabling him as she said. It's a, there is where I think Prévost has
just got his finger on the pulse. I mean, he understands the types of
negotiations that happen between folks. And how it honestly might be.
>> With the big categories, the full categories.
>> I think the other, maybe the other sort of, cynical way to look at this is,
is that virtue is really easy to fake. And, and that yes, after, after he does
it for a long time, des Grieux gets caught and, and his father gets sick of
it and, and to some degree Tiberge gets sick of it, but But for, in a lot of
scenes he is able to say I have reverted, I am steadying, I am doing great and, and
you realize that underneath that very little is changed and at the moment he
sees. By now he snaps right back, so I think to
some degree that, that degrades virtue, that says that its, its very easy
to pull off this facade, but. >> But it doesn't mean a whole lot.
>> Could we rescue him a little bit out of this morass by suggesting that, that,
that love itself becomes the chief virtue here, that his passion for her that
legitimizes all of the steps that he takes.
Now, mind you, his father doesn't see it that way.
Many readers do not see it that way. L'amour c'est une passion innocente, he
says, love is an innocent passion. he really you know, is sort of Jesuitical
in, in justifying what he does. I don't even think he's rationalizing, I
think he genuinely believes it. That if that you know, he says, what
difference does it make what kinds of acts I have to commit?
>> If it's in the service of preserving our love, or of rescuing her or whatever
it might be. But it's all in that same direction.
That that becomes the higher ethical, you know, sort of calling.
That, th-, and everything else is secondary.
>> I don't even bel-, know that I believe that he's in love with her.
Like I think he's in love with the idea of that courtly love.
Like When it comes down to it, if she were willing to settle down, who like,
we're not getting that story, so like, who knows, you know, they had very little
time in New Orleans to sort of live that, like very typical like, wifey-up
kind of life. It seems like its, its the very nature of
the fact that he can't have her, that he's so.
>> Obsessed with. >> Well again, i, I think that's the
theory of desire as opposed to marriage.
>> Well that's, that's the thing. >> Yeah.
>> Desire isn't the same thing as love. >> No.
>> Desire is, is not being able to have something.
And, once you have it, you can't desire it any more.
>> Well, once you have it and it's removed, you got to have it back.
>> hm mm But I think that, that's sort of the story, that's the reason the story
itself caught on fire, that people made operas out of it and they continued to
refer to it as a grand story, not of marriage [LAUGH] but of passion.
But that in itself is not amenable to sort of serenity or stability or.
>> You know, a nice little nuclear family with the babies that they make and
all happy together, requires that she, that it be disrupted, interrupted, you
know, sought after, again and again and again.
>> Alex, its interesting what you said but also, we find like a numerous instances
if him. Suggesting he wants constancy.
He wants a stable life. He wants to be peaceful with Manon, and
for the rest of his life. Although he never gets it.
He's, he's never, he never achieves it fully.
until it's, like, really late. and when she.
And when they actually do, do think they cheat in New Orleans.
That she, she just dies because of hunger.
But he seems to do it even in the causation with his father with Tiberge
and with [UNKNOWN] and I think even Lescaut, her brother that he wants some
kind of stable life but she's the one, if we were to criticize her, from a point
of view of. of 21st century is that we cannot get
over the fact that she's so greedy, that she's, will she ever be stable, will she
ever be satisfied with normal, regular life, a mother's life or is she one
who cannot fight desire for entertainment. And for her, love might not be enough.
And whereas we can tolerate her modern views she does have greed which maybe
does not justify all her action. So I think she's the one who is not ready
be stable that much as he is. >> Mm-hm.
>> No I mean. I think he obviously wants that stability
but I think it's. >> It's the lack of that keeps him
going. I don't think that we would see this
passionate like all consuming love if it weren't being taken, or desire whatever
it is, if it weren't being taken away from him time after time.
>> I'm confused about why he loves her actually.
Because we don't actually get very much description of her besides the fact that
she's beautiful and like godly. >> No, exactly, that's what I'm saying.
Is that it's more the chase than it is her. >> But we don't even have a compelling
reason for his love, unless we think beauty is like a compelling reason
for love. >> Do you think in general, we don't
usually have those things? >> I think he's really full of himself.
>> [LAUGH] No, I'm serious. I think that he really, likes the idea of
him being this sort of noble man who's going to chase her.
>> Until everything works out, you know.
Like I think he's more sort of in love with himself than he is with Manot.
>> But to play, to play Devil's advocate with this idea that,
that he's always chasing there, there's no sign that their love is fizzling out
in New Orleans when they, when they're settled out and planning on getting
married. They're still as passionate as ever.
They're not getting bored of each other. >> they seem to have gotten to a pretty
stable place just by sort of alternate means.
And I think that they're just, they're punished by the society going back.
>> Mm-hm. >> To that earlier question just
because they got there the wrong way, because they got there from a way that
was so outside of the bounds. >> Mm-hm.
>> That even the end product isn't acceptable.
>> And I think that's a smart point, Anna.
Because you could, you could also claim that.
When they elect them to, to be formally, to be recognized as unmarried so that
they can then be married. It suggests that she too, opts in.
She wants this. She wants the, to, have a kind of,
recognized sanctioned marriage just for the two of them.
rather than these kind of You know, course that they've been on.
So both of them tend to move in that direction.
Of course the plot makes it impossible. It, it, it saps them as if there's a kind
of narrative law that says, this is the point at which the book stops being
interesting. This is the point when she stops being
interesting. This is a story that we no longer want to
tell, etcetera. But she clearly
>> They both are ready for this to be a permanent thing, you know?
You know, that's not, that's not in the cards in this story.
>> So, so maybe that does some credence to, to des Grieux's idea of
fate playing a role. >> That's our fate.
We've done, [LAUGH]. [LAUGH]
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