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I completely missed the Hundred Acre Wood ref. That's fab, love the way Moore can chuck in totally unexpected points of reference and they work really well. The notes are fab, love the idea that the claw might be Rupert...
I'm really enjoying the interaction between Hyde and Nemo, and how they're contrasted with Mina and Quartermain. I'm not sure whether Hyde is right re Mina not wanting to be there to see Griffin's death ie that 'she's not like us', I think she's more ruthless (maybe this is the modernity again) than that, but it's an interesting set up. The two characters are outside of society/'civilisation' and their motivations are therefore very different to those of M and Q.
And there *is* something very queer about the sexual stuff. O Neill's depiction of Q's body is lovely, something very touching about his nervousness, shyness...contrasted with Mina's simple statment about having adored him when she was sixteen. Her point about them really not being able to be any more 'wrong' just underlines the strangeness.
The Nemo comment about the English is totally in keeping with the character. Moore is following Verne's Nemo, a sikh prince who is embittered by the aftermath of the Great Mutiny of 1857 (often known as the First War of Independance). This is one of the most violent and bloody passages in the history of India under the Raj and there's alot of Indian anger about it *today*. At the time, it sparked violent hatred on both sides. Nemo would have been very likely to view the deaths of the English as payback for the brutal suppression of the mutineers, and to therefore not have been especially bothered about it. |
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