Readthrough: The Player's Boy, Chapters 9-12

[highfantastical]

Thank you very much to lilliburlero for giving me the opportunity to guest-post this week -- the first two TPB recaps were fantastic and it's an honour to follow in her footsteps!

Comments

Re: Insulting Robin

[ext_195770]

The obvious taunt (which would cause that much trouble) would be to tie their patron into the homophobia; ie suggesting that they were the Lord Chamberlain's boys as opposed to the Lord Chamberlain's men.

It's interesting that a book/duology which is all about the power and majesty of language is also intimately concerned with all the numerous ways in which using the wrong language or not remaining silent can lead to trouble.

"What the apprentices said" also loops nicely back (or forward, given both the chronology and the publication order) into the material "deemed either treasonous or blasphemous" which Nicola would have liked to know

Though part of it is Forest's aristry; like Lawrie and the Regent's tortures, the reader/listener can imagine much worse things than one can say, especially than one can say in a way which is both period-appropriate without being incomprehensible ("It is a criminal libel to call a lawyer a daffy-down-dilly") and can get past a children's book publisher in the mid 1960s.

Re: Insulting Robin

[intrepid__fox]

"It's interesting, in the vague context of unspoken (possible) treason, that Edmund then seems to use the opportunity as a fairly callow attempt to seduce Nicholas"

Could you expand on this? Reread as I may, I can't see that in the scene at all, nor in any of the rest of the interactions between Nicholas and Edmund. But I've known the books almost inside out since my early teens, and have difficulty seeing them except through the squint of early adolescence. It's one of the reasons I'm finding this read through so particularly fascinating.

Re: Insulting Robin

[intrepid__fox]

Sun and shadow, as an indicator of Edmund's essentially lightweight character, check, " glad to tell you", hmm, possibly, but there's no real textev for Nicolas reacting with discomfort. In fact, "And he went off, whistling" argues rather the reverse to me. Still, interesting to discuss, and we don't have to agree on everything.