The Go-Between
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The Go-Between is a novel by L.P. Hartley (1895 – 1972), published in London in 1953.
Contents |
Novel
The plot has striking parallels to that of a classical Danish novel, Brudstykker af en Landsbydegns Dagbog ("Fragments from a Parish-Clerk's Diary") by Steen Steensen Blicher (1824).
The story begins with the reminiscences of Leo, an aging man, looking back at his childhood with nostalgia, a theme found in abundance throughout the novel. The great portion of the text concerns itself in this past, particularly the summer of 1900 at the home of his friend, Brandham Hall. Here the young Leo undergoes his process of maturity through experience, acting at first as a messenger in ignorance between the daughter of a wealthy family, Marion, and a nearby farmer, Ted. Later he acts as an interceptor and occasional editor of the messages, realising the true carnal state of the affair between the two. His actions have disastrous consequences, such as the tragic end of the affair with Ted's suicide, and a permanent psychological scar upon Leo's life.
It may be said that Hartley was a brilliant thematic writer, in that many deliberate themes and metaphors may be found in his work. Within this novel such themes arise of childhood, a loss of innocence, family life (or a lack of such), class and gender distinctions and education to name but five.
Hartley's use of the Child narrator
The technique of using a child narrator is one that frequents the modern novel; it provides a completely new and unconventional slant. With any narrator, an author can introduce unreliability, subjectivity, rationality and perspective yet specifically with a child narrator you have the justification to push these to greater extremes, so far in fact that the reader can view completely ordinary situations and concepts through completely different eyes, distancing them so that they can judge it. In ''The Go-Between'', Hartley takes all the literary techniques that an adult narrator can have and projects them onto Leo. Throughout the book there are examples unreliability, subjectivity, perspective and rationality on Leo’s part, but more specifically as a child, Hartley presents the reader with Leo exploring and analysing the adult world, interpreting adult subjects (e.g. page 189 in which Leo misunderstand the Teniers’) with child naivety, the sense of imagination (exaggerating the dangers of the deadly nightshade for example), the questioning of everything (e.g. spooning) and the holding of clear morals and codes (“but because our code discouraged personal disclosures” p. 21). The amalgamations of the attributes of the narrator with the traits of a child prove to be Hartley’s main catalyst in the presentation of the conflicts and debates within his novel. There is no doubt that Leo’s unreliability is the most prominent characteristic in his role as narrator; the older Leo that we are presented to in the Prologue has blocked the memory of events at Brandham Hall from his mind and he only becomes the child narrator as he progressively recalls situations with the aid of a diary, thus we cannot truly trust his memory. Hartley introduces the reader to the concept of Leo’s poor memory early into the book, on p. 19 he hints at this with Leo describing Marcus’ name as “one of those things my memory fights shy of” and also at the end of the prologue, when Leo (Lionel as adult narrator) is trying to remember the combination to his box of memorabilia from his childhood he struggles, a symbolic link of the gap between his childhood and adulthood. Furthermore, Leo’s unreliability is again shown with the emphasis on his subjectivity; he states early on that “in the world of heavenly-bodies, there I was a super-snob” and later in the book he refers to Marian as a “heavenly-body”. With this we learn that his opinions and descriptions of Marian will be biased. With the reader aware of the unreliability in Leo as narrator, they will naturally be inclined to question his story and once questioning, the reader begins to judge the credibility and thus the true nature of the situations described. One factor of the book that the reader will notice is that they understand and can predict situations before Leo, due to the differences in perception between ‘child’ and ‘adult’. For example, the reader will understand what is insinuated with spooning, yet a child would not click onto the full extremities of it. This increases the tragic element to the story, the reader is aware of this impending downward spiral due to the controversy of the situation yet Leo’s misled interpretations creates an almost frustrating and further tragic effect. With Leo in position as narrator, to the reader, it is as if he is the only character that they have any direct connection to, they’re representative in the story, and so the fact that he lacks control of the story brings further tragedy and frustration. With the structure of the novel being that of Adult narrator, Child narrator then again the Adult narrator, the reader is easily able to compare the two styles. Due to the events in the book, the Adult Narrator (Lionel) has been forced to reject all subjectivity, for this is what he blames for his harsh introduction to the adult world. Thus the two narrators are two extremes of objectivity and subjectivity. The whole purpose of Leo in the novel is to understand the events objectively, that is why he goes to hear Marians side of the story in the Epilogue. So the whole book is about testing the perspectives of Leo as a child, inviting the reader to do the same, starting with an objective narrator, sets the tone for how the reader should interpret the book, objectively; I strongly feel that rather than accepting and conforming to Leo’s views, by placing Lionel’s narration at the beginning, Hartley is encouraging the reader to view Leo’s narration objectively, to judge and question it. The purpose and main theme of this story is the exploration of why Lionel’s character has become this emotionally crushed overly objective recluse and the importance of childhood in this. With the use of Leo as child narrator, Hartley presents the traits and characteristics of a child; he shows how naïve and innocent they are in relation to the adult world and how they get subjectively emotionally involved. By forcing the reader to see how a child perceives the adult world, Hartley creates a distantation effect, the perfect foundation to make a more objective judgement. The continuous motif in the book is this idea of frailty of childhood within the adult world and through using Leo as the child narrator, Hartley not only shows with adult world through a child’s perspective, but also through the comparison with an adult narrator, invites the reader to see Leo objectively. This is a book about seeing adulthood from a child, and at the same time seeing the child within adulthood.
Film
In 1970, The Go-Between was made into a movie directed by Joseph Losey with the same title.
The cast included, among others, Julie Christie, Alan Bates, Margaret Leighton, Michael Redgrave, and Edward Fox. The screenplay was written by Harold Pinter. Music for the film was composed by Michel Legrand. The movie was shot at an unknown stately home in Norfolk.
The film won the 1971 Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) at the Cannes Film Festival.
As yet, the film has not been available for sale on DVD, although it was offered as a freebie DVD to readers of the Sunday Telegraph in March 2006.
External links
{{{2|{{{title|The Go-Between}}}}}} at The Internet Movie Database Template:Wikiquoteparbg:Посредникът fr:Le Messager (film, 1970) ru:Посредник (фильм)