And now we're up to Book III: Halmalo! Chapter 1.3.1, "La parole, c'est le Verbe," aka "Speech is the 'Word'," or... "The Persuasive Power of Human Speech," apparently. Well, that's a translation choice, A.L. Brut Publishers.
(The word is the verb? Or the word is the Word, i.e. Word of God? I *think* the second one is the right meaning, because WordReference informs me that 'verbe' can sometimes mean the capital-W Word but doesn't say the same of 'parole.' Also because Halmalo says that the horrible jackass of a faux-peasant speaks like God.)
Anyway, I'm digressing here about nitpicky translation stuff because this chapter is deeply upsetting on every possible level. Halmalo is a committed religious feudalist whose ideology requires his own self-abnegation. And so no matter how sympathetic his desire to avenge his brother is, rooting for him is a recipe for disappointment because he's too susceptible to the manipulations of the Faux-Peasant. He's too susceptible to the hierarchical view of duty that always stacks the deck against the servant rather than the master, too susceptible to the idea that obeying your overlord is obeying God. The Faux-Peasant pretends like he's enforcing a 'fair,' if rigid, notion of duty, but it's nothing of the sort. He blames Halmalo's brother for not only the failure of the mission, but the failure of the counterrevolution! And says that Halmalo himself will be responsible for the failure of the counterrevolution and making the Baby Jesus cry (no, really, literally making the Baby Jesus cry) if he kills the Faux-Peasant. It's ALL HALMALO'S FAULT, you guys. It has nothing to do with the military strategy of the people who actually had power, let alone their pre-revolutionary conduct. Everything is Halmalo's fault!
Halmalo ends by begging the guy's pardon, and I want to throw up.
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timeasmymeasure
1.3.1
Date: 2014-05-02 02:27 pm (UTC)Anyway, I'm digressing here about nitpicky translation stuff because this chapter is deeply upsetting on every possible level. Halmalo is a committed religious feudalist whose ideology requires his own self-abnegation. And so no matter how sympathetic his desire to avenge his brother is, rooting for him is a recipe for disappointment because he's too susceptible to the manipulations of the Faux-Peasant. He's too susceptible to the hierarchical view of duty that always stacks the deck against the servant rather than the master, too susceptible to the idea that obeying your overlord is obeying God. The Faux-Peasant pretends like he's enforcing a 'fair,' if rigid, notion of duty, but it's nothing of the sort. He blames Halmalo's brother for not only the failure of the mission, but the failure of the counterrevolution! And says that Halmalo himself will be responsible for the failure of the counterrevolution and making the Baby Jesus cry (no, really, literally making the Baby Jesus cry) if he kills the Faux-Peasant. It's ALL HALMALO'S FAULT, you guys. It has nothing to do with the military strategy of the people who actually had power, let alone their pre-revolutionary conduct. Everything is Halmalo's fault!
Halmalo ends by begging the guy's pardon, and I want to throw up.