Susan wrote:

Edward reminded me of a character we met in an earlier short story, "The Stag at Bay," named "Edwin," I believe.

Another similarity to "Stag" is the mention of Punch magazine.

The main characters in "Handmaiden" share the same last name as the hero of another short story, "The Little Death". The Grattan (first name not given, but a male) of "Death" seems like a different character than Edward Grattan of "Handmaiden", though it is conceivably the same person, and Paula Grattan shares with "Death"'s Grattan the sense of a double identity, though in opposite senses: "Death"'s Grattan is one man, who feels himself splitting into two identities, and Paula is one woman who feels that she has merged into another, larger identity. Thus in "Handmaiden":

"she felt the cold of loneliness and she walked faster up the hill. She had been married for more than ten years now, and she was no longer equipped for individuality: everything in what she thought of as her only genuine life had been doubled and made real by sharing, and this solitude was desolation itself." (p. 234)

(see http://jfinnera.www1.50megs.com/Death.htm for our earlier discussion of "The Little Death")

There is perhaps also a sly reference (sly as a cat, as Paula would say) to "Death" in Paula's mention of Killeen (p. 238), a place Paula thinks of.

Kil is an Irish prefix meaning servant (e.g., the name Kilpatrick means "servant of Patrick"), and -een is a diminutive, so the name could be translated as "little servant" (i.e., a handmaiden?); but we could also consider it as an English-Irish pun, with the English word "kill", which is closely related to death, and the Irish "een", so that a near translation would render the name as "little death".

On the subject of possibly significant names, there is Conchita: the second part of her name, chita, sounds like cheater, and the first part like con (as in con man (or con woman)), or c**t (female genitalia), or perhaps the first bit of conception.

Finally (for significant names), after Edward and Paula make their final agreement at the story's beginning, Paula agrees to buy Edward a package of Henry Clay cigars. These are real cigars (with a web site at http://www.altadisusa.com/ccc3/cigars/henryclay/index.asp ), but I'll leave it to any cigar aficionados on the list to explain if they have any qualities relevant to the story.

Henry Clay the man (1777 - 1852) was a famous American senator of the first half of the 19th Century, seen as the spokesman for the West. Along with Daniel Webster (for the North) and John C. Calhoun (for the South), Clay formed the Great Triumvirate in the Senate that forged a number of compromises that helped avert the American Civil War for several decades.

Clay, in particular, was known for forging agreements: he was known as The Great Pacificator. He is also famous for his statement, "I'd rather be right than president", on being told that his support for the Compromise of 1850 would forever end his chances to become president (though a cynical historian remarked that Clay may really have decided that, since he couldn't be president anyways, he might as well be right).

So after Edwin and Paula make their big deal, they invoke the name of one of history's great deal-makers.

Martin wrote:

The area around the house is dry, until they get piped water from the village. Symbolic of Paula's childlessness? When the piped water arrives they will have a pool, or at least a fountain.

Pages 234 - 235 contrast the dry, barren immediate area near their house with the lush, fertile Spanish countryside, in sensual, indeed sexual, terms, as in the "all-embracing light from the sun" (p. 235), and "rounded bosomy little hills" (p. 235). Just as the the waters from the Spanish countryside will revivify and refertilize the land, the Grattans are reaching into the Spanish populace to alleviate their personal barrenness.

Martin also wrote:

I suppose I should add that Conchita wears the classic maid's outfit for her work about the house. This reminds Paula of old volumes of Punch but it is also one of the great erotic outfits of all time.

What I found interesting about this scene was Paula's thought that Conchita "looked so much the part [of a maid] that it was absurd to hear Spanish coming from her mouth rather than a gentle brogue." (p. 240), with Paula's image of Irish women (at least the old stock, those who speak with brogues, as opposed to the Anglo-Irish ascendency that Paula presumably belongs to) as naturally happily servile.

Now, what I find the most interesting part about this story as a whole is that it was written from a woman's point of view, from what is, I believe, called the close third person (i.e., it is all from one character's (Paula's) point of view, but is not narrated by her), changing points of view only once, for one paragraph, from one women (Paula) to a group of women (Conchita's relatives). (P. 239, where Paula is described: "she looked incredibly distinguished; and, in that dark, huddled room, incredibly foreign.")

It's not an easy thing to do, to cross the sexual divide and put yourself in the opposite's sex's head, and to do so convincingly; but it's certainly a natural challenge for a writer, and I've often wondered why a man of PO'B's literary parts hasn't attempted it more frequently.

What can we say about Paula the woman (and, of course, it's difficult to separate Paula as individual from Paula as woman)?

First, she sounds quite a bit like PO'B's men, thinking all in full, long sentences, with colons and semi-colans and words like "roborative" (p. 240); but she also uses some metaphors and turns of phrase that seem to be attempts at sounding more authentically womanly, such as "precise little trees on a pink ground, like embroidery" (p. 234).

More significantly, I think PO'B tries to get at one of the fundamental differences between men and women, by portraying Paula as much more perceptual and intuitive than his usual men. Now, perception and intution have the advantage of yielding great insights quickly and powerfully, and often ones that can't be gained any other way; but they can also find meanings that aren't necessarily actually there ("the view acquired a mysterious significance: a false significance, perhaps", p. 234), and lead to judgements and behavior that seem flighty, erratic, contradictory, and neurotic, which certainly describes Paula at places in the story, as, for example, her opinion of Conchita which roams up and down, from good to bad and back again. Paula at times sounds quite a bit like Bridget Jones (of "Bridget Jones's Diary" by Helen Fielding).

Indeed, in many ways, this story can be seen as PO'B writing a piece of "chick lit". (Though, of course, it's chick lit in the same sense that the Aubrey-Maturin books are nautical fiction: the description is technically correct, but 'taint the ordinary sort of thing at all, at all.)

So how successfully does PO'B carry off his portrayal of a woman's thoughts and behaviors? It seems pretty good to me, though I'd be interested in what the ladies of this list think.

In the context of the other stories in "The Rendezvous and Other Stories", this story represents a turning point in a theme PO'B has been developing throughout the collection, what we can call The Theme of the Missing Woman.

In one way or another, in story after story, women are alluded to, but are not actually present, or if they are present, they are leaving the male hero in one way or another: they are mere memories ("The Return"), or are dying ("Lying in the Sun", "The Tunnel at the Frontier"), or are disappearing over the mountains ("The Path"), or are running off with horrible old cousin Anthony ("The Stag at Bay").

In "Handmaiden", Paula seems ready to follow in the other women's footsteps by rejecting Edward in one way or another, until the end, when she realizes that she has wronged Edward (mentally) and SHE sets off HIM.

Compare the ending of "The Path" (which is quite beautifully written, really):

"She started before me along this path, and I hurry to catch her up. It is easy walking, neither hot nor cold, and I go with long strides, fast and pursuing. I shall never catch her: I know that. I shall never catch her, however much I hurry -- and I do hurry, press on hard without a moment's slackening of the strongest continual effort; and I go fast for all the weight of my pack.

"I shall never catch her: but I have this, that I am on the ground that she has travelled. The 'never catching', that is less important now: we are divided by the distance, but the path is our connection; and I shall never let the distance grow." (pp 68-69)

Now look at the ending to "Handmaiden":

"She walked along the hall towards the door, called, 'Never mind about the drink,' and hurried out of the house on Edward's track." (p. 244)

You see? The untouchable, unapproachable female, forever out of the hero's reach, has now turned and is approaching him.

John Finneran

All I can add to the good comments made previously...

POB gets in his digs on cats. "...sly, sly as a cat. A cat on heat..."

Notice how many of these short stories involve a long walk. Clearly, he found that a walk was a good structure to build his fiction around, and it's a structure he uses throughout the canon--a trip with a purpose. That's a built-in strength of sea stories.

It wd be nice to know where these short stories each first appeared, and when. There seems to be ten years or more between this story and the "Little Death," but there are Grattans in each. Did he merely forget? Did he not care about the duplication? Isn't there a Grattan Hotel in Dublin? And, if so, so what?

In LD, it's Mr. Grattan who can't kill; in TH, it's Mrs. G. who can't conceive. Did POB intend to write a pair of stories? Or was that just a coincidence.

The ending of TH, when she goes hurrying out of the house on Edward's track--that's a happy ending. Now they'll both get cigars.

Charlezzzz, and of course those are real cigars. Real, Freudian, cigars. As the Master said so often, "Sometimes a cigar is just a sex symbol."

In a message dated 12/10/00 10:52:19 PM, Charlezzzz@AOL.COM writes:

It wd be nice to know where these short stories each first appeared, and when. There seems to be ten years or more between this story and the "Little Death," but there are Grattans in each. Did he merely forget? Did he not care about the duplication? Isn't there a Grattan Hotel in Dublin? And, if so, so what?

Some sources that might have put the name in POB's mind, from Google:

1) Grattan, Henry

(from: The Columbia Encyclopedia: Sixth Edition. 2000.)

(grtīn) (KEY), 1746-1820, Irish statesman. A lawyer, he entered (1775) the Irish Parliament and soon became known as a brilliant orator. Aided by Britain's preoccupation with the American Revolution and its fear of the revolutionary potential of the Irish volunteer army (see Ireland), Grattan led the successful fight for abolition of the restrictions on Irish trade and the repeal of Poynings's Law (see under Poynings, Sir Edward). Having thus gained nominal legislative independence for the Irish Parliament, he worked to eliminate the system by which English patrons continued to control it, advocating Catholic Emancipation as the only means for making the Irish Parliament truly representative. The Catholic Relief Act (1793) gave Catholics the right to vote in Ireland, but hopes raised in 1795 that Catholics would be allowed to sit in Parliament were soon dashed, and Grattan retired (1797) in indignation at the government's policy. In 1800, on the last day of the debate on the parliamentary union with England, Grattan appeared in the Irish Parliament and made the greatest speech of his career in opposition to the Act of Union. He sat in the British Parliament from 1805, taking little part except to support Catholic Emancipation.

2) A bridge in Dublin, opened in 1874, named after Henry Grattan

3) Numerous streets throughout England and Ireland.

Charlezzzz writes:

It wd be nice to know where these short stories each first appeared, and when. There seems to be ten years or more between this story and the "Little Death,

According to the info in the front of The Rendezous, "Little Death" first appeared in _The Walker_ 1953), [but King lists the pub. date for _The Walker and Other Stories_ as 1955]; "The Handmaiden" first appeared in _The Chian Wine and Other Stories_, (1974).

Susan has already mentioned different versions of some of the stories and King mentions that Little Death was one that was altered.

In Dean King's book, p. 86, he states that "After the war Patrick dedicated a story, "The Little Death," to the Frenchman [Goeau-Brissonniere, a colleague at the Political Intelligence Dept.]. He sent _The Last Pool_, the book in which it appeared, to GB in Paris with a note saying that he hoped BG and several other of their friends would understand what he was trying to express in the story when he described the state of mind of a man who was fed up with killing."

He also made alterations to the story in 1950 in preparation for the publishing of _The Last Pool_ (King, p. 129)

King doesn't mention "The Handmaiden", and we can't necessarily conclude that it was written for the 1974 book.

Rowen