Everything became softly amorphous, as if the china of the plate flowed and the steel of the knife were liquid.
The imagery which overwhelming dominates this novel—and it is important to note that elements like imagery are more important to an understanding than plot or character development—has to do, not surprisingly, with fluidity. From the title of the book all the way through the narrative, the fluidity of social constructs from identity to relationships to language is always of uppermost significance. This quote occurs quite early on and describes the fluidity of the effect of the sun rising upon a house: “something green” becomes as bright as emerald, increasing illumination sharpens the focus of wooden edges, closed buds open to reveal the petals of flowers, etc.
“…everything became definite, external, a scene in which I had no part. I rose, therefore; I left him.”
The fluidity of language is expressed in this quote in a number of ways. Obviously, the first lines of these quotes are too remarkably similar to be mere coincidence; the juxtaposition of things which were amorphous in one instance becoming definite pretty much seals that deal. The line above is part of the narration while the quote here is a snatch of dialogue spoken by a character. Finally, while things are becoming amorphous at the beginning of the text, it close to the end where they turn definite.
“We are about to part. Here are the boxes; here are the cabs. There is Percival in his billycock hat.”
From another early chapter, Neville is musing over parting with friends. The rhythm and cadence with which he takes in, observes and reports this moment almost reads like verse; appropriate considering he is the sensitive poetic soul of the group. His addition to the scene playing out before of Percival—oblivious to his feelings toward him—ends with what is close to a rhyme and not quite a rhyme, but fluid enough that it might as well rhyme. The tone and mood of this parting of companions has all the softly amorphous quality of melancholy.
“Now once more, as we are about to part, having paid our bill, the circle in our blood, broken so often, so sharply, for we are so different, closes in a ring. Something is made.”
The parting of which Neville rhapsodizes about poetically comes with the completion of boarding school. By the time Louis is moved to make his observations at their next parting, they have all grown a little older if not a little wiser in the interim while at college or entering into roles in society. A party to wish farewell to Percival as he leaves for a job in India is the occasion for the first full-blown reunion of all the friends since school. The fluidity here is that the job of providing a benediction of sort over the ceremonial farewell has moved from the clear poet Neville to the secret poet Louis. The dual nature of Louis as a poet trapped in the expectations of a businessman are subtly manifested here through the fluidity of his language which, like Neville’s, has the rhythm of verse, but it in the service of poetic commingled with the language of commerce. In addition, the melancholy which pervades the rest of Neville’s speech as he muses about losing Percival forever is here replaced by the outward signs of self-confidence and optimism which defines Louis as a character.
