Notes on Session Eight

It is rare for me to speak for an hour and a quarter on the subject of one book, but I proved it possible yesterday.
The reasons one might be able to do this include the fact that this novel was 'supposed to be funny' but in actual fact, with further contemplation of it's context, personal and otherwise, becomes immensely serious, even profound. It is essentially a satire on the British way of life, our class system and so on, where the hero, Paul Pennyfeather, is rather a dupe. Paul represents us. But it is also a novel whose core message is that you are trapped in your own skin, it will ever be thus, and thus also most depressing. The only way out, for Paul and well as Evelyn, is religion.
Prof Silenus the modern architect's role is hence particularly interesting, for whilst he enters the story as avant garde, full of machine age enthusiasms, he ends it with his tail between his legs, thinking Greece has lovely goats rather than temples. A soppiness for animals seems very far removed from his original concerns.
Making obvious comparison with Le Corbusier is one thing, but bringing consideration of the fate of modernism in general brings rather startling revelations as to how architecture sits within the famework of 'Britishness'.