V.

[Paul Murphy]

ckaratnytsky at nypl.org wrote:

>      5.  Chapter 4.  "Schoenmaker, being conservative, referred to his
>      profession as the art of Tagliacozzi."  (HP, p.97)  Quite the nose
>      job, eh?

Quite. A real plastic surgery dis-aster (Esther: name deriving from 
Persian 'aster': star). TRP's focus on the Judaism of Schoenmaker and 
Esther is surely deliberate and troubling in this chapter; the Biblical 
Esther, heroine of Purim, loses her 'semitic' nose to a German-spouting 
doctor, star of redemption evanescing irretrievably.