Atdtda32: A certain adjustment, 896

[Paul Nightingale]

The section begins with Ruperta plotting, "busy trying, with little success,
to plant doubts about [Dally] in Hunter's mind"; this goal is directly
related to attempts "to provoke [him] ... into work unlikely to endear him
to the British public". Hunter is therefore set against Arturo Naunt, to
whom Ruperta has just assigned Dally. One might note that Ruperta's failure
to turn Hunter against Dally echoes Dally's own failure to convince him of
Ruperta's excesses: "But she likes you ..." etc (892). In that speech Hunter
has emphasised that it would be an advantage for Dally to associate with
Ruperta, who "knows everyone": here her relations with TWIT are introduced
(896).

Her intention for "idle mischief" at Gloucester Cathedral is based on the
intrusion of low culture (ie Brighton races, represented by her "sportive
toilette") as an affront to the high culture of Vaughan Williams' music ends
with her transformed, "never again to pursue her career as determined pest".
We see here a different take on the role of organised religion (in the form
of the established church) as a sponsor for the arts, broadly speaking: both
the Three Choirs Festival and Arturo's sculpture are examples of the effort
to exert religious hegemony). As an author Arturo is invisible; his identity
might have been exposed by Dally's research (bottom of 894) but the generic
form has little room for an auteur. Vaughan Williams, on the other hand, is
an auteur whose name will precede and dominates the music that, of
necessity, must carry his name, with or without his role as conductor (and
of course he has little difficulty raising a public). However, Ruperta's
levitation will take place within a passage devoted to the generic features
of the composition.

But what of Hunter? It has been his idea to attend the performance, and the
narrative will adopt his pov to name the music they have been listening to:
"he had of course immediately fallen" and "would always love it" (896). His
response to the music is culturally prescribed ("Possessing one of those
English ears ..." etc), as much so as Ruperta's apparent antipathy (she
"despise[s] church music", the writing reducing such music to its generic
features, denying authorship), which will perhaps explain his distracted
response to Ruperta, "vaguely aware that something momentous had befallen
her". However, he will subsequently rewrite the moment and, with hindsight,
"swear he had seen her surrounded then by a queer luminous aura he knew he
could not banter away". Thus does Hunter objectify Ruperta as Arturo has
objectified Dally.