STetc ch 26, trying to follow along a little

[Michael Bailey]

Maybe Hop can't unburthen himself of secrets to Daphne because of her connection to Bruno, who is far outside the circle of trust (backward spoiler: that is a ch 25 issue)

Hicks & Daphne - sitting in a tree, could be, anyway, the convo starts in medias res. (reliops: a furtive look at ch 25 seems to indicate it started there)

Looking at this chapter with a certain (large) amount of granularity:

"...but perhaps I'm telling you more than I should..." about her search for Hop after a fairly final breakup (reliops: ch 25)
"I'm interested, really."


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Although, is he?
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It's not totally precluded by his eloquent and, if not cynical, at least a little world-weary, unspoken thoughts,

"Hicks could point out that keeping still and listening to a story isn't always the same thing as falling for it, but sees no reason to start an argument, being no stranger to the time-honored routine men have had to sit through since the world has been the world, listening to desirable women banging on about their love-life history in hopes however remote of some payoff in the cheerfully jangling currency of present-tense whoopee."

3, no, 4 clauses here, right? 2 pair, each with a different emotional tinge.

  1.
He "could" point out that Listening does not always = "Falling for it", which here would mean extending sympathy and acting on it, right? So in his mind he's at least telling himself that he's not completely engaging. But that denial means he's got the concept of imaginable depths this conversation could reach. Even though he tends to reject the idea, the rejection lacks vehemence & contains qualifiers "could point out", "isn't always"


1a) "but sees no reason to start an argument" - heck, he just told her he was interested, "really" so he'd have to backtrack and undo the good impression his "I'm interested, really" had made: "I'm interested, really, but I'm not sure what you want from me." Argument isn't really his strong point, anyway. But if he senses she's really trying to connect, knows he isn't going to, and lets her go on anyway, that's kinda rude - but she has a high tolerance, perhaps even a preference for rudeness, at least from Hicks.
She finally 86'd Hop for it, though, didn't she? (ch 25)


  1.
"being no stranger to the time-honored routine men have had to sit through since the world has been the world" - so instead of inserting the question of the level of commitment into the current conversation, he generalizes a sort of playboy mentality and - what is the term? - "checks out" of this conversation and checks into the Playboy mansion


2a) "listening to desirable women banging on about their love-life history in hopes however remote of some payoff in the cheerfully jangling currency of present-tense whoopee." As if it's obvious that the ultimate goal of any conversation is recreational sex? There exist tales of male conversationalists who point a conversation with a prospective sex partner in the direction of their previous love life - one might have done this oneself - and of female conversationalists who listen as if they're "interested, really." Because, quite honestly, that topic can be pretty interesting, can't it? Listening to someone pouring out their heart, somebody desirable - "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" where instead of the object of the sentence, "Jesu" is an interjection, and desiring is an intransitive verb with an option to go transitive towards the heart-out-pourer...
Listening and desiring, not the worst combination ever.