Thursday, March 08, 2007

Devine

His hosts seemed to be a long time away, and Ransom fell to thinking of Devine. He felt for him that sort of distaste we feel for someone whom we have admired in boyhood for a very brief period and then outgrown. Devine had learned just half a term earlier than anyone else that kind of humour which consists in a perpetual parody of the sentimental or idealistic cliches of one's elders. For a few weeks his references to the Dear Old Place and to Playing the Game, to the White Man's Burden and a Straight Bat, had swept everyone, Ransom included, off their feet. But before he left Wedenshaw Ransom had already begun to find Devine a bore, and at Cambridge he had avoided him, wondering from afar how anyone so flashy and, as it were, ready-made, could be so successful. Then had come the mystery of Devine's election to the Leicester fellowship, and the further mystery of his increasing wealth. He had long since abandoned Cambridge for London, and was presumably something 'in the city'. One heard of him occasionally and one's informant usually ended either by saying, 'A damn clever chap, Devine, in his own way,' or else by observing plaintively, 'It's a mystery to me how that man has got where he is.'
~C.S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet, Chapter 2 (1938)

2 Comment(s):

At Fri Mar 09, 08:25:00 PM EST, Blogger Christopher said...

why the picture of Brannagh? Did he play this character or something, or was this just a case of needing a photo and he was around?

 
At Fri Mar 09, 09:25:00 PM EST, Blogger Arevanye said...

Just one of those free-association things--I think the character of Gilderoy Lockhart from HP fits Lewis's description of Devine here: "so flashy and, as it were, ready-made".

 

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