August 1: Some Thoughts on Quo Vadis

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I think what I’m enjoying so much about Quo Vadis is the characters. They’re over the top archetypes in some ways but precise enough to feel real: familiar both because I’ve seen their types before, but also because I’ve felt like this; I understand the instincts.

Lygia, for example, young and naive, and knowing very little in the world other than her religion, fantasizing about being martyred. Fantasizing, later, about converting Vinicius, but when she starts to get close to him she’s fearful that he will change her, and she pulls away.

Ursus and Chilo are a little more broadly drawn types but I also don’t care because they delight me at every turn. They’re definitely good examples of flat characters by Forster’s definition: they each have only one one motivation; you can summarize it in a sentence; and it will determine what they do at every turn. But, he was also right that flat characters aren’t bad; they’re necessary for moving a story along. And in this case, they’re fun.

Vinicius… I won’t lie, I had a point earlier on when I was wondering how I could ever believe in a romance or positive relationship between him and Lygia after he literally assaults her while intoxicated at Nero’s feast of never-ending debauchery. He’s done things that I find truly disgusting, that are hard to read. But I also understand that this is the point: he’s a prototypical Roman patrician and he has to seem all but irredeemable for his inevitable redemption to be as impressive as possible. No one has ever needed a come to Jesus moment as much as this man he will definitely, literally get that.

I also appreciate, at least so far, that though Lygia’s religion is doing a good amount of heavy lifting in bringing them back together, as in she literally has to forgive him, it’s not doing all of it. She has other motivations, for example her young person’s romantic fantasies of being someone else’s savior, (also probably horniness), and she has her misgivings, too. That’s why he’s scary to her. Oh, he’s less physically imposing with a broken arm and he’s mostly just whining to her about how sad and in love he is. How sweet. And yet–he’s still the man who did all those things! Dilemma.

The novel has actually really interestingly, not always subtly, brought them into a sort of tug of war position: they are on either side of a line and to be together they must be on the same side, but who will drag whom over? (She will; she will convert him; I know this. But I mean like rhetorically.)

On a less serious note, I greatly appreciate that part of Vinicius’s conversion, in the general sense, as in to goodness, is becoming just a totally submissive worshiper of his lady. (Well, not his lady yet–he’s gotta earn it!) Do I already understand that what he really is starting to do is become submissive to God, he just cannot yet differentiate the Christian God that Lygia worships and who makes her appear radiant from her Christian goodness, from just Lygia herself? Sure. I know that. I still love to see a man, especially an “unbending and dangerous” man, bend and submit to someone else, especially someone who on the outside appears less powerful than he.