106 Materiality and the Modern Cosmopolitan Novel
The fact that these aspects of the character endure is an impor-
tant ethical feature of the novel as it forces the reader to see the
moral transition Lurie makes on his own idiosyncratic and con-
textual terms. The reader must then learn, to employ Nussbaum’s
words, to appreciate “the hidden contents of [... the character’s]
inner world, seeing its importance in defining a creature as fully
human.”^52 Indeed, in instances such as the encounter with Bev
Shaw, it is clear that Lurie is referencing a genuine sense of anguish
at growing old and at the loss of sexual activity and appeal that this
is purported to entail. Most instances of Lurie’s self-deprecations
conspicuously draw attention to this defensive function, either
against the banalities of inevitable physical deterioration or against
what he sees as the increasingly “puritanical” restraints of the
times, which, he believes, attempt to sanitize human relations of all
unseemly impulses (p. 66). For Simon Critchley, such psychological
strategies constitute the underlying “function” of humor in society,
which, in the last instance, is not to “redeem us from this world,
[... but rather return... ] us to it ineluctably by showing there is no
alternative.”^53 Indeed, Lurie’s self-derisory humor is deployed at the
gravest of occasions, one of the most disturbing being the moment
in which Lucy is attacked.
While it is clear that the experience is highly distressing for Lurie,
especially given that he is rendered helpless in protecting his daugh-
ter from the assault, the voice that relates the incident, as it unfolds,
is nonetheless replete with the same self-deprecatory, self-reflexive
tone and style that are used throughout the novel. Once again, the
free-indirect mode plays an important role in mediating this dispo-
sition by conveying the emotional trauma and humiliation it gener-
ates, as well as the uniquely ironic and supercilious style with which
the character engages with the world:
He speaks Italian, he speaks French, but Italian and French will not
save him here in darkest Africa. He is helpless, an Aunt Sally, a figure
from a cartoon, a missionary in cassock and topi waiting with clasped
hands and upcast eyes while the savages jaw away in their own lingo
preparatory to plunging him into their boiling cauldron. Mission work:
what has it left behind, that huge enterprise of upliftment? Nothing
that he can see. (p. 95)