Topical Guide 538
Mark Dorset
Drinking: Wine
Reservations Recommended, Chapter 6:
THE WAIF delivers Matthew’s martini, carrying it on a tray this time. On the same tray are two wineglasses and a bottle of Lynch-Bages.
Where is that going? Matthew wonders.
Allusion
Reservations Recommended, Chapter 6:
Without looking, Matthew holds his glass out in the aisle, blocking the way of the waif as she passes, and says, “Please, ma’am, may I have some more?”
Oliver Twist in Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist:
“Please, sir, may I have some more please?”
Characters and Characterization
Me, Mark Dorset: Do you have a few minutes for me?
Peter Leroy: Of course.
MD: I want to ask you about Matthew Barber.
PL: Okay.
MD: Do you like him?
PL: No. Do you?
MD: No.
PL: Maybe I should have said, “No, but I feel sorry for him.”
MD: Okay. I feel sorry for him, too, but that doesn’t make me like him.
PL: Why do you feel sorry for him?
MD: He can’t get what he wants.
PL: What does he want?
MD: Love. He wants to be loved.
PL: And why can’t he get that?
MD: Because he’s not lovable.
PL: Well, I agree. I don’t think we need to enumerate the flaws in his personalty that make him unlovable.
MD: That would be depressing.
PL: You really feel for him, don’t you?
MD: I do, even though his many flaws make me dislike him—and now I have to ask the question that has really been bothering me.
PL: Yes?
MD: Why have you done this to him? Why did you make him unloved and unlovable?
PL: Well—for one thing, I’m not entirely to blame for his being unlovable. I think the Matthew Barber you see in Reservations Recommended is as much a product of his times as he is of my memory and imagination.
MD: Okay, but your attitude toward him shows. You ridicule him. Sometimes it approaches contempt.
PL: Ouch. Look, I think I’d like to leave this for now, but we can return to it in another episode, okay?
MD: Okay, but I’m going to hold you to that.
See also:
Barber, Matthew TG 98
Character as Uncontrollable Creation TG 117
Character Traits: Artless Sincerity versus Malicious Duplicity TG 143; Character Traits: False Modesty, Narcissism, Pugnacity TG 144
Author as God or Magician or Puppeteer TG 17, TG 94, TG 117
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