Will O' The Wisp

Again, this was another interesting and captivating read. While reading Will O’ The Wisp, Pierre’s language and descriptions throughout the text made it incredibly easy for me to imagine the characters and their actions in my head as if it were a play or a movie. I actually found the language, especially his descriptions very easy to follow. I found the overall tone of this piece dark, isolated and morbid. I didn’t have the opportunity to find the movie version of this novel, however, the way I imagined the story in my head, everything was dark and dreary. I can almost picture the movie to be shot in black and white.

From the very beginning of the piece, one can start making connections to Secret Journal. The way Pierre describes Lydia getting ready and applying makeup clearly reflects his ideas about aging and getting old. He describes it as, “Lydia had gone back to the bathroom to paint a strange caricature of life over her corpse’s face. White on white, red and black. Her hand was shaking. Without horror or pity she looked at the imperceptible decay which was tracing crow’s feet at the corners of her mouth and eyes.” (Page 11) The idea of aging as decaying, as if it were truly horrible. Also, in his descriptions of the people in the nursing, Pierre has the habit of using the most morbid and death-related terms to describe the characters, for example “worn-out carcass” (Page 17).

I think the lines in this novel which really stuck with me were those Page 14, “To leave this poor, charming boy was to place him at the mercy of his worst enemy, himself, it was to abandon him to the grey light of the Rue Cambon- with the mournful trees of the Tuileries at the end.” I feel as though these lines describe the entire novel and Alain’s character as a whole, a self-destructive, isolated, addict.

After reading Alexander’s post, I found it difficult to understand the connection between We Always Treat Women Too Well and Will O’ The Wisp. We Always Treat Women Too Well had almost and airy, comical feel, as opposed to Will O’ The Wisp which just has this dark undertone to it. Alain, who is living in the nursing home to come over his heroin addiction while living off of money given to him by different women, does not relate to any of the characters for me in We Always Treat Women Too Well.