The Counterplot
The Counterplot (1924) is Hope Mirrlees's second novel.
It is dedicated to Jane Harrison.
The epigraph, taken from Miguel de Unamuno, says: "Every supposed restoration of the past is a creation of the future, and if the past which it is sought to restore is a dream, a thing but imperfectly known, so much the better."
Story
The novel's protagonist is Teresa Lane, a woman of 28, living in Plasencia, a villa in the South-East of England, shortly after World War I, who studies the spectacle of her family life with the intent of transforming it into art. The result is a play, The Key, written by Teresa after the style of the Spanish autos sacramentales and set in Seville during the reign of Pedro the Cruel, the text of which is reproduced in its entirety within chapter eleven (and is almost 100 pages in length).
Religious element
As in Madeleine: One of Love's Jansenists, religion plays a strong part in the story. (Which may, if anybody bothers to read it, illuminate certain aspects of Lud-in-the-Mist...)
- p.109
- And the plot? Well, that was not yet visible; but the forces behind it would be sex, religion, and the dead.
Editions
A French translation appeared in 1929 under the title Le choc en retour, tr. Simone Martin-Chauffier, published by Plon, Paris.
External links
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