#if ur gonna break up with your twink situationship

[gayskogul]

So I would like all your thoughts on Andrew's letter at the end of The Charioteer....

If this is your way of saying "I know you just stand on the sidelines and never join in our discussions bitch. pspspsps lets talk about andrew," know that it's gonna work. Let me preface this with 1) I'm illiterate hehe and 2) I didn't do the re-read this year, and the last (and first!) time I've read TC was aug 2022. So this is gonna be me noting stuff down as I re-read the passage now. There will inevitably be some context and earlier moments I'm forgetting, sorry bout that.

So the first thing I'm noticing is that when Laurie disguises his letter with his paper, Mary's been kind enough to tell us that it's right next to a list of downed planes and lost pilots. Thanks for setting the tone, Mary! Now I know how this is gonna sting lol. Next, I notice that by god does Andrew ramble! After his introductory bit where he's saying he's tried writing a couple of times and is moving to London, the words really tumble over each other. It feels very verbal to me; he really writes like he speaks, doesn't he? But I'm guessing that's because he's anxious to put such dangerous thoughts on paper. He's just decked a fella, become disillusioned in his beliefs abt pacifism etc., admitting he has romantic feelings for another man, and quite overtly at that. And then he's like "I thought you felt the same", and that it's all confusing to sift through that without Laurie there ("I found I couldn't see things so clearly when I was alone"). It's all so... raw and earnest, which is just so Andrew imo. That said, him only snapping after Bunny taunts him about Ralph and Laurie's relationship is low key very funny but yeah- he's probably had these home of sexual thoughts swimming around, then had them plucked out of his heat and then thrown back at him by (who he thinks is) his love interest's boyfriend. That must have been mortifying to hear aloud, and it must have sucked to realise that Bunny's taunt was true. These couple of lines, "But it taught me something. The thing you want to kill is really in yourself", is so heartbreaking idk.

Then he goes on to say "ok cool im gay. i guess. my pacifism is a lie. Maybe it always was? anyway im gonna go throw myself under the worst of the blitz, thanks for the kiss." To which I think... girl, same. (stream of consciousness tangent: laurie why do all your boyfriends keep trying to off themselves? Can someone go check up on charles????) And then he's ending his letter begging Laurie to deny his relationship with Ralph and my heart just fully breaks for him. I know I'm notoriously sympathetic to Andrew but imagine writing that kind of thing in a letter to somebody! Something I hadn't remembered is how assertive he is that there's nothing happening between Laurie and Ralph. "Will you please tell me yourself that there is nothing in what he said about you and him? Of course I know there isn't." Now that I read this back, I reckon it has the potential to come off as quite arrogant, depending on how one feels towards Andrew. But then he writes, "But somehow it has got a hold on me; I can't get it out of my mind", and I swing towards thinking that oh noooo, he's so not coping. The whole thing is just kinda painful to read through - but it's such a strong read!

Fig. 1. August 25, 2022. A second plane his hit the Quakenation towers.

I think why Andrew's ending sits with me like a sad, little icy splinter in my heart is because I just feel bad for the poor guy. He basically falls in love with a man, and then quite rapidly undergoes loads of realisations about that (and other beliefs about himself), and then has them violently blow up on him. Then he kinda... doesn't really get any closure? Not that we can see in the text, anyway. Like who knows if Laurie ever does write, even if it's just to follow Dave's (cold imo) advice of writing to him "when you feel he's needing it, not when you feel you must".

I'm not sure if this is just a madman's ravings at this point, clutching at straws for a reading but it boils down to me acknowledging how difficult it can be to come to terms with your queerness (and most of us have got it much easier, comparatively), and I know Laurie knows that, and could probably have helped Andrew out. Let him know he’s not alone, or whatever. I'm not saying he should have ended up with Andrew romantically—nor does he have any obligation to do anything, really—but he's been in that place mentally fairly recently and he's just seen that Dave's a bit weird about it. Considering that he'd felt so strongly about Andrew, it's a bit of a bummer that he just goes along with what Dave says and heads off. It's very sweet and poetic to leave him the copy of the Phaedrus, but girl... how well adjusted did that make the other two, lmao. Ultimately, that might keep Andrew out of trouble, but we know he can be quite stubborn and I reckon it'll probably not make it much easier for him in the long run. Dave and Laurie keep trying to be so protective of him that he doesn’t really get a chance to do anything!