While the scene from Chapter 20 (“Like Alcestis from the Grave”) is not connected to the theme of the seminar per se, this was the one I found myself thinking about the most. Pascal ends up in the revel headquarters with Burmese army staidly approaching it. Food is scarce, the sick and wounded are numerous, and morals are at a low point as defeat is getting closer and closer. In the malaria induced delirium, he sees his dead girlfriend Moe.
There is a weirdly beautiful poetry of a contrast between the dirt and disease that physical Pascal finds himself in and the beauty and warmth of the experience of the spiritual Pascal. In the book, the events and things that in the modern “western” tradition would be called “supernatural” are seen as very natural, material by protagonists. That is not to say that ghosts and spirits are real or not. The point is that a person's engagement with reality is different. This adds a lot in terms of the emotionality of the moment with Moe. And Pascal does feel more relieved than sorrowful after the moment has passed. There is so much in terms of emotional complexity in this scene that I felt a certain heartache about it weeks after reading it.