The House of Doors

At various points throughout the novel, Lesley plays or encounters “L’heure exquise,” a song by Reynaldo Hahn, composed for his wife, whose title translates from the French as “The Exquisite Hour,” or sometimes “The Enchanted Hour.” Both translations of the title indicate the feeling the song prompts in the text; it is both magical and beautiful, yet fragile. Lesley encounters the songs at moments that seem open to change—during her deepening affair with Arthur, as she prepares to tell Willie her story—but that ultimately have little effect on the overall arc of the narrative. Though Lesley engages in her affair, she remains embroiled in her unhappy marriage; though she tells Willie her story, he does not publish it, and her secrets remain secret. The “hour” portion of the title cues the temporal play that regularly appears throughout the novel. Lesley notes, “The music I had just played seemed to go on unspooling in the air between us, this song that had no beginning and no ending; the song of time itself” (95). Time is something that seems limited while being eternal; when one hour ends, another begins.

The history of the song further parallels the events in the novel in a way that makes the song laden with meaning for the characters of The House of Doors. Hahn’s “L’heure exquise” is based on a poem of the same name by Paul Verlaine, a French poet who wrote it for his lover, Arthur Rimbaud, another poet. Like Willie, who pursues his relationship with the younger Gerald, despite being married, Verlaine all but abandoned his wife and child to pursue a tumultuous relationship with Rimbaud, who was 10 years his junior. The history promotes the novel’s sense that marriage is separate from the notion of abiding love and that passionate affairs of the heart may be doomed by outside forces.