(no subject)
Thursday Kidnapping
Recently finished this and really enjoyed it (admittedly would swap it for a Marlow book). One thing that struck me is that it seems much more a picture of its times - perhaps because it is set in London, while Trennels and Kingscote always seem so much their own (rather timeless) universes. Here are a few things that struck me:
1) newspapers - these are strictly for the men of the family - the Times for Mr Ramsay and the Guardian for Freddy - although Mrs Ramsay does get to look at a copy of the help's local weekly!
2) shopping - there is so much of it! The women spend the ENTIRE DAY sales shopping in central London, while the children are sent off with enormous lists of groceries, household goods etc to the local High Street. I think of endless shopping as a modern thing, but it obviously loomed very large then - but for necessities perhaps, rather than as a recreational activity.
(Maybe this is what Mrs Marlow had to spend all her time on - a possible answer to the question of what she did all day?)
3) The nosy lady who cross-questions Kathy outside the library. This would never, ever happens now. And although I suppose it is an example of neighbourly interest, community feeling, adults looking out for the local young, "it takes a village" and all that, my reaction was rather the same as Kathy's - what a nosy cow! Just the way she tells Kathy she should be going home for lunch - blithely assuming that everybody's meal arrangements work on the same plan - is irritating, not to mention all the personal questions, and the judgmental tone. It made me feel that there might be some advantages to our allegedly broken society!
4) And the same on the question of supervision. I thought myself part of the "children today are over-protected, should be allowed more freedom" school but reading this book, where a thirteen year old always cooks the entire family's breakfast, and is regularly left in charge of 3 younger children plus a baby...hmm. On the day of the action, she is left in charge all day, expected to do all the shopping and manage the meals...and has no means of contacting her parents, or any other responsible adult, if it all goes wrong (as it does). Two of the younger children are demonstrably not road-safe either. Can't help feeling a modern police force would have had a lot of questions to ask Mr and Mrs Ramsay...and I guess I'm more modern than I thought, because so would I!
(Of course AF may have stretched things for the sake of her plot - and getting the adults out of the way. But there is still a sense that it is not unusual - that the children have quite often been left to fend for themselves before.)
Also felt that this book had a feeling of a sketch for The Thuggery Affair - same time-scale (action takes place over a day) and same interest in aspects of youth culture (Teds, pop music, "the teenager" and juvenile delinquency/criminality). Have to say that despite what Sue Simms said in introduction, didn't much care for Kathy as a character - she just seemed another Marie Dobson to me, spoilt and petulant and a lot less developed/subtle than Jukie in Thuggery Affair. What I did like a lot was the Ramsay children - sad not to have any more books about them. And Hampstead - though I couldn't work out the geography at all despite the helpful note, and despite knowing Hampstead a bit.
There was only thing I really disliked ...when Neil suggests the Ted may be partly to blame for being hurt in the road accident caused by his siblings. Morally very dubious...I'm sure the Marlows wouldn't have approved!