Posted by Duncan on August 01, 2003 at 18:22:19 from 195.93.32.8 user Duncan.
As a serial purveyor of 'Marxist nonsense' on this board, I feel I have to chip in here!
I think where AR talks about class in the SA books (whether consciously or otherwise) he is far more subtle and complex than the earlier postings allowed for (as are most Marxists!) But in so far as 'classed' characters display any particular character traits, the sympathetic adults DO tend to DO serious things; they're doctors, lawyers, archaeologists, boat-builders, farmers, wherrymen, charcoal-burners, miners; less sympathetic adult characters are just 'hullaballoos'... Now this does not necessarily mean much in terms of material class or even the class of manners (although that is referred to regarding the specific hullaballoos on the Margoletta - they are rich, decadent and VULGAR)- it is quite in keeping with much 'nonsensical' Marxist thinking of the 1930s: what you had was less important than what you DID (and both, I suppose, were less important than who you were FOR, and that is of extraordinary importance in the SA books too). After all, while George Owdon (en? I'm not getting into the how do you spell George's name row again!!!) got more pocket money than any of the Coots, we've no reason from the books to assume that he is of a particularly higher 'class' than Tom or the Twins. But he is AGAINST the birds (the real oppressed workers in CC) and so a villain through and through.
Dick is fascinated by Jemmerling's lifestyle - to swan around on a fancy motor-yacht looking at birds all your life seems great. But when he realises what it is he actually gets up to, it is clear that Jemmerling is a villain. There were many big-business egg collectors at the time, they were not universally seen as villains; but because we have had the divers almost given human characters, and we are intrigued by their hard fight to produce eggs and sit on them till they hatch, the idea that somebody else could come along and steal the eggs is too much. (For GN we're given the additional point that Jemmerling would be exploiting DICK'S discovery for his own profit)...
I'll stop there. I know there are several people who will hate this message, and I've suggested similar things before, but I do think that if people are going to dismiss 'Marxist nonsense' they ought to remember that AR was by no means a non-political person himself.