Re: Fantasy - GA, Bob Blackett and the houseboat man


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Posted by Jock on October 23, 2005 at 10:31:06 from 81.79.209.48 user Jock.

In Reply to: Re: Fantasy - Dick-Morality posted by John Nichols on October 23, 2005 at 03:10:17:

Arthur's mother put a lot of pressure on Arthur to get a nice respectable job. AR was devoted to his mother, though he didn't obey her in his choice of career. So perhaps the pressure he was put under is one of strands that he weaves into the GA's character.

The GA doesn't emerge as a rounded character until PM. In SA there 'native trouble', in SD she is a portrayed as a monster and it's only in PM we get some insight into her world.

The GA wields a great deal of power in the Beckfoot household. Yet with her calling cards and parasol is also an anachronism. Perhaps another strand in her character was AR's view that the political structures in the 1920’s were not up to the job of running the country?

Finally, if Nancy and Peggy are based on real characters, why has AR removed their father? (See the interesting post by Fred Boynton.) Perhaps, relations between AR and the proto-Amazon household were not so cosy as relations between Arthur and the Altounyans? In one of his articles AR writes of his fear of libel from the originals of his creations. It’s inconceivable that Ernest Altounyan would take Arthur to court so he must be referring to the father of the proto Amazons. Yet Bob Blackett is dead? So what is AR afraid of?

Well in SA he isn’t dead. We have unspecified ‘native trouble’ which could have originally figured in AR’s mind as an overly authoritative father. There is John’s dressing down by the houseboat man which seems to me to be too well portrayed to be purely fantasy and which I think relates to a real incident which happened to AR.

The real houseboat man was a powerful authority figure who ran an automobile factory. (Those tracking my posts on Tarboard will have no difficulty in guessing his surname.) He had two daughters who sailed on Windmere. Perhaps, in creating the GA and all she stands for, AR’s is getting his own back on the houseboat man without risking another appearance in the courts?



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