Posted by alan truelove on October 15, 2003 at 09:58:33 from 171.75.37.17 user atruelove.
Thanks for interesting 'Dick real hero' thread-D & D are indeed somewhat more interesting, esp. as one gets older. We can speculate on other AR themes-in my family, the joke one is the "Do it yourself brain surgery" book.
From the thread:
" the books are almost all seen through the eyes of the cosmopolitans - the "rooted" characters - the Blacketts, Tom Dudgeon, the Mastodon and the Eels are not the characters through whose eyes we see things. There is a notable exception - Bill, Joe and Pete, in BS, and I think this, and the extant chapters of CITN, shows AR trying a new direction."
Probably doomed to failure. The working class characters are as you say 'rooted'-they dont have the underlying (if totally unstated, and glossed over) framework of rented holiday accomodation, supportive professional-class parent(s). [Peter Duck and Bill sort of play the role of hired hands..when accompanying the cosmo's]. These days, John and Nancy would have Credit cards.
Writing from the Death'n'Glory's point of view seemed a little forced even when I was 11. The BBC film copped out by showing them (as I recall) in School blazers - rather unlikely at that time, and level of school?
We see the same kind of class privilege, as we have discussed before, in the Oxus books,in most UK children's books of that period.. (de Selincourt, e.g.), and pretty much in Greyfriars, and the Hotspur, Rover etc boys text comics of WWII and after.