Fascinating analysis (and subsequent discussion). Not sure at which point to jump into the comments, so will just enter my own.
I hadn't seen the Marlows' distaste for the Thorpes as classist, although I can see you could read it that way--Johnnie, though, seems just as believable to me as an essentially upper-middle-class harmless twit (though I may be missing subtler class clues). He's another in the pattern of (to quote a later book) "there just are people like that and you can't like them..." which is one of Forest's minor themes, perhaps.
Another thing I'd absolutely never thought of, and read here with enormous interest, is the idea of Foley having sexual designs on Selby. I agree with most of the discussion above, thinking that Foley--being indeed "odd, unstable, opportunistic"--is likely to have offered the lift on the spur of the moment, seeing a cadet whom he knows and perhaps likes (Selby as Anquetil to Peter's Foley?) in White Rabbit mode. I don't think Foley as cool-headed planner would in fact have made a pass at Selby, since it would be too likely to draw unwelcome attention in some form; nor do I think he would have been likely to do so on impulse, belonging most likely to the "tastes too complex to be satisfied by fresh-faced boys" type.* With nothing provable, however, he probably would have been happy for Selby to feel some unease along those lines, offering vague chances for later leverage.
Regarding Peter and bravery--you could definitely say Forest is hard on him, but I wonder if she isn't being hard on his inability to work out the differing nature of his fears and therefore the need for differing approaches. Trying to be more coherent--Peter is afraid of a number of things, and feels that he shouldn't be, and tries to pretend he isn't, and sometimes overdoes it; this is bad because he can't distinguish, as the prep school master points out, what it's reasonable to be afraid of. He doesn't have a good sense of "I'm afraid of this because I'm a coward" versus "I'm afraid of this because it's bloody dangerous." And, of course, God forbid he should both realize that it isn't reasonable to be afraid of something and allow himself to back away from it anyway--180 degrees from Lawrie's "it bangs at me" approach. (Sorry--I don't remember if quoting books not officially discussed yet is acceptable, but it's so hard to resist.)
*This line popped into my head and gave me an annoying five minutes until I managed to identify it as a quotation from Peter Dickinson's Hindsight, a seriously creepy and mesmerizing book by probably the best living mystery novelist.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2014-06-21 02:58 pm (UTC)I hadn't seen the Marlows' distaste for the Thorpes as classist, although I can see you could read it that way--Johnnie, though, seems just as believable to me as an essentially upper-middle-class harmless twit (though I may be missing subtler class clues). He's another in the pattern of (to quote a later book) "there just are people like that and you can't like them..." which is one of Forest's minor themes, perhaps.
Another thing I'd absolutely never thought of, and read here with enormous interest, is the idea of Foley having sexual designs on Selby. I agree with most of the discussion above, thinking that Foley--being indeed "odd, unstable, opportunistic"--is likely to have offered the lift on the spur of the moment, seeing a cadet whom he knows and perhaps likes (Selby as Anquetil to Peter's Foley?) in White Rabbit mode. I don't think Foley as cool-headed planner would in fact have made a pass at Selby, since it would be too likely to draw unwelcome attention in some form; nor do I think he would have been likely to do so on impulse, belonging most likely to the "tastes too complex to be satisfied by fresh-faced boys" type.* With nothing provable, however, he probably would have been happy for Selby to feel some unease along those lines, offering vague chances for later leverage.
Regarding Peter and bravery--you could definitely say Forest is hard on him, but I wonder if she isn't being hard on his inability to work out the differing nature of his fears and therefore the need for differing approaches. Trying to be more coherent--Peter is afraid of a number of things, and feels that he shouldn't be, and tries to pretend he isn't, and sometimes overdoes it; this is bad because he can't distinguish, as the prep school master points out, what it's reasonable to be afraid of. He doesn't have a good sense of "I'm afraid of this because I'm a coward" versus "I'm afraid of this because it's bloody dangerous." And, of course, God forbid he should both realize that it isn't reasonable to be afraid of something and allow himself to back away from it anyway--180 degrees from Lawrie's "it bangs at me" approach.
(Sorry--I don't remember if quoting books not officially discussed yet is acceptable, but it's so hard to resist.)
*This line popped into my head and gave me an annoying five minutes until I managed to identify it as a quotation from Peter Dickinson's Hindsight, a seriously creepy and mesmerizing book by probably the best living mystery novelist.