I think the tight, bright trousers of the Thorpe women are an expression of class-based distaste, as well as the Marlows' imitation of Johnnie's slightly self-conscious Americanisms ('you betcha!'). Mr Thorpe's essentially a civil servant, though a pretty senior one, and while senior civil servants might well equal or outrank naval officers in class terms, there's an implication I think (quiet bald man with brash noisy wife) that he's rather clerkish, and hence a bit inky, grammar school oikish sort of thing. See also: Peter's surprise at Mr Thorpe's considerable sailing experience, the implied vulgarity of Fair Wind's many gadgets.
I read Traitor for the first time only a few months ago, so I have no experience of it as a child reader, but I have to say the only explanation which really accounted for Peter and Nicola's strained conversation about Selby and Foley was that Selby had felt a sense of sexual threat (whether justified or not) from Foley which he'd tried to tell Peter about (perhaps very inarticulately) and Peter was oblivious or didn't want to believe it. Nicola (typically perceptive) understands what Selby's unease was on a gut level, but can't articulate that through lack of vocabulary or sheer embarrassment to her more clueless older brother. I don't think, as I say elsewhere, that Foley actually has designs on Selby--nothing we learn about him later develops that idea, in any way, so perhaps Selby was mistaken, or Foley was just playing mind games. But if Forest did intend something of the sort, how much subtler a portrait of a potential sexual predator he is than the one we get later in canon; terrifyingly likely and realistic (known to his potential victims, placed in a position of trust wrt them; a little odd, perhaps, but attractive and charismatic), where the later example in Ready-Made Family is lurid and conventional.
I simply love the idea of Peter and Selby mirroring Foley and Anquetil respectively, by the way.
As you can see, I'm quite incapable of discussing the books without spoiling them myself! So I've left it mostly up to participants' own discretion. They're not particularly twisty books: I think there are only a few instances in which spoilers would really spoil. It's almost impossible to have a full discussion of Lawrie's character without mentioning 'it bangs at me!', I think.
no subject
I read Traitor for the first time only a few months ago, so I have no experience of it as a child reader, but I have to say the only explanation which really accounted for Peter and Nicola's strained conversation about Selby and Foley was that Selby had felt a sense of sexual threat (whether justified or not) from Foley which he'd tried to tell Peter about (perhaps very inarticulately) and Peter was oblivious or didn't want to believe it. Nicola (typically perceptive) understands what Selby's unease was on a gut level, but can't articulate that through lack of vocabulary or sheer embarrassment to her more clueless older brother. I don't think, as I say elsewhere, that Foley actually has designs on Selby--nothing we learn about him later develops that idea, in any way, so perhaps Selby was mistaken, or Foley was just playing mind games. But if Forest did intend something of the sort, how much subtler a portrait of a potential sexual predator he is than the one we get later in canon; terrifyingly likely and realistic (known to his potential victims, placed in a position of trust wrt them; a little odd, perhaps, but attractive and charismatic), where the later example in Ready-Made Family is lurid and conventional.
I simply love the idea of Peter and Selby mirroring Foley and Anquetil respectively, by the way.
As you can see, I'm quite incapable of discussing the books without spoiling them myself! So I've left it mostly up to participants' own discretion. They're not particularly twisty books: I think there are only a few instances in which spoilers would really spoil. It's almost impossible to have a full discussion of Lawrie's character without mentioning 'it bangs at me!', I think.