The Ready Made Family

[geebengrrl.livejournal.com]

There are three things that always troubled me a bit about this book:
a) Why did Karen suddenly up and marry an older man, with kids, and chuck in her degree;
b) Why is Edwin such as bastard; and
c) the cooling of relations between Rowan and Karen

I re-read the book over the weekend, and I came up with a few theories, so thought I'd put them out there and see what the general opinion is.

(a) Why did she do it?
At the time the book was written, the '60s were beginning to make themselves felt. There are references to dolly birds for example, and things pointing to a gap widening between youth and age. I get the feeling that Karen is quite old-fashioned. She's studying Classics (and she studies - in Peter's Room she's spending her whole xmas vacation pouring over the books), her sisters refer to her as "straight", she doesn't seem to be partying her time at Oxford away. Could it be then, that Karen found she didn't want to be part of this brave new world that was opening up - she doesn't seem the type for pop music, free love, drugs etc and she doesn't seem to have any friends at Oxford. Does it make sense that she saw an academic career was not going to be what she wanted, not because she doesn't want to be an academic, but because she doesn't like the way academia is going (maybe she even has inklings of the coming tide of post-modernism). If you're 19 and a young fogey and not a particularly good "coper", is it an easy solution to your problem to marry a much older man whose interests seem to align more with yours, so that you can feel more comfortable in your skin?

(b) Why is Edwin such as bastard?
I think you can understand Edwin a little better if you think a bit deeper about the class issues involved. I'm basing this on a few things: Edwin reads the Guardian, he drives a fairly ordinary car*, Karen calls him "love"**, and they send the kids to the village school and the Colebridge grammars. This, to me, points to Edwin possibly being a lower-middle-class grammar school boy made good; but with a bit of a radical/lefty edge. So part of the reason he comes across as such a bastard is that he's wrestling with an internal conflict - he's married a woman who comes from all he despises (money and privilege); AND he's under obligation to the ruling classes because he's staying in their house, eating their food, and having his kids minded by them. Peter's behavior to him is not just a kid being cheeky to an adult, but a member of the ruling classes trying to assert their power over the proletariat. Edwin wants to assert himself in the face of the Marlows' privileged existence, but his radical identity is being swamped by sheer weight of numbers.

* Edwin drives a Hillman Minx, a fairly ordinary, mid-priced British car manufactured from 1947 to 1960.
** I tend to associate this with lower-middle / working class speech. While it comes from Karen in this context, I am speculating that she calls him that because he calls her that. It contrasts to the Marlows, who are always "darling" when an endearment is required.

(c) Why do Karen and Rowan fall out?
In Peter's Room, there is a discussion between Nicola and Rowan in which Rowan admits that, while farming is OK, the staying at home bit of it is very very dull. I get the impression that she is longing for excitement and the company of people her own age - and that maybe she thinks Karen has all that because she lives away from home at Oxford.

Now Karen arrives home, announcing that she is throwing all that away to get married. She announces this just after Rowan has watched someone have a major stroke, has a looming farm disaster (swine fever), which she now has to cope with alone; and also is facing the long term prospect of taking on the farm herself, aged 18 with 8 months experience under her belt, or possibly having to give it up. Yet everyone is running around paying attention to Karen, for the whole book.

So I think Rowan is angry for two reasons: (1) She is going through a bloody hard time with no support; and (2) she is facing the prospect that leaving school to go farming may have been a mistake, she may have to give up farming anyway, she has no A-levels so she's not going to get to university, and here's Karen throwing away the the things that Rowan gave up, to get married AND getting all the attention.


Maybe I'm thinking too much. But it's a plausible explanation to me, and I'm interested to know what you think.

Comments

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

(a) Why did she do it?

They had sex.

Edwin had just heard his ex-wife had died - he would have been (though he wasn't showing it) in a pretty fragile state, and in the state of mind where it is, frankly, quite easy to end up having sex with someone you would normally never have had sex with. More people fall into bed with the wrong person right after a funeral than at any other time. (Okay, this is based on anecdote rather than data. I'm not sure anyone's done a survey.)

I agree with jonquil that Karen was, very likely, also in a fragile state - a quietly-despairing they-say-women-can't-be-scholars-oh-god-suppose-they're-right state. It wouldn't be - it isn't - at all unusual for very bright young women to be completely messed up by the attitude they get at Oxford from the male students and the faculty.

I bet she and Edwin fell into bed together and that Karen - who is, after all, a thoroughly strait-laced, well-brought-up girl - felt this meant she ought to marry him. And that Edwin, who was probably contemplating with horror the thought of either leaving his children with their grandparents or looking after them himself by himself - threw whatever sense he had to the wind and proposed.

Agree with you about points (b) and (c).

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

It wouldn't be - it isn't - at all unusual for very bright young women to be completely messed up by the attitude they get at Oxford from the male students and the faculty.

I wouldn't have thought that coming from a single-sex school would help with the initial shock, either.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

And simply the shift from being top-of-the-heap at Kingscote to being in her first year at Oxford, among people who may seem more intelligent/assured/sophisticated etc than she is.

At the period in question, Karen would at least be in an all women's college (whereas these days, the only one left is St Hilda's, and it looks as though that may be going mixed). One question that was discussed earlier was how on earth she and Edwin ever met.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

I've always wondered how they met, though I can't remember whether it was me who said so here or not. I always imagine some ghastly inter-departmental mingle, mostly because I cannot see either of them picking each other up in a pub or whatever.

[ex-ajhalluk585.livejournal.com]

I think her tutor had a party at her home, with a mixed group of students and non-studenty types (perhaps even recruiting the first years to hand drinks and so forth; that went on often enough in my day), and Edwin and Karen met at that, and Karen found it such a relief to talk to him, compared to the boys of her own age.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Particularly if the rest of the women in the room were boycotting him in sympathy with Rosemary.

[ex-ajhalluk585.livejournal.com]

Oh yes! And Karen might not even pick up on the boycott, or sense it but dive in on the side of Edwin instinctively. Now that sounds very likely indeed. Do you want to write it?