The Redeeming Characteristics of Edwin Dodd

[ailbhe]

I have only managed to think of two.

Now, I freely admit that The Ready-Made Family disturbs me for good and personal reasons. Nonetheless, I find the character of Edwin Dodd almost entirely without redeeming social importance...

with the possible exception of these:

(1) He volunteers to help Nicky when her query directly relates to his personal area of expertise and interest.

(2) He shows up just in time to rescue his daughter from a paedophile, when she was only in danger in the first place because she was running away from him.

Other than this, he seems cold to the point of cruelty, has a ridiculously short temper, doesn't appear capable of apologising in a reasonable way, and seems to hate his children while wanting to own them as precious property.

However, I have not read Cricket Term.

Edit: the day before the wedding, Chas is thrilled to see him and climbs out a window and runs towards him. So there must be some positive in there somewhere, though I note neither girl is that excited...

Comments

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

It would be very Karen to decide to change her name on arriving at university, tell everyone she was Katie, but not be able to cope with explaining the change to her family and especially Rowan. Though I admit there is absolutely no textual evidence whatever of this.

[owl]

I'm not sure how one gets 'Katie' from Karen, really. And then Edwin objected to Chas and Fob, which are the same sort of nickname.

[ailbhe]

Karen - Kay - Katie. But yes, the latter sucks.

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

According to the Oxford Dictionary of First Names (c1996, Patrick Hanks and Flavia Hodges), Karen is the Danish form of Katherine, and since Katie is a common pet form of Katherine, I assume that's why Karen uses it. Like ankaret, I think Karen must have used Katie when she went to university, and Edwin calls her that because that's how she was introduced to him, or else how she introduced herself.

Maybe Edwin objects to relative strangers nicknaming his children? I have a name which is commonly abbreviated to short forms that I dislike very much, and I have met people who instantly use those short forms when I've introduced myself using the full form of my name. I also regard Fob, at least, as more of a nickname, than a pet or short form. And it may be that he sees Fob as a ugly nickname for a name he likes very much.

[colne-dsr.livejournal.com]

He says he doesn't like the nicknames, but there's no suggestion that he tries to stop anybody using them.

[anstruther.livejournal.com]

My sister's a Karen, and she was Katie (and Kay) at home - as katlinel says, you work backwards from Karen to Katherine (or at least, we did).