Marlow Family Values

[tosomja.livejournal.com]

I'm just re-reading Falconer's Lure, and have been thinking more about the values or unspoken rules of the Marlow family and how they permeate all the books - and also how they are sometimes pretty harsh! I was struck by this bit in FL (p 213 in the GGBP edition)
Peter has just won the sailing race.
"'Jolly, jolly good' crowed Nicola, pink with pleasure.
'Nick, you mustn't'
'Oh rubbish, of course I can.  Anyone can see he was jolly good'
'Hush yo' mouth' said Rowan lazily."  etc etc.

It seems to me that Nicola has broken one of the Marlows' dearly held rules/values which could be something like

"When things are done very well, the person shouldn't be praised much (if at all), and pleasure in the acheivement shouldn't be expressed to others"

What do you think, and what do you think are the other Marlow family rules?

Comments

[lizarfau.livejournal.com]

Definitely a generation thing rather than a class one - saying anything positive about yourself was seen as conceited with ideas above your station in the working-class area I grew up in. And nobody ever said anything good about you either! Put-downs were frequent - from parents, teachers, neighbours, everybody. It wasn't just middle-class and upper-class girls (and boys) who grew up with emotional issues.

[robincarmody.livejournal.com]

Indeed so.

I often wonder whether what the bad stuff we have lost (emotional constipation across the classes) was better or worse than the bad stuff we have gained (intense egotism and the resultant death of post-war consensus politics). Very hard to make a full, balanced judgement.

[lizarfau.livejournal.com]

Yes, I agree - it would have been great if society could have reached a balance, but it hasn't, and things are too far the other way nowadays, perhaps, with mediocrity over-celebrated.

Lawrie and Ginty, I think, would relish today's society, and would have updated their Twitter status regularly, as their lives became a soap-opera starring themselves!!

[robincarmody.livejournal.com]

The closest to a balance was probably the 15-year period between the election of Wilson and the arrival of Thatcher. That is probably *the precise reason* why both Left and Right were frustrated with society at the time, both wanting extreme changes their way. In the event, arguably neither won, because what happened after 1979 was neither socialist nor conservative in any previously recognisable sense.

Do you think Lawrie and Ginty might, if they were around now, sound somewhat Mockney, with the others sticking resolutely to RP? It has always been noted, quite accurately, that young women do this less than young men, though I think that might be changing by now.