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

[colne-dsr.livejournal.com]

"respectable working class" is about right, though I suppose if labels have to be assigned we were more middle class by then. Grandparents left school at 12 to work in the mills; father left school at 16 to be an accountant, mother left at 18 to be a teacher; I went to univesity and became an accountant. (Grammar schools helped.)

I think the "respectable working classes" have blurred into a much enlarged middle class, especially with the decline of manufacturing. Even the lowest paid workers (the ones who would get more on the dole) have more in common with the higher paid people than with the lump left behind who expect and demand luxury in their idleness. (Note - This is a criticism of the Shannon Matthews' type parents, not the genuinely unemployed looking for work, of whom there are no doubt increasing numbers.)

Footballers had started hugging by the mid-60's I suppose - I remember recently seeing Bobby Charlton in a series of hugs after a goal, and being quite surprised - but this habit of rolling on the floor en masse is definitely more recent.

Of course, Falconer's Lure was 1957, Cricket Term was 1974 - maybe the Marlows' attitude had changed by then, as well as society's?

[robincarmody.livejournal.com]

I would suspect so. AF didn't much like the changes, but she didn't ignore them either.

[antfan.livejournal.com]

I wonder at what point, though, she decided she didn't like them? What I mean is, the Marlows of the middle books seem different to me from the earliest books. Their values and behaviour are different, I think. But Run Away Home seems much more a return to the Marlows of Falconers' Lure. It's hard to explain, but I see it in the way that they are so routinely respectful towards their dad in FL (although his behaviour often seems pretty arbitrary) and Giles (ditto) in Runaway Home. By contrast, the older male in RMF, Edwin, is treated with a marked lack of respect, and to me all those family dynamics make it a much more interesting book!

I feel that in the middle books AF herself is reflecting some of value changes of her time - and is genuinely interested in a lot of the social changes that are going on - but in Run Away Home it is as if all that is pushed away, and we're back in the world of a 1950s family style adventure, any hints of modernity (Judith's teenage pregnancy) very cursory and not explored at all...