Another Female Author
I didn't know Storm Jameson was a female until I had finished this book. (It was for sale for a few cents at the public library; I have to be on the lookout--the Compton-Burnett books may go on sale there soon).
A Google search reveals that she was actually Margaret; that she lived into her 80s, and saw some of her books printed in the "Virago" series, celebrating women; that she wrote articles for feminist publications; and that she left her first husband, and even a young child, to make a life for herself. One can see that she could be portrayed as a sister doin' it for herself.
Yet this book, "A Cup of Tea for Mr. Thorgill," is by today's standards small-c conservative or right-wing--reminiscent of G.K. Chesterton. The "lesson" seems to be that the English taste for individuality, even eccentricity, especially when it goes with self-reliance, is in itself, even if it often thoughtless, a check against the fanaticisms of the 20th century. The fanaticism that is portrayed as the biggest threat is Communism.
The bright, idealistic young people at Oxford are drawn to communism to a greater or lesser extent. By the 50s they are debating the mass imprisonment, forced labour and slaughter that have become typical of the Soviet Union. Does a sane person have to think: we are not just burning away the bad in people, so as to let natural goodness emerge; we are actually supporting one of the worst governments imaginable--one that makes constant war on its own people? Or is it still possible to grit one's teeth and say the corpses of today will fertilize tomorrow's crops?
Jamieson makes it clear that the people who remain communist are crazy or evil. She over-uses words like "egoists," and she seems to think this explains the hard-core Soviet apologists or even agents. She seems to think the British government needs to crack down on security risks, and it is unfortunately likely to be asleep at the switch. On the other hand, she doesn't favour witch-hunts.
One young man is fired from Oxford basically because he admits that he was working for the Soviets in secret for years. His worst faux pas, in the social world of Oxford, may have been the confession, which allowed him to be painted as a liar or cheat (he had come up from the working class, so there was an old suspicion that he was no gentleman). Worse, he identifies the two people who were senior Soviet agents, giving him his instructions. He has no proof, and when these distinguished people, one of them a physicist at Oxford, deny the allegation, the repentant communist is seen even more as a liar and a rat. So he is fired. The protagonist, another don, urges the Master, at precisely this point, not to fire the guy. The argument is: he will really understand how to teach communism, in a historical context, to the young: he has felt the appeal and the idealism.
The protagonist has become bitter and cynical, especially since the death of his beloved wife. There are suggestions, sometimes a bit melodramatic, that it is love which matters most of all--or which can save us from political and selfish nonsense. There is one brief suggestion that if one needs faith, one should try faith in Jesus Christ--but we don't really see a C.S. Lewis or Tolkein in the book.
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