By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 03:02:34 +0000

Hi Gail, I read I CAPTURE THE CASTLE a few years ago, and my reaction was very similar to yours. It is considered to be sort of a Holden Caulfield YA classic in Blighty, and I read the Folio Books edition. I too noted the odd English preoccupation with class status, and the bizzare parents, whose foibles sort of filled in the off-kilter perspective of the narrative. And like you, the lack of any resolution left me empty-handed at the end. Speaking of class awareness, I shall tell you about my English friend, a man of brilliant intellect who readily admitted to being part of the “brain drain”. He in fact recruited me for the local Mensa chapter. Growing up in a lower class household in London, his accent immediately marked his supposed “place” and he found it impossible as he got older to get the respect his academic accomplishments should have garnered. He came to the US working as an engineer for Pratt & Whitney designing jet engines, and swore he would never go back. He was treated with the greatest respect here, and told me that Americans thought his accent was “quite charming”. Nevertheless, he couldn’t completely shake the class awareness that dogged him in England. He complimented me on my tie one time and asked me what school I had attended, thinking I was wearing school colors, apparently one of those “class” clues in England. When I explained to him that I had purchased it at a local haberdashers because I liked the color scheme, he remonstrated with me with great vigor about travelling under false colors, wearing regimental stripes to which I wasn’t entitled. Of course I had to laugh full throatedly while attempting to explain that we merely aspire to sartorial splendor here, and the beyond a euphonious combination of colors, our ties are generally meaningless as to regiment or school. It seems you can take the boy out of England, but it’s not as easy to take England out of the boy.

Comments on: TBR Challenge: I Capture The Castle

By: Anonymous