Early on two old girlfriends from school come to Fox Corner to see the new baby, Edward:
For Teddy?
"Lily was a Fabian, a society suffragette who risked nothing for her beliefs. Sylvie thought of women being restrained while tubes were pushed down their throats and raised a reassuring hand to her own lovely white neck."
The Fabian Society was founded in 1884, in London. Its goal was the establishment of a democratic socialist state in Great Britain, through evolutionary socialism rather than revolution.
The name came from the roman general Fabius Conctator (or Fabius the Delayer), whose tactic of using harassment and attrition instead of direct battles secured victories over stronger forces.
Early on the society held fortnightly meetings with speakers and published Fabian tracts. They successfully carried out permeation - members infiltrating existing institutions to further their principles.
Through this method they achieved reform in a number of areas: social reform, education, national insurance, workers compensation to name just a few. The society helped shape the idealogical basis of the Labour Party. Their most tangible achievement is perhaps the founding of the London School of Economics in 1894, made possible through a grant.
During the Edwardian period, in which this part of Life After Life is set, the Fabians enjoyed a surge in membership due to popular interest in socialist ideas.
The tortoise is the symbol of the Fabian Society
So this paints the character of Lily as a superficial person, only interested in what's fashionable at that moment. She is an old school friend of Sylvie, from another lifetime. From a time when Tiffin still walked Rotten Row and Sylvie had not been exposed to the reality of debt and bailiffs, had not been exposed to the horrors of ordinary middle-class life.
What if Sylvie, or rather her gambling father, had been given a second ( or third ) chance? If Sylvie had stayed in that stratum of society would she too have become a Fabian, or a society suffragette like Lily? Or would she have thrown herself into the cause whole-heartedly? Why didn't she anyway, in the life she leads in Fox Corner? Her choices can tell us a lot about her really quite complicated character, and she deserves her own post.
Back to the Fabians
Here is a list of some prominent members of intellectual society active in or linked to the Fabians, maybe it was the lure of these names that attracted Lily.
Annie Besant
Edward Carpenter
John Davidson
Ramsey MacDonald
Edith Nesbitt
Emmeline Pankhurst
Bertram Russel
George Bernard Shaw
Beatrice Webb
Sidney Webb
H.G Wells
Leonard Woolf
Virginia Woolf
Of course, the society's ideals were not at all flawless. The fervent support by some early members of eugenics, and also erroneous social and economic theories are discussed in many articles. Many mention the coat of arms and how that represents the society in both historical terms and today.
Some time ago I read a novel, "The children´s book" by A.S. Byatt, that was based on Nesbitt´s family life (one of the list members). It was rather interesting although a bit long for my taste. Also "A man of parts", from one of my british favourite authors, David Lodge and about another one: H.G. Wells. Seems to be a lot of recent british literature, not all of them translate to spanish, about that period ...
ReplyDeleteAs an A.S. Byatt fan I also read The Children's Book, although without realising that it was based on Nesbitt. I enjoyed several of her books as a child, a great mixture of adventure, fantasy and gung-ho children. I think this period provides rich pickings for writers, an era free from victorian morals and not yet traumatised by war. Thank you for the David Lodge mention, I haven't read this, perhaps it is one of his non-fiction works? I wonder how different/same life was here in the same period.
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