Friday 7 October 2011

MRS TIM OF THE REGIMENT

My Mother in Law is great at passing me books which she's read with her Book Group: from my point of view it's excellent as I get interesting books to read and I don't have to go to the library and think 'what on earth shall I get out?'.

Many of them have been the type of book which I've found difficult to put down: many (as anyone who has followed this blog regularly will know) have made me question things and go off and look up more detail on the internet: for example about the Spanish Civil War and the Nigerian Civil War (I guess you'd call it a civil war though I'm not sure that's how the participants felt about it).

Mrs. Tim I'm not quite so sure about.  I'm still reading it - often for far longer than I intend late at night - but I'm not sure what I'm really getting from it.  For a start having known some army officers' wives and (ex)girl-friends, I find that rather sexist and very old-fashioned life style annoying.  I guess because I knew wives and girl-friends, and because this is written from that viewpoint, I didn't see the role of female officers in the forces but only the women who basically seem to follow their husbands around with little chance of developing a career of their own.  No, that's not true: it used to be and I think to an extent still is, but despite the fact that things have probably changed, as far as I can ascertain there still seems to be a certain arrogance and sense of superiority to those who are in the military - like many consultant Doctors also, although in their case it's perhaps a little more justified as they are always academically intelligent.  And I have to say I have known and know far more medical Consultants I like than Army officers.

So, I suppose what irritates me is that this book is very dated.  I wonder if it's in the same way that The Remains of the Day annoyed me: a world which has gone and in which women were, basically, second-rate citizens.  It's something which has irritated me throughout my career (being in a rather male chauvenistic profession) and will probably continue to irritate me while it's so difficult to get a relatively senior job on a part-time basis.  Or maybe my entire life.

However the book also made me consider two other things.  Firstly, if it was around today it would be a blog.  Secondly, what is it that makes us so interested in the minutiae of other people's lives?  The cult of celebrity in particular: why on earth are we interested in what some celebrity ate for breakfast (I remember seeing a TV programme on which a cafe had a collection of celebrity leftovers for sale, and the vendors/cafe owners were telling the presenter how much similar items had sold for at auction) or what colour his or her pants are?  Is it when we don't have enough in our own lives, or is it purely that human beings are nosey and curious and that includes about each other?  But then, why is it that the lives of celebrities are so fascinating whereas that of the woman who lives next door isn't - unless she's having affairs with the postman, the milkman and the gas man all at  the same time (there's obviously a similarity in gossiping over the fence and in reading about celebrities' intimate details).  With celebrities is it because we want them to seem as ordinary as we are, and the fact that they drink builder's tea every morning with 2 sugars provides the desired evidence that they are?

I think the conclusion I am slowly coming to is that the reason Mrs Tim 'doesn't do it for me' is because actually I'm not terribly interested in her.  I'm not curious about what being an Army officer's wife is like and there's little (so far) of the 'bigger picture' about what was going on the world at the time.  Her life seems to be much like many other people's: two children, one at public school; shopping; visiting other women, so of whom she likes and some she doesn't; managing a house.

Just move it forward 80 years and change the Army office to a local authority accountant and you could be reading my blog!

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