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Remembering 1978
Oct. 21st, 2022 11:11 amProfound social upheavals can look a lot like fads when they first get underway.
For instance, in this novel I'm currently reading which was first published in 1978 our sensible, liberal-minded hero (almost certainly deputising for his female creator) is having problems with a daughter who has left her husband because of "Women's Lib". Our hero and his less liberal wife take the line- while being duly sympathetic- that the young people are being silly and will eventually come to their senses- which they do because the young woman misses her chauvinistic husband unbearably. Fifty years on (and three female Prime Ministers later) the most generous word for the way this subplot develops is "quaint".
While we're on the subject of misreading the runes, our (very famous) author deals with race in a way which would have seemed liberal at the time but is now a bit cringey- including the use of at least one word which would get a person cancelled today
For instance, in this novel I'm currently reading which was first published in 1978 our sensible, liberal-minded hero (almost certainly deputising for his female creator) is having problems with a daughter who has left her husband because of "Women's Lib". Our hero and his less liberal wife take the line- while being duly sympathetic- that the young people are being silly and will eventually come to their senses- which they do because the young woman misses her chauvinistic husband unbearably. Fifty years on (and three female Prime Ministers later) the most generous word for the way this subplot develops is "quaint".
While we're on the subject of misreading the runes, our (very famous) author deals with race in a way which would have seemed liberal at the time but is now a bit cringey- including the use of at least one word which would get a person cancelled today
