Down With Skool by Geoffrey Willans, drawings by Ronald Searle, this is part one of Molesworth – one of The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jan/23/bestbooks-fiction you find this on Realini’s Best 100 Comedies list http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world 10 out of 10

 Down With Skool by Geoffrey Willans, drawings by Ronald Searle, this is part one of Molesworth – one of The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/jan/23/bestbooks-fiction you find this on Realini’s Best 100 Comedies list http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world

10 out of 10

 

 

Down With Skool is hilarious, an immense joy to read and makes readers anticipate with elation the other parts of Molesworth…indeed, it is evident that they will bring so much hilarity, that the under signed has decided to interrupt the reading and put it aside, to benefit from smaller doses, so that he does not suffer a heart attack from so much laughter, and besides, there is a thing called Delayed Gratification, tests have been made and participants have been offered the choice between having a marshmallow pie instantly and waiting for five minutes (was it?) to get two, and then they looked after some years at the state of affairs and found that those who managed to show resilience, Delay Gratification would become successful, and the only caveat here is that we are talking about children and I do not see how this would apply to a fifty-year old man, unless we are talking of Stoics and their doctrine which we should apply at any age http://realini.blogspot.com/2020/08/stoicism-stoic-approach-to-modern-life.html

 

‘No reader will ever forget, gives one a prism through which to see the world...’ this is one of the admiring quotes about this marvelous, exalting book – that is, if we understand what is written, given the awful spelling that made this reader wonder for some time what the author is trying to convey, until he got used with it, to some extent- and albeit there are different experiences, we could all find similarities, colleagues we recognize in the novel, teachers that have been ghastly, ferocious, dumb or all of the above…

The difference could be that, at least so far - it remains to see what changes the other parts of Molesworth will bring – there is no teacher that rises above the rest, the variety is only on the negative side, in how the maths masters are more dominant, the French ones unable to control the room – and indeed, the language they are supposed to teach, in which they do not appear to be proficient – the music masters come asking for a different position, but they are told, you can only do this, if you take the pupils and offer them singing lessons, which result in such awful noises, that the headmaster walks away

 

Quite a number of statements, jokes, humor would be frowned upon, if not banned altogether in the present climate, and indeed, some aspects are specific to the middle of the last century, rather retrograde ideas on sex, gender, and boys would be called a ‘sissy’ when thought effeminate, and ‘Poetry is sissy stuff that rhymes…Weedy people swoon when they see a bunch of daffodils…Sometimes we have to recite which is girly in the extreme’ boys and men must be Spartan, strong and macho, presumably…

 

This is in stark contrast with the new age, and I would refer to Girl, Woman, Other, Booker Prize Co-Winner in 2019 http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world a novel that offers readers an insight into the dramatic changes of the present, Two Spirits, gender fluidity, the notion that some are quivergender, people out there see their gender change from one instant to the next, there are humans who want to be called they, in other words, an alternative universe, in which Down With Skool would not be comprehended, or indeed, tolerated perhaps, as a work of aliens…

There are of course attitudes, depressions that we can all share ‘I couldn't care less, What use will that be to me in the new atomic age…Masters chided you must learn the value of spiritual things…Spray them with 200 rounds from my bacterial gunboo…Latin everything happened a long time ago...Latin masters therfore are always old, You can hear there footsteps thump thump shuffle shuffle a long way off so you can hide mice, daggers, swords, Latin master finally make great heave and toter towards desk you would think it was mount Everest…’ now tell me, can you beat that, or you do not think it is hilarious…

 

These Latin masters have reminded me somehow of a math teacher we have had – now that I think of it, two might fit the description somehow, the first important, in Maths and Physics number 3, that was how they named them under communism, was a rather harsh, but useless in his job, called Hash, the second was Guritza aka Little Mouth, a man with a disability, he had had an accident, his mouth was twisted and he kept twitching it and his grasp of maths was not great, then in university, we have had a fellow that was huge, maybe weighing some two hundred kilos, on a very large frame and while he had started on a more alert tone, as we advanced in the curse, he would fall asleep at his desk, clearly suffering from some serious affliction, it was not a question of long nights, drinking, though I could not be sure, but sober and aware this minute, he would sit down and just fall asleep for minutes…

I have had my own student, a fellow from Jordan, Rawhi, who had had no idea of algebra -clearly ignorant of many other things, though at that time, he had been way more advanced with women…I would surpass this, accelerating to the point where I would become the lover of Miss Romania, though she would dump me in months, and then fornicate with maybe 2k, many of them hookers, fools or zombies, but still, an inexplicable number, given my credentials or lack thereof – and I was supposed to teach him, and have him pass maths and enroll into the second year, but the only way to reach that target was to help him cheat – at the exam, I finished the exercises and gave him my papers…

 

It could have been the end of my university years, for at the end of the hour for the examination, I asked for my papers to be returned, only the ruffian did not have them, the twat had passed them to others and they ended up somewhere near the corner and I do not remember exactly how the calamity was avoided, perhaps it had to do with the professor’s lapses into unconsciousness or sleep, but finally I would get them and that was a close call…and finally, some notes from this magnificent, glorious little book 

‘French masters according to ancient tradition no fr. master can keep order, Whenever a French master apere in the doorway it is a signal for hale of ink pots and stink bombs poo gosh, Mon dieu canaille allez hoop, If the fr. MASTER is English this amount  of French is usually beyond him…Aktually fr masters seldom get the chance to sa anything either in eng or in fr…Armand are there flowers, you can tell the sort he is…Maths show he is keen which is important with maths masters Pythagoras instead of growing grapes figs dates Pythagoras applied himself to triangles, whenever he found a new thing Pythagoras who had no shame jumped out of his bath wife dear dear squares of equal AC’

 

 

http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html