Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for September 03, 2011

My image of Becca is shattered. She finally slipped up; you don’t call your next hot commodity a “dim bulb.”

I attended four years of boarding school. The only magic I found there was this girl who—.

Steady, Dylan. LOL

She means that Jeff lacks an education of the kind Harry Potter (or in America, a “preppie”) receives. “Edgier” means readier to ignore reality. In the words of Rugby’s greatest alumnus, Jeff shows himself “less under the empire of fact” (Matthew Arnold).

Beca is one bright cookie but I don’t think she quite fathoms that Jeff actually believes that he is his fantasy! She is reading it as fiction and Jeff thinks he is writing an autobiography. It will be interesting when the light finally dawns and she realizes how far divorced from reality he is and shatters her assumption that “nobody could be that obtuse”!

Skulker: I was going to say much the same. I don’t think that bodes well for a relationship between them. On the other hand, I doubt it will stop publication of the book.

So the Rascal is seen as a modern Good Soldier Švejk.

When Daddy threatened “Boarding School”, my teenage thesaurus said “Military Academy” or “Reform School”

Richard you remind me of something I read in a book published during WWII. A journalist was interviewing one of “the few” who defended Britain in the air in 1940. What does it take to make a fighter pilot, he asked. “Chiefly a lack of imagination,” was the reply. “Imaginative chaps dwell on what might happen to them, or what is happening inside the plane they are shooting at. In either case it gets to them in time. For the good ones, the whole thing is a technical problem: How do I knock down that machine there? No more personal than shooting at clay pigeons.” -- Of course I read it long ago, and haven’t got it verbatim, but that was the gist of it.

Do you think Jeff is beginning to understand that Random House intends this as a CHILDREN’s book?

Hear Jeff’s gears grinding? Rascal’s unblemished record is unscathed, however how to justify this jab? Maybe an online degree?

Jeff is living proof that every gene pool has a shallow end.

Online degree? Why? He graduated from Walden!

Millions of people under a darkened sky. It will break open, because of where we are in history. If Sorkh Razil didn’t ride, the stones would cry out!

Gotta agree that Becca is the best new character that GT has had in years…

Its funny though, Becca is obviously very smart and literate but instead of seeing him for the dim bulb he is, has already started to fill in the blanks of who she thinks he must be. Everyone has a fantasy world that they climb out of once they have to populate the real world.

This girl won’t last long. She has not learned how to pet mens egos whatsoever!

That envelope seems pretty thin for a potential best-seller. Doughfoot might be on to something.

BTW, am I the only one who thinks Becca is plain? I don’t see the babitude some of you have commented on. However, that doesn’t mean she can’t hit it off with Jeff.

She shouldn’t have given him those proofs. Somehow I see this book being leaked.

I side with those who believe Becca has zero romantic interest in Jeff, but she may have an erotic fixation on Red Rascal. Of course, she might simply regognize the erotic potential of RR to an audience of hormonal Young Adults (I don’t imagine she sees this as a “children’s book” per se despite the Harry Potter reference; publishers are desperate for books to appeal the the post-Potter audience).

“The Adventures of Sorkh Razil” (or whatever the title is) may be a throwback to books like “Beau Geste” or “The White Feather” or “Under Two Flags”, or other types of romantic adventure that were wildly popular 100 years ago. Lots of fighting in exotic places for the males, brooding-and-unattainable heroes for the females. No explicit sex, just lots of sublimation. Foreign Legion stories (and the like) were rarely great literature, but they sold a lot of copies…

By the way, if Jeff ends up with an attraction to Becca, I could see him casting himself in the “Clark Kent” role in the Superman/Lois Lane scenario. “She dismisses Jeff Redfern in favor of Sorkh Razil, but little does she suspect that we’re one and the same! And yet, I dare not reveal my secret!” This would let him add Tragic Irony to his self-image, which he’d no doubt find gratifying. And it works whether Becca is really turned on by the Rascal or not…

Who is more likely to have his feet planted in reality, a child trained at boarding school or one raised by Joanie and Rick?

As for expecting God (or Trudeau) to send us another Becca Fickle, you can just read “Bossy Pants” by Tina Fey, who’s sexier and who resembles a younger, brighter Sarah Palin (now THERE’S a “dim bulb”!)

My information on British boarding schools might be bit dated, but Kipling didn’t mention girls much, and what was it that James Joyce called it… smugging? Don’t think girls were much involved in that either…

As “George W. Bush foresaw nothing but sunshine and roses ahead when he ordered US troops into Iraq,” he was slugging back another bottle of imported Old Castilian Airén at the time..“Dick” Cheney entered the Oval Office and found the President on the floor, having just hit his head on the edge of a coffee table. “Mr. President!” he scolded, “I thought you were on the wagon.”.“Oh, Dick-dude! Lost your glasses? Can’t you see? I’ve just fallen off.”.VP: “Better not let those terrorist ’Crats find out about this.”.King George (from the floor): “You dim blub, er, hic, bulb! They’re not t-t-tourists.”

Maybe she sees the Red Rascal more as an Inspector Clouseau type.