Atdtda [4]: Steady work, 104-106

[Paul Nightingale]

If indeed "they're after" Webb, then Kit substitutes for his father as Foley
Walker substituted for Scarsdale Vibe. Kit insists "[t]hey don't know you
down there"; previously he claimed he knew Foley wasn't Vibe because he
"read[s] the papers and look[s] at the magazines" (100). Hence Webb lacks
the fame that gives him a reputation: this again is Kit's innocence shining
through. Webb insists he must be "on their list": his working definition of
fame--perhaps better, notoriety--is one that Kit cannot grasp. Webb points
out that Kit doesn't understand "rich folks" (105), or Wealth; he should be
"old enough and sure enough to see what this is, now", ie able to see the
big picture. Kit's big picture concerns maths and electricity, book
knowledge that, according to Webb, doesn't help him understand the world he
lives in.

Ch8 noted: "Webb was no professor, he could only doggedly repeat to his kids
the same old lessons, point to the same obvious injustices, hope some of it
managed to sprout ..." (95). Following his Tom-&-Jerry response to dynamite
(90), Kit is absent from the rest of that chapter; the narrative has no
place for him among the audience for Webb's "same old lessons". What he has
to say, they "won't hear ... in school" (93).

To this point, Webb's family is represented as an economic unit. They live
and work together; the children learn from their parents. Education takes
the child from the parent, introduces another set of influences. In these
pages, the relationship between Webb and Kit tracks this process: Webb's
teaching belongs to the informal, oral tradition, to which we can juxtapose
the formal tradition based on literature, for which Kit "had the knack" (98;
see also his "penmanship", 106). Using Weber's terminology, this distinction
is related to the decline of traditional (personalised) forms of authority,
to be replaced by rational-legal (impersonal) forms.

Webb's immediate response, at the beginning of this section is to say he'll
"get somebody to write em, tell em no" (104). Note: this isn't something he
can do for himself, so here he acknowledges his own powerlessness. The "damn
curse" he identifies at the bottom of 105 refers to father/son conflict, a
weakening of parental hegemony; he sees repetition, but not necessarily
difference.