The Guardians has nothing like the number of characters and adventures that can be found in the Borrible books, but this little story has an issue in common with them.
The Guardians is a book of interest because of the character of the young hero Rob Randall and the question of which is the better of the two very different and complementary lifestyles it describes. It also contains some material that reminds me of other books mentioned on here.
The two worlds of The Guardians
The Guardians is set in England in the year 2052. England is divided into two distinct societies, the Conurbs and the County.
The Conurbs are highly-populated towns where modern technology is much in evidence. The majority of English people live in Conurbs. They are mainly workers. There are occasional riots, but the people are mostly kept quiet with entertainment in the form of carnivals and arena games that appeal to the bloodthirsty - bread and circuses with holovision.
The County is the sparsely-populated countryside, the home of the aristocratic minority. They are mainly people of independent means. They prefer not to use much technology; they have horses for transport. Their lifestyle is rather like that of Edwardian gentry at the height of the British Empire.
Huge fences keep the two societies separate physically, and a carefully controlled, conditioned and manipulated mutual 'us and them' mentality keeps them apart psychologically.
The County is the sparsely-populated countryside, the home of the aristocratic minority. They are mainly people of independent means. They prefer not to use much technology; they have horses for transport. Their lifestyle is rather like that of Edwardian gentry at the height of the British Empire.
Huge fences keep the two societies separate physically, and a carefully controlled, conditioned and manipulated mutual 'us and them' mentality keeps them apart psychologically.
Something about Rob Randall
The story opens in a public library - this is an encouraging start!
The library is in the Conurb of London. Unfortunately it is dilapidated, decaying and well past its prime. People have become less individual, less inquiring and have mostly stopped reading books. Rob Randall, who likes solitude and has a love of reading, is the only person under fifty who goes there. He likes stories filled with excitement and adventures.
Rob’s mother, who was born in the County and who encouraged him to use the library, is dead; his father, who is an electrician, is killed in a work accident early on in the book. Rob is then sent by the authorities to a horrible state boarding school where the food is awful and he is given a very hard time by the masters, the prefects and the other boys.
Life at boarding school
The school is in Barnes, in south west London. Rob soon finds his way to the river, a place where he can get some peace and quiet:
“It surprised him that no one had done the same. This might be forbidden too, but he was prepared to chance that to get an hour's peace and solitude. It was also true, as he had learned long ago, that most people - boys or adults - disliked being alone. He was glad of his own company normally, at present very much so.”
There is no library in the school, which speaks for itself. Rob soon gets into trouble; the other boys stop speaking to him and behave as though he doesn’t exist. It is lucky for Rob that he can stand alone and has little herd instinct:
“It was unpleasant, but perhaps less so for him than it would have been for others since he had never fully shared the overwhelming Conurban need to be an accepted member of the group.”
Then the vicious bullying starts, with the promise of more to come. Rob thinks about his bleak future:
“He would be here until school-leaving age, seventeen. Four years. Even if the bullying stopped there were all the other things. No home to go back to, no privacy, no books. The place was bad enough in itself: to get used to it would be even worse. Better being tortured than turning into something like the torturers. “
Rob runs away
Rob decides that he must get away from the school, but he has nowhere to go and he knows no one who would take him in. He also has very little money:
“What else? Try and live on his own somehow? But how? It might be possible to dodge the police for a week or two, sleeping in the open or in derelict houses, but he could not do that for long. The little money he had would quickly run out, and there would be no way of getting more except by joining one of the criminal gangs of the underworld. And they probably wouldn't want him either.
One could not hide among the crowds of ordinary people. Everyone had a particular place in society, a routine by which he could be identified. There was no concealment in the teeming streets of the Conurbs. It was hopeless to imagine it.”
So if the Conurbs are out, the only remaining possibility is the County. Rob knows very little about this place except that it is mostly villages, farmlands, empty fields and unpeopled wide-open spaces. He has heard rumours about the dangers of the Barrier and vicious guard dog patrols but decides to risk it anyway. After all, he has not got much to lose.
Rob plans his escape and the subsequent journey carefully.
Once away from the hated school, he uses his eyes and his brain to get the information he needs and to avoid attracting unwelcome attention. He makes some good decisions. On the other hand, he has some doubts and second thoughts, bad moments and setbacks along the way.
He takes a train to a town close to the Barrier. He gets a lift in a car after
coming
up
with some plausible lies, but accidentally leaves the small suitcase containing his few belongings behind when he has to make a run for it. He continues on foot by night, overcoming an overwhelming urge to turn back. When he arrives at the fence, which is much less fearsome than rumour had made it, he is cold, tired and very hungry. He finds a gap which, with a bit of digging, lets him squeeze under the Barrier into the unknown territory of the County.
A few connections
Rob Randall’s situation at the start of the book is similar to that of Amy Lee’s at the start of Stella Gibbons’s My American: mother dead, father soon to die in an accident, unable to face the bleak and unbearable prospect of no solitude and no opportunities to read. They are much the same age too.
Just as happened with Amy, kind neighbours take Rob in after his father’s death. Unfortunately, this is only for a short while; they think he will be safer away at boarding school.
This description of the food at Rob’s boarding school reminds me very much of what Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre and her fellow pupils had to endure at the awful Lowood School:
“...you quickly learned the importance of queuing in advance outside the dining room because the food, apart from being poor and badly cooked, was never sufficient to go round. For those at the end of the queue the horrible lumpy porridge was further diluted with hot water, there was half a portion of reconstituted egg or half a rissole, and there might not even be a slice of bread. Senior boys pushed their way to the front at the last minute; juniors had no option but to stand in line.”
Jane Eyre’s porridge was burnt, and at her school too the bigger pupils deprived the smaller ones of food:
“Then the scanty supply of food was distressing: with the keen appetites of growing children, we had scarcely sufficient to keep alive a delicate invalid. From this deficiency of nourishment resulted an abuse, which pressed hardly on the younger pupils: whenever the famished great girls had an opportunity, they would coax or menace the little ones out of their portion. Many a time I have shared between two claimants the precious morsel of brown bread distributed at tea-time; and after relinquishing to a third half the contents of my mug of coffee, I have swallowed the remainder with an accompaniment of secret tears, forced from me by the exigency of hunger.”
Just like Rob, Jane Eyre accidentally leaves the parcel containing her few belongings behind in a vehicle while fleeing and becomes destitute with nothing to eat and nowhere to go.
Rob also reminds me of the imp Number One in Eoin Colfer’s Lost Colony: Number One likes to read, has a hard time at school and is different on the inside from his classmates.
The life that Rob briefly considers, living in derelict houses in fear of capture by the police, is one that is the norm for the Borribles.
Rob Randall’s new life and some more connections will be described in future articles.
This edition of The Guardians shows the fence that separates the County from the Conurbs:
