Chapter 19
- David is done with high school. He has NO CLUE what his job should be, which is interesting as David often has a surplus of ideas and direction. At present he also doesn’t have much of a vocational outlook towards work, but then I think a lot of the ‘I want to work towards something good in the world’ vs ‘I want a job’ is really classed, and perhaps indicative of a later cultural stage of thinking about work? There’s an optimistic reading of such desire, but perhaps Fromm et al might think in terms of—this is capitalism so having colonised psychologies that we believe we can Do and Mean in the world/actualise ourselves primarily via career success and productivity.
- Betsey’s like, give it a think over a couple weeks’ break? And so David goes to London, en route to going to see Peggotty on a surprise visit.
- In London David, gayer than ever, is swept away by the magic of the theatre!! and runs into his ex. Re-met Steerforth continues to be flattered by David’s high opinion of him, but ultimately unable to commit any direction in life, or to any lasting or meaningful relationship that involves self-criticism, growth and responsibility. What a fuckeroni.
We’ve all been there mate, dreaming of Ancient Rome, Steerforth and Friendship. I too have been a young, useless gay, as have we all.
Chapter 20
- David and Steerforth go on a nice London Date. The gay energy is undeniable but so is the fuckboi energy, and there is nothing I abhor more deeply. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- So David spends the weekend at Steerforth’s, meeting his weird mom and cousin/fuckbuddy??/frenemy Rosa Dartle (best played by Jacqueline Pearce). David is terrified of and turned on by Steerforth’s pet passive-aggressive bitchqueen, who apparently took the same ‘how to lose friends, but influence people’ conversational correspondence course as Uriah.
- This is a really good conversation, with Rosa uncomfortably skinning James’ easy self-centred assumptions. David’s believing the best of this situation without due cause is about to become unsafe for him and devastating for people in more precarious positions. For example they’re about to go down together (for a lark, on Steerforth’s part), to visit the Peggotys. This will end badly.
- I’m not sure Steerforth’s mom really gets what Rosa is doing in these exchanges. Which sort of furthers a thought I’ve had before, that actually maybe a lot of people don’t half-get, in the way David always does, that Uriah is mocking them. Maybe Rosa and Uriah’s shit pleases people who want to hear that kind of thing, and only makes someone like David, already a bit innately ill at ease with the underlying assumptions in play, uncomfortable.
They are a lot of work.
let your daughter out of the house tho 
exposure!! 
‘ David: I am extremely 10. Pro tip: don’t involve children in your life crises. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It’d certainly be convenient for them. Probably Betsey could take up David’s cause when she adopts him, but if she did, Murdstone might suddenly find he wanted to keep David. Besides, Betsey’s been through a messy Victorian divorce, so I doubt she ever wants to fuck with barrister-law again, everrrr.
. There are about two sentences which could be read as ‘this work is evil, but particularly unfit for David as a middle class boy’. Though you’d have to read ungenerously to get there, and to be honest, what’s that get you? Do you want a prize for pointing out that it’s hard for even a lower-class Victorian or modern person to entirely decouple conceptions of privilege and worth? Are you trying to say Dickens was uniquely culpable here? It’d be hard to do. If you just want to say look, I found traces of socialisation, well. What… of it? What does that mean for the novel’s project, or for the freedom-work, to invoke Keguro, of striving to unmake class? He Was No Angeling often works in the service of hegemonies.
