They got a badge too

[threemonkeys]

I read The Prefect by Alastair Reynolds about a week ago and I haven't really been able to think of anything to say about it. Its an in-fill title plugging a gap in a bigger story arc Its perfectly satisfactory for a Reynolds work - neither best nor worst. Just another title.

But then the title triggered a memory. The local high school had a prefect system - senior pupils who were given the title and power that went with that title. It is a tradition that existed ever since the school was established in the 1880s and extends back to English traditions that go back much further. Then one day the student council, a body of elected student representatives, asked the school headmaster to abolish the prefect system. And he did! Just like that.

We are talking about the early 1970s here, a time of great social change. I may be wrong, but I can't see that sort of thing happening these days - schoolkids actually making a difference to the traditional structure of their school. I was rather young at the time and when told that the prefect system was being abolished I just accepted it as the sort of thing that happened. Hindsight gives a different perspective on an old institution going and perhaps it was inevitable that it would go anyway. Interesting that the book title triggered that memory because I'm sure I haven't thought about prefects at any time in the intervening years.

Comments

[deborahb.livejournal.com]

Ha. I tend to use the phrase 'school prefect' as an insult, meaning: someone whose pomposity outweighs their power.

But, y'know, I went to a particularly crummy highschool.

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

I really liked The Prefect. I thought it was really nifty how it so perfectly combined the genres of space opera and police procedural.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I've overdosed on CSI type shows. I noted the police procedural aspects as I was reading the book but didn't attach any particular significance to that just because there is so much of that kind of story about. Perhaps that in itself is a testament to how well combined it was.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

Sure, it works well as a put-down of petty authority.

"But, y'know, I went to a particularly crummy highschool"

That sounds like the opening line of a joke. Am I supposed to reply "how crummy was it?" and you reply with something like "they banned the teaching of creativity because it violated the separation of church and state'.