Analysis: Better Dead Than Red

Nana gave him her views on war in response to Giorgio telling her what they had been told at school. He couldn’t understand her response:

Better dead than Red, indeed! Teachers always teach that. Faced with the choice they’d go Red.

Giorgio puzzled over this. He asked at school next day.

I explained about Just War at home and was told: Better dead than Red. What does it mean? I was told that faced with the choice being Red’s better than being dead.

Father Charles, who’d fought in the First World War, explained the difference between wars of offense and wars of defense.

Just Wars of offense were started because they are essential to the spread of Christianity. Example, if in a neighboring country those in power made life intolerable
He had begged his mother to buy him a large poster of the Perseus statue when she took the twins to see Florence. Back home he mounted it behind his bedroom door next to the full length mirror on the back of the door. As he didn’t let anyone into his bedroom no one saw either as they spoke to him in the doorway.

He exercised his isometrics in front of the mirror and compared his development with Perseus. Apart from helmet, sword, winged sandals and Medusa’s head he was determined to look exactly like Perseus. Progress was slow.

Weekends were often spent at Castle Rothschilde, a turreted horror upstream with a frontage onto the Water. There Grandpa lived in solitary isolation after the death of his celebrated wife, the previous Henrietta. She was a well-known literary critic, who wrote for the weeklies and spoke on radio. Because he was there alone the family often joined him for the weekend.

The old man was still Chairman of the Bank but Pa had succeeded as Chief Executive Officer. Part of the men’s weekends were taken up with business matters: recent transactions, target setting, the usual monitoring and study of legal documents relevant to current
He read all their productions with care and queried all ambiguities. He could spot a deviation from what he’d requested a mile off. He regarded this ability as key to success in business.

Never let yourself be defrauded by lawyers, my boy.

During the previous week Jo had celebrated their sixteenth birthday with Hen, and several trendy friends of theirs from over the Water, at Leith Jazz Club, where they had their first taste of beer and jived with some crazy exhibitionists. It was on this occasion that Jo first realized Hen was turning into a young woman, a good looking one at that. The boys were flirting with her more than any of the other girls. Hen seemed pleased with event. She engineered several subsequent visits.

Grandfather had decided another initiation was called for. Giorgio was to join in the weekly meetings on the bank’s affairs. Most of the discussion went over his head. The adults seemed to be content to let it but when it came to studying legal documents Grandpa was insistent that Giorgio sat between them as they poured over the detail.

Does he really mean that? If he does he’s either a crook or a