Coming Up for Air

Bowling returns from his day out in London, still unsure of how to spend the £17 he is keeping secret from his wife. He and Hilda go to a meeting of the Left Book Club featuring a special guest speaker; Bowling notes condescendingly that Hilda doesn’t know who the speaker is. He is unsurprised to find that the lecture is on Adolf Hitler and the rise of fascism or that its warnings about war are similar to those he reads in the newspaper, and he quickly stops listening. Although Hilda and her friends are sitting in the front row and appear to be engaged, Bowling speculates that they cannot understand the lecture. He is surprised to find that the lecturer seems to truly believe in what he’s saying, and believes that he is full of hate. Bowling speculates that what the man really wants is to commit violence.

Bowling describes the other members of the limited audience. He sees two old men who he knows belong to the town’s Labour Party, and speculates that their political movement has changed dramatically during the men’s lifetime. He suggests that these old men would be confused by the fact that, whereas the Labour Party once advocated for poor people in Britain, it now advocates for Jewish people abroad.