Readthrough: The Marlows and The Traitor Chapters 1 & 2

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

The Marlows and the Traitor takes place over four and a half days, and the chapters are arranged accordingly, so I thought the schedule might go something like this:

20th June: Chapters 1 & 2 (Wednesday)
27th June: Chapters 3-76 (Thursday) [addendum: the volume of commentary got a bit unmanageable, so I did four chapters instead of five]
4th July: Chapters 7-10 (Thursday Night (2), Friday and Saturday Morning)
11th July: Chapters 11-13 (Saturday Afternoon and Sunday Morning*)

(*wh. sounds like a little-known novel by a Mildly Miffed Young Man)

Author's Note: I took this to refer to the problem of Dartmouth changing its minimum entrance age from 13 to 16, then 18, which means that a 14-year-old Peter could not be a cadet at the time of publication in 1953. But on re-reading it, I was struck by Forest's comment "the happenings described must have taken place between September 1946 and May 1949". Well, the novel is very clearly set at the Easter holidays after Autumn Term, and in the next book, Falconer's Lure, we learn that it is summer 1948. So I haven't a notion what she's on about here. Anyone care to enlighten?



The opening paragraphs are wonderfully atmospheric, I think, and much of the success of Traitor relies on the creation of atmosphere above all.

Retrospective mortification is one of Forest's motifs, and 'the boat thing' is a splendid instance of it. She withholds the details from us--all we know at this stage is that there's been some incident at Dartmouth involving a boat, and he was thoroughly told off for it ('blistering ticking-off on the hard' is a great phrase). We don't even know by whom Peter was reprimanded yet. I think that works really well to suggest Peter's mental skirting around the issue: he keeps going over it, and yet it is also in a sense too painful even to be fully articulated to us, the readers, in his internal monologue.

"As a family, the Marlows were rather good at minding their own business." I'm not sure, objectively, how true this is, but they are certainly an unsentimental bunch. It is rather wonderfully echoed in the more deeply dysfunctional independence of the Foleys. I am at the same time, ineffably touched by Nicola's friendship with Robert Anquetil, and her general gift for friendships with adults (see also her détente with the rebarbative Edwin). But that is for another day.

Family liking: a fascinating subject in the series, I think. Forest is either nodding or being very subtle here: in Autumn Term Nicola says Rowan is "the nicest" after Giles, here we're told Nick "liked Peter the best" after Giles. There's perhaps a difference between "the nicest" (which Rowan, for all her many virtues, surely is not) and "liking someone best", or perhaps Forest just didn't check. Giles is Peter's favourite too, which strikes me as unlikely, and not just because of my well-documented feelings about Marlow, G.A.: I'd imagine that Peter feels rather as if he's got to live up to Giles, which isn't, in my (admittedly not first-hand) experience of sibling relationships, a recipe for cordiality.

Pam Marlow's tendency to slightly impulsive financial blow-outs is surely a reaction to the years of struggling on a lieutenant's pay with a growing brood of children, and I think it's a lovely character detail. In a discussion elsewhere I was reminded of the hostility of certain 1970s theorists of children's literature to the upper-middle-class values and milieu of the Marlows, and especially to the representation of a family that educates its children privately, and later, owns horses and so forth, as 'hard-up'. One does get the sense that Forest, like many authors of the mid-20th century, felt that there was a certain romance in being posh-but-broke, even perhaps a kind of make-do-and-mend moral superiority in it. But although the Marlows don't seem to know the grinding anxieties of actual poverty, their financial situation is sometimes represented as difficult enough to cause more than inconvenience. Any thoughts or feelings?

Related: the Thorpes are clearly Lower Middle Class and Nouveau Riche, as demonstrated by the tight, bright nether garments of the female members of the family. The Marlow children's recoil from Johnnie is unsentimentally and accurately done, I think but also reveals considerable snobbery.

Nicola's seasickness is a delightful detail, and I love the reference to Hornblower and Nelson suffering from the same ailment. To it, and to some interesting points about Marlow interactions which reflect rather poorly on the senior and naval members of the family, we will recur.

The Fancy Dress Dance is rather marvellously postwar austerity amusement. My grandfather (b.1919) retained a taste for this sort of fun well into old age, much to the exasperation of his juniors, so I associate it with the War Generation. But Peter and Ginty are notably unkeen (it's a beautiful detail that Peter even manages to relate this to his possible failure to be a good naval officer, joining in 'festivities in foreign ports') while Lawrie, of course, delights in the opportunity to act and show off. Cant you just see her doing this to her siblings' total mortification?

Peter's poor taste in friends likewise delights me--and is of course related to his rave for Foley. What do people make of Foley's offer of a lift to Selby? [ETA content warning in re: the comments: discussion of possible grooming for sexual abuse]

Peter's fear and Nicola's nonchalance as the storm begins to get up in neatly done, I think: Peter's fears and his overcoming of them (not always successfully) is another motif. This brings us to a continuity error, which I was not competent to diagnose, but which was pointed out to me by legionseagle. Foley simply doesn't, it seems, have time to moor Talisman and be sauntering along the prom by the time he is depicted as doing so. And where exactly has he left Talisman, given that he takes her out again that afternoon? Nor does he seem to have been made very damp by the storm he's just been at sea in. They must be super oilskins he's got. In some ways that's a shame, because had Forest noted it, Peter might well have explained away Foley's behaviour as a matter of pride--not wanting to acknowledge a pupil when he's in a state of considerable dishevelment, when, of course, the real reason is both exactly that and rather more sinister. There's also the question of where exactly St Anne's-Byfleet is, to which we shall also recur. There is something uncanny about Foley, though, as if Peter's account of 'the boat thing' has summoned him from the sea: and perhaps the unsettling effect of that is worth a small sacrifice of realism.

That Foley's failure to acknowledge Peter is related by Nicola to The 39 Steps always puts a smile on my face.





Mrs Marlow's worries are very realistically sketched, I think: she's normally unflappable, but the tensions of managing the eight of them do sometimes explode into the anger of fright.

I also greatly enjoy Ginty's adolescent discomfort at the thought of drawing attention to herself, despite her somewhat oddly-described good looks: greeny-blue eyes tilted like a squirrel's sound spooky, and her teasing her mother by calling her Momma (presumably American, and thus vulgar?)

The family's horror at Peter's outright rudeness to Johnnie Thorpe seems a little hypocritical, given that he is only saying directly what they have all more or less made clear to Johnnie they think. But it's a great piece of social observation nonetheless.

Lawrie's borrowing Nicola's knife as a good-luck charm is a nice little point (it must work on a principle of magical inversion, since that knife has not conspicuously brought luck in the past) and there's surely a little submerged verbal joke on the name of Foley's cutter there. Talismans might after all, be evil.

Nicola and Peter's discussion of Foley possibly having a twin creates further resonance between the Foley family and the Marlows, but also with The Prince and the Pauper.

I enjoy the little episode with the pony, and Nicola's reflection on Peter's prep school master's comment on his diving. I do sometimes feel that in re: bravery, Forest is extraordinarily tough on her characters. If you funk, you feel the full weight of authorial disapproval, but if you attempt--as Peter sometimes does to the point of foolhardiness--to confront fear (and Peter's of heights is close to phobia rather than just normal trepidation in the face of danger) you also earn a sideswipe.

The Mariners passage is a favourite of mine: I love the atmospherics of discovery, the differences between Nicola and Peter's reactions to the crows' nest (I sympathise with both!) Nicola's eerie intuition when she sees Talisman.

I'm struck again by the glimpse of Pam Marlow's character: having been furious at Peter and Nicola's irresponsibility earlier, she now thinks nothing of waltzing off and leaving them under Ginty's supervision for days. Obviously this is mainly for Plot Purposes, but it chimes interestingly with the story of Geoff and Pam's engagement and marriage in the face of opposition from her mother (which Forest invents rather later on). It implies a marriage that's still rather impulsively passionate (perhaps long separations help here) after twenty-odd years. I'm rather touched. Still, it doesn't show very good judgement--there are plenty of 15-year-olds who could be trusted to look after their younger siblings, especially in the controlled environment of a hotel, but Ginty might well not be one of them.

Finally, Lawrie's sending up of Nicola's wanting to see the ships at Farrant is deliciously barbed and squirmy, playing beautifully on that separation of home and professional/school life that is such a nice feature of the books. And of course Lawrie's sending-up 'voice' is yet another nod to her talent for acting.



Well, that's it from me. Looking forward to your comments--have at it.

Comments

[serriadh.livejournal.com]

I wonder if Peter, even to himself, can't admit that Giles isn't his favourite. As Giles is the only other male sibling, and is in the career Peter's going for, it might feel disloyal (a Marlow cardinal sin!) to say he prefers eg Nick or Ann. And the family definitely thinks Nick-and-Laurie so perhaps he'd feel odd having just one?

I think there's a certain (particularly upper middle class?) horror at having someone say exactly the awful rude things you're not saying that would provoke outbursts. It highlights your own bad behaviour and any buried guilt over it.

[coughingbear]

I also wonder if Giles was Peter's favourite when he was younger, and he hasn't acknowledged that these days Giles is competition. The age gap might have been enough - and Giles away enough - that he was happy to look up to him before. (Later, in another book, he can watch Rowan and know he wishes she wasn't always more competent than he is.)

[coughingbear]

The Author's Note I have always thought referred to the changes to the Dartmouth entry age - I presume she just wasn't thinking about how specific Falconer's Lure was to be (or how long she would be writing these books, so that Peter's training takes 35 years).

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

This is one of the books that I read for the first time as an adult, so I sometimes find myself much less sympathetic to the children's behaviour. Was it really ok for well brought up children to break into empty houses for the fun of it? The explanation I invent to keep myself happy is that there must have been a lot of abandoned houses in the few years after the war - often damaged by bombs or neglect; so maybe it was considered normal for children to explore empty houses - at least in stories?
I find the incident with the pony extraordinary. What incredible cheek to think you could just climb onto someone else's pony and ride it. Would they have ridden around on someone else's bicycle left outside a shop for example? And that's before you consider that they had no bridle / headcollar and didn't know if the pony was even broken in - they could easily have had a dangerous fall.
And were children really allowed to stay in hotels unaccompanied under the age of 16?
I think Nicola's 'second favourite family member' comes down to what is expedient for the story. Peter doesn't appear in Autumn Term so it would be bad story-telling form for him to be Nicola's favourite, so Rowan gets the role. Whereas in TMATT Rowan doesn't appear and Peter does.
I find it interesting the way Peter and Nicola's actions mirror each other in the first few chapters. In the first chapter Peter fails to pass on the warning he heard in the hotel about not going along the Undercliff in bad weather, because he doesn't want to be the one who seems to be scared. The next day (I know this is next week's discussion really) Nicola fails to pass on Anquetil's warning not to go to Foley's house, because the others are asking her if she is frightened and she doesn't want to seem scared. We often see Peter and Nicola worrying about seeming / being scared whereas it's Ginty and Lawrie who seem to actually do stupid things when they are scared.
Peter's self reproach over the 'boat thing' reminds me of Nicola after the Port Wade trip in Autumn Term. We hear about Giles / Foley's ticking off magnified by Nicola / Peter's sense of stupidity where they are blaming themselves.
I love the build-up and the sense of growing uneasiness in the first few chapters - the oddness of Foley appearing just as they are talking about him, Nicola's premonitions by the hidden sea, the sense of fear suppressed by both Peter and Nicola occasionally bursting out in moments of feeling panicked. The dangers that they escape early in the book - Nicola nearly washed into the sea, Nicola shooing the pony away because she realises Peter might get hurt trying to get on it, nearly missing the bus home because they've separated add to the tension that's building.

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

I was a non-delinquent child who (ahem) explored empty houses with other tolerably well-brought up friends (we were careful not to cause damage by breaking in, as are the Marlows) so I didn't register that as at all odd. The pony strikes me as odder, yes, though I think that is meant to illustrate Peter's cluelessness--Nicola, slightly belatedly, realises that it's not on and might well be dangerous.

As to under-16s being left in charge, I don't know what the legal position exactly was in the late 1940s. In the early 1960s my 14 year old uncle was left in charge of my mother (aged 12) and their toddler sister while my grandparents worked night-shifts and this wasn't at all considered odd or irresponsible, though they were of a rather humbler class background than the Marlows. That's all I can offer anecdotally.

The parallel between Giles and Foley's reprimands is interesting: given Foley's hot but short-lived temper I imagine it's quite a different quality of ticking-off from Giles's icy fury, but it has much the same effect...

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

Even after WW2, people started work at 14, so I'd have thought that 15 was quite old enough to be left in charge

[emily-shore.livejournal.com]

I've been looking forward to the start of this discussion!

I do love the atmosphere in the opening scenes of the book; as a writer myself I'm always prone to using weather to help set the mood, and Forest does a superb job here of letting the thundery weather begin to introduce the mood of ominousness underlaid with excitement. The yellow sea and the copper sky... just wonderful.

And then there's the introduction of Peter. I must say I find him a bit unsympathetic from the start, when we hear that there's a pool of water on the floor from the rain and, instead of getting up to close the window, he picks up his biscuits and starts getting crumbs in the bed. Add to that having turned down invitations for the summer holiday in order to be able to stay in "luxury and idleness," and he doesn't seem all that appealing a character. You could argue that his choice is really *all* about the "boat thing," as he admits even to himself that it's a factor. And I do feel for him over that. I agree that Forest puts across his mental skirting around the issue really well.

Nicola's fannishness about Hornblower is wonderful and makes her even more obviously the authorial/reader identification character.

During this book I find myself continually comparing the Marlows with the Walkers from Swallows and Amazons - with a naval family and a seaside adventure, this novel in particular is not far from being a Ransome book. I'm probably going to stir controversy here but the Marlows don't necessarily come off all that well in comparison: none of them hate the sea, they wouldn't be lured by a luxury hotel (though maybe if it were by the sea), they wouldn't break into a house which is obviously isn't entirely abandoned, and they certainly wouldn't go out on the Undercliff after a clear warning about how dangerous it is in a storm. Commander Marlow sounds very "better drowned than duffers" but Peter doesn't quite seem to have picked up on the message. Am I being unfair to the Marlows? You could say in their favour that they're more psychologically complex than the Walkers, who are perhaps unrealistically good and competent and sensible.

Foley's attempted blackmail of Sel is very interesting. The first time I read this chapter I just passed it over without speculating but this time I found myself thinking about "he might think he could make him do things." Nicola's imagination obviously failed her with her suggestion of buying beer for the prefects, but anyone who reads boys' school stories will know that prefects sometimes make younger boys do other things too. (Am I being too suspicious? Was Foley trying to convert an aid to treason? But what could he want with the help of a young Navy cadet anyway?) (And I've just noticed that you actually asked about this in the original post - I was being independently suspicious here.)

How wonderfully selfish of Peter: "If Nicola had been drowned it would probably have been his fault... and he was thoroughly tired of things that might have been his fault."

So far I've really only covered chapter one, but I think I'll pause here and come in again later...

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

Applying 'coughing-bear' logic to this one is interesting, isn't it: had Peter not mucked up the boat exercise, he probably would have gone to Selby's for the holidays...and he and Nick probably wouldn't have walked along the Undercliff, and maybe not gone to Mariners, and . PESKY KIDS.

I like the detail of Peter leaving the window and making the bed all crumby: very much a certain sort of 14-year-old boy, perhaps one enjoying the the break from naval discipline. (Giles, one senses, is Bristol-fashion by nature.) I enjoy the Marlows' propensity to dufferdom, actually, being a bit of a duffer myself.

Traitor is pretty pitiless and dark, actually (Fabian's 'mistake' about the depth of the water, the rough lineaments of which are replicated by his descendant; Whittier's 'little corpusses'; 'the children are expendable'; Anquetil's caution in not attempting a solo rescue, &c. &c.). I'm pretty sure that Forest meant her older readers at least to intuit that Selby felt a sense of sexual threat from Foley, whether justified or not. Nicola's words are "I don't mean Foley wanted beer bought. I mean----' I think the long dash isn't her imagination failing her so much as her not having the vocabulary to say to her brother, 'I think the officer who you've got a bit of a rave for might have been trying to sexually abuse your best friend.' It's surely significant that it's explicitly placed in the context of Peter's poor judgement of character.

Peter's selfishness is surely also a child's inability quite to understand mortality: something he's going to have less of a problem with by the end of the book.

[schwarmerei1.livejournal.com]

This is very exciting! I've never read any of the "home" books so this is all new piece-by-piece (except of course events that get referenced in the "school" books such as Karen's marriage.)

Giles is Peter's favourite too, which strikes me as unlikely, and not just because of my well-documented feelings about Marlow, G.A.: I'd imagine that Peter feels rather as if he's got to live up to Giles

At this early point of my acquaintance with Peter, I tended to attribute that to the fact that for the capable, might-end-up-in-military members of the Marlows -- boys are clearly better than girls. Not so much in a stereotypical chauvinistic way, (girls are clearly encouraged to be well educated and achievement is valued) -- but it's clearly preferable to be male over female in this universe. So preferring one's older brother to one's sisters is the natural order of things.

But although the Marlows don't seem to know the grinding anxieties of actual poverty, their financial situation is sometimes represented as difficult enough to cause more than inconvenience. Any thoughts or feelings?

I think that's a rather English thing -- genteel "poverty", like a less grand version of the families inheriting the estate and having their ability to run and maintain it slowly whittled away with each generation and death taxes. Certainly having lots of disposable income is considered vulgar. Another thing to keep in mind is that "things" of all kinds were just more expensive then. Well-off people just didn't have the number and variety of possessions (clothes in particular) that even people of modest means in Western society have now.

What do people make of Foley's offer of a lift to Selby?
My first instinct (surely wrong!) was that Foley was grooming Selby. Doing the intended victim a favour involving minor illegality (more usually under-age supply of alcohol, cigarettes, or pornography) is such a traditional way of initially drawing someone to the perpetrator. Then follows the creation of a climate where there are a series of actions the victim will not want to disclose. Say it isn't so!

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

In re: Foley grooming Selby, I think that's certainly what Forest meant her older readers at least to understand Selby's anxiety was, which Nicola understands and cannot/daren't fully articulate, and Peter is either oblivious to or doesn't want to believe. But I don't think Foley is necessarily actually an abuser, no, just a very odd, unstable, opportunistic character. For some superbly-realised sexually creepy!Foley try this (http://archiveofourown.org/works/28551) fic by ankaret (he's creeping on Ginty in the fic, and it only goes as far as a kiss, but it's still brain-bleach stuff, in the absolutely best possible way. I always forget it isn't canon.)

[hooloovoo_42]

I don't think the "genteel poverty" is just an English/British thing. I would expect that many European middle class families were similar at that time.

[ratfan.livejournal.com]

This is the first time I've read this book (I'm only partway through now). I think if I hadn't known it was part of the Marlows series, I wouldn't have liked it much. Btw, thanks to coughingbear for sending me the file!

The characters seem very scantily drawn and I find myself going back to Autumn Term to remember details about them, particularly the twins. Without the knowledge of that book, things would be quite confusing. I would have thought it was too far in the past (the 1940s) to have any relevance to me, but yet I could get into the school story. The British "don't say what you're thinking" thing always seems a bit odd to me. As a bullied kid at school, I always knew exactly why people didn't like me!

I think I'll have to read the whole thing before I venture any more comments, because there have been a couple of small spoilers where people have commented ahead and I haven't read that yet.

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

I thought I could live without it for many years: I was wrong. I think there's actually quite a lot of neat character detail about the Marlows tucked away in there--though I must admit that I'm more interested in Foley and Anquetil than I am in its depiction of the children. But anyway, enjoy the rest.

[nnozomi.livejournal.com]

Fascinating analysis (and subsequent discussion). Not sure at which point to jump into the comments, so will just enter my own.

I hadn't seen the Marlows' distaste for the Thorpes as classist, although I can see you could read it that way--Johnnie, though, seems just as believable to me as an essentially upper-middle-class harmless twit (though I may be missing subtler class clues). He's another in the pattern of (to quote a later book) "there just are people like that and you can't like them..." which is one of Forest's minor themes, perhaps.

Another thing I'd absolutely never thought of, and read here with enormous interest, is the idea of Foley having sexual designs on Selby. I agree with most of the discussion above, thinking that Foley--being indeed "odd, unstable, opportunistic"--is likely to have offered the lift on the spur of the moment, seeing a cadet whom he knows and perhaps likes (Selby as Anquetil to Peter's Foley?) in White Rabbit mode. I don't think Foley as cool-headed planner would in fact have made a pass at Selby, since it would be too likely to draw unwelcome attention in some form; nor do I think he would have been likely to do so on impulse, belonging most likely to the "tastes too complex to be satisfied by fresh-faced boys" type.* With nothing provable, however, he probably would have been happy for Selby to feel some unease along those lines, offering vague chances for later leverage.

Regarding Peter and bravery--you could definitely say Forest is hard on him, but I wonder if she isn't being hard on his inability to work out the differing nature of his fears and therefore the need for differing approaches. Trying to be more coherent--Peter is afraid of a number of things, and feels that he shouldn't be, and tries to pretend he isn't, and sometimes overdoes it; this is bad because he can't distinguish, as the prep school master points out, what it's reasonable to be afraid of. He doesn't have a good sense of "I'm afraid of this because I'm a coward" versus "I'm afraid of this because it's bloody dangerous." And, of course, God forbid he should both realize that it isn't reasonable to be afraid of something and allow himself to back away from it anyway--180 degrees from Lawrie's "it bangs at me" approach.
(Sorry--I don't remember if quoting books not officially discussed yet is acceptable, but it's so hard to resist.)


*This line popped into my head and gave me an annoying five minutes until I managed to identify it as a quotation from Peter Dickinson's Hindsight, a seriously creepy and mesmerizing book by probably the best living mystery novelist.

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

Yes - so true about Peter's fear and so well put. He doesn't have the age or experience to calculate risk and realise that while some activities have an inherent small risk which you accept if you do that activity - e.g. riding, sailing; other activities are very dangerous and no sensible person would do them knowing the risk - walking close to very high seas in a storm. And that having the common sense to avoid danger is not the same as being a coward.

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

I think the tight, bright trousers of the Thorpe women are an expression of class-based distaste, as well as the Marlows' imitation of Johnnie's slightly self-conscious Americanisms ('you betcha!'). Mr Thorpe's essentially a civil servant, though a pretty senior one, and while senior civil servants might well equal or outrank naval officers in class terms, there's an implication I think (quiet bald man with brash noisy wife) that he's rather clerkish, and hence a bit inky, grammar school oikish sort of thing. See also: Peter's surprise at Mr Thorpe's considerable sailing experience, the implied vulgarity of Fair Wind's many gadgets.

I read Traitor for the first time only a few months ago, so I have no experience of it as a child reader, but I have to say the only explanation which really accounted for Peter and Nicola's strained conversation about Selby and Foley was that Selby had felt a sense of sexual threat (whether justified or not) from Foley which he'd tried to tell Peter about (perhaps very inarticulately) and Peter was oblivious or didn't want to believe it. Nicola (typically perceptive) understands what Selby's unease was on a gut level, but can't articulate that through lack of vocabulary or sheer embarrassment to her more clueless older brother. I don't think, as I say elsewhere, that Foley actually has designs on Selby--nothing we learn about him later develops that idea, in any way, so perhaps Selby was mistaken, or Foley was just playing mind games. But if Forest did intend something of the sort, how much subtler a portrait of a potential sexual predator he is than the one we get later in canon; terrifyingly likely and realistic (known to his potential victims, placed in a position of trust wrt them; a little odd, perhaps, but attractive and charismatic), where the later example in Ready-Made Family is lurid and conventional.

I simply love the idea of Peter and Selby mirroring Foley and Anquetil respectively, by the way.

As you can see, I'm quite incapable of discussing the books without spoiling them myself! So I've left it mostly up to participants' own discretion. They're not particularly twisty books: I think there are only a few instances in which spoilers would really spoil. It's almost impossible to have a full discussion of Lawrie's character without mentioning 'it bangs at me!', I think.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

The Marlows strike me as having a great deal of disposable income, it's just that they spend it and don't seem to do anything about saving to have a bit in reserve in the form of cash rather than capital. They've been saving on Lawrie and Nicola's school fees for several years longer than might have been expected (and indeed Karen's), but there's no indication they have actually held on to any of this, so when their financial circs do change a bit they have nothing to fall back on without some inconvenience. For a fictional comparison, they're like a "before" portrait of the Chesters in Brent-Dyers' La Rochelle books; in real life I'm reminded of R4 pieces on financial advisors in the present day dealing with clients who refuse to understand that the 3rd skiing holiday of the year is not an absolute essential. But that is getting ahead of the reading order.

[coughingbear]

I very much agree that Mrs Marlow especially is a spender not saver, but I do wonder how much they could realistically have been saving out of Commander Marlow's pay. (I suspect the background problem here is that Forest hasn't really thought about how to reconcile him being a naval officer who will naturally send his children to boarding school, and that there are eight of these children.) I have been trying to work out how much he would have been paid, but it's tricky - there was a marriage allowance, and something for children, but I can't find the exact figures for that. His basic pay before allowances would have been about £850 a year when at sea. When they originally married, as a lieutenant I think he would have been getting about £400-500 a year when at sea, a bit less in a shore job (depending on exactly when we think they got married,a of course). Perhaps Nick and Lawrie at home being delicate (& with corresponding medical fees) may not have cost much less than when they are at school.

Of course, they probably should save the legacy, if nothing else - otoh, I have some sympathy with wanting to stay in a hotel in 1947 or thereabouts, and food and rationing being someone else's problem for a while!

[buntyandjinx.livejournal.com]

Thank you again to nzraya and coughing bear for allowing me to re-read a book I must have borrowed about 50 times from the public library

I love Nicola's "I've always wanted to be [soaked to the skin] and now I am." Typical Marlow wanting to know something so far only experienced in fiction. Also, a precursor of things to come in terms of supposedly thrilling adventures - exploring empty houses etc, etc (no spoilers), which could have come straight from a book - turning nasty and life threatening.

Also love the little insight into Mrs Marlow doing her best to be a "tough, unharassed parent" but with her heart secretly in her mouth. The only indictation in the series that I can recall where there's an indication she actually gives a monkey's. Though seconds later, she - typically - disappers to see the Captain.

As for Johnnie Thorpe - he's just the first of many noveau characters (tight and bright trousers all you need to know) that the Marlows disdain. Marie Dobson being the ultimate case in point. I can never work out if AF condones the snobbery or not, my sense always is she did - but am new to this board and happy to be corrected.

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

We don't hear as much as you might expect about parental reprimands for the various adventures that the Marlows get up to, and sometimes there seems to be rather an over-reaction to more minor incidents, like Mrs Marlow's anger over the Changear incident in Attic Term. I'm rather touched by the implication that the Marlow parents' marriage is still rather a passionate one, to the point of irresponsibility (an odd detail to put in a book aimed at a market who are still presumably of the age group for whom people of one's parents' age* being romantic is unmitigatedly horrifying, but maybe it flies below the radar for just that reason.)

my sense always is she did

Mine too, or that she doesn't do anything much to counter it, anyway. The semiotics of bright clothes are actually interesting, aren't they--very much associated with vulgarity and even worse (with the exception of the contents of the Chest, perhaps, and the baffling unvisualisable gift garments in Run Away Home).

*exactly what that age is I'm not sure Forest had worked out in Traitor, though in RMF they're revealed as quite distinctly young: Captain Marlow is 48, and his wife presumably somewhat younger, given her account of being engaged at 18.

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

I don't think the Marlows are portrayed as being hard up until we get to FL; and it is the cost of running Trennels that causes that. Certainly, at the beginning of Autumn term we are told that there have been shopping trips to have new uniforms measured and bought whereas in later books the twins are shown wearing their sisters' hand-me-downs. And the cost of paying the fine for Nicola stopping the train is only touched on very lightly - even though it was a substantial amount of money. (£158 in today's money)

[hooloovoo_42]

There seem to be assorted inconsistencies throughout the series. If AT was originally written as a one off, there would have been no thought as to anything other than the normal preparation for the start of a new term for the older ones and a new school for the twins.

Having only just read FL, there is the comment about the school changing from red to navy during the war and about to go back again. Even after the war, clothes were rationed and hand me downs even outside families were common. My mum was an only child, but her mother cleaned for the local doctor, who's daughter was older than Mum, so she got some quite nice clothes handed down that way. But with 4 ahead of the twins, it's possible that things may have been worn longer and harder during the war, plus the older ones would have had red uniforms when they were third form, so new clothes for the twins wouldn't have been out of the question.

I don't have my copy of AT to hand, but don't the seniors wear skirts & blouses rather than gym slips, so it's possible that Karen and Rowan would have needed new uniforms anyway. Plus all the differences about girdles and things depending on teams and being Head Girl.

[intrepid--fox.livejournal.com]

Really as an aside to this discussion, I may have discovered the originals of Farthing Fee and Mariners. If you get the bus from Axminster east along the Dorset coast, you pass a road called Penny Plot as you come into Lyme Regis. A hundred yards or so further on is a hotel called Mariners. Google DT7 3NE for Penny Plot, and http://www.hotellymeregis.co.uk/ for Mariners.

[hooloovoo_42]

Cool!

Marlows and money

[bridgetblood.livejournal.com]

Sorry to be commenting so late. I've just acquired TMATT although I have read it before. What just struck me in chapter 1 is Nicola having a room to herself in the hotel; that seems utterly daft and unlikely, even if Pam is blowing the legacy. So were they actually using 5 rooms? Or maybe Lawrie shared with Ginty?

Re: Marlows and money

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

There's a lot that seems fairly batty about that excursion to me! But unless one of the rooms would accommodate the three girls, or Pam was prepared to share with one of her daughters (not so much of a treat, perhaps) I guess they'd have to have at least 4; Peter's getting a bit beyond the age where he can share a room 'decently' with a sister.