The Marlows and the Traitor Readthrough: Chapters 3-6

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

I had originally planned to go through to chapter 7 this week, but that turned out to make for a very large volume of commentary, so I think I'll stop at Chapter 6, if that's all right with everyone: I think that leaves us with plenty of material to think about, and if the discussion spills over, no harm done. I'll begin with Chapter 7 next week in any case.



(i)

Oldport St. Annes is sufficiently distant from Byfleet that Nicola finds it useful to cycle there. This might be useful information as we try to plot where we are along this fictionalised coast.

I'm going to quote this bit in full, because reasons:

Robert Anquetil was the local disappointment. Everyone who had known him while he was growing up and progressing by way of scholarships from elementary school to grammar school, and from grammar school to Oxford, where he had taken a Double First, had forecast a brilliant future for him. During the war, first in the R.N.V.R. and later in the Commandos, he had won the D.S.O. and bar; which, the local people thought, would be such a help to him when the war was over. And then, as soon as he was demobilized, he had come back to be a good son, and help his father in the Golden Enterprise. But when his father died, no-one could say that any more, because there was no-one left for Robert to be a good son to. And soon it seemed as if Robert meant to spend the rest of his life as a fisherman at St-Anne’s-Oldport and not bother himself with being Prime Minister or anything of that sort. Only people like Nicola, and the small boys he took out in the Golden Enterprise so they could learn at first hand what handling a boat was like, thought that showed uncommon good sense.

It's worth noting that one of Forest's most idealized characters (he's by no means perfect, and to that we will come) has a working-class background, though mitigated (natch) by an Oxford education. That in itself is pretty remarkable: he's not just a grammar-school boy, but a working-class grammar-school boy: they can't have been thick on the ground at Oxford in the mid to late 30s. You wonder also about the struggle he must have had to get a secondary education, still less a university one, which perhaps explains the return to Oldport to put in the years on the Golden Enterprise that he missed in the process of getting educated, though his apparent lack of ambition is, of course, not quite what it seems. Thoughts on Robert? (Personally, I can be just as unreasonable about him as I am about Giles Marlow, but in the other direction.)

Nicola and Robert's conversation about Foley is a favourite. I love Nicola's wish that Robert should like Foley, and her bemusement when she discovers their relationship is complex and vexed. There's furthermore a distinct parallel between Nicola's good judgement of character and Peter's poor one in the men they choose to admire, though this may end up giving Peter an advantage later in his ability to anticipate some of Foley's actions. But there's a distinct implication that Robert's own judgement of his friends is (or was) of the Peter kind: there's an intriguing suggestion of compulsiveness in 'sometimes you find yourself involved with someone with whom you have all the ties of affection and habit, but for whom you have no real liking.' And his anxiety to move off the topic of Lewis in particular to Foleys in general seems to support the idea of some dysfunctional undercurrent there. We will learn more later, of course, about the wartime incident that may have ended their friendship for good.

The details about the historical Foleys are similarly enjoyable. Forest does Fabian's suicide with nice subtlety, I think: the older end of her readership no doubt meant to recognise that was no mistake, sir (whether Nicola does at this moment I don't know--she certainly will by the end of the book--but it's a lovely illustration of Robert's tact in a passage that is also noisy with foreshadowing.)

The sketch map of the lighthouse will prove useful. How plausible do we find the 'short-cut'? (Though if we suspend our disbelief that no-one else in the two St Annes knows about it, it's a wonderful suggestion that the friendship between Anquetil and Foley was a whole lot closer than he's letting on.)

My affection for people who can have arguments over someone else's long-dead ancestor, and those who understand them because of their passionate attachments to Nelson, knows no bounds.

Anquetil's ditty is a nice bit of atmospheric, that comes back in distinctly sinister form later on. "Or so I've been told. I've never tried it myself," is a superb bit of intelligence-officer speak, of course we don't know that Anquetil was present when Foley played his nasty trick on the unpleasant and influential relative (headcanons for who that is, do we have them?) but we imagine he wasn't far away.

Anquetil's views on the control of sea-sickness seem a bit robustly unhelpful; there's only one person in this novel who's sympathetic and competent in dealing with the ailment, as it happens.

(ii)

The conference between the siblings is very nicely done, I think: all the little character details--Ginty's manoeuvring her way out of responsibility, Nicola's stubborn desire to keep Anquetil for herself (oh Nick, I feel ya) and her determination not to appear cowardly, Lawrie's teasing and putting on voices, Peter's ruffled dignity, which seems finally to sway things: had Nicola not made her gaffe about Foley being around and (worse) the "lily-livered loon" remark, one senses Peter might have taken her side, and swung it for doing something else that day. Nicola not being able to make the Foleys sound as convincingly villainous as Anquetil did, and in the process rather romanticising them.

(iii)

The comparison of Foley to the sea rat in Wind in the Willows: how gorgeous. The building and relaxation of tensions that goes on here is quite sophisticated, I think: Nicola's apprehensions, then the happier interlude on the crow's nest, followed by the sinister fog. As the children explore, it becomes clear Mariners is quite a grand house (underlining the class difference between Anquetil and Foley).

"Peter made an effort to imagine Lieutenant L.P. Foley, R.N., at eight years old." Well, if Peter can't do it, I think someone should. This has been your regularly scheduled fic prompt.

And the discovery of the cellar: Ginty's calustrophobia, Nick's perspicacity in divining the signs of habitation. (I know the Daily Mirror of the late 40s was a different beast from the current paper, but still rather infra-dig for a someone of his social class, no? Newspaper choices in Forest are odd, I think: in Falconer's Lure we find the Marlows take the Manchester Guardian, which again, different beast from its subsequent incarnations, but I'd have expected the Times.)

Foley keeps his Topp Sekrit Spy papers in Fabian's deed box, which has a broken lock, rather than in a more modern and secure container. Oh, Lewis. (What does the d. N. stand for?)

It's a lovely detail that it's Lawrie-the-fantasist who immediately grasps the truth of the situation, precisely because she is a fantasist--this is picked up and developed in the next chapter.

Ginty's fears and fantasies are marvellous too: her feeling that she might jinx her chances of the diving cup by imagining success; her claustrophobia becoming worse in retrospect than the original experience was; her panic. We'll revisit how the aftermath of trauma is handled by the Marlows a bit in Falconer's Lure (clue: not well) and there are suggestions here too that the family handling of an unfortunate experience has allowed Ginty's claustrophobia to blossom.





"to Lawrie films and plays were never quite pretence; they were something [...] which went on with a particular life of their own [...] When people burgled and spied and murdered in real life it was [...] because the special life of the cinema and theatre had overlapped the ordinary, safe school-and-home life..." I'm struck by how similar, and how different this is from Nicola's absorption in fictional worlds: later in the series, Nick is revealed to have the fanwriter's mentality, noting that Hornblower and Ramage are contemporaries (it is a firm part of my headcanon that Nicola tries writing fanfic, but manages rather to embarrass herself by so doing and gives up.) And of course there will be more discussion of fiction/reality than you can shake a stick at in Peter's Room.

Lawrie "almost enjoying herself", and making notes for future performances is priceless; even when the danger of her situation dawns, she still thinks in terms of narrative.

But Lawrie, unlike her older sister (of whom we're neatly reminded when Lawrie wishes she were Ginty--not just that she could climb like Ginty, but that she were Ginty--an interesting insight into the way Lawrie sees character and attributes), is resourceful in a crisis: she thinks clearly despite her fear, and (because of her grounding in films and plays) anticipates dangers with a fair degree of accuracy. We also note that her knot-tying experience from Nicola and Guides has served her fairly well. Her flight across the fog-bound fields is a great bit of colour-writing. It's interesting that while she does cry (not unreasonable in a 12 year old, under the circs) she can control her tears pretty well: at odds with what we're told elsewhere.

I think the episode on the bus is interesting: a nice bit of tension and relaxation of it there too. (Notable that Lawrie hasn't her twin's scruples about fare-dodging.) A thing I find curious in Forest is her conflation of untidy appearance with the appearance of a lack of social privilege. In my experience, that isn't the way social class markers work at all. (To this we will return in the context of The Thuggery Affair, again wrt to Lawrie, and I think Forest gets it a bit wrong there too, in not understanding how working-class dress-codes work.) That Lawrie is of the social class to be staying at the Majestic would, I think, be obvious as soon as she speaks, however dishevelled she is, and she says enough to make her "posh" accent noticeable, surely? Again, in my experience, distressed children who look grubby but speak posh attract sympathetic attention because people assume something has gone wrong, whereas less privileged accents and scruffy appearance are more likely to read as delinquent. But maybe sympathy would have been forthcoming eventually had Lawrie not panicked and bolted, which is important for Plot Purposes...

By the way, does Robert Anquetil ever sleep? He surely should be in bed during the day, given that he works nights, counter-espionagin' and fishin' and all that.





Am I unreasonably endeared that Whittier calls Robert 'Robbie'? I am. Moving swiftly along. (I also adore their doodling.)

The spy plot unfolds, I think, with some nice light-touch detail ("The Abbeville business"--fic plz). One does feel that Forest is laying it on a bit thick in making her villains former-Nazis-working-for-the-Russians: all bases covered! But it's done with a nice eye for idiom, I think: Whittier and Anquetil come across about as blackly humorous as you could make them in a book with this sort of target market.

I find it a little tricky to work out the precise timeline involved in the spy plot. Given that no career is mentioned for Anquetil between finishing Oxford and joining up, I'm assuming he did both in 1939, aged probably 22, giving him a birthdate in 1917, making him 31 at the time of the action, assuming it is 1948. I'd put his official demob date then in 1946 (though he's clearly gone on working for intelligence, but presumably in a civilian and reasonably light-touch capacity) at which point he returned to Oldport to help his father on the Golden Enterprise. That's also perhaps the year that Foley's spying began--it's unlikely to have begun before 1946, or am I wrong about that? I'm just taking the Iron Curtain speech as a rough stepping-off point. The Admiralty noticed the leak about a year before the action of the novel (i.e. spring 1947), and a little more time to make sure, at which point Anquetil is put on the case because of his local knowledge. That suggests that it really is lack of ambition (or guilt) which propels him back to Oldport after the war. Unless there is a lot of U-Boat activity around there all the time...or I have my demob calculations wrong. Thoughts?

I'm interested in the description of Ida Cross: a hostile depiction of a socialist? Stringy hair and specs, frumpy hikers' gear? Whereas Lewis, who I imagine as rather devastating, I think just because of the grey eyes and thick dark lashes, as Nicola says his face is otherwise ordinary, has no motive except the psychopathic one of because he can.

The question of Mrs Marlow not being able to be sure which twin is which has come up in this comm before, I believe. But people might have thoughts there, though my own feeling is that Forest doesn't seem very interested in following that line of misidentification-drama.

'The little corpusses?' Oh Whittier. This is relatively strong meat, I sense, given that these are meant to be the good guys. I think had I read this as a child I would have taken it in my stride, however, and indeed been rather thrilled at the cool dark humour of it. And Forest does make clear that to an extent it's a front: Whittier is worried about the children. Still, nicely unsentimental.

Whittier's offer to let Anquetil off the investigation allows for a nice bit of exploration of Anquetil and Foley's friendship. Whittier must trust Anquetil very securely, given that there's an ethical question over his continued participation in an action intended to apprehend a lifelong friend (the Admiralty clearly didn't foresee, on sending the local chap in, the very real possibility that he'd be trying to catch somebody he knew fairly well: oh well, bureaucrats.) There's also a suggestion, though, that perhaps Anquetil hasn't disclosed until this moment, quite how long-standing his friendship with Foley was. And Robert's determination to see it through bespeaks closeness rather than its opposite, albeit of a dysfunctional kind. We also have Robert's testimony of Lewis's lack of cruelty; which contrasts with his affectless motives for spying in the first place.

"It seemed certain, thought Anquetil, with a curious sense of personal loss, that if it were Lewis who had taken the Talisman, he had gone and did not mean to return." Italics mine; again the suggestion that Anquetil is lying to himself, even, perhaps, about how much Foley means to him. I also find his slightly hopeless back-of-the-envelope calculations curiously touching. Anquetil's caution and responsibility means that he's often thrown into positions of relative powerlessness and passivity in the novel, and refuses his one opportunity for confrontation with Foley out of a sense of the futility of heroics (or that's what he tells himself). He's as an unusual model of heroism as Lewis is of villainy. But nor do he and Whittier fit the stereotype of bumbling, disbelieving adults that's found in a lot of children's adventure fiction. They're involved, aware, and responsible, and their concern for the Marlows is realistically (and quite audaciously?) represented as a fairly detached professionalism.

Isn't it convenient that it's always the plank bearing a telling fragment of the boat's name that's washed up? Forest nods to this cinematic device again in Run Away Home.

And with a cliffhanger, we switch scenes to Talisman.





(i)

Peter's doubts and disbeliefs about Foley--he's still trying not to believe in his treachery--are nicely done: that he only absolutely, finally makes up his mind when he confirms it to Ginty is a fine touch. Foley's blistering tickings-off once again manifest themselves--and Ginty is still suffering the consequences: she is really not being the Responsible Eldest at all here! Peter's insights into Foley's motivations suggest a further parallel between them.

As Foley gets out the charts, people might want to discuss exactly where they think the action of the novel takes place. I have some thoughts on it from a discussion (well, that's rather a grandiose word for what I was doing, which was the internet equivalent of nodding in what I hoped was an informed manner) with legionseagle, but we might canvass opinions first, and then perhaps create a separate post for discussion of the sometimes puzzling geography of the novel.

(ii)

Another favourite passage here: the contrasts between Nicola and Peter's view of the same events is tremendous fun. I'm curious about Nicola's relative unfamiliarity with a Morse buzzer: she and Lawrie are represented as competent Morse code users in Autumn Term, albeit with torches rather than buzzers, as a result of Nicola's naval interests rather than Guides.

Foley's sinister solicitude is both touching and chilling: it's worth noting that in comparison to Geoff and Giles Marlow, he's sympathetic and competent in the treatment of sea-sickness, allowing Nicola into the cockpit so she can keep her eye on the horizon, keeping her warm, not getting disgusted or contemptuous when she is actually sick, and so forth. As a teacher, perhaps he has more experience at dealing with it. Him force-feeding her brandy is fairly hair-raising, though (one thinks of Selby's anxieties immediately), and foreshadows a later episode.

However, his overall kindness makes Nicola's determination to think poorly of his use of the engine in comparison to her unsympathetic family members' preference for sail rather ironic (though Nicola is herself prejudiced in favour of sail already) though understandable.

The glimpse of how Foley sees his friendship with Anquetil is tantalising: 'Foley smiled again, still with that little half-smile "So he has," he said. "A very long time. Faithful Robert."' Thoughts? (I know what I think, I want to know what you think *grin*)

Nicola's reflections on whether people would believe Lawrie are a nice reflection her twin's universally acknowledged propensity to fantasy, but perhaps also nod to the usual children's adventure story idea of the children not being believed. "Nicola made a mental resolve that Lawrie shouldn't be allowed to practise her voices ever again": clearly unsuccessful! Though we hear less of her exercising them on her family, perhaps, in subsequent books.

Nicola acts on her plans for thwarting Foley while Peter only contemplates them: but it's made clear that this results from Nicola's relative inexperience, I think. Peter's judgment is often awry, but his training least him to see risks more clearly than Nicola, who has courage and resourcefulness but perhaps less good sense than she should, here. I love the use of the ditty as a motif which gives Nicola the idea, but later also betrays her.

(iii)

Nicola's confused feelings of sympathy for Foley at having had his boat wrecked, and their recension when she sees his violence towards Peter is something I really enjoy. I think that's the beauty of the novel and of Forest in general: there's almost no feeling that is unmixed, almost nothing without its irony or parallel. Here's another: Ginty, reduced to misery by Foley's ticking off, is calm when Talisman is being wrecked (though you could argue she's just too shocked to know what's up).

And we close with the arrival at the lighthouse.



Looking forward to your thoughts. Have at it!

Comments

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

Ginty seems to show a lack of imagination at times with her absence of fear - she is calm because nothing frightens her at sea, just as in a later book we are told she is never frightened on a horse. It obviously doesn't cross her mind what the dangers are.
I love Nicola stopping the boat with the sugar in the engine; it was typical of 'young' Nicola in that it was impulsive, decisive, effective but also potentially dangerous - if the boat had been dragged onto rocks and smashed up away from the lighthouse beach they could all have drowned.
I love the realism of Peter standing in Foley's way and being tossed aside by Foley; and worrying about not having stopped Foley. I can imagine one of his instructors saying 'Someone should tell young Marlow that it's quite normal for 13 year olds not to be able to fight full grown adults..' (Especially adults who were liked and respected instructors until a couple of hours ago.)
I think Peter is often harshly judged on Trennels for his lack of judgement choosing friends. Clearly Foley has had the Navy fooled, all through the war and then at Dartmouth. The odd friends he chose as a younger boy, pre-Selby, are a literary device to warn the reader that there is going to be something 'wrong' with Foley.
The class difference between Foley and Anquetil is interesting - Foley hasn't had to work hard or be clever to get where he is in the way Anquetil had to, and he seems to have turned to spying out of boredom almost, or a desire to make life more tricky for himself because it has all been too easy.

[occasionalhope.livejournal.com]

Nicola's lack of fear earlier in the storm is similarly based on lack of knowing the risks.

Lawrie in these chapters is just so quintessentially Lawrie - successfully escaping, the emotional response, the fatal misjudgment when she tries to avoid the questioning over her lack of fare.

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

Another way of putting it, and perhaps it's only because Ginty is the girliest of the Marlow girls that it isn't said more often, might be that that she's physically courageous: a good climber, confident rider and diver; not so great a batsman, but there is I think a psychological element in Nicola's being able to dolly her out.

Nicola also lacks imagination in her own way: she must be capable of perceiving, with all her naval reading, that stopping the engine runs a risk of running Talisman onto the rocks, but she hasn't the experience to process the real danger of that actually happening.

I think there are other indicators of Peter's dodgy social judgement in canon, though: he doesn't have the sense to see that enraging Edwin is a poor move; his relationship with Patrick is often fraught (though it ends up warm and affectionate, I think). He's clearly capable of considerable charm: managing to fulfil his goals at the Twelfth Night party, fr ex., but I'm not sure I'd relegate his uncertain judgement of character just to a literary device.

Foley hasn't fooled Whittier though, who 'would have had him shot' for the botched raid during the war. I think people like Foley can go on arousing suspicions for years before anyone manages to pin anything on them. (viz. Selby, going as far as to report his unease to the other officer, but not specifying names!)

There's certainly a massive dilettante vibe off Foley, isn't there? Emphasised by his dilettante-wrecker ancestor.

[intrepid--fox.livejournal.com]

Oh, Lewis. (What does the d. N. stand for?)

De Noyes, surely. Don't we find that out for certain when Peter reads the journal in the lighthouse?

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

That's right! I'd forgotten that bit.

[sprog-63.livejournal.com]

"I think that's the beauty of the novel and of Forest in general: there's almost no feeling that is unmixed, almost nothing without its irony or parallel."

Exactly, and I'd add: no character who is utterly predictable, no one without their dark side, as well as their more pleasant or admirable qualities, thoughts, and actions.

That, I suppose is part of why we can debate so fiercely our likes and dislikes. (And I have to admit, that while we were discussing Giles in Port Wade I completely forgot how heartless he had been on the sailing trip mentioned here.) I'm basically with you on Anquetil, but a perverse streak makes me want to comment on the small boys he takes out on the boat?


"Peter's judgement is often awry, but his training least him to see risks more clearly than Nicola, who has courage and resourcefulness but perhaps less good sense than she should, here."


Yes, fine to Nicola: but it doesn't seem to me to be an accurate assessment of risk which stops Peter doing anything, simply he cannot think what or how to do anything which could help. He is, I think, partially handicapped by his relationship with Foley, both in terms of Foley being his senior/teacher etc. and his previous feelings for him. However, whatever the risks to himself and Nicola and Ginty, he is calmly clear that if their presence lowers the risk of a traitor getting away with information it is worth it. A courageous side to Peter we do not often see, but which, presumably, fuels some of his later behaviour.

I can never tell whether I prefer AF's amazing ear for dialogue, or the way she writes the internal monologues. These chapters have fabulous examples of both.

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

the small boys he takes out on the boat

I think that might be a deliberate parallel with Foley, actually: Foley puts himself in a position of power with regard to the children he knows and gives off a frisson of being capable of abusing that power; Anquetil has a gift for friendship with children but makes a point of not placing himself in a position of official authority.

he cannot think what or how to do anything which could help

Well, that's kind of what I mean--because he sees the risks, he knows that his attempts are likely to be futile and perhaps make things worse.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

I have just been looking up the dates of Blyton's Famous Five, with an eye to the possibility that Forest was writing against the stereotype of dauntless plucky kidz defeat villain of deepest dye, but the series seems to start just a few years later. The Secret Seven were operating earlier.

However, there are various in-text hints, similar to those flagging up school story cliches in the Kingscote books, that that genre was already well established before the Five went to wherever they went first.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I think it must already have been a cliche by "Swallows and Amazons", which arguably parodies it when the children through Captain Flint off his own houseboat, thinking that they are boldly saving it from burglars.

[biskybat.livejournal.com]

Five on a Treasure Island was published in 1942 and by the time TMATT appeared the series was well underway. I'm sure AF would have been aware of the many poorly written spy type stories that were available at the time for children - although I wonder how many she had read either as a child or an adult.

I've been dipping into my copy of Margery Fisher's critical appraisal of children's literature: Intent Upon Reading, published in 1961 but still relevant. In the chapter: Innocents in the Underworld she wrote:

'But I know of only one story, written for children, which really examines the mind of a spy. The Marlows and the Traitor ...'

and also:

'...they are puzzled by his behaviour and by his odd lack of apology for being a traitor; they hover uneasily between the accidental perceptiveness of children and the orthodox views they have learned from grown up people.'

So well put, I always thought.

In the same book, which covers an extremely wide range of children's literature, she makes only the most passing and dismissive of mentions of Enid Blyton! This being, of course, the beginning of the anti Blyton era.

Friendships

[sprog-63.livejournal.com]

Why does Nicola want Anquetil to like Foley? Peter hero worships him/has a crush on him, and then is shamed by him in public; Selby is aware of a discrepancy between his public and private personae; Nicola is suspicious of him from Selby’s account and from his own behaviour. She thinks Anquetil is the bees knees, why does she want him to like Foley? To show her that Selby and her disquiet about Foley is groundless, and that Peter is safe in his worshipping? Or does she want Anquetil to like him in order to prove herself wrong about mistrusting him? Have I missed something?


To Nicola's bemusement, Anquetil says,
“Sometimes you find yourself involved with someone with whom you have all the ties of affection and habit, but for whom you have no real liking. Just as you very often like people for whom you have no affection at all.”

This makes me think of Tim. Nicola later muses about being friends with someone who didn’t seem to like you at all, at least she thinks they are friends and she thinks it is dislike, but neither word actually feels quite right. This seems yet another twist on this theme. (Have just spent a frustrating while leafing through End of Term and Cricket Term, to find the quote, but have either missed it or it is Another Term, and now I need to get on with the day!! Please point me in the right direction someone!)

And that brings me to Anquetil and Foley: there's a lot to be explored here. Do we know where Foley comes in his family? I find I presume he is the youngest - which might leave him fed up with trying to prove himself as good as the others and "proving" himself the best as being bad? (Shades of Peter-and-Giles and of Giles' ill-thought, teasing advice to Nicola?)

Please share what you think about Foley and Anquetil! Anquetil abandoning his term-time, local lad friends to play with Foley in the holidays might not endear him to them, you'd think, but actually local feeling is all in his favour as a young man. Or does the village think it is fitting he should play with the local rich family because he is so clearly destined for greater things than a fisherman's life? I don't think the other lads would go for it even if the parents did. Does this mean his friendship with Foley meant actually it became his only friendship: in term time he was a bit of a loner because of it? So then he becomes more reliant on it in the holidays? Faithful Robert, because he takes the role as loner in term time so Lewis doesn't have to in the holidays? Lewis knows this, but doesn't care? (Tim might behave in asimilar way, one feels: thinking if her holiday friend suffered in term time because of their friendship that had nothing to do with her!) Somehow I think you have something more interesting in mind! And then there's the physical fights where Lewis wants to kill Robert (later Anquetil describes himself as murderously angry too) is this where the liking without affection comes in? And then now as adults they are tied together, but he (Robert) doesn't like him (Foley) - because of what happened in the war, perhaps; and Foley, of course as he needs to keep Anquetil at arms length does not continue the friendship post-war? Or is adult Anquetil lonely and Foley not interested? In the small fishing port, Foley on his infrequent visits will be a welcome visitor perhaps? I'm trying to see this as other than friendship / loyalties / childhood ties, but I can't take the step to any kind of romance or even sexual relationship childhood / wartime / or post-war. I wouldn't mind it, but it doesn't come into my head cannon naturally.

Re: Friendships

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

I think Nicola wants to reassure herself that Foley is all right, trustworthy and so on, and a testimonial from Anquetil will help. When she doesn't get one she's disconcerted, perhaps also because she's seen a hint of Peter in Anquetil maintaining a friendship with someone he doesn't like or trust.

I think Robert is a virtuoso code-switcher, as working-class people who end up operating in a middle-class world often are, and that helps in his intelligence career. Forest actually has him reflect on undercover work, doesn't she, about assuming fake identities. He's good at that: he's done it all his life. (There's a line at the end of chapter 8 which confuses me, tbh, "He had done it [put Robert in awkward predicaments] when they were boys at school, cheerfully telling Robert all his intentions so that when the mischief was discovered..."--"boys at school", as opposed to "when they were boys" implies they were at school together, but I can't see how they can have been after the age of 8. Forest nodding maybe.) I think Robert's probably genial enough that he can maintain superficial friendships with the village children, but his attachment to Lewis is going to isolate him for sure. And there'll be a further break when he continues his education and most of them go to work, possibly accompanied by family conflict, depending on how supportive his family (just his father? a mother and siblings are never mentioned) is of his education. At grammar school he'll feel quite an acute class gap, one imagines, because he probably has a whole lot less leisure than his peers, and again while I see him being generally well-liked, because he's bright and competent and agreeable, he might not make deep friendships there. Same at Oxford: he has to work much harder than most to maintain his academic performance, and never has the money for much leisure anyway. The only constant in it all, ironically enough, is Lewis. (I also see there being a relationship of obligation, perhaps; that the Foleys intervened financially or with social pressure to allow Robert to continue his education.)

Robert already has the wardroom manner down pat when he joins the RNVR: he can live at close quarters without being intrusive or getting on anybody's nerves, he's sociable but not over-familiar and so on. I think some of Lewis's recklessness in wartime actions might have opened a breach between them, and Robert does make an effort to keep him at arm's length. But Robert's also lonely, and he finds it difficult to resist when Lewis does favour him with his company. So both, both is good. On the matter of whether it's a sexual or romantic relationship, there's nothing to go on in canon: you know, children's lit published in 1953, and all that. My feeling is that compulsive friendships like that tend to have an erotic dimension even if that's never expressed physically: Robert doesn't like Lewis all that much, but he loves him. And that the murderous rages might be deflections of sexual attraction.

And you bet Nicola thinks of Robert's comment when she goes back to school that Autumn to realise that Tim rather dislikes her even though they're friends! I wish Forest had managed a note to that effect.

Re: Friendships

[nnozomi.livejournal.com]

I think I always took Foley's "Faithful Robert" as a kind of simultaneous jab at Anquetil and at himself--foolish Robert for remaining faithful to himself, who in his various faithlessnesses (that can't be a word) doesn't deserve it. Or, to rephrase myself, Foley's essential amorality finds Anquetil's loyalty impossible to comprehend, particularly because he sees nothing in himself to demand such loyalty. (Although I don't think he spends any time agonizing over this lack, anything but.)

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

In a later book Lawrie is described as the lucky one, but reading these two books it seems Nicola leads a charmed life. She keeps doing things which would have led to death or disaster if they had gone wrong; and yet she comes across as brave and resourceful rather than foolish or reckless. Certainly as a child (and beyond) I wanted to be less like myself and more like Nicola Marlow. It is luck that she doesn't get hit by a train in the railway tunnel, luck that she gets back from Port Wade without being expelled, luck that the Talisman gets dragged onto the beach not the rocks... Napoleon would have wanted her in his army!

[sprog-63.livejournal.com]

Certainly, I agree in these two books, she gets away with a lot ... at the end we can return to consider how true that is over the whole canon! My immediate reaction is that I am not sure, but there are a lot of incidents which could go one either side of the scale - or move in retrospect. I'll have to give it more thought. Doesn't Ginty like to think of herself as lucky too? Another interesting taxonomy to consider perhaps?

[nnozomi.livejournal.com]

Interesting that Ida Cross' looks might be a jab at socialism. I had wondered why Forest chose to make her "one of those plain creatures" apart from the useful benefit of being easy to recognize, and thought that the idea might be that, unappreciated by the world around her, Ida Cross felt no particular qualms at turning traitor--what did any of them ever do for me? etc. It's interesting, because (apart from Marie Dobson) I can't remember her ever describing any of the girls at Kingscote as notably plain.

[sprog-63.livejournal.com]

There's Rachel Wilmot who plays Miranda in Cricket Term, who is described thus: "limp hair framing her small, plain, snubby face". Poor lass. And later Tim says Rachel being plain (with a snubby face) helps her carry off the part. But as a character Rachel is fairly neutral: and we don't hear a lot about her!

What's a snubby face then?

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

I think we find out that Isa Cardigan's face doesn't live up to her impressive red hair when she's cast as Juno...whether that actually means plain idk.

[occasionalhope.livejournal.com]

Maybe the implication is that she is seduced into treason, her looks making her more vulnerable to the unscrupulous?

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

Unity Logan is also plain, and has a grubby neck to boot.

[coughingbear]

I have always found Anquetil's timeline very unconvincing and I don't think there is a good way to make it work. I suppose we could think that he came home to be a good son, or at least to see his father and his home (his mother?) as the local people think, and then by the time his father died the Admiralty had him on the case which was why he stayed, but...

[hooloovoo_42]

I took it as he came home after being in Intelligence during the war an was putting up a front for the locals whilst still being involved in the intelligence community. As long as the locals thought he was just being the dutiful son and sailing around the place aimlessly, none of them would question his actual motives for being there. It's much easier to keep your ear out for local gossip when the locals have known you all your life. An offcomeden would stand out too much and arouse the general suspicion that strangers always do.

Daily Mirror

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

It's not just the Daily Mirror, it's the Daily Mirror comic strip - which means, it's Jane (ie the original comic strip in both senses of the word). That's quite a subtle reference (it took me several days to cotton on) but it's worth noting that Jane was a cult, making it quite OK to buy the paper in certain environments (eg wardrooms?) just for the comic strip, in the sort of annoying self-referential slumming that makes Oxbridge JCRs buy the Sun, or at least they did in my day, but it's also got a theme of spies and spying (usually so that Jane has to take off her clothes to change into disguise) including the glamorous antagonist, Lola Pagola, the beautiful spy (the Guardian - incidentally, iirc, the Manchester Guardian is bought for Edwin's benefit in TRMF and I recall thinking "And you can see the problem right there" when I spotted that detail - ran a sort of updated parody in the 70s called Varoomska, in which the Jane figure was Russian)

Re: Daily Mirror

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

Oh, that is rather good. Just Foley's style, actually, annoying self-referential slumming.

I had thought Karen was doing the Guardian crossword in Falconers' Lure, but on checking I seem to have imported that detail: it's just 'the morning paper', wh. probably would be the Times, come to think. I agree that the Guardian in RMF means exactly what it means: but by then it had become roughly the modern signifier, hadn't it? I wasn't sure about the 1950s Guardian having that connotation., but it appears my mind was playing associative tricks anyway.

Foley and Antequil

[mainerobin.livejournal.com]

So sorry to have missed the last few weeks. I was on holiday one week with no internet (but lovely chance to read this whole book!*grin from ear to ear* and away working the next week with no time at all. I have enjoyed the wonders of being able to make comments right in the Kindle text and have been commenting like mad. As I read through all of these comments on the first six chapters, I see most of them have been addressed, but these 2. (1) In chapter 1 after Nick and Peter unintentionally go swimming, they are walking back and mention seeing the cutter sailing. Two pages later they see a figure coming toward them and eventually recognize it as Foley. The Old Port is biking distance from the hotel. I don't see how Foley could be sailing in on TALISMAN, having been wrestling the boat in through the storm, moored it, put the sails away, rowed to shore, and walked up the promenade to meet them in something like 10 minutes tops! Also there is no mention of him being wet, if he'd been sailing all night, he'd have been as wet as the kids.

(2) I really like Antequil and hope he appears in the later books. Regarding his "friendship" with Foley, I rather thought that as his father was a fisherman, Robert and father may often have stopped at Mariners to sell some of their catch on their way in from sea. Robert and Lewis being the same age, were probably thrown together."I don't think I can explain more than that. Well—sometimes you find yourself involved with someone with whom you have all the ties of affection and habit, but for whom you have no real liking. Just as you very often like people for whom you have no affection at all." Quite often children get thrown together from disparate worlds because their parents have something in common. Perhaps Robert's father also did maintenance for the Foleys---the fisherman around here are all carpenters in the off-season. Perhaps Foley envied Robert's opportunity and that's how they came to fish together. Several reasonable theories on how they came to be at school together have already been posted. I thought perhaps Foley was kicked out of boarding school and sent to the local grammar because of his "funny" behavior--acting like two different people some of the time, and his propensity towards violence wouldn't earn him many points in school. Or perhaps the Foleys got to know Robert, saw his genius and paid for his schooling.That might better explaing "Robert's faithfulness" to the Foleys, and also some of Lewis's resentment. Hard to like a boy that your father favors more than you.

Lastly, please explain "headcanon."
"

Lawrie's bus trip

[mainerobin.livejournal.com]

One other note about these chapters. Love Lawrie's response to the whole emergency and her heroic efforts that save her own neck until reality hits. I noticed AF sleeping in here, when she mentions that Lawrie got to Farthing Fee at 20 to 5 and decided not to wait for the bus because it was too lonely, but when the bus goes by her a short time later it's full up, though there was no mention of her walking by any people.

I realize it sets up the plot, but it's a logical lapse.

Nicola's first command!

[mainerobin.livejournal.com]

"He might be a traitor and goodness only knew where they were going, but she wasn't going to refuse a chance of actually steering a ship at sea."

Poor Nicola! Her code of ethics is being challenged. New rule: It is perfectly alright to help a kidnapper and traitor if one is being given the opportunity to steer the ship. I still remember the first day I sailed. It was the best day of my life for quite a long time. I hope now that she knows how to cure her seasickness, that she does more sailing in the other books.

Re: Nicola's first command!

[mainerobin.livejournal.com]

I just noticed something else in this passage. Foley asks her to steer with the tiller, but never mentions that the steering is reversed. AF was sleeping on this one. As much as Nicola has read about the sea and ships,I should think it would still take her a minute or two to recognize how to steer opposite to where one wants to go.