Falconer's Lure readthrough: Chapters 4-6

[highfantastical.livejournal.com]

Before we get down to business: a tremendous thank you to the heroic lilliburlero for so many fantastic posts (talk about a hard act to follow!) and to the mods and book-sharers without whom this would not be happening at all. I am very glad to be with you for one week to talk about Falconer's Lure, Chapters 4-6.

I love the beautiful circularity of this chapter: Pam Marlow's really quite thoughtful abandonment of her mother's approach ('There's nothing you can tell me about pudding-basin hair-cuts. Grandmother used to cut mine and Aunt Molly's like that.'), in favour of a presumably more comely professional job -- even for someone as young as Nicola; even though in general nobody is that fussed about the twins' appearances, beyond mere neatness -- only to find herself snookered by Lawrie. It is rather funny that now-Madame Orly ('the sort of hats you saw in Vogue at the dentist's'! -- poor old Ginty, I hope she got her own subscription a couple of years on) should have taken that approach to hair-dressing, I think: was anyone else surprised? Her later preference for Ginty suggests she prefers feminine, 'nicely presented' girls; perhaps that preference is a general one, but her daughters were always a subsidiary interest to her sons?

This chapter has plenty of scattered reminders that everyone is feeling at least weird, in some cases actually grief-stricken or guilty, about Jon. We have Karen's refolded newspaper (bets on how long this lasts? I can't see a crossword person stopping forever -- my guess is that she starts again at Oxford); Rowan's face 'gone suddenly blank and formal', when she and Nicola meet the Vicar (the next sentence is: 'But the Vicar didn't mention Jon.' -- Forest is subtly but clearly suggesting that even the usually imperturbable Rowan is thrown off balance at the prospect of an unexpected talk-about-the-dead); and, of course, Peter: 'the memory of the plane plunging down the sky and the sudden realisation that something had gone very wrong indeed, was still as sharp as if it had happened yesterday.'

This Falconer's Lure re-read, coming (naturally enough) in the wake of TMTT, has made me wonder more generally about Forest and grief, and how many of her books have a death or a near-death in them: not something we can discuss in detail now, perhaps, with the spoiler issues, but something to keep in mind during the rest of the readthrough? At a conservative estimate, of her thirteen books, I count at least eight with important deaths. All of these seeded references prepare the way, I think, not only for the later, darker books (for all that FL in effect opens with, and then deals with the fallout from, Jon's death, it is still for me one of Forest's more light-hearted, and literally more 'sunlit' novels -- partly because it's so humorous), but for Pam Marlow's momentary lapse of control in Chapter 6, when Nicola sings 'Fear No More'.

The Colebridge Market trip affords Forest the chance for some pretty important exposition, via the Vicar and Rowan, and also allows her to set up most of the tensions (will Captain Marlow leave the Service? who will run Trennels?) and events which will drive the rest of the book: Rowan discovers the Festival leaflet which unfolds all the joys of elocution, singing, regatta and gymkhana... I am charmed by Nicola's ignorance of her talent for singing, and by so many other tiny details of characterisation in this passage: Rowan and Nicola's distinct food preferences (Nicola eating her fish quickly 'to get it out of the way'!); Rowan thoughtfully declining to read the hawk remedy aloud; Nicola's coldness at Rowan knowing her so annoyingly well, when Rowan suggests that she'd better take up 'The Ancient History of the Marlows at Trennels' (and, of course, in the end she does: score one for Rowan).

Apart from it making plot sense (at a Doylist level) -- are there any good Watsonian explanations of why it's Rowan and Nicola, and of how Nicola's hair has managed to grow noticeably longer than Lawrie's in the first place? I remember reading here on trennels that possibly there'd been some sense of certain older siblings 'pairing up' with younger ones: it's canon that Lawrie turns to Karen for help when she needs it, so perhaps there's something of a tradition of R&N going together, and K&L going together, rather than saddling one older relative with both twins?

The mystery of Geoff Marlow's parents: how and when did they die? Rowan says he was at Trennels at 'our age', i.e. in his teens, so I suppose one can narrow it down a bit depending on presumed birth-date. The wording, 'were killed', doesn't sound much like influenza or similar, or as if one was carried off by apoplexy and the other faded away soon after. Crime? Shipwreck? Expedition to distant lands gone horribly wrong? (This, if not too morbid and remote -- if it is, I apologise for my proclivities -- is your regularly scheduled ...&c.)

Lawrie the Spider and/or Aged Crone makes me laugh every time. I really enjoy the sense that she is privately working away at her craft much more than anyone in the family ever realises.

*

Mr Merrick seems like a good egg, doesn't he? I like the balance in FL between comic scenes and the much quieter witty replies which are laced into the dialogue all the time (...and also, of course, the sense that despite all this, the world she's showing us is a precarious place, really, and that -- as it already has done, once -- summer happiness can turn on a dime). I'm not in the least convinced by Patrick's 'All terrifically humane and nothing the R.S.P.C.A. could even begin to object to', but -- at least AF admits into the narrative a degree of approved ambivalence concerning the welfare of the prey? (It's okay if Nicola has a qualm: not if it's Ginty.) Some of my favourite bits about prey actually come later, so I won't trespass on anyone else's commentating territory by jumping too far ahead, but I think Forest does a decent job of building narrative complexity in this difficult territory. Are people still enjoying the falconry at this point? I admit that I like it less than the family scenes, but I don't skip it because some of AF's descriptive writing, and some of her animal writing ('Jael's body, warm and palpitating, in her grasp'), is so good. The development of The Sprog as an independent (hilarious, adorable, unique) character really begins in this chapter, and I LOVE IT. It gets even better later, but she's laying the seeds here.

Nicola and Patrick seem incredibly young at tea-time, in contrast to the near-adult nature of some of their pursuits: Patrick's serious historical reading; even the falconry itself. Do you think Forest is good at writing the various ages she deals with convincingly? Personally I think she is: the teen years are, to the best of my recollection (!) a weird muddle of increasingly mature interests intermingled with outbursts of childishness. Nicola 'acts up' to Patrick, I think, to some extent -- not that she's inauthentic (as she will later inwardly accuse Ginty of being...), but she presents her best and oldest self to him most of the time (as in Chapter 6, when both are panicked in the wood, and she decides not to admit to it, even though Patrick has: 'When you were thirteen and a girl, you had to be more careful.'), and then relaxes back into a more childish role at home. Over the next few books we see her starting to push against that role more and more. Yet the child-like, and sexless, nature of their friendship (as is appropriate to their ages and era) is underlined by Nicola asking Patrick to stay in the bathroom with her while she does her first-aid.

Lawrie has NOT been cured of castleing-in-the-air, despite everything that happened in Autumn Term. I suspect she never will be: 'For now she swam enough to be allowed in the deep end of the school baths, her ambitions were legion: Next year, she would be one of the Under-fifteens in the School Swimming Team; these holidays, she might achieve a rather spectacular rescue if only someone would be so obliging as to put themselves in danger of drowning; she would certainly win the Beginners' Race in the Regatta; and if only Peter or Ginty or Rowan would have the decency to coach her, she was quite sure she would win the Beginners' Diving too.' ...oh, Lawrie. Peter isn't much older than the twins, but he's clearly miles from being a beginner -- do you think they're behind in learning on account of their past delicacy? It seems unlikely that a sporty, sea-favouring family like the Marlows (with, at least at times, their own boat) would neglect this aspect of an all-round education, but perhaps if the twins were constantly ill, especially with chest and/or sinus stuff, immersing them in cold water might have seemed unwise. Lawrie's ambitions seem instantly even funnier when we start to read about her actual swimming, which is clearly quite basic. I'm confused by Peter reneging on the no-ducking bargain, though! His reasoning seems entirely logical (Lawrie WILL take revenges: her character is entirely consistent as to fairness and balance, albeit meted out according to her own weird lights), so I don't see why he'd suddenly change his mind, if he dislikes being ducked himself.

'Even the high walls Patrick used to prance round, saying they were the walls of Troy, and daring Peter to follow because he knew Peter hated even standing on them, seemed lower than they used to be. All the same, he hoped Patrick had forgotten about the walls of Troy. He didn't really think he'd care to walk along them even now.' [my bold] -- Gosh, little!Patrick was a bit of beast, wasn't he? I think this is horribly unkind, and they were, what, six or seven? Children of that age are perfectly well able to understand the idea that others have fears. I am quite alarmed to discover that this re-read is making me like Patrick less: has anyone else found that their opinion of a character has changed quite considerably? I do see his charm, of course, and often find myself caught up in it while I'm actually reading, but thinking about it afterwards: not so much. Not that I am condemning him on the basis of being bratty at age six or seven, of course -- this just stood out as an especially unkind thing to do. Poor little!Peter: the vertigo and fear of heights is evidently very long-standing.

*


This chapter is one of my favourites, even though in terms of 'action', comparatively little happens in it. But before we get to the playroom scene, there's some wonderfully-written falconry! I think Jael and the hare gives us Forest at her best, when it comes to the nature-and-animals writing which is one of her marked strengths. It's difficult to pick out quotations from a passage as strong and well-sustained as this one, especially because the writing isn't showy; it's restrained, built up by touches and dabs into a heart-capturing, throat-catching drama of flight and loss and finding, of the victory and the kill. I love the practical tenderness of Patrick carrying Jael under his jacket. One of the superb moments in Forest's treatments of prey -- as I mentioned above -- is Jael's hare: 'The hare's pelt was soaked. In a last effort he had swum the pond, and Jael, no hound to be shaken off, had hovered above, and taken him as he reached the other side.' This miniature tale of exhausted, fruitless effort, in which we still half-want (or more than half-want) the predator to 'win' -- and we know already that she has won -- because we know her, because Forest and Patrick and Nicola have taught us to love her, is so stripped, so pitiless in its wording, that it makes the inherent, inalienable pity of nature felt more immediately than any declaration of pity possibly could.

And so to the playroom: Ginty seeking solace in a familiar old text (and with a family more sympathetic than her own...?); Rowan the self-constituted mistress-of-ceremonies. I think thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds would shun a toy cupboard these days, but some vestigial, archeological interest, on a wet day, seems plausible enough for the late 1940s. In the wrangling and the chatting and the form-filling we see various characteristics which have appeared, and which will appear again, reinforced: Lawrie's thrift (and her commitment to ~justice~ ...my favourite off-the-wall fic idea is modern!Lawrie turning into a passionate SJW-type: this is up for grabs, as I'm over-committed on the fic front already), Nicola's gift for strategic thinking (she's clearly devoted some time to working out her best chance of making bank out of the Festival: and quite right too!). Rowan really has her knife into Ginty -- I think Ginty's remark when Pam comes upstairs (Pam: 'I can't be as young as I was.' Ginty: 'Nor none of us are.') is innocuous enough; maybe the tiniest tincture of morbid, but hardly lugubrious. Is Rowan just so sick of 'Ginty: Woman of Feeling' that everything her sister says has started to grate?

Anyone else surprised that Ann is 'aghast' about the uniform change? It seems an oddly strong choice of word. Does it simply underline her personal conservatism? I love Nicola's hopefulness re: scarlet hats, and am personally regretful that she is doomed to disappointment. Another tiny, perfect detail in this chapter is Peter's fondness for music.

We finally have Rowan's big reveal: she's sprung into it by the exigencies of the uniform change. I really enjoy the sense that there are these bombshells, errors (everyone seems to have thought she wanted to be a games mistress), and even tides of misinformation that have to be fought: Falconer's Lure is a fantastic exploration of how information is shared, managed, hidden and uncovered within a group -- primarily, but not exclusively, the family. I think this will be something to revisit later, especially in The Ready Made Family, Cricket Term and Run Away Home: will the Marlows learn more helpful ways of telling each other things? Do they get better at hiding? After the relative muddle of FL (where the Lower Deck is usually the last to know -- but as in this case, not always), there is, I think, something of a move in the direction of deliberately curating information (Nicola is certainly very keen to manage who knows what, to a perhaps untenable extent?). But is this a good decision for Rowan? Should her parents let her do it? Presumably they could force her to go back to Kingscote, given her age (and class).

I enjoy the contrast between Lawrie's pleasure in performance -- both the silly poem and the serious one -- and Nicola's unintended, unplanned song, continued only because Ann has joined in on the piano. Strong emotion often seems to turn up like this in AF: as the product of a series of quite random, weird coincidences -- that Nicola should happen to choose that song, that Peter should happen to mention 'Sigh No More' and thus necessitate a quick two-line demo, that Ann should begin to play. Devastation surprises. And into this charged atmosphere, with the sibling banter bucketing on -- I love Lawrie's snippet from Choral Speaking [a. k. a. the subject I most wish my school had offered! Anyone else?], and her stern refusal to wander lonely as a cloud or come the dear children for anyone -- falls Lawrie's second poem.

Oh, Forest! These are the moments when I wish she was alive most of all, so I could ask her about her choices -- in my opinion, it's flawless (perhaps almost too perfectly suited for Karen plausibly to have picked it out at no notice? but Kingscote evidently gives a strong literary education, and a lucky choice is always possible), and if you haven't tried reading it aloud I would strongly, strongly advocate doing so: it's such a good poem for vocal performance, but in some ways more difficult than it looks. There are traps; it could be done badly; but one can well imagine Lawrie doing it absolutely brilliantly. The way Forest blends it into this stormy chapter, which opens with a threatening but ecstatic wood and closes with a sky which has cleared once more, is nothing short of masterly, in my view. But I know not everyone likes the inclusion of full poems in novels: what about here, do you feel that three (including the song) in one chapter is too many? Does Lawrie's gift convince you? Something to return to in Chapter 8, I think.

*

Well: that was great fun! And now -- with renewed thanks to lilliburlero for letting me step briefly into her esteemed shoes -- over to you.

Comments

[coughingbear]

Thank you! Lots to think about and discuss, but just chiming in here to say I have always felt Rowan is very hard on Ginty in the playroom scene. When it comes to the regatta scene at the end of the book, someone - ?Mrs Marlow - says to Ginty 'you could have just said no', and I always think that really, she did try. In general I think Rowan manages to be competent without being annoyingly bossy, but not here. Perhaps it's because she is anxious and already feeling responsible for Trennels and its reputation, and doubtless it's also because Ginty has been being annoying, but she is actively unfair.

I love the poems, and I hear Lawrie reading Tom's Angel and the hair stands up on the back of my neck.

[highfantastical.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm so glad you love the poems too! I think AF has a real gift for picking out potent texts and working them in very cleverly -- notably also in End of Term and The Thuggery Affair, but to an extent all the way through the series.

Yes, it's Pam who says 'if someone wants you to do something you don't want to do, say so'. I suppose it's very Forest that Ginty gets no chance to explain and is entirely seen as being in the wrong by the family, even though Rowan definitely did push her into it. (Also, this is the chapter in which Rowan says, 'Bossy I am not.' -- LOL OKAY ROWAN, if you say so.)

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I think that bit about Rowan's not letting Ginty say no is probably the thing that ultimately damns Rowan as a character for me. She has many admirable qualities, but I can't forgive her for that - and the fact that Ginty then gets blamed afterwards for not saying no. It is Ginty, more than Anne, I see leaving them all behind when she grows up and having very little regret (possibly to here own surprise. I can just imagine her setting up in her head a romantic, terribly hard, sacrifice, and yet she must, and then finding in fact that it just doesn't bother her). In fact, that's perhaps another thing about Forest, that you can see her childhood relationships being things that are going to inform adult ones. The rows are rows, and everyone isn't going to shake hands and forget, everyone remembers.

[nnozomi.livejournal.com]

Yes, this is the one place in the series where I am solidly on Ginty's side and irritated by Rowan's behavior (usually I'm the other way around). I do wonder if Forest feels that Rowan's pushing Ginty into competition is partly justified because Ginty's reluctance to take part is not real: it's part of the Unityesque attitudes she's currently affecting. In her "normal" self, she enjoys swimming and diving and would not hesitate to join in, but here she's (mostly unconsciously) playing the part of someone whose sensitivity (sensibility?) wouldn't stand for it. Rowan could, therefore, be trying to push Ginty back into non-Unity mode, with some success given a time-delay.
Note that all the above is me surmising authorial motives, not my own opinions per se.

pudding bowls and Catholicism

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

Thank you to highfantastical for taking over, and in such marvellous style too.

Having encountered the rather soignée Mme Orly in End of Term long before Falconer's Lure, with her horror of great lumps of English hockey-playing schoolgirls (and the irony that only Ginty actually does play hockey--is Ginty's hockey playing ever mentioned elsewhere or does it exist for this joke?) I was very surprised by the pudding-bowl haircuts.

I think the Doylist explanation here is that Forest decided to start exploring Catholicism in the interval between Falconer's Lure and End of Term, so Mme Orly becomes a representative of a certain sort of severe but sophisticated European Catholicism, as Patrick becomes the representative of English recusancy.
But that might be extended to a Watsonian one too, it was only with her second marriage and conversion that she began to adopt more exotic manners, and in her daughters' childhood might have been more of a lump of English hockey-playing &c. herself? Though there's still the Peter's Room detail about her hostility to jodhpurs.

[highfantastical.livejournal.com]

Thank you for letting me have a shot at it!

I adore the notion of a younger, pre-Monsieur Orly Grandmother being slightly lumpen and pudding-basinish, and then upping her game, either to catch him? -- or when she moves to France. Pam and Molly: 'Mother's perking up, isn't she? Perhaps a little ... too up.'

Pam and Molly in pudding-basin hair-cuts and riding habits: FAN ART PROMPT.

Re: pudding bowls and Catholicism

[occasionalhope.livejournal.com]

I think maybe the haircuts are when they're quite little girls.

Pam and Molly as girls

[sprog-63.livejournal.com]

Lovely, thanks, Highfantastical!

I wonder if Pam and Molly weren't sent away to school, but educated at home (thus Pam could go out hunting four times a week). Lumpen hockey-playing schoolgirls are despised by their mother because they are "not our class" ?

Doesn't help with the pudding bowls, so I tend to go with occasionalhope's suggestion that that was when they were very young.

Having "run and found out" about Doylist and Watsonian explanations (who knew this would be so educational?) I realise I am always drawn to the Watsonian - apart from for timelines which would obviously blow one's mind into smithereens).

[(Anonymous)]

Re. Peter swimming - he's been at Dartmouth for some time, where there's presumably plenty of scope for swimming and diving. Nicola and Lawrie have been in London, where swimming pools are open to all and delicate children are not allowed (by their parents) to attend. Kingscote pool, on the other hand, is populated by upper-class children who are deemed clean enough to share a pool with.

As for Geoff's parents - he was born in 190x, so his parents died sometime before 1920. The implication is they died together ("his parents were killed"), but dying simultaneously in the war seems unlikely - the Zeppelins didn't kill many - I would go with either a car crash or a flying accident. Maybe Daddy had his own plane and took Mummy for a spin which spun too far.

[(Anonymous)]

[last post by colne_dsr, but not logged in]

[hooloovoo_42]

I'd go for an early motor car or horse & carriage accident.

I agree with the thing about swimming. Peter went to prep school, then Dartmouth and would have swum at school. The twins went to day schools, which probably didn't necessarily include swimming as part of the curriculum. Plus, they were delicate, so swimming would have been seen as unsuitable.

[highfantastical.livejournal.com]

A flying accident would be an interesting and tragic parallel with FL, wouldn't it? Poor Geoff Marlow would be feeling even more conflicted than he canonically is...

Rowan's decision

[antfan.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for the post - really enjoyed reading it, and am generally finding FL really warms up with subsequent chapters. The hawking passages become absorbing - I enjoyed the bit in the wood, but really felt for the hare, perhaps especially because it is a hare and they are such unusual and rather special beasts now. I also felt much warmer to Nicola and Patrick's friendship than in the earlier chapters. Did think there was a tad too much poetry though,seeing as you asked.

You asked: But is this a good decision for Rowan? Should her parents let her do it?

This is what I really struggled with in these chapters, and to be honest basically felt Capt Marlow in particular a selfish pig. He decides they're all going to move to Trennels - disregarding the opinion of his wife, who will be living there full time - because he thinks it will be nice for his retirement. But then rather than do the farming himself, he lets his 17 year old daughter take it on, when not only is she young and ignorant of farming, but she will never inherit Trennels - and again, completely disregarding the opinion of Mrs Marlow. And Mrs Marlow is such a sap she just lets herself gets overridden, (as is predicted in thoroughly patronising style by her own daughter "he's not going to be impressed by any wails about how sad it is that dear little Rowan will have to stop being a bouncing school child.")

Well, he should be. Especially as said daughter is doing pretty well even to be considering training for an architect (and what's all this stuff about her maybe being "finished" to get a decent job? That sounds really odd. Isn't "finishing" for dumb deb types not for competent girls like Rowan?)

Someone's going to make the point that he's paying Rowan a compliment by thinking her capable of it and that Peter would have been lined up for it if he'd been a bit older...yes, yes, and NO. Sorry. It sucks, it really does.

And Mrs Marlow is ridiculously passive (why does nobody ever suggest she do it? Mind you, if I'd just raised eight children to semi-independence, been rehomed by the blitz, forced to move to the country, and then someone suggested I become a farm manager, I'd sock them).

I suppose what it brings home to me above all is that in this books the Marlows really are generations older than in the later ones, and all this worshipping of Daddy and his naval career and family duty therefore reads very differently. But, being more comfortable with the later books, I find it incredibly jarring. I'm glad AF continued the Marlows over such a long time period, and I'm sure she made the right decision to update the backround - putting them in 1940s aspic would just have been too odd and lost them any contemporary audience I think - but there is a price that it produces this kind of dissonance. For me that happens in the earlier books, though I guess others may find the later books more jarring.

Re: Rowan's decision

[occasionalhope.livejournal.com]

I feel perhaps Mrs Marlow's financial irresponsibility wouldn't make her the ideal choice for running a farm (or anything else).

But I agree it's all pretty unfair on Rowan.

Re: Rowan's decision

[sprog-63.livejournal.com]

Yes, absolutely: it is an extra-ordinary decision. Yes we are looking at a mid 20th century situation from a 21st century, perspective, but even so: what would Rowan ever get out of doing this?

I had a few thoughts on why Pam may put up so little objection.
Perhaps it suits Pam well too. She may well view the thought of being isolated at Trennels with trepidation. Since having the children she has only had a total of two and a bit terms without at least one child at home and they were in her home in London. Perhaps she doesn't like it? Furthermore, if she didn't go to school herself, she may, like Patrick, under rate things like 'might have been Games Captain'. My third idea presumes on future reading, so I'll be a bit oblique: in RMF Pam Marlow is absolutely clear that she will not stand in Karen's way re big life changing decisions because that is what her own mother tried to do and their relationship has suffered from it. Rowan is only a year or two younger than she was then, and she may be influenced here too by that memory. Plus of course the idea of a career for a girl would be less central to their education - Ann thinks in terms of teaching music or nursing, Karen (later) thinks in terms of NOT teaching - but nothing else really comes to mind; I don't get the impression that Rowan really thinks about architecture seriously - simply that she has outgrown the notion that being a Games Mistress would be a pleasant extension of the nice bits of being at school. My point is that in contemporary context, a girl training professionally (other than teaching or nursing) is not the norm. But even given all that: I think it is a ridiculous decision and the adults (including Giles) are highly selfish to have considered it, let alone accepted it.

Makes a good story though, and keeps Captain Marlow out of the picture - which is an absolute pre-requisite for a children's adventure story and a rare nod to the genre from AF. (Pam somehow doesn't count, does she?!)

Re: Rowan's decision

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

It's an absolutely barking decision and a dereliction of duty on the parent's part because it isn't necessary. If Rowan had genuinely discovered an interest she might have waited to get has A levels. In the mid 30s my great uncle didn't take up a grammar school place because the family couldn't afford it and he felt the loss the rest of his life even though there was no alternative. I find it hard not to see Rowan regretting it though no doubt as a Marlow she will delude herself into thinking it her free choice and thus her cross to bear

Re: Rowan's decision

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

"I suppose what it brings home to me above all is that in this books the Marlows really are generations older than in the later ones, and all this worshipping of Daddy and his naval career and family duty therefore reads very differently. But, being more comfortable with the later books, I find it incredibly jarring. I'm glad AF continued the Marlows over such a long time period, and I'm sure she made the right decision to update the backround - putting them in 1940s aspic would just have been too odd and lost them any contemporary audience I think - but there is a price that it produces this kind of dissonance. For me that happens in the earlier books, though I guess others may find the later books more jarring."


I feel the complete opposite. I wish all the books had been set in the late 40s period because I find certain details in the later books very jarring. I found it odd reading them in the 80s that although the twins and their friends were my age they behaved and talked completely differently to my peers.
I think if they had been kept in one period, they might have been more widely read and known, as things that contemporary readers didn't 'get' would have been accepted as part of the period. Arthur Ransome's books are still in print and Enid Blyton seems to be having a revival, not to mention all the classics set in the past. Readers accept the 'two-servant poor' family in a book set in the past but it's very odd set in the eighties.

Re: Rowan's decision

[highfantastical.livejournal.com]

Thank you! :)

I do wish Pam Marlow's characterisation was more developed in FL. I think there's far more to get to grips with in later books (perhaps not coincidentally, when Geoff is out of the picture...), and I do actually like her quite a bit -- but FL is not Pam at her most interesting. Of course there's always a lot to be unpicked, seeing as it's Forest! But compared with End of Term, for instance, I end up a bit frustrated.

'Finishing' for Rowan seems very odd. I wouldn't have thought the Marlows were in those circles socially, nor able to afford a Season? It just doesn't make sense, really. Perhaps AF meant something more like a couple of terms at cooking school in London (living at home) with a posture class, or whatever, rather than the archetypal finishing school abroad.

Re: Rowan's decision

[highfantastical.livejournal.com]

(I really like the moving timeline, myself. Part of the pleasure of AF for me is witnessing the craftsmanship of her approach to different eras, styles of living, etc. -- I don't say it always works, and I'm sure it contains many inaccuracies, but it's fascinating. It's not just the pop culture references: the whole tone and tenor of the books shifts between AT/TMTT and RAH.)

[ratfan.livejournal.com]

So much detail in these chapters and the comments that I hardly know what to say. I did enjoy this book more than Traitor; it seemed much more detailed about characters. The old-fashioned qualities do jar a little, because I read Cricket Term and Attic Term before the others and so my mind got "set" in the '70s, if that makes any sense.

I also agree that it might have been better to keep the series in the one time period, even though that time is not mine and there are many things that don't resonate with me. Specifics would involve spoilers, so I won't elaborate, but sometimes I wonder how a completely 40s series would have panned out; what you could keep and what would have to be changed.

I appreciate the hawks without wanting to get into the sport in any way! Even Forest doesn't try to portray them as pets or as creatures that care anything for their handlers, except maybe Sprog! I've encountered raptor rehabilitation programs and find them most beautiful creatures, but I hated the parts in FL about taking a chick from the wild and basically mind-controlling it to become handleable. Yet at the same time it made a change from the interminable pony books. I read these voraciously as a child and young teen, but they haven't stood the test of time the way FL has.

The way Ginty is portrayed here, with her foibles and fantasies, helps to fill out her character in the later books, for me. Her fears make more sense too. Patrick also seems more vulnerable here. Very geekish, in an upper class sort of way, and I've known that kind of person in the science fiction community, but I'm not sure I would like him, whereas when I read the Term books, I was sure I would!

I read FL once a long time ago and much of it didn't stay with me, so it was almost a new book, with twinges of memory about the hawks and the gymkhana and the death of cousin Jon. Btw, I may be the only fan who got their ghast flabbered when someone wrote about Jon being probably "as gay as a goshawk." I honestly didn't see that. Went right, blinkeredly, past that one :-)

I must make more notes next time I post. Fascinating exercise, this.

[res23.livejournal.com]

No, it didn't occur to me either about Jon being gay. Just not something I ever thought about, why he was or wasn't married.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm much in sympathy with Ginty in FL (and TMATT too). I don't get the feeling that we are supposed to like or identify with her. AF seems scornful of her but by being so is portraying very well a 'misunderstood' teenager before girls were allowed to be one and crucially, shows the attitude of others towards her.

Ginty fails to live up to various high Marlow standards. (No-one thinks she's a bit clever, repeats Nicola in AT.)She's not outstandingly brave and resourceful like Nicola, gifted like Karen, securely confident in herself like Rowan and, in a different way, like Ann, and she can't be the indulged baby because she isn't the youngest. She only has the rather flaky attribute of being the prettiest. Only Peter has similar troubles but Peter is desperate to be a properly splendid Marlow; Ginty is more absorbed by her own concerns than family ones. The rest of the older Marlow females obviously sailed serenely through adolescence which is just as well because the Marlow parents really do seem rather unperceptive about their children.

She is a bit of a middle child. No wonder she rebels, conforms, rebels again. Everyone is fairly unpleasant and unsympathetic towards her, especially Rowan who never seems to speak to her except scathingly.

I usually like Rowan but not so much in FL.I know this was set in the 40s when women didn't have careers so much but Rowan surely would have if they weren't all so in thrall to the Navy and Daddy and Giles, none of whom must be upset in any way at all. Rowan doesn't like the country, she knows nothing of farming, but she offers to take on Trennels to keep it safe for the male Marlows who are off doing what they want to do. As others have said why on earth couldn't they have employed a farm manager - and I'm sure the Merricks would have been very helpful here, if they'd been asked. Mr Merrick manages to be both farmer and MP.

Mrs Marlow is a typically vague mother. They were mostly like that in children's literature at the time just as fathers were usually strong, stern and occasionally absent altogether.

[biskybat.livejournal.com]

Sorry, forgot to log in again.

Watsonian explanation of Nicola's and not-Lawrie's haircut

[mainerobin.livejournal.com]

Perhaps when Lawrie was hit by the car, she got some scrapes and gashes on her head, and perhaps her hair had been shorn to aid in cleaning the wounds. Or perhaps it was cut during her convalescence at home, perhaps a reason for a chance to step out a bit to get her leg working again.

Re: Watsonian explanation of Nicola's and not-Lawrie's haircut

[highfantastical.livejournal.com]

This is perfect and I completely agree with every bit of it! Adding it to my headcanon forthwith, with thanks.

(Sorry for the very late response -- offline for a few days for health reasons.)

Rowan

[buntyandjinx.livejournal.com]

I don't much like Rowan in any of the books - to me she's another subversion of fictional archetypes and of the people Nick worships (or dislikes, sometimes unfairly). So you have Karen = head girl but also a bit wet and ineffectual, Ann = good but also deeply annoying, Rowan = games captain material but also prone to being deeply insensitive, a bit of a bully and who ends up making a disastrous decision vis a vis her own life, jacking it all in to run Trennels, and not very happily.

Re: Rowan: belated thoughts

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Well, given that most jobs for women at the period in the Marlow sort of class were about 'filling in the time before marriage' (or even genteelly husband-hunting, by choosing particular jobs),possibly with a side-order of 'in case your husband is a wastrel/leaves you destitute', this doesn't seem an entirely implausible course for Rowan. Unlike Karen, she's not been talent-spotted as university material (I'm now wondering about her conscious choice in the matter as opposed to being fast tracked for the benefit of Kingscote's honours board), and doesn't, unlike Ann or Lawrie, have any particular leaning.

If you're filling in time until marriage, and have Rowan's interests, it probably beats being a secretary.

I have also been wondering as to whether it might also be an out from marriage if she is not that way inclined ('the tweedy Miss Marlows' - shades of Agatha Dawson?)

[schwarmerei1.livejournal.com]

Apart from it making plot sense (at a Doylist level) -- are there any good Watsonian explanations of why it's Rowan and Nicola, and of how Nicola's hair has managed to grow noticeably longer than Lawrie's in the first place?

There's actually no reason to expect hair to grow at the same rate, even in identical twins. Monozygotic twins are nearly identical genetically, but there are still random mutations during replication that mean they are slightly different. They will also have different phenotypes, particularly so with girls because in girls one of the X chromosomes will be deactivated and it might be the opposite one in a pair of identical girls.

I have no idea how many factors control hair growth, but it's not implausible the Nick's might just grow much faster than Lawrie's.

However the explanation that Lawrie might have needed clipping after the car accident could work too.