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.)

[coughingbear]

Kay gets upset in Peter's Room when Nicola says Rowan is a bossy type, but really Nick's quite right (and of course doesn't mean it particularly as a criticism).

[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.

[coughingbear]

Very much agreed on Forest's accuracy about how everyone is going to remember, and it's going to inform their adult relationships.

I like Rowan, so although I think she's clearly in the wrong here, I can forgive her (though can quite see Ginty might not). I do think part of what's going on is her feeling extra responsible - something she's prone to anyway - for their local reputation, which is now going to affect her a lot more than the others, away at school.

[highfantastical.livejournal.com]

I love this point! Yes, that makes a lot of sense of her touchiness about Ginty's conduct, both in private and (later, and worse) in public.

(I'm a Ginty fan but, while I think it was rotten of Rowan -- especially not telling their mother she'd pressured her into it, though I quite see that by Rowan's own moral code, she'd done nothing wrong -- it's not a completely quelling offence in my eyes. The Rowan moments I like in later books rehabilitate her for me.)

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

I think there's an element in Rowan's thinking in that she herself is making a hard decision to do something she doesn't entirely want to do, so she is more irritated than usual by Ginty refusing to do something she doesn't want to do. She wouldn't put it like this but something along the lines of 'I'm giving up everything to come and run this farm and she can't even enter a swimming competition!'
It's rather typical of the Marlows to assume that other people in the area would even notice if one of them doesn't enter any competitions, or that anyone outside the family would even care!

[highfantastical.livejournal.com]

I like it when we have examples of Rowan's ... self-consciousness? if it can be called that. She's so competent, so efficient, so un-neurotic, that we aren't necessarily keyed up to spot her anxieties as we might be with Lawrie or Ginty, or even Karen, but that almost makes it more of a challenge -- it's really interesting to think that concern over her planned new role, and over how the Marlows collectively and she specifically will fit into the community, might be driving the Ginty thing at some level.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Fair point about their local reputation, though someone else might have thought - considering Kingscote - that maybe their local reputation might be helped by not insisting on winning something in every category.

[highfantastical.livejournal.com]

a romantic, terribly hard, sacrifice, and yet she must

Beautiful Ginty-in-fantasy-mode cadence! Not even just Forestian, but actually Ginty-specific. I can promise you at least one riveted reader if you ever write AF fic.

And yes, I agree: Ginty does seem the most likely to leave. I think she takes her shames and failings to heart, is bad at re-building damaged bonds (not to stray too much into later books, but...), and also, very importantly, will find an easy welcome in new circles. It might well be something of a relief to her to leave: especially when we get the message, again and again, that she's being found wanting by one member of the family after another. I think Ann has a jolly hard time too, undoubtedly, but her stronger sense of self, and her firm set of values, will lead her always to try to work at mending things, and at returning.

[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.

[hooloovoo_42]

I tend towards this point of view. I think the family - especially Rowan, as she's the most likely to have noticed (Karen being tied up with studying and the twins being much younger) - are fairly hacked off with the Unity-fication of Ginty and want her to snap out of it. Rowan may be being dictatorial, but I think that Ginty would normally have taken part. Even if it's just straight teenage rebellion, a swift shove in the right direction doesn't go amiss. I remember being "forced" into doing things by my parents and actually enjoying them instead of being all teenagerly and aloof.

[highfantastical.livejournal.com]

I think there is a sense of Ginty being genuinely a bit caught between selves and between different desires and wishes, here -- some of it, for sure, is an affectation of sensibility brought on by Unity's influence (that's explicitly canonical), but I suspect it all ties into her deeper fear of failure, which is a real feeling. Rowan correctly identifies (IMO) this fear later on in the book -- it is REALLY this, not the sea at all, that's made G. flake out? -- and this trait continues into Cricket Term and beyond. But it's all muddled up with pretended feelings, because of Unity.

Ginty

[sprog-63.livejournal.com]

I'm torn. I do think Rowan is right, in general, that Ginty doesn't want to lose again. However, I am not sure it is fear of failure which has made her decide not to enter at all (even though I think later in canon this is there), at least, I can't get it from the text. There her decision is clearly Unity-inspired (and maintained by her determination not to be bossed by Rowan).

The question for me is: where does Unity end and Ginty begin? Ginty is consciously continuing to behave in the way expected from the persona she has developed in response to Unity's expectations of her, even though "part of her rather wanted to enter" and she knows her reluctance to is not genuine. She says to herself that she won't be bossed by Rowan, but is more than happy to be manipulated by Unity.

I wondered if this is just a more extreme version of the home / school selves which runs through the series? Or does the fact that Ginty is consciously choosing to do this give it a different meaning?

Re: Ginty

[highfantastical.livejournal.com]

Oh, I definitely agree that it's Unity-inspired, and that that's canonical/explicit in the text! Yes, for sure. But I don't see it as separate from the nature of her vulnerabilities regarding failure and perceived demotion and so on in other books, even though it is more complicated -- I guess that's what I'm trying (ineptly!) to say. She overlaps with Peter and Nicola more than is perhaps immediately apparent, but they're more truly stoical, I'd say: Ginty really is (even when she's not putting it on for Unity) a bit more sensitive and flighty and neurotic,* even though she's not actually afraid of the sea. Her approach is more of an avoidant one, as opposed to the 'tougher' attitudes of P and N.

*as well she might be, after the double trauma of the bombing and TMTT?

[fengirl88.livejournal.com]

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.

I'd certainly read it that way - and the fact that we're in Ginty's point of view at the end of the chapter emphasises it. Forest explicitly says that Ginty's manufactured her romantic secret terror of the sea, and although that doesn't make Rowan's behaviour less bossy, I don't feel that Forest is encouraging readers to blame Rowan and side with Ginty.

[highfantastical.livejournal.com]

I think that probably Rowan was a fundamentally much more admirable character, to Forest, than Ginty was -- it seems pretty clear from things she's said to trennels members that she had a fixed positive view of Nicola, and I wouldn't be surprised if that to some extent embraced Nicola's favourite family members too.

Whether or not the degree of complexity surrounding who's right, where our sympathy should or does lie, etc., is intentional or simply a side effect of writing of Forest's quality, is probably beyond the scope of this discussion (or at least beyond my scope!), but I don't think, at a guess, that she was secretly trying to get us to sympathise with Ginty. I expect we are, insofar as she 'meant' us to support anyone, supposed to be largely backing up Rowan. All the same ... the situation is so nuanced that quite a few people do seem to be reading against the grain here, and feeling for Ginty, and that intrigues me.

[fengirl88.livejournal.com]

I think you're right about Rowan being a fundamentally more admirable character to Forest than Ginty - and that seems to me to come through strongly in FL, including this chapter, where we've already seen Ginty putting on a special voice about how Dirge for Fidele will always mean Jon to her now.

I would guess that the complexity is a side-effect here of the quality of Forest's writing, though in other places it might be intentional. I wouldn't quite go as far as to say that Forest sets Ginty up, but this is a scene where Ginty is being at her most Unity-ish whereas Rowan has just done something that will make a real difference to the family (however ill-advised we might think that is). I think Forest's nuancing is one of the wonderful things about her writing, and she's certainly interested in imaginative sympathy for characters who don't behave well (at the risk of mild spoilers, this discussion makes me think of the conversation between Patrick and Nicola about Lois in End of Term).

[highfantastical.livejournal.com]

Yes! I can definitely see a parallel to that conversation.

(Sorry to be replying so late; have been offline a lot for personal reasons.)

Does Rowan think Ginty is malingering?

[mainerobin.livejournal.com]

I expect the treatment for PTSD at that time was to get people out and reengaged in society, less they fall into depression or hysterics (I believe possibly included in the all-encompassing term "women's troubles") Aside from the point about Rowan's own concern about running the farm properly, she is perhaps making an effort to get Ginty re-engaged in something, well, perhaps anything but U. Logan.

Re: Does Rowan think Ginty is malingering?

[sprog-63.livejournal.com]

I don't think it is necessarily that Rowan thinks Ginty is malingering, more that she, like Karen, thinks that Unity is an unhelpful influence on the always very easily influenced Ginty. I think Rowan is trying to pull her away from Unity-fication - or even just back into familiar/familial territory of activity rather than moping ? Part of Ginty would be really relieved to be out of Unity's orbit (and we'll later see her relinquish Unity without a backward glance). The trouble is, Rowan does it badly and Ginty digs her pretty little toes in. We'll come back to this after Chapter 10 no doubt!

Remember, the fear of the sea is purely fabricated for Unity.

Re: Does Rowan think Ginty is malingering?

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

I'm fascinated by the fabricated fear, actually: the specific phobia is fabricated, but the trauma is not, and it seems to me that Ginty is trying to process that genuine trauma into some kind of understandable form, for herself as well as for Unity's benefit. Her trauma at the Foley business is compounded with guilt, so perhaps the secrecy about it is rather worse for her than it is for Peter or Nicola., and Ginty suffers anyway from guilty re-playings of situations where she might have acquitted herself better. She's trying to condense a lot of messy feelings into a simple and--with the company she's keeping at school if not at home--acceptable one. I wonder if Ginty ever tells Unity about her real phobia--of confined spaces? She seems considerably ashamed of that, as people often are about phobic reactions. I think Rowan, being reasonably perceptive, senses the the air of fabrication, but Rowan doesn't know how serious the trauma really is; if she did, I doubt she would be as unsympathetic; she is a Good Officer, after all. Though Marlow family handling of phobia is pretty bizarre anyway: look at the weird maze of taboo Nicola negotiates wrt Peter's fear of heights.

I sympathise with them both, though: Rowan's just made a difficult decision that I think she knows from the start is going to make her less happy (Rowan's not a very happy person anyway, is she? Her sardonic outlook on life can be very funny, and there's something to admire in the pitilessness of it, but I can't imagine it's very much fun from the inside, as it were), possibly for the rest of her life, and what she sees is Ginty making a spurious fuss about having been run aground and stranded at a lighthouse for two nights, some months before. And her reaction is we all have to do things we don't like, so here's yours. It's not particularly edifying or admirable in Rowan, but I can forgive her for it, and it's a very likely and realistic reaction. But I also have a lot of sympathy for Ginty, whose trauma after the events of TMAAT has been woefully handled.

Re: Does Rowan think Ginty is malingering?

[intrepid--fox.livejournal.com]

I'm not convinced Rowan is saying that, at all. Bearing in mind she has no idea about Foley, the kidnapping at gunpoint, near death etc of MATT, what she sees is her physically fearless younger sister, who adores swimming and diving, affecting a fear of the sea to make herself more interesting. So I think Rowan's saying, oh, put a sock in it and drop the posturing, put the application in and you'll enjoy it when you get there.

Re: Does Rowan think Ginty is malingering?

[highfantastical.livejournal.com]

Rowan's not a very happy person anyway, is she? Her sardonic outlook on life can be very funny, and there's something to admire in the pitilessness of it, but I can't imagine it's very much fun from the inside, as it were

This fascinates me: I think that Rowan's competence and self-sufficiency (99% of the time) seem so complete -- even a little off-putting -- to me that I'm inclined to take them at face value and presume that she manages her own life as effectively as she manages everything else. I hadn't really considered whether she was happy (is anyone happy in AF?). But you're quite right, there's no evidence that she is, and it seems more likely that she isn't, very. How interesting.

(Sorry for horribly late replies -- offline for a bit with health issues.)

[schwarmerei1.livejournal.com]

Ginty just pulled the whole "and now I shall forever think of Cousin Jon" stuff that made Karen snap at her too. So between her initial refusals and Rowan bossing her into it, she'd managed to piss everyone off to a fairly epic degree. Rowan is also such a (literally as we find out) get-back-on-the-horse type, I'm sure she thinks Ginty should go in swimming and diving to redeem her Kingscote failures.