Falconer's Lure readthrough: Chapters 7-9

[sprog-63.livejournal.com]

Thank you, lilliburlero for creating this whole readthrough (not to mention last minute technical help!), and thank you to everyone who contributes too. I can’t decide whether my favourite times are the recognition moments when I read something here and think “yes, that’s it exactly” or when I have to struggle to understand the point of view as it is far removed from mine … together the whole is even more than the sum of the parts.

It has been very interesting to read the first guest post (keeping the standard as nerve-wrackingly high as ever) - thank you highfantastical for prompting another lovely, lively series of conversations. You will see that some of our themes repeat. I had already written some of this post before highfantastical posted last week, and I decided not to edit out what I had written already. The use of the phrase “poor Peter” occurred to us both (and surely he’d hate that to be his epithet); and the theme of bereavement, which runs through the book and series, is unsurprisingly represented in both posts.

Hope these stimulate further discussion!

One of the delights of re-reading FL, even though I know the storyline well (plot is perhaps too strong a word for this novel), is the way in which the events touch me as strongly as when I read them for the first time. To some extent, knowing what is coming intensifies my emotions and, as a reader, I approach this chapter with dread. Poor Peter: failing to tread the line between the phobic dread of heights and the fear of showing fear, he falls headfirst into shame. I think he’d rather have fallen off the cliff.

This is the second time we read of Peter getting stuck. The first was unwitnessed. Now there is not only Nicola, but worst of all, Patrick: no longer primarily Peter’s friend; but also someone who actually has fallen (from these very cliffs) been badly injured and is quite happy to come here again. I’d have liked to read Peter’s conversation with himself about going on the cliffs (regularly scheduled fic prompt?) Is he spurred on with some optimism for the whole outing by the knowledge that the second time he was on the gallery of the lighthouse he managed fine?
Forest uses very similar words to describe Peter getting stuck each time, perhaps underlining the inevitability of it. “And he couldn’t move. He simply couldn’t let go the rail and stand up.” (MATT) vs “And in that moment, Peter stuck. … he couldn’t move. He simply went on standing there ...” (FL) There is a difference in the way the passages are written though: on the cliffs, Peter’s fear isn’t reported to us, we listen into the dialogue in his mind. Even if you are a little impatient with his behaviour, this moment by moment sliding into panic must bring with it some empathy for Peter. I relish the literal insights we get in the “stream of consciousness” passages, here’s another one: Patrick thinks through whether he’s been sensible in sending Nicola off that if she and/or Peter are killed it will be all Peter’s fault (my itals). Poor Peter, surely Patrick is the coughing bear here? I’d have liked to hear Nicola’s thoughts when passing Leeper’s Bluff going for help too! And finally, to add insult to injury, Patrick describes Peter as a “lily-livered loon”. Nicola had used these very words with scorn in MATT describe anyone who might be scared of heights. Patrick doesn’t know this, of course, but we do, and Peter does.

Geoff Marlow’s fury is inevitable; fuelled by his aforementioned anger of people who put themselves in unnecessary danger; the knowledge of Patrick’s accident; and the fact that for the second time in a few months Peter and Nicola could have died. In MATT, Peter reflects, “A fine officer he was going to make if he bellowed at his subordinates every time he got in a flap.” But isn’t this exactly what Geoff Marlow does here in the row which “rumbles on and on”. Is Peter a bit hard on himself? I tend to take for granted Peter’s poor opinion of himself: but is it justified? We hear these rows obliquely (perhaps an invitation to fic here from anyone who shares Miranda West’s appreciation of a glorious row? ) but like the characters we are left in no doubt the cliffs are out of bounds “ ... forbidden, finally and forever … on any pretext whatsoever.” And it is in these days between disasters that Patrick and Nicola’s friendship is sealed.

Rowan, hovering between adolescence and adulthood: riding in a gymkhana against Patrick and discussing leaving school to take over the farm. Here, Patrick’s lack of ability to see things from other perspectives is blatant. I enjoy the quiet thread throughout the series, of the way Patrick does not “get” school and school priorities. In these genre books which transcend genre, Patrick demonstrates indifference to the very things which a school story is made of, almost subversive perhaps?

If FL doesn’t exactly have a plot, it certainly has themes and one of them is bereavement. Death comes quite frequently to children’s books (not least this series as highfantasticalpointed out last week), but bereavement, grief, and mourning are less often dwelt on: which is yet again where AF’s writing is lifted far above most others. Jon’s death and the uneasy and complicated emotions it arises is echoed in Jael’s death. All three of them are utterly horrified, and for the second time, Peter is on the receiving end of distress-related fury. For Patrick, it is a second bereavement in a couple of weeks and he loses it and becomes foul to Peter because “he felt so hurt and sorry over Jael’s death, he wanted to make sure someone else was hurt too”. But there is no moralising from Forest, just scenes which play themselves vividly before my eyes and I am scared, even re-reading it, that there will be no way back for Peter and Patrick. Again, Poor Peter.


It is with a sigh of relief I come to Chapter 8. In its own way it is exciting, but I am not drawn in emotionally to the same degree. Possibly because I am a non-performer I cannot get fully involved or worked up about Lawrie’s angst over parts and performances. I think she feels things genuinely, but am still sometimes irritated by her. (Perhaps something to return to in EOT and CT?)

The conversation between Nicola and Lawrie on the eve of the Festival is illuminating: Nicola is still cross with Peter. He is usually high on her liking list, she has not put together how dreadful this summer is being for him, and Lawrie can’t really draw her into any sympathy and she doesn’t soften towards Peter for another week. In a prophetic warning, Nicola suggests Lawrie rehearses properly. Reading it now, it shouts out at me: does anyone recall if they noticed it on first reading?

One of the things I enjoy about this large family narrative is the way that the relationships are not wholly fixed or stereotyped. The scene with Ann, Nicola, and Lawrie is a potent combination to illustrate the shifting alliances between the siblings, as well their different beliefs about their talents and the value of a performance. For a moment Nicola and Ann are united in sympathy against an over-confident Lawrie, but very quickly everything returns to the familiar position of Nicola and Lawrie despising Ann.

It’s not until Nicola comes across the other competitors, whose mothers all know one another, that I thought, why on earth did the Marlow parents not bring the girls in in the car? Can someone explain (in either Doylist or Watsonian terms?) However, both Ann and Nicola seem quite happy with the idea that their parents are only coming in to see Lawrie. And at least this way, no-one needs to know that Nicola was overcome by emotion (do you think she ever tells anyone?) I love the way that Nicola is able to laugh at the prospect of herself crying at the sadness of her own song “while everyone waited respectfully for her to go on” (another prophesy). As she goes through the song, Nicola believes she has successfully suppressed her emotions; but an unexpected trigger means she is engulfed in a wave of distress. The emotion is purely for Jael. After the competition, she is “wild with pleasure … galloping through the narrow side streets, with the adjudicator’s words jostling and spinning in a glory in her head.” No suppression of emotion here, where no one she knows can see.

In this chapter, we see Lawrie at times showing unexpected maturity (even Nicola is surprised at the depth of knowledge Lawrie has about the stage) and also at her most baby-ish, being comforted by Nicola as if Nicola were years older. Can someone tell me if Lawrie’s involuntary imitation (parody?) is likely (and/or likely to be so immediately recognisable by everyone) ?

Some of my favourite passages are at the end of the chapter. Meg and Nicola’s conversation about Treasure Island is a jewel, but I enjoy this whole section where we have rare sight of Lawrie not being an ass.

highfantasticalasked last week, “Does Lawrie’s gift convince you?” Yes, it does me, utterly and completely. From both Doylist and Watsonian perspective: yes. In AT it was clear that her performance was as good as she wanted it to be. Ellen Holroyd is impressed (even cynical Meg is) and throughout canon there is no voice suggesting otherwise. And then there’s the prophetic, “In time, Nicola was to learn that theatre people often behaved like this to those outside their charmed circle …” This is a rare authorial voice telling us Lawrie’s future is on the stage. That’s my view anyway - looking forward to seeing the other side!


We come to “Lost Hawk” which gives us a bit of a hint about what’s going to happen next. (Actually, I like Forest’s chapter titles, they have a certain charm about them - and they certainly make it easier to look up incidents I want to refer to!)

In spite of the triumphs of the previous chapter, this is a sad book. This chapter, while superficially an “adventure” story, also adds to the two major psychological themes of the book: fear and loss. Many of the characters in this book have at least one fear (even the Idiot Boy), some amounting to phobias: the difference here, as in life, is how they choose to deal with them. (How would Rowan, Ann or Giles cope with having to deal with a Peter or Ginty level phobia? )
Having lost Jael so traumatically a week or so ago, Nicola and Patrick are now pursuing a lost Regina. Well, we were warned that hawks led to heart break. And to think, Forest meant to write a pony book! Can you imagine a pony book where one child shoots another’s pony? I had a quick look at Jill Badger’s marvellous website and it does indicate that not all pony books of the era were as anodyne as Ruby Ferguson, but even so. But I digress ...

The chapter begins with a hot, tired, and grumpy Nicola who has been accompanying Patrick on the search for Regina. Patrick notices this, but isn’t quite sure what to do about it. Her mixed emotions are detailed for us; boredom, physical discomfort, empathy for her father not wanting to traipse across the country searching for hawks; hint of feeling anxious and out of her depth; awareness of Patrick’s desire to find Regina; and wanting to find Regina herself (not least because then they could go home). Nothing, interestingly, about enjoying being with Patrick (perhaps because this is another example of Nicola coming in below the hawks (thank you occasionalhope and highfantastical)). Patrick is certainly in the lead here, and for once, Nicola isn’t being being brave and resourceful, I think she just wants to go home. Her contribution to the dialogue is monosyllabic. Forest doesn’t specifically refer to her fear of open dark countryside, but as the evening draws in Nicola has lost her customary sang froid. Instead, the fear we are starkly shown is Patrick’s. And Nicola, who has confronted her fear of riding, is concerned about worrying her mother, and is essentially lost as the evening darkens and preparing to face her own fear, is sympathetic.

For me, here, AF loses her light touch on genre (riding across the country, sleeping in a haystack complete with convenient ladder, all seems more Blyton/Ferguson than Forest to me). However, the prospect of sleeping in a haystack, and fulfilling a dream, seduces Nicola from unwilling consort to eager companion. Then we leave Blyton far behind: the metaphysical conversations between Patrick and Nicola are pure Forest. Thinking about their futures, catapults them back to Jon’s death* (as is the way with sudden death: all conversational paths lead there). Later, their numinous discussion sends Nicola, enchantingly, to sleep. (Though doubtless there will be those who feel Patrick simply bored her to sleep). Do you believe in the Merrick ghost? Is the subsequent fall off Leeper’s Bluff a co-incidence?

Lost hawk ... found hawk ... Nicola fears another dead hawk … then the surprise: Patrick releases Regina. The hawk, which was “sort of Jon’s”, and which Nicola was going to care for is released without discussion - and Nicola seems to accept this completely. She does try harder for Sprog but Patrick is adamant: Sprog must go too. Is this for the practical reasons he gives, or is it more of a dog-in-manger approach: if he can’t have Regina (or Sprog) he cannot bear to let Nicola have them? Or perhaps a way of avoiding reminders of Jon?

After the adventure, the emotional swings, the closeness, the chapter ends flatly and abruptly with Patrick’s dismissal of The Sprog.

************

* This brings us a problem: if Cousin Jon had less than half his time he was presumably younger than 35 when he died, and as I think we generally put Geoff Marlow as 45+ here, that’s quite a gap for the holiday cousin / playmate. We could perhaps stretch it to under 40 (as they also talk about living to 80) but still a five+ year gap is more than is implied in the breakfast chapter. More folds in the timeline or can someone make better sense of this?


Well, that’s it from me (and to think, I worried I wouldn’t have enough to say). Thank you, one and all and especially lilliburlero for the opportunity. Now I look forward to hearing from everyone else …..

Comments

Lawrie's involuntary parody...

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

...I know from mortifying personal experience in an open public audition is quite possible, and it's just as difficult to stop doing it as Forest suggests. I'm nothing like as good an actor as Lawrie is implied to be, but yes, people can, will and do recognise it.

[occasionalhope.livejournal.com]

"In a prophetic warning, Nicola suggests Lawrie rehearses properly. Reading it now, it shouts out at me: does anyone recall if they noticed it on first reading?"

I don't remember noticing it before, but it did spring out at me this time. Lawrie is definitely, I think, a victim of her own hubris (and perhaps her disdain for the poem). If she'd only practiced it properly often enough, she would not have fallen into the trap she did. In fact, maybe even if Wendy Reynolds hadn't been there, Lawrie might not have been able to stop herself doing it that way.

[nzraya.livejournal.com]

I absolutely noticed this and was fearful about it on the first read-through. There's so much to dread in this book! Lawrie making an ass of herself is the least of anyone's problems, really, but I still dread it, and that little foreshadowing scene is full of the worst kind of suspense for me!

The cliffs

[occasionalhope.livejournal.com]

I have a lot of sympathy for Peter in this chapter in terms of his fear, because it sounds absolutely terrifying (and looks it in the illustrations too), but he really was a bit of an idiot to go in the circumstances. He was very lucky Nicola didn't fall where Patrick did.

Re: The cliffs

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

Agreed; it's definitely Peter and his atrocious judgment again (and I like seeing the thought -processes leading up to it).

Mind you, I think Patrick's absolutely demented to go back given what happened last time.

Merrick ghost

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

Superb fic (http://archiveofourown.org/works/28533) about the Merrick ghost by ankaret.

Re: Merrick ghost/haystacks

[antfan.livejournal.com]

I like the bit on the haystack, but I find it hard to believe that Nicola and Patrick would believe in ghosts, even though I know there are bits in the other books where Nicola's fear of supernatural is referred to, though in fairly minor ways. But she seems too rational, somehow.

As for Patrick, I remember the bit in Thuggery Affair where it says he's always baffled by other people's DIY theologies...I know a ghost isn't quite the same thing, and also that FL is before Forest decided he was a catholic, but still. Also the bit about Leepers Bluff seems like we're being asked to take the whole ghost thing seriously as readers - ie it's not just two kids scaring themselves and each other in the middle of the night. I think at that point it does begin to feel like something from a different kind of book, though not Enid Blyton.

(How do ghosts fit into Catholic theology, by the way? I do remember the bit in TPATR where Shakespeare says Hamlet's father must be a catholic ghost, because Protestants don't have purgatory - would ghosts still have their place theologically in 1948? )

The going off to the local farm for milk DOES sound very enid blyton to me (or is it Swallows and Amazons? Or both?) Or is that just what kids did in the late 40s?

Re: Merrick ghost

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

I've always loved that story.

But one of the personal things about FL, for me, is that I'm no better about ghosts than Nicola, and when I first found FL in the library I was absolutely gripped by the story and, of course, bedtime happened and I was still only part-way through. So I continued under the bedclothes by torchlight (I can't remember how old I must have been, but if I was still sharing a bedroom with my sister, certainly no older than ten or so) and then I got to the ghost bit, which came completely out of the blue and it was right in the middle of the night. I was too scared to go on and too scared to put the torch out, for ages. It somehow made it scarier that it was a noise, not an apparition (my only supernatural experience on my own account was also auditory, not visual, though that was many years later).

Lawrie's Sort of Day

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

I love this chapter. I like that the normally self obsessed Lawrie is the one to notice and comment on what an awful holiday Peter is having.
I love the conversation between Nicola, Lawrie and Ann as they go to their competitions. (And I agree with you about the the Marlow parents not coming in to see Nicola and Ann. The fact that Nicola and Ann accept it calmly doesn't make it right.) I love the bit where Ann is about to say something that would be respected by her friends at school, then she catches Nicola's eyes looking at her and stops. And Lawrie, the very realistically annoying child, goes on till she has to say it anyway.
I like the scenes with Nicola and Lawrie together, and the way Nicola knows what Lawrie is thinking or where she'll go without having to be told.
I do find Lawrie's performances convincing, especially when she imitates the Reynolds girl. I've known real children do similar things.
I'm slightly less convinced by Nicola's singing. She's had no training, we haven't been told that she's practised at all, and her identical twin can't sing at all. (I know this has been discussed at length on Trennels before). That said, it is a beautiful piece of writing, juxtaposing Nicola's memories of Jael with the words of the song; and then her pleasure at coming second, which she only indulges in private.

Re: Lawrie's Sort of Day

[occasionalhope.livejournal.com]

I think Nicola would actually prefer that her parents weren't there to hear her.

Re: Lawrie's Sort of Day

[sprog-63.livejournal.com]

I like Nicola's understated horror that after the recitation/imitation hooha Lawrie, oblivious, wants to imitate the "green women". Makes me laugh every time.

Re: Lawrie's Sort of Day

[biskybat.livejournal.com]

I'm never very convinced by children in books who can act exceptionally well, probably because I've never seen it in real life. I'm not a performer but have been involved in children's plays and performances for years and certainly there are children who have talent - but never anywhere near as convincingly as Lawrie and countless other fictional children. Perhaps I've been unlucky.

Singing is different. Lots of children love acting but shy away from solo singing. The child who is prepared to do it, who can sing on the note and do it well, stands out. Nicola won't have had training but she will have had what is now defunct in schools, regular rigorous class singing lessons. She wouldn't even have realised she was learning much. She would probably have had 'very good' on her school reports but never asked to sing solo. She wouldn't have known her own talent and any singing around the house would have been received with the usual Marlow flattening.

I like Nicola in this chapter (I often don't). I like the way she copes with Ellen Holroyd. Her thoughts, feelings and nerves during the singing contest are very real.

I'm not especially surprised by the Marlow parents not driving their children in to Colebridge. As a child I was very used to getting myself anywhere I needed to be. The car was absolutely not a taxi service for children who could get to places in other ways. And Geoff and Pam did turn up later, table booked, wanting to know how everything had gone. Seemed about right for the 50s. Probably some of the other mothers lived locally and it was easier and they might have been the type of 'fussy parent' disliked by the Marlows.

Re: Lawrie's Sort of Day/Ann's future career

[antfan.livejournal.com]

I did feel a bit for Ann. Usually I think Forest portrays her annoyingness rather well, but on this occasion I couldn't help feeling - well, why shouldn't she be a nurse and not a concert pianist if she wants? What's wrong with being useful? And why don't Nick and Lawrie just back off?

I think it's partly my annoyance at the whole Rowan/Trennels storyline that has put me in sympathy with Ann, who isn't going to do anything naval or family, but just head off and do her own thing. Nicola's attitude to her seems really uncalled for - Ann isn't being insincere in a sickly Unity Logan way, she's just saying what she feels, and she doesn't even especially want to do that except that her sisters force her into it. And she's not an especially good pianist anyway, and knows it.

I suppose nursing was a very conventional female occupation at the time - maybe AF takes against it for that reason? I certainly used to grit my teeth and decide not to be a teacher every time somebody said what a good occupation it was for a woman, when I was a child. There were all those "nurse" books for girls too, weren't there? Maybe there are all kinds of overtones around nursing as a fitting profession for females, that the more adventurous Marlows are resenting, that I'm just not getting.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

On 'theatre people', ever since I discovered that AF was next-door neighbour and BFs with the novelist, playwright, and belle-lettrist GB Stern (Gladys Bronwen, 'Peter' to her mates) - from similar background + another RC convert - I envisage her at parties with 'Peter''s theatrical chums, who were many and starry.

I think it's EoT which is dedicated to Stern.

[intrepid--fox.livejournal.com]

Possibly slightly pruriently, I have often wondered just what that BFship was. Is anything known about the relationship?

Ruby Ferguson's Jill books

[antfan.livejournal.com]

Ruby Ferguson - anodyne? Can't accept that one! A genre writer - but surely a very witty and amusing one, and subversive in her way.

Re: Ruby Ferguson's Jill books

[sprog-63.livejournal.com]

I'd like to know more about that ... I read (and enjoyed) them as a child and again skimmed them a couple of years ago, when I got them for my pony mad daughter (who loves them). All subversion passed me by, both times, please enlighten me, I love subversion! Mind you, I've nothing against genre either, just generally feel non-genre bears re-reading better. (P.S. Have you read Jane Smiley's adolescent horse books? They're good too.)

Re: Ruby Ferguson's Jill books

[colne-dsr.livejournal.com]

Ruby Ferguson could write about death.

"We went inside and looked at the marble people lying on their tombs, and spent a while in Poets' Corner arguing about who was there who shouldn't be, and who wasn't and should.

On the way out, just before we reached the west door, something happened that I shall never forget. Paul suddenly stood still and said in a clear and carrying voice, "What do you have to do to get buried in Westminster Abbey?"

People round about looked at him, as people often did look at Paul. He was tall for his age and handsome, dark-haired and blue-eyed like Father, with a touch of grace and an air of dignity that made him look older than his age.

"Father, what do you have to do?"

Father said, "In the old days, if you were rich enough you only had to pay for it. Now you have to be famous."

"We've got a hope," said Timmo.

"Speak for yourself," said Paul. He stood for a minute in thought and then we all walked on.

After many years I have paused on that very spot, and pictured my brother's slight, erect figure, and even seemed to hear his voice in that casual question of his. At my feet lies the grave of the Unknown Warrior.

"

(Children at the Shop, An Autobiography of Childhood, Ruby Ferguson.)

Pony books.

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

Thanks for mentioning the Jill Badger website. I'd never come across it before. I've just been having a rather nostalgic browse.

Peter

[antfan.livejournal.com]

I really feel for Peter through all of this. He's been rebuffed by Nicola - his close friend within the family - and Patrick, his former friend, at the start of the book. He's the one who then tries to make an overture with the rabbits - and it's a bit awkward, apparently, either through shyness or because Patrick and Nicola do feel they've been rather unkind. I think it's totally understandable that he'd then feel he had to go along on the cliffs. It's a lot to ask of an adolescent boy to admit that kind of fear, in front of another, older boy he doesn't know that well. In fact, I'd rather agree with Geoff that Nicola should take some of the blame for letting him.

Then he shoots Jael - that's truly terrible, and not in any way his fault that I can see.

Yes, it's a nice touch that it's Lawrie who notices all this. Nicola is so wrapped up in hawking and Patrick that it comes as a surprise.

Lily-livered loon

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

It occurs to me that Patrick might well have picked up this phrase from Nicola (in another context than her brother's fear, since he doesn't know about that) but it reinforces Peter's sense of betrayal having been dumped by That Merrick Boy in favour of his sister: that Patrick and Nicola are now on close enough terms to have unconsciously picked up each other's speech mannerisms.

(Or it might just have been an alliterative favourite of Forest's, but let's let our inner Watsons hang out.)

Re: Lily-livered loon

[mrs-redboots.livejournal.com]

Isn't it Shakespeare?

Regina/Bereavement

[antfan.livejournal.com]

"The hawk, which was “sort of Jon’s”, and which Nicola was going to care for is released without discussion - and Nicola seems to accept this completely. She does try harder for Sprog but Patrick is adamant: Sprog must go too. Is this for the practical reasons he gives, or is it more of a dog-in-manger approach: if he can’t have Regina (or Sprog) he cannot bear to let Nicola have them? Or perhaps a way of avoiding reminders of Jon?"

Reading it this time, it seemed to me that Patrick is surely choosing to let go of Jon/his grief for Jon in releasing Regina. This isn't explicitly stated, but Nicola does realise somewhere earlier that Patrick is clinging onto the hawks because of the link with Jon. It explains why he then has no patience with Sprog - having made the gesture/felt the release then presumably Sprog is just an irritating leftover from that.

I also can't help feeling birds are somehow symbolic of the spirit etc - thought usually doves I guess (holy ghost in paintings?)

Anyway, can't decide if this is just so obvious that nobody else has commented on it, or else as a theory it is just plain wrong. I don't really like it - at least if it's conscious, ie that Forest is intending it that way, and it's maybe symbolic - for reasons that I can't really express except in Nicola's words "how welly icky".

As an aside, it's rather odd I think that we never see Patrick and Jon together - so that a this thread of the book, Patrick's grief, is not really very - I don't know - we're not seeing what he's lost in a sense. But maybe that's the point - it's all about Nicola's observations.

Re: Regina/Bereavement

[antfan.livejournal.com]

And maybe I'm reading too much into them but these remarks seem significant:

"you know how one goes on with a thing until you've simply got to stop because it isn't there any more"

and "somewhere up there seeing us perfectly well and having a good laugh to herself"

Patrick to Nicola - both supposedly about Regina but...

[highfantastical.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed your post, sprog_63! Sorry to be so late in replying; personal issues have kept me offline a lot in the last few days. I'm charmed by our simultaneous lighting on the phrase 'poor Peter', though I quite agree he'd detest it.

I get intensely drawn into Lawrie's dramas, myself. I can see how ridiculous it is and how much she's brought it on herself, of course -- and how comical the wish to move straight onto imitating the green women is -- but oh gosh, I still absolutely bleed for her. Big Lawrie fan here, and a performer in another field (not actress), so maybe that augments my sympathy! But OUCH.

Nicola's broken-off song is so well-done, I think. AF is just absolutely masterly at handling emotion, albeit in an incredibly repressive way.

[sprog-63.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I hope things are better for you now, I missed you!

The Merricks

[biskybat.livejournal.com]

Is there a reason why Anthony Merrick has to decamp to London just because he's an MP? I would have thought Dorset or Wilts or wherever they are is a fairly easy commute. Is it because he has to entertain more and therefore needs Mrs Merrick with him?

The Marlows have an example of a neighbouring farm being managed adequately with no family at all in residence. Presumably they have a farm manager. Ok, the Merricks may be wealthier than the Marlows but it's logical to think that the Merricks would have been helpful about the problems of being an absent owner. But there is no evidence of this apart from Patrick's comment.

Re: The Merricks

[(Anonymous)]

As later books prove, they're definitely in Dorset. As for the commute, the next book (not really a spoiler alert!) is going to have the children taking 3 hours to get from home to school by train - a distance that (another not really a spoiler alert!) can be covered there and back on horseback in a short day. Take into account that House of Commons sittings tend to finish about 10 pm, or did then, and a commute isn't really an option.

[buntyandjinx.livejournal.com]

Late to this, I love the mention of Nicola getting used to groups of actors in years to come, proof positive that Laurie did fulfil her ambition (whether successfully or not is another question)

[sprog-63.livejournal.com]

"(whether successfully or not is another question)"

that's exactly how I see it, too - the level of her success is an open book!