Thank you very much for such a brilliant round-up of these chapters, which brings home to me very forcibly what an amazing book End of Term is - so much to analyze, so much humour, so many fascinating themes - the religious one especially - and new characters - Esther, Miranda, Janice and Miss Cromwell (OK so the last 3 did have small roles in Autumn Term) and all in these first 3 chapters.
I love the opening - it's hilarious to think of them all stuck on that platform, and reveals the characters of the four girls immediately: Ann overly conscientious and pouring oil on troubled waters, Ginty somewhat detached from the rest, Nick fed up but stoical, Lawrie fed up and absolutely not stoical but determined to extract her pound of flesh.
The Unity plotline from FL is so neatly tied up too - what writerly efficiency!
I also love Nicola in the guard carriage, struggling to adapt between home and school, and the unexpectedness of the guard's falconry expertise. (And Nicola does indeed consistently get on with people like guards.)
Then - Esther's snub of Nicola. This is brilliantly written, but is the first example of several of why I found EofT so hard to read as a child (and tended to reread it selectively). Forest really does specialise in these moments of shame and humiliation - at least in the earlier books. She never lightens them with any humour or narrative distance and although with adult eyes I admire the writing, and the emotional honesty, when younger they really made me squirm. Too close to the bone. I guess Nicola's trip to Port Wade in Autumn Term is the ultimate example but there are plenty in End of Term too. Remorseless. Thankfully we soon see a new perspective on Esther, other than arch-snubber.
On the other hand, as a child I DID like Forest's uncompromising view of parental divorce - always a horrible thing for the children - and thought this was more honest than some of the books around at the time (though they would have been published much later that EofT in actual fact) like Judy Blume's "Not The End of the world" which seemed to have an agenda of showing that parents divorcing was OK really. (Now, as an adult, I have more sympathy with what Blume was trying to do, but at the time it struck me as duplicitious).
And then Miranda - would be fascinated to know if she is a self-portrait. I think AF must have had a lot of confidence to write her the way she did - she is not afraid of making her the child of a rich businessman, for example, even though this could arguably be seen as a negative stereotype (or I suspect might be taken so by editors today).
So much more to say...but will stop blabbing on for now!
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2014-08-30 07:21 pm (UTC)I love the opening - it's hilarious to think of them all stuck on that platform, and reveals the characters of the four girls immediately: Ann overly conscientious and pouring oil on troubled waters, Ginty somewhat detached from the rest, Nick fed up but stoical, Lawrie fed up and absolutely not stoical but determined to extract her pound of flesh.
The Unity plotline from FL is so neatly tied up too - what writerly efficiency!
I also love Nicola in the guard carriage, struggling to adapt between home and school, and the unexpectedness of the guard's falconry expertise. (And Nicola does indeed consistently get on with people like guards.)
Then - Esther's snub of Nicola. This is brilliantly written, but is the first example of several of why I found EofT so hard to read as a child (and tended to reread it selectively). Forest really does specialise in these moments of shame and humiliation - at least in the earlier books. She never lightens them with any humour or narrative distance and although with adult eyes I admire the writing, and the emotional honesty, when younger they really made me squirm. Too close to the bone. I guess Nicola's trip to Port Wade in Autumn Term is the ultimate example but there are plenty in End of Term too. Remorseless. Thankfully we soon see a new perspective on Esther, other than arch-snubber.
On the other hand, as a child I DID like Forest's uncompromising view of parental divorce - always a horrible thing for the children - and thought this was more honest than some of the books around at the time (though they would have been published much later that EofT in actual fact) like Judy Blume's "Not The End of the world" which seemed to have an agenda of showing that parents divorcing was OK really. (Now, as an adult, I have more sympathy with what Blume was trying to do, but at the time it struck me as duplicitious).
And then Miranda - would be fascinated to know if she is a self-portrait. I think AF must have had a lot of confidence to write her the way she did - she is not afraid of making her the child of a rich businessman, for example, even though this could arguably be seen as a negative stereotype (or I suspect might be taken so by editors today).
So much more to say...but will stop blabbing on for now!