Readthrough: End of Term, chapters 1-3
Aug. 28th, 2014 10:12 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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trennelsWelcome back! Hope you enjoyed the break and are ready for more discussion.
End of Term returns to Kingscote, a year after the beginning of Autumn Term. Anyone else wonder about what happens in those missing terms? Perhaps something to explain Rowan’s decision to leave? This has been your regularly scheduled fic prompt.
If anyone is tempted to think that Forest has rather overdone Ann’s fussiness, I’ll be pleased to disabuse them, having spent more time than I would really like around people whose attitude to catching buses, trains and planes is two hours early good, four hours early better. Ann notably isn’t a fusspot when she’s managing people who aren’t her family--the Guides in Autumn Term think of her as a good delegator--her excessive concerns for them here, I think, are juxtaposed interestingly to Nicola’s reflection on ‘feeling like a pin between two magnets labelled “Home” and “School” ’.
Tim has undergone something of a change of image, but remains able to needle Nicola as well as ever. ‘Handsome, high-spirited Marlows’ is very good, I think.
What do people make of our first glimpse of Esther, and Nicola’s judgement of her looks as beautiful? And judgements of looks in the series as a whole?
And Nicola Marlow goes AWOL from another school-bound train... I’m always very proud of the Sprog and his sparrow.
Nicola’s tact is at full tilt in dealing with Esther’s distress, and I think this handles very eloquently the pain and embarrassment of tears that you feel you should have grown out of, but which insist on springing out. But there are still some slightly dubious moral judgements here in the assumption that tears have a value, in a sense, which can be degraded by releasing them too easily, as Lawrie is implied to do--whereas Esther puts a proper value on crying because her tears are difficult and violent. While I’m endeared by the resolution of the situation in Nicola’s finding out that Esther is crying for an animal rather than a human being, it also points to quite a curious value-system. It’s one stereotypically associated with a certain sort of socially privileged Englishness; perhaps there’s also a notion embedded there that to cry for one’s parents is childish, but to cry for a dog is more respectable somehow. In any case, it’s rather telling of Esther’s relationship with her parents. The frequency of parental divorce as an experience at Kingscote is interesting, I think. The temporal flexibility that’s a feature of later books in the series doesn’t apply yet, if we take Miranda’s account of wartime evacuation as a guide, and a relatively high divorce rate might also be an indicator of a late 40s setting rather than a 50s one?
Nicola’s exchange with Ann at the end of this chapter is painfully well-observed, I think: both of them, in their different ways, missing Rowan, Ann’s illogical ‘You wouldn’t have done this to Rowan’, Nicola’s inadvertently wounding ‘I wish Rowan was here’, Ann’s mixture of relief and anger at Nicola being safe, Nicola still being rather young to recognise that relief/fury complex, the little nod back to Falconer’s Lure with ‘Ann has feelings, same like the rest of us’.
Following directly on her exchange with Ann, Nicola has another uncomfortable conversation, with Miss Redmond. Wonderfully squirmy stuff: Redmond's fulsome magnanimity, Lawrie's speechless embarrassment, and Nicola's disgust at Redmond's language of personal development: 'All this talk about letting down and not feeling ready--how could people talk like that?', Redmond's anger at the knockback. Sublime. (I also love Nicola 'being Stalky'.)
I also like the introduction of Miranda as a real character rather than an off-stage caustic presence, without quite breaking with the intimations we get of her in Autumn Term. I've long thought Miranda might be something of a self-portrait, representing the Jewish part of Forest's background as Patrick does her Catholicism.
'Someone who saw the joke at the same time as you did...' I think speaks to a lot of bright, well-read and informed children, which I think Forest must have been. And I enjoy the way that Miranda and Nicola share an intelligence that encourages candour in one another: about holidays being dreary, Karen's ineptitude as Head Girl, a shared dislike of Lois.
Poor Nicola: her first evening at school, and her fourth uncomfortable encounter, this time with Lois herself...Lois's smugness is sharply observed here, I think.
I'd love to hear what you think of Miranda's disclosure of her feelings for Janice and her hostility to 'pashes'. I tend to read this as a sort of (very quiet) coming-out. For the novel's presumed target market it's a pretty subtle distinction between the sentimentality of the worshippers at the shrine of Eileen Benson and Joyce Craig and a more firmly established romantic/sexual orientation. If I'm counting back right, the Lower V when Miranda was in IIA would have been Rowan's form. What on earth did she have to say about kirbigrips under pillows and roses in silver paper? This has been your regularly scheduled &c. I also love Miranda's irrepressible enjoyment of a row; making her a kind of anti-Ginty, I think.
The magnificent dottiness of a play cast according to character rather than talent still makes me gape and giggle. And 'Sheep: noises off' has barely staled over the quarter century I've known the novel.
(i)
Miranda's fickleness in the choice of Best Friends is funny but also unsettling; and I appreciate the indication that for all their emotional sophistication, these are characters still young enough to care deeply about who sits next to whom in class.
If Nicola prefers Cromwell just for Maths, I think I prefer her just in fiction, where I enjoy her sardonic repartee enormously: in real life she is the sort of teacher who would have spotted my weakness and gone for it mercilessly as she does for Lawrie's. But what do others think of her?
The little intimation of the swap-plot(s) to come is nice, I think. Forest handles the venerable notion of twins swapping with dash and confidence, I think, and of this we will have much more to say. But here it serves to highlight the change in friendship dynamic: Tim-Nick-and-Lawrie was already fracturing in Autumn Term, now it seems definitely to have become Tim-and-Lawrie and Nick-and-Miranda(-and-possibly-Esther).
(ii)
The rearrangements of the casting for the play are great fun, but was there ever a barmier way to go about putting on a show? Feel free to share ghastly school drama stories!
As someone who routinely roleplays Prince Charles Edward, I rather like Ginty's sense of herself as exiled reprobate, and quite understand her dismay at being promoted to Crowd. Lawrie's conceit, meanwhile, is as bumptious as ever, and her sisters as sternly engaged in repressing it.
It's a telling little insight that it was Miss Keith who expanded the Christmas Play from an entertainment to a Community Effort, the sort of bye-writing at which Forest excels. And Dr Herrick's polite attempts to amplify it into a production suitable for a cathedral are nicely done, I think: although he's the representative of the ecclesiastical world, he's much more of a impresario than the Kingscote staff, with Ussher here committed to a worshipful vision. Is there any fic about Dr Herrick? He's one of my favourite minor characters. (This has been &c.)
Again, a little foretaste of the swap-plot as Dr Herrick mistakes Lawrie for Nicola; and the audition scene gruesomely sheep-and-goats. Dr Herrick's embarrassing idea that Lawrie and Nicola should walk together again indicates his showmanlike tendencies; gentle and courteous though he may be, he's rather ruthless of people's feelings when it comes to mounting a production. And this incident marks a further wedge between Nicola and Tim-and-Lawrie. That Nicola's feelings are sufficiently bruised by the quarrel with her sister that it is only when she's seeing to Sprog that it occurs to her how exposed she'll be, singing solo in the Minster, I think, is a really neat touch of characterisation.
Although I have to try very hard to care much about the netball bits of the books under normal circumstances, I really like the little episode in which Lois refashions the younger girls' joshing of Nicola as an anecdote about Nicola's big-headedness. Val's uncritical acceptance of Lois's manipulation neatly indicates her acceptance of authority and hierarchy, while Janice's scepticism displays independence.
I enjoy Nicola's surprise at Shakespeare knowing anything as 'useful' as falconry; and perhaps the germ of an interest in Shakespeare in 'wondering how they fitted into their various plays'.
What do people think of Lois's behaviour towards Nicola at the practice? Ideas about what motivates her? Just the feud with Rowan?
(iii)
As someone who's a cheerful-noise-in-the-bath sort, I quite appreciate the horrors of Dr Herrick's reign of terror. Tim's dismay at remaining in the Crowd now the criteria for inclusion have changed, and its consequences in stinging-nettle satire, I think is handled with great plausibility. Marie's hearty attempts at joining in always make me squirm, as does her falling neatly into Miranda's baited trap. I'm fascinated by and would love to hear what people have to say about Miranda's Jewish identity, by the way (also: fic prompt--I wish I had the knowledge and competency to try my hand.)
Lawrie's religious ignorance will be picked up later in her conversation with Madame Orly. Is it plausible? End of Term is the novel in which Forest's religious commentary begins in earnest. It's one of the strands in the series that I enjoy most, and I'd just like to open up to discussion this novel's (and the series') religious themes. (I don't think it's a particularly spoilery area, with a couple of exceptions: use your discretion.)
Here's![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ankaret's fic 'The Next Christmas', by the way, in which Patrick and Ann discuss religion. I read this and wandered around claiming it was canon for about three years before running across it again and realising it wasn't. Legionseagle's 'To Strive To Seek' also contains some great sectarian détente and misunderstanding.
Finally, I have never, ever, been able to hear 'See Amid the Winter Snow' without thinking of school dinner.
Enough from me--have at it, and I look forward to your comments!
(Posting slightly early this week as I'll be occupied and largely offline tomorrow.)
End of Term returns to Kingscote, a year after the beginning of Autumn Term. Anyone else wonder about what happens in those missing terms? Perhaps something to explain Rowan’s decision to leave? This has been your regularly scheduled fic prompt.
If anyone is tempted to think that Forest has rather overdone Ann’s fussiness, I’ll be pleased to disabuse them, having spent more time than I would really like around people whose attitude to catching buses, trains and planes is two hours early good, four hours early better. Ann notably isn’t a fusspot when she’s managing people who aren’t her family--the Guides in Autumn Term think of her as a good delegator--her excessive concerns for them here, I think, are juxtaposed interestingly to Nicola’s reflection on ‘feeling like a pin between two magnets labelled “Home” and “School” ’.
Tim has undergone something of a change of image, but remains able to needle Nicola as well as ever. ‘Handsome, high-spirited Marlows’ is very good, I think.
What do people make of our first glimpse of Esther, and Nicola’s judgement of her looks as beautiful? And judgements of looks in the series as a whole?
And Nicola Marlow goes AWOL from another school-bound train... I’m always very proud of the Sprog and his sparrow.
Nicola’s tact is at full tilt in dealing with Esther’s distress, and I think this handles very eloquently the pain and embarrassment of tears that you feel you should have grown out of, but which insist on springing out. But there are still some slightly dubious moral judgements here in the assumption that tears have a value, in a sense, which can be degraded by releasing them too easily, as Lawrie is implied to do--whereas Esther puts a proper value on crying because her tears are difficult and violent. While I’m endeared by the resolution of the situation in Nicola’s finding out that Esther is crying for an animal rather than a human being, it also points to quite a curious value-system. It’s one stereotypically associated with a certain sort of socially privileged Englishness; perhaps there’s also a notion embedded there that to cry for one’s parents is childish, but to cry for a dog is more respectable somehow. In any case, it’s rather telling of Esther’s relationship with her parents. The frequency of parental divorce as an experience at Kingscote is interesting, I think. The temporal flexibility that’s a feature of later books in the series doesn’t apply yet, if we take Miranda’s account of wartime evacuation as a guide, and a relatively high divorce rate might also be an indicator of a late 40s setting rather than a 50s one?
Nicola’s exchange with Ann at the end of this chapter is painfully well-observed, I think: both of them, in their different ways, missing Rowan, Ann’s illogical ‘You wouldn’t have done this to Rowan’, Nicola’s inadvertently wounding ‘I wish Rowan was here’, Ann’s mixture of relief and anger at Nicola being safe, Nicola still being rather young to recognise that relief/fury complex, the little nod back to Falconer’s Lure with ‘Ann has feelings, same like the rest of us’.
Following directly on her exchange with Ann, Nicola has another uncomfortable conversation, with Miss Redmond. Wonderfully squirmy stuff: Redmond's fulsome magnanimity, Lawrie's speechless embarrassment, and Nicola's disgust at Redmond's language of personal development: 'All this talk about letting down and not feeling ready--how could people talk like that?', Redmond's anger at the knockback. Sublime. (I also love Nicola 'being Stalky'.)
I also like the introduction of Miranda as a real character rather than an off-stage caustic presence, without quite breaking with the intimations we get of her in Autumn Term. I've long thought Miranda might be something of a self-portrait, representing the Jewish part of Forest's background as Patrick does her Catholicism.
'Someone who saw the joke at the same time as you did...' I think speaks to a lot of bright, well-read and informed children, which I think Forest must have been. And I enjoy the way that Miranda and Nicola share an intelligence that encourages candour in one another: about holidays being dreary, Karen's ineptitude as Head Girl, a shared dislike of Lois.
Poor Nicola: her first evening at school, and her fourth uncomfortable encounter, this time with Lois herself...Lois's smugness is sharply observed here, I think.
I'd love to hear what you think of Miranda's disclosure of her feelings for Janice and her hostility to 'pashes'. I tend to read this as a sort of (very quiet) coming-out. For the novel's presumed target market it's a pretty subtle distinction between the sentimentality of the worshippers at the shrine of Eileen Benson and Joyce Craig and a more firmly established romantic/sexual orientation. If I'm counting back right, the Lower V when Miranda was in IIA would have been Rowan's form. What on earth did she have to say about kirbigrips under pillows and roses in silver paper? This has been your regularly scheduled &c. I also love Miranda's irrepressible enjoyment of a row; making her a kind of anti-Ginty, I think.
The magnificent dottiness of a play cast according to character rather than talent still makes me gape and giggle. And 'Sheep: noises off' has barely staled over the quarter century I've known the novel.
(i)
Miranda's fickleness in the choice of Best Friends is funny but also unsettling; and I appreciate the indication that for all their emotional sophistication, these are characters still young enough to care deeply about who sits next to whom in class.
If Nicola prefers Cromwell just for Maths, I think I prefer her just in fiction, where I enjoy her sardonic repartee enormously: in real life she is the sort of teacher who would have spotted my weakness and gone for it mercilessly as she does for Lawrie's. But what do others think of her?
The little intimation of the swap-plot(s) to come is nice, I think. Forest handles the venerable notion of twins swapping with dash and confidence, I think, and of this we will have much more to say. But here it serves to highlight the change in friendship dynamic: Tim-Nick-and-Lawrie was already fracturing in Autumn Term, now it seems definitely to have become Tim-and-Lawrie and Nick-and-Miranda(-and-possibly-Esther).
(ii)
The rearrangements of the casting for the play are great fun, but was there ever a barmier way to go about putting on a show? Feel free to share ghastly school drama stories!
As someone who routinely roleplays Prince Charles Edward, I rather like Ginty's sense of herself as exiled reprobate, and quite understand her dismay at being promoted to Crowd. Lawrie's conceit, meanwhile, is as bumptious as ever, and her sisters as sternly engaged in repressing it.
It's a telling little insight that it was Miss Keith who expanded the Christmas Play from an entertainment to a Community Effort, the sort of bye-writing at which Forest excels. And Dr Herrick's polite attempts to amplify it into a production suitable for a cathedral are nicely done, I think: although he's the representative of the ecclesiastical world, he's much more of a impresario than the Kingscote staff, with Ussher here committed to a worshipful vision. Is there any fic about Dr Herrick? He's one of my favourite minor characters. (This has been &c.)
Again, a little foretaste of the swap-plot as Dr Herrick mistakes Lawrie for Nicola; and the audition scene gruesomely sheep-and-goats. Dr Herrick's embarrassing idea that Lawrie and Nicola should walk together again indicates his showmanlike tendencies; gentle and courteous though he may be, he's rather ruthless of people's feelings when it comes to mounting a production. And this incident marks a further wedge between Nicola and Tim-and-Lawrie. That Nicola's feelings are sufficiently bruised by the quarrel with her sister that it is only when she's seeing to Sprog that it occurs to her how exposed she'll be, singing solo in the Minster, I think, is a really neat touch of characterisation.
Although I have to try very hard to care much about the netball bits of the books under normal circumstances, I really like the little episode in which Lois refashions the younger girls' joshing of Nicola as an anecdote about Nicola's big-headedness. Val's uncritical acceptance of Lois's manipulation neatly indicates her acceptance of authority and hierarchy, while Janice's scepticism displays independence.
I enjoy Nicola's surprise at Shakespeare knowing anything as 'useful' as falconry; and perhaps the germ of an interest in Shakespeare in 'wondering how they fitted into their various plays'.
What do people think of Lois's behaviour towards Nicola at the practice? Ideas about what motivates her? Just the feud with Rowan?
(iii)
As someone who's a cheerful-noise-in-the-bath sort, I quite appreciate the horrors of Dr Herrick's reign of terror. Tim's dismay at remaining in the Crowd now the criteria for inclusion have changed, and its consequences in stinging-nettle satire, I think is handled with great plausibility. Marie's hearty attempts at joining in always make me squirm, as does her falling neatly into Miranda's baited trap. I'm fascinated by and would love to hear what people have to say about Miranda's Jewish identity, by the way (also: fic prompt--I wish I had the knowledge and competency to try my hand.)
Lawrie's religious ignorance will be picked up later in her conversation with Madame Orly. Is it plausible? End of Term is the novel in which Forest's religious commentary begins in earnest. It's one of the strands in the series that I enjoy most, and I'd just like to open up to discussion this novel's (and the series') religious themes. (I don't think it's a particularly spoilery area, with a couple of exceptions: use your discretion.)
Here's
ankaret's fic 'The Next Christmas', by the way, in which Patrick and Ann discuss religion. I read this and wandered around claiming it was canon for about three years before running across it again and realising it wasn't. Legionseagle's 'To Strive To Seek' also contains some great sectarian détente and misunderstanding.Finally, I have never, ever, been able to hear 'See Amid the Winter Snow' without thinking of school dinner.
Enough from me--have at it, and I look forward to your comments!
(Posting slightly early this week as I'll be occupied and largely offline tomorrow.)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Miss Redmond
Date: 2014-08-29 07:57 am (UTC)And it is a massively - but all too believably - manipulative scene (I don't want to rush ahead, but it's also essential set-up for later plot developments). That whole "we are the voice of reason and your not doing what we want reflects badly on you" which completely ignores the fact that Guides is a voluntary, leisure-time activity is so beautifully done (and shows Ann is completely wrong in her insistence that Redmond doesn't let Guide things spill over into school, too.)
I've met teachers like that, of course - I think the staff are one of the minor triumphs of Forest's depictions of school - and Redmond is the quintessential "for your own good" sort of teacher. What's more, you can see how the environment shapes her worse characteristics.
I had a copy of "Judy, Patrol Leader" which was an example of the sub-genre of Guiding school stories, and I've always been amused by the way that aspect, too, of the genre is subtly dissected by Forest.
Re: Miss Redmond
Date: 2014-08-29 10:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-29 10:59 am (UTC)I think after what happened during the twins first train trip to Kingscote; the "shipwrecking" in TMATT; and the various incidents FL (Nicola and Peter's cliff rescue, Ginty going AWOL during the competition;) -- Ann's caution is more than justified. In fact Nicola bounding off the train in pursuit of Sprog (however necessary) just proves the point that her sisters really are prone to be involved in incidents.
I'd love to hear what you think of Miranda's disclosure of her feelings for Janice and her hostility to 'pashes'. I tend to read this as a sort of (very quiet) coming-out. For the novel's presumed target market it's a pretty subtle distinction between the sentimentality of the worshippers at the shrine of Eileen Benson and Joyce Craig and a more firmly established romantic/sexual orientation. {snip} I also love Miranda's irrepressible enjoyment of a row; making her a kind of anti-Ginty, I think.
Well I personally adore it, and frankly it's the openness with which AF details Miranda's infatuation that cemented my love of the series. I find it very true to my personal experience, so that probably played no small part. I'm someone who likes Rowan and Nick, but Miranda is the character who really engages me. It's interesting that you (accurately) describe her as the anti-Ginty, because I really don't like Ginty. (Although I am more sympathetic to her now that I've read TMATT and FL -- I was missing a lot of backstory!)
I've no doubt others more widely read can point me to other examples of same-sex romantic feelings in YA fiction, but this was the one I had as an adolescent. And it's the one that illustrated it in a way that I identified with. (I tried reading adult "lesbian" literature, and it just wasn't what I was looking for.)
Although I have to try very hard to care much about the netball bits of the books under normal circumstances, I really like the little episode in which Lois refashions the younger girls' joshing of Nicola as an anecdote about Nicola's big-headedness. Val's uncritical acceptance of Lois's manipulation neatly indicates her acceptance of authority and hierarchy, while Janice's scepticism displays independence.
Yes, the netball drags in general although there are great bits of character work that it reveals. But compared to the cricket of Cricket Term which I find wonderful, it's pretty woeful in comparison. (It was a stroke of genius to have the different forms play each other for the cricket comp -- so much more interesting to see the cast of characters we know up against each other, instead of a anonymous team from some other school!)
One thing I did want to mention here is that Janice's first appearance on page in person (I think that's correct isn't it? Or does she appear in Autumn Term?) is magnificent! After the buildup we've had from Miranda confessing to her crush one wonders what Janice will be like, and she doesn't disappoint:
"Lois, pleased by this uncritical acceptance of her story – from which Lawrie had practically disappeared, her lines having been taken over by Nicola – added some comparisons with other Marlows as she had known: particularly Rowan. One way and another, she was having a pretty good time, until she caught Janice Scott's eye – the cool, appraising eye of someone who knows a piece of fiction when she hears it and wonders just what's behind it. Lois flushed, and stumbled to a stop."
I just love the economy with which AF introduces the object of Miranda's admiration, and how quickly we get an idea that she is singular character. Not only is she immune to her form's groupthink, she's got this penetrating insight and curiosity. Basically I think Miranda chose a very worthy object to get crushed upon.
I'd personally love some fic about what Nick actually thinks about Miranda's crush. Does she recognise it for what it is, or does she just think it's a more dignified version of sleeping with kirbigrips?
Re: Miss Redmond
Date: 2014-08-29 11:08 am (UTC)Teachers deciding one needs to be taken down a peg can be absolute menaces; there's a beautiful moment in the film of Shirley Valentine, a flashback to school where the teacher refuses to accept Shirley's answer of "the wheel" (as the greatest ever invention) on the basis that though the answer is right, Shirley's answering the question isn't valid because "someone must have told you." Shirley promptly gives up on (formal) education on the basis that all education consists of being told things, and if that's a reason not to be given credit for knowing them, then the whole system is flaky.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-29 11:49 am (UTC)Clare Mallory frequently deals with girls being "keen on" older girls, generally sympathetically, and she in turn refers very admiringly to the 1929 book, Evelyn Finds Herself, which is mainly (? from memory) about the evolutions over several years in a school friendship between two girls, including the attachment of one of them to her coded-lesbian schoolteacher (who is sympathetic and supportive, but in a settled relationship of her own).
no subject
Date: 2014-08-29 11:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-29 12:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-29 12:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-29 12:46 pm (UTC)Miranda - coming out?
Date: 2014-08-29 01:15 pm (UTC)This is our first real meeting with Miranda herself rather than the reported-Miranda we know from AT and immediately we are introduced to her relationship with Jan. In that way it is obviously an important part of her character, and I do see it as signalling this to the reader (presumably deliberately: did this ever get raised with AF while she was dismissing Tim and Lawrie?). That Miranda has "a thing for" Janice, is definitely acknowledged between her and Nicola, but I do not get any hint from the text that either of them are aware of this in the sense of a precursor to lesbian identity for Miranda: so in that way, I do not think it is even a quiet coming out. Later (CT) they discuss Miranda having watched Janice when she was in Kindergarten and how "faithful" Miranda has been. It is not until this conversation that Nicola realises how important Janice is to Miranda. And even then I am not sure either of them recognise it as anything else. That's not to say I disagree with you that that is where Miranda is heading!
I imagine many of us (however we define ourselves now) read this passage through the lens of our own experiences as girls/children, and undoubtedly I am doing so myself.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-29 01:41 pm (UTC)E L Haverfield's The Luck of Lois has same-sex romantic pining (stoically for months) resolved during a forest fire rescue and some of her other books have intense female friendships. That's same age rather than a junior-senior crush. In Dorita Fairlie Bruce there's Primula Mary Beton's thing for Diana Stewart because she thinks she looks like the reincarnation of Mary Queen of Scots, but, being DFB, this is dealt with in a very matter-of-fact manner rather than romantic. And the Anti-Soppist League in DFB's Dimsie Moves Up Again was a self-help group founded specifically to prevent them developing crushes on seniors and going round sleeping with people's hair ribbons under their pillows (what was it with hair accessories?) and giving them flowers, a hazard that Mabs Hunter's mother thinks strikes teenage girls "like measles".
no subject
Date: 2014-08-29 02:16 pm (UTC)I read EoT when I was about the same age as Nicola and having similar feelings to certain older girls, which I never at the time or indeed for another decade considered at all related to the feelings I soon had for other girls in my year (and kept damn quiet about!) From being on the receiving end later, I think at least half of my admirers weren't at all queer. No idea why I got latched onto, being a quiet aloof type and definitely labelled Uncooperative - I had a lot of sympathy with Jan then and now!
no subject
Date: 2014-08-29 07:56 pm (UTC)*Or whatever it is called. I may be thinking of Wooster.
Re: Miss Redmond
Date: 2014-08-29 07:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-29 08:09 pm (UTC)Re: Miss Redmond
Date: 2014-08-29 09:53 pm (UTC)Re: Miss Redmond
Date: 2014-08-29 10:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-29 11:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-30 11:25 am (UTC)Re: Miss Redmond
Date: 2014-08-30 11:54 am (UTC)But I wonder if maybe it's because she's wrongfooted by the lack of the expected gratitude from the twins, if she's the kind of person who can't cope when that happens, and it's a sort of defence mechanism. (Still no excuse.) And then if she herself feels embarrassed/awkward/almost humiliated about this incident, it feeds into her feelings about Nicola and makes her all the more receptive to Lois. And more against Nicola than Lawrie, because a not-very-perceptive person is going to see Lawrie, silent, and Nicola apparently taking the lead, and perhaps think L is just gong along with what her more dominant sister says.
Re: Miss Redmond
Date: 2014-08-30 12:51 pm (UTC)Re: Miss Redmond
Date: 2014-08-30 12:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-30 03:43 pm (UTC)I wonder in the Jews can't take part in the Nativity scene, if a conversation like this played out at South Hampsted High School. How much did AF feel excluded from Christian events.
I don't find the netball scenes drag, on the contrary I love them now and as a schoolgirl, who'd never shown any previous sporting prowess, they inspired me to become a rather marvellous Goal Attack, though I say so myself.
And I don't see Miranda's affiliation to Jan as a coming out. At that time "pashes" were par for the course in boarding schools. Like someone else, I also remembering harbouring feelings of awe for some of the older girls, though by the 1980s I knew better than to voice them. Miranda has just chosen a classy object for her affections.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-30 04:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-30 04:12 pm (UTC)