Readthrough: End of Term: Chapters 8-10

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

I relish Miranda's reflections on the Christians' seeming irreligion and Lawrie's thoughts on acting which open this chapter, and Nicola's resultant 'chilly sense of inadequacy' is a great development of that. Nicola dimly quoting Peter quoting Macbeth is rather touching.

The conversation with Bunty lightens the mood: Nicola discovers she may have become an object of admiration among the Seconds. Does anyone go in for Nicola's reassuring 'This time tomorrow...' routine? I've always felt like Lawrie (and like Nicola does here.)

More of Esther's mother's ghastly manipulative correspondence. It is a truth universally acknowledged that if you really want your readers to loathe a character's mother, then she must be made to do something beastly to a dog, but here it really works, I think. Nicola and Miranda's plan is splendidly crackpot, especially the notion of involving Mr Merrick. I enjoy the way the friendship between Nicola and Miranda is shown to deepen as they discuss their parents: 'Mr West and Mrs Marlow had quite a lot in common, Captain Marlow and Mrs West were absolutely different'--quite an interesting way to put it.

The conversation with Anthony Merrick interests me: he only really becomes serious and convinced when Nicola relates the situation to Patrick and his loss of Regina.

Miranda's account of anti-Semitism is painful, and Nicola’s ‘muddled feeling that she should apologize for the stupidity and bad manners of her countrymen’, only to realise they are Miranda’s too: a very plausible reaction by someone who’s had the privilege of never really having to think about it before.

The Copper Kettle reminds me of a café of the same name on Kings Parade in Cambridge, now, I think, defunct. The coffee was ghastly and it served a perfectly gruesome sticky article called a Rum Baba, though not Special Chocolate Cake. Happy days.

Anyone wonder why Nicola hates Dickens?

I wonder that there aren’t more questions about Nicola receiving phone calls from an MP about a dog, but perhaps I don’t run in quite the same circles as the inmates of Kingscote.

The patient development of the circumstances making Lawrie and Nicola’s swap possible pays off wonderfully, I think in, the ‘explosion’ in Nicola’s mind as it occurs to her and--especially--her manoeuvring Tim into actually making the suggestion.

Own up: who else of you tosses a coin and then does what you secretly wanted to do anyway?

The sketch of the Marlow sisters’ nerves is nice, especially Lawrie’s blazing intensity, though I can’t quite hear Ann being ‘staccato and over-funny’ somehow.

The confrontation with Miss Kempe and Miss Cromwell is full of lovely detail: the repeated ‘A pause. someone else tried.’; Lois being ‘too patently on their side’; Tim ‘proceeding under tow to the Falklands for repair’; Val’s officious usurpation of prerogative; Lawrie’s ‘hunted, uncertain voice’ leading into her confession of the match swap; Miss Cromwell’s fury over Lawrie’s pagan bargain with (apparently) pagan gods; Nicola miserable enough to find Ann’s sympathy comforting. I love it.

Dr Herrick’s apparent exasperation with the play’s rapid personnel turnover turns out to be very fortunate: after having Nicola snatched out of the Choir, he’s seems to have given up on providing understudies. I do, however, wonder how Helen Bagshaw feels about all this? (This has been your regularly scheduled fic prompt).

Kempe’s interrogation of Nicola as to Lawrie’s suitability for the part seems rather desperate. (Staff pov fic of the play would also be very entertaining, I think.) Jan’s defence of Miranda as suitable for the role of angel always amuses me, as perhaps the only moment in the series when we see her lose her cool a bit.

I’m also immensely touched by Lawrie the trouper, and Jan’s startled reaction to her professionalism. It’s a nice detail that Nicola remembers to tell an angry Miranda that Jan supported her, and the calming, decisive effect that has upon her.

The final pages of this chapter both come full circle to its opening discussion of inducing religious feeling in an audience, and set the scene beautifully for the account of the play in the following chapter.



Again, Catholicism is associated with unselfconscious behaviour in church, as Patrick suggests taking Daks into the Minster. For some reason I always think of Helena as a convert upon marriage: though Patrick's reminder not to genuflect suggests the cradle.

I'm amused by Patrick and Mme Orly's shared scepticism, and Patrick's surprised that the latter is not 'maudlin' over her grandchildren. Patrick seems to be projecting his own introversion here: 'it was always embarrassing, seeing people you liked make fools of themselves', which he didn't do when he asked Nick to sing in the Minster at half-term, a much more 'hot-making' thing to do, to my mind, than sing as part of a scheduled performance.

Mme Orly's incredulity at Nicola being able to sing--ouch! I find Patrick's dismissal of Coleridge rather painful (I like Coleridge as a personality as well as the poetry, though flawed is an understatement) but I suppose the Merrick boy would think him a bit of an ass.

The gallery-ex-machina, with its excellent view and acoustics, which nobody seems to have thought of as an audience overflow space, is rather improbable. Perhaps it's actually practically crumbling and Patrick and Rowan are risking a very nasty accident going up there at all. Anyway, at this point I start enjoying myself so much I don't care any more.

Miranda's stillness, and Patrick's fascination with it, ties in nicely to the theme of artifice which governs this chapter: it might be attributable merely to the feeling of 'having bitten off more the than she could chew' at the the end of chapter 8, but the effect is compelling.

Rowan's casting as Gabriel gives a nice insight into what the play cast-by-worthy-character might have been like. It also suggests that Miss Keith approved of her rather more than Rowan has previously indicated. I love Rowan and Patrick's sectarian exchange--Patrick's preference for the Authorized Version over the Douay-Rheims is predictable, but nice nonetheless--turning to Rowan's embarrassment as the question of actual belief is raised.

The livelier, more irreverent Crowd, meanwhile, seems to represent the idea of belief 'without reservation'. Amid all Forest's commentary on transmitting religious feeling and artifice, Ann stands as a rare example of someone who has both genuine faith and the stage presence to convey a sense of it.

I don't know the carol that Patrick doesn't, either, and nor does Google (at least my algorithmic iteration of it doesn't). Anyone care to enlighten us? It sounds like a good 'un, given that it gives the Merrick Boy a visionary moment (I feel he might be prone to those).

Celia Frant is surely worth a drabble or two, isn't she?

I think Forest does a good job of suggesting Lawrie's talent: for me, the most telling detail is that she has the gift of eliciting better performances from the others; given Lawrie's self-conceit and self-centredness, this must be a pure function of her gift: I've worked with actors like that, though, and it is a real thing. And making Rowan's face 'stiff and set'! A fine thing! I also enjoy the audience's 'rather sickening' amusement at what does sound like a slightly saccharine moment between Gabriel and the Boy.

Lawrie's bumptious vanity is beautifully contrasted to her unselfconscious persona as the Boy. Rowan, in true Marlow family tradition, is not about to encourage it, but her "Ghastly child" has some pride in it, I think. Trust the Merrick Boy to spot the reference to St Stephen, and subject it to critique. I always smile at that, thinking of Celia Frant being rather pleased with her own cleverness.

The appearance of Sprog, Patrick's moved incredulity and Nicola's worry (I adore the detail of it being like Pam Marlow's worry at her children's appearances, which suggests she has an opinion of their talents not quite so far removed from her own mother's as she might like to think...) is a great moment.

Forest handles the potential sentimentality of the Shepherd Boy's final appearance with great aplomb; a softy myself, I always feel a bit misty about it, like Mrs Bertie reading Misunderstood or the old ladies in the audience (it can't be sentimental if it makes Rowan shiver, can it?), by following it with Patrick's realisation that Lawrie can never have heard of St Stephen. The added Flight into Egypt sounds pretty effective too.

The last few pages of the chapter are gorgeous, I think. The audience standing (gulp); the moment when Nicola sees her grandmother looking surprised, the nostalgia of Dr Herrick's reading of 'Once in Royal David's City' (for some reason on this readthrough, I have been thinking a lot about Dr Herrick: how incredulously relieved he must be that it all went off so well!); Patrick's embarrassed dislike of the Victorian admonitions in the third verse (I can never hear it without thinking of him; as a child I thought the presumption of 'Christian children all must be / Mild, obedient, good as he' positively blasphemous); Patrick's interest in people 'out of context' and their 'chameleon blood'(Forest seems to have thought back to this attraction when she wrote the exchange in Cricket Term between Nicola and Ann about Ginty's opalescent changeability; clearly it's one of the Merrick Boy's kinks).

And the last sentence of the chapter...no words.





This does anti-climax brilliantly, I think, with the parental natter: Pam's embarrassment at the Marlows 'swarming rather', as it's later put; the faintly ominous mention of Ginty's good looks by Mrs Merrick, juxtaposed to both mothers' assumption that the real friendship is between Nicola and Patrick; Mrs Marlow worrying about Lawrie in 'ghastly lodgings and tenth-rate reps' (this has been your regularly scheduled &c.; I always think a crossover with An Awfully Big Adventure); the glimpse of Mr Merrick's visit to Esther (this has been &c.) which seems to have perhaps prompted Mrs Thorne's conscience.

I'm intrigued by Nicola's attribution of Lawrie's successful performance to her being 'afraid of lots of things', especially since there is such an emphasis in the previous chapter on Lawrie's ability to transform herself, to become someone else. On the other hand, Lawrie does draw from life in her acting: viz. the irony of using the moment when she found out that Nicola had been cast instead of her to portray disappointment at being left behind. And Nicola listening to Lawrie but paying little attention otherwise: I wonder how Nicola feels about Lawrie's triumph, given that Nicola prefers acting to singing, but has been repeatedly told she was never quite right as the Shepherd Boy and so on.

I also like Miranda's puzzled response to the improbability of the Christian story: 'so unlikely, it would have to be true' is in some ways not a bad approximation to certain understandings of the way faith works.

It is typically Forestian to end not with exhilaration, but with the apprehension of blood for breakfast, and I love it.



Right, quite enough from me. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts, and thanks for all your contributions so far.

legionseagle (to whom, grateful thanks) has kindly offered to take over posting on Peter's Room, which we'll begin with Chapters 1-3 next week. That post will go up on Thursday 25th rather than Friday 26th.

Comments

The Shepherd Boy and Marie Dobson

[elktheory.livejournal.com]

In thinking about the Christmas Play, it occurred to me that there are some similarities between the Shepherd Boy (at least in Lawrie's interpretation) and Marie Dobson. Marie is described as officious and far too eager to please. But from a more sympathetic perspective, we could read her actions as akin to the "desperate, propitiatory effort" of the Shepherd Boy to make his brothers laugh and like him. Marie also wants to be friends with her classmates but she has no idea how to go about it, and she too fails and goes too far. I don't know whether Forest wants us to draw this conclusion explicitly, by the way. But Marie is one of those characters who offers us glimpses that show she has been consistently misinterpreted by her peers.

I really feel for Marie. While I can understand why Nicola holds a grudge against her (though even Marie's lying WRT Guides has always struck me as far less appalling than Lois' behavior at the same time), there seems no reason for everybody else to dislike her so intensely. And I suppose that is what makes the depiction of this aspect of childhood so accurate and chilling. We see things from the side of the "in-crowd" and their casual exclusion and even outright bullying of Marie is presented as natural and perfectly reasonable to them (though I think Forest is somewhat less forgiving of the way they treat Marie). It makes me shudder, especially when the staff essentially collude in this behavior.

Re: The Shepherd Boy and Marie Dobson

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, Marie is quite a haunting character. The division between someone being seen as pleasant and helpful, and someone seen as desperate and needy is not that great, but teachers can be pretty intolerant of pupils they put in the second category, even though you would think they would step back and ask where the desperation comes from. It is hard to say why some children show this kind of catastrophic lack of social judgement, so they pin a target on their own back.

I like the comparison with the shepherd boy, though I'm sure we are not supposed to perceive him as like Marie in general personality.

It is one of the things that separates Antonia Forest from almost all her contemporaneous or earlier school story writers, that she can leave us with a moral ambiguity like the way Marie Dobson is treated over the netball swap. Nothing is resolved about it, and there is no authorial voice pointing us to a moral. Like life, it remains messy. CB

Re: The Shepherd Boy and Marie Dobson

[antfan.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean, but AF also shows that the rest of the form have good reason to dislike her. One thing that stands out for me is that when Miss Cromwell comes in and they are all arguing (about whether Mary and Joseph were Jewish) Marie Dobson just withdraws and waits smugly for the rest to get into trouble. In general, the rest of the Form goes to some trouble to help each other out in those circumstances - Jean tries to assist Lawrie when stuck for an answer, for example - but Marie is happy to watch them cop it. Also, I think we are supposed to take it that Marie would like to pick on Miranda's Jewishness - Miranda says so, certainly, and I think reading it as an adult, Marie saying that Miranda can't be in the play because she's Jewish, and being so officious over Miranda not knowing how to draw the play, are also meant to be seen as examples of Marie trying to use Miranda's Jewishness against her (although whether this is anti-Semitism, or Marie just trying to grab onto anything at all she thinks she can use against a popular and confident member of the class I'm not sure). And of course she oscillates between being overly-friendly ('Randa) and hostile, in a way that suggests total lack of sincerity in dealing with other people.

On the other hand, it's hard to think a thirteen year old is totally beyond redemption, and a lot of the form's behaviour to her almost seems like a kind of allergy - she just rubs them up the wrong way. And comments like "Marie Dobson was weighing herself" - that's an interesting one. Is that a subtle message about why the form despise Marie (Nicola and Miranda would never weigh themselves, surely) or a comment on Marie's vanity that allows the reader to mildly despise her too?

Re: The Shepherd Boy and Marie Dobson

[highfantastical.livejournal.com]

I get the impression that Marie weighing herself is a form of diversion or displacement activity -- to give her something to do other than be visibly and obviously excluded by the others. I know there's some fat hate in Autumn Term and equivocal mentions of Ginty's slim figure later on, but I don't think the same cult of thin-as-beautiful is really in place, at least not so rabidly and incessantly. It's always struck me more as self-protection than vanity. Poor Marie. :(

Re: The Shepherd Boy and Marie Dobson

[antfan.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's fat hate either (although combined with the heavy breathing, sitting down heavily in a chair, and the fact that she's bad a sports, I suspect Marie is overweight) but I do think there's maybe a sense that she's to be despised for being preoccupied with her it. Maybe I'm thinking this more because of the ethos you get in girls' school stories generally - where too much preoccupation with one's looks, and clothes and make-up, is seen as a "bad thing". I do think Forest is part of this general tradition - all the Marlows are good at games, Nicola especially is very into boyish pursuits, and the only one who seems really interested in her appearance and wears make-up (Ginty) is not approved of.

But as you say, could just be a distraction for Marie, who was probably being completely ignored on that railway platform...

Re: The Shepherd Boy and Marie Dobson

[elktheory.livejournal.com]

I agree that Marie absents herself as a form of self-protection. Imagine how horrible it must have been for her, to be in a form with classmates who at best ignore her and often treat her with outright contempt. Even the excitement of traveling to another school to play in a netball match must have been a social nightmare for Marie.

As for Marie's behavior during the "Were Joseph and Mary Jewish" argument, I don't see anything particularly unkind about Marie's actions. No one actually gets into any kind of trouble, and the whole class enjoys the break from geometry (Lawrie excepted). Indeed, when Lawrie is flummoxed by Cromwell's question ("And what is your contention?"), Marie is the one to explain. Of course, we have been conditioned to see Marie as an annoying and officious "drip," but perhaps her interjection at this moment was intended to be helpful, just as Jean offers a helpful answer later.* Again, I see Marie as socially clueless but absolutely aching to belong.

I don't want to enter spoiler territory, but I've always felt that Forest herself basically comes down on the "Oh, well, there are some people you can't like" side of things, though I do think she deliberately offers us these extra glimpses of who Marie really is (not who her contemporaries think she is) and who she might have been under different circumstances.

*BTW, I adore Miss Cromwell's line, "You can't do better than consult Jean on these matters."

Re: The Shepherd Boy and Marie Dobson

[(Anonymous)]

She reminds me a bit of Kathy in The Thursday Kidnapping. There is a line (can't quote it exactly) something like "she realized, as often happened, that the person she was talking to had stopped liking her". There is the same eagerness to make a good impression, then getting it wrong and seeing the person visibly cooling.

In Autumn Term I think Marie is described as 'a flushed, unattractive child', which seems a bit damning from the start.

CB