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legionseagle, to whom, many thanks for a really incisive and thought-provoking set of discussion posts. And thanks to everyone for their contributions in comments.
--L.B.
These two chapters take us right through to the end of the book. They largely parallel End of Term in that Nicola goes from her lowest point in the whole book to her highest. Forest, though, as always in dialogue with the genre, doesn't allow this to wipe out what's gone before; relationships have fundamentally shifted in the course of the book (even more than in EoT) and what's lost will not be regained – although possibly Nicola's better understanding with Rowan is some compensation.
I argued at the outset that one of the themes of the book is the Marlows ceasing to be visitors and becoming part of the local scene. This chapter in my view is key to that, beginning with Rowan deciding that wearing a velvet cap (as a farmer) would be premature "till the Master or someone says so".
My personal sense of the chapter is that it it's one of Forest's great set pieces (usual disclaimers about being unable to speak to accuracy on equine matters, but it conveys a great sense of authenticity.)
Once again, a nice blend of social comedy and repressed tension. For me., I particularly like Mrs Marlow, smoking over the breakfast table and stubbing out cigarettes half-smoked. This dates the book almost more than when she later descends the stairs in full riding habit complete with top-hat, to what can reasonably be described as shock and awe on the part of her family.*
Nicola, of course (having suffered her second severely broken night in a row) is channelling her inner Pte Fraser ("Doom! Doom!") although, being Nicola, she's achieving this by stoical silence, Service spit-and-polish and shedding silent tears into the neck of the dog when she's sure no-one's looking.
Another sidelight: Karen having "the sunny confidence of the unteachably bad driver." I don't suppose the Dunning-Kruger effect had been described at the time, but we certainly see it in action there.
Arrival at the Merricks is particularly funny, with Rowan's borrowed horse (what is a "blood weed" when it's at home?) giving rise to all sorts of alarums on the Merrick gravel. Like Nicola, I find Ronnie Merrick much more endearing in borrowed ratcatcher, visibly conscious of a nervous system.
I also like Patrick flinging around the place being a complete arse, Sellars being unflappable, Ronnie's fervent "Now and later" when asked about jumping powder and the neurotic Hot Ginger swinging "to and fro like a dinghy from its painter in an uneasy sea".
And then my darling Buster. He really is charming in this chapter; making Nicola at home even more than he makes her shine. I particularly like the way everyone from the Master down recognises him instantly and treats him as a Nicola's character witness: "Well, she might be a bit inept, but if old Buster likes her – "
Love, too, the hound names; almost Shakespearean, especially Oriel, Hotspur and Galliard.
Interesting how Gondal affects the players in the hunting field. Lawrie uses it as a self-preservation strategy; Ginty is almost unaffected by it, at least visibly; Peter is driven by it to take risks he then hasn't the skills/nerve/confidence to bring off (so business as usual, then) and Patrick –
Patrick carries betrayal through to the point where he's still Gondalling even when he's almost killed Nicola (and, for that matter, given Marlow codes of proper behaviour and relative culpability, when he's still not sure his own old pony isn't horribly injured.) Thoughts? For me, that really is a chilling moment and if the chapter had ended there I think it would have been game, set and match for Karen's analysis of Gondalling as an unmitigated Bad Thing. Of which more in the next.
It doesn't end there, and I find the final pages some of the most perfectly evocative prose I know. Especially the ending; it's reminiscent of Jim Brading falling asleep in the soup at Pin Mill, and John Walker doing the same at Flushing – a young person completely done in by whole-hearted involvement in physical exercise.
Possibly that may be what Forest is saying about Gondal; it inhibits the ability to lose oneself in the moment, which Nicola experiences (which she then tries and fails to turn into poetry – reality preceding representation rather than the other way round.) In short, are Ginty, Peter, Patrick and Lawrie so lost in the Gondal fiction of the hunt that they become detached from the real life experience of it?
*Bets now being taken. Was her girlhood riding habit really constructed on the basis that since marriage and babies were a known bug, there had to be enough in the seams to let out to make sure of its longevity, or does she really have an extraordinary metabolism despite the eight babies? Or did she sink the last dregs of the Last Ditch in a new outfit?
Unlike a number of the commentators I do genuinely enjoy the Gondal sections; they certainly aren't deathless prose, but they aren't at all bad for what they are. And there are times for the Michelin two-star plateful and times for a well-earned cheese sandwich; likewise for self-indulgent swash-buckling.
Nevertheless, given the emotional impact of the previous chapter, the italicised portion now comes over as all rather wooden. Brief note of "Captain Roncesvalles" – unconscious echoes of a last stand? Also, belated recognition on Rupert's part that the plotting includes a classic "idiot plot" – the forged dispatch is directly contrary to the recollections of all four others as to the contents of the originals, and it only needs someone to compare notes and he's done.
Another Foley echo – "It occurred to him to wonder … whether such sanctuary would be worth the seeking."
Interesting that the only time Nicolas Brenzaida is given any characterisation at all is almost at the last gasp of the Gondal: "And I would not. He may burn for all of me."
Not Nicola's normal style, that. Either she's suddenly decided to act, or she's exasperated beyond measure by the betrayal in the hunting field.
And then Rupert's suicide posturing. And Patrick pulling out information he knows (must know) Peter doesn't have, in order to wound as hard as he can (lawyer speak here; the thin skull rule. Peter has a particularly thin skull as regards treachery. Patrick doesn't know it. Nevertheless, he takes his chances when he takes this line.). And the (probably improbable, but nevertheless) gun incident.
One of the things I never understood at the time I first read this is why Nicola saving Patrick's life – as she undoubtedly does – is probably the biggest breach between them that could be (mind you, I read Sayers because of Forest, and not vice versa.)
I also didn't appreciate then – but do now – how Nicola's "I don't care if it's a billion to a quarter" shows how far she's grown up in what is about three-and-a-half weeks, from when she tried to argue issues of family democracy about Buster with Patrick.
Any thoughts about the post-Gondal ending? Round-up? Over-arching themes? Was the writer of the blurb copy right after all?
legionseagle, to whom, many thanks for a really incisive and thought-provoking set of discussion posts. And thanks to everyone for their contributions in comments.--L.B.
These two chapters take us right through to the end of the book. They largely parallel End of Term in that Nicola goes from her lowest point in the whole book to her highest. Forest, though, as always in dialogue with the genre, doesn't allow this to wipe out what's gone before; relationships have fundamentally shifted in the course of the book (even more than in EoT) and what's lost will not be regained – although possibly Nicola's better understanding with Rowan is some compensation.
I argued at the outset that one of the themes of the book is the Marlows ceasing to be visitors and becoming part of the local scene. This chapter in my view is key to that, beginning with Rowan deciding that wearing a velvet cap (as a farmer) would be premature "till the Master or someone says so".
My personal sense of the chapter is that it it's one of Forest's great set pieces (usual disclaimers about being unable to speak to accuracy on equine matters, but it conveys a great sense of authenticity.)
Once again, a nice blend of social comedy and repressed tension. For me., I particularly like Mrs Marlow, smoking over the breakfast table and stubbing out cigarettes half-smoked. This dates the book almost more than when she later descends the stairs in full riding habit complete with top-hat, to what can reasonably be described as shock and awe on the part of her family.*
Nicola, of course (having suffered her second severely broken night in a row) is channelling her inner Pte Fraser ("Doom! Doom!") although, being Nicola, she's achieving this by stoical silence, Service spit-and-polish and shedding silent tears into the neck of the dog when she's sure no-one's looking.
Another sidelight: Karen having "the sunny confidence of the unteachably bad driver." I don't suppose the Dunning-Kruger effect had been described at the time, but we certainly see it in action there.
Arrival at the Merricks is particularly funny, with Rowan's borrowed horse (what is a "blood weed" when it's at home?) giving rise to all sorts of alarums on the Merrick gravel. Like Nicola, I find Ronnie Merrick much more endearing in borrowed ratcatcher, visibly conscious of a nervous system.
I also like Patrick flinging around the place being a complete arse, Sellars being unflappable, Ronnie's fervent "Now and later" when asked about jumping powder and the neurotic Hot Ginger swinging "to and fro like a dinghy from its painter in an uneasy sea".
And then my darling Buster. He really is charming in this chapter; making Nicola at home even more than he makes her shine. I particularly like the way everyone from the Master down recognises him instantly and treats him as a Nicola's character witness: "Well, she might be a bit inept, but if old Buster likes her – "
Love, too, the hound names; almost Shakespearean, especially Oriel, Hotspur and Galliard.
Interesting how Gondal affects the players in the hunting field. Lawrie uses it as a self-preservation strategy; Ginty is almost unaffected by it, at least visibly; Peter is driven by it to take risks he then hasn't the skills/nerve/confidence to bring off (so business as usual, then) and Patrick –
Patrick carries betrayal through to the point where he's still Gondalling even when he's almost killed Nicola (and, for that matter, given Marlow codes of proper behaviour and relative culpability, when he's still not sure his own old pony isn't horribly injured.) Thoughts? For me, that really is a chilling moment and if the chapter had ended there I think it would have been game, set and match for Karen's analysis of Gondalling as an unmitigated Bad Thing. Of which more in the next.
It doesn't end there, and I find the final pages some of the most perfectly evocative prose I know. Especially the ending; it's reminiscent of Jim Brading falling asleep in the soup at Pin Mill, and John Walker doing the same at Flushing – a young person completely done in by whole-hearted involvement in physical exercise.
Possibly that may be what Forest is saying about Gondal; it inhibits the ability to lose oneself in the moment, which Nicola experiences (which she then tries and fails to turn into poetry – reality preceding representation rather than the other way round.) In short, are Ginty, Peter, Patrick and Lawrie so lost in the Gondal fiction of the hunt that they become detached from the real life experience of it?
*Bets now being taken. Was her girlhood riding habit really constructed on the basis that since marriage and babies were a known bug, there had to be enough in the seams to let out to make sure of its longevity, or does she really have an extraordinary metabolism despite the eight babies? Or did she sink the last dregs of the Last Ditch in a new outfit?
Unlike a number of the commentators I do genuinely enjoy the Gondal sections; they certainly aren't deathless prose, but they aren't at all bad for what they are. And there are times for the Michelin two-star plateful and times for a well-earned cheese sandwich; likewise for self-indulgent swash-buckling.
Nevertheless, given the emotional impact of the previous chapter, the italicised portion now comes over as all rather wooden. Brief note of "Captain Roncesvalles" – unconscious echoes of a last stand? Also, belated recognition on Rupert's part that the plotting includes a classic "idiot plot" – the forged dispatch is directly contrary to the recollections of all four others as to the contents of the originals, and it only needs someone to compare notes and he's done.
Another Foley echo – "It occurred to him to wonder … whether such sanctuary would be worth the seeking."
Interesting that the only time Nicolas Brenzaida is given any characterisation at all is almost at the last gasp of the Gondal: "And I would not. He may burn for all of me."
Not Nicola's normal style, that. Either she's suddenly decided to act, or she's exasperated beyond measure by the betrayal in the hunting field.
And then Rupert's suicide posturing. And Patrick pulling out information he knows (must know) Peter doesn't have, in order to wound as hard as he can (lawyer speak here; the thin skull rule. Peter has a particularly thin skull as regards treachery. Patrick doesn't know it. Nevertheless, he takes his chances when he takes this line.). And the (probably improbable, but nevertheless) gun incident.
One of the things I never understood at the time I first read this is why Nicola saving Patrick's life – as she undoubtedly does – is probably the biggest breach between them that could be (mind you, I read Sayers because of Forest, and not vice versa.)
I also didn't appreciate then – but do now – how Nicola's "I don't care if it's a billion to a quarter" shows how far she's grown up in what is about three-and-a-half weeks, from when she tried to argue issues of family democracy about Buster with Patrick.
Any thoughts about the post-Gondal ending? Round-up? Over-arching themes? Was the writer of the blurb copy right after all?
no subject
Date: 2014-10-17 12:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-17 07:18 am (UTC)jacket copy
Date: 2014-10-17 07:48 am (UTC)First of all '[Nicola]'s reservation is seen to be well-founded as the imaginary characters exercise more and more influence over their creators,' is a bit off, I think. The copy suggests that the roleplay characters themselves start to possess their creators; whereas the effect Forest actually gives is a much more plausible one of their immersion in a world. I recognise that sense of immersion from writing fiction: it really does have a sort of obsessive aspect to it, in that when I'm writing a story that I'm really invested in, there's nothing else I really want to do, and its world is slightly more real to me than my own life. I'm the one muttering to my characters on the bus.
But the bit that really enrages me is 'the dangers of make-believe prolonged beyond the proper age'. While there is some commentary on the Brontës continuing their roleplay into adulthood, and the implied authorial standpoint is broadly disapproving (though if Karen is a sort of mouthpiece here she's a highly ironised one), that's really not what the book's about at all. (And I always wonder what is 'the proper age'?).
I think the jacket copy implies that the novel's about The Dangers of Roleplaying, and that fantasy and imagination are the cause of the mess that the Gondal creates. Whereas I think the book's actually the dangers of embarking on a collective activity which is highly immersive but for which you have not defined parameters and when you have a group of people who are riven by all sorts of unspoken interpersonal conflicts. The problem is almost Too Much Reality, not Too Much Fantasy. And the problems won't be solved by eschewing imaginative activity.
Mrs Marlow and the "jumping powder"
Date: 2014-10-17 07:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-17 07:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-17 08:08 am (UTC)The reaction of all the Gondallers to hunting reflects their roles in the rest of the story, particularly Patrick with his own special brand of unpleasantness and self-centredness hidden under a mask of self depreciation. And I like Patrick!
Re: jacket copy
Date: 2014-10-17 08:10 am (UTC)Re: Mrs Marlow and the "jumping powder"
Date: 2014-10-17 08:16 am (UTC)Re: Mrs Marlow and the "jumping powder"
Date: 2014-10-17 08:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-17 08:46 am (UTC)Re: Mrs Marlow and the "jumping powder"
Date: 2014-10-17 08:46 am (UTC)Collective Activity with Undefined Parameters
Date: 2014-10-17 09:13 am (UTC)Henry Crawford = Patrick. Wants to shine and flirt and doesn't care about how much harm he's doing to any or all of Maria, Julia or Fanny.
Ginty = Maria Bertram Enjoys acting and is good at it, but the real agenda is pursuing Patrick
Mr Yates = Lawrie
Nicola = Fanny Price
Admittedly, you don't have a Rushworth equivalent and Peter is more into it than Edmund but you do have the same sense of the subtext taking over the whole thing.
Fantasy vs reality/Patrick
Date: 2014-10-17 01:23 pm (UTC)I'm not so sure about this. I do think Karen is meant to be taken as a fairly authoritative voice on this - she has the most thought through and explicit arguments, and Nicola refers back to them in her head in her decision to break with Gondal at the end. I do think therefore the book is about the dangers of make believe. And I'm not sure what a "collective activity with defined parameters" would look like in the context of this book - maybe there are examples now in role-playing games but I don't think there would have been at the time.
It occurs to me that a lot depends on what you think of Patrick. Either he is inherently callous and self-obsessed to the extent that he physically endangers himself and Nicola, and Gondal is just enabling him to do this; or else the Gondal experience has pushed a basically decent person into damaging behaviours he would never otherwise have embarked on (albeit some of it he might have - eg pursuing Ginty - but not in such a back-stabbing way).
I think Forest intends the second version - ie that Patrick is basically decent but Gondal has led him astray. I think this partly for Doylian reasons (Forest gives Patrick so many of her treasured values, her faith, her name) and partly Watsonian (Nicola forgives Patrick completely later in the series and obviously thinks him an admirable being). That does tend to indict Gondalling as an activity.
Myself though, I can never really forgive Patrick (especially for nearly jumping on Nicola) and it colours my views of him over the entire series. So I guess I don't think the book entirely succeeds in making what I think is meant to be its case. It's a wonderful book though!
Re: Mrs Marlow and the "jumping powder"
Date: 2014-10-17 01:25 pm (UTC)I wonder if she is flowering because Geoff isn't there - he does dominate when he is present - or whether Forest just fleshed her out more as the series went on?
Re: Fantasy vs reality/Patrick
Date: 2014-10-17 01:28 pm (UTC)The Gondal stops him trying to be better, in the way (arguably) it stops Branwell trying to be better, because it gives him a romanticised way of being a jerk in a way he can live with internally.
Re: Mrs Marlow and the "jumping powder"
Date: 2014-10-17 01:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-17 01:37 pm (UTC)A very minor point: I'm always slightly taken aback by 'Rowan was one of those people who keep their promises even when they turn out inconveniently' over lending Peter Prisca. Of course I see that she would like to hunt, but the inconvenience was inherent in the promise that he could have Prisca in the holidays; it's not as though Peter is unexpectedly at home.
ETA: also, it only occurs to me now to link these together, but not only does Nicola save Patrick's life in the last chapter, but he could easily have killed or seriously injured her in this. So the debt is piling up.
the (probably improbable, but nevertheless) gun incident
Date: 2014-10-17 01:38 pm (UTC)Or not? Because Ginty then tells Nicola that "nothing would have happened" if Nicola hadn't bashed Patrick's wrist (and Nicola herself seems to think that Lawrie is the one that would have been shot, she doesn't mention Patrick) but surely if Nicola hadn't done anything then, as legionseagle says Patrick would have killed himself?
Please explain, anyone who understands guns.
Or is there even meant to be something a bit supernatural about it all - harking back to thate earlier Devil on the Rooftop stuff?
Re: Fantasy vs reality/Patrick
Date: 2014-10-17 01:50 pm (UTC)The "romanticised way of being a jerk" does strike me as spot on though. As a reader. I'm still not sure it's what we're supposed to think!
Re: Fantasy vs reality/Patrick
Date: 2014-10-17 02:10 pm (UTC)I'd like fic about Patrick in the period between Peter's Room and The Thuggery Affair actually (*amends Yuletide letter*) because he does seem to do some thinking about morality, courage and romance in the intervening period, though he's still capable of the Bad Decision on a fairly epic scale.
Re: the (probably improbable, but nevertheless) gun incident
Date: 2014-10-17 02:38 pm (UTC)Two possibilities I can think of for Peter - first that he checked one gun twice over and overlooked the loaded one, secondly that he managed merely to cock the trigger rather than pulling it fully. I'm not sure, either, whether a pistol might previously have failed to discharge because of damp, but the constant fires and warmth in the room over the Gondalling period have dried out the charge sufficiently to cause it to work.
no subject
Date: 2014-10-17 03:41 pm (UTC)Re: Fantasy vs reality/Patrick
Date: 2014-10-17 04:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-10-17 04:44 pm (UTC)*kill the princes
Re: the (probably improbable, but nevertheless) gun incident
Date: 2014-10-17 05:44 pm (UTC)So glad to find I'm not alone in finding this all a bit puzzling, especially the way they seem to blame Nicola rather than be thankful that she had averted a terrible catastrophe.