[identity profile] lilliburlero.livejournal.com posting in [community profile] trennels
Again, my apologies for only just squeezing this in on the scheduled Friday (in my time-zone).



The first sentence is splendid, just as Austenesque as it needs to be. Trennels really is rather posh, isn't it? As well as being the domestic equivalent of the TARDIS.

Lawrie's partiality for Megs Jenkins had me briefly imagining her in later life having a series of deeply-bosomed, rather matronly older girlfriends, but maybe she's just making a serious study of character acting.

How very Karen is the suggestion of Persuasion, and how very Nicola to take her up on it. Is anyone of the Nicola, erm, persuasion when it come to Laws of Reading? I confess I don't like not finishing books, but if I encounter something utterly uncongenial, my dodgy attention span usually makes the decision for me, and I find I'm taking nothing in at all: I clearly don't have the Marlow grit. The novel will, of course, become a symbol for Nicola's maturation during this Easter holidays.

Nicolantha, seventh child! (This has been your regularly scheduled fic prompt, though to an extent [livejournal.com profile] ankaret has anticipated us all.) Still, it ties in nicely with Nicola's tendency to superstition.

The naval signals always delight me, though I can quite see how irritating they would be in the real.

Karen's evasiveness about her reasons for being at home is nicely done, I think; and Nicola's speculation about it. The telegraphic nature of Nicola's conversation with Rowan is ironically set off by the latter's irritation with the oft-repeated 'Psalm 91: 7'.

Karen's 'Baby it's cold outside' makes me think of her and Edwin duetting on it, which, urrrgh. (I'm not really an Edwin fan, I'm afraid, but ymmv.)

Doris's "Mince was all the boy had that Auntie fancied," is another marvellous sentence. I'm sure Miss Kempe would disagree, but it's perfectly grammatical and idiomatic. Actually, this passage is full of little verbal gems. Nicola's 'I am a sad case of day-starvation' sounds like a quotation, but I don't recognise it; does anyone? I also like 'It's not usually as British Railways as this...' tautologically and paradoxically describing a late train.

The three sisters' different personalities (as well as the full range of earnest teenage concern) are succinctly summarised in the sentence beginning 'Nineteen and Sixteen...': Nicola copes with a sort of robust facing-up to the fact of the rest of the family's lateness, while simply refusing to believe anything untoward; Karen rattled and indecisive, Ann occupying a middle ground. How gloriously Marlovian is Nicola's reflection that the worst thing about an accident would be having to deal with Karen's fretting and Ann's reasonable goodness. One might lose half the family and cope, but the embarrassment of Karen in a dither and Ann dutifully pious: insupportable!





Not that I have any time for people who interfere with the railways, but Nicola sharing Mrs Bertie's hang-'em-and-flog-'em sentiments comes as a bit of a surprise.

Lawrie's echolalic response is interesting, isn't it: a touch of relieved hysteria?

The mention of the Thuggery is notable for Nicola's taking Peter and Patrick's side: perhaps she has heard altogether too much of Lawrie's version over the last few weeks at school. It would be interesting to know what Nicola thought of the whole escapade: 'and mostly Patrick' suggests admiration for his courage but is demonstrably untrue--if any one of them did smash the gang it was Lawrie, in that she at least got finally the police involved, albeit not as speedily or effectively as she might've.

Karen drops her bombshell. I love Mrs Marlow's sharp distinction between an engagement and an imminent marriage, and Lawrie's gloriously dozy (or is it?) why the hurry?, and Mrs Marlow's unsettled response to that. Her stumbling over what to call him--on the one hand he is her daughter's fiancé and Christian names are called for, on the other she's never met him--does a great deal to indicate disquiet, I think.

I do feel for Karen, confronted by her family's unconcealed and utter dismay, but honestly, what does she think she's at? There is a discussion thread here with some valuable reflections. She's going to marry this bloke and she's done the maths to the extent of working out the age-gap but never reflected that he's over twice her age (which is all Nicola says, after all). She's never bothered to enquire about the circumstances that caused his first wife to leave him--Ginty's speculation that he might be violent is tactlessly phrased, certainly, but not, as it turns out, exactly wrong. He does, however, seem to have made it clear to Karen that his split from Rosemary was not entirely irrevocable. And I think Mrs Marlow's right: gossip aside, it does look rather callous to charge down the aisle with a widower of a month's standing. This does seem don't touch with three ten-foot poles laid end to end territory, and her angry response does rather suggest that Karen knows it. So then, why does she do it?

But there is more to come, with the revelation of the three Dodd children. Forest plays off the genuinely ominous--Edwin's poor relationship with his parents-in-law, his belief that they are turning the children against him--with Lawrie's farcical speculations on family spacing and nomenclature.

Enter Rowan, to whom Lawrie's greeting is another little verbal delight. Lawrie does seem a trifle demented in this chapter, rushing off to tell Doris about Mr Tranter's stroke. I really feel for Rowan here--she must have got quite close to Mr Tranter over the past few months, and she certainly depends on him (odd that Nicola knows his sister's name and she doesn't, though?) and she's had to both try and support Mrs Tranter and put up with Gert's rudeness (which is probably deflected concern for her brother, but that doesn't make it any easier to deal with).

The counterpointing in these chapters is done with a lovely subtle hand, I think: the false alarm over Mrs Marlow, Lawrie and Ginty's safety is contrasted with the Dodd children's loss of their mother (as Nicola reflects); Karen's failure to cope even with the minor upset of the late train mirrors Mrs Tranter's unexpected falling to pieces at a much more serious one, and contrasts with Rowan's comprehensive coping mechanism (as Mrs Marlow points out, she could have rung up to the house on the off-chance someone might have been there to help, but it didn't even occur to her) which seems to be Driving Her to Drink (Gert's indignant teetotalism providing another contrast). Meanwhile, the whole family is rather failing to cope with the Karen situation in a way which might help the poor lass see sense.

Mind you, Karen's being fairly madly unreasonable about it all, culminating in her request, which she doesn't even manage to articulate--the ever-frank Rowan coming to her aid--to live at Trennels. It appears she's made rather unwise assurances to Edwin that of course it'll be all right to lodge with the in-laws. But is this situation plausible? Are we to assume that there is absolutely no house or flat to rent in Streweminster? The house in Oxford is surely sufficient capital for Edwin to get something in the nature of a bridging loan to cover expenses while the Oxford house put on the market (or didn't those exist in 1967?)

And then the final revelation--Edwin has been a distinctly reluctant bridegroom. I imagine that what's gone on here is that Edwin, still on the rebound from Rosemary, met Karen, they became closer, and at some point, perhaps after Rosemary's death, they fell into bed. They both--perhaps in slightly different ways determined by age and class--assume this means engagement, though Edwin seems to have done his damnedest to imply that it really, really needn't necessarily, short of actually being enough of a swine to sleep with the girl and then tell her emphatically marriage is absolutely not on the cards.

Rowan's candour (whisky-aided or not) is almost too painful to take here, particularly since it's earlier implied that she's the only member of the family Karen might have been close enough to to confide in re the Edwin situation. Their estrangement, amplified by Karen's (frankly appalling, I think) behaviour over the old farmhouse, begins here.





This is a favourite chapter of mine.

The twins suddenly needing the babyish comfort of a shared bath is very touching, and 'luxurious infant hippopotami' is a fantastic phrase. Nicola immediately sees through Ginty's scorn to her similar need for reassurance. Ginty's 'relish' of Rowan's remark is psychologically astute, as is, I think her sense of disbelief that Karen really would go through with something so unromantic.

Lawrie might not be wide of the mark in suggesting that Karen's decision is partially driven by intellectual uncertainty; and perhaps by social overwhelm too.

Ann's entrance is perfectly characteristic, and her 'welly icky' theory. Naturally, each of the sisters' reasoning says more about them than it does about Karen. Karen being from different perspectives both young and old for her age is also a rather nice observation--and her nightwear contrasted with Ginty's is a lovely bit of bye-writing.

Nicola, we might note, pays more attention to Current Affairs than her sisters and her mother, and has anticipated the hostility that might be directed her way if she pointed out that one or two balloons are going up in South-East Asia at the mo. Nicola pointing out inconvenient facts has already become a bit of a routine.

Ginty is still quite fixated on the Brontës; the vision of a Kingscote-themed wedding is one to relish; and the air of farce is intensified as well as punctured by Mrs Marlow's entrance.

It's Lawrie who notes that the family failed to offer even the most perfunctory congratulations; Ginty's reflection that Karen presented the affair as hopeless from the start is pretty accurate too. Pam's too-salient thought process from 'if someone told me that this was the swinging zingy fun way to do it' via Nicola's 'Kay's as square as they come' to Anthony Merrick doing the giving away is a delight. And Ginty's fantasy of the Merricks at the wedding is a fine extension of that. By the way, can we have a little hoarse shout of appreciation for Forest's stylish 3rd person omniscient voice here, giving us a multiplicity of viewpoints without the feeling of being jarred from one headspace to another?

Lawrie's worldliness and Mrs Marlow's crunch of it provides a wonderful lead into the story of Geoff and Pam's courtship. I think I've said before that I'm fascinated by the hints of a grand (and continuing--remember how she hotfoots it to Farrant in TMATT for a dirty weekend, abandoning the kids?) passion that lies behind the respectable exterior of Captain and Mrs Marlow (this has been your regular, scheduled &c.: this fic has a thrilling one-sentence evocation of it, but there must be more to be said.)

Oh, Ginty. No doubting the Merrick Boy's courage, given the events of last half term, but it doesn't lie in that direction, does it? And I love Lawrie immediately translating the scene into the movies.

Ginty and Nicola's uncomfortable confrontation over Persuasion is a nice development from Ginty's fantasies: Nicola's 'Then I understand it' is rather devastating, in the circs, and takes us back to Nicola's pain in Peter's Room.

Rowan--the whole household is now in the bathroom, picture it!--enters with uncomfortable news again; the second slammed door might, one reflects, herald Rowan having her version of a jolly good cry. The closing reflections on what Mr Tranter means to Trennels and its inmates strike me as pitilessly honest and accurate about the sorts of relationships that build between employers and employees: he's regarded with affection, but dehumanised, seen almost as a piece of furniture, and so it is perhaps not accidental that Lawrie (votary of the hall-stand) voices her particularly illogical qualm that they shan't be able to stay. And at the same moment we note that Lawrie--and presumably by extension the whole family--have now thoroughly settled into Trennels, and regard it as home.




Erk, bread and brown sugar. Anyone else tried this gritty non-delicacy for Research Purposes? Just you wait until we get to orange-juice-and-cream.

Karen Anstruther Gabriel Marlow. My word.

Rowan gets her own back in dept. the biblical references: I suppose she primarily means 'But others fell on good ground, sprang up, and yielded a crop a hundredfold.', but the verse continues: 'When He had said these things He cried, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”' which does seem all sorts of appropriate for Rowan, whose good sense is universally acknowledged and rarely heeded. And here her predicament is awfully stark: she's sure she can't cope and yet keeps on keeping on, with Nicola as her only off-the-record confidante. Little hint of squirish entitlement in the pressure the Marlows put on Mr Tranter to stay on, presumably to the detriment of his health.

Rowan and Nicola's compact over the farm logs, to be used as a possible means of détente with Edwin if he doesn't turn out too ghastly, implies the family silences and complexities that Nicola then evokes explicitly with her cauldron metaphor. As if the Marlows didn't have enough secrets and unspoken boundaries.

Giles's bear Nelson! (Does it make me like The Odious Giles? No, what sort of sentimental fool do you think I am? but it's touching, and I must work it into a fic sometime.) And Nicola slinking away and leaving most of the work to Lawrie suggests the extent to which family dynamics have been inverted and overturned by Karen's impending marriage.

Mrs Marlow's reference to the wedding as a 'wretched little affair', her need for retail therapy ('To buy anything') and her windiness over the train are all peculiarly endearing, I think. Anyone fancy writing Ginty's wedding, with six-month engagement, reception, four yard train, crossed swords--the lot? Which reminds me: [livejournal.com profile] ankaret's "Lawrie's Wedding".

Kempe's letter suggests that Forest is now planning from novel to novel. But Kempe's vouchsafing all this to Lawrie, of all people, does seem rather odd: has she sent out similar letters to all the prospective cast? I'm still a bit baffled by Kingscote's methods of casting plays: it's surely wildly inefficient (not to mention a bit mean) to have a whole bunch of pupils learn parts that only one amongst them is going to play?

Mrs Marlow's relief at being able to think about something other than Karen's wedding for a few minutes (I am sympathetic, but on the other hand, she could distract herself by enquiring into her second daughter's welfare occasionally too) demonstrates the extent to which this supposedly low-key affair has entirely consumed everyone. Forest is making a sort of Burkean-conservative point here, isn't she: that apparently hollow formulae have a purpose in letting everyone know where they stand--breaking conventions without a good understanding of what the conventions are for just leads to much more hassle for everyone. Not sure I agree, but the point is made with great aplomb.



Right, enough of my old waffle. Next week [livejournal.com profile] jackmerlin will be doing a guest post, so you'll get a break from it.

Date: 2014-11-22 12:16 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] occasionalhope.livejournal.com
Lawrie's maths seem to be a bit lacking based on her calculations about Karen's family spacing.

Date: 2014-11-27 06:52 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] intrepid--fox.livejournal.com
Well, she counts on her fingers to subtract 41 from 48, so no surprise there.

Date: 2014-11-22 12:40 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] hagsrus.livejournal.com
"night starvation" - a gimmick dreamed up to promote the Horlicks hot drink.

Reminds me of "PP" (Pedal Perspiration) invented by Lord Peter in Murder Must Advertis.

Date: 2014-11-22 01:38 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] penguineggs.livejournal.com
Pedic perspiration is actually Gordon Comstock in Keep The Aspidistra Flying:(George Orwell); Lord Peter's slogan is "Whiffle your way round Britain."
Edited Date: 2014-11-22 01:40 am (UTC)

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Date: 2014-11-22 04:23 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ethelmay.livejournal.com
And there's a Horlick's ad about what the young lady's family thinks when they meet her fiance! "She loved him -- BUT HER FAMILY SAID..." http://nigeness.blogspot.com/2012/03/sleep-hygiene-night-starvation.html

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Edwin

Date: 2014-11-22 08:17 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jackmerlin.livejournal.com
What does AF want us to think of Edwin - a forty one year old who wants to marry a nineteen year old? My OH on reading this (yes, he read all the AF books once - to see what I liked so much) thought that there was something fundamentally wrong with a man that age who wants to marry a girl so much younger. And it's even worse that Karen is a clever girl, who's going to have to throw up Oxford. I think AF tries to tackle that by Karen saying that she had to argue with Edwin to get him to agree to marrying her. When I was much younger, I used to think that Karen should be allowed to know her own mind, and it would be patronising and demeaning of Edwin to make decisions on Karen's behalf by NOT marrying her. But now I have reached Edwin's age and more, I think that OF COURSE Edwin shouldn't marry Karen - if he is a decent person and truly loves her. I think we are eventually supposed to like Edwin - given that Nicola eventually likes him, but this is a bit of a stumbling block for me. (And I now have Diana Ross' 'Little Girl' ear worming me.)
Sorry about the capital letters - I can't seem to do italics.

Re: Edwin

Date: 2014-11-22 08:49 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] occasionalhope.livejournal.com
And it's even more disturbing when it's stated that she met him very early in her first term at Oxford, when she was presumably only 18, and he was still married and planning on reconciliation. I think it's deliberate, though, that the Edwin-Karen relationship is a mystery to us as well as to the other characters, because what the book is about is about everyone else's reactions to the situation.

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Date: 2014-11-22 08:52 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] slemslempike.livejournal.com
For the first 10 or so years or reading TRMF, I took "Mince was all the boy had that Auntie fancied" as meaning that Mrs Bertie had a mad crush on a specific butcher boy, and even though he only had mince when she wanted chops or something, nonetheless bought the mince from him as a sort of courtship. I am quite sad now that I don't read it that way.

I remain desperate to know what the inspiration was about the staff at Karen's Kingscote wedding.

Mrs Bertie's toy boy ...

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Re: Mrs Bertie's toy boy ...

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Karen's Kingscote wedding

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Re: Karen's Kingscote wedding

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Date: 2014-11-22 10:10 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] bookwormsarah.livejournal.com
I was always convinced that there was a bedroom incident and a 'now we're engaged, like it, darling' speech from Karen. Edwin, horrified at what he's done, struggles to resign himself to the situation but is so mortified with himself feels it is the only moral thing to do. I see their relationship as a lot like Casabaun and Dorathea's in Middlemarch: she sees herself as giving up Oxford and being part of his Work, while he just wants to get on with his own thing. There is a later scene which cements this for me, but I can't remember where...

My personal theory is that Karen went to Oxford with such high hopes and found herself as a small fish surrounded by people far brighter, quicker and more confident (and less sheltered?) than she. Maybe Edwin was the first person she could relax with and that's why she felt she could use him to escape, rather than saying "actually I hate it here".

Date: 2014-11-22 09:51 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
I always think that if I were an obnoxious Marlow child, I wouldn't call him "Mister," I'd call him "Mister Casaubon."

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thuggery reference/violence

Date: 2014-11-22 10:44 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] antfan.livejournal.com
I said back on one of the Thuggery threads that Patrick, Peter and Lawrie probably got into a lot of trouble after the book was over, esp as Mrs M seemed so livid - but on the basis of this reference (and even taking into account a bit of Lawrie bravado) it doesn't sound like it. Privilege wins out - as legionseagle I think said would be the case. Just some high-spirited kids helping out the police by smashing up some nasty drug ddealers.

Nicola giving most credit to Patrick - surely a sign she is still unduly respectful/hero-worshipping (has a crush on?) him. Peter was the one that found the capsule in Lawrie's pocket, Patrick may have meant well but his contribution in the end contributed nothing except to get a lot of people killed. There should have been some come-uppance, I feel.

Nicola's "hang em and flog em" sympathies aren't that surprising I think. Both she and Lawrie ("or worse") are pretty callous in this exchange and either it's just that they are young, but also I don't think Forest is that squeamish about violence - or rather, that the typical outlook of 2014 is very different from mid 20th century, and her writing reflects that. I think that's important in terms of how Edwin is seen later.

Date: 2014-11-22 11:01 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] helixaspersa.livejournal.com
I think falling for a rather austere and much older man is not *that* surprising for someone in Karen's position, who has grown up with a largely-absent father and presumably precious little individual attention at any point. Unlike the younger girls, she doesn't have a (presumably fractionally more present) much older brother to look up to either. And all those dead uncles! I suppose we would say she is probably emotionally "avoidant" in terms of her 'attachment style' and as a result is highly likely to seek out partners who can't really respond to her adequately or with real intimacy. One thing that is so clever and interesting about the scenario is that Karen, who has avoided emotional closeness and as a result is not a 'natural' with small children, and has chosen an emotionally remote husband, finds that marriage forces her into immediate and very demanding daily intimacy, not so much with her husband as with his children. I think her reaction to this, and the extent to which she does in fact come to find it fulfilling and a route to maturity, is very well depicted (more in the next book or two as I remember).

I think the precipitous marriage itself is fairly plausible. People - men especially - do quite often remarry very (too?) quickly when abruptly bereaved, though I think this is actually more common when a marriage has been basically functional.

Having read Greats (Classics) at Oxford myself I am always inclined to feel that her rapid dropping-out is highly sensible! She doesn't really strike me as the type to suffer too much from the 'imposter syndrome', though the implication is surely that she has been disappointed or underwhelmed by the experience in some way at least.

Date: 2014-11-22 11:27 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] antfan.livejournal.com
Forest is not very positive about higher education, generally, is she, which always seems a bit surprising given that she is such an intellectual kind of author, and the books are bursting with references to history and literature. But virtually none of the younger characters want to go (and you would think Patrick would be a natural) even those like Miranda, for whom it's surely an obvious path. Maybe she didn't much rate university herself (think she did a course in journalism)?

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social change theme? Rowan vs Karen

Date: 2014-11-22 11:21 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] antfan.livejournal.com
Reading this after Thuggery Affair - so clearly engaging with the social issues of the time - is interesting, and I do think Forest, quite subtly, is still engaging with some of those issues. Very subtly indeed, given that her poster girl for immediate individual gratification, no quarter given to social convention/family approval/societal expectations/obligations imposed by oxford scholarships is Karen, of all people. (As square as they come, as Nicola says.)

But in her fogeyish way, Karen is still doing her version of the chucking it all in and heading off on the hippy trail. And surely this is what Rowan is so fed up about. After all Rowan has fallen on her sword, sacrificed her personal preferences for the Greater Good of family farm, family tradition, and Dear Daddy and Dear Brother. Karen choosing to put her personal preferences so clearly to the fore (not that it's at all clear why they are her preferences, but that's by the by) to the considerable invconvenience of everyone must be infuriating to Rowan.

I think this also makes sense of the Mr Tranter's stroke storyline thematically, which otherwise seems to be given a lot of weight for a minor character. Mr Tranter is the old order. In previous books, the Marlows have adapted themselves to Trennels/Westrbridge as a very established, settled hierarchical community. Their decision to settle at Trennels and continue the farm has been widely approved (symbollically, by the vicar). But Mr Tranter's removal is a new departure, raising lots of questions about how the farm should be farmed: should it be in the "old ways" with the community/its employees put first, or should they chase commercial profit; and what does this mean for the relationships between the families involved (notably the Marlows and the Tranters) and their relationship with each other? Rowan, at the centre of this, is placed under enormous pressure. Although she's so subversive in many of her remarks, (and doesn't like the countryside) she is at heart, like Nicola, a traditionalist, so it's a huge burden, psychological and practical.

Though Dynasties pass

Date: 2014-11-23 02:40 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
I don't have my copy of the book with me, so I may be getting ahead of the readthrough without meaning to, but there's a short Hardy poem called In Time of "The Breaking of Nations," one stanza of which goes:

Only thin smoke without flame
From the heaps of couch-grass;
Yet this will go onward the same
Though Dynasties pass.

Mr. Tranter dies, the old order passes, and at the start of the next chapter (if I'm remembering right) Rowan is out in the fields burning the couch grass. I've always wondered if that was deliberate. It might be, given the later references to "The Oxen," another Hardy poem.

--Katy

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Re: social change theme? Rowan vs Karen

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Date: 2014-11-22 08:42 pm (UTC)
legionseagle: Lai Choi San (Default)
From: [personal profile] legionseagle (from livejournal.com)
It occurs to me that (though it's downplayed) there's another Bronte echo in the flu epidemic (besides setting up something which will be discussed later) - Lowood and the mass deaths there.

Date: 2014-11-22 08:56 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] lizzzar.livejournal.com
I can't remember where Miranda says she doesn't want to go to University. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I think she never mentions it, and it's certainly a possibility that she will attend, maybe for History of Art or History. I've now got the books, having bought them, probably showing a little Mrs Marlow unwise extravagance in the process, and am reading through them, but I don't remember a mention of Miranda's feelings on University. Patrick is genuinely interested in English and History, even if his opinions are not mainstream, and I think if he thought he could get into University, he might go. He just thinks he probably won't get in, and certainly Broomhill stating that he has to do languages, which he thinks he might not even pass, doesn't help. Actually, this might reflect some of AF's own experience - the introduction to the Girls Gone By editions state that she didn't pass Matriculation, which might well have ruled her out of doing a full degree in the thirties. Possibly this is why she did a diploma in journalism instead, despite having no particular interest in being a journalist. I personally think Nicola may end up at University too, as she finds school work easy ( I don't necessarily think this reflects AF's own experience) but perhaps her mixed feelings about it reflect a belief on AF's part that you don't necessarily need a degree to be an intelligent person or to have intellectual interests.

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Ready Made Family

Date: 2014-11-22 10:51 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
This is one of my favourite Forest novels. I seem to remember reading an article about AF, which says she wrote the Marlow books to fit popular genres; school stories, adventure, etc. In the 1960s there was genre of "Problem Novels" - that dealt with themes like divorce (which as very rare then.)If you look at it from that angle, then this is AF's Problem Novel, discussing step families. If this is so, she does it from an interesting angle, that of the step mother's siblings. (Paula.)

Re: Ready Made Family

Date: 2014-11-22 10:58 pm (UTC)
hooloovoo_42: (Default)
From: [personal profile] hooloovoo_42
Step families via death & remarriage were much more common than via divorce. Mary Lou and Verity were "sisters by marriage", which is the angle Mary Lou took with some miserable baggage that got shuffled off to the Chalet School while her step sister was suffering some horrible disability.

That doesn't make your point about problem novels any less valid, though.
Edited Date: 2014-11-22 11:14 pm (UTC)

Date: 2014-11-23 12:50 am (UTC)
joyeuce: (lucy)
From: [personal profile] joyeuce
Bread and brown sugar was a favourite childhood snack at one stage of my life. The sugar sinks into the butter a bit and - mmmmm! Might have to go and get some now ...

Date: 2014-11-23 04:56 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ethelmay.livejournal.com
Which kind of brown sugar? The damp kind that packs together, or the crystallized kind like coffee sugar? I never met the second kind until I was grown up, so suspect I misunderstood many references to brown sugar where the second kind was meant.

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Hanging and flogging

Date: 2014-11-23 09:54 am (UTC)
legionseagle: Lai Choi San (Default)
From: [personal profile] legionseagle (from livejournal.com)
I'm not particularly surprised at the hang 'em & flog 'em sentiments given Nicola expresses them in the immediate aftermath of a deliberate act of sabotage which has nearly killed her mother and two sisters. She's somewhat authoritarian in nature by training and temperament anyway (unmoderated by experience as yet) but actually primitive revenge impulses are a perfectly reasonable immediate response to a deliberate and violent attack on one's family. I don't think the system ought to support them, but I do think the system ought to do a damn sight more to acknowledge their existence and validity as emotions (quite apart from the fact that when it doesn't, institutions like the tabloids step in to take up the slack for their own murky motives. I think a lot might be done with looking at The Franchise Affair from the point of view that, actually, there is a justice gap when a 15 year old can be sexually exploited, beaten black and blue and end up having to make her own way home and everyone including the narrative voice puts it down to her bad blood.)

ETA - I'm dashing out swimming so the above is a bit dense with a lot of conflicting ideas jammed one on top of another but I suppose what I'm coming down to is that it is possible and desirable to have a legal system which abhors corporal and capital punishment and focuses on rehabilitation, while still acknowledging that victims have a perfectly reasonable psychological need to have their anger at being made victims recognised, and that Ann's "just boys" is dangerously inadequate (particularly when institutionalised) in dealing with that aspect of crime in society.
Edited Date: 2014-11-23 09:57 am (UTC)

Re: Hanging and flogging

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Re: Hanging and flogging

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Bedsocks for a wedding present?

Date: 2014-11-23 04:54 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jackmerlin.livejournal.com
Has anyone ever thought of giving bedsocks as a wedding present? I think Rowan says it all about this wedding and what she thinks of it with that suggestion. Nicola is rightly incredulous. Would you give two pairs - his and hers? And what would the happy couple think you were suggesting about their future life? Would you give them a tin of Horlicks to go with the socks?!

Re: Bedsocks for a wedding present?

Date: 2014-11-23 09:04 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ethelmay.livejournal.com
I was always taught that wedding presents were supposed to be either semi-permanent possessions like silver or bakeware, or else things like linens that were good enough to last many years. Anything actually consumable or that one would reasonably expect to replace within a couple of years would be right out. I don't know where bedsocks fall. I wouldn't be at all surprised if some last ten years, but on the other hand I don't think of them as the sort of thing that is supposed to.

Re: Bedsocks for a wedding present?

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Out of the mouths of babes...

Date: 2014-11-23 06:16 pm (UTC)
legionseagle: Lai Choi San (Default)
From: [personal profile] legionseagle (from livejournal.com)
I can't help thinking that Lawrie's "Who does he get on with?" is one of the more perceptive comments made, even if she does get sshed into silence.

Re: Out of the mouths of babes...

Date: 2014-11-23 10:21 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jackmerlin.livejournal.com
Agree totally. I also think it unfair of Mrs Marlow to lay into Rowan for her 'are you sure he actually wants to marry you?' comment. That the comment makes Karen so defensive should send warning bells to Mrs Marlow.

Re: Out of the mouths of babes...

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Re: Out of the mouths of babes...

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Re: Out of the mouths of babes...

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Re: Out of the mouths of babes...

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Re: Out of the mouths of babes...

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Re: Out of the mouths of babes...

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Re: Out of the mouths of babes...

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Re: Out of the mouths of babes...

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Re: Out of the mouths of babes...

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weddings and convention

Date: 2014-11-23 08:42 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] antfan.livejournal.com
A lot of the difficulties that Mrs Marlow is cross about stem from having the wedding at Trennels, don't they - the fact that servants, farm workers etc must be invited/pacified, fitting the wedding in with the milking, and presumably explaining to local folk (maybe the hunting crowd?) what is going on. If Karen had got married in a registry office in Oxford it would all have been a lot simpler - likewise, if she'd married Ronnie Merrick (who Nicola first thinks of, and presumably a "suitable" local choice) it would also have simpler in the sense there would have been a template to follow. (Unless Ronnie is Catholic...hmmm.)

Again, it seems to be a clash between highly traditional and more individualistic/sixties ways of doing things, with Karen with an uneasy commitment to both.

My favorite bits

Date: 2014-11-24 05:49 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mainerobin.livejournal.com
I particularly enjoyed Nick and Rowan's conversation in the field. I appreciate the Rowan recognizes that Nick is a worthy confidante and that her ideas might be of value--not something she seems to do with Ann or Ginty, and perhaps, no longer, Karen.

I also like the sisters's reaction after Karen protests about the possibility of putting off the wedding. "'No, we couldn't!' said Karen violently, startling them all. 'I wish now we'd just got married and told you afterwards. I can't think why I thought I ought to say something first. It's really no one's affair but ours—Edwin's and mine——' Her sisters gazed at her, astonished; wounded; having always supposed till now that she quite liked them."

And this one about Ginty and her private thoughts. "Ginty, coming abruptly out of her private thoughts in case anyone looked in on them." How often we've all done that, but I've never heard it expressed so eloquently before.



Re: My favorite bits

Date: 2014-11-25 01:01 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] scarletlobster.livejournal.com
yes, that last sentence is an example of why there is only one Antonia Forest.

Re: My favorite bits

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Re: My favorite bits

From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2014-11-25 06:51 pm (UTC) - Expand

which war?

Date: 2014-11-25 01:54 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] antfan.livejournal.com
I just wondered if anyone knows which "unofficial war" Geoff and Giles are involved in - Vietnam? Was the British navy involved in that? Presumably they are well away from any action, as nobody seems to be too worried about them.

Re: which war?

Date: 2014-11-25 02:02 pm (UTC)
legionseagle: Lai Choi San (Default)
From: [personal profile] legionseagle (from livejournal.com)
I assumed it was the Konfrontasi given the reference to the coast of Malaysia.

Re: which war?

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Re: which war?

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Re: which war?

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Re: which war?

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Re: which war?

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Karen

Date: 2014-11-25 10:03 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
One of the things that strike me on reading the book is that no one at all seems excited about the wedding. You couldn't expect the Marlows to be that overjoyed, but unless I've missed it Edwin never comes across as that enthusiastic. And Karen never seems to show any happiness on marrying either. The adjectives that AF uses when she breaks the news sound desperate - "rueful," "coldly," "bleakly," "violently," "aloof," "hands clenching," "voiceless," "flushed," "clumsily," "flatly," and "uncertainly." Add in the problems she has when asking if they can stay at Trennels, and her uncertainty when her mother asks her to reconsider, and you start to wonder why on earth she wants to do something that seems to be making her so unhappy before it's even happened.

Re: Karen

Date: 2014-11-26 03:30 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] nineveh-uk.livejournal.com
Is part of it that Marlow-ness provides no way of a graceful backing down from a position once assumed? Karen can't go back from wanting to marry Edwin once she's announced it and defended it to the family (though she might have just to her mother), just as she can't go back on it to Edwin. I'm trying to think of any occasion on which someone climbs down from a principled stand, and I can't - Lawrie over Lois being my closest.

re Karen

Date: 2014-11-25 10:05 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
Sorry - that was me, I forgot to sign. I also think that AF has chosen such an unlikely bride in Karen. There's be no hints in any of the other books that she has the slightest hidden depths. (Paula.)

Housing

Date: 2014-11-26 01:09 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jumpingpowder.livejournal.com
Hello!
Re the housing, viz the bizarre difficulty of Karen and Edwin obtaining any housing near Streweminster, I have always assumed that Forest is mentally still in the immediate postwar years, when housing everywhere was very scarce, and Dorset like elsewhere must have had some bomb damage.

Re: Housing

Date: 2014-11-26 03:43 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] antfan.livejournal.com
It does seem bizarre, though maybe a lot of the Dodd capital could be tied up in probate? I'm struggling, though, to see why they couldn't rent something better than a caravan. I think she could have finessed it a bit more by having a house sale fall through unexpectedly or something, so that the Dodds moving in was a bit more of an emergency - to say a middle aged professional can't find anywhere at all to live near his job just seems daft. Maybe you're right that she was still thinking earlier.

Re: Housing

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Re: Housing

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Re: Housing

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Re: Housing

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Re: Housing

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Re: Housing

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Re: Housing

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Re: Housing

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Mr Tranter

Date: 2014-11-27 06:05 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] intrepid--fox.livejournal.com
When Nicola is out at the pigsties telling Rowan about Kay's unexpected arrival home, Rowan mentions that Mr Tranter hasn't been feeling well. It's a neat bit of foreshadowing, but would he really have felt unwell before suffering a stroke? I thought they were sudden catastrophic events.

Re: Mr Tranter

Date: 2014-11-27 07:31 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] highfantastical.livejournal.com
Yes, potentially he could have done. If for instance experiencing very high blood pressure, pre-stroke.

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