Readthrough Chapters 5 to 7.
Nov. 27th, 2014 10:33 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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trennelsThank you to Lilibulero for letting me have a go at the wheel of the Readthrough. The Ready-Made Family is my favourite Forest book. I love the dynamics of a large family with an 'intruder' in their midst. So such as they are, here are my musings.
I tried to put in the lj cuts so it didn't all show at once, but for some reason they haven't worked!
To Meet The Dodds.
The chapter opens with Peter and Nicola reunited and having a conversation which is both very funny but also ominous at times, such as Selby’s witty but unfunny quote from Hamlet – the funeral baked meats furnishing forth the wedding feast. (As a slight aside, I wonder if Nicola is inspired by this remark to go and read Hamlet, because by Cricket Term she does know something of Hamlet.) Then they imagine if all of the girls had been bridesmaids and Edwin had to buy them all presents – a delighful but daunting idea for any future spouse. Then the funniest pair of lines – ‘ d’ you think there was a ghastly pause after Kay said And there’s another seven at home?’ ‘There was a gruesome ghastly pause after Kay said he’s forty-one with three children,’ – a reminder that neither party in this marriage is facing an ideal situation or an easy time.
Finally Peter points out to Nicola the painful truth that Patrick and Ginty are likely to be wrapped up in each other, and Nicola realises ‘that however certain you may be in your own mind of the truth of some disagreeable fact, it only becomes real when someone else … confirms it for you.’
So the Dodds are finally arriving and Mrs Marlow can’t meet them herself because she needs to wash her hair. Really? I thought ‘washing one’s hair’ was the classic excuse for not going out on a date you didn’t want to go on. Mrs Marlow asks Ginty to go, only Ginty is at her most unlikeable in this book, a self-centred and vain teenage brat. When Mrs Marlow gives up on Ginty with the comment that she doesn’t want the Dodds to feel unwelcome, Ginty is both ‘relieved but resentful’. This is such a true depiction of the teenage mind – Ginty doesn’t actually want to put herself out doing a job for someone else, but neither does she want her mental self-image to be of a mean, unfriendly person.
Both Peter and Ann show their understanding of the awfulness of this whole situation in different ways. Peter thinks as the train comes in ‘This is a very grotty happening. Someone should have stopped it.’ Indeed, but who? And Ann says sorry to Rose, meaning she is sorry that Rose’s parents have divorced, her mother has died and that she has had to leave her home and come and live with strangers. Imagine if the whole book was written from Rose’s point of view – it would be hard for any modern critic to complain that the story was all about privileged children. Rose’s story could be the entire plot of a Jacqueline Wilson book.
I love Nicola and Peter meeting the Dodds. We see them both at their best, I think, especially Peter thinking of buying the sweets to make them feel welcome. Peter is natural and easy with Fob who instinctively latches onto him. And then when Mrs Clavering is pulled onto the platform by Rose, Peter is quite masterful and assertive in insisting she comes to tea, while still being polite and charming and funny – possibly glimmers of officer material showing through.
Nicola and Peter are both obviously naturally ‘good with’ younger children. I wonder if, having always been ‘lower orders’ themselves, they find it enjoyable being ‘upper deck’ in turn. They are now being ‘Giles’ and ‘Rowan’ to versions of their younger selves. (Although I’m sure Peter will be far more kind and consistent with Fob than Giles was with Nicola.)
Chas is an immensely likeable child. The conversation he and Nicola have while walking home from the station is so well written. Chas has had both unthinkable things happen to him – parents divorcing and his mother dying, and he doesn’t have a clue really about what happens next. AF makes him so calm and resigned about it all, even though his questions make Nicola’s heart lurch. AF’s characterisation is so good, we have only just met Chas, and yet we already care about what happens to him, and it’s all done without a trace of sentimentality or ‘ickiness’.
Tea And Stables.
What do we make of Mrs Clavering? The Marlows and their mother whole-heartedly approve of her. From what we see of her at tea, it seems unfair to think that she would really have been turning the children against Edwin. Has Kay been encouraging Edwin to worry about something that hasn’t actually been happening?
Tea is a successful meal, and afterwards the children are ordered outside by Mrs Marlow for a walk which ends up with everyone except Rose enjoying themselves in the stable yard. Into this scene rides Ginty who proceeds to career across the yard and nearly crush Rose in the doorway. Ginty could perfectly well get off Catkin and hold him at the entrance to the yard until the others are out of the way, but with her head full of thoughts of Patrick she has to show off in front of her earthbound siblings. And why is Catkin so excitable when he has supposedly been out riding all afternoon? I suspect he and Blackleg have been tied up somewhere while Ginty and Patrick gaze into each others eyes, pretending to be Rosina and Rupert. Nicola, quick thinking and resourceful, rescues Rose: a forerunner of what is to come later in the book.
Ginty’s news that the Idiot Boy is for sale confirms for Nicola that Ginty and Patrick have been riding together, and as she usually does when upset, goes off on her own to fetch more sugar, firmly telling herself not to care – saying ‘ “Well – so what?” to herself at intervals.’ It reminds me of the time she had to repeat Sprog’s name over and over.
One of the themes of this book is Nicola maturing. In the conversation with her mother after Mrs Clavering leaves, she seems very young, and at her most Lawrieish. Her mother points out that Mrs Clavering’s daughters have been killed, and Nicola says ‘People don’t mind, do they, not as much, when they get older?’
While waiting for Edwin to arrive the conversation turns to the Idiot Boy and surprisingly Mrs Marlow tells them they can cash their savings to buy him. Has the stress of the wedding made her so distracted that she doesn’t care if two of her children who can’t even ride very well spend a serious amount of money on a pony? And the unfairness of Ginty getting Catkin is brought up yet again.
Finally the dreaded moment arrives, and Edwin is introduced, AF gives us a far more detailed description of his physical appearance than she usually does for any character. Is she making it clear that Karen hasn’t been swept away by good looks? And then the chapter closes; with a splendid economy of words, AF gives us the forbidding sentence: ‘It was no good. They didn’t take to him at all.’
Wedding And Breakfast.
Although the book is referencing ‘Persuasion’ throughout, the wedding reminds me very much of the wedding scene in ‘Jane Eyre’. It is early morning, the church is empty and gloomy and the clothes are drab. Nicola’s reflection over the point in the ceremony where the vicar asks if there are any reasons why the couple should not be wed, and Nicola wonders if anyone ever had, seems to suggest that someone should be stopping this wedding. Has Nicola read Jane Eyre or has she been put off the Brontes for life by the Gondalling?
Patrick, you complete b******. Couldn’t you even acknowledge your former best friend with a smile instead of staring gormlessly at Ginty? That would just be ordinary politeness, as Mrs Marlow might say.
A comic touch is provided by Ginty’s fantasies about clothes – something floaty and black laceish – really? In a church? And then imagining marrying Patrick in the Merrick’s chapel. Oh dear.
The family gather outside the church to see the couple off. The sense of resentment at an intruder making off with one of the family is perfectly expressed by the collective ‘stiffening’ at Edwin calling Kay ‘Katie’. Karen now has a life and a persona which excludes all of them, and even if they liked Edwin, they would still feel that sense of displacement.
Back home for a hearty breakfast, and I do enjoy the descriptions of Chas eating. What is it about small boys with huge appetites that makes them so charming? And the family disperse for the day. Ginty again kicks up a fuss about being asked to do something.
Is Ginty just being a teenager? Because I can’t help wondering, given how opalescent her character is, if spending all her time with Patrick is causing her to reflect Patrick’s personality – self-absorbed, arrogant, single-minded?
It could also be said that Patrick and Ginty are mirroring Karen and Edwin – both couples are obsessed with getting what they want, oblivious to how anybody else is affected.
Rowan in these chapters is rather ghost-like, appearing in silence at meals, and not saying anything, bearing all the weight of Trennels on her shoulders. Come on Mrs Marlow, it’s time you noticed!
The chapter ends with Nicola and Rose in the old playroom. I love the moment when Rose shuts her eyes, hoping for something magical to appear, and then, in a way, it does, with her discovery of a shelf of books that she can escape into. Rose gets to escape from all the uncertainties of her new life into these imaginary worlds, until the chapter ends on another perfectly expressed ominous note: ‘With the end of the honeymoon, however, matters were better ordered; as Rose had feared they would be.’
I tried to put in the lj cuts so it didn't all show at once, but for some reason they haven't worked!
To Meet The Dodds.
The chapter opens with Peter and Nicola reunited and having a conversation which is both very funny but also ominous at times, such as Selby’s witty but unfunny quote from Hamlet – the funeral baked meats furnishing forth the wedding feast. (As a slight aside, I wonder if Nicola is inspired by this remark to go and read Hamlet, because by Cricket Term she does know something of Hamlet.) Then they imagine if all of the girls had been bridesmaids and Edwin had to buy them all presents – a delighful but daunting idea for any future spouse. Then the funniest pair of lines – ‘ d’ you think there was a ghastly pause after Kay said And there’s another seven at home?’ ‘There was a gruesome ghastly pause after Kay said he’s forty-one with three children,’ – a reminder that neither party in this marriage is facing an ideal situation or an easy time.
Finally Peter points out to Nicola the painful truth that Patrick and Ginty are likely to be wrapped up in each other, and Nicola realises ‘that however certain you may be in your own mind of the truth of some disagreeable fact, it only becomes real when someone else … confirms it for you.’
So the Dodds are finally arriving and Mrs Marlow can’t meet them herself because she needs to wash her hair. Really? I thought ‘washing one’s hair’ was the classic excuse for not going out on a date you didn’t want to go on. Mrs Marlow asks Ginty to go, only Ginty is at her most unlikeable in this book, a self-centred and vain teenage brat. When Mrs Marlow gives up on Ginty with the comment that she doesn’t want the Dodds to feel unwelcome, Ginty is both ‘relieved but resentful’. This is such a true depiction of the teenage mind – Ginty doesn’t actually want to put herself out doing a job for someone else, but neither does she want her mental self-image to be of a mean, unfriendly person.
Both Peter and Ann show their understanding of the awfulness of this whole situation in different ways. Peter thinks as the train comes in ‘This is a very grotty happening. Someone should have stopped it.’ Indeed, but who? And Ann says sorry to Rose, meaning she is sorry that Rose’s parents have divorced, her mother has died and that she has had to leave her home and come and live with strangers. Imagine if the whole book was written from Rose’s point of view – it would be hard for any modern critic to complain that the story was all about privileged children. Rose’s story could be the entire plot of a Jacqueline Wilson book.
I love Nicola and Peter meeting the Dodds. We see them both at their best, I think, especially Peter thinking of buying the sweets to make them feel welcome. Peter is natural and easy with Fob who instinctively latches onto him. And then when Mrs Clavering is pulled onto the platform by Rose, Peter is quite masterful and assertive in insisting she comes to tea, while still being polite and charming and funny – possibly glimmers of officer material showing through.
Nicola and Peter are both obviously naturally ‘good with’ younger children. I wonder if, having always been ‘lower orders’ themselves, they find it enjoyable being ‘upper deck’ in turn. They are now being ‘Giles’ and ‘Rowan’ to versions of their younger selves. (Although I’m sure Peter will be far more kind and consistent with Fob than Giles was with Nicola.)
Chas is an immensely likeable child. The conversation he and Nicola have while walking home from the station is so well written. Chas has had both unthinkable things happen to him – parents divorcing and his mother dying, and he doesn’t have a clue really about what happens next. AF makes him so calm and resigned about it all, even though his questions make Nicola’s heart lurch. AF’s characterisation is so good, we have only just met Chas, and yet we already care about what happens to him, and it’s all done without a trace of sentimentality or ‘ickiness’.
Tea And Stables.
What do we make of Mrs Clavering? The Marlows and their mother whole-heartedly approve of her. From what we see of her at tea, it seems unfair to think that she would really have been turning the children against Edwin. Has Kay been encouraging Edwin to worry about something that hasn’t actually been happening?
Tea is a successful meal, and afterwards the children are ordered outside by Mrs Marlow for a walk which ends up with everyone except Rose enjoying themselves in the stable yard. Into this scene rides Ginty who proceeds to career across the yard and nearly crush Rose in the doorway. Ginty could perfectly well get off Catkin and hold him at the entrance to the yard until the others are out of the way, but with her head full of thoughts of Patrick she has to show off in front of her earthbound siblings. And why is Catkin so excitable when he has supposedly been out riding all afternoon? I suspect he and Blackleg have been tied up somewhere while Ginty and Patrick gaze into each others eyes, pretending to be Rosina and Rupert. Nicola, quick thinking and resourceful, rescues Rose: a forerunner of what is to come later in the book.
Ginty’s news that the Idiot Boy is for sale confirms for Nicola that Ginty and Patrick have been riding together, and as she usually does when upset, goes off on her own to fetch more sugar, firmly telling herself not to care – saying ‘ “Well – so what?” to herself at intervals.’ It reminds me of the time she had to repeat Sprog’s name over and over.
One of the themes of this book is Nicola maturing. In the conversation with her mother after Mrs Clavering leaves, she seems very young, and at her most Lawrieish. Her mother points out that Mrs Clavering’s daughters have been killed, and Nicola says ‘People don’t mind, do they, not as much, when they get older?’
While waiting for Edwin to arrive the conversation turns to the Idiot Boy and surprisingly Mrs Marlow tells them they can cash their savings to buy him. Has the stress of the wedding made her so distracted that she doesn’t care if two of her children who can’t even ride very well spend a serious amount of money on a pony? And the unfairness of Ginty getting Catkin is brought up yet again.
Finally the dreaded moment arrives, and Edwin is introduced, AF gives us a far more detailed description of his physical appearance than she usually does for any character. Is she making it clear that Karen hasn’t been swept away by good looks? And then the chapter closes; with a splendid economy of words, AF gives us the forbidding sentence: ‘It was no good. They didn’t take to him at all.’
Wedding And Breakfast.
Although the book is referencing ‘Persuasion’ throughout, the wedding reminds me very much of the wedding scene in ‘Jane Eyre’. It is early morning, the church is empty and gloomy and the clothes are drab. Nicola’s reflection over the point in the ceremony where the vicar asks if there are any reasons why the couple should not be wed, and Nicola wonders if anyone ever had, seems to suggest that someone should be stopping this wedding. Has Nicola read Jane Eyre or has she been put off the Brontes for life by the Gondalling?
Patrick, you complete b******. Couldn’t you even acknowledge your former best friend with a smile instead of staring gormlessly at Ginty? That would just be ordinary politeness, as Mrs Marlow might say.
A comic touch is provided by Ginty’s fantasies about clothes – something floaty and black laceish – really? In a church? And then imagining marrying Patrick in the Merrick’s chapel. Oh dear.
The family gather outside the church to see the couple off. The sense of resentment at an intruder making off with one of the family is perfectly expressed by the collective ‘stiffening’ at Edwin calling Kay ‘Katie’. Karen now has a life and a persona which excludes all of them, and even if they liked Edwin, they would still feel that sense of displacement.
Back home for a hearty breakfast, and I do enjoy the descriptions of Chas eating. What is it about small boys with huge appetites that makes them so charming? And the family disperse for the day. Ginty again kicks up a fuss about being asked to do something.
Is Ginty just being a teenager? Because I can’t help wondering, given how opalescent her character is, if spending all her time with Patrick is causing her to reflect Patrick’s personality – self-absorbed, arrogant, single-minded?
It could also be said that Patrick and Ginty are mirroring Karen and Edwin – both couples are obsessed with getting what they want, oblivious to how anybody else is affected.
Rowan in these chapters is rather ghost-like, appearing in silence at meals, and not saying anything, bearing all the weight of Trennels on her shoulders. Come on Mrs Marlow, it’s time you noticed!
The chapter ends with Nicola and Rose in the old playroom. I love the moment when Rose shuts her eyes, hoping for something magical to appear, and then, in a way, it does, with her discovery of a shelf of books that she can escape into. Rose gets to escape from all the uncertainties of her new life into these imaginary worlds, until the chapter ends on another perfectly expressed ominous note: ‘With the end of the honeymoon, however, matters were better ordered; as Rose had feared they would be.’
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Re: Kipling reflections OT
Date: 2014-11-30 09:26 am (UTC)In an effort to drag it back on track, I'm surprised Lawrie (who has pretty canonically read 'Puck of Pook's Hill') still has a problem with Ariel. Puck has more self-determination, but he's not wildly far off Ariel in concept.
no subject
Date: 2014-11-30 09:30 am (UTC)While I do take the point about the wedding being more Jane Eyre than Persuasion (even the chime of Edwin/Edward), Austen is fabulous on the whole business of families being messed up, particularly in her later novels, which is spot on with the themes of the book.
Re: Kipling reflections OT
Date: 2014-11-30 09:40 am (UTC)Yes, I wonder how Lawrie would have managed if the play had been A Midsummer Night's Dream and she had been given Puck to play.
Re: Kipling reflections OT
Date: 2014-11-30 09:55 am (UTC)I was spoilt forever for the Dream by a fab anarchic RSC/Barbican production in which Puck was a bored rock superstar of the fairy world and the fairy giving the "Either I mistake your shape and making quite;
Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite
Call'd Robin Goodfellow" speech all on one breath and rising pitch, with him looking bored and mouthing "yadda, yadda" culminating with her whipping out her autograph book with a high pitched squeal when Puck said "Thou speak'st aright."
I'm sure Lawrie would have loved doing something like that, had Kempe let her.
Re: Kipling reflections OT
Date: 2014-11-30 02:37 pm (UTC)Re: Kipling reflections OT
Date: 2014-11-30 04:21 pm (UTC)Re: Kipling reflections OT
Date: 2014-11-30 06:51 pm (UTC)Re: The infant Dodds' understanding of the events in their life
Date: 2014-11-30 09:29 pm (UTC)Re: Mrs Clavering
Date: 2014-12-01 04:06 am (UTC)-- Kate
Re: The infant Dodds' understanding of the events in their life
Date: 2014-12-01 04:29 pm (UTC)So I can really feel for both Rose and her Grandmother.
(my favourite moment in these chapters has to be Peter cutting up Fob's 'sailors' with their honey buttons.)
Re: Mrs Clavering
Date: 2014-12-01 05:05 pm (UTC)I think the reactions of the children, Dodds and younger Marlows, are very much in keeping with the 60s as is the behaviour of the adults. For instance, I had no idea my parents were divorced and had been for several years, until, aged nine, I overheard my mother mention it to someone. We children were never actually told. I think it was assumed we'd gradually absorb it without anyone ever explaining anything.
There could be quite a gulf between adults and children and I think AF reflects this in all her books, especially RMF. Children in the 60s had more freedom and spent much of their time out of adult company which was usually considered boring. I don't find Nicola's comment surprising. Adults apparently cope with everything so why not deaths of adult children. Nicola isn't an adult in spite of her maturity in some areas, so she doesn't think like one.
Neither did I find it surprising that, in FL, the lower deck hadn't picked up anything about living at Trennels being a permanent arrangement.
However, I always thought it odd that Mrs Marlow had never let on that she'd had four brothers. After all, it's standard stuff to ask about siblings of your parents at a fairly young age.
Re: Kipling reflections OT
Date: 2014-12-01 07:13 pm (UTC)Re: Mrs Clavering/names
Date: 2014-12-01 07:16 pm (UTC)Re: The infant Dodds' understanding of the events in their life
Date: 2014-12-01 07:43 pm (UTC)Re: Kipling reflections OT
Date: 2014-12-01 09:36 pm (UTC)--Katy
Re: The infant Dodds' understanding of the events in their life
Date: 2014-12-01 10:54 pm (UTC)Yes (belatedly) to both of those. It does all make me think that Karen is oddly oblivious to what the children have been going through. The fact that the descriptions of the wedding show her as being tranquil to the point of being slightly bovine about the whole thing are concerning; as if she can't see beyond the next couple of days. But her future life is going to be as much - perhaps more- concerned with the three children than with Edwin. Her marriage is a stupdendous step into the dark.
Re: Kipling reflections OT
Date: 2014-12-01 11:39 pm (UTC)Re: Mrs Clavering
Date: 2014-12-02 09:50 am (UTC)Children routinely weren't told if they were adopted, either. And it wasn't just children - people often weren't told that their illness was terminal, for example.
Dodd/Clavering back story
Date: 2014-12-02 10:12 am (UTC)How about this?
Edwin Dodd, shy, former grammar school boy, meets Rosemary Clavering, trainee primary teacher, in his last undergrad year at Oxford. Also bookish (in a later time period, she’d probably have been doing a history degree herself) she is more outgoing than Edwin, but their personalities seem to compliment each other. Rosemary’s parents own a family engineering firm making railway parts: gregarious like their daughter, they find Edwin a bit of a dry stick. But they recognize the couple seem happy, and when they get married give them a substantial sum towards a house in Oxford.
Initially Rosemary works, but when Edwin’s career is established she stops to have Rose and Charles. It’s basically a happy marriage, although Rosemary is increasingly aware how much Edwin and her lives have polarized, and she is looking forward to developing her own interests as the children grown older. The pregnancy with Fob is an accident and afterwards Rosemary suffers severe post natal depression. Distressed but clueless how to help, Edwin retreats more and more into his work, to the disgust of Mrs Clavering, who is spending a lot of time with the family. Further, although never bad-tempered with Rosemary, his stress shows in irritability with the children and Mrs C.
Rosemary slowly recovers but remains much closer to her parents and outspoken about her resentments with Edwin and her way of life: she particularly complains about Oxford, its academic snobbery and attitude to wives. Edwin focuses on location as the problem and something he can fix – he eventually manages to line up the Streweminster job (perhaps subconciously pleased its further from his in-laws) and presents it to Rosemary almost as a fait accompli. But Rosemary is furious – he really doesn’t get it – and her parents are equally furious, especially as they see it as Edwin using the money they gave the couple to move their daughter further away from them. Rosemary decamps to Chester with the kids, and in a bold move, goes on holiday with her sister to the Alps…
Re: The infant Dodds' understanding of the events in their life
Date: 2014-12-02 01:36 pm (UTC)Re: Dodd/Clavering back story
Date: 2014-12-02 01:40 pm (UTC)Re: The infant Dodds' understanding of the events in their life
Date: 2014-12-02 04:03 pm (UTC)Re: The infant Dodds' understanding of the events in their life
Date: 2014-12-02 04:14 pm (UTC)It's terrible, yes, but at the same time a lot of relationships start in bad circumstances - ie apparently unsuitable and exploitative, and with other people getting hurt/betrayed - and ultimately turn out well, in which case they do tend to "carry their own conviction" (to quote RMF from slightly different context), and other people come round and accept them. If Kay and Edwin turn out to be a solid long term relationship, then even Rosemary's parents are likely to see it as a good thing not just for them but the Dodd children in the end.
And for the Dodd children it might be a lot better for Karen and Edwin to get married quickly, and establish a new household, than to delay a year say and then have another dislocation. And there's no particular evidence in the book that they feel their mother has been betrayed by the new marriage, or that they resent Karen (on the contrary, they just don't really register her).
Re: The infant Dodds' understanding of the events in their life
Date: 2014-12-02 04:42 pm (UTC)At the moment we see this relationship it's a train-wreck in progress (which may explain why there are so many train-crash metaphors flying about the place, come to think of it) and if it does end up OK it'll be more by good luck than good judgement, the latter being remarkably absent from any of the principals.
Re: Mrs Clavering
Date: 2014-12-02 04:43 pm (UTC)