Readthrough Chapters 5 to 7.

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

Thank 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.’

Comments

Re: Mrs Clavering

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

I first read this line when I was the same age as Nicola. It really bothered me that someone my own age - who I really admired and almost hero-worshipped (if it's possible to hero-worship a fictional character) could say or think that. I did start a thread about it years ago and got rather snapped at.

Re: Mrs Clavering

[mudkickerkicks.livejournal.com]

@jackmerlin: If you don't mind sharing, would love to know your thoughts in that thread and why people disagreed? Do you mean the line where Nicola says she thinks people 'mind less' about relatives dying when they (the bereaved) are older? I'm (still) in two minds about that line after reading it at Nicola's age.

Re: Mrs Clavering

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

I presume the thread in question is still somewhere in the vaults of Trennels. Basically I said something along the lines of 'how could Nicola be so stupid as to think that?'. She is intelligent, perceptive, well-read, makes friends easily with adults etc. I think the line would fit Lawrie much better.
The best counter argument was that Nicola has been brought up in a world where adults don't show emotion so she thinks they don't feel it. But so was I, and I still knew at thirteen that adults felt things.

Re: Mrs Clavering

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

I think one of the things that I like about Forest is the way she writes maturation proceeding in fits and starts, and sometimes characters even regress from insights that they've had. I'm mildly surprised that Nicola articulates the sentiment, which does seem to be a Lawrie-ish thing to do--Nicola usually has more social nous about what's acceptable to articulate. I'm not so surprised that the full truth that adults feel things as vividly as teenagers do hasn't quite sunk in for her, and perhaps in this emotionally turbulent situation, rattled by Rose's displays of grief and Chas's innocent but revealing natter she does regress a bit.

Re: Mrs Clavering

[antfan.livejournal.com]

Nicola's remarks are also in keeping with the young Marlows' belief that Ginty, especially, articulates in this book and Peter's Room that nobody could possibly want to live beyond forty.

I guess it's an exaggeration for comic effect...or maybe it isn't. Maybe it just is how teenagers think. (I read both books as a teenager and don't remember these passages jarring.)

Re: Mrs Clavering

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, I think it's important to remember that to Nicola these ages seem ancient and a very long way off. She's perfectly capable of appreciating how awful it is for children to lose a parent, but appreciating that Mrs. Clavering has lost a child is beyond her at the moment, because to her mind an adult with children of her own is no longer someone's child. It's the same bizarre teenager-logic that lets Lawrie differentiate between criticizing Grandmother and criticizing "Mummy's mother."

And also, I think when you're a child you can easily have an idea that when you grow up everything will become easier to handle. After all, lots of things are terrifying for children that are perfectly easy for adults. And any child who pays attention is going to realize that adulthood involves coping with the deaths of loved ones. It's easier to imagine your future self as impossibly stoic than it is to face the reality of how much crushing grief is waiting for you down the line.

--Katy

Re: Mrs Clavering

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

I think it might be the way teenagers talk, but not the way they actually think - at least not when they stop to think properly.
I have tried to come up with a justification for Nicola which goes something like this: Having only thought about Mrs Dodd's death from the p.o.v. of Rose and Chas, she has to do an instant re-think when her mother points out that Mrs Clavering is mourning two daughters. Out of embarrassed guilt that she hasn't even thought of that, Nicola says something silly without really thinking it through.

Re: Mrs Clavering

[sprog-63.livejournal.com]

Works for me!

Re: Mrs Clavering

[(Anonymous)]

There are parents - very much the minority I think and hope - who do feel they love their children less once they start looking like adults. Some of them articulate this to their adult children with absolute clarity. Some of them complain repeatedly to the adult/ adolescent child that they "look horrible" now and go on and on about how sad it makes them that their child is no longer a "sweet little golden haired.."
Maybe AF had overheard one of these - or known one, maybe a friend of a friends parent or something similar and hence wondered what Nicola would think if she had heard it - more use of public transport means more enforced over-hearing perhaps? Perhaps Nicola is also articulating a fear - that as she and Lawrie stop being children her parents might care less about them? Or perhaps that they already care less about Rowan?
As an adult daughter, I was well aware I still mattered to my parents, but that is because they had in their own quiet and undemonstrative way made it clear to me, and not because society in general had done so.

Re: Mrs Clavering

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

And it's certainly a suggestion that someone who has eight children must at least have a high tolerance for babies and infants.

Re: Mrs Clavering

[learnsslowly.livejournal.com]

sorry that was me. Didn't realise I was logged out

Re: Mrs Clavering

[(Anonymous)]

Just a side note, but I noticed that Mrs Clavering shares a surname with Major Clavering who lends Rowan Hot Chestnut for the hunt in Peter's Room! It's not exactly a common name… I realise it's just a coincidence, but it would be odd if the wee Dodds turn out to have relatives nearby…

-- Kate

Re: Mrs Clavering

[biskybat.livejournal.com]

Re Nicola feeling sorry for her grandmother because of losing four sons in the war: this is close to Nicola's heart. Had it been four daughters she might have felt differently!

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: Mrs Clavering

[antfan.livejournal.com]

I think I read somewhere about Mrs Thatcher's children only discovering their father had been married before, and divorced, as adolescents.

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.

Re: Mrs Clavering

[intrepid--fox.livejournal.com]

I have a friend whose children (now mid to late teens) have never been told that he was married before. In fact, I think possibly both parents were married before.

Re: Mrs Clavering

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

My mother only told me about her first marriage (short, and childless) when I was 16. I'd actually worked it out from overheard conversations and so forth, and replied, no doubt slightly disconcertingly, 'I know.'

Re: Mrs Clavering

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

I remember finding out quite by chance that my grandfather (who had died the year I was born) had a second wife, then still living, and a daughter a little older than my oldest sister. Their existence wasn't specially being kept a secret -- they just didn't get discussed much. I still have never met my half-aunt.

Re: Mrs Clavering/names

[intrepid--fox.livejournal.com]

i had never noticed that! But then again, when I confess that I've only just noticed that Rose was named after her mother, you will not find that surprising...

Re: Mrs Clavering

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

For some reason I'd always assumed that Major Clavering was a rather rakish bachelor (perhaps a Confirmed Bachelor, though I'm not absolutely, erm, wedded to that), and was delighted at (http://legionseagle.dreamwidth.org/profile)legionseagle (http://legionseagle.dreamwidth.org/)'s suggestion in the TTA discussion that he might constitute a possible market for the cocaine. Black sheep of the family, clearly. But a delightful uncle to Rosemary and her sister.

Re: Mrs Clavering

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

How old is Major Clavering? Perhaps Rosemary's father died and Rosemary's mother was briefly, disastrously, married to the Major.

Re: Mrs Clavering

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

He's a 'gallant, mildly flirtatious old gentleman' in Peter's Room, so I think it's not improbable they're of an age. In my plodding, unimaginative way I was thinking brother-in-law, but an ex-husband is a rather splendid skellington in the cupboard.

Re: Mrs Clavering

[sue marsden (from livejournal.com)]

But he is still alive (Rosemary's father, that is). There are several referents to 'Rosemary's parents' and the children's 'grandparents@

Re: Mrs Clavering

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

Drat. I suppose you're right. Isn't he the one who taught Chas to thank the engine-driver?

Re: Mrs Clavering

[mudkickerkicks.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Didn't realise the thread you started was on here, will have a look.

Re: Mrs Clavering

[sarah barnard (from livejournal.com)]

Possibly Nicola, who goes to a great deal of trouble not to show the emotion she feels, imagines either that grown ups can just do this better or somehow thinks that adulthood is actually the state of having no feelings to show?? I had a friend who, even at the age of 19, believed that adults did not make mistakes (rather like Ann, I think), which is obviously nonsense!