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jackmerlin for taking the reins last week.
We begin with a delicious understatement, and a worrying indication of the cultural and political differences between the Dodd and Marlow households. I’m a slow-starting, coffee-sipping, absently reading sort of morning person myself, so I have one of my rare moments of sympathy with Edwin here.
Forest gets Ginty and Peter’s teenage obnoxiousness down to a tee, I think, and it’s thoroughly enjoyable if you don’t have to sit through it yourself. Peter’s ‘ “[Ginty’s feet] will be stirrup-bound” ’ and her response, ‘ “How quite revolting-sounding,” ’ strikes me as moderately risqué for the target market. (It wouldn’t entirely surprise me if the Merrick Boy turned out to have some fascinating sexual kinks in later life, but that is to gallop too early into the Vale of Headcanon, perhaps.)
Ginty overdoes it: ‘a bish that would make her kick the sheets for months to come when memory gibbered at her in the night’ is one of my favourite Forest insights. Ouch. Katie is wonderfully pitiless.
Edwin’s distant studiousness contrasts with the Marlows’ mucking-in ethos, and the children’s rather pathetic response to being noticed: ‘like puppies who have heard their names called’. How perfectly Edwin of Edwin to address his reply about Yetland Cove to Mrs Marlow rather than answering his son directly.
His hostility to the nicknames is interesting: I can see how he might resent his children having been so summarily re-christened, but he handles it (after all, rather a sign of affection and welcoming than the reverse, and one which the children like and reciprocate) perfectly abominably. It’s a lovely touch that he’s ‘baffled’: Edwin’s never had a nickname, has he? (Sympathy briefly re-ignites.)
Oof, Peter. 'Patrick or Buster?' That was needlessly nasty.
Nicola and Patrick’s conversation is painfully strained, but warms up a little at the introduction to Blackleg, which is, of course Ginty’s cue, make-up and all. Nicola’s realisation that she is not wanted is done with great subtlety and the comfort she takes in Buster rather heartbreaking. Nick really does pick ‘em, doesn’t she? Watsonian reasons why she keeps on getting dumped?
The uncomfortable conflicts of authority resulting from the Dodds and the Marlows inhabiting the same space are nicely intimated in the minor row over Rose’s reluctance to go out, and the reaction to Chas’s comical ‘ “Poor girl! Life is quite over for her!” ’ is well-observed, I think: Edwin wanting to laugh but suppressing it with a snap at Karen’s unconcealed smile.
Nicola and Peter’s oscillations between responsibility and carelessness in this passage are beautifully handled, and I much enjoy their conversation about Kay’s apparent uninterest in asserting her presence in the children’s lives, ending on that uncomfortable margin of speculation about the sexual lives of siblings: ‘“She must have made it clear to Mister—sorry-pardon, Edwin—[...] that she was alive and breathing” ’. Their compact over The Idiot Boy (Wordsworthian names for nags: classy, eh?) is also a nicely-handled moment, though one with far-reaching consequences.
Nicola’s circumnavigation fantasies are a nice lead-in to the episode on the wrecked smack. Interesting that her childhood reading doesn’t seem to have included Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. Forest achieves a nice balance of real danger and anxiety with utter farce here: nearly a nasty accident, indeed. Nicola’s exasperation with the follies of Chas, only four years younger than she, is precisely observed, I think: the difference between Nine and Thirteen is vast. Her learning how to communicate with the Dodds (‘circus pusscat’) ties in to the books’ theme of family idiolect.
Peter’s dislodging of the capstan continues the book’s theme of near and narrow misses, but turns out fortuitous. Nicola’s observation that ‘for the moment is all seemed to have been an enormous huha about nothing’ is accurate about the psychology of immediate relief.
Chas and Fob’s lack of trepidation concerning 'Fiorfrorefiddle' [sic: I'm not sure if it's Chas's mispronunciation, a typographical error, or Forest's misremembering] contrast with their older sister’s fear of animals: I rather love Fob yowling The Beatles at him. The information that it took Nicola ‘quite some years’ to feel very warm towards Fob again is a delightful flash-forward: this has been your regular scheduled fic prompt.
Peter’s minatory conversation with Chas is very acutely done: the lower decks' pastiche of the quarterdeck. But oh dear—I shouldn’t trust Peter’s judgement and orders above Nicola’s, improved though he has since Traitor. His closing revelation that he was quite happy to let Nicola take responsibility for the infant Dodds until it became clear something was actually wrong doesn’t wholly inspire confidence either.
The first paragraph, with its litany of disappearances, is a rather foreboding opening. Edwin and Karen seem to be neglecting their responsibilities rather: it's something of a cheek to ask Mrs Marlow to take the kids to the dentist, but as we'll discover, Karen has a neck of solid brass. 'Me hatee Katee': oh Chas, I sympathise (and more than trying it on for sound.)
More conflicts of authority as Edwin tries to negotiate forbidding Chas the embankment and Peter is aggravating. And conflicts of loyalty: Nicola's feelings on overhearing Karen's deprecation of her brother to Edwin are absolutely characteristic of Nicola's stubborn affections. Ominous foreshadowing, though still played for comic effect as Lawrie becomes dissatisfied with Ariel and enamoured of Caliban. Lawrie's letter to Kempe is all the more delightful for remaining in our imaginations, I think, but if anyone fancies epistolary!Lawrie, this has been your regularly scheduled &c.
Rowan's relief at the farm being free of swine fever reminds us of her fairly thankless ongoing toil throughout all this; but her editorial work on Lawrie's letter provides a comic moment.
I think giving people dogs as surprise gifts is just an awfully bad idea, so I find myself in uncertain sympathy with what Peter imagines Edwin's response to be on this one. In fact, the drama of Chas's birthday treat does seem to gloze over the introduction of another canine member of the household. Nicola and Peter-both, one reflects, now dumped by the Merrick Boy-get on hearteningly well here.
Nicola's collection of The Idiot Boy is a lovely setpiece: her defiant response to Patrick's tease, her surprising initial mastery of him, the 'apocalyptic' sky, her fall, her realisation that in her discomfort she'd forgotten to give Patrick the cheque.
The descriptions of the rainwashed village are beautiful, and with the comedy of Mr Pedder's pedantry and PC Catchpole's officiousness create a deceptively sanguine mood before what is I think a definitive moment in Lawrie and Nicola's relationship. What do others think of their row and its significance?
Peter's intuition that it was seeing Patrick and Ginty together that rattled Nicola, and his relative tact (even though he is wrong in this instance) about it demonstrates the improvement of their relationship. The description of 'Peter and the Idiot both trying to understand what Peter meant' is rather charming; I'm amused his 'officerly' laziness at book-distance, too, though in the flesh I find such behaviour unreasonably irritating.
What do people think of Karen's sharp practice about the house? I'm with Rowan and Nicola on this one: I think it's fairly bloody vile of her, though I can partially sympathise with Mrs Marlow being apparently on her side, largely to get the Dodds out of Trennels before violence erupts (which she doesn't manage to do). Karen appears to great disadvantage in this book, I think--utterly selfish. Her notably feeble riposte ' "I suppose the real reason you won't do anything is because I didn't tell you beforehand" ' reveals the extent of her self-centredness: she really hasn't noticed that Rowan has a more-than-professional relationship with the Tranters. Peter's '"If I were you I wouldn't write [to Capt Marlow] at all"' neatly connects the eldest sister with the youngest, as does Karen's uncharacteristically Lawrie-ish door-bang, and Forest segues smoothly into Nicola's refusal to back down over The Idiot. Both Karen and Lawrie do (eventually, very eventually in Lawrie's case) get their way on these matters, though: a nicely anti-moralising touch.
More disappointments for Lawrie in Kempe's letter: I think it's probably a bit unfair (and daft) of Kempe to respond in this way, though--it can't have escaped her notice that Lawrie is a child who needs firm boundaries, and to expect her to understand politely negative equivocation is setting oneself up for trouble down the line.
I enjoy the way that Forest suggests the strict discipline under which Peter lives at Dartmouth with his creative letter-but-not-spirit evasions of the much laxer home equivalent. Peter's sketch of Edwin as someone who 'just doesn't like people to enjoy themselves in their own way' is spot on, but Nicola' mention of Malise suggests a more personal reason for Peter's disinclination to go to Colbrook Castle, and his immediate sympathy with Chas on the point.
Forest conveys the Yetland Cove outing with economy but a fine sense of its dawnlit magic. Poor Rose, though: 'Peter and Nicola had no idea they were walking with someone who was sure she knew just how it felt to be a poor fish...'--such a precise description of painful sensitivity.
Of what![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
legionseagle once memorably in another context called the Guy Gibson school of dog nomenclature, I shall say nothing. But if people do want to thrash through the unedifying but I think largely incidental instances of racism in the series (though, one reflects, incidental for roughly the same reason that Mr Deasy is able to acquit Ireland of anti-Semitism), please feel free. Rowan, I have noted, seems to go in for stereotypes and slurs concerning Chinese people.
The detail that Mrs Marlow is gluttonous about fried fish for breakfast is a delight. Chas, you rotten thing, knowing how Rose feels and still pulling the guts-for-garters routine.
And finally, the Saving of the London Train. Again, I appreciate the flash-forward to Nicola's future: 'It was something she was to remember always...', her panicked flashback to the previous nearly-a-nasty-accident and her first meeting with the Dodds, the 'newspaper words', her memory of the squashed hedgehog. Forest does shock and relief almost better than she does peril itself: Nicola, Peter, Chas and Rose have post-stress reactions that are all perfectly in subtly-shaded character. Does every children's writer long to do a Railway Children, I wonder?
Right, I think that'll do from me. Have at it!
jackmerlin for taking the reins last week.We begin with a delicious understatement, and a worrying indication of the cultural and political differences between the Dodd and Marlow households. I’m a slow-starting, coffee-sipping, absently reading sort of morning person myself, so I have one of my rare moments of sympathy with Edwin here.
Forest gets Ginty and Peter’s teenage obnoxiousness down to a tee, I think, and it’s thoroughly enjoyable if you don’t have to sit through it yourself. Peter’s ‘ “[Ginty’s feet] will be stirrup-bound” ’ and her response, ‘ “How quite revolting-sounding,” ’ strikes me as moderately risqué for the target market. (It wouldn’t entirely surprise me if the Merrick Boy turned out to have some fascinating sexual kinks in later life, but that is to gallop too early into the Vale of Headcanon, perhaps.)
Ginty overdoes it: ‘a bish that would make her kick the sheets for months to come when memory gibbered at her in the night’ is one of my favourite Forest insights. Ouch. Katie is wonderfully pitiless.
Edwin’s distant studiousness contrasts with the Marlows’ mucking-in ethos, and the children’s rather pathetic response to being noticed: ‘like puppies who have heard their names called’. How perfectly Edwin of Edwin to address his reply about Yetland Cove to Mrs Marlow rather than answering his son directly.
His hostility to the nicknames is interesting: I can see how he might resent his children having been so summarily re-christened, but he handles it (after all, rather a sign of affection and welcoming than the reverse, and one which the children like and reciprocate) perfectly abominably. It’s a lovely touch that he’s ‘baffled’: Edwin’s never had a nickname, has he? (Sympathy briefly re-ignites.)
Oof, Peter. 'Patrick or Buster?' That was needlessly nasty.
Nicola and Patrick’s conversation is painfully strained, but warms up a little at the introduction to Blackleg, which is, of course Ginty’s cue, make-up and all. Nicola’s realisation that she is not wanted is done with great subtlety and the comfort she takes in Buster rather heartbreaking. Nick really does pick ‘em, doesn’t she? Watsonian reasons why she keeps on getting dumped?
The uncomfortable conflicts of authority resulting from the Dodds and the Marlows inhabiting the same space are nicely intimated in the minor row over Rose’s reluctance to go out, and the reaction to Chas’s comical ‘ “Poor girl! Life is quite over for her!” ’ is well-observed, I think: Edwin wanting to laugh but suppressing it with a snap at Karen’s unconcealed smile.
Nicola and Peter’s oscillations between responsibility and carelessness in this passage are beautifully handled, and I much enjoy their conversation about Kay’s apparent uninterest in asserting her presence in the children’s lives, ending on that uncomfortable margin of speculation about the sexual lives of siblings: ‘“She must have made it clear to Mister—sorry-pardon, Edwin—[...] that she was alive and breathing” ’. Their compact over The Idiot Boy (Wordsworthian names for nags: classy, eh?) is also a nicely-handled moment, though one with far-reaching consequences.
Nicola’s circumnavigation fantasies are a nice lead-in to the episode on the wrecked smack. Interesting that her childhood reading doesn’t seem to have included Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. Forest achieves a nice balance of real danger and anxiety with utter farce here: nearly a nasty accident, indeed. Nicola’s exasperation with the follies of Chas, only four years younger than she, is precisely observed, I think: the difference between Nine and Thirteen is vast. Her learning how to communicate with the Dodds (‘circus pusscat’) ties in to the books’ theme of family idiolect.
Peter’s dislodging of the capstan continues the book’s theme of near and narrow misses, but turns out fortuitous. Nicola’s observation that ‘for the moment is all seemed to have been an enormous huha about nothing’ is accurate about the psychology of immediate relief.
Chas and Fob’s lack of trepidation concerning 'Fiorfrorefiddle' [sic: I'm not sure if it's Chas's mispronunciation, a typographical error, or Forest's misremembering] contrast with their older sister’s fear of animals: I rather love Fob yowling The Beatles at him. The information that it took Nicola ‘quite some years’ to feel very warm towards Fob again is a delightful flash-forward: this has been your regular scheduled fic prompt.
Peter’s minatory conversation with Chas is very acutely done: the lower decks' pastiche of the quarterdeck. But oh dear—I shouldn’t trust Peter’s judgement and orders above Nicola’s, improved though he has since Traitor. His closing revelation that he was quite happy to let Nicola take responsibility for the infant Dodds until it became clear something was actually wrong doesn’t wholly inspire confidence either.
The first paragraph, with its litany of disappearances, is a rather foreboding opening. Edwin and Karen seem to be neglecting their responsibilities rather: it's something of a cheek to ask Mrs Marlow to take the kids to the dentist, but as we'll discover, Karen has a neck of solid brass. 'Me hatee Katee': oh Chas, I sympathise (and more than trying it on for sound.)
More conflicts of authority as Edwin tries to negotiate forbidding Chas the embankment and Peter is aggravating. And conflicts of loyalty: Nicola's feelings on overhearing Karen's deprecation of her brother to Edwin are absolutely characteristic of Nicola's stubborn affections. Ominous foreshadowing, though still played for comic effect as Lawrie becomes dissatisfied with Ariel and enamoured of Caliban. Lawrie's letter to Kempe is all the more delightful for remaining in our imaginations, I think, but if anyone fancies epistolary!Lawrie, this has been your regularly scheduled &c.
Rowan's relief at the farm being free of swine fever reminds us of her fairly thankless ongoing toil throughout all this; but her editorial work on Lawrie's letter provides a comic moment.
I think giving people dogs as surprise gifts is just an awfully bad idea, so I find myself in uncertain sympathy with what Peter imagines Edwin's response to be on this one. In fact, the drama of Chas's birthday treat does seem to gloze over the introduction of another canine member of the household. Nicola and Peter-both, one reflects, now dumped by the Merrick Boy-get on hearteningly well here.
Nicola's collection of The Idiot Boy is a lovely setpiece: her defiant response to Patrick's tease, her surprising initial mastery of him, the 'apocalyptic' sky, her fall, her realisation that in her discomfort she'd forgotten to give Patrick the cheque.
The descriptions of the rainwashed village are beautiful, and with the comedy of Mr Pedder's pedantry and PC Catchpole's officiousness create a deceptively sanguine mood before what is I think a definitive moment in Lawrie and Nicola's relationship. What do others think of their row and its significance?
Peter's intuition that it was seeing Patrick and Ginty together that rattled Nicola, and his relative tact (even though he is wrong in this instance) about it demonstrates the improvement of their relationship. The description of 'Peter and the Idiot both trying to understand what Peter meant' is rather charming; I'm amused his 'officerly' laziness at book-distance, too, though in the flesh I find such behaviour unreasonably irritating.
What do people think of Karen's sharp practice about the house? I'm with Rowan and Nicola on this one: I think it's fairly bloody vile of her, though I can partially sympathise with Mrs Marlow being apparently on her side, largely to get the Dodds out of Trennels before violence erupts (which she doesn't manage to do). Karen appears to great disadvantage in this book, I think--utterly selfish. Her notably feeble riposte ' "I suppose the real reason you won't do anything is because I didn't tell you beforehand" ' reveals the extent of her self-centredness: she really hasn't noticed that Rowan has a more-than-professional relationship with the Tranters. Peter's '"If I were you I wouldn't write [to Capt Marlow] at all"' neatly connects the eldest sister with the youngest, as does Karen's uncharacteristically Lawrie-ish door-bang, and Forest segues smoothly into Nicola's refusal to back down over The Idiot. Both Karen and Lawrie do (eventually, very eventually in Lawrie's case) get their way on these matters, though: a nicely anti-moralising touch.
More disappointments for Lawrie in Kempe's letter: I think it's probably a bit unfair (and daft) of Kempe to respond in this way, though--it can't have escaped her notice that Lawrie is a child who needs firm boundaries, and to expect her to understand politely negative equivocation is setting oneself up for trouble down the line.
I enjoy the way that Forest suggests the strict discipline under which Peter lives at Dartmouth with his creative letter-but-not-spirit evasions of the much laxer home equivalent. Peter's sketch of Edwin as someone who 'just doesn't like people to enjoy themselves in their own way' is spot on, but Nicola' mention of Malise suggests a more personal reason for Peter's disinclination to go to Colbrook Castle, and his immediate sympathy with Chas on the point.
Forest conveys the Yetland Cove outing with economy but a fine sense of its dawnlit magic. Poor Rose, though: 'Peter and Nicola had no idea they were walking with someone who was sure she knew just how it felt to be a poor fish...'--such a precise description of painful sensitivity.
Of what
legionseagle once memorably in another context called the Guy Gibson school of dog nomenclature, I shall say nothing. But if people do want to thrash through the unedifying but I think largely incidental instances of racism in the series (though, one reflects, incidental for roughly the same reason that Mr Deasy is able to acquit Ireland of anti-Semitism), please feel free. Rowan, I have noted, seems to go in for stereotypes and slurs concerning Chinese people.The detail that Mrs Marlow is gluttonous about fried fish for breakfast is a delight. Chas, you rotten thing, knowing how Rose feels and still pulling the guts-for-garters routine.
And finally, the Saving of the London Train. Again, I appreciate the flash-forward to Nicola's future: 'It was something she was to remember always...', her panicked flashback to the previous nearly-a-nasty-accident and her first meeting with the Dodds, the 'newspaper words', her memory of the squashed hedgehog. Forest does shock and relief almost better than she does peril itself: Nicola, Peter, Chas and Rose have post-stress reactions that are all perfectly in subtly-shaded character. Does every children's writer long to do a Railway Children, I wonder?
Right, I think that'll do from me. Have at it!
no subject
Date: 2014-12-06 03:44 am (UTC)And I mean. It just seems so un-English to be willing to trample all over such a delicate situation like that. I know living at Trennels itself is hellish, but Karen really SHOULD have thought of that before she saddled them all with each other. Riding roughshod over a grieving widow (practically) and demanding a house that even in the ABSENCE of the Tranters is not actually rightfully hers....it's digustingly entitled and inconsiderate. I hate people who act like this.
no subject
Date: 2014-12-06 07:39 pm (UTC)While I agree that Karen's behaviour is massively entitled and inconsiderate, I don't feel it's beyond the bounds of how people who come from massively entitled backgrounds think. Karen's opinions didn't come to her fully formed, she got them from her family and schooling and environment. And frankly, Karen's behaviour is the anti-thesis of "un-English": within this century, the British army has served eviction notices on widows of serving army offices less than a week after their husbands were killed on active duty. It's nasty, entitled, selfish, and completely disregarding of other people's feelings. It's also not unique to Karen in her family. We'll see in the next holiday book how Marlows who are entirely sympathetic to Mrs Tranter write off the human feelings of people they don't know as unimportant and make decisions that will destroy a life...
(frozen) no subject
Date: 2014-12-06 10:21 pm (UTC)Lizzzar
(frozen) no subject
Date: 2014-12-06 11:01 pm (UTC)Lizzzar
(frozen) no subject
Date: 2014-12-06 11:25 pm (UTC)If it were a financial necessity, or even an advantage, for the Tranters to move out and Trennels to have the income from Edwin renting the farmhouse, you'd think that Rowan might acknowledge that (given she must know more about Trennels' finances than anyone at this stage) even if she dislikes the idea of chucking Mrs Tranter out. But she's entirely against it, which suggests that the income gained from not having to pay Mr Tranter's salary + Dodds rent is not significant to the life or death of Trennels.
(frozen) no subject
Date: 2014-12-06 11:53 pm (UTC)(frozen) no subject
Date: 2014-12-07 12:00 am (UTC)Lizzzar
(frozen) no subject
Date: 2014-12-07 07:16 pm (UTC)This thread is getting off topic. A discussion about why readers choose AF's books would be fascinating and anyone who would like to start one is very welcome, but the best place for it would be a new post. Discussion of AF's own life and politics would, again, be best off elsewhere.
Lizzzar, thanks very much for clarifying that you didn't mean to suggest anyone shouldn't read the books based on their political views.
Thanks,
(frozen) no subject
Date: 2014-12-08 01:02 pm (UTC)Lizzzar
(frozen) no subject
Date: 2014-12-07 08:19 am (UTC)Forest's skill, as with all good authors, is to make us interested in and sympathetic to characters that we might never know or even like in real life.
The Marlows are of course far more privileged than most of their readers (I'm guessing) and for most of the time, completely unaware of how privileged they really are, but their problems are universal - pain at loss, the struggle to balance one's own wants and needs with others' conflicting wants and needs, coping with fear, children trying to understand an adult world where the rules don't always make sense....
I also disagree with your interpretation of RAH but that's a discussion for next year! I actually think it's unfair to judge the Marlows in the earlier books by anything that happens in RAH.
(frozen) no subject
Date: 2014-12-07 09:44 am (UTC)It's true that the Marlows are privileged but their set up - boarding school, house in country, old retainers etc - is not unusual for children's lit of the era AF started writing. I read a lot of Noel Streatfeild growing up and those books had all the same elements. So, for that matter, did Enid Blyton.
I do think the politics of RMF are very nuanced. I do see Rowan standing for traditional values in terms of the farm, and I think we're all fairly sympathetic to that - she wants to treat the Tranters well. Karen is out for herself in a very individualistic way. I think Karen, oddly, is being the 1960s, throwing over social convention and obligation, character here. But I also think the book is sympathetic to Karen in a way - that whole Persuasion motif - surely suggesting that "love" is a reason to go against the attitude of others on occasion?
(frozen) Privileged Marlows
Date: 2014-12-07 10:06 pm (UTC)I feel that Forest is realistic in comparison. She chose to set a story in the enclosed world of Kingscote, but is honest enough to say that this family lives in a big house, that their father is a naval commander, and that they are obviously wealthy. It makes sense; and having got a strong believable background Forest then dealt with universal issues such as relationships.
Having said that, although I really enjoy RMF the Marlows come out of badly. Edwin, appalling though he is, gets a rough ride. And throwing the Tranters out is appalling. Karen is obviously fighting for her marriage here, but what seems dreadful to me is that Mrs. Marlow agrees with her. She is 90% on Karen's side, because Mrs Tranter knows she will have to move out sooner or later, so why not at once? It seems such a callous and unsympathetic attitude. But maybe realistic - someone who has always had money and status just not understanding how hard life can be if you have neither.
(Paula.)
(frozen) Re: Privileged Marlows
Date: 2014-12-08 04:50 pm (UTC)Karen is being more Percy Shelley than Jane Austen in her attitude to 'love' - never mind who else gets hurt as long as you get what you want.
no subject
Date: 2014-12-07 12:13 am (UTC)Except that virtually the whole family disagrees with everything Karen does in this book. And as someone (maybe you?) pointed out, while Mrs Marlow does side with Karen on the Tranter house thing, that could well be because she just wants the whole oiling of them Out. Of. Her. House. as soon as possible and at any cost! With which point of view I must admit I *can* sympathize....
no subject
Date: 2014-12-07 10:12 am (UTC)Yes, exactly. It's unfair to see Karen's actions against the Tranters as reflecting the opinions of her family generally. The younger Marlows are surprised that their mother is prepared to go along with it. And remember the scene in the bath - it's not just Rowan and Nicola who care about Mr Tranter, they all recognise that he represents something about Trennels and it's way of life, and are moved by that.
no subject
Date: 2014-12-07 02:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-12-07 02:36 pm (UTC)Throwing the Tranters out
Date: 2014-12-11 10:43 pm (UTC)Another point is that in the novel we are not told what other people think about this. What would Mrs Bertie or Shep make of an old friend and work mate being asked to leave in these circumstances?
(Paula)
Re: Throwing the Tranters out
Date: 2014-12-12 05:10 pm (UTC)