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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!
Re: Peter
Date: 2014-12-11 01:33 am (UTC)Re: Peter
Date: 2014-12-11 10:46 pm (UTC)Re: Peter
Date: 2014-12-15 02:18 am (UTC)Re: Peter
Date: 2014-12-15 09:23 am (UTC)