To be Doylian about it – one thing that has come out strongly for me reading the books one after another so close together, are some of Forest’s strategies as a writer that I just hadn’t noticed before. One of these is that I think she makes a fairly arbitrary decision at the start of each book as to which characters she wants to focus on. Then she excludes many of the rest in more – or less – plausible ways. Nicola and Ginty heading off to London and Paris seemed completely in character in Thuggery, and I never thought of it as a device. But Lawrie spending the whole of RMF studying Ariel – when a few weeks before she had been unable to contemplate spending a mere weekend without companions – seems unlikely, even for such a fanatical actor. (And when she did consider mooching in Thuggery, Mrs Marlow wouldn’t have it, even for one day.)
So with Ann – Forest obviously isn’t that interested in her, so she gets rid of her with housework and Guide stuff. (And no mention of her ever having any friends, either, which also seems implausible.) Admittedly, it does seem very plausible that the younger Dodds would prefer to spend time with Nicola and Peter, who are much more fun, and who are enjoying entertaining the young Dodds more than they ever expected.
And Ginty too - I can’t think it’s very likely that Patrick and Ginty would have been allowed to spend every single moment together, unsupervised. I’d have thought that would ring alarm bells with both sets of parents, and that the Dodd children would have been a good excuse for Mrs M weaning her away. But AF has obviously decided that she only wants Patrick and Ginty as a minor thread, so it suits her for them to constantly hawking. (Or whatever it is they are doing.)
It’s only reading the books so close together that makes it seem incongruous I think – that Patrick and Peter, great pals in Thuggery, as someone pointed out never even meet in RMF…And if she did provide lots of elaborate explanation for what each character was up to, it would get a bit tedious for the reader.
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timeasmymeasure
Re: Family territory.
Date: 2014-12-14 12:58 pm (UTC)So with Ann – Forest obviously isn’t that interested in her, so she gets rid of her with housework and Guide stuff. (And no mention of her ever having any friends, either, which also seems implausible.) Admittedly, it does seem very plausible that the younger Dodds would prefer to spend time with Nicola and Peter, who are much more fun, and who are enjoying entertaining the young Dodds more than they ever expected.
And Ginty too - I can’t think it’s very likely that Patrick and Ginty would have been allowed to spend every single moment together, unsupervised. I’d have thought that would ring alarm bells with both sets of parents, and that the Dodd children would have been a good excuse for Mrs M weaning her away. But AF has obviously decided that she only wants Patrick and Ginty as a minor thread, so it suits her for them to constantly hawking. (Or whatever it is they are doing.)
It’s only reading the books so close together that makes it seem incongruous I think – that Patrick and Peter, great pals in Thuggery, as someone pointed out never even meet in RMF…And if she did provide lots of elaborate explanation for what each character was up to, it would get a bit tedious for the reader.