Attic Term: Readthrough, Chapters 1-4

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much to coughingbear for writing the posts on The Cricket Term. I'm back in the saddle for this one, but if anyone is interested in a post on later chapters of this novel, on Run Away Home or the Players novels, please let me know below or by pm. Discussion proceeds here about exactly what order we're going to do things in: if you have feelings please let us know in comments at that post. Suggestions for themed posts are here.

So, forward to The Attic Term!


We pick up the story again at the end of the summer holiday that is beginning at the close of Cricket Term, leaving a swathe of unnarrated summer into which to insert fic. This has been your regularly scheduled fic prompt. Ginty and Patrick's friendship has clearly developed, and they have privately continued their Gondal fantasy. I enjoy the detail that Ginty finds more opportunities for romance with Patrick's Hamlet in reading Horatio than she does in reading Ophelia, because it's so true! There are! Her continued nervousness around Regina is an ominous sign, though, and Patrick does seem as skittish as Catkin when things get a touch amorous. Ginty's disinclination to talk to Patrick about Monica and vice versa continues the series' theme of Home and School and never the twain.

We learn something of Patrick's school life, and its contrasts with Kingscote: it seems more academically pushy, with O-levels taken early, and with far less of a culture of compulsion around extra-curricular activities. There are hints of Patrick's dissatisfaction with reform in the Catholic Church and his school's enthusiastic embrace of that--Ginty presumably knows something of his views there, because she doesn't enquire why the 'trad' Christmas Play was hastily rejected, though we sense that perhaps Patrick doesn't discuss theology with Ginty very much. (Incidentally, I'm wondering what sort of details might make a Nativity Play seem too 'trad' in a post-Vatican II climate?) It is, in any case, a lot more satisfying to have him expound his beliefs to Nicola in the next chapter, because of the resonance with the ride from Wade Abbas in End of Term. The discussion of plays--whether Hamlet or Eugene O'Neill, furthers the theme of pretence. Patrick cannot act, but he can pretend to be someone--a nice and subtle distinction. This month's number of the Journal of Read It Somewhere Studies tells me that Forest's school put on Marco Millions, which must then have been a pretty new play, since it first appeared on the Broadway stage in 1928. Anyone ever seen it?

'Imagine asking. Suppose you got told,' says Ginty of Unity Logan's officious efforts on behalf of June White, demoted from Candle Angel in the Play in End of Term. Here Ginty asks, and very nearly gets told, but in the last sentence of the chapter decides that there are some things she'd better off not knowing. It's a wonderfully light-touch portrait of two young people who like the idea of being in a romance rather more, one senses, than they actually like each other. The moment at which Patrick shies from Ginty's 'tense, insistent' face and diverts the conversation to Claudie (oh, Patrick!) is brilliant. If he was conscious of what he was doing it would be cruel, but Forest switches point of view to show us he isn't, though I'm not sure that makes him any more likeable at that moment. What do others think of Ginty and Patrick's doomed friendship?





Nicola's awkward presence at cubbing uncomfortably reminds us of happier times she's spent with Patrick. Forest--rather cunningly--doesn't give us Patrick's viewpoint in this chapter, so we're left with the sisters as mutually resentful rivals. I'm also amused by her misunderstanding of the age and state of growth of their quarry, and her perking up when she realises they're not actually sending 'fubsy' cubs to their deaths. Is Ginty's 'resigned sisterly contempt' feigned? It's only just over a year ago in story-time that she was a fervent anti-bloodsports type, after all.

The breakfast-table conversation is notably malicious on Patrick and Ginty's part--I'm glad that Mr Merrick is there to stand up for Nicola. I rather wish that Patrick had got the telling-off he deserves for his bad behaviour at the hunt in Peter's Room, though. I like the oxymoron of '"Yup," said Nicola, automatically doom-laden, her spirits leaping up.' at the news of Ginty's being summoned away to packing.

Nicola's ease with Regina contrasts with Ginty's continued nerves, as the conversation which follows is surely intended as contrast: eccentric but revealing where Ginty's interactions with Patrick are bound by certain conventions and superficial.

'"Though I suppose she is quite used to strangers nowadays"' (ouch, Patrick!) is flagged by the authorial voice as significant; if it implies that Nicola is a stranger, it also suggests that Ginty is one too. Nicola's cheerful acceptance of the labour of sweeping out (the Merrick Boy displaying his extraordinary tact and charm again) eases the atmosphere between them, and their conversation becomes almost immediately quite profound, with Nicola's revelation of Edwin's researches into the farm log. Patrick's moment of reaffirmation in faith (and Nicola's initial misunderstanding of it) is quite touching, I think, the more so because it only makes emotional sense: his ancestor's courage on the scaffold doesn't render his beliefs (or Patrick's traddiness) any whit more true (as Nicola's later, private conviction that nothing is worth Tyburn acknowledges.)

Nicola and Patrick's shared dislike of being 'talked to' in ways they see as patronising by adults perhaps provides a further contrast with Ginty's horror of rows, and offers a distant fore-echo of Ginty and Nicola's later interviews with Miss Keith. I'm tickled and a bit appalled by Patrick's desire for 'masters to keep their distance and answer to Sir' (just like dogs in trouble, splendid bit of landed gentry arrogance from the Merrick Boy there). But he's clearly unhappy enough at school to want to leave before A-levels--I can't imagine that he struggles academically in the humanities, though I can quite believe his own estimate of his maths. Patrick's account of his school assemblies provides the irony that the trendier end of the Catholic Church is rather more low church (with extempore prayer and 'holy pop') than the Church of England solidities that Nicola is used to. In his reluctance to stand up and be counted we see Patrick's shyness emerging again, but perhaps also an ironic contrast with his illustrious ancestor. Later in the chapter, Patrick reflects sadly that there's no real danger involved in his modern sort of recusancy, only the sort of social embarrassment that a 'madly trad' assembly might bring. (I'd be inclined to regard this a very callow and silly sort of nostalgia were Patrick not the sort of bloke who brings an eighteenth-century throwing-knife to a showdown in a medieval dovecote, sees someone killed with it, hops into a stolen Rolls-Royce for a sexually-charged joyride with a teenage drug-smuggler who dies crashing it and then casually passes an ounce of uncut cocaine to his naval cadet friend as a souvenir of a crowded weekend. He's nothing if not a risk-taker.)

Mention of the Forty (Martyrs of England and Wales) places us presumably in summer 1971, since their canonization took place in October 1970. Anyone more up on matters theological than I care to comment on Patrick's views on the Vatican II reforms? How well do they represent traditional Catholicism in general, and Forest's own in particular?

I simply adore Nicola's persistent analogies of the Catholic Church with the Navy, by the way, and her reflections on Ginty's showing off to Patrick by affecting interest in Dante and medieval Latin are delicious. I first read Dante in Sayers' translation, and retain a fondness for it despite its terza rima being pretty cumbrous. (It's the only translation I know that bothers with a linguistic difference between Dante and Sordello, for example, for which I'll forgive it a lot--Sayers' Sordello speaks (rather kailyard) Scots.) But I also rather like The Constant Nymph, whose themes of rivalry and jealousy are obviously relevant here (also the source for Edwin's surname?) Forest seems associatively to connect The Constant Nymph with Sayers through Hilary's admiration of it as a bestseller with artistic merit in The Nine Tailors.

How do people read Nicola's interest in going to Mass? It's picked up again in Run Away Home, and I'm sure there'll be more discussion there, but what do you think her motivations are?

Though really, I think Nicola deserves better than the Merrick Boy, it is delightful to see them happy and self-forgetfully, adolescently earnest together; and by the time Nicola's recalled to Trennels, she's a good deal happier.





The differing reactions of the family to Nicola's arrival are nicely observed, I think, from Rowan's amusement, through Ann's worried humourlessness ('remindingly' is a good adverb), to Lawrie's immediate relating of the situation to her own concerns (the detail that Lawrie has developed a genuine fondness for the Idiot Boy, though, is charming--even if--typically Lawrie, she only does so when he is actually hers.) And oh dear, Ginty's jealous fury. Her anger at her mother betrays her into positively Lawrie-ish fantastic hyperbole ('suddenly famous and interviewed on TV'). Nicola's 'bubble of happiness' breaking as she realises that the conversation doesn't necessarily mean a renewal of her friendship with Patrick is rather heartbreaking though. But at least she's lucky at the dentist. I rather like the subtle difference drawn between 'smug' and 'cat-with-creamy', too: though 'unusually perceptive' is backhanded: Forest can't quite let Ann have her due.





We begin with a glimpse of Mrs Lambert's officious inefficiency, which will later produce some disastrous results. Causation and responsibility are important themes here--the novel is in fact full of 'coughing bears'--which is in its turn, I suppose, Forest's meta-narratalogical commentary on story-telling, its conventions and structures.

Esther's affection for Daks? Affected, babyish or 'scarey' [sic]? Her response to her mother's pregnancy does rather suggest the last, doesn't it? An echo with Nicola's 'one would always much rather it were one of the family', too, perhaps. Flats where they don't allow babies (as opposed to flats unsuitable for)? I can imagine some restriction of the sort in 1930s service apartments, possibly, but it seems a bit peculiar in the 1970s. But maybe people know of similar rules from their own or others' experience?

Ann gets her step to prefect, and is observed in her element with the Junior Side infants. Nicola's expectation of saccharine gratitude for taking Ann's trunk tray down gets a rebuke that is both enjoyable in itself and for the equanimity with which Nicola receives it. I'm also delighted by Nicola's observation of the carpenter's filling in a gap with spare parquet. I always rather enjoy that sort of thing myself.

Miranda's continued devotion to Jan--aw! Complete with illogical wish for her to have failed but not failed her A-levels. Miranda's holiday in Venice (tempered by the realisation that it would be 'gaudy' to send Jan a gift or card alluding to it) contrasts with Jan's postcard ('written small', oh Miranda) from her Norfolk or Lincolnshire home. A Wool Cross works well for either--I like the detail that while Forest is inconsistent about which side of the Wash Jan's hometown is on she has a clear idea of what sort of country she hails from. In case anyone has missed it, here is fic, by legionseagle, exploring Jan's past, and the slight mystery that seems to surround her mother.

Comments on Wendy Tredgold's anti-semitism? Interestingly, both Wendy's implied remark about Miranda's father, and her articulated one about Miranda not knowing about the existence of Oxfam shops are tacitly supported by Nicola. Forest is characteristic in leaving it to the reader to decide whether Wendy really is anti-Semitic or whether she simply resents Miranda's wealth and (it has to be admitted) slight tendency to snobbery: the comments of hers that we hear are insinuating, but only of Miranda's wealth and privilege, not her Jewishness. There's a similar entwining of issues of class and anti-Semitism in End of Term, with the 'common little soul with the perm and the Jaguar'. Miranda is embarrassed, however, by her remark about the 'dreggy uniform dress', which draws attention to the Marlows' relative poverty. It's a very effective and understated sketch of the ways in which wealth does, and does not, map onto social privilege and status.

We see Miranda's unpleasant side in her dealings with Sandra Grigson, who is harmless if rather prolix--Miranda's putdown is startlingly vicious--if again, as Nicola is forced to admit, accurate. Miranda appears as an edgy and unsettling presence here, I think, with Nicola finding herself in agreement both with Miranda and her antagonists. The moment when Nicola wonders if her hurt at Patrick's rejection of her shows in similar ways to Sandra's by Miranda is actually painful to read. I'm mildly surprised that no-one but Sandra recognises Sara Crewe--if Cousin Jon had sisters (and perhaps even if he didn't, though it's perhaps not one that boys would be as familiar with as girls might be), there must surely be a copy of A Little Princess in the Trennels playroom, and Rose would have no trouble identifying the reference. Perhaps this is the flexible timeline coming into play, but I read A Little Princess in the 1980s, and indeed played the rat in a stage version. Burnett's novel, with its reversals of fortune and status and its emphasis on the power of imagination and storytelling, resonate subtly and slightly uncomfortably with this scene and the previous chapters.

Miranda's family, like Patrick's, has an au pair (in fact, 'one of our idiot au pairs' suggests a multiplicity, or a sequence at least, thereof). I'm not really familiar with au pairing and how it worked in practice in the 1970s--but Miranda seems to regard Elsa as a kind of servant, which I thought was very much not the idea. Anyway, it seems unlikely that Miranda has the sort of frisson with Elsa that Patrick has with Claudie, more's the pity.

The Disaster! The coughing bear! I love, 'Nicola meditated briefly on the disastrousness of being not merely rich, but an only child and never having to wear your sisters' outgrown gear.' And Miranda is notably cavalier about the garment, reflecting that ruining it will be no hardship. This passage is growling with potential coughing bears--from Miranda's anger at Wendy's 'nudging voice' to Avril's fear that chickens may come home to her roost.



I think that's enough from me for now. Over to you!

Comments

[occasionalhope.livejournal.com]

These chapters are chock full of foreshadowing of various kinds.

I think the renewal of Patrick and Nicola's friendship is quite important structurally in that they have clearly had little contact since Christmas, and I think there needs to be some kind of reminder so that when, later, Patrick is thinking that he would have trusted Nicola not to read the exam paper whereas he isn't quite sure about Ginty, there's some recent grounding for it. (I hope that makes sense.)

foreshadowing

[buntyandjinx.livejournal.com]

Yes, I was very struck by the discussion abouttaking off from school "because you were in a fearful row." Foreshadowing future events involving Gin, Nick and Esther - and Patrick too, very nicely

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

As I understand from newspapers memoirs of both sides*, au pairs had a mother's help type role and were not meant to be treated as servants, their duties being childcare and a little light housework**. In practice, they often were, and are, expected to do almost all the housework, including cooking, though the Wests might employ a cleaner as well, and take major responsibility for children. Since Miranda clearly doesn't need much on the childcare front, it would fit in with the general pattern for Elsa and her predecessors to be expected to basically work as a very badly-paid cook-housekeeper and then be criticised for doing this poorly because they didn't actually have the necessary experience. Claudie has the advantage that she is IIRC a family connection, taken for that reason and not because that's what the family always does about housework, and therefore is situationally much more likely to get the official good experience. Basically, it's the classic servant problem, where the problem doesn't lie with the servants, but employers' expectations of 5* service for 1* wages.

*Here's a recent example from Ireland, based on academic research: http://www.thejournal.ie/au-pair-research-exploitation-uk-ireland-1736486-Oct2014/

**The Wikipedia article describes my understanding of the official duties very accurately.

[highfantastical.livejournal.com]

I think it must vary tremendously in practice, depending on how many other staff the family employs, and -- as you say -- whether there's a connection between the au pair and the family. And also things like how privileged the au pair herself is, in various ways. I was a short-term au pair in '06: the family had some other staff who did 98% of the housework, and I was effectively just minding the children a bit and acting as an English tutor. I wasn't exploited because -- owing to language skills/qualifications/the university I was about to go to -- I was in a privileged position, and had lots of time to work on my pre-university reading list, think, wander about, &c. But I don't for a second think that's the universal experience, especially for au pairs from less privileged backgrounds. :(

Religion and sitting like bookends

[antfan.livejournal.com]

A couple of things I really don't get - why is Nicola suddenly a full blown agnostic/atheist wanting to give up church going, and how would Patrick - who hasn't spoken to her seriously in yonks - know this? She doesn't say anything about thinking religion is all rubbish in End of Term, where they have their big Wade Abbas religion conversation. Is Forest actually confusing her with Rowan, who does say in EofT that she doesn't believe?

(And when Patrick says he's almost had it with the church - do we reckon he means he's flirting with agnosticism too or is it just the Roman Catholic Church he's fed up with?)

And did anyone, ever, by choice, sit as bookends? So uncomfortable and unnatural! Feel that signifies a lot about Ginty and Patrick's relationship in itself.

Re: Religion and sitting like bookends

[scarletlobster.livejournal.com]

The sitting-like-bookends sounds consciously ornamental by both of them. They are very Rupert-and-Rosina; it is position designed to look picturesque and to avoid any possible eye contact, which might make the conversation more real.

Ginty and blood-sports

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Isn't there an earlier mention - I think it's in Peter's Room - where Nicola picks up on Ginty talking knowledgeably about hunting and thinking back to the Unity Logan Anti Blood Sports (if not actual Hunt Saboteurs) era mentally commenting that now Ginty is talking to (with a subtext of wanting to impress) Patrick (the Ginty as chameleon theme).

Re: Ginty and blood-sports

[(Anonymous)]

Claudie is a daughter of friends of the Merricks, and although she does do some cooking and light housework, she is not a servant. I think there is no suggestion that she is expected to sleep with Patrick, and the Merrick parents would probably be horrified if they knew she effectively suggests it. Also, it is canonical that Patrick struggles with at least some humanities as well as maths. He has trouble with foreign languages, and his Latin also appears to be quite weak.
Lizzzar

[biskybat.livejournal.com]

It's clear that Nicola is AF's favourite character and also clear that AF dislikes Ann as much as Nicola does (and is perhaps as unfair to her on occasion as Nicola is?). I started wondering whether Nicola and AF always share the same opinions about people. Can AF really admire Giles as much as Nicola does? How does she really feel about Patrick who can be almost unbearable at times but who is fascinating to Nicola? And it's so clear from the way she writes her that AF finds Ginty as shallow, self absorbed and irritating as Nicola does herself.

[scarletlobster.livejournal.com]

So mean about Ann sometimes! Her sin this time is that she talks 'cheerfully', the swine.

liked Patrick's father, but she wasn't all that keen on his mother

[buntyandjinx.livejournal.com]

Does Nicola ever prefer a mother to a father? Is any mother sympathetically portrayed in the whole canon? She even seems to be leaning quickly towards preferring Edwin to Kay (I know she's a stepmother but still ...)

Re: liked Patrick's father, but she wasn't all that keen on his mother

[scarletlobster.livejournal.com]

Very true. Esther's mother is horrible, Miranda's goes to meetings instead of seeing her daughter, Tim's is invisible, Pomona's is an ass (though it is hinted that her father is not), even Patrick's aunts are a dull, bossy nightmare. And the Marlows themselves seem to have no relations that they are fond of, though Cousin Jon was presumably all right.

'There's one thing I can never forgive my mother'

[scarletlobster.livejournal.com]

I really feel for Ginty here. It is easy to forget how intensely you feel things as a teenager, and how powerless you are. Spending time with Patrick before they are separated for weeks and weeks is incredibly important to her, and here her mother is barging in with trunks and dentists and ruining it all; and not only can she not do anything about it, but she can't even talk about how she feels to anyone. Fantasizing that one day you will be powerful enough to get a sympathetic hearing for your heart-break feels so natural.

And desperately watching the driveway in case she can have a 10 minute chat with Patrick, and not have to spend the entire day visualizing him shmoozing with Nicola, feels right as well.

Re: 'There's one thing I can never forgive my mother'

[coughingbear]

Yes, I do too. I remember when I first read it being acutely aware that I had imagined something similar one time when I had a row with my mother!

We'll get onto it in later chapters, but I find Nicola's relationship with Ginty in this book interesting - there are moments when they seem almost close despite everything.

Being submissive to Patrick.

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

I find the first couple of chapters quite hard to get into, especially having just finished Cricket Term. The first chapter is rather dull. As a child I just found it a bit boring; reading it now I feel desperately sad for Ginty - telling Patrick she loves him, only for him to immediately pretend that she is someone else ('Rosina') and then not be sure if he loves her back. I'm not convinced at this point that Ginty is pretending to be Rosina, I think this is Ginty as herself, effectively giving herself away. And she's so pathetically submissive to Patrick.
Ginty being submissive is one thing, but then Nicola is too, and I feel like giving her a good shake. Compare her casual acceptance of Tim's renewal of friendship with her pathetic eagerness to sweep out the hawkhouse and generally follow Patrick around. It doesn't seem to occur to Nicola when she gets annoyed with Ann for being willing to do her job of clearing the table, that she has just done the exact same thing for Patrick. (without the additional reason that Ann has, which is to help her mother get them all to the dentist on time.)

Re: Being submissive to Patrick.

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

I don't know that Nicola's acceptance of the task of sweeping out isn't a rather strategic sort of submission, though. Patrick knows full well that it's ungracious of him to suggest she does it when he's been ignoring her all summer, so her acceptance of the task puts him at a slight social disadvantage, forcing him to acknowledge that she's being a good sport about his bad behaviour, at least to the point that he's obliged to engage her in friendly conversation (which he ends up enjoying). It restores familiarity between them, which allows her to open the conversation about Edwin and the farm log. Ultimately I agree that it's not really a healthy footing for a friendship, in that it depends on Nicola being perpetually indulgent of Patrick being a little shit, while Patrick is charmingly sheepish back (a mode ime depressingly typical of boys and men of his social class, and I think it's him that wants shaking) but I think it does show some of Nicola's interpersonal savvy.

Ann's acceptance of chores, meanwhile, always seems a sort of self-mortification, which doesn't admit any sort of reciprocity or trade-off, and so just ends up irritating people, because they can't repay the debt. (Which is not to say that Ann doesn't have a hard billet in her family and her Author).

"dreggy uniform dress"

[sue marsden (from livejournal.com)]

Whle I can understand changing for supper and even that it had previously been some sort of uniform dress, surely they can't be expected just to have one supper outfit? The'd need at least 2-on on,one off.

Re: "dreggy uniform dress"

[(Anonymous)]

Changing for supper (even into uniform dresses) seems a new invention since earlier books, anyway!

And supper didn't seem to be a very formal meal (fish pie, or stewed fruit for the juniors, from a couple of example) - I wasn't sure if it was after a hot dinner, or instead of, or after a late afternoon tea with bread/butter/cake etc. With all the other activities - sporting, plays, wandering around, hobbies - that they seemed to be doing before and after, changing into some smart dress seems a bit bizarre! (As do slacks and whatever else they wear later, which all sounds tremendously unlikely looking, and at any rate, not likely to fulfil the same dressing-up standards as a 'tea-with-mother's-friends' dress).

res23

The dentist.

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

A minor point, but surely dentists can't see to under sixteen year olds without a parent or guardian present? Ann is over sixteen I know, but do older sisters count as guardians? And is there any reason Mrs Marlow couldn't have just gone with them? After all, she's going to have plenty of time to herself once they all go back to school.

Re: The dentist.

[biskybat.livejournal.com]

In the 60s I attended dentist appointments, including fillings and an extraction, unaccompanied. I remember being about 14 when I had to have quite a lot carried out. Horribly painful injections then, that didn't always work with complete efficiency!

[the_antichris.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, I'm wondering what sort of details might make a Nativity Play seem too 'trad' in a post-Vatican II climate

I wonder too. Too much emphasis on the Immaculate Conception? 'As you know, Mary, you were yourself conceived without original sin...' In Latin? Gratuitous Protestant-bashing?

[coughingbear]

I've been trying to work that out too! It could be style as much as anything - wrong kind of music.

"and a bubble of happiness seemed to break at the back of her throat"

[nzraya.livejournal.com]

Huh, funny, but I always read this as an attempt to describe the feeling of happiness actually "bubbling up" against the back of one's throat -- not heartbreaking at all, quite the reverse, expressing Nicola's inward joy at remembering how natural their conversation was. I now realize it is completely ambiguous....

Re: "and a bubble of happiness seemed to break at the back of her throat"

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

Me too! I'm having to reread it now. I always thought the bubble breaking in her throat was a good feeling - like champagne bubbles, but I quite see that it could be describing that sudden lump-in-the-throat feeling you get when you hear bad news.

Hamlet-Ophelia-Horatio.

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

Ginty enjoys reading Horatio to Patrick's Hamlet, but I can't help seeing her as Ophelia to Patrick's Hamlet with Nicola as a more likely Horatio. Poor weak Ophelia, suspected unfairly of dishonesty and abandoned by someone she thought she loved? Horatio, the unquestioningly loyal friend? Hamlet, the spoilt, self-indulgent prince whose actions cause everybody to end up dead? Or am I reading too much into it?

Re: Hamlet-Ophelia-Horatio.

[biskybat.livejournal.com]

So agree with this!

I do wonder whether Hamlet waould have been an O'level text though. We did Twelfth Night, another school did Midsummer Night's Dream, another Julius Ceasar and Romeo and Juliet might have been one, but the heavier tragedies tended to be left to A'level. I'd be interested to know if anyone did Hamlet at O'level.

Patrick's views on the Vatican II reforms?

[liadnan]

Forest said in an interview with Sue Sims (somewhere on the internet, coughingbear pointed me towards it the other day but I can't find it now) that Patrick's views were hers.

An attempt at a bit of background for those who know little or nothing about this - feel free to skip if you do, feel free to correct if there's something I have got wrong.

Tinkering with the liturgy hadn't started with Vatican II - Pius X, not exactly the wet-liberal of 20th century popes, had kicked it off before WWI. However, much of this would have been non-obvious to the average layman or woman until about 1955 when the Easter services were radically re-arranged. Some further tinkering followed leading up to the 1962 Missal - that in use on the eve of and throughout the council and (later, I think after the publication of Attic Term) to be settled on by Archbishop Lefebvre as the last version acceptable to him (so almost by chance it has become a semi-compromise position between various camps and remains so). The constitution on the liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium was the first product of the council, promulgated 1st Dec 1964. A committee ("The Consilium") then set to work and in 1965 a new edition of the missal, sometimes called the interim version was promulgated. It was further tinkered with in 1967.

While this gets into ongoing liturgical history wars, I think it is fair to say that 1965 was in structure in continuity with the earlier editions of the missal. In 1969, however, the Novus Ordo Missae was published, to come into effect from 1st Jan 1970, and this did have radical differences in structure - as it says on its face, it is a "new order", not a revised new edition of the Missal of Paul V promulgated after Trent and based on the practice of Rome before that, as everything up to 1965 had been. However, in practice the use of the 1965 Missal had led to radical and obvious changes, most particularly (a) English was permitted in parts, increasing in 1967 and this was enthusiastically adopted, (b) despite it never being more than a permitted possibility in a low-level document of 1964, "priest-facing the people" swiftly became common (to this day the old stance is the official norm) and (c) I think but am not sure that the silent canon went (which was notable first because it was obviously, err, obvious and second because Trent had said in terms that it was heresy to condemn the silent canon. Shortly put, there were differences to be noticed by the laity from 1965.

The reason I find this slightly curious is that it is now in Forest time, as lilliburlero notes above, at the earliest the summer after October 1970 and the canonisation of the 40. Attic Term was I think published 1976 (I'll come back to that). Patrick is 16-17. So Attic-Term-Patrick cannot have been older than 11 when the 1965 missal, the regular use of English, and lots of rather enthusiastic and eccentric enactments of the mass took off, and was possibly rather younger. (I note in passing that if my mother and her friends are anything to go by the whole period of change has been elided in their memories to a single change). Admittedly Patrick is both precocious and precious (I can never be certain of my spelling of either of those words) but I find this a bit difficult to swallow - it is, I suppose, an inevitable result of the combination of Forest-Time and Forest wanting to put her own views into Patrick's mouth. (cont)

RE: Patrick's views on the Vatican II reforms?

[liadnan]

(cont)

My understanding is that the changes were not enthusiastically welcomed by the laity in and after 1965, in England, but most merely grumbled a bit. Many priests were very enthusiastic and there was a period of liturgical experimentation in many parishes going well beyond anything you'd be likely to see at an average parish mass in England now, this wasn't just about tedious guitar music. Cardinal Heenan certainly thought his own flock were reluctant and was very concerned that it would have a devastating effect on the faith - he said as much in a speech after a presentation by the concilium of what was intended, and a homily he gave in Westminster Cathedral is very much on the lines of "yes I know this is all very unsettling and lots of things you love have gone, but there are Good Reasons". In letters to Evelyn Waugh he was rather less guarded (the correspondence with some other bits and pieces relating to Waugh and Heenan's views on the subject is collected in "A Bitter Trial" by Dom, Alcuin Reid OSB.). I don't think Patrick is referring to Heenan as one of the "Cardinals who have gone on record as saying the whole thing is heretical, more or less" - that looks to me like a slightly over the top reference to the views of Cardinals Ottaviani and possibly Siri (Ottaviani did I think say something of the sort about an earlier draft that went into the bin).

It's all made rather more complicated by the fact that as we've discussed before English Catholics were and to an extent remain several quite-distinct camps separated by, among other things, class and also by some other things - there have been wars within English Catholicism since the day the Jesuits decided that the remnants of the Marian secular clergy weren't up to the job and took over the English Mission, and they only got nastier when O'Connell managed to get emancipation through. Recusant English aristos and middle class Anglican converts do not typically see themselves as one with the Irish and the same is true with interest the other way. Heenan was motivated by a - arguably slightly patronising - concern for the faith of his working class Irish flock. The middle-class converts (there had been several waves since Newman) of whom Waugh was one and Forest another (and then there's Greene, Knox, Tolkien's mother, the list goes on) lived in an entirely different world and tended (being converts) to have decided and thought out views on theology and liturgy, also they often came from a nose-bleedingly High Anglican background, the recusant aristocracy were slightly different from them, though closer, and then there are the bits of the country where you did get reasonable numbers of rural non-aristocractic recusants (Durham, Lancs, bits of the east midlands). It is quite difficult to generalise. And the pre-conciliar experience of all those groups would have differed markedly. (one last bit to come)

Patrick's views of teachers

[(Anonymous)]

"Patrick's desire for masters to keep their distance and answer to Sir" (just like dogs in trouble.....

Sorry, what do you mean by the dogs in trouble? I've always thought that this meant Patrick liked to have a formal relationship with his teachers rather than a matey one.

These days those matey ones sound just like they are grooming. Incredibly creepy.
Pip

Re: Patrick's views of teachers

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

Sorry, perhaps not universal! I knew several dog-owners who would call their pets 'Sir' when they misbehaved. I actually think Patrick's line is pretty funny--it's 'answer to Sir' that does it (and hence reminds me of the dog-owners)--but funny because of its careless arrogance: that slight sense that Patrick's used to seeing everyone around him in the character of employee (see also 'our old lad' for the priest, perhaps?)

Peculiar O Level Timing

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

It occurs to me that the differences between Kingscote and Patrick's school is that it's clear that Patrick's place is one of those hothouse boys day schools (Manchester Grammar springs to mind) who are aiming to get a maximum number of boys through to Oxbridge (MGS used to get up to 60 a year through; don't know what the stats are now) or other competitive courses at competitive universities and everything is geared to that. So you take the minimum number of key O levels as early as possible, on the grounds that provided you get university matriculation requirements (one language, one science, english language and maths, I think it was at the time, with a minimum of 5 O level passes) and then maximise the time during which your pupils are doing 'A' level work, to ensure they get the top quality 'A' levels, and then really push them to 7th term Oxbridge (which, by your sneaky move of pushing them through O levels two terms early, is actually 9th term Oxbridge).

Re: Peculiar O Level Timing

[coughingbear]

Oh ! I had never really understood the early O level thing.

I have been wondering what schools might fit as being possibly Patrick's - RC, obviously, independent, day - I don't think there's any indication that there are boarders? And not trad - when the cats let me up will do some investigating.

Keith doesn't like me...She didn't like Rowan much either

[scarletlobster.livejournal.com]

We can all see why Keith might not like Nicola because she has lurched from one disaster to another. But did we ever see anything (apart from the fact that rowan obviously loathed her) to explain why Miss Keith might not have liked Rowan? As far as I remember, Rowan at school was very much a star pupil: clever, sporting, character (played best on the losing side), looked up to by the juniors, chosen for a main part in the nativity play at a time when roles were allocated on head's approval rather than acting skills. I can't think of a thing in any book to suggest that Rowan was on the wrong side of Miss Keith.

Re: Keith doesn't like me...She didn't like Rowan much either

[coughingbear]

Rowan describes their relationship as delicately balanced on an edge of mutual toleration in Autumn Term, I think, which to some extent backs Nicola up.

Anthony Merrick

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

I have to mention, Anthony Merrick appears with credit in the opening two chapters: first, by actually inviting Nicola to breakfast having realised (i)Patrick will have invited Ginty; and (ii) he won't have invited Nicola, and breaking up the rather too personalised teasing over kedgeree without appearing to make a fuss or drawing attention to the fact he's doing it: "Patrick's perfectly capable of falling off his own animal" is just nice (and, literally, pointing out that pride comes before a fall.)

Re: Anthony Merrick

[liadnan]

You'd think Patrick might have picked up some of his habit of paying attention to people.

Comments on Wendy Treadgold's anti-semitism

[(Anonymous)]

I'm afraid I just took Miranda's word for it so I assume we are meant to. I would give Marie Dobson the benefit of the doubt in 'End of Term' because she is in a special category of 'would like to', but Wendy Treadgold's comments do seem to immediately back up Miranda's case and I didn't notice they might not be motivated by anti-semitism. It's easy to imagine that there would be antisemites in Kingscote. On the other hand, Miranda's so ruthless in her enforcement of status within the school, that I can see how anyone might want to see her taken down a peg or two.
Her

Re: Comments on Wendy Treadgold's anti-semitism

[(Anonymous)]

That was Mrs Kent accidentally posting prematurely.
Tim and Miranda are very alike in their ruthlessness to the school underclass
Mrs Kent

Mothers and religion

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

This comes up in a minor way in later chapters, but I have to say I can sort of see Pam not wanting to tell the vicar that Nicola doesn't want to come to church because she's not sure she believes, and "she can't think up a new excuse for me every Sunday or come clean and hurt his poor feelings" and on the other hand think it's demented that "Actually my daughter's having a bit of a crisis of faith at the moment" is something far too embarrassing to mention to the vicar.

Re: Mothers and religion

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

The wording is a bit odd. I should think unlikely beyond belief that the vicar's feelings would be "hurt" by a teenager stopping coming to church. Firstly, because it's all too usual for teenagers to stop going to church, and secondly because although the vicar might be concerned about one of his flock losing their faith, he's not going to be personally hurt - unless he's a particularly self-obsessed character who relates everything to himself. The Marlows have only been living in the parish for a year, so it's not as if he's known her from small childhood having baptised her etc. It does seem like a case of the unconscious arrogance that the Marlows are often accused of.
If Mrs Marlow is embarrassed the solution seems obvious. Take Lawrie to church every week, and every other week tell the vicar it's Nicola.

A Marlow Privilege to Wear Navy

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

As a matter of fact, I think that idea is both true and one of the most subversive parts of this chapter. Why is it a Marlow privilege to wear navy? Why should it be? And is "privilege" here being used in both the ancient and the modern sense, whether Forest meant to or not?

Re: A Marlow Privilege to Wear Navy

[sue marsden (from livejournal.com)]

Nicola trying to make the best out of a tricky situation? And Miranda backing her up, maybe as she feels slightly guilty about having more money?

Martyrs

[liadnan]

I was just thinking about the Elizabethan Anthony Merrick not making it to canonisation because "the likely ones were put through a check-point for hi-jackers to make sure they died for nothing but the Faith" - it's quite true there was such a careful check, hence the exclusion of people like Henry Garnet SJ from the list though the depth of his involvement in the Gunpowder Plot has always been a matter of some debate; let alone Babington, Tichborne, Catesby etc.

(I've never actually managed to get my hands on a copy of The Players and the Rebels - do we learn more about it there?)

Re: Martyrs

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

Yes; both in the Players Boy and the Players and the Rebels.

Forest makes the Gilly Merrick (who was historically in Essex's household) a cousin of the Anthony Merrick back then, and Nicholas overhears a conversation he shouldn't while chasing a lost hawk.

Situational homosexuality over at my place [Mods?]

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

Hope it's OK to post this here, mods: delete if not. If anyone wants to discuss some of the issues surrounding sexual activity in public schools and other same-gender environments that veered a bit off-topic in other threads here (http://trennels.livejournal.com/121008.html?thread=2708656#t2708656), I've got a public post (http://lilliburlero.dreamwidth.org/78377.html) up on my journal soliciting for your views. (LJ mirror (http://lilliburlero.livejournal.com/287811.html)) The Great Kirby Grip Affair is not off limits either!

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

I suggested somewhere, for Patrick, a school at Sonning. Fairly sure that i named it wrongly - think it was Presentation College - day boys travelled from Slough, Maidenhead, Oxford by train in the 1950s, then, I think , bus. So possibly from London too. It's now in Reading - has changed hands several times