trennels | Attic Term: Readthrough, Chapters 1-4

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Attic Term: Readthrough, Chapters 1-4

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!

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I feel for Elsa, subject to Miranda's barely-suppressed scorn, and what we're told of Mrs West doesn't really suggest that she'd be terribly understanding of novice errors in domestic matters. Mr West would probably be OK, but I sense he spends a lot of time in the Shop. Claudie's duties do include cooking it seems, because we're told by Patrick via his mum she does it 'so easily it isn't true' (so they can't be exploiting her!) Improbable as it is, I can never quite free myself of the suspicion that Claudie has been introduced to the household to further Patrick's, erm, social education, (which it is of course ridiculous in the case of any young man, good as the raw material might be, to leave to chance). So in some ways I'm not sure I wouldn't prefer Miranda's contumely and drudgery while Mrs West attends innumerable committee meetings, though it's a pretty invidious choice.

I get the impression that Mrs Merrick genuinely likes and enjoys spending time with Claudie -- maybe a break from the menfolk?

Yes, on reflection, they do seem to get on--swapping convent school stories, maybe...

always makes me smile ...

http://rose-and-lizard.livejournal.com/22050.html

If nothing else, I think Patrick's parents are aware that he's pretty isolated and hasn't made friends at the new school, so bringing Claudie into the household does have an element of providing company for him.

I like the way that Mr Merrick makes it perfectly clear that he likes Nicola and wishes she and Patrick were still friends.

I'm inclined to agree with this. Pace

lilliburlero and Patrick's "social education", bringing Claudie into the household as a person he as to interact with in a social but non-parent, non-school context isn't actually a bad idea.

But somehow it seems a strange choice to bring a presumably attractive, sophisticated older French girl into the world of a shy teenage boy, knowing the awkwardness and embarrassment that must be likely to ensue on his part. Even though they presumably would assume that nothing the least bit sexual would be going on, all of them being Catholic and all, do they really think that Patrick wouldn't be - if not tempted (as perhaps he isn't until she instigates things) - at least rather awkward about the situation?

res

Maybe that's part of the point - an attempt to force Patrick to deal with it? They've tried being patient, they've tried the Marlows, it's time for drastic action!

but what they want is surely for him to just have a few friends his own age, since they presumably don't want him having one of those just yet anyway. Well maybe they do in the sense of a few dates and being able to be socially pleasant in those situations, but don't actually want him getting serious with anyone. So adding an attractive French girl into his home, where they will see each other constantly, seems brave. They do know that he is able to have a relationship of sorts with Ginty, whether they like her or not, so they must know he is attractive and seems to get on OK in that circumstance - you'd have though they'd not be encouraging that side of social graces any further, but instead trying to get him to make more friends his age - I'd have thought team sports or drama groups or any number of other things (that he would hate, but that wouldn't stop them trying!).

or another thought that I've just had, perhaps they *do* rather want him to get a bit more experience with women and think it might be expected of him; maybe they have a double standard for boys or girls about what's acceptable before marriage, and are a bit worried that he might be a bit too conservative, rather than worrying that he is likely to get up to too much.

rs

My reading is your second paragraph - that it's a bit of a sexual double-standard, and worrying he is a bit too conservative and not good at managing the latter socially. It's all very well for Mr Merrick to cavil at Vatican II, but he deals with the public side, while Patrick is being martyr-boy at school far beyond what his parents appear to expect. A quick fling with a sophisticated French girl who won't be interested in him as a serious prospect is much safer, in a way, than a serious interest in Ginty.

yes, I see what you mean (and apologies for left-out words in my post, which doesn't quite make sense now after earlier editing). And I think that is kind of what I'd initially assumed on first readings, but then had second thoughts that parents of teenagers wouldn't have been encouraging them to experiment with sex, especially not back then - except maybe my assumptions that of course things were more conservative 40-some years ago isn't actually true, and there might have been quite a different culture and expectations for boys in his situation/class, Catholic or not. And quite possibly the Merrick parents weren't as much a stickler about Catholic rules as Patrick seems to want to be (wasn't there some suggestion in a thread once that perhaps they even used contraception, hence Patrick being an only child).

Given that Patrick's slightly alarming parameters are later revealed to be 'it should only be with someone you--care* for--or, okay--if it's paid for', I tend to think this is a pretty incontrovertible reading...but I will accept 'Claudie will be company for the boy, bring him out of himself a bit.' *g*

*this being clearly, in context, Patrick's embarrassed euphemism for 'love and mean to marry', not 'you should probably make sure you actively like someone you mean to have sex with.'

It is an extraordinary moment, that!

I can see this reading, but I do find it a bit hard to square with what we know of Mr Merrick - who I really like, so perhaps I just don't want to! Patrick's mother I can imagine being rather more cold-blooded about the whole thing; she doesn't like Ginty certainly (though I think Claudie is meant to predate Ginty? Patrick just hasn't mentioned her before now) and might welcome his interest turning elsewhere, as long as it's not very serious.

Perhaps it's that Mr Merrick wants it dealt with, but doesn't want to be involved (much like Peter Wimsey's father), and thus while he knows what is going on maintains plausibly deniability.

Possibly, but he doesn't to me come across as that way. I'm thinking of the conversation later when he suggests Patrick should persuade Claudie to go to Mass - he's realistic about her not being very bothered but cares that she should. And he seems less concerned than Mrs Merrick about Ginty anyway - he doesn't make barbed comments, anyway, and only offers his opinion when Patrick asks.

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lilliburlero.livejournal.com - 2015-02-14 09:22 (UTC) - Expand

"A quick fling with a sophisticated French girl who won't be interested in him as a serious prospect is much safer, in a way, than a serious interest in Ginty."

A bit late in the day, but I think that's EXACTLY what Antonia Forest herself thinks. She wants to suggest that Patrick has had something in the nature of a fling so he doesn't come across too much the dry intellectual. The easiest way to eliminate emotional complications is to give him a Claudie.

Helen may be hoping that Claudie will teach Patrick something about contraception before he causes an almighty fall out with the Marlows by getting Ginty pregnant. Although given that they prefer sitting back to back it seems a fairly distant likelihood.

Unfortunately, one has come across instances of Catholics at the period in question who thought using contraception was not on, even if fornication was: i.e. writing to women's magazine advice pages about how not to get pregnant while committing the sin of fornication but not doing that even worse thing, getting sorted with contraception. (Agony Aunts pointed out the contradictions inherent in this stance.)

Perhaps not just a fall-out with the Marlows, though that too of course, but Helena suspects a slightly older Ginty might press the issue to get her paws on Mariot Chase? Or, if not Ginty, some other designing hussy. He is eligible, the Merrick Boy, with a capital "E" after all.

Given that Patrick must even less than Miranda need a grown-up in the house when he comes home from school, maybe the cooking was arranged as Claudie's main job? I'm not adopting your theory as headcanon, but it's one I'll never be tired of reading fic on ;-)

Well that is nothing if not a gauntlet thrown down. Where are all the Patrick/Claudie fics, anyway?

I know I've read one in which they meet again in France and she* ends up climbing out of the pub bedroom window. Courtesy of

ankaret?

*I think. Possibly he.

Oh, I don't remember coming across that one - if you find a link I'd love to see it.

Me too.

Nope, not me.

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Attic Term: Readthrough, Chapters 1-4

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or maybe a bit more ? Claudie and Helena

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A Quick fling...

Re: A Quick fling...

Re: A Quick fling...

Re: A Quick fling...

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