Attic Term: Readthrough, Chapters 5-8

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

Early this week, since I might not have reliable online access tomorrow.


Nicola's surprise at having actually looked fetching in Miranda's dress provides a neat lead-in to Ginty's misery over Monica. Despite her being one of the more emotional Marlows, Ginty's 'version of being in floods' is still restrained enough to only be recognisable to family. I'm amused by Monica's aptitude for Geography giving her, in Nicola's eyes, the virtual gift of immortality. Monica's absence both unsettles Ginty in itself, and removes her steadying influence, paving the way for later ill-judged actions. Despite their conflicts over Patrick, Nicola is reassuring and practical here, and Ginty perks up temporarily. I don't much like the sound of a 'crusted' bath and loo (like scabs, or like port), but I supposed the relative privacy is welcome.

Tim has finally got some recompense for having to come back early in Aunt Edith's company, which allows her to make a very Timmish entrance in Chapter 7. How do people regard Ginty's loss of nerve? It provides a notable contrast with her physical courage, and it's a plausible depiction of the illogic of panic: both wanting and not wanting to know the truth, the sense of wanting to disclaim the responsibility of finding out. I do think it's still rather a cheek of Ginty to deputise Nicola, especially after a summer presumably spent being rather dismissive of her, but Forest does a good job of suggesting how anxiety defeats attempts at overmastering it: Nicola recognises that her sister simply can't--another instance of Nicola's growing interpersonal awareness and kindness. In contrast to Lawrie's cry of 'not fair!', Nicola's shown to recognise that childhood doctrines of fair exchange don't suit every situation: and here she's very appealing in going the extra mile for Ginty despite not having much reason to want to do her a good turn. Lawrie's line on discovering the existence of the fire escape is funny, but also ties into a theme of disaster that seems unlikely--until it happens: like Marie Dobson's death or Monica's accident.

Nicola's fear of 'wild' dark is another coughing bear. I'm mildly surprised that she thinks of climbing into the secretary's office through the window as less than 'madly lethal': admittedly, Nicola's school career has been more full of incident than many, but it's the sort of thing I think at 14 I would have thought very likely to lead to considerable trouble. The tidiness contrasts with the spread exam. papers which will later cause such bother. I've had a look at some sources on telephony in Britain, but I can't find anything about which, if any, places were still without STD in 1971. Evidently Wade Abbas is one, anyway, though it seems a late date to still have to be connected via operator. News about Monica is good--anyone with better medical knowledge or experience than I care to comment on how heavy bruising might have been mistaken for a crushed pelvis?

Misson accomplished, Nicola returns to the dorm. Ann has reverted to slightly aggravating type in offering the thanks that she was too preoccupied to give Nicola earlier. Ginty's relieved 'I'll do the same for you sometime' is with hindsight, ominous. I'm touched by Nicola taking the bath salts as her due--and by school's provision of hot water being luxurious compared to home--baths and hot water availability are a bit of a theme in this book. Having been reassured about Monica, Ginty immediately starts becoming anxious about her friendship with Patrick--Nicola's having done her a favour perhaps stirring her conscience about excluding her sister, or just a case of all that adrenaline having to go somewhere? It's a lovely moment of psychological realism, anyway.




This short chapter nonetheless gives us lots of nice detail: about the Marlows' former Hampstead home, with that intriguing little turret room--no substitute for a priest-hole though! Patrick's gloom at having to return to London, expressed in a spartan attitude to personal accoutrements. What would Patrick find to approve of particularly in Pius X?

Patrick's room is Giles' and Peter's old one, again, a satisfying detail: with his conscious thought that he feels less of an intruder in the brothers' former room Forest manages to convey, I think, his suppressed or unconscious desire to be in Ginty's--which, with some rather delicious awkwardness, could have been Nicola's too. (I'm assuming a 4-bedroom house and the girls sharing in 3s, here, though other configurations are possible.) 'Whistle and I'll come to you my lad' does rather suggest that Patrick expected Ginty to be at his beck and call over the summer, as he fantasises about her being here. As well as the Burns song, I'm sure Forest meant to allude to the M.R. James story, which gives it a fine uncanny touch.



Back at Kingscote, and Tim's belated arrival is the opportunity for some exposition. I enjoy Tim, in a rare moment of tact, censoring herself over Jean's suitability for prefect, only for Lawrie obliviously to supply the tactless comment. Latimer's very different form-mistressing style is expressively and economically noted. Another Christmas Play would indeed be 'too much of an an--what was it', and Forest neatly gets herself out of that one. Tim's and Lawrie's respective reactions to Lawrie having acted the Shepherd Boy for the last time are a characteristic delight, as is Tim's immediate, but expected bid for the form to do something obscure and eccentric for the Carol Service. Miranda finds herself only dubiously included yet again, though this is a nice set-up for Tim and Miranda's later compositional conspiracy. And Nicola's doubly ironic refusal to sing solo provides a natural point to switch to Ginty's story.

Monica's absence is really hitting her hard, we learn: to the point where she is genuinely rather feeble and cowardly over the 'requester'--but still in character, I think: in not her wanting to face Mrs Lambert's disapproval we see her dread of a row, of public humiliation, which again, with hindsight, takes ironic colouring.

The Kingscote attitude to voluntarism is on display in Fergus's disapproval of those who give up Music Appreciation: Ginty and Monica's disdain for 'holy hush gush' reminds us, perhaps of their sharing, rather shyly, passions for Vaughan Williams and Housman in an earlier novel: such enthusiasms, should--in Forestworld--be kept private.

Mrs Lambert's faded good looks and chilling manner are, as it turns out, rather intimidating. Ginty's mixed emotions--irritation, surprise that Mrs Lambert must once have been young and attractive, indignation--demonstrate her interior turbulence, and of course, she drops her clanger just as she thinks she's found a mode in which her charm might--as it has failed hitherto to do--work on the Lambert. Her bewilderment and belated realisation of the nature of her offence always make me squirm--another to add to Ginty's list of sheet-kicking moments. But Mrs Lambert intrigues me too: this has been your regularly scheduled fic prompt.




Sara Crewe does sound like a rather fab room to be in: rather liking a good window-rattling storm or clear starry night myself, I agree with Nicola. Though not on Vanity Fair, which I adore. Any reason why she might not like it? I would have thought she would. I don't know Henry Esmond: what might she have been seduced by in that?

More indications of the conflicts between Ann and her family: what a pity charities hadn't thought of those proxy gifts in 1971, which is a slightly less drippy way to do the Good Cause idea that Ann suggests. The suggestion of false eyelashes, and Nicola's enthusiasm for it, is funny, but I can't help feeling rather sad for Ann, stuck with such an incompatible bunch of siblings. Has anyone read Sayers' Plays? Will Ann like them, do you think? Lawrie's sublime conviction that anything with copious religious reference in it will go down well is amusing nonetheless. and presumably we're meant to infer that Lawrie is not really interested in reading any play in which she is not about to appear. (Forest really refers to Sayers quite a lot, doesn't she? There's a Notes & Queries type piece in that one, I feel. Or more fic!)

The selection of books in the Oxfam shop again reminds us of Forest's slant relationship to the school-story genre, but there's a fine old-fashioned coincidence in Nicola finding Sara Crewe. I like the little theme of hereditary knowledge--Miranda's joke about Nicola's navigational instincts (and charmingly, Nicola's first concern is for the reputation of the Navy, not her own pride) and then her abashed moment of 'showing off' about cabinet-making. The latter has always stuck with me, perhaps because I had quite a lot of teenage experience of being rebuked for taking pleasure in specialist knowledge: even Miranda seems to have internalised a bit of Kingscote poppy-lopping.

What do people make of Changear? I rather like the portrait of the young hippie, even if Forest's command of youth culture and slang is a little uncertain, there's something quite drawn-from-the-life about his lazy movements and gestures. I like the idea of Nicola, fan of The Flight of the Heron, looking forward to dressing up in 'madly Bonnie Prince Charlie' tartan, and love the phrase 'Mummy's-friends-to-tea-dismals'. My experience is limited, but I have never known a drug dealer trust his deliveries to total, visibly naïve strangers, but in a world in which they're prepared to trust them to pigeons, I'll suspend my disbelief. I wonder how much Nicola has been told about the events of Thuggery, given she doesn't seem to think of it here. Just how many secrets are the Marlows keeping from each other and the outside world at this stage? The strain must be appalling. I recognise Miranda's little account of the progression of typical parental warning from Stranger Danger to Drugs from my own experience (and often gave, a little more disingenuously than Miranda does, more or less the same response as she), but it of course jolts Nicola back to RMF. The analogy with boys' school stories always amuses me: Nicola seeing drugs in modern schools primarily as a way of contextualising her childhood reading. Miranda's premonition of doom is of course accurate, but it all takes a rather unexpected form. There is constant play with ideas of foiled expectation in this novel: I'm really impressed by how smoothly and unobtrusively it's done. Forest is still on form, I think, though I think I remember others saying that they feel she goes off a bit in this one. The casuistical interpretation of rules against public consumption of food in school uniform (I remember flagrantly disregarding these, but they have surely gone the way of all flesh now) always makes me laugh.

And so, back to school, and with the ominous chagrin of UIVB at being left out of the flash gear racket (someone--my apologies for forgetting who--suggested a few weeks back that UIVB perhaps have more of a propensity to bullying than their A counterparts? This has been your regularly scheduled &c.) we come to an end for this week.


Over to you!

Comments

[learnsslowly.livejournal.com]

I very much liked Nicola in the whole "ringing up about Monica" sequence, and also very much liked Monica's mother - she is both likable and very realistic.
Keswick - hmm - can see a fan-fictional possibility here.

I also liked the observation about the black and white tiles on the path - for me they gave a great sense of place - and rearranged my mental picture of the house in Hampstead completely.

As a childless-by-circumstance woman who has repeatedly been told by friends/ colleagues that their 3rd/4th/5th child "makes up" for my not having children so THEY aren't contributing to world overpopulation, it's just all the others who are doing that, (Even when I was still in my early 30's and had not given up hope of being able to provide a child with a suitable home, it was something I heard once or twice a year.) I can understand better now how painful Ginty's remarks could have been to Mrs Lambert. I suppose it is something like the difference between knocking your finger accidentally against something and knocking your already-badly-bruised-with-an-infected-cut-finger against something; the outside incident seems the same but previous events have made it feel completely different. Reading this for the first time in my early teens this slid past me.

Funnily enough, I think Rowan is the Marlow least likely to make this faux pas.

Mrs Lambert

[(Anonymous)]

"I'm making up for you not having children" is horribly selfish and tactless. I'm also childless and people can be very stupid. Ginty's comment is very general though and she is very young so should be more forgivable.
It also seems a bit impolite of Mrs Lambert to exclaim, perhaps disapprovingly, over the number of Marlows. If you come from a large family, that must get rather tedious.
What I find most interesting is that there is about half a page of Ginty wondering whether to go back and explain, presumably saying something like "I'm so sorry I didn't realise it was such a sore point that you don't have children". Surely only Basil Fawlty would attempt anything like that.
Mrs Kent

[nnozomi.livejournal.com]

I think your knocking-your-finger analogy is very good--as Mrs. Kent points out above (below?) Ginty's comment is fairly general, and given Mrs. Lambert's age and title she might plausibly have had grown children or children away at college, another boarding school, etc. In other, equally possible circumstances Ginty's comment would not have been as tactless and painful as it turns out to be in fact.
Speaking as another childless-by-circumstance woman, I wonder if Mrs. Lambert is in fact a bit younger than Ginty's appraisal of her looks suggests--either just past the likely childbearing age, and/or very recently divorced/widowed and just old enough not to expect any possible remarriage within the time--so that childlessness is something she hasn't yet resigned herself to. (It's difficult, for instance, to imagine Miss Cromwell or Miss Kempe, presumably also childless, reacting similarly.)

Also interested in your comment on Rowan--do expand on this.

Ginty in Keswick

[(Anonymous)]

You are absolutely right.
Ginty meets the local hunt has great possibilities. Do you think she knows they don't use horses?
Mrs Kent

Sayers plays

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I don't have a copy of Attic Term to hand, so if this is from memory, but if the Sayers plays for Ann are "The Man Born to be King" cycle (and they probably are, as they had the highest profile), then they seem to me a present that Ann might actually like. She seems interested in the modern church and Sayers wanted to combine theological density/an exploration of dogma, with the 'human interest' element. They were genuinely popular and there were new versions in the fifties and sixties (and seventies), so it's also plausible that Nicola was aware of them. It's ironic that Lawrie dismisses, them, actually - given her propensity for playing men's parts, she might have found something to enjoy. Among the controversies of the original production (Jesus being portrayed on the radio!) was that various characters spoke with regional accents.

Re: Sayers plays

[coughingbear]

They are - Zeal of Thy House & the others, I think. I agree, I think Ann may very well enjoy them.

[coughingbear]

Score one nice mother in Mrs Eliot. And I like Nicola's willingness to ring up when she accepts that the panics are real. I like that, absent Rowan or Ann, Nicola is the responsible one in their room.

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

I liked Mrs Eliot's calm matter-of-factness when Nicola says, "I'm awfully sorry - but I shouldn't even be here." More foreshadowing, of course, but an example of Nicola doing something mildly stupid in a calm, sensible and organised fashion (for example, in explaining to Mrs Eliot that the call is unapproved, it cuts off the risk of Mrs Eliot accidentally mentioning it in future interaction with the school - perhaps Miss Cromwell's observation about her having no talent for crime last term has paid off in this?)

[antfan.livejournal.com]

Score one nice mother in Mrs Eliot

Yes, though bet she wouldn't have stayed nice! They sometimes start off nice - Mrs Merrick - but then show their true colours...

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

Mrs Eliot's response is very endearing, and understanding, in this scene. She doesn't query why it's Nicola ringing, and not Ginty - I wonder if she, too, understands that Ginty would be in real panic over the situation with Monica? (And on the subject of mothers, Mrs Merrick and Mrs West strike me as the casual and reluctant sort of parent, but mothers are rarely given the benefit of this being the adorable trait assigned to fathers of such qualities. I also feel a little sorry for Mrs Frewen, whose main faults seem to be the misfortune of divorce and being unable to find a home that allows dogs in a world where the housing shortage is the plot driver for an entire book, so prioritising the need for a roof over one's head, rather than her child's affection for a pet, which our heroines have stigmatised as scary, affected and babyish, is hardly the worst example of maternal behaviour.)

However, since this call leads to the, ahem, coughing bear scenario, beloved of by Miss Keith, is Mrs Eliot also part of that? If she'd scolded Nicola for breaking the rules, would that have made a difference? After all, this knowledge of rule breaking is part of why Ginty can't choose to phone Monica later on, and if Ginty had tried phoning Monica and Mrs Eliot had answered, I doubt, she'd have simply laughed and passsed the phone on to Monica. I'm not blaming Mrs Eliot here - after all Keith's coughing bear, as presented to Ginty and Nicola by their headmistress, has to be about their irresponsibility. But if one is a proponent of the coughing bear, where does one stop?

Nicola's caretaking/responsibility strikes me as being much more akin to Ann, than Rowan. I don't see Rowan as having that much patience with Ginty's real panic, no matter how restrained Ginty's version of being in floods is -- and that's something Ginty's probably learned as a survival mechanism in a family that only values emotional restraint, not emotional expression). Nicola's being fundamentally kind here, and possibly much more like Ann the patrol leader, than Ann the family caretaker, in recognising that right now, Ginty's overwhelmed and needs help.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Henry Esmond has Jacobites, which might have been part of the attraction, though Bonnie Prince Charlie does not come off well in the narrative. Plus I seem to recall a discussion on the Victorian Studies mailing list about student response to Vanity Fair and that apart from the length issue, they had real problems with Thackeray's satiric tone (?and possibly his narratorial intrusions?). I can't see Nicola as being a Becky Sharp fan, which would keep some people reading.

Re Changear, I would not be surprised if the young hippy bloke in the shop is a lowly minion, who has been told to get the package to the contact, but sees a chance to hand it off to someone else and save himself the effort.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I adored Vanity Fair as a young teenager, but as I was reading to due to the 1980s BBC TV production (the theme tune of which I can still hum) I had come primed to do so.

Package in Changear.

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

If you were going to ask a stranger to deliver a packet of drugs, would you choose two girls wearing the local private school's uniform? That must make them conspicuous walking round town on a Saturday anyway, and someone would surely notice them going into the college where they had no business to be. The only way it would make any sense would be if the dealers wanted to lay a trap, tip off the police, and while an obvious arrest is made at that drop-off, move a much bigger amount around somewhere else.
And what's with asking strangers to deliver a parcel anyway even if it wasn't drugs? Did people do that? How/why would you trust them to do it?

Sara Crewe

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

It puzzled me when I first read the book when Nicola found a book called 'Sara Crewe' in the Oxfam shop, because I knew the book which featured Sara Crewe as 'The Little Princess'. I've been trying to run and find out, and I've gathered that there was an original short story called 'Sara Crewe' which then got expanded into the Little Princess book. Was the short story sold as a book in its own right?

Re: Sara Crewe

[coughingbear]

I can't find a reference to it being published under that title in the British Library catalogue, though I've not checked US publications. It would be very rare if it did exist, I think!

ETA: no, I'm wrong - there is at least a Tauchniz edition of Sara Crewe and Editha's Burglar. I wonder if Forest had a copy? (Of course, it needs to be that title for Nicola to spot it - A Little Princess wouldn't mean anything to her.)

Re: Sara Crewe

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

Here's (http://katlinel.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/3935/17357) a picture of my copy, which is the 1893 edition, purchased most likely in 1894, judging by the inscription (http://katlinel.livejournal.com/pics/catalog/3935/17602). I bought it ten or so years ago, when I encountered it in a second-hand bookshop, and was delighted, like Nicola, to find it existed.

I'd say Sara Crewe; or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's is novella length, rather than a short story. It takes up around three-quarters of the book. There are some lovely illustrations in the book, by Reginald R. Birch.

I'm feeling even more sympathy than usual with Sandra Grigson, since I'm tempted to launch into a spiel about the differences between the versions, but I won't.

Clothing sizes

[the_antichris.livejournal.com]

The Oxfam/Changear scenes always make me wonder - were 14-year-olds in the 70s smaller than 14-year-olds today (or in the 90s, when I was one)? Most people I knew at school were nearly their adult heights at 14 and already wearing adult sizes.

Re: Clothing sizes

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

Girls are physically maturing earlier on average now I believe. But maybe its more a matter of style and cut than actual size that separates the junior sizes. After all, there's a big difference in a size 10 garment sold in New Look (for example) to a size 10 sold in M and S.

Re: Clothing sizes

[(Anonymous)]

I think it's just the effects of middle-aged spread. They are all styles and sizes for larger ladies in their fifties so nothing under a 14 and Miranda is probably a 10.
Fat young people were much rarer then, so perhaps the association of larger sizes with the older age group was stronger.
Mrs Kent

Re: Clothing sizes

[mrs-redboots.livejournal.com]

As today, some and some - I suspect most people had reached their full height, but not their full - er - development. I would certainly have thought Nicola and Miranda would have grown out of Junior Miss clothing (usually up to about age 12). That has always slightly jarred on me, too.

Wild Dark

[kinkymobster.livejournal.com]

A bit surprised to find Nicola afraid of the Wild Dark. Not that I would be out there without a large dog myself. But Nicola always seems so at home wandering the countryside in the very early morning and even in the evening dark when she saw the fox hounds home after hunting.

Re: Wild Dark

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think she's afraid if she has company, human or not.
thedogsdinner

Telephony Lasts

[(Anonymous)]

The last manual exchange in England, at Abingdon, Berkshire, ended its service at 07.00 hrs on Thursday 26th June 1975.
It's not an anachronism although it always seemed rather flagged as one by Nicola's impatience with it.
Mrs Kent

Re: Telephony Lasts

[mrs-redboots.livejournal.com]

What was so ridiculous was when I lived in Paris in the early 1970s, during the time international dialling came in, I could dial my grandmother, who lived in Somerset, direct from Paris, but my mother, in Sussex, could not do so! There were odd anomalies like that for a long time until absolutely everywhere was automated, which took an incredibly long time to happen. Nicola may or may not have been used to an automated system at Trennels - she certainly would have been in London - but Wadebridge was probably one of the exceptions.

Ann's drawing.

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

Is Ginty's idea of getting drawing pencils for Ann's present a clue that Ann likes drawing/art? Is that what she does at home when she's not helping her mother and the others are all Gondalling or saving the railway? If it is, then it's a nice touch.
When she's stuck in some grim corner of the world, nursing with Medecin Sans Frontiers, I'd like to picture her in a dusty old camp chair with a sketch book, drawing the scene around her for a little relaxation. Or drawing homemade cards for her colleagues' birthdays.

Re: Ann's drawing.

[occasionalhope.livejournal.com]

Yes - there's a bit in Autumn Term when Nicola and Lawrie are first in the GUides when Nicola mentions to one of the girls in Ann's patrol that "Ann draws a bit".

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

The hippie youth sounded pretty realistic in the way he was drawn (I particularly liked the echo of Abou Ben Azram in the use of "but kindly still" after the reference to "that dread gear.")

I also think the whole set-up sounds just-about-plausible: I'm reminded of the many years successive generations of Oxford students walked past AnnaBelinda in Gloucester Green, shaking their heads and going, "I cannot understand how that dress shop stays in business" until the Howard Marks story broke, and we all knew how. After reading Marks' autobiography, incidentally, the Changear method of transporting drugs started to sound almost sane.

[schwarmerei1.livejournal.com]

I think a pair of birds was AF's go-to method of drug transportation...