Readthrough: Run Away Home, Chapters 1-4

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

We begin with Ginty being seen off to Keswick: it's a characteristic detail, I think (and one that makes me sympathetic to Ann, who gets rather a raw deal in this book) that Ann minds that Ginty doesn't wave goodbye, where Nick and Lawrie hardly notice and couldn't care less.

Nicola plotting how to deal with the coughing-bear dress rings very true to such adolescent predicaments to me, but Lawrie's whingeing seems a trifle overdone, even to strike a foreshadow of a disrupted Christmas.

And, our first sight of Edward! I think one of the things this book--Forest's patchiest to my mind--does very well is characterise this troubled, really pretty unloveable character. What motivates Nicola to cover for him, do you think?

Giles Marlow dresses like a knitting pattern. Over two years without a long enough leave to get himself home does seem a bit rough, mind, so let him have his civvies for now. And poor old Geoff: in-universe explanations for why the Service is being quite so exigent? The reference in Chapter 4 to Chas watching Secret Army dates the action to 1977-9.

Geoff's long absence does allow Forest to introduce the discussions about gender roles that arise shortly afterwards. "Wives must", ugh, Giles. (There will be a lot of ugh, Giles in the following.) Lawrie's riposte is too daffy to be very effective, but at least there is a riposte, I suppose.

What do people make of Giles's argument with Ann? On the one hand, I feel Ann is being nobbled rather--what little we hear of her anti-war arguments seem unrealistically feeble, I think, for someone who's grown up in a Services household yet managed to develop pacifist leanings; on the other, Forest contrives to make it sound oddly like Giles has lost his argumentative high ground, even though she's determined to see things from his perspective. He tries to bail out when Ann still feels there's points to be made: 'call it quits'; 'repeating arguments Giles was satisfied he'd demolished' (my italics). There's a note of disapproval in 'bringing religion into it', but from the point of view of a believing Christian of whatever denomination faith is surely relevant to the ethics of war, and has unquestionably historically shaped them? Giles's flippancy feels ugly to me, if it's sufficient to make Ann 'distressed and confused'.

I'll leave discussion of the scuffle with Edward to the comments: there's a nice unmarked look back to Ready Made Family in Nicola's immediate alarm that she's witnessing a kidnapping, where Giles is happier to trust to adults' good faith.




I'm interested in the ways Forest finds to curdle our sympathy with Ann: her concern for a runaway child on a winter night turns within a page to her demonstrably foolish statement that having the law on one's side is the same as being in the right. It seems framed in an unnecessarily binary way: it would be much more satisfying, and somehow more characteristic of Forest, if Ann were to argue, for example, that she didn't like the idea of him going back into institutional care, but surely it's preferable to hypothermia or him being picked up an Uncle Gerry type?

Ann carrying things for Lawrie forms an interesting parallel to Giles's rather insistent gallantry on the point of carrying things and driving people places, too: a man offering to take a burden is a gentleman, but a woman is a drudge. Huh.

This is the first time that Giles has seen Trennels since the summer holidays the family spent there with Jon Before The War: and since Giles's relationship with his cousin was closer than the rest of the siblings', I'm minded to be Nice to Giles and remark that it can't be with unmixed feelings that he does so.

Lawrie turning from her misery to contemplating a trip to Paris for her grandmother's funeral is great, I think: perfectly topped by Nicola's recognition that Mme Orly would appreciate it too.

There's been some discussion of Rowan's advice to Nicola already, but what do people make of it? I recognise with a sense of mild horror the less-than-logical creed with which I was brought up: it never really does any good to talk about anything, because if the relationship is 'genuine' you'll just miraculously understand one another, and if it's not it's not worth bothering with. Interestingly, though, it's shortly followed be the revelation that Rowan and Pam have shared some confidences. This has been your regular scheduled fic prompt.

Pam's mentioning Rowan's lack of a social life suggests guilt about allowing her to take on the farm, perhaps. But the Marlows seem to have been accepted into the milieu of Westbridge and environs, nonetheless, as the invitations indicate.

The barbecue-cum-midnight steeplechase! I once came close to almost writing fic about it, but fell heavily at the fence of not knowing anything about the curious and hazardous-sounding practice of midnight steeplechasing, which I tried to remedy by buying Moyra Charlton's The Midnight Steeplechase. This has been your regular &c.

In the discussion of alternative Christmas Day activities, Ann seems again to be cast as killjoy; though it doesn't seem entirely unreasonable to imagine that Mrs Marlow might be disconcerted if she rings an empty house on Christmas Day (minor but telling revelation that Giles doesn't phone to wish his family a merry Christmas, because apparently, it would mean too much. Ugh, Giles.) And apparently the plan before the picnic idea is mooted was to haul Mrs Bertie in to cook Christmas dinner in the evening, which doesn't seem very bloody noblesse oblige to me. Rowan's rationale for getting Giles to talk Mrs Bertie round touches again on the theme of gender roles.

Giles's encounter with Karen, Edwin and the family: this has been your regular &c.




I think that opening presents on Christmas Eve is positively odd, but then other people's Christmas traditions always are. The mention of Ginty's presents is a foreshadow of her birthday.

Nick and Lawrie's party dresses! (It seems that Mrs Marlow relented from her irritation at the Changear episode and the coughing bear might have been uncontroversial after all. Different people's taboos about second-hand clothing always interest me: 'new second-hand' from strangers was read by Mrs Marlow as 'desperation', but Nick and Lawrie have been wearing fifth-hand clothes all their lives! I had a university tutor who was happy to buy second-hand jackets, shirts and pullovers but recoiled at the thought of second-hand trousers). The dresses are hard to visualise, but I like the notion that they're so completely different.

Giles' bafflement at Doris and the Chest ('positively pelican'--moderately recondite reference for the target market?) amuses me: actually, though I suspect his main function in these chapters is as exposition catch-up device, I wonder if a case could be made for his discombobulation at having missed two action-packed years of family life going some way to explain his peculiar lapses of judgement later on? He does, we learn, have the occasional twinge of guilt at letting Rowan take on the farm, which expresses itself in trying to do Rowan's chores for her; she in turn is irritated by what she perceives (probably rightly) as some pretty have-your-cake-and-eat-it sexism.

The little reminder of Eddi's Service in Nicola daring Rowan to check if the cattle are kneeling is charming.

Any thoughts on Ann choosing to remain behind?

I quite enjoy the lost in the fog bit. Peter, still with the Mummerzet? My acquaintance from without Britain and Ireland remark with exasperation on precisely the aspect of our signposting that Forest notes, and also on the quaint silliness of English village names, which is gently and effectively sent up here (it's easy to slip into broad parody with Magnas, Parvas and so on, but Forest stays just on the right side, I think).

Lawrie again seems excessively whingey here, though her qualms do a good job of suggesting that madcap spontaneity can just fall awfully flat. Still, a suitable spot is found, and Peter displays his talent for sloping off 'exploring' when there's work to be done.

Could Giles actually be more ghastly than in this after-dinner conversation? UGH, GILES. Rowan's plans to be more proactive come Lady Day seems a good point to mention this fabulous fic by nnozomi. I'm mildly surprised that Rowan's indulgent of the sexist division of labour.

Surfrider is introduced, and I like Nicola's 'sun on the sea when there's no sun', which has a 'from the life' feeling about it.

I'll leave discussion of the Oeschlis' story mostly to the comments. Though all parties have behaved badly, Felix seems to get off very lightly from both the Marlows and their author for kidnapping a baby and communicating with his mother no more often than annually.

Rowan's acerbic 'Do you a power of good to hear the havoc you can cause' brings Peter as teenage father unsettlingly to mind. This has been your regular scheduled &c.

Giles's omelette-making skills again touch the theme of gendered domesticity: the story of the omelette challenge in the dubious bistro is surely worth a short fic?

The notion of getting Edward back to his father is raised at first as desultory hypothetical half-fantasy, and the different range of reactions from the siblings is interesting in terms of characterisation: Nicola's outrage, I can't help feeling, stems (slightly obscurely) from being closest of all the family to Chas and Rose, also children who've been scarred by parental manoeuvrings, though nothing on the Oeschli level. Peter seems to take it least seriously, though it's Giles who makes the most flippant suggestions, and Rowan (at last) raises the possibility of 'real life' trouble if copped. Ann seems just to have a blind faith in authority, which doesn't quite fit with my conception of her character.

The conclusion of the chapter does a great job of suggesting the scratchy tension between all the siblings (Giles and Rowan perhaps excepted: I'm interested in their relationship--fic?). Not a very happy Christmas Day.



A short chapter, but an evocative one. I love 'Provokiev': a bit of a gamble on Kay's part, as a present for a nine year old boy, even a railway nutter, I think, but Chas seems to like it. Chas and Rose having a 'hide-place' seems more significant than just the typical need and liking of children their age for private dens: there is a sense of a kinship of hurt and troubled children in how they relate to Edward too, uncommunicative as the latter is. I'm glad Chas has found a schoolfriend in Barry, though. It's a very Forestian touch, I think, that the plot is set in motion here by imaginative action: a fateful coalescence of a TV drama, the TV news and Chas's own need for escape from a far-from-easy family situation.


Well, I think that will do from me for now. Have at it!

Comments

[antfan.livejournal.com]

I think in Forestworld, wives, especially, are expected to know what they're signing up for and stick to it no matter what

I don't think there are any cases of mothers/wives who work in Forest, are there? My feeling is that she's operating on the model of husband's bringing in the bread, and wives doing the domestic support/child raising, and so with those clearly assigned roles, she does judge the mothers more harshly than the dads for failures in parenting. Mr Frewin is travelling around the country being a barrister, but Mrs Frewin even after divorce doesn't have a job so far as we know, so Mrs F can be expected to do more for Esther. (Doesn't explain why she has so few mothers who actually are doing a decent job, but I think it makes some sense of the way they are judged.)

With the Oeschli's, Judith can care for Edward anywhere but maybe Felix's ability to support them is much greater in Switzerland? Forest also provides the serious accident to Felix's dad which suggests that Felix has strong family obligations and possibly business/financial stuff to sort out in Switzerland. If Judith is arbitrarily declaring that she and her child will never ever set foot outside Colebridge, no matter what, then I think you can understand Felix's frustrations, even if not condoning his actions. His choice may seem to him to abandon his child forever or to be tied forever to an uncompromising Judith, some horrible in-laws and very limited opportunities.

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

That makes good sense, but why didn't he try to get custody of Edward through the courts? I suppose at the time custody tended to be automatically given to the mother.
I just can't get past the kidnapping from the pram bit. Even if he'd left a note or something saying he'd got the baby, that would make it better. But there was time for the police to assume it was a deranged female before they found out who had him. And there is just no authorial condemnation of this.

[(Anonymous)]

I'd forgotten about Felix's dad; thanks for reminding me. That makes me a bit more sympathetic to him (though also without condoning kidnapping).

You're quite right about the model she's operating on. I just find it disappointing that AF, who interrogates almost everything else so brilliantly, just reflects the 'fathers provide; mothers do the domestic side, including all necessary personal sacrifices and most emotional work' model, even at the same time as she writes about cases in which that model breaks down.

[the_antichris.livejournal.com]

That was me, forgetting yet again to log in. Sorry!

[sue marsden (from livejournal.com)]

Most women didn't work, though, did they, at that time? In the 50s my mother had to leave the RAF when she got married; teachers and civil servants had to as well. she didn't work all though our childhood until we bought a house in 1975 when I was 16 and we needed the extra money, so she worked part-time. It was ok for single women to work, but not married ones. None of my friends mothers worked, though we were just very ordinary people, nothing like the social status of the Marlows.I don't think there were the number of jobs that there are now - local government employs far more people now than it used to as it offers a far greater service than it used to -all the equality legislation for a start has created jobs.

marriage/gender roles

[antfan.livejournal.com]

Most women didn't work, though, did they, at that time?

No, though I guess that is changing by the time of Run Away Home, hence the rather clumsy discussions about navy wives and squaws/braves. (Somehow these feel more clunky and dated to me than the earlier books where gender roles just aren't discussed, and where the Marlow sisters certainly all seem to be planning on working for a living - although perhaps with the entirely unspoken assumption that they would give up on marriage/children, which never really impinged on me as an adolescent reader.) I'm not really criticising AF for her division of labour approach to parenthood - it seems to me that there is behind it an idea that people work /make themselves useful in life, which if you are a mother/wife with no other occupation, then maybe means you have more responsibility for day-to-day parenting than your husband does.

I've more of a problem with the assumption in the books that it is the man of the household who gets to make all the big decisions - whether it is relocating to Trennels, letting Miranda participate in nativity plays, Patrick's schooling etc etc (And Giles' attitude that navy wives should just get on with it does seem rather repugnant - although underlying this is perhaps anxiety about his marital prospects in these changed time, and realisation that he is unlikely to be able to provide the same lifestyle for his wife and kids that his own parents have enjoyed.)

I do have a feeling though that Forest respected work and expertise and that this may be the root of her disdain for some of the upper class women particularly in her books. One example perhaps being Aunt Molly - the unforgiving, emotional manipulator of Pam Marlow - remembering how in RMF Nicola says that Aunt Molly "isn't a professional anything". AF's position was somewhat like Aunt Molly's as I understand it - unmarried, never left home and lived with her mother into middle age - but she isn't sympathetic in her portrayal of her, and perhaps that's because Aunt Molly doesn't seem to do anything at all other than (presumably, given her attitude to Pam) brood on what might have been?

[mrs-redboots.livejournal.com]

I would have thought there were fewer jobs now as people do their own typing! Back in the day, there were vast typing-pools, and anybody with any pretensions of status had his (or her, but usually his) own secretary.

[sue marsden (from livejournal.com)]

Hm, maybe, I'm not an economist but it would be interesting to see employment figures for te 30s, 50s, 70s and now. (all those secretaries have probably moved to HR or 'Personnel')Far more jobs in Service inductires now, and IT, and maybe more retail jobs- far more shops now with all these superstores open 24 hours day. And Media/entertainment

[mrs-redboots.livejournal.com]

And of course, call centres, although these are largely outsourced to places like India and the Philippines. I think what there has been an increase in is part-time jobs; you can get maybe one or two shifts a week at the supermarket, if you are a student or a young mother who wants to get out of the house....

My generation grew up expecting to give up work when we married, but half-way through, someone moved the goal posts, very unfair of them! All the same, we had it so much better than our mothers, who were expected not to work, and our daughters, who practically have to go back to work next day; my generation, having our babies around the 1980s, nobody turned a hair whether you chose to work or chose not to. I have friends who have worked nearly every day of their lives (although we are all retiring now), and others who haven't worked a day after their marriage....

[schwarmerei1.livejournal.com]

I think what there has been an increase in is part-time jobs; you can get maybe one or two shifts a week at the supermarket, if you are a student or a young mother who wants to get out of the house....

Yeah...there's been a big increase in part-time work. There's a big increase in under-employment too. Aren't you lucky to have skipped the harsh economic reality facing today's students who go into hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt and still have to do a shitty minimum wage job to keep themselves? Not to mention the "young mother" trying not to get de-skilled and left behind by a workforce that puts the onus on her for exercising her "choices". Who's looking after her kids BTW in your scenario? Her husband is at work I assume, so she's either working nightfill after putting the kids to bed, or she's lucky enough to have friendly garden pixies who step up when she needs a refreshing break doing a menial job for a pittance. She can't put the kids in childcare because supermarket casual rosters don't give you the same shift each week and childcare requires you to keep the same days and hours.

Feel free to edit me mods. It's possible that I'm slightly incredulous.

[mrs-redboots.livejournal.com]

When I was complaining about our supermarkets remaining open so late at night and feeling sorry for the staff who had to work such late shifts, I was told that many students appreciated the opportunity and (by one of them) some young mothers did, too - an evening or two a week when the husband would look after the children and she was able to get out of the house was very welcome.

And yes, back in my day they had this strange concept called "free, universal education" which meant that the child of a dustman and of a duchess paid exactly the same for their university education - nothing! This was abolished by the Blair administration of the 1990s. Had we known about it earlier, we could have set money aside for our child's university education. Unfortunately, we were given a year's notice that this was going to happen.... and even so, she didn't have to pay nearly as much as they do nowadays. A shift or two at the supermarket may well help to ensure some of today's students actually eat.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Higher education grants were based on parental income and over a certain level parents were expected to make a contribution toward living expenses, though I think tuition was fully paid. In my final year at uni my father's income finally went over the limit and he was required to pay - not an immense amount - I think it bought me a typewriter.

[sue marsden (from livejournal.com)]

It was fine if you got a full grant as I did, or even if the parents only had to pay a little. For some, their parents were assesed as being able to make quite a significant contribution but they actually found it quite difficult to make them. So the loans which are available to most now do at least mean that everyone does get something.(they gradually decrease according to income but parental income does have to be quite high for them to disappear altogether)Although students have to pay back nmore now, at least the salary they have to earn is higher now, and they pay back less each month than formerly, so it's almost like an additional tax rather than paying off some huge sum. Tuition fees were of course previoulsy paid for by the local authority

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

A lot of women worked at some point, because working class women had to for financial reasons. One of my grandmothers (working class) worked from her teens until retirement, except when her children were tiny. My other grandmother worked for the first 5 years of her marriage because it was during the war, and she had a baby during that time, looked after by her mother. Post-war, more kids, she didn't. Obviously these are both very different social classes to the Marlows, but even among the Marlow set, it isn't implausible on the early timescale that children would have had mothers working in the war.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

In the 1970s?? Possibly not in the Marlow class. But otherwise, women worked after marriage, at least once they no longer had very young children. Just as the whole 'daughter at home helping mother until she married' had pretty much disappeared. (Or maybe I am just displaying my own class origins.)

[sue marsden (from livejournal.com)]

More 1960s when I was growing up. I think it was still more common not to work than to work. There certainly weren't the childminders and day nurseries or alfer school care so unles you had family, even when the children were at school it would not have been easy, especially during the school holidays -unless you were a teacher of course!