Readthrough: Run Away Home, Chapters 9-11

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

As someone who has always liked hanging about in graveyards, I'm wary of ascribing too much to the Infant Dodds' predilection for it, but nonetheless it is poignant, especially Rose's mistaking of cherubim for sunflowers. Their fragility is also implied by the way they react to mention of Edward after his rebuff of their plans. Fob steps into the breach, however. There's a nice echo of the events of Attic Term in Nicola's misgiving about involving a younger girl, and also of End of Term in remembering that name-tapes can betray the unwary. I'm tickled by Peter's observation that Lawrie and Nicola are 'never both sensible over the same thing', because it's so very nearly true, though here, apparently, he's wrong: Lawrie doesn't seem at all bothered by the idea of changing with Edward present. Giles and Rowan are forced to give some thought to what happens if Lawrie is caught: Rowan's injunction to 'stay dumb' seems a bit optimistic, given what we know, for example, of Lawrie's behaviour in the police station in The Thuggery Affair.

Patrick, rather amusingly, resents his very minor role: his talent for crime is underused in this book. And some foreshadowing in the talk of candles and St Jude.

Ann's exclusion continues to be rather painful, and Peter's reflection upon it 'wasn't sure he hoped he be there when they told her or not', really rather brutal. His implying that Rose and Chas rather than Fob relayed the message is, with hindsight, an ominous sign of a tendency to change plans and not keep everyone fully in the loop.

Giles and Rowan's journey down to Bacca Cave is full of ominousness too, though I can't help feeling that the Forest of twenty years before might have made something rather more atmospheric of it. I like Rowan's sense of foreboding as she watches the liner, though.

Nicola's dress is clearly a sort of miracle garment, capable of making even Peter concede she looks good, but the reflection that 'it was probably the only dress she'd ever have which would make her look really super' seems pessimistic for age fourteen and a half.

Patrick's feelings toward Ginty really do seem to have curdled, given the 'unaffable' look. His relief at his subconscious, but definitive, ending of the relationship is Forest on merciless form, I think: I was reminded this time of Nicola's much more muted and guilty relief of the cooling of her friendship with Esther. It's interesting that she compares it to his manner after the gymkhana, which he won at Rowan's expense.

Poor Ginty! Ann's forgetting the birthday suggests considerable upset and perturbation on her part over the Edward row and her probably continued sense of exclusion. Her concern over the dress does seem a trifle over-scrupulous at this stage, by contrast. The chapter ends on a wince-worthy note, with Giles's brusque reminder of just who's coming into Trennels. Giles's daughter in Aunty Nicky's early-80s vintage is surely worth a ficlet?




Lawrie's qualms begin to show: not without reason, as it turns out. There's a nice sense here of the improvisatory nature of even the best-laid plans (which this one is not), as indicated by Rowan's 'there's always something you have to play by ear'. The evidence of Edward's unpopularity is the more effective for it being Lawrie who experiences it, I think. And, oh dear--Lawrie gets carried away in her role as monkey.

I'll leave most of the discussion of Judith's appearance to the comments, but I think it's very effective--her slightly cack-handed sympathy with Karen ('"You've got your troubles too"') is particularly touching, I think. It's a nice touch that Rowan has to stage a sort of mini-kidnapping of her own sister right after the bombshell of realising that Edward's mother is human (is my grief containable? No, I think I feel pretty sorry for everyone concerned). And there's something very horrible about Lawrie's predicament, being pawed and teased by her 'jailers', too. (I sense Bryan--a neat thumbnail character sketch--might grow up to be one of the worser sort of policemen or prison officers, somehow.)

The quixotic Merrick sense of honour is working at full tilt in Patrick's suggestion that, the plan goes wrong, his father would prefer him to be caught along with the Marlows than sneak out of it. (You know, I'm not so sure about that, Patrick: not after he managed to get his Home Office chum to quash the whole heirloom-knife-in-murder-victim's-back-and-cocaine-supply huha, not to mention the comparatively picayune business over the Maths O-level.) The fate of the monkey suit is lucky, isn't it? Imagine if that fortuitous pyracantha hadn't been there. Patrick and Lawrie having a rare moment of mutual liking is fun, as is 'Phyllida Ashley.' The irony of Rowan literally (but not metaphorically) 'turning her coat' after her moment of serious misgiving appeals to me, too.




Poor saddle-sore Edward! Interesting that he seems to get on relatively well with Nicola. Again, though, I feel Forest at the peak of her powers might have made more of the atmosphere of a night-time ride. Edward is delivered to Giles and Peter, and all seems deceptively promising for his escape. I believe this is the moment at which, in the original draft, Mr Buster went to his eternal reward?

Nicola passes a pleasantly sedate day after the disappointment of Patrick being hauled off for his Broomhill interview (the latter worth a short fic, maybe?) Ann's worry over Edward's welfare seems to attract authorial disapproval ('one with the worriers') which again seems a bit unfair.

U-children and U-dogs have dinner in the middle of the day, of course, but I (about as non-U as they come, admittedly) sense this convention was well out of date by the time of the novel, and even within the convention, surely even Nicola and Lawrie have been old enough for evening dinner for a couple of years now? Lawrie's experimentation with punk style then seems particularly out of step with it. I like the contrast between Lawrie's kind of 'nerve' and Nicola's implied in the latter's reflection on it, though.

No sign of Giles and Peter... but anything can happen at sea. And often does.



...and that's it from me. legionseagle will be taking the tiller next week, so this is actually my last post on the modern Marlows. It's been fun. Thanks to you all!

Comments

That monkey rig

[mheloyse.livejournal.com]

I've been trying to work out whether Nicola drops an unnoticed clanger when she comments to Ann and Mrs Bertie that Edward 'couldn't get far in that monkey rig'.

From Ann's point of view, should Nicola have known that Edward was dressed as a monkey for the pantomime? Ann tells Rowan the monkey is Edward (so she thinks)when his 'guards' are hassling him, but Nicola isn't around at that point.

Or is it safe to conclude that Ann would have simply have assumed the Infant Dodds had filled the lower deck Marlows in on the wider panto cast?

Risk perception and Surfrider

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

With a breath of foreshadowing, I might mention that Giles' "But don't go shinning down drainpipes or leaping from third floor windows. It's not worth a nasty accident" is extraordinarily sensible advice. It's clear that Giles is capable of perceiving risk in some areas (his alarm at the possibility that Rowan might be leaping onto broken glass, on the beach, seems almost over-protective, given what they're engaged on.) On which note, I think the atmospheric part of Rowan watching the water is nicely done, and her impulse to stove in Surfrider's hull awful but understandable.

Incidentally, the (comparative) ease with which they're manhandling Surfrider on the trailer, even given Giles' reluctance to try her on a slope, is telling about how light she is. The cover-picture by Roger Phillips* on my edition makes her look a bit like a Wayfarer 16 or something of that sort (I know textually she's a one-off, created to Cousin Jon's own bonkers specifications) but narrower in the beam and very convincingly over-canvassed (height of the mast relative to the length of the boat) suggesting that (unusually for most book illustrators and especially for Forest) the illustrator had actually read the relevant chapters.

The only mildly unlikely note is that all three of the people on board are wearing buoyancy aids, which may well have been something the publishers insisted on or the illustrator elected to give a note of colour.


* I suspect this Roger Phillips given he lists Faber and Faber as a client and has some highly relevant credentials

Re: Risk perception and Surfrider

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

Peering at my copy they all look like they're wearing shorts and t-shirts. In January!

Re: Risk perception and Surfrider

[sprog-63.livejournal.com]

Did you see? He has sketches for A Sword for Mr Fitton and A kiss for Captain Hardy too - and like Forest (and I suspect Nicola) likes accuracy if he can get it!!

So the clothes (which I noticed too) are very odd.

Re: Risk perception and Surfrider

[(Anonymous)]

Later on Edward is wearing a life-jacket (and oilies )
Pip

Patrick, Rowan and Lawrie.

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

Having spent most of the series not liking Patrick very much, I actually really like him in the scenes with Lawrie and Rowan. Neither of them defer to him in the way Nicola and Ginty do, and they seem to bring out the best in him - calming Lawrie, being resourceful and being able to share a joke with her.
He works well with Rowan too when they are rescuing Lawrie (which feeds into my idea that if he is going to marry any of the Marlow girls it will be Rowan.)
Rowan is fairly horrible to Ann though after the fuss about the dress. Is guilt at keeping Ann in the dark making Rowan snap at her more than she normally would?

Buster's reprieve

[mheloyse.livejournal.com]

There's an echo of the Sprog's death in PR, where Nicola gives the Sprog a 'last tickle' and similarly here, tethers Buster to the last of the posts and feeds him the last apple - the 'lasts' do seem to be ominously leading up to the planned demise. If that was intentional, perhaps AF left them in even though Buster's death was later postponed, to heighten Nicola's relief on finding him alive, well and still tethered.

Model for the cover

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

Actually, it could be this Wayfarer: here . Wayfarers are inherently more stable than Surfrider is described as being (also they don't plane very easily when on a broad reach, which the name "Surfrider" implies she was indeed to be.

Patrick and Nicola - Ugh!

[(Anonymous)]

"Just for a second I thought it was Ginty -"
"It's just the dress," said Nicola, both gratified and relieved

No, no, no, Nicola!
He dumped you for your sister, now he's dumping her and taking you back - no sign of penitence, not the tiniest bit shame-faced - and he compares you to said sister, and you take it as a compliment!
This is when you sock him one, stamp on his toe and go and find that nice Oliver Reynolds instead!

I realise, of course, that it's code for Nicola looking pretty but it's SO insulting. It encapsulates all I dislike about the Nicola-Patrick-Ginty dynamic. If you are going to write a bit of romance, stick with the conventions, have the hero think the heroine is special and do a bit of chasing. Fanny Price didn't work that well for Austen, FGS, so don't try and emulate her!

Yuck! (Am I conveying that I don't like this scene?)

Nicola really is Fanny Price start to finish, isn't she: despising the theatricals, waiting while her man pursues the morally worthless but charming alternative, until finally the scales fall from his eyes and sees the value of dear Fanny... And it's not Nicola, in my view. It just isn't.

Off to do some deep breathing now.

Re: Patrick and Nicola - Ugh!

[antfan.livejournal.com]

Sorry, that was an enraged antfan.

Re: Patrick and Nicola - Ugh!

[mheloyse.livejournal.com]

I'd take Edmund over Patrick any day! At least Edmund didn't ignore Fanny entirely once Mary Crawford came on the scene, and he was honest (if sometimes self-deluded) to Fanny about his feelings throughout the novel.

Fanny Price has always been my favourite Austen heroine, but only within her own time and circumstances - I agree that her waiting-for-the-beloved-to-come-to-his-senses attitude sits most uncomfortably with Nicola, who has no excuse of being a poor dependant in an unemancipated era.

Re: Patrick and Nicola - Ugh!

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

100% agree with every word!
Especially that the hero should think the heroine is special and do a bit of chasing.

Re: Patrick and Nicola - Ugh!

[(Anonymous)]

I just find the whole dress thing so pat, in a way that's at odds with the way things work in the rest of the series. I get the feeling that pegs are being moved around on a board to make sure that Wrongs get Righted and Patrick ends up with the good sister instead of the bad one. I definitely don't like the idea that because Patrick's pretty girlfriend turns out to be flawed, he gets to pick again and choose her sister who is pretty AND good. I don't like the total trashing of Ginty's character - she's a teenager with some seriously traumatic experiences in her recent past, and she's lonely, cut her some slack. I don't like that Nicola has no problem with Patrick taking her for granted. But I also just don't buy any of it, which to me is an even bigger problem.

One of the things I like about the series is that unfair things do happen, like the netball team, and you rarely get perfect, symmetrical justice. You get successes that balance out the failures, and you might even get a victory like the one in Cricket Term, but you cannot expect that the whole world will realign itself and all of the people who failed to appreciate you suddenly will. This just seems like AF writing what she wanted to have happen rather than what would happen, and I find that terribly disappointing.

--Katy

Forgetting Ginty's birthday

[mheloyse.livejournal.com]

I find it hard to believe they all forget Ginty's birthday - if it happened on a random day, perhaps, but it coincides with Twelfth Night which they celebrate - and in PR, it's mentioned that Ginty receives cards from her relatives in lieu of presents - surely the arrival of cards in the post would have jogged someone's memory? Does AF mean it to serve her right for spending the past year evading her family to be with Patrick?

There seems to be a theme in RAH of the characters talking one another out of making phone calls that it would actually be a good idea to make - this time Giles is at it - surely it would have been better for them to phone Ginty a day late than not at all? They could have said there'd been some confusion and by the time they realised no one had phoned, it was too late to ring - that would have been no more disingenuous than Giles's suggestion that they should pretend the whole thing was a deliberate money-saving decision (and considerably less hurtful).

Re: Forgetting Ginty's birthday

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

I find it hard to believe that Ann would have forgotten, but I like the point that Ginty has spent all year ignoring them all so it's not surprising that they shouldn't bother to remember.
It would certainly have been better to ring the next morning than not to ring at all; they could have lied and said the phone had been down or something. But that said, has Ginty rung them at all during the holidays? She didn't ring on Christmas Day to wish them a happy Christmas, (not that we know of anyway) so she hasn't exactly reminded them of her existence.

Re: Forgetting Ginty's birthday

[antfan.livejournal.com]

There seems to be a theme in RAH of the characters talking one another out of making phone calls

Yes, the BT advertising slogan used to be "It's Good to Talk". The Marlow response seems to be "Better Not to Bother".

[mrs-redboots.livejournal.com]

I assume all the Marlows would have had their main meal at lunchtime, if only because we all know Pam Marlow can't cook (End of Term), and I think Mrs Bertie goes home in the evenings, so it would make sense for them to eat at lunchtime (actually, they never seem to stop eating, do they?) except possibly when Geoff is at home. And even then....

Meal times

[mheloyse.livejournal.com]

Trennels is a farm - didn't farms traditionally have a midday dinner then high tea at about 6pm? Lunch, afternoon tea and dinner in the evening was a town thing ...

To Lilliburlero: thanks trimmensely ...

[sprog-63.livejournal.com]

Thank you for starting and maintaining this amazing, astonishing read through of some of my favourite books of all time!

Thank you for the many thoughtful and thought provoking posts as we went through.

Thank you for inspiring (and writing) more Marlow-fic to read as we went along.

I feel as if I made some connections which (even though most are likely to remain in this space) have enriched my life and above all given me great enjoyment. What a gift you have given us all.

Looking forward to the historical Marlows ...

Re: To Lilliburlero: thanks trimmensely ...

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

Seconded in every way!

Re: To Lilliburlero: thanks trimmensely ...

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, thanks so much for all your work. It's been wonderful.
Mrs Kent

Clashing timeline.

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

Lawrie dresses up as a punk while Nicola leaves her pony for an hour in a livery stable in the centre of town while she does her library going. Livery stables in towns existed before cars did and were surely long gone by the late seventies. The mention of the owner being a friend of Fred Studdart's is the only concession to believability - maybe the stables are a more usual sort of riding school, and as a favour because he knows them, the owner lets the Marlow children leave ponies there occasionally.

Re: Clashing timeline.

[mrs-redboots.livejournal.com]

Actually, a town stables probably does have livery facilities, so that people who don't have their own stables can keep their horses there. But I agree they would need to know the owner to be allowed to leave their ponies there for an hour or so.

Being Horrible to Ann/Marie Dobson

[buntyandjinx.livejournal.com]

Does anyone else see the echoes - the ganging up definitely has echoes of the Marie exclusion, again the author seems to collude with the gang not the victim. And obviously (without too many spoilers) Ann will eventually realise quite how much she's been excluded and be understandably shattered.

Re: Being Horrible to Ann/Marie Dobson

[antfan.livejournal.com]

Yes, and actually the let's-all-forget-about-Ginty is pretty callous too.

And notice how Ann now disapproves of hunting, whereas in Peter's Room she was perfectly happy to go along and watch the Meet.

Broomhill and Echoes

[antfan.livejournal.com]

I'm a bit puzzled by Patrick not being allowed to do English and History - wouldn't those have been absolutely standard subjects at any school? I also wonder what exactly he could have done in that cliff accident that interrupted his education for so long but left him completely unimpaired for hunting, show jumping, climbing up dovecotes etc.

Do we reckon Broomhill is non-catholic?

I'm also wondering if anybody else gets that odd feeling reading RAH that bits of the other books keep appearing. For example just in these few chapters:

- Peter's reaction to Nicola in the Dress - pretty much identical to his reaction to Lawrie in make-up in Thuggery.

- Patrick quoting his dad's preferences re lying - another lift from Thuggery.

I've never had quite the same feeling in any of the other books.

Re: Broomhill and Echoes

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

I'm fairly certain that Broomhill is stated not to be Catholic. Nicola's recognition as it as "that fearfully tough place" suggests to me it may have been modelled on Gordonstoun (though clearly not geographically).

I think the headmaster's attitude to English and History is that he sees them as "girls subject" and am minded to be cross with him on that basis (plus, there's no reason why he should consider Patrick's opting for History as a desire for a soft option on his part; it's fairly well established that it is one of his major interests).

Judith's appearance/Lawrie's theatricals

[mheloyse.livejournal.com]

One of the saddest (but neatest) things about Judith's reaction to the panto is that she's so pleased about Edward making so much of his monkey role because she interprets this as a sign of happiness - so afterwards, she's sure to think the happiness was due to Edward's being conscious he'd soon be on his way ...

It seems remiss of Rowan not to have considered that it would be practically impossible to extricate Lawrie inconspicuously after the performance. Giles had already pointed out that there'd be 'incessant rounding up and head counting' plus they knew Edward individually would be under very close watch.

The account of the snatch seems precarious to say the least - how on earth did they know it was Lawrie, in the dark and with her in costume? The whole fuse-box thing relies heavily on luck.

It has to be said that I've wracked my brains trying to come up with a plan for Lawrie's extraction that would have been foolproof, but haven't found one. My quibble is, without such a plan, was it plausible for Rowan to sanction the scheme ...

Re: Judith's appearance/Lawrie's theatricals

[(Anonymous)]

Why didn't Lawrie go to the loo, get out of the monkey costume and abandon it there, and then quietly slide out? That might have worked.
Pip