Rowan

[tinyjenny.livejournal.com]

Hello - I am new to this community and I've loved reading the posts. One thing I feel whenever I read the Marlow books is that I cannot warm to Rowan. I admire her and I can see her many good qualities but could never imagine actually enjoying her company or feeling as though I would want to be her friend. She seems quite brusque and insensitive and judgmental, despite her evident capabilities. However, I always get the impression that I am pretty much alone in this view. Am I? Does anyone else feel anything like this? I warm more to the characters who are more obviously flawed like Ginty and Lawrie. I also like Esther very much and relate to her. But Rowan - I respect her but I cannot warm to her.

Comments

[clanwilliam.livejournal.com]

Interesting, because the character I like best is Rowan!

[carmine-rose.livejournal.com]

I'm sort of ambivalent towards Rowan. While I like her as a character, I too find it hard to warm to her - I'm not sure I think her insensitive or judegemtnal, but certainly brusque and ever truthful, even if it does hurt. I think that if I were in the Trennels/Kingscote world, I'd like Miranda and Jan and Ginty among others, but I doubt I'd like Rowan much, even if she were my sister. She certainly wouldn';t be someone to whom I went for comfort if I were upset, though I might go to her for clear-eyed advice.

Basically, she does have many admirable traits, and is a good character in the novels, but she's got a very hard shell, which we only once get through, I'd say, at the end of Run Away Home. But perhaps that's because of being stuck with the family firm at what is really a very young age.

[anstruther.livejournal.com]

I like Rowan a lot. But she is very ready with stinging comments (like Tim) and I don't admire her habit of falling out with people: Lois and Karen spring to mind. For someone who's otherwise not given to looking backward, she certainly seems able to carry a grudge. No doubt Mary-Lou will have her cured of that in two shakes of a lamb's tail!

Rowan

[colne-dsr.livejournal.com]

I've always thought of Rowan as a relatively minor character, along with Giles - which is odd, because Rowan's in most of the books and Giles only appears twice. Maybe because it's the school books I read most, and she's only really in one of them. I do like Rowan, but I think Miss Redmond was not far off the truth when she said she had "a rooted conviction that no-one could ask more of life than to be [Rowan] Marlow".* I think there's a fair degree of truth in it, though I wouldn't mean it as nastily as Redmond did.

(* actually said about Nicola, but including Rowan as well. End of Term.)

[tinyjenny.livejournal.com]

I am with tabouli here. I don't find Rowan to be like Tim at all. Tim amuses me more and she is cutting but not in a forthright way. It is interesting to see how different people relate to the same characters so differently.

[ex-ajhalluk585.livejournal.com]

Chipping in a bit late, I'm very fond of Rowan, and I think she's got a raw deal in the books. I agree she comes over as very tough, but I think she's just pushed beyond her limits a lot of the time (such as when she has to cope with Kay announcing her engagement when she's just witnessed Mr Tranter's stroke and had to deal with that on top of possible swine fever and all the routine work of the farm, and all that everyone remembers is that she comes out with a tactless (albeit perfectly accurate) remark under the influence of whisky on an empty stomach and shaken nerves.

[emylno.livejournal.com]

Hi! Sorry, I know I'm late posting on this thread, but it's the most relevant one here to what I'd like to say!
I just want to say that I really like Rowan Marlow! Without much reason, I just warmed to her immediatelly. I think that she and Giles are actually my two favourite characters. I think I can identify with them because I'm the eldest-but-one in my family of five children, and I often find myself having to play the 'strong stoical and capable' role, and just 'get on' with things when I don't always want to. I like Giles because he is so capable, and Rowan because I get the feeling she may not really be inside, but feels she has to.

I think it would be really interesting to see where everyone here 'is' in their family is terms of siblings (if you have any) and the role you play/played within your family- and then to say who you like/identify with most in the books. Somewhere in the Marlow family there must be a representative for everybody! My sister likes Ginty best, and I can see why, because she's the youngest-but-one, and is a bit of a 'free spirit' and very much likes to do her own thing.

My problem is, that I've read a rather strange collection of the books- Autumn Term, The Marlows and the Traitor, End of Term and The Thuggery Affair, and I'm about to read 'The Players and the Rebels'. Not very much Rowan in any of those- except Autumn Term. Which book shows the best character development of her in your opinion? Whichever it is, I'm keen to read that one next!!