Bits and pieces from a reread

[nnozomi]

 

So I have been doing my annual Marlows reread, and coming up with a few things that I either never noticed before or have forgotten I noticed, and thought I would make a self-indulgent post here. Please forgive me if most or all of these are things I already mentioned during the big community reread.

 

(Nothing in particular for Autumn Term, for some reason)

 

The Marlows and the Traitor—this really is a book-length meditation on fear and how people handle it (or don’t), isn’t it. All kinds and forms of fear from Peter’s nerves to his and Ginty’s relative phobias, Nicola being made afraid of Foley by Anquetil’s obscure description, Ginty panicking when Foley comes to Mariners, Lawrie (often the odd one out in this way) relatively free of fear because she feels that she’s living in a movie, Mrs. Marlow “almost” as afraid for her children as she was when she thought her husband might have been dead, even Foley himself choosing death over trial for treason. You could probably make a reasonably convincing case that almost all bad choices and bad behavior in Forest stem from fear of one kind or another.

 

Falconer’s Lure—like poor Ann for Nicola, this one generally comes last on my liking list (End of Term and The Cricket Term generally jostle for first place), but it has some very intelligent conversation, doesn’t it. Rowan and Nicola on their fateful visit to Colebridge (although Lawrie’s hair-cutting episode is one of the few in Forest that could be transplanted intact to Elinor M. Brent-Dyer without seeming out of place), Nicola and her father…again, forgive me if I’ve posted this before, but do we know if Forest ever read I Capture the Castle? Geoff Marlow saying he used to look at Trennels and “want it so much I could hardly look at Jon when we met again” always reminds me irresistibly of Simon Cotton remembering looking out at his relatives at age seven and thinking “If they were all dead, Scoatney would belong to me.” Oh, and I love Peter and Selby arguing over the Dark Tower and Lieutenant Bethune eavesdropping.

 

End of Term, currently halfway through—no wonder I’m generally pro-Patrick, this was the first Forest book I ever read and he really comes off as very likeable, if eccentric (which may be feature/not bug).

I have never been fond of Tim in the first two school books, her capacity for cruelty frightens me, but I noticed for the first time that when Esther is nearly in tears over having to stay in school at half-term, Tim is the first one to speak up to comfort her; she’s not devoid of concern for others.

 

To be continued as the mood takes me…

Comments

[jackmerlin]

Bits and pieces of response - 'a convincing case that almost all bad choices and behaviour in Forest stem from fear' -this is a fascinating point and I've been running my mind over each book thinking of examples and there are many. The worst fear seems to be fear itself; Peter in particular makes idiotic choices because he is afraid of being thought to be afraid.
The obvious exception might be Lois; what she does to Nicola in EOT and CT is purely malicious, she has nothing to be afraid of - but then perhaps her dislike of Nicola stems back to her originally being afraid of Rowan's bad opinion, or, after the disastrous hike, being afraid of being seen to have failed. A fear of losing face perhaps.
EOT is definitely Patrick's best book, isn't it. All that poetry reciting on the ride home though - only a boy in a book could do that.
Tim, on the other hand, always seemed very true to life - I remember bitchy, fickle girls who made me feel, as Nicola does, that it was odd to have a friend who seemed to dislike you so much, if she was a friend, and if it was dislike. I think some of Tim's nastiness comes from her frustration at being trapped in a place where she doesn't belong and doesn't value any of the supposed ideals of the community. Seeing Esther upset at having to be trapped there all half-term when everyone else can escape, probably brought out her sympathetic side.

[sorrelforbes]

Love a reread! I reread EOT recently and it struck me for the first time how casual the school is about not just Nicola but a completely new girl going missing on the journey. They just wait for them to turn up of their own accord. You'd think there'd be some adult with a car at the school to go whizzing over looking for them...

Nice observation about Tim - perhaps Esther doesn't trigger her spikiness.