trennels | Conflicted twin-ishness?

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Conflicted twin-ishness?

In Falconer's Lure, Lawrie gets upset when Nicola cuts her hair as they no longer look alike, but in End of Term she's upset at having to walk in the choir procession just because she looks like Nick. I don't have my books anywhere nearby (sob!) so I can't trace this in any of the other books, but I'm wondering which is more important for her - looking like Nick or not. Lawrie is such an individual - there's no one like her - and SHE certainly thinks she's special, unique, destined for greatness, etc. - so her huge upset over the hair making them different seems a bit strange. In fact, you'd think she would be the one to cut her hair first. Thoughts, insights?

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Yes I've always thought it seemed more like Lawrie to want to be unique, rather than Nicola (though I would totally understand Nick wanting not to be mistaken for Lawrie; she just seems less likely to make a fuss about it).

Perhaps being a twin is something special that Lawrie feels adds to her identity at the moment - not very many people can claim that, so it's her distinguishing characteristic. Or perhaps she is deep down a little insecure, and being seen as a twin is both a way of hanging on to Nicola, and also as a way of proving to herself that although they might look exactly the same, she is better at some things (it would be harder to compare if they looked different as well). I don't know that Lawrie would often need to compare herself to others and remind herself how good she is, but she might, at least until it gets more established that she's really good at acting.

I don't know - those are just some random musings!

I think she wants Nick to look like her, rather than her to look like Nick, and that she wants to be the important one that Nick also looks like, not the other way round. She'd be happy for Nick to have to stand somewhere pretending to do something Nick wasn't good at just because she looked like Lawrie who was doing something Lawrie was good at. She resents having to pretend to do something she isn't good at, just because Nick is good at it.

yes, i was thinking along the lines of

darth_tigger. we're told frequently how utterly self-absorbed lawrie is, and i suspect it's far more about the fact that, on both these occasions, the events are about nicola, or nicola's initiative, than they are about the glory of lawrence s. marlow!

It does seem to me that Nicola is much more loyal to Lawrie, or to the fact that they're twins, even when she's exasperated by Lawrie's babyishness. While she likes looking different after having her hair cut, she didn't (as I recall without the book) set out to look different - the hairdresser happened to cut her hair shorter than usual and while she liked that it distinguished her from Lawrie, she didn't have an agenda about it.

Lawrie, on the other hand, occasionally really rejects Nick. Her friendship with Tim seems like a pulling-pushing away from Nicola in a way that Nicola's friendship with Miranda isn't a pulling-pushing away of Lawrie. And of course, there's the dramatic moment when Lawrie's upset at not being the shepherd boy and when Nick trys to comfort her she says, "Not you, I want Tim" - or something like that. A scene that is more or less repeated somewhere else - yes?

yup - when she's made sub in the netball team in attic term, i think. i'm also not quite sure whether or not i'm muddling 'esther's term' that

forester48 wrote though! i've been having a re-read of both end of term and attic term recently, and i'm sure she says something along those lines in attic term, as well as over the shepherd boy.

i suspect lawrie forgets that she isn't the only one of the twins with individual gifts and talents that mark her out, and it's almost as if she sees nicola as an appendix to herself, rather than a person in [nick's] own right. so when she's reminded of it, it rankles.

Lawrie sees things from her own point of view only and I think her family have colluded in this and let her get away with murder. In End of term there's a bit where their art teacher says she thinks oldest and youngest in families get spoilt (or something) and I've always thought this very true of the Marlows. Both Giles and Lawrie are well up themselves but at least Lawrie has moments of seeing herself as others see her (can't quite think where that comes)and has entertainment value.

So being a an identical twin would have attracted a good deal of attention which Nicola would have disliked/been indifferent about but which Lawrie would have lapped up. If she's not getting any other attention then being identical will do, so she's not quite ready to relinquish this easy attention yet.

I've often wondered why they have to be so very very different emotionally and psychologically and think perhaps Lawrie was dangerously ill as a young child and was given huge amounts of cossetting thus setting up very high expectations in her that plenty of attention is her birthright.

think perhaps Lawrie was dangerously ill as a young child and was given huge amounts of cossetting thus setting up very high expectations in her that plenty of attention is her birthright.

She was, wasn't she? Where is it that she claims that she was iller than anyone else and someone says that someone else was ill too?

Lawrie has a strong streak of - I want to say conservatism, but I'm not sure that's the right word, and nor's pessimism, but she does like to prepare for events. She's financially prudent, and she frequently plans how things will go in her head in advance of an event (look at how, in The Marlows And The Traitor, she has a contingency plan for happening on a spy ring, and how in End Of Term she assumes that since she let Nicola take her place on the team, They will let her take Nicola's in the play). Possibly this is because when she does improvise, things often go rather wrong, such as the Sophia Lawrence climbing out of a window incident. But anyway, my point is that I think she's shown in the text as not much liking surprises, and Nicola coming home with a short cut and fringe was a big surprise. Maybe if they'd discussed it beforehand she'd have been less bouleversée by it all.

The walking in the choir thing is, I think, a different matter - it's Lawrie's nascent, uncanny theatrical sense telling her that it isn't worth sacrificing the skills she could have brought to the role of the Shepherd Boy just to have two identical angels marching together. It shows an excess of self-confidence that some readers might not like, but I don't think it's any undervaluation of Nicola.

I agree, she has a very strong opinion (apparently justifiably so) about her own acting skills, and thinks that being appointed to play a "post with a candle in its hand, opening and shutting its mouth like a goldfish" is an insult - which, of course, it is - it's the sort of part that would be given to Marie Dobson to boost her confidence.

I reckon the main reason Lawrie doesn't want to look different from Nicola is just because it's fun. She's a pretty young 14 years, and still likes to know she could fool people into thinking she's someone else.

And I do think Lawrie cares that she can't sing - look how distressed she gets when she has to stand with Marie and Frances Fryer. (Is that the 'Go away, I want Tim' incident, or does that come later?)

Nicola clearly can act to a workmanlike standard and likes it - she makes a Shepherd Boy worth coaching, and moves people emotionally with 'Would God I had been blind' in The Prince And The Pauper - so possibly it hits Lawrie in her rather off-kilter sense of what's Not Fair that she can't sing at all. Or possibly she realises that it will cut down the number of stage roles she can take - she'll certainly never be cast in a musical or a panto.

I'm still not sure why Lawrie can't sing. I think it might have been

forester48 who suggested it might have been the result of some kind of ear infection causing a period of deafness during her rather fraught early years.

Yes it was. There has to be a reason because otherwise, being genetically identical, Lawrie would be able to sing. Or are there any geneticists out there who can explain it? And it's not as if Nicola can sing a bit - she's startlingly good.

What exactly did happen to the twins in their first 12 years? We know they went to Kingscote for the first time at that age, having been ill every time they tried school before that. Clearly they never tried Kingscote before - they presumably went to London day schools. How seriously ill were they? Is that why Lawrie can't sing? Why do they go from semi-permanent illness up to age 11 and a half, in wartime and mostly pre-antibiotic, to mother's apparent unconcern what they're up to at age 13 in Falconer's Lure? Has anyone ever written a prequel fanfic? Can you spot a tiny hint in this post, anyone?

If you're hinting for encouragement to write your prequel, consider yourself encouraged. :)

I should think that Mrs Marlow spends most of Falconer's Lure preoccupied with organising funerals (and probably with the personnel in charge of the secret airfield ringing her up to suggest she put died quietly at home in the obituary just in case) and propping up her husband - stiff upper lip's all very well, but losing Jon, considering giving up the Service and dealing with the financial side (this last as so vividly described by Rowan) must have taken something of a toll on the Captain.

Sorry, I really shouldn't treat you (and Forester) as nothing but sources of Forest stories. I know you have lives as well :-), and I'm just grateful for what is there. As for me writing something !, in the unlikely event of me (a) coming up with a plot, and (b) being able to write it sensibly, then you might just see it. But I wouldn't hold my breath, if I were you - creativity isn't my strong suit. Sorry!

Another query - (I'mn at work and don't have my books) - when Ginty was trapped in ther cellar after a bomb, was that at home? If so, was it the family home in Hampstead, since repaired, or was it somewhere else?

That last post was from me, forgot to log in.

Yeah prequels would be great.

something I had been thinking of posting but never quite got round to was a discussion about what the various siblings were like as children. I find the twins different in Autumn Term than pretty much everywhere else, somehow very much younger (Nick jumping out of the train, etc). And I'd be curious about how much all the others changed as they grew up, too. It would be easiest to write a prequel with them all much as they are now - Ann being very good, Rowan still supremely confident, Kay very academic, but I think that would be losing something. Was Rowan as insecure as Nick sometimes is about her capabilities? Was Ann always so at peace with helping everyone, or did she sometimes resent it more as a child? Was Karen ever silly? How did Ginty's bomb shelter experience change her? Was she always pretty, and did she notice as a child, or is some of her shallowness later on a result of that? What was Lawrie like before she realised she was supremely good at acting? (and indeed, was that actually known before the play in Autumn Term? It seemed like it was really sort of discovered then - was Nick always seen as the one who was best at everything before then?) Did Peter hide his fears just as well as a child? (I guess we get some clues in Falconer's Lure, that Patrick at least knew some of them. Come to that, we also hear a little about Nick as a child in that one too, wanting to trail after the boys), and a million other similar questions... So, what do you think all the characters were like as children?? (perhaps this does need its own topic, after all).

Sorry, is this DSR or someone else?

Anyway, I think it would get more exposure if it had its own topic - I'm not sure how many people check back to see whether old threads on

trennels are still being added to. :)

The 12.58 post wasn't me.

I'm just about to re-post my first on this subject as a separate thread.

sorry, it was me (Res) who has a user name but no journal, and consequently keeps forgetting the password and forgetting to log in! I could post that bit about the Marlows as children again separately..

Hi Res

If you're usually logged in from the same computer, there's a 'Remember me' option on the login screen that actually does automatically log you back in the next time you visit the site (as opposed to the one on eBay, which doesn't - grr). No help if you're using a lot of different terminals, though. :(

Stevy

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Conflicted twin-ishness?

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