Conference discussion group - Marlow birthdays

[antisoppist.livejournal.com]

The first discussion group at the AF Conference featured a debate on the eternal problem of how all the birthdays fit in (as we know, they don't).

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We were discussing the fact that, given the author's note at the beginning of Marlows and the Traitor, which says that Peter must be 14 when it starts (Easter holidays), and the fact that Ginty becomes 15 on January 6th in Peter's Room, there is no way Peter and Ginty could be siblings. Various theories were suggested to explain this 3-4 month gap, such as them being twins with a very large delay between births, and Ginty being the adopted love-child of Geoff Marlow and Auntie Mollie, which accounts for him having given his wife a necklace when she was born, and the trip to Paris.

These thrilling speculations were slightly crushed by Sue Sims telling us that she had brought up the birthdays issue with Forest and Forest had said oh yes, she was never very good at dates (I'm paraphrasing here. If any of you who were there remember exactly what she said, or happen to be Sue Sims, please correct me).

Huh! I have devoted a great deal of time to working out Marlow age differences and trying to make them make sense. On my pre-conference read-through I even went so far as to write down every piece of evidence as I went along. After all this effort, it's a bit galling to find out that Forest just wasn't all that bothered.

Comments

[antisoppist.livejournal.com]

Sorry I did the cut wrong (bangs head against table).

[oursin.livejournal.com]

There is a rare, but still known, condition known as superfoetation, in which a woman conceives when already pregnant (D Dunnett deploys this in the Niccolo sequence, I think). But if it had happened in the Marlowe family I think we might get refs to when Mrs M was written up in The Lancet... or at least the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology...

[thesprog.livejournal.com]

Rare but possible then? How on earth would they grow? One in-utero and one etopic? Given that Mrs Marlow seemed to have got pregnant practically whenever she saw her husband maybe he had a very short turn of duty that time!

I too hoped that there may be a proper explanation and was a bit disappointed that AF clearly didn't see it as an issue but had slotted birthdays in wherever convenient for plot purposes.

[purplerabbits.livejournal.com]

Eh? I had always placed Marlows and the Traitor before Falconer's Lure, which would give plenty of time. I'm pretth late to this debate, though - does anyone have a list?

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Both intrauterine - ectopic would be nasty and probably fatal. I'm not sure of the exact details - but may be connected to the existence of bicornate uterus in some women. Wikipedia defines superfoetation thus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfoetation) (I am not sure why perfectly good Britglish spelling is described as 'false etymology'!)

[nzraya.livejournal.com]

It is before Falconer's Lure, because it's why Ginty is "afraid of the sea." That makes it worse, though, not better, because if Peter is ALREADY 14 then (at Easter in the year that ends with the Xmas hols of Peter's Room, and Ginty is STILL 14 then (doesn't turn 15 until the Xmas hols), then both Peter and Ginty have been 14 for about 9 months by the time her birthday rolls around in January.

I think I just used to get around this by imagining Peter as 13 (AF's notes to the contrary). The ages are just notional anyway....they all seem to think and act well in advance of their years (at least compared to the Youth Of Today).

Longest interval between twins

[colne-dsr.livejournal.com]

According to the Guinness Book of Records (at least, the GBofR 1989 edition, my copy personally signed by Norris McWhirter :-) ) the longest interval between twins was one baby born naturally on 23rd December 1987, the other by Caesarian on 30th January 1988. I think that one of them was premature but they managed to hold the other one back, although it doesn't say so specifically.

[colne-dsr.livejournal.com]

For a detailed discussion on this issue, click on "Mrs. MArlow's obstetric record" on the links list on the right, and look at the "How did Mrs. Marlow do it" thread. Jediowl's post a few posts down on that thread gives a detailed proposed list - if Peter was indeed 13 in Traitor, everything else fits in (just!).

The Author's note is a bit of on oddity anyway, because there's nothing in the text (as far as I know) which makes Peter's age relevant to the plot. Maybe something which would have made a difference was cut from the final text, but the note was left in?

?

[colne-dsr.livejournal.com]

I meant the links on the left, of course. !!!!

[antisoppist.livejournal.com]

If you ignore the author's note, which I think is to do with the age you could be a naval cadet at Dartmouth, and make Peter 13 in Traitor, he's still got to become 14 before Falconer's Lure, because he's in the 14-and-over diving. He's also still 14 (in Lawrie's imagined death notice) in Thuggery, the following spring half-term. So his birthday must be somewhere between March-ish and the start of the summer holiday. At best, that gives us 7 months between him and Ginty, and that's assuming Mrs M conceived the instant she'd given birth.