"So I think the religious/non religious lines are a bit more blurred than you suggest here as the children grow up."
I think that's true, and I haven't got a copy of Attic Term and only recently reread Run Away Home after many years interval. Have to say, didn't totally buy some of the developments in Run Away Home - Ann become a complete zealot and then Nicola going to Mass... I do think that is superimposing something onto Nicola - she's never shown any sign at all of being spiritually sensitive in that way - and her interest in religion in End of Term is of a very detached sort.
Then again, I suppose having read the other books so much more, maybe I have become too attached to a particular interpretation of the characters. At the other end of the timeline, I found both Traitor and Falconers hard to get into too, when I got my GGBP copies. They seemed so dated somehow, although I don't feel like that about Autumn Term, and again the characters seemed less complex than in the other books.
no subject
I think that's true, and I haven't got a copy of Attic Term and only recently reread Run Away Home after many years interval. Have to say, didn't totally buy some of the developments in Run Away Home - Ann become a complete zealot and then Nicola going to Mass... I do think that is superimposing something onto Nicola - she's never shown any sign at all of being spiritually sensitive in that way - and her interest in religion in End of Term is of a very detached sort.
Then again, I suppose having read the other books so much more, maybe I have become too attached to a particular interpretation of the characters. At the other end of the timeline, I found both Traitor and Falconers hard to get into too, when I got my GGBP copies. They seemed so dated somehow, although I don't feel like that about Autumn Term, and again the characters seemed less complex than in the other books.