How good is Antonia Forest?

[coughingbear]

There’s been a lot of discussion on the girlsown mailing list recently about Marie Dobson and how she is bullied, and Nicola’s character in relation to this. And it’s recently segued into a discussion of how good Antonia Forest is, compared to all authors, not just school story ones. Obviously this is a community of fans, so I’m not really expecting anyone to pop up here and start explaining why they don’t really like Forest (though it’s fine if anyone wants to!). But I thought it might be interesting, since trennels has been quite quiet lately, to ask here what people particularly enjoy about her – style, characterisation, plot, description, drama? – and examples of that - and indeed what you don't like.

For me she has been a favourite writer since I first encountered her books as a child. Some of her books I wasn’t able to find until I was an adult anyway, and I found them just as gripping. I think her biggest strengths are in her style, and the depth of her characterisation of a wide range of people. Almost no one is unambiguously good or bad in her books, and I’m able to understand and get involved with characters I don’t necessarily like as people, but find fascinating nonetheless. Even someone like Rowan, who is mainly and effectively held up as an admirable person, can and does hold grudges, make mistakes and mishandle people. I think one of Forest’s strengths is her ability – despite plainly having strong views on many things – not necessarily to have her favourite characters share her beliefs, or give one the sense that the world she’s created is being forced into shape to vindicate them. She does I think fail at this in her handling of Ann in Run Away Home and in the accounts given of the post-Conciliar Catholic church particularly in Attic Term – though to the extent that the latter come from Patrick, I think they are in character. Nicola shares some of her enthusiasms – for the Navy, Nelson, and Hornblower for example – but that works very differently.

I don’t rate all the books equally highly, but even those which I consider lesser, such as Thuggery Affair have some scenes I’d be very reluctant to lose, like the canoe trip at the beginning. Though I think Thuggery Affair has too much plot, and that plotting is not one of her strengths. Instead, she’s good at themes, like death and betrayal in Falconer’s Lure and Peter’s Room. In fact I wonder if the school/family story genre suits her partly because it is rather episodic, and I think her best books (Cricket Term, End of Term, Falconer’s Lure) are episodic. There is drama, there are crises, but nothing is fully resolved and other bits of life are always going on around the big moments.

One other aspect which came up on girlsown was whether school stories as a genre are generally not that good when compared to other children’s or adult literature. Thinking about other books than Forest’s with a strong school aspect which I would put on any list of good books, as opposed perhaps to my favourite school stories (not that I am any good at lists, they change every time I make them), I’ve come up with the following on a first think; books that have a strong shape and feel in my mind still, even though I may not have read them for many years:

Frost in May, Antonia White
Charlotte Sometimes, Penelope Farmer
Ballet Shoes, Noel Streatfeild
Swarm in May, William Mayne
Nightwatch Winter, Jenny Overton

(ETA: Am temporarily deleting my lj as I need not to be distracted at the moment; I will be back.)

Comments

[antfan.livejournal.com]

I really agree with you about the two Nicks being the same character –also earlier point about the way that the characters have moral conversations/enquiries in their own heads, and at different levels of their characters, which you describe so well. And I immediately thought of two bits that illustrate both your points:

1) At the end of Players and the Rebels when Nick realises he doesn’t want Bess and Humfrey to get together, and that the reason is because then he won’t be first with either - and concludes he really dislikes himself for feeling this.
2) At the end of Cricket Term, when Nicola realises she could have borne Meg winning the Prosser – it is Lawrie winning it she minds (even though in rational terms she should be pleased) and again dislikes herself.

I think both are wonderful writing, with the characters admitting to rather despicable semi-conscious feelings which they then respond to, but the reader (well me anyway) admires their humanity and honesty in feeling this way (and who doesn’t have such feelings after all?) and also still believes these are essentially “good” characters because they dislike this aspect of themselves. Brilliant! Part of the subtlety/sophistication of AF’s writing – where would you find such gems in another author?

I don’t agree with you about Nicola never changing though. I think the early Nicola –naïve and impulsive - is completely transformed later on – and I’ve always thought it rather unlikely she would change so much in eighteen months! I could probably drone on about this for ages – but look how in the early books Tim and Lawrie can always push her buttons. Then Nicola dramatically rides off and leaves Lawrie in the street in RMF, and after that she always maintains some distance from her. In Cricket Term she has a certain adult detachement towards her Caliban obsession, and as for Tim – Nicola “takes her as she finds her”. Its all much more adult.