The Marlows and their maker

[witandwisdome.livejournal.com]

Just seen that GGB have published this.


Has anyone read it?
Tamsin
(apologies if someone has posted about this previously!)

Comments

[oursin.livejournal.com]

According to the Girls Gone By website (http://www.ggbp.co.uk/Titles/inPrint/af.html) this is only just out, if at all: the Sept 2006 publication date having come and gone, and now being August 2007, according to them. No-one has yet mentioned reading it.

[(Anonymous)]

I just received it a couple of days ago (had actually forgotten that I ordered it waaaaay back when they first announced it, so pleasant surprise). I've not finished yet, just been dipping in and out. The analysis of the books isn't that great, but the chapter on the layout/geography of Trennels etc is interesting. I had to put it down for a while after reading the letter from AF to the author (they were correspondents for years) reprinted at the back, in which she proudly announces having just voted Tory. I mean, obviously she would be, but ... ah well. I don't like the cover: I can see what they're going for, with pictures of the Brontes, Shakespeare etc, as inspirations, but it's weird, something more directly Forest-related should have been used. The back cover has a beautiful picture of AF looking like a young Princess Margaret. Once I've finished the book I'll return.

Promethea

[colne-dsr.livejournal.com]

She did say she'd have voted Labour if they hadn't changed their policy on Europe!

[robincarmody.livejournal.com]

I don't have the book yet - which election was this? Labour were at one point - and I know this is barely imaginable now - more Eurosceptic than the Tories, with the unions seeing the then EEC as a barrier to their ideal of "socialism in one country". This changed in the 1980s when, as the Thatcherites were decisively defeating the Heathites within the Tory party, the Left generally realised - in my view rightly - that a unified Europe was the best hope for what it wanted (Old Labour anti-EU "thinking" - in my view profoundly misguided - is still around, though, c.f. the stupid recent fuss over the constitution).

I can understand how Promethea feels: for me, AF is - as someone else once said - "all aestheticism", though I can understand how proper Shire Tories feel, because the "arrivistes" did to them what the Blairites did to proper social democrats like me (and to proper socialists, which I'm not in the purest sense but can sympathise with).

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the reminder! I too ordered it yonks ago and had completely forgotten about it, though my copy hasn't shown up yet.

I wonder if you would mind editing so that Amazon's very long URL is behind a cut tag? It's doing odd things to my friends page. Thanks!

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

Ah! That was what was making my friends page look so weird.

[dozydormouse.livejournal.com]

I'm currently about a third of the way through and really enjoying it. Very readable discussion of the books well as far as I've got.

[slemslempike.livejournal.com]

I've read the sort of previous version to it - she used to have it up online, as AF didn't want it published in her lifetime (IIRC). It was an interesting read in a way, but lacked something for me. I think it was that it was all very descriptive, and didn't have much in the way of criticism. I did like the maps of Kingscote and Trennels though, and will probably get around to buying it sometime in case I take up writing fic and want help with description.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

I used to find the online version very useful when I was trying to remember what Mrs Bellamy taught or whether Hazel in the Third Remove ever had a surname.

[coughingbear]

I'm expecting to be sent a copy because I think I contributed a drawing but it hasn't arrived yet. Like slemslempike I read an earlier version online - I know it's been revised quite a lot - which I didn't find that interesting as literary criticism, but am looking forward to seeing the new version.

As ankaret suggested, could you either put the URL behind a cut tag, or (probably easier) make it a link to a word in your post, please? The instructions for doing that are here (I've made 'here' a link to the LJ instructions).

[witandwisdome.livejournal.com]

done

[coughingbear]

Great, thanks very much!

[jen-c-w.livejournal.com]

tee hee, that icon always make me giggle.

[mrs-redboots.livejournal.com]

I received it yesterday and am in the middle of it. No, it's not critical, but it is a good overview. Apparently Sue Sims is to write a biography of Forest, so there is very little biographical detail in there, either.

All the same, I'm glad I bought it!

[bluebellbicycle.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I'm a little disappointed to hear that it isn't very critical or biographical. Presumably Sue Sims is publishing with GGB as well - I hope GGB didn't deliberately cut out biographical detail from this book so that we would feel compelled to buy the next? I suppose I'm saying that I hope this book doesn't suffer from their cutting, if this happened. *incoherent*

[lizarfau.livejournal.com]

I just wish they'd get on with publishing The Players and the Rebels, which is what I really want to read!

And I hope that when Sue Sims writes her AF biography, she will tell us exactly why AF and Tim Kennemore fell out ...

[bluebellbicycle.livejournal.com]

I'm dying to read this but it doesn't seem to be on eBay yet, which is strange :/

[bluebellbicycle.livejournal.com]

Scrap that, it just appeared, and I snagged a copy! :D

[alliekiwi.livejournal.com]

I got my copy in the post today and have enjoyed a bit of a flick-through, reading bits. I've managed to lay my hands on a copy of most of the books, and have been reading them, too. Each time I get near the end of 'Run Away Home' I keep hoping it'll end differently. Somehow ... more, I suppose. And that was how I felt about this companion book: I couldn't help but hope there would be massive clues about what might have happened next.

Anyway, it also made me go and re-read Forester48's story (I wish she'd write another one to follow it!) and girlyswots one, too (which thankfully doesn't leave one hanging!).

[lizarfau.livejournal.com]

I received my copy yesterday and have really enjoyed it so far. About the only clue to the "future" though - that I've seen so far - was that Ginty was going to become a stable girl in Ireland in the Marlow book after Run Away Home. I wonder if that means Ginty dropped out of O levels or whether the book was to take place later in the year following the events of Run Away Home. I do wonder why the older Marlow girls didn't seem to achieve anything, despite their abilities at Kingscote - Karen dropped out of university to marry a man with three kids; Rowan dropped out of school to take on the farm, a job that bored her; and Ginty, seemingly, ended up as a stable girl.

I do like the look of this book, though - particularly its attractive spine! GGB spines are not always attractive.

[alliekiwi.livejournal.com]

Yes, they do seem to not really fulfill their potential! I'd not really put that together before.

Isn't there mention about a cousin of Patrick's somewhere in one fo the books, off to Northern Ireland in the army? Maybe Ginty goes off to Ireland to work in the stables and then ends up meeting and The Cousin (or something stereotypical like that), nicely leaving Patrick unencumbered for Nicola.

[(Anonymous)]

When I read that, I assumed it was just another holiday job? Would they really let her leave school just for a random job like that - after all, it's not as if it's been her life's ambition to work with horses.

I finally finished this. It was fun to re-live the atmosphere of the books but there wasn't much insight or analysis, a lot of it was just summary of their plots, characters etc. That's understandable as it was originally written just as a more or less private project, but I think there's still room for a really thorough book on the Marlows. Mind you it's hard to get the balance right: I'm now reading a book of essays on Diana Wynne-Jones and it's turgid, pretentious overly-academic flannel, most of them don't have anything really to say.

Promethea

[ex-lizzzar998.livejournal.com]

I've got the book, although I've only skimmed it so far, rather than reading the whole thing. It's OK as a general introduction to AF, but disappointing if you are looking for complex criticism or detailed biographical information. Apparently Sue Simms may be writing a biography. I agree with the comment above - most of the criticism is basically plot summary. The pictures are not bad though - there is one of Athelhampton in Dorset which apparently inspired Mariot Chase, along with Lulworth Castle (owned by a well known Catholic family, I believe.) I didn't know which particular houses inspired the Chase, although I always assumed that AF went to look at local country houses. There is also a picture of AF, looking pretty sophisticated, and a transcript of a letter she wrote, confirming largely traditional opinions.

[jesssoph.livejournal.com]

I remember enjoying the online version of this - particularly the clarification of the literary references I couldn't remember but recognised! - and I came to that because Anne's sister Sally was kind enough to let me spend an afternoon sitting on her deck reading some books, and Anne was kind enough to let one of the books I read be her copy of Run Away Home - the first time I'd ever seen the book let alone read it!

I wasn't crazy about the cover of the GGB edition, although I "got" all the references, but I'm so thrilled to have it as a Proper Book for dipping in to at my leisure and convenience, that I gloss over the cover!

I too am looking forward to Sue Sims' biography, and no, GGB didn't edit out biographical stuff in TMATM, what I remember being there is still there.

[bluebellbicycle.livejournal.com]

I really didn't like this book. I've posted at length explaining why here: http://ninedresses.livejournal.com/8120.html :)