Ginty

[ex-lizzzar998.livejournal.com]

I have only just found this community - wish I'd been able to participate earlier. Despite not being as gorgeous or popular as Ginty at school, I always had some sympathy for her. Does anyone agree with me that perhaps things will work out OK for her, despite her certainly very questionable behaviour in Attic Term? After all, she is only fifteen although I can understand Patrick being upset ( even if he doesn't mind the ultimate consequences) as she does lie, if only by omission. Sometimes I do think that AF has it in for her for being a conventionally feminine teenager - I'm pretty sure she is about the only Marlow would wouldn't be considered slightly odd at the schools I went to - but perhaps sheer Marlow confidence and force of personality would carry them through...

Also, does anyone have any comments on her name? I've heard of Ginty and McGinty as a surname (I think usually Irish or Scottish) but not as a short form of Virginia, which I think Is usually Ginny. Nevertheless, I guess it fits with the general gender ambiguity of Marlow female names (Nick, Lawrie, Rowan, even Kay used for a man in Malory, although less often subsequently, I think) If she's not stuck being called Ann, maybe she's redeemable (actually I think Ann's a perfectly reasonable name, but it doesn't seem that cool in Marlow terms.)

Comments

[smellingbottle.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of things like her mishandling of the childless Mrs Lambert situation, or even the way we see her asking Miss Ferguson for a requester to give Mrs Lambert, and that brisk little lecture from Miss F about how Ginty will have to deal in later life with people who aren't going to necessarily treat her with charm and courtesy etc etc. Added together with the fact that she's the Marlow who consistently deals in low-level aggro with her mother - various bits of teenage sulks and strops - and that scene in Falconer's Lure where she comes over all anti-blood sports (in a way completely inimical to the rest of the huntin'/hawkin' etc Marlows) with Cousin Jon, she just seems at times quite unsure in her dealings with adults, and mishandles or misjudges things. Adults are presumably less immediately taken by her looks and charm than are her equals in age. (I don't know where that leaves her in terms of being favoured by Madame Orly - perhaps she is the most chic of the Marlow girls and so of interest to an adoptive Parisian?)

I quite agree about her faithfulness to Monica showing up well against Miranda's friend-hopping, though I think we have to read Nick's remark on Marie in the context of her realisation, at other moments, that Marie has feelings, even if she's a grubby wet drip etc. I mean, I think the reader is urged to see beyond Nick's own self-involvement and judgementalism.

Though AF seems to intend us to take very seriously as moral failings in Ginty the fact that Patrick at least fears Ginty is dishonst enough to read him the O-level paper (whereas he'd have known Nick was joking and not hung up), and the moment she covers up her own diving failure in Cricket Term by pretending she dived badly on purpose so that Monica would win. I mean, AF seems to agree with Mr Merrick's account of her as the Lady of Shalott, potentially spoiled, and morally wavery or neutral.

[ex-lizzzar998.livejournal.com]

Ok - I guess I see some of what you are saying. But I still think a bit of stroppiness/occasional social awkwardness is pretty normal for a teenager. And that although the dishonesty is more serious - and not something Patrick would do - it seems a bit much to condemn her virtually for life for a teenage mistake committed when she was feeling vulnerable. I am still not quite sure that even AF would want to do that - but maybe I do not quite understand her moral absolutes. I am pretty sure that Madame Orly is interested in Ginty because of the probability of the good marriage.

[bluebellbicycle.livejournal.com]

I like Patrick (see icon! lol) but I have never thought of him as honest. I find his morals throughout the series fairly ambiguous, and they bend according to the situation he finds himself in. He does have a strong faith, or at least he talks a lot about it (there is the scene in Run Away Home where he is praying alone though, I acknowledge that) but his actions aren't always the most truthful or honest. In many ways (in this way) he and Ginty are perfectly matched.

[ex-lizzzar998.livejournal.com]

I'm not quite sure why you think that Patrick is not honest or truthful because, irritating though he can be, I always thought he was pretty much the moral centre of the books for AF - and she shared his particular form of Catholic faith, with the dislike of Vatican 11 and only attending the Latin Mass. No one in the books is perfect, but I think that Patrick was always presented as having a basic honesty. I realize that his closeness to Ginty is to some extent at the expense of Nicola, but his behaviour to her indicates friendship, not a romantic relationship and they stay friends, if less close (eg beginning of Attic Term). There are hints that Patrick and Nicola's friendship might have eventually developed into something more in Run Away Home but we are not really told.

[colne-dsr.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't ever condemn her for the Lambert gaffe. I still don't properly understand what it was about - but then, I've never been a master of tact. Certainly there's no way Ginty could know about Mrs. Lambert's touchiness about large families.

[ex-lizzzar998.livejournal.com]

I can easily forgive the odd lack of tact - maybe partly why I have some sympathy for Ginty. Maybe I have been obsessing a little about AF since finding this community, and should read some nice liberal authors. I think she is an interesting writer though, and some of the tribute fiction to her is brilliant.

[(Anonymous)]

Ginty says something about people with large families making up for those who don't have children. Presumably it's an issue with Mrs Lambert that she doesn't have any, we don't know details, but maybe she wanted to and couldn't, or even perhaps lost a child.