autumn term

[res23.livejournal.com]

I've just been re-reading Autumn Term, which I haven't done for ages, and don't do nearly so often as the others.  Somehow Nicola (in particular, the others to an extent)  just doesn't totally seem in character for me there.  I know she's always busy and energetic, but somehow the fidgeting, never sitting still, can't settle to read a book, not wanting to be contemplative, etc doesn't sound like her really, nor the physical fighting with Pomona, or the running away to Port Wade and trying to be bad.  I could have seen her thinking through her dilemmas, and deciding somehow what was the honourable thing to do about the desks or something, but just fighting about it feels a bit strange.  (Not to mention wondering just how she escaped for many hours at a time, when later in the series, dashing out to find a phone box or other errands is so impossible for several of the girls!).  I know she's young in this book, and I know that the events of the Marlows and the Traitors would have had a big effect on her and made her grow up a lot by the next books.  And maybe that's all it is.  But somehow, I can't stop sort of 'discounting' Autumn Term as a bit of a trial book, where the characters weren't really decided on, not intended to be a series, and I tend to see the series actually beginning, with the real characters as I see them for most of the series, in Falconer's Lure.  (Not that the characters don't change after that, but just that to me, it feels somewhat more consistent).  Certainly there are many grains of those characters in Autumn Term, and many things that are perfectly consistent, but there are some things that still don't really ring true with me, and that there is more of a difference between that book and the rest, than between the others.  (On the other hand, some of the school-based characters, such as Tim, do seem to be proper characters from Autumn Term on, and seem to develop more consistently).

Does anyone else feel that the series really gets going somewhere else other than the beginning?

(And I do love Autumn Term, too, for not being the classic school story, for the interesting characters, for the play, for the true-to-life description of Guides, and loads of other reasons).

Comments

[lobeliaqueen.livejournal.com]

Like you, I don't reread Autumn Term very often. I have, though, just grabbed it off the shelf as I was wondeirng what to read next and don't feel like tackling anything new or challenging. I feel that the series really kicks off with Falconer's Lure - perhaps because there aren't the gaps between books and we see the Marlows in home and school environments, without the drama of spies, etc (not counting the Thuggery here as that's another one I rarely read). Off to start reading .... more comments later, hopefully.

[occasionalhope.livejournal.com]

In some ways Autumn Term reads to me more like a satire of "the school story" rather than as the start of a series.

[ex-lizzzar998.livejournal.com]

I think you make a good point when you say that Autumn Term was not originally intended to be part of a series. In her introduction to the Girls' Gone By editions, AF states that she didn't originally think she was starting a series. She hoped to move over to writing adult novels once she had been accepted as a children's writer but, slightly sadly, that didn't happen.

[res23.livejournal.com]

well, happily for us, as it turns out!!

I remember reading that in the intro to the GGB editions. And I do think it shows (and did even without reading that).

I read most of the rest of it tonight. Several other oddities kept striking me, both about school and about the characters. I find it hard to believe that Lawrie was ever really the sort to be sick before parties and to not say much and to have had very little sense of showmanship, somehow, even if she didn't know before then that she was going to be spectacularly good at acting - surely she'd have had some idea of how she wanted to come across, how scenes (even of ordinary life) should be done, etc., given that once she DOES start acting, that sense permeates everything. Sort of feels like she was put in to be the sort of stock character 'shy twin', except that she doesn't then quite fulfil that role, either (and most certainly doesn't once the series gets going).

Still not quite worked out how the 12 of them in third remove managed to have enough actors for that play (Tim producing, Nick and Lawrie as the main parts; Pomona, Marie, Elizabeth, Elaine, Heather, Hazel, Jean, Daphne, and Audrey as everybody else?) Nor quite how the delicate third removes who were considered too fragile for netball were allowed to do so many other things (including, later in the series, play in fairly heavy duty cricket tournaments - or maybe that was changed by them!) That always felt a bit like a random plot convenience somehow.

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

I think the characters work OK as pre-puberty versions of the later characters. Nicola hasn't yet become as introspective as she will later - perhaps the Guides hoo-ha etc, with Redmond[? the Guide leader] being blinkered, Lois lying, the insanity of Third Removes being treated so differently for one term, yet then expected to merge into IIIA and B as if that had never happened, all made her start to think more?

As for Lawrie - lots of actors throw up with stagefright before going on stage, and many comedians aren't very outgoing or funny outside their acts, so I think that's plausible enough. I get the impression that Lawrie got squashed a lot by her family every time she'd critise actors on stage or film and say how the scene should have been done, so maybe stopped talking about it? I imagine she'd have got a lot of 'what do you know about it?', whereas once given the change to act, people would take her views more seriously. I think she's not so much shy, just very aware of being in the shadow of Nicola, the Perfect Normal Marlow, and being very different from her.

3-4 people is sufficient for a crowd scene, so I didn't have a problem with that. The netball thing (while allowing Guide hikes) was rather bizarre but I suppose with netball you're running around the entire time. Still marginally less odd than the Chalet School's policy of banning lacrosse until 14 years 6 months!

Autumn Term for me is a good start to the series, because it sets up the personal situations that continue - the Rowan:Lois rivalry, the stodgy Guide leaders who can't conceive of any girl lying, tension between Tim and Miranda, and unlike most other school stories, having that undercurrent of bitchiness and rumour that everyone thrives on or is hurt by. All that continues in the later books.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes I think there's something in the 'needing to live up to Nicola' idea, if she's really not been seen as particularly successful at something yet.

I suppose the crowd scenes and all that worked OK with just lots of re-used characters, but somehow the whole thing, the scale of it and how brilliant it was supposed to have been, seemed a lot for 12 people to pull off.

Lots of things set up that do continue in later books, yes, and I think that some of the school characterisations - teachers, Lois, Miranda, Tim - are actually fairly consistent from AT onwards. It's just the Marlows that I have more of a problem with.

Agree about the undercurrents in the school, and the realism that provides, and that is one of the reasons I do like AT, for its difference to the classic school story.

I just want to be able to read about what the 'real' Marlows would have been like as 12 year olds (and younger!).

[res23.livejournal.com]

(sorry that was me; can't quite get the hang of this logging in yet!)

[richenda.livejournal.com]

>>>Still marginally less odd than the Chalet School's policy of banning lacrosse until 14 years 6 months

I don't know about the 6 months, but I knew several schools in the 1950s that only allowed lacrosse at 14 plus - which in practice meant the second year of the Upper School.
I'd always assumed that it was partly to ensure physical strength, but also because some people at 13 would still be swotting up for retaking Common Entrance or sccholarships.

[lizarfau.livejournal.com]

I don't like Autumn Term very much and rarely look at it, whereas I love the other three school stories and often dip into them. I think the Guides scenes don't help in my case, as I was a Guide for about three weeks and didn't enjoy it, and I don't like Guide scenes in other school stories either (like the Chalet books). But, as you say, Autumn Term has a different 'feel' to the others and I think that's the reason I don't feel very affectionate towards it. I agree about Nicola being somehow different and that Tim's character is more consistent with the later books.

[lizarfau.livejournal.com]

I take back everything I said about Autumn Term. I've just read it at the start of a Forest re-read and really enjoyed it a lot. Yes, Nicola is different to the later Nicola, but the rest are pretty much the same. And I realised for the first time ever that the first person to say the words "blood for breakfast" in a Forest book is not, as I'd always thought, Miss Cromwell, but Tim Keith.

[antfan.livejournal.com]

Completely agree with you on this - for me, the mid series characters are authentically themselves, while their AT versions don't quite ring true. Nicola may be younger in AT, but she was surely always a great reader, if she is to fit with the Nicola we know in the later books. Lawrie, as you say, is set up in AT as a complement to Nicola - she prefers to look on, is quite passive, but is otherwise fairly similar - there is none of the raving egomaniac, single-minded, spoilt, "makes her thing happen", budge-notter, deals with God etc that we know and love! I don't think these changes can just be explained by growing older, discovering love of acting etc, especially over such a very short time period.

When Tim discusses in AT with the twins the Marlow sisters generally and her aunt's views of them, you can kind of see how AF set the family up in her head: the scholarly one, the sporty one, the kindly responsible one, the madcap, then the twins. They keep aspects of that of course throughout the series but they become a lot more real and complex IMO than these stock types.

It's not just the sisters either. Mrs Marlow in AT is a real stock children's book mother of the time, "Darling"ing everybody, gently domestic, wouldn't say boo to a goose, bland as bland. The Mrs Marlow stubbing out her cigarettes in Peter's Room or snapping at Lawrie in the bath in Ready Made Family has a lot more edge.

[res23.livejournal.com]

Yes I think it's the fact that there are 6 of them to start with that lends itself to a tendency towards stock characters, or at least characters that start with labels, even if they are somewhat more elaborate than that.

[i]none of the raving egomaniac, single-minded, spoilt, "makes her thing happen", budge-notter, deals with God etc that we know and love![/i]

yes, exactly!

And Nicola HAD to have been able to sit down and read at some point as a child, if she is going to get through the volume of books we later find out that she's read.

[antfan.livejournal.com]

this discussion made me think of the bit in Falconers where Rowan ticks Nicola off for typecasting her sisters:
Rowan - good at games - must like the country
Karen - likes books - likes the town
or words to that effect. I guess AF is aware of the danger! Maybe she is aware she could be falling into the trap a bit herself?

Another AT inconsistency: Lawrie is represented as having serial crushes on older girls - Margaret Jessop then Lois. No subsequent crushes/hero worship in later books, and I don't think it would fit with the Lawrie there who is shown as very preoccupied with her own feelings/talents.

Another Lawrie thought: I think when AT bestows upon her this tremendous gift for acting, she also transfers her into another girls story "type" - the gifted but highly egocentric artist. This is also a well-established children's lit standard: think of Noel Streatfeild, who typically has a very talented, driven and selfish artistic character in her books (Posy Fossil, Lydia Robinson etc etc) Lorna Hill too. Somehow though Lawrie really transcends this stereotype! Or maybe she just fulfils it so wonderfully - either way she is brilliantly written and believable (at least in the middle books).

[geebengrrl.livejournal.com]

I always thought Nicola and Lawrie seemed to have matured a lot between Autumn Term and End of term - and the books in between only went half-way to explaining why. Lawrie's still pretty babyish in Falconer's Lure.

I agree with you about Mrs Marlow, though it could also be that as the twins get older they start to see their mother as more of a person?

[antfan.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I think Mrs Marlow started as a fairly stereotypical children's book mum and then became more interesting...although Mrs Marlow remains the most sympathetic mother in the series by a long way - the rest are all pretty grim.

[antfan.livejournal.com]

- also there's Lawrie taking Nicola to task for being grumpy in AT! I just don't think that fits, Lawrie is not the kind of person to be aware of other people's behaviour or take it upon herself to sort them out or read them a lecture! In the rest of the series, Nicola is always the sensible one and Lawrie is always made allowances for/indulged in her frequently selfish behaviour.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Lawrie is not the kind of person to be aware of other people's behaviour or take it upon herself to sort them out or read them a lecture!

Maybe not for their own sake, but I can imagine her doing it later inthe series if said behaviour were inconveniencing Lawrie!

(Another one who didn't get into Autumn Term, which I regret because if I had I shoudl have discovered Forrest 15 years earlier)

[ex-lizzzar998.livejournal.com]

By the time they are playing cricket they are in the A form, and so I assume are not considered particularly delicate any more. I also assume that they double up parts for the play. I still haven't re-read Autumn Term properly, but a have a copy here as I ordered a new one, and from flipping through I remember Tim getting special permission from her aunt from the play. I'm pretty sure that one of her major motivations is to prove that at least some of the Remove form are more capable than general opinion would suggest (eg Miranda). I agree with the comments above that AF expands her original characters with skill, although Nicola and Lawrie do seem to change quite a lot in just over two years, even for early adolescents (although of course they are also moving from the forties to the seventies, something quite a bit stranger but I guess you just have to accept it if you like AF).

[res23.livejournal.com]

yeah they definitely double up parts for the play, as it says that they have several each. I just found it hard to imagine just how brilliant it was, but I'm sure it was - I've just never been invovled in any particularly good school productions!!

N&L were definitely in A forms by the time of the cricket, but I thought that the current 3rd Remove (or maybe it was Middle Remove) was in it, and indeed, there seems to be very little mention of special rules for the remove form(s) for the rest of the series. Maybe that was something that just changed with the time period too.

[(Anonymous)]

I have the impression that Middle Remove was the fourth form. But I don't know where that impression came from. From memory, we have the Combined Second beating 3A, no mention of Third Remove playing cricket.

Was the Third Remove a fixture? It might be that the class had disappeared by the summer term of Nicola & Lawrie's year as the girls moved to 3a/3B.

I suppose in AF's defence, by the time Falconer's Lure came round, Nicola had not only had a full year at boarding school, but also stared her murderer in the face. That's bound to make you grow up fast, I suppose.

[(Anonymous)]

Damnblastblowandbloodyhell. I forgot to log in again.

DSR.

[(Anonymous)]

another question about Autumn Term:
as a child I found the chapter where Nick goes looking for Giles and makes a complete fool of herself absolutely unreadable! It was too painful! I think AF is in that sense too good a writer -she does that shaming embarrassment of childhood too vividly and as a child I just felt for Nicola too much. Did other people feel the same or was it just me?

Also the Court of Honour scenes and the rows with Tim produced similar emotions. I rarely read the book as a child for that reason. There's some similar stuff in End of Term - the later books seem to be less given to bestowing massive humiliations on the protagonists.

[res23.livejournal.com]

That's funny; that's actually the bit that I skipped/skimmed again this time!! Just too painfully humiliating to read. I do try to read bits of it - like the description of the train at night and seeing the fleet and a couple of other things, but mostly I just have to zoom through it metaphorically closing my eyes, until I get back to school and find out about the row, etc. (though they seemed to have got over the rows between Nick/Lawrie and Nick/Tim very quickly in that instance - not enitrely over obviously, as there's always tension with Tim, but to a reasonable extent).

I didn't read all the Court of Honour stuff either.

I find some of the other Marie scenes hard to read as well, though I did read them - in the dressing room afterwards, etc.

I'm curious about Nicola's odd moods towards the end. She doesn't seem to know why she doesn't want to go out and join the crowd afterwards, and it's not totally explained as being part of the conflicted feelings about Marie, or about Tim and Lawrie, or anything. I find her mood there and her need to be alone, etc, one of the things that very much DOES seem to be part of her character later on, but she is perhaps not yet at the stage where she introspects enough to understand or articulate it the way she does in later books. It can leave the reader somewhat uncertain, though. She mentions something about being suddenly aware that she is happy, and then that the keen edge of pleasure is then somehow dulled - but doesn't really explain why, or what the connection is. I'm not sure whether it's because she is aware of tensions in the situation, or with Marie or elsewhere , or whether she is in fact making some kind of comment on the nature of happiness and what it's like to be aware of it.

[antfan.livejournal.com]

I think it is meant as a comment on happiness and I do find it quite profound! I've just been on holiday and had an absolutely perfect day - at the end of which I suddenly thought "this perfection must end" - and then the next moment I was plunged into a depressed/melancholy bout of reflection on mortality, the fleetingness of happiness etc. The next day I was tired and grouchy and felt like a fool!

Also, though, I wonder if there is a little latent jealousy of Lawrie? After all, Nicola hates her winning the prosser!

sorry - it was me antfan before too.

[res23.livejournal.com]

yeah that's how I interpreted it at first too, but then wondered, given that she wasn't given to being hugely introspective in much of the novel. But maybe that's a precursor of things to come, and is the start of her becoming much more of a 'thinker'.