Time and the Marlows

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I have now read all the modern-day Marlow books I can lay my hands on, which is all but The Marlows and the Traitor (which I remember quite well from when I was 11 or so) and The Thuggery Affair (which I gather is no great loss).

I love these books and mourn the lack of any more. In fact: sorrow! I will probably read the Player ones on the strength of them. The characters are so well drawn and well understood and not always likeable either, which makes them feel very real (except for Giles whom I dislike for being so arrogant and full of himself--and unkind in Autumn Term; I hope he never marries) and I also like how we see a part of their lives with so much more having happened and about to. We'll never know what happened between Nicola and Esther when she went back to school, or how Judith recovered from Edward running away, or how Kay coped with her family, and after all, RL is untidy like that too.

Does anyone know whether AF had any plans for future books and what would have happened in them?

The one thing I find jarring in the books is the very obvious placement of each in a different time and often decade. Why did AF feel it was necessary? The mention of the war in the earlier ones is part of them and places them, as does Ginty having to go through an operator to phone London, but apart from that a reader could, if allowed to, imagine the books to be set in their own era; country life and boarding school haven't changed much. Kingscote in the 50s wasn't much different to my school decades later. So I find gratuitous references to the Beatles, Up Pompeii, punks, Morecombe and Wise etc not just jarring but unnecessary to the story and Pastede On. If the Marlows were watching TV without the programme being mentioned, I would just keep reading, but mention a specific programme for no reason and I stop in my tracks, disconcerted.

The deliberate insertion of current slang feels odd too, or is it just because it's no longer current? Did people really call clothes 'gear' back in the 70s? OTOH I do love what I assume is specifically Marlow family slang like natch, trimmensely (both of which I used as a kid), and sorrow. Come to think of it though, 'sorrow' can't be a Marlowism because Patrick says it too.

I'm curious about Peter's dreadful nickname of Binks. How do you get that from Peter? Is it a baby name they keep on calling him? I'm totally with him on his objections to it, but the others persist in using it. Is it some sort of common baby name in England that might stick? My mother had a friend called Bunty and I could never understand how she put up with it. [shudders]

Comments

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I wish I knew what she had planned. I rather hope that if any childhood crushes carry on into adulthood that Ginty and Patrick pair up because Nicola can do better--and I'm not talking about marriage either. She wants to travel and have adventures, not be tied down. Besides, Patrick's so stuffy.

I want to know what happened with Esther and Nicola and how they all did in later years at school and afterwards. Ah well.

And the library doesn't have the Players books. :-(

[antfan.livejournal.com]

AF was rather dashing of her character's dreams as they reached adulthood - at least of the female ones. Rowan gets landed with the farm instead of architecture, Kay ends up a housewife instead of an archaeologist. Realistic maybe - but I'd hate to see this happening to Nicola and Lawrie. And I'm of the school that says Nicola could do a lot better than Patrick!

I do think she wouldn't have married him, by the way. AF sort of suggests it in her interview with Sue Sims, and in a way the kind of cruel realism that makes her dispatch Rowan and Kay to their fates the way she does, means that Patrick and Nicola wouldn't have gone from best friends/teen sweethearts...to married and happily ever after. Also, there is Jan Scott's comment that life long friendships are as common as unicorns. Jan Scott being a very sensible person, I am sure we are meant to take this as a sensible comment. the whole Marlow saga takes place during a very small window into their adolescent lives...

[elizahonig.livejournal.com]

But wasn't there somewhere a conversation or interview with AF in which she did discuss the futures of a few characters? I seem to recall that Ann goes off to help the poor in Africa and dies of malaria or some such thing. Can I be making this up?

[(Anonymous)]

not sure about this. somewhere (the GGB intro?) she says someone asked her what would happen to the Marlow and she made some flip replies including "Karen will marry Oxford don" and that started her thinking about this scenario resulting in The Ready Made Family. that's all I can think of. it was pretty rough and ready - i think Nicola was going to be a wren.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

[nods] Very true. I refuse to even go to school reunions because I don't know those people any more.

And anyway, Nicola was never the jilted girlfriend during the Patrick/Ginty period, but upset about losing a friend. I relate to that; I've had lots of male friends because I have so much more in common with them.

OK, I can't resist having a play with their future lives.

Giles never marries because he basically regards wives as convenient ways of creating more sailors and he finds that women have personalities and goals of their own. In fact, chaps on one's ship turn out to be a lot more understanding. In 2010 when he's a destroyer captain, he has a civil union with his Number One, glad that Rowan's one three years earlier has paved the way with his family, and they're all there. Lawrie is delighted with the publicity and her own fame lends glamour to the proceedings.

Karen takes up tutoring children for )- and A-levels while completing a degree at the Open University, then gets a job teaching at the Colebrook School (have I got the name right?) and is very good at it.

Due to the sexism of archaic UK entail laws, Rowan will never have the farm, and buys one with a partner, Esther Frewen, perhaps, whom she meets through Nicola when they make it up and come to Trennels for a holiday.

Anne becomes a nurse and eventually marries a doctor and promptly stops work to be a homemaker and charity volunteer.

Peter leaves the navy at 18, causing a decades-long rift with his father and brother, though Nicola understands and the others accept his decision. He discovers computers and geekdom and becomes a programmer in London

Ginty makes a fair living writing Mills and Boone and has lots of short, intense relationships, eventually marrying in her late 30s. It could be Patrick, but only after a long absence, and she always suspects it was settling.

Nicola travels round the world in her yacht, making a few human interest headlines, and a series of stops for short work stints in interesting places like a French vineyard, an Israeli kibbutz, a waterfront cafe on a Greek island... She decides she likes this life too much to give it up and becomes a travel writer and guide specialising in adventure tourism. She considers the Navy again when they open it properly to women, but decides she was never much good at conforming and obeying rules, and besides, she's having too much fun. She marries another travel guide.

Lawrie goes to RADA and discovers that there are plenty of others as talented, but this is also stimulating and exciting for her. Finding guest TV roles dissatisfying an uninvolving, she joins the RSC where the direct connection with the audience delights her. She find fame only in her mid-30s when she is cast in an SF series as an alien. Her acting is admired, many lust after her, she is invited to many cons, but she remains unrecognised in the street. When the show finishes, she goes back to the stage where she can be anything and any age she likes. She marries two actors before finding lasting love with a company director (and SF fan).

You can tell I don't want to let this universe go, can't you. :-P

[biskybat.livejournal.com]

But what will Nicola do about her terrible sea sickness?

[mrs-redboots.livejournal.com]

Probably grow out of it - or learn to live with it. She was getting used to it by the end of "Traitor", after all - and the shot of brandy Foley gave her did help.

I still think she did a short-service commission in the Wrens, either before or after going to university, and this helped her gain more self-confidence.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I didn't realised she was. I haven't read 'Traitor' since I was about 11 and had forgotten that. Nicola mentioned a lone circumnavigation to Rowan late one night though, while tending a lamb, I think.

[antfan.livejournal.com]

I do like this for Nicola! Travel writing and adventure. If as Biskybat says sea sickness is a problem, then maybe she could do trekking/mountaineering.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

She may be all right on larger vessels; they have a completely different movement. However they don't really exist for passengers any more. :-( If she's not good in yachts, Nicola can still do a huge amount of adventure travel on each continent, with planes between them. :-)

[colne-dsr.livejournal.com]

Both her hero Horatios, Nelson & Hornblower, were seasick for two or three days at the start of every voyage, then they got their sea legs. Maybe Nicola would be the same - I don't suppose she's had the chance to find out as yet.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I didn't know that. I bet she found that very consoling and encouraging.

I always feel very ill before going on stage (amateur only, and it goes once I start) and was very pleased to find that a several famous actors do too. I think Olivier was one.

[mrs-redboots.livejournal.com]

Oh, I dunno, there are still cruise ships. Which most of the time people are perfectly all right on - but my father had to go and lie down when the engine broke down on their most recent cruise!

I'm sure Nicola would probably overcome her seasickness, given time to do so - as someone else has said, Nelson and Hornblower both got dreadfully sick at the start of each voyage, but got over it in 24 hours or so, and Nicola would, too.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I can't see Nicola on a cruise ship. As a passenger on a freighter, maybe--my mother had a friend who went round the world like that. there were usually 10-12 passengers on board.

But if her seasickness was short-lived, then she'd have a yacht. :-D

[mrs-redboots.livejournal.com]

I can't really see her on a cruise ship, either; but if she decided to work her way around the world she might well take a job on one for three months or so.

[biskybat.livejournal.com]

I thought this, from a twelve year old Nicola in Autumn Term, was rather endearing:

'We'll have a figurehead too,' thought Nicola, who, on the rare occasions when she was alone, liked to plan the ship she and Lawrie might share, as other people planned their houses. 'I hope there'll be some clippers left ... or else we'll have a very small ship ... with red sails ... unless that's a bit childish ... perhaps red sails are rather young ... brown would be all right ... or blue? No, definitely not blue ... party frocks are always blue ... when I'm in my ship I shall wear jerseys that are as darned as possible ... and very holey plimsolls ... '

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

It's adorable, and very her. And the brown sails reminded me of Swallows and Amazons.