Christmas in Marlow-land

[sheep-noises.livejournal.com]

This time o' year always reminds me of

1) The Christmas Play in Wade Minster, from "End of Term" (which I don't have atm as my copy gave up the ghost and fell to pieces >:( ) ;

2) The unconventional Christmas Dinner in a cave, with poor old Ann staying home in case the phone rings :( , from "Run Away Home"; but mostly

3) "Peter's Room". For me, this is the most magical of all those magical books. I must admit I've always skipped the bits in Italics, so I still don't know what fantasy it was that they acted out that Christmas, even though I've read it dozens of times. Don't care, either. The wonderful descriptions of the day-to-day Marlow (and a bit o' Merrick) winter doings are enough to keep me going :)

Comments

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

Yes, I agree. I like the idea of Gondal a lot, and the way that AF uses it to explore the boundaries between fact and fiction. I forget which book it is when AF talks about how fictional characters are real to Nicola in a way that they will never be to Ann, and not just because she's younger. But in Peter's Room, I think you get Nicola realising the opposite - that fictional characters are, in very important ways, not real at all, while Patrick and Ginty start to inhabit the fictional world and lose their sense of the real world. Lawrie, I think, is acting in Peter's Room, just like she acts in The Prince and the Pauper, and the Christmas Play. So although she always has a strong sense of how to play at being another person, she doesn't seem to me to be so profoundly affected by Gondal as Patrick and Ginty.

[legionseagle.livejournal.com]

That was one of the points I made in my talk at the AF con - that Lawrie is sort of protected by its being "business as usual" (though God help us all if some idiot at drama school ever introduces her to the Method).

[coughingbear]

Yes, about the worst thing that happens to Lawrie is that she refuses a second helping of pudding and gets a bit cold while working out one part for herself, I think.

One way it goes on into other books of course is the Patrick/Ginty relationship, which never escapes Gondal and is consequently (we can see) doomed. Fascinating moment when Patrick wonders, after the Great Kerfuffle in Attic Term, whether Ginty would like to hear from him as Rupert or as himself, and his consequent profession of devoted love lacking all conviction as a consequence.

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

Yes. I read Attic Term many years before I got my hands on Peter's Room and was somewhat taken aback by the Rupert/Rosina stuff. Except that even without the backstory it did pretty effectively indicate that this was unlikely to be a lasting relationship.

[legionseagle.livejournal.com]

I have to say, though, Ginty's reaction to the letter is quite reasonable - having presumably heaved huge sighs of relief that she hasn't managed to get herself or Nicola expelled it must have come as a nasty shock to realise she had managed to get Patrick the boot and failed him his 'O' levels (as we find out in RAH) into the bargain. No wonder she goes into a flat spin and bolts to the other end of the country.

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

Has anyone ever written fic of Ginty's next meeting with Patrick? I would like to read that.

[coughingbear]

Oh entirely. I remember empathising very strongly with her sense that however much Patrick claimed to be delighted to be expelled, his parents and her parents were really not going to see it in the same way.

[legionseagle.livejournal.com]

Especially given Helena's - um - somewhat chilly personality and the impact on Anthony's political ambitions of any scandal - I know Patrick explains to Jukey that his dad has no ambitions for Cabinet Office, but I bet Ginty doesn't know that.