Nicola planning to vamp at the Merrick party?

[smellingbottle.livejournal.com]

Something I didn't really notice before my most recent read of Run Away Home. Nicola is told by Rowan at the start of the holidays that they have several party invitations. Nicola's response is 'half-pleased, half-dismayed. Natch, she was in favour of parties, but Miranda's dress was for the Merricks' do, not just for any old hooli.'

Now, I can understand that she's always thought of the dress as just for the Merricks' because it was the only party she was expecting to go to, but even when she finds there are other opportunities to wear it (and she doesn't at this point have her new Christmas present from her mother), she's very reluctant to think of wearing it more than once, to the Merricks'. Obviously, it is to do with her feelings towards Patrick, and also Ginty - and she's pleased when he briefly mistakes her for Ginty when he finally sees her wearing the Dress - but my question is whether her response to the other invitations suggests she's consciously planning to look beautiful and Ginty-ish enough to turn Patrick's head, a year on from the same party where she discovered their relationship/ private Gondal characters?

Something about this conscious planning ahead of her own effect doesn't sit right with my reading of Nicola's character in general, and her feelings about Patrick specifically, which I've always read as vaguer and more pre-sexual - he matters terribly to her, but she isn't so sure why. I wondered how other people read why the Dress is only for the Twelfth Night party?

Comments

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

I have assumed it was partly unexamined feelings about Patrick which I think are starting to be more than 'pre-sexual'. The kiss in the omitted sections from RAH indicate that AF was starting to move in that direction too.

Also, I think that the party at Mariot Chase is significantly grander and dressier than the others. Isn't there something about how this is parents mainly with a few kids, whereas the others are teenage-only affairs?

[smellingbottle.livejournal.com]

I'm hampered by never having read that omitted passage. Is AF on record as saying why she decided to omit it? Coming at it from the perspective of only having read the novel as published, it would seem to me like a very decisive shift in tone, and a removal of some of the interesting ambiguity in the Patrick-Nicola relationship. Although now that I come to think of it, I quite like the idea of Nicola's Inner Seductress emerging in Ginty's absence...

I also tend to forget (in the case of Patrick as seen chastely through Nicola's eyes) that he is Quite the Kisser, judging by his Claudie-bothering (to which I always rather wish she'd responded with a sharp smack...) Although we virtually never (ever?) see him kissing Ginty, do we?

It's true I may also be misreading the parties as occasions. We're certainly told that the other parties are given primarily by Patrick and Nicola's contemporaries for their peers, but the fact that formal invitations are sent out, that Patrick gets his knuckles rapped by a neighbouring mother for his refusal, that formal dancing does go on at them - and of course, that Lawrie and Nicola are wearing their mother's relatively formal-sounding party dresses and capes - suggests to me some formality even at the 'younger' parties which might not make the Dress definitely inappopriate wear. (But of course Nicola wouldn't have known what kind of dress was expected at the other parties anyway, when she thinks about only wearing the Dress to the Merricks, because Rowan has only mentioned them?)

Maybe part of the problem is that, as discussed at length here before, it's hard to visualise either the Dress or Nicola's green and white striped number. The latter always reminds me rather of the 'elegant' emerald-striped dress Miranda wears to travel back to school in...

SPOILERS!

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

The 'kiss' is initiated by Patrick and is brief and leaves Nicola somewhat bewildered. It's really more of a hint of things that might come, rather than anything significant in itself. So, I don't think one could extrapolate Nicola's Inner Seductress from it.

I think there are implied Patrick-Ginty kisses somewhere (start of Attic Term, perhaps?)

I agree, it's hard to pinpoint exactly what kind of dresses are in mind, and thus what kind of events Nicola may be imagining. There does seem to be something more grown-up about the Dress than the Christmas-present dresses. Though obviously Mrs Marlow intended those to be suitable for all the parties, including the Merricks. And I don't think any of the others wear anything different for the Twelfth Night party, do they? So maybe it is all in Nicola's perception. Hmmm.

[bookwormsarah.livejournal.com]

I always read it as the Twelfth Night party was an Occasion and the other parties were more social gatherings (are we at the gathering/shindig/hootenany division here?). Vaguely the same as having a dress you might wear for a formal dinner or a college bop being different from one you'd wear to a college ball. Some people might try to persuade you that an occasion were important enough to deserve the special dress, but when you have it in mind for a particular event it feels wrong to wear it for something 'lesser'.

[smellingbottle.livejournal.com]

Entirely off-topic, but I looked at your journal (procrastinating on a chapter makes me nosy) and was struck by your Alan Alda admiration (in which I join you) and your Lucy Mangan identification. I've always assumed, from some of her discussion of children's books, especially what she said recently about AF and AF events, that she's probably on here in some guise ... Is anyone willing to out themselves as Lucy Mangan?

Re. your point, my college went for repulsive themed bops, at which I only ever appeared to try to get the Pimps and Hookers one closed down on the grounds of taste, and I have never, in my entire life, known what exactly 'hootenany' (sp? should there be an extra 'n' somewhere?) meant. I may well be missing crucial distinctions which are clear to UK readers.

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

ankaret recently held a poll in her private journal in which one of the options was 'I am Lucy Mangan'. No one owned up, though I will admit that I was very tempted to pretend.

I think you can only have hootenannies in Scotland. It is a made up word.

[smellingbottle.livejournal.com]

I'm on her f-list too, but can't remember seeing that poll. Either I am senile, or she secretly suspects I am Lucy Mangan, and filtered me out so I could retain my mystique. I'm not, though.

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

I am very tempted to make an icon which says 'I'm not Lucy Mangan. Are you?' for general use in trennels.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

For some reason you weren't on my Forest people filter, even though I could have sworn you were. I've put you on there now, anyway.

[white_hart]

Could I be added to it too, please? I promise that I'm not Lucy Mangan.

[smellingbottle.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Forest People sounds wonderfully like a kind of alternative production of Midsummer Night's Dream, probably with Lawrie wearing briefer than briefs as Puck.

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

"Hooli" [sic sic sic] sounds awfully Hiberno-English to me, incidentally. Speaking as someone whose daily vocabulary includes Forestisms picked up from childhood readings of the novels ("natch", primarily).

[owl]

I agree; I have been known to use it in that context.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Not to be confused with the Woodcraft Folk...

[oursin.livejournal.com]

My association is twangling banjos, possibly somewhere in the Appalachians, with a lot of really closely related people in attendance...

[smellingbottle.livejournal.com]

I certainly grew up hearing it said by my father and grandfather, but it sounds like one of those words that filtered back from India via the British army, as did quite a bit of their slang - so I suppose possible it made its way to Marlow land via some similar route...?

[colne-dsr.livejournal.com]

Nicola didn't actually have a formal party dress when she was thinking about these invites, did she? It's before Christmas, she hasn't got the Christmas present dress yet. Last year's dress got split on. I wouldn't have thought Ginty's last year dress would be suitable - remember Lawrie has the figure to fit into an 11-year-old boy's monkey costume, and so presumably does Nicola.

But it's quite clear even after the event that it was just for the Merricks' party. Maybe it was for Patrick's benefit, although she knew he was at all the others as well. Or maybe she just fancied, for once, being the belle of the ball.

Perhaps she had a conscience about wearing it at all, because her mother would disapprove, and she thought once and once only was all she would risk?

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

I swear there were hootenannies in Canda in the 60s. In our case involving Cape Breton fiddlers, so maybe there's a Scots connection at the base of it.

When all else fails, consult google (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hootenanny) and/or wikipedia. 'Now, most commonly, it refers to a folk-music party.' Yes, exactly.

[the_antichris.livejournal.com]

My reading was that she is having twinges of conscience about accepting it despite knowing her mother wouldn't approve, and that the Merricks' party is important enough (for reasons of Patrick, mostly, though also possibly dressiness) to justify it but the other parties aren't.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Have done so - I could have sworn you were on it as well, actually. Clearly my filter-keeping-fu is on a level with Lois Sanger's people skills.

[carmine-rose.livejournal.com]

I don't remember seeing the poll either, though my LJing has been sporidic recently due to illness - could you check if I'm on the filter too, please?

[alliekiwi.livejournal.com]

...remember Lawrie has the figure to fit into an 11-year-old boy's monkey costume, and so presumably does Nicola.

That's somethingthat got to me, actually. Girls mature earlier than boys, and have a growth spurt a bit earlier as well. So if you have a class of 11 and 12 year olds, the girls may be taller than the boys. Yet here are Lawrie and Nick supposedly the same size as an 11 year old boy, several years their junior.

Nothing - that I recall - from the books gives any indication that the twins are short (unless we are supposed to take that from all those illnesses they had when they were young?), does it say anywhere that Edward was tall for his age?

[colne-dsr.livejournal.com]

Apart from the entirely frivolous answer that the twins were born in 1936, when children were smaller, and Edward was born in 1970?

(Being ill doesn't normally stop children being tall, does it? All Chalet School girls grew about 18 inches every time they were laid up!)

According to RAH (p33 in the hardback), Peter had just had a growth spurt and Nicola noticeably had to look up at him, and Peter had always been small for his age. Which I take to mean that Nicola at 13 or so had been a little smaller than a 9-months-older small-for-his-age boy. And that Nicola hadn't had a growth spurt. On the other hand, when Judith tells Rowan which monkey was Edward, she doesn't say "the tall one", she says "the left-hand one - all the boys were". Edward's described as "about 11-12" when Nicola first sees him.

I suppose Edward could be an 12-year-old-sized 11 year old with an above-average-sized girl monkey partner - maybe the monkey suits were pretty big, so they wanted tall children to fit them - and Nicola at 14 and a half perhaps looked physically about 13. So it just about fits.

Or maybe it's just artistic licence.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

A bit late, but the "gathering/shindig/hootenany" reference is to Buffy the Vampire Slayers, in which a character (Oz) is trying to clarify exactly what sort of party is intended.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I may be a slightly-above-average height woman these days, but I could definitely have fit into an 11 year old boy's monkey costume at 14, and assuming it to be reasonably loose-fitting probably at 16.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Yes, you are!

[woodcatlj.livejournal.com]

Also the Merrick's was the last party. She knew that she shoudn't have accepted the dress, by her familie's rules, and so probably thought that as soon as anyone saw it it would be taken away and returned. As such, she couldn't take the risk of wearing it to any of the other parties if she wanted it to be available for the merrick's one

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

I'm away from my books this weekend, but IIRC Autumn Term does say the twins are small and slight, and I don't remember any later book saying anything to the contrary. It goes along with them being the appropriate build for Ariel, for instance.

What was the monkey suit made out of, does it say? It would be much stretchier if made of velour, say (quite likely for that period), than if it was flannel.

[dunite.livejournal.com]

I've always assumed that it's because The Dress is one which she thinks "makes her look really super", and she's been thinking specifically of wearing it at the Merricks' party - of course before she knew she would be getting a new dress as a Christmas present. Perhaps the green one doesn't make her look quite as super as Miranda's?

I think she was quite happy to wear the new one at the other parties, even though Patrick was also attending, because in her mind she had associated the cream dress with a more 'grown-up' party that would be at the Merricks'. I don't get the impression that she didn't wear Miranda's dress at the earlier parties because she feared it would be taken away - her mother would be the only one who could order that, and seeing as she's missing for almost the whole book, she could have got away with wearing it rather than the new one if she'd wanted to.

[charverz.livejournal.com]

The fact that Nicola is a twin might also affect her size.

I think you've definitely hit the nail on the head. Nicola wants something without exactly knowing what it is she wants. And it's complicated by the fact that she and Patrick have been friends. Ginty knows what she wants but doesn't know enough to know where it's going to end up.