Run Away Home.

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

Thought I'd give myself a Christmas treat and reread RAH. But as I read the earlier parts of the book I found myself a bit disappointed. Normally I find AF's books improve the more you read them,even The Thuggery Affair which I found I really liked second time round, (even the odd slang seems so much more believable once you've had a chance to get used to it);but RAH wasn't growing on me... Partly the whole back story to Edward Oeschli seems so unlikely and contrived. If Edward's dad was as decent as he is described as being, why would he have done something so mad as kidnapping a baby from a pram, causing massive panic and worry to the mother? OK it's a plot device to make it impossible for him to come back to England to get Edward, but it adds to the unconvincingness of the whole story. And would a young naval officer like Giles really risk everything for an unknown boy? Think how cross he was with Nicola when she bunked off school to see him in Autumn Term. And would anyone from an experienced sailing, naval family really have taken an open dayboat to sea in early January?
However I do love the sailing scenes, especially Peter sailing the boat back with Giles unconscious. Makes me want to reread 'We didn't mean to go to sea'...

Comments

[penguineggs.livejournal.com]

Although I don't believe Giles would have initiated the journey, at the point when they are ten miles out behind the Bembridge Ledge lights I can (just) believe in him saying, "Oh, hell, take it how it comes." Given the forecast how it looks at that precise moment. One of the strong points of RAH (which I agree is not her best - I can rant for ages about how they couldn't possibly have got Surfrider to Wooton Creek in the time allotted) is that sense of being at sea, which you are right, WDMTGTS also encapsulates.

Still, the moment Giles knew Rowan wouldn't be sailing with him he should have chucked the idea (I do like Giles and "Rowley" in the pub, too).

[rekraft.livejournal.com]

Actually, a Giles and Rowan on Surfrider fic could be interesting. Would they really have turned back, having gone that far? The Giles who was sailing with Peter may have felt duty-bound to say no. But what if he had been sailing with Rowan? Might something in him have snapped under her horse-and-common, and sailed on to France anyway? Or, since Rowan is not averse to improvisation in crisis, they might have gone quite amicably. Either way, I imagine the episode might uncover a thing or two about their characters.

Giles in RAH

[dunite.livejournal.com]

I get the impression in RAH that Giles might have been taking a bit of a break from having to be a concientious and responsible naval officer (for example, in Autumn Term, where he advises Nicola to be "bad"). Did AF ever say how old Giles would have been at this point? Perhaps he's only a few years older than Kay (who'd be about 19 or 20 in RAH).

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

Yes, I can accept Giles going for it at that point. It's just the whole plan from the start that I don't buy. And Rowan is effectively in loco parentis with Mrs Marlow away, would she really have involved herself and let all the others get involved?
I do like all the family stuff though, the relationship between Giles and the others, Xmas in the cave etc.

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

Also, the whole changing timeline is clashing so much in this book, - Lawrie dressing up as a punk while Nicola rides into town and leaves her pony at a livery stable while she goes shopping, did that sort of livery stable really exist in the late 70s? they certainly didn't in any town I knew. And the whole Marlow ethos and lifestyle, conversation and eating habits etc. seem at odds with a 'social services messing kids around' type story.And why do Giles and nicola eat lunch from a picnic basket in the car rather than going to a cafe?

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

And why do Giles and nicola eat lunch from a picnic basket in the car rather than going to a cafe?

Because cafes are expensive and not always around - lots of people still do it, and it was certainly what we did on days out in my 80s childhood. The intent, of course, is to eat the picnic outside, but it is never warm enough to do so.

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

Agree about cafes - they were popular in the 1950s and 1960s, but I don't remember ever eating in one after about 1970 - you might save up for a restaurant in the evening, but you ate lunch in a car or at home

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. It's just in the earlier books Giles (and Rowan) are quite happy to take the younger ones out for ice-creams, teas etc. and they eat in cafes, Copper Kettles, waffle places in the other stories. It just seemed slightly out of character for Giles.

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

makes sense - earlier books were set in cafe/teashop era

[rekraft.livejournal.com]

Well, Rowan does acknowledge she may have been happier if she was the one going with Giles on Surfrider. In loco parentis she may be, but she isn't a Mrs Marlow. I think she does want to be involved but is practically alone among all her co-conspirators in appreciating what a foolhardy enterprise it is - not only because of her level-headedness, but her sense of responsibility towards the family.

[rekraft.livejournal.com]

In fact, my three favourite AFs are set around Christmas / New Year, so the time of the year always calls for a pleasurable reread of one book or another. She does seem to capture the season particularly well.

I agree Giles turns out disappointingly two-dimensional now that we finally get more of him (but then again, that may not be unlike how Nicola sees him, the way she hero-worships him). But whatever RAH lacks in terms of Giles, it makes up for in terms of Rowan - she is one character we see in far greater depth and detail than in any of the previous books.

[manda-09.livejournal.com]

I agree, it's odd how they all seem to like Edward's Dad, and condemn his mother, when Dad kidnapped a newborn baby from the baby's mother. The whole mess was created by criminal Dad, and then Giles says something about Judith being a fool to let him go.

There are a couple of things that bother me about RAH, in addition to those mentioned above. Firstly, Giles' failure to let Rowan et al know of the massive delay is pretty hard to believe - given that Dad was stumping up for necessary expenses, in particular. Wouldn't have been hard to arrange a phone call and / or telegram.

Secondly, Mrs Marlow's staying away so long. It's clear that she has to go when her mother's ill, and makes sense not dashing straight back, but to stay until 10th or 11th of January, when not only are her daughters back from boarding school, but Giles home on (apparently rare) leave.

[colne-dsr.livejournal.com]

I don't think they're much interested in Dad and Mum, it's purely Edward's views they're concerned with. Edward wants to go home, he's old enough to have an opinion, Judith has the attitude (they think) of "If I can't have him, neither will Felix" (I know there's more to it than that, but I'm not sure the young Marlows, even Rowan, see it).

And I think they have the other simplistic, slightly priggish but pragmatic attitude that she ought to have settled for marrying Felix anyway. We were closer then to the days when it was assumed you would marry the father of your baby, and the Marlows are a fairly old-fashioned lot.

[manda-09.livejournal.com]

You may be right, but Giles seems to actively like him. And they weren't that bothered about the Edwin-divorce-then-widowed bit, more they didn't like Edwin, his age, all the rest of it.

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

I've never seen the father as decent and I've always thought that the whole thing was completely misguided and was intended by the author to be seen as misguided
Giles wouldn't only be risking his own career - he would be risking Peter's too.
i love the book - but I'm sure that we are expected to see the whole thing as misguide impetuosity

[(Anonymous)]

I don't like RAH either for all the reasons mentioned - and especially the odiousness of Giles, who takes over, in a deeply unlikeable way.

Other things that bother me:

1) Nicola and Patrick - she just falls back into being the docile side-kick, now that Ginty is out of the way. Per-lease! I think there would be a bit more fall out than that!
2) Ann is as two dimensional as Giles - she becomes incredibly prissy and puritanical and priggish - about religion especially. I mean refusing to lend Nicola a bike go to a RC service in Latin - I just can't see her (or any sixteen year old) acting like this. In previous books Ann had a lot more complexity/redeeming features.
3) The Dodd family - the younger Dodds become plot devices rather than characters in their own right. they did have a close relationship with the younger Marlows which recedes in this book. Edwin also having become an interesting character by the end of Ready Made Family recedes into stuffy brother-in-law.
4) In general the book feels like an unhappy amalgam of old style children-on-their-own holiday story, cricket on the beach etc with "issues" plot tacked on.
Definitely the one I would be least likely to take to my desert island!

[manda-09.livejournal.com]

Peter, in most of the books, but especially in RAH, is a royal pain in the neck, I reckon.

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

I don't know, I've always liked Peter. Except when he was doing mummerset of course. But I think most teenage boys are programmed to spend their time annoying their sisters in one way or another.
The best thing about the book for me is Peter sailing the boat home, with Giles out cold.

[manda-09.livejournal.com]

A lot of the boat being wrecked is Peter's fault, I reckon.

But the writing of that passage is amazing, couldn't agree more.

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

In that he'd let the reefs out? And Giles wasn't really compos mentis enough to sail the boat in when peter crashed out. But I think he's entitled to a mistake in judgement after a long stressful night. The boat was not a suitable boat to be at sea in winter conditions.

[manda-09.livejournal.com]

Yes - let the reefs out, didn't stop in a safer place (Wootton, for example, which would have been a very good idea), etc. Lots of mistakes.

Ann

[charverz.livejournal.com]

Ann suffers from a scrupulous conscience. It may also be that as the only religious Marlow she has some doubts about her faith and wonders whether the Catholics might actually be right.

A good long chat with Madame Orly would do her the world of good. She converted, and since she continues after being widowed it must be out of conviction. A long chat with Patrick might end up in a huge argument (I doubt Patrick could be tactful where religion is concerned). I could see Ann and Patrick having a very interesting love-hate relationship.

RAH

[charverz.livejournal.com]

I came to this one very late, as my elder sister didn't have that one. My favourite scene is Rowan having her controlled breakdown on finding that Giles and Peter are still alive. Rowan is so competent and level-headed that it's nice to see her having a human moment.