Also, and I'm totally playing devil's advocate here after a few drinks, how likeable is Patrick? He takes himself extremely seriously, he's uncompromising and lacks empathy and it's hard for him to be warm. A busy mother, with a distant relationship with her son due to his education and other social constraints, might see him clearly enough to make a judgment about who he is at the time, including both his strengths and his faults.
One of the glories of Forest is that she eschews the literary cliche in favour of what actually might have happened. I missed the tide of the previous post, but the point I wanted to make is that Forest is almost unique in 'children's writers' in that she doesn't go for the cliche of 'justice is done; right will triumph' and hence Kingscote is not necessarily a 'good' or 'bad' school, but a much more ambiguous one, from which some children emerge redeemed and some forever scarred.
Nicola and Lawrie are never vindicated. Lois and Marie are never found out (although they get it in the neck in other ways). Miss Keith, who in the hands of another writer would be the moral authority, is at times the perpetrator of injustice, and even when she does the 'right thing' (allow the play in Autumn Term) it's clearly because of her personal values rather than any definition of right and wrong that informs the series.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2005-04-08 11:36 pm (UTC)One of the glories of Forest is that she eschews the literary cliche in favour of what actually might have happened. I missed the tide of the previous post, but the point I wanted to make is that Forest is almost unique in 'children's writers' in that she doesn't go for the cliche of 'justice is done; right will triumph' and hence Kingscote is not necessarily a 'good' or 'bad' school, but a much more ambiguous one, from which some children emerge redeemed and some forever scarred.
Nicola and Lawrie are never vindicated. Lois and Marie are never found out (although they get it in the neck in other ways). Miss Keith, who in the hands of another writer would be the moral authority, is at times the perpetrator of injustice, and even when she does the 'right thing' (allow the play in Autumn Term) it's clearly because of her personal values rather than any definition of right and wrong that informs the series.