Fatherhood in the Forest

[tabouli.livejournal.com]

Reading through people's comments on the last post, I found myself musing on the fathers depicted in the Marlow series. Even though none of them play a major role, there's quite a range.

The omniabsent Commander Marlow seems the kind of father who sees putting an expensively framed cabinet portrait of the family in his room as a substitute for taking leave to see them (see also Nicola's preference for a photo of Giles' ship and Nelson over photos of her family members?), but otherwise appears a friendly, no-nonsense sort of fellow. You have to smile at his pragmatic military preference for Nicola's crew cut in Falconer's Lure.

Arguably the most negative depiction of a father in the series is Mr Hopkins. When Berenice proclaims Meg's tormented family life to the masses, Meg shifts from being a workaholic nonentity to a disturbing reflection of her father's abuse, reinforced by his brief, dour cameo near the end of The Cricket Term (in which Forest hints that he also abuses his wife). On the subject of pastoral care at Kingscote, it's faintly reassuring that the school did attempt to intervene on Meg's behalf, even though it didn't succeed.

Mr West is warm and engaging; Mr Merrick is wry and genial, and seems to have a pretty healthy relationship with his son, where Patrick respects the boundaries he sets and wants his approval without fearing him. Our fleeting glimpse of Mr Todd suggests to me a conservative pillar of community type who indulges and secretly enjoys the eccentricities of his wife. Then, of course, there's Edwin, who is the only father whose parenting we see centre stage in the series.

There was a very interesting discussion of Edwin on Girl's Own in 1998 or so, which revealed a divide among Forest fans. Some would have happily had him locked up for the riding crop scene; others agreed that this was appalling behaviour, but allowed him more leeway. He is certainly a stern and authoritarian parent, though when he see him he is under a lot of stress and seems used to being the disciplinarian half of the parental team: see Rose's appeal to Mrs Marlow when he pushes her to stop reading and go outside. I'm not sure what I think of him as a parent, but he's certainly an interesting and complex character.

What do other people think about Edwin, and Forest fathers in general?

Comments

[debodacious.livejournal.com]

I think we are supposed to take Edwin at Nicola's valuation and get to appreciate his finer points, but I just can't get past him being a bully - he is rude to the Marlows when he is their guest (admittedly in trying circumstances, but he is an adult who should have some self control) and a cold and controlling parent with his own children, who have just lost their mother. Under the circs I find his unwillingness to let Chas have the birthday of his dreams just cruel. And I think his choice of a young, relatively naive second wife is all of a piece with his control freakery.

Mostly I like Mr Merrick, but every once in a while I find myself imagining him being involved in some sleazy scandal. Sucking Claudie's toes perhaps?

What do other people think about the marriages in AF? I cannot think of an ideal partnership, the only happily married couple immediately springing to mind are the Tranters who aren't really mainstream characters. Most of the couples seem to have one likeable party and one cold fish (the Merricks, the Wests, arguably Karen and Edwin). Mrs Marlow is a single parent for much of the time, and seems to have issues with her own mother, while her father is conspicuous by the absence of any mention. Even Ginty/Patrick is beset with awkwardness and misunderstanding rather than being an idyllic first love.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Sucking Claudie's toes! Priceless.

I found Mrs Merrick relatively likeable when she was saying 'couldn't he just leave out that question?' and later at the concert - perhaps she's just not particularly good with the human young either and that's why she doesn't click with Nicola. Or possibly she thinks Nicola is liable to lead Patrick into more of the sort of adventures that lead to falling off cliffs. As opposed to what she probably suspects Ginty of wanting to lead him into, though I don't think there was ever much actual likelihood of it.

[owl]

Well, Patrick thinks, after the concert, that this must be one of the rare times his mother 'finds him likeable'. Quite harsh from one's own mother.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

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.

[owl]

You know, we're always asking how Mrs Marlow puts her time in; what about Mrs Merrick? Are we ever told if she has a job or is she being Professional MP's Spouse?

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

She's certainly out of the house when Patrick comes back after a day on buses and at the Imperial War Museum - I suspect, rather sadly, that she is just Professional MP's Spouse, but she does seem to have a life of her own beyond hanging round instructing Claudie to instruct whatever help they have in the London house in how to dust.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Not, I hasten to add, that there's anything whatever wrong with not working outside the home, it's just that Mrs Merrick seems such an urban sophisticate type who would find other things more fulfilling.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

'Urban sophisticate' isn't necessarily at odds with the kind of good works I mentioned in my other post on this thread: she reminds me of some of Nanda's schoolmates in Antonia White's Frost in May, who are all rather uppercrust RCs, or their relatives at the Old Girls' Day.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

No, that's quite true - I can see her chairing any number of committees. I think I meant 'if I was certain it wasn't mentioned anywhere in canon and I was writing Mrs Merrick I would probably give her a job, but as it is I strongly suspect it's mentioned somewhere in canon that she doesn't have a paid job'.

As far as the only-one-child thing goes, I think I assumed fertility problems which neither of the Merricks actually found that distressing. Though whilst I suspect Mr Merrick actually does follow the Church's teachings on contraception, I wouldn't be in any way surprised if Mrs Merrick had quietly taken steps to make sure there weren't any more, thank you.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Oh, I wouldn't in the least be surprised at Mrs Merrick making sure she stopped at just the one! - it seems to fit with the rest of her character. And on the paid job thing, I think given the time when the first books in the sequence were written, she definitely wouldn't have had a paid job (though I can see her having been super-efficient at something or other during the War, when she had to).

[liadnan]

Bear in mind that Falconer's Lure was published well before Humanae Vitae when the Catholic position on contraception was much less clearly hard-line and formalised. And came as a shock and disappointment to many, particularly those in the developed world who'd cheerfully been taking steps for some time, and, it's generally thought, continued to do so.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

I suppose she might be doing the kind of Good Works appropriate to a Catholic wife and spouse of an MP. Though one also gets the sense that Merrick mere is far less invested in faith issues than either her husband or her son: witness her remark over the fish on Friday, no longer required, ruling, about it making dinner parties much easier to organise. I am perhaps pruriently intrigued as to why there is only one offspring of this marriage, especially as Mrs Merrick is presented as pretty healthy (not lying on a sofa suffering from women's complaints), compared to the philoprogenitive Marlowe parents (I am also pruriently trying to work out how this ever happened, given the amount of time Commander M seems to spend at sea).

[owl]

Actually, scratch that, I checked and it isn't likeable after all, it's tolerable. Even harsher.
Patrick doesn't strike me as particularly uncompromising apart from the Vatican II thing. Patrick is, I think, fundamentally honest, which is the main reason Ginty/Patrick was never going to last. And as for warmth and empathy, I'll concede those (I think Patrick is a Myers-Briggs T), but Mrs Merrick would be the pot calling the kettle black. And everyone takes themselves seriously at sixteen. I found the bit, actually : "I'm a very serious person." And wondered if that were true.

[owl]

I don't think Ginty/Patrick could ever have had any possibility of being idyllic. Right from the start it's clear that it's mainly fantasy; it grows from the Gondal fantasy, Patrick is infatuated with his own idea of Ginty (the jury's still out on who the real Ginty actually is). Ginty's persona around Patrick, of course, is her idea of what his fantasy-Ginty is, so his being sixteen and male is not entirely to blame. :)

I always thought Ginty needed a Rhett Butler kind of person; someone who doesn't care that she's a vain, changeable piece of fluff; someone that sees behind the pretty mask.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

I always thought Ginty needed a Rhett Butler kind of person; someone who doesn't care that she's a vain, changeable piece of fluff; someone that sees behind the pretty mask.

I hadn't considered the similarities between Ginty and Scarlett - that's really interesting!

I think what Ginty mostly needs is several years of standing on her own two feet.

[owl]

Yes, that, too. It would have been interesting to see if the Attic tern kerfuffle had any lasting effect on her. It's the first time in the books any of her mistakes have had serious long-term consequences.

[owl]

That would be Term, not tern. Oops.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Not a secret Marlows / Flight of the Heron crossover then? ;)

[owl]

What, someone else who's actually heard of Flight of the Heron?

I leave no tern unstoned

[oursin.livejournal.com]

It's mentioned in Autumn Term as the reason why Nicola wants Thistle as the name of their Guide patrol: I've also heard it name-checked in other works of a similar period. I think I read it, many years ago, but can't remember much about it.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Mostly I like Mr Merrick, but every once in a while I find myself imagining him being involved in some sleazy scandal.

Hmmm: one does wonder where Patrick gets the 'only in marriage or if it's paid for' theory of when sexual activity is permissible...

[debodacious.livejournal.com]

Well, quite ....