Nicola's feelings for Patrick

[nickwhit.livejournal.com]

Picking up on a comment in an earlier post that Nicola only regarded Patrick as a friend, I rather thought it evolved into more than that - certainly by RAH when Nicola wants to look special at the Merricks' New Year party; and is delighted when Patrick asks her to dance with him 'practically continuously'. And even at the end of RMF, I took the last page about Nicola understanding Persuasion far more than Ginty knew to refer to her feelings for Patrick. (But it's a long time since I read Persuasion.) Whaddya think?

Comments

[highfantastical.livejournal.com]

I think it's so interesting that AF chooses Persuasion, because on the surface it's very unsuitable to Nicola and Patrick, if N. indeed feels some sense of recognition/identification. I'm not sure, though. Sometimes I think that's a substantial part of it, but sometimes I think it's more about the other stuff that happens in RMF, changing & widening her outlook. I think it's hard to pin down her feelings for Patrick: she doesn't seem to know what she feels, herself (I expect this is v plausible for her age, etc.).

[the_antichris.livejournal.com]

I take the bit about understanding Persuasion at the end of RMF to mean she's learned something about the emotional reality of difficult situations through getting to know the Dodds and their history, far more than anything to do with Patrick - it feels similar to the earlier bit where she comes to understand 'sunt lacrimae rerum'. (Although Ginty is quite clearly referring to Patrick and nothing else.) I do think Nicola's feelings evolve during AT and RAH, though, without her necessarily realising it.

Patrick, Nicola, etc.

[(Anonymous)]

A treat for a non-member of the Ancient Order of Foresters to stumble upon the discussions here – non-member, but a devoted reader ever since coming on Peter’s Room when first published (and little younger than Peter at the time), then realising how it fitted into a series which was still growing, then. While unversed in minutiae as most members are, for perhaps just the reason of being an occasional rather than continual re-reader, several things strike me. The topic of ‘what next’ is natural to speculate on, however fruitless, but can turn contrary. Surely the whole thrust of the series is an oh-so-gradual but natural process of bringing Nicola and Patrick together? And a degree of bouleversement in the attitudes and development of other characters needed to implement any of the suggestions made, in other directions, seems to me improbable and unlikely to have been contemplated seriously. Now that so much is revealed about her, one is aware that AF kept her options open; but it strikes me that one cannot expect her to have offered hostages to fortune by revealing what was going to happen. Granted, the desultory growth of the series must be a considerable clue to the nature of her methods: letting the characters evolve for themselves, and (as their creator) being more than a little surprised herself at what they chose to do. Hence too the episodic nature, for better or worse, of the narrative development, as contributors have stressed; and a rather surprising dryness of tone that can result when plot does take the upper hand (in Run Away Home particularly). Character surprises do crop up, not the least being Patrick’s decision to turn traitor in the Brontëan role-playing group-fantasy of Peter’s Room; not the least revealing thing about that being the surprise of the other players. But these relate to self-knowledge, the capacity of the young to be already multifaceted yet immature, and then to grow further: which makes the books compelling. These are people with room for emotional development, and finding their nature for themselves: yet I can’t feel that any amount of character-development would have so shifted the the overall direction as to alter narrative destiny.

Determining Patrick’s future ‘significant other’ is just another way in which his choices often seem so central to the series, and so relates to the main other thing that many find puzzling or off-putting: how AF could give the best traits to non-Catholic members of the cast and so leave Patrick looking cold or unbending and in some ways less mature. As though she was more ambivalent to her own adopted faith than she could otherwise let on; and yet Patrick is in possession of qualities that put him priggishly ahead of his years. Is the answer that AF in fact did admire Patrick – more than she could otherwise let on? There is a sort of question that would be impertinent to put to a live author and so even about a dead one; yet I can’t help wondering if the paradoxes that Patrick embodies relate to AF’s male ideal (assuming of course that she had one: but a spinster status is far from one that necessarily disdains the male sex, if one can so put it). Having a faith and making it work in one’s life does have its paradoxes, and AF must have worked her way at leisure through some of these, in life as no doubt in story-telling. I wonder too about her holidays before the Second World War, in which she encountered two boys who kept hawks. Is it possible that her ideal was ever embodied in a real boy, of the striking physique attributed to Patrick; or is that one impertinent question too far? It is of course a shame that there are so many things that we shall never now know, and a loss that no draft of future work (let alone the two abandoned adult novels) survives, as we are told. (rigmarole1)

Re: Patrick, Nicola, etc.

[antfan.livejournal.com]

Surely the whole thrust of the series is an oh-so-gradual but natural process of bringing Nicola and Patrick together?

No, no, no. It maybe looks that way because the series ends with Run Away Home, but that wasn't planned, it's just where it happened to stop. Run Away Home marks a real falling off in the series anyway - can't help suspecting that's why she didn't write any more.

I hold to Jan Scott's comment that lifelong friendships are about as common as unicorns...and by the same token, people are unlikely to end up with the boy-next-door they fancied at fourteen.

Re: Patrick, Nicola, etc.

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. I've never seen Patrick and Nicola properly together even as teenagers, never mind as adults.

Re: Patrick, Nicola, etc.

[coughingbear]

Also, Patrick doesn't arrive in the series until Falconer's Lure (and isn't really a Roman Catholic until End of Term.) I don't think there is a 'whole thrust' to the series. Though I disagree that RAH is a terrible falling off; it's not a favourite of mine, but rather like Thuggery Affair there are scenes I'd not be without.

Re: Patrick, Nicola, etc.

[(Anonymous)]

I can conjoin with the feeling that The Thuggery Affair has much to offer; as well as Run Away Home. But the issue of the 'thrust' to the series (however you term it; as well as the alternative, that there may be none) is a major point. We know from now-stated record that AF envisaged NO series as such, until the publishers asked her for a sequel, and batted down her notion of a horse book. That is exactly when a falconry theme, combined with horses, entered, with Falconer's Lure. And so entered Patrick as a theme. This new departure therefore by definition created a series. It was based, by stated biographical detail, on AF's own holidays with falconing boys. I don't like or want to obtrude biographicals; except that most readers' likes and dislikes in the Trennels discussions focus on exactly where Patrick and religion impinge: a sore spot ever ready to erupt. Finally, one has to be ready to allow that adolescence is the juncture where he soreness of this type erupts for writers of juvenile cast. K.M. Peyton managed it adnirably with her 'Pennington' series - putting relationships in the context of responsiblity between members of a couple, and parenthood, and all hail to her - but it is all too easy for this to be a 'King Charles' head', in the sense of an insuperable obstacle. How AF would have coped, one can only wonder - rigmarole

Re: Patrick, Nicola, etc.

[(Anonymous)]

I can conjoin with the feeling that The Thuggery Affair has much to offer; as well as Run Away Home. But the issue of the 'thrust' to the series (however you term it; as well as the alternative, that there may be none) is a major point. We know from now-stated record that AF envisaged NO series as such, until the publishers asked her for a sequel, and batted down a notion of a horse book. That is exactly when a falconry theme, combined with horses, entered: with Falconer's Lure. And so entered Patrick as a theme. This new departure by definition therefore created a series, involving him. By stated biographical detail, it was based on AF's own holidays with falconing boys. I don't like or want to obtrude biographicals; except that many readers' likes and dislikes in the Trennels discussions spill over exactly where Patrick and religion impinge: an ever-present sore spot. One has to allow that adolescence is the juncture where the soreness of this type erupts for writers of juvenile cast. K.M. Peyton managed it admirably (can one say faultlessy?) with her 'Pennington' series - putting relationships in the context of responsiblity between members of a couple, and parenthood; and all hail to her - but it is all too easy for this to be a 'King Charles' head', in the sense of an insuperable obstacle. How AF would have coped with sorting out Patrick, once she had lumbered herself with him, one can only wonder in amazement - rigmarole

Re: Patrick, Nicola, etc.

[coughingbear]

I don't find it odd that Forest wrote good and interesting non-Catholic characters; surely we would hardly still be reading and discussing her books if they were that didactic. I like reading about Patrick because he is interesting.

I think speculating about Forest's life is probably inappropriate. She was a very private person, and there's no evidence on which to base it, so I think it's best to stick to the books. On which, I'm interested you think there is a whole thrust to the series. I read them as much more episodic than that.

Re: Patrick, Nicola, etc.

[antfan.livejournal.com]

I agree its not especially surprising that she could write sympathetic non-catholic characters. However, like ooxc below, I was actually very surprised when I discovered, having loved the books for years, that she was an ardent catholic herself. And I suspect that is because her most sympathetic characters in my view...Nicola, Nick, Will Shakespeare, Rowan, Miranda sort-of - are all portrayed as skeptics. Even leaving aside the thorny issue of Patrick, Mme Orly, Kinky and Mrs Merrick are not exactly lovely are they? I suppose the Anthony Merricks are smpathetic but they are fairly minor characters. And religious piety in the shape of Ann doesn't get a very positive portrayal either.

It's odd, I think. Interesting certainly. I don't know whether it simply shows that AF was such a great writer that she transcended her own allegiances/world view in writing her characters. Or maybe it was to do with her own experience of having stood within different religions, and later fallen out of line with the Catholic Church herself. Either way its a fascinating part of the books - a more nuanced treatment of religious issues than I can think of in any other childrens' book.

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

I had always assumed that Patrick was a tongue in cheek portrait until someone who knew AF said that she was a completely committed pre-Second Vatican convert. I had to read the whole series again in the light of that
As for Nicola and Patrick - it's not necessary to me to wonder about the future - since WW2, how many people marry their neighbours/childhood friends? Not saying it never happens - but increasingly unusual?

[antfan.livejournal.com]

Surely the Persuasion reference in RMF is directly to Kay and Edwin's relationship. The Marlows take against Edwin because he really isn't their type - too old, not naval, fuddy duddy etc etc - just as Anne Elliot's family take against her choice (ironically partly because he is naval!) But by the end of the book Nicola has come to see that Edwin has value, especially after events in Oxford. So she understands that people may know better than their families who is the right partner for them - which is the central theme of Persuasion. So she tells Ginty that actually she now understands Persuasion pretty well.