Don't mention Patrick and Ginty...

[antfan.livejournal.com]

Just read Attic Term, almost for the first time (read it once from the library in childhood).

Loved it! Funny, witty, not as intense as some of the earlier school books, and lots of great comic/psychological moments in best AF style.

However was (unintentionally) very amused by the way nobody in their families refers to the relationship (it's clearly a boyfriend:girlfriend relationship by now) between Patrick and Ginty. I would have thought in most families Ginty's siblings would have teased her mercilessly...but the Marlows don't say ANYTHING. Nor do the two sets of parents. Patrick's mother, in his presence, tells a third person that she pities the person who marries Ginty - rather bizarre, given that Ginty is basically Patrick's girlfriend. But although everybody KNOWS nobody SAYS. Even Lawrie the tactless. The only exception I can think of is when Peter makes a couple of oblique teases to Ginty in the Ready Made Family "And who with as if we didn't know" but that is it. And Ferguson does ask Nicola obliquely if the parents approve of the "friendship" but again it's all very veiled.

Is it because they are just terribly polite and English that nobody says anything?

I guess so because in order to discuss what the buttoned-up Marlows and Merricks won't AF introduces Claudie, the amoral French au pair. She is quite prepared to ask all about Patrick's sex life (and wonder at the lack of it). Really I guess Claudie is as much of a stereotype as the amoral French girls who turn up in Enid Blyton school stories (one of them was called Claudine too) though you can never feel reading them that AF's characters are stereotypes.

Is this really how English families were at that time? Just can't believe it - even of the Marlows.

Comments

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

I don't think they are boyfriend/girlfriend - they've gone from being 'friends of the family' to the Rupert/Rosina acting, to the odd wandering off and having private conversations, but that's it - nothing's out in the open at all.

My impression is that at the time it was expected that such relationships were all mere friendships until the parties involved were adults, and the concept of 'teenagers' let alone teenage relationships didn't exist yet. They're deemed to be children until they leave school. Therefore, friendship is all it can be and anything more would be dismissed as 'silliness'.

Happy to be corrected by anyone with more knowledge of the period.

[helixaspersa.livejournal.com]

The scenes with Claudie are very bold I think. I was pretty old the first time I read them - 17 or so - but even so I missed some of it. She doesn't just ask about his sex life, she propositions him. The fact that he realises that she is doing so - and that they go on to have a brief discussion of the ethics of that sort of thing (casual sex OK, he thinks, if he was actually paying for it, but otherwise not) - reflects as well upon all their scenes together - she flirts, he pretends to be irritated, but actually - evidently - both enjoys it and finds it a bit of a turn on. She is, presumably, not much older than the Marlow girls, but she is clearly groomed and dressed as a woman, not a girl; and a woman who is having affairs of her own - which Patrick finds exciting. Very revealing too when it emerges that Claudie, a daily element in his life, is not something he has mentioned to Ginty until very late on (I can't remember exactly the conversation where it comes up).

The psychological setting of the whole Patrick side of the story in Autumn Term is pretty masterful I think - the blend of frustration and depression and loneliness; religious doubt, mild parental neglect and simmering lust!

The scene where he dances with Claudie is also both very touching and very acute I think. Patrick learns something pretty major in this book - that you can be sexually attracted to someone you are not sure you like or respect; but also that moments of real intimacy can emerge in surprising ways with unexpected people - there is much more real intimacy between him and Claudie, for all his reservations, than there is the performance of love with Ginty.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

'Performance of love' is such a good way to put it. I always thought that he wanted Ginty because of her looks (and, of course, that year or so's extra maturity that meant they both wanted to move beyond the uncomplicated heroics and do something riskier with Gondal) and then once the Gondal was fading had absolutely no idea what to do with her.

I also thought it was very interesting how Patrick not having mentioned Claudie to Ginty mirrors Ginty not having mentioned Monica to Patrick. And then the major problem for Ginty once she gets to Kingscote is that Monica isn't there, whereas Patrick's problem is that Claudie is.

[antfan.livejournal.com]

Hmm. The book is published in 1976. And Patrick is almost grown-up - he is planning to leave school. Furthermore Patrick's parents know that Ginty is exceptionally attractive - they both remark on it - and they also know that she is around the house every day.

I do think one or other set of parents would have been showing a bit more interest in what was going on.

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

Is this perhaps reflecting the author's own generation rather than the date of the book? In the late 1950s my younger sister (14) was sent to her room for teasing me (17) about my friendship with a boy that involved some outings with a group of other friends, but not "going out" as a pair. The latter would not have been allowed, because we were sitting A levels, so social life was very limited anyway.
(I do admire today's young people, whose social life seems to be quite unaffected by exams, and who get such high scores in so many more subjects.)

[antfan.livejournal.com]

Yes it is very bold with Claudie isn't it...and who know what happens after that concluding kiss? Can't help suspecting that AF is setting up Claudie as Patrick's wild oats while emotionally he returns to Nicola...not that we will ever know. I don't think Claudie is mentioned in Run Away Home is she?

And the stunning remark about "paid for" sex being alright...can never work out how that comment ended up in the book. Or if it means what it seems to mean. Or how that can fit into Patrick's/AF's world view.

The psychological setting of the whole Patrick side of the story is pretty masterful I think - the blend of frustration and depression and loneliness; religious doubt, mild parental neglect and simmering lust!

Do really agree with that, Helixaspera. And I think that Patrick is having to reconsider so many of his former certainties, and having a lousy time at school, makes him a lot more appealing as a character. (Speaking as someone who finds him extremely unappealing in the previous books.)

[nzraya.livejournal.com]

And in both cases it shows how the burgeoning "relationship" between Patrick and Ginty isn't much of one, because its sole focus is the rather narcissistic performance of love -- Ginty lives for the moments when Patrick treats her like Rosina/says something romantic that she can paste into her mental album, almost like a medieval courtly beauty collecting favours (although I suppose I have that backwards, because it was the knights who wore the ladies' favours, wasn't it -- but anyway you see what I mean). And Patrick, well, as you point out, it's not really clear what Patrick gets out of it at all, though I agree that it boils down to him being obscurely attracted to her beauty (as a red-blooded if somewhat complicated male) and intrigued by the Gondal version of himself that Ginty sees him as. IIRC he doesn't actually disagree with his mother when she makes disparaging remarks about Ginty.

In any event, he clearly has no idea about who she is really and what her life consists of when he's not there -- and no more does she about him.

Mind you, I haven't read Attic Term in donkey's years, or any of the termtime books for that matter. I wish GGBP would get over their disdain for AF and do something about securing those copyrights/reprinting the books.

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

In my mind, the "paid for sex" reference (differently phrased), from a Sixth Former at boarding school, belongs much more to the 1940s or earlier than to my own 1950s or the book's 1970s

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Yes, it's infuriating that the books are so hard to find. Faber don't seem to want to publish any of the school ones except for Autumn Term (which might also be out of print now, I'm not sure), so it would be nice if the copyrights got into the hands of someone who was willing to get the books out there, whether GGBP or one of the other niche children's book publishers.

[antfan.livejournal.com]

But Ginty and Patrick are allowed to spend lots of unsupervised time alone together.

And I think Ginty's sibs are well aware of the romantic element of the friendship - ie that its not "best friends" in the way that Nicola/Patrick were. Peter comments on it to Nicola in RMF ("Spoony" he says), Nicola has seen Patrick tracing Ginty's profile with his finger on his prayerbook, and Lawrie, hilariously, suggests that Ginty and Patrick have sneaked off to Kingscote's local pub and been caught drinking cider.

I think everyone is aware that "something" is going on, but apart from Nicola, who probably has her own reasons for keeping stum, the rest of them are abnormally polite.

[antfan.livejournal.com]

Hear, hear.

[antisoppist.livejournal.com]

And the stunning remark about "paid for" sex being alright.

Patrick has been reading too much Lord Peter Wimsey and thinks it's OK with courtesans/mistresses/prostitutes because they know the score and it's a civilised business deal and no-one gets hurt (you hope). He also thinks it's OK if it is True Love but what is not OK is sex with a friend you're not in love with. Here Claudie seems to equate to Marjorie Phelps.

[antfan.livejournal.com]

And would he think it is OK to use a condom (or other contraception) during the "paid for" sex? Or not? How does that square with his religious beliefs?

[helixaspersa.livejournal.com]

I think it's subtler than "wild oats" actually, which would come a few phases later - he doesn't *like* her enough, she patronises him enormously and he (only child that he is) resents it, and she has a lover; the thing is that she's still sexy despite (and partly because) of all that. I don't imagine Claudie was intended to reappear in any case. I do think it's immensely audacious to depict a teenage boy thinking about sex in a real way for the first time - in that he could actually do it - and being so clear eyed about how neither love nor even *liking* necessarily come into it. The scenes with Claudie are much sexier than almost anything else anywhere in the books, although most readers I imagine find both characters at that point some degree of unlikable, and they certainly seem to be very ambiguous about each other. Even at 17, I had not yet grasped the truth of that sort of experience, which is why I missed elements of the book the first time I read it.

It's not unrelated I think to Nicola's thoughts about Miranda's father, who is described as impressively ugly - Nicola is shocked by it - but also, as she discovers, mysteriously magnetic. Given Nicola's reaction, and the poised beauty of both Miranda and her mother, it's obvious I think that the man has serious sex appeal and that Nicola is confronting probably for the first time the realisation that beauty, and niceness, and sex appeal are quite different things that don't always overlap.

The other relevant scene I suppose are those with Lawrie among the boy's gang in 'The Thuggery Affair' and Ginty with the traitor Foley in 'The Marlow's and the Traitor' - the latter particularly interesting because Ginty is a good bit younger there and doesn't yet seem to have a clear sense of her own potential attractiveness.

I do think it's interesting that AF doesn't offer us - that I can think of - any instance of real sexual tension between the teenage characters; it is always between one of them and an older adult (and she cut the Nicola/Patrick kiss from the last book). I think that's very interesting and, in some ways, also quite accurate.

[oursin.livejournal.com]

I encountered someone at university c. 1970 who held that belief - that men should buy sex rather that have it with respectable women friends. He was considered odd by then, though.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I really hope that Harriet has a firm conversation with Peter before he gives their sons the Talk.

[thekumquat.livejournal.com]

Yes, the book's published in 1976, but the attempts to update it to the 70s are rather tacked-on (hence jarring reference to TOTP). The feel of it is much more 'two years after Autumn Term', which I think makes it 50s at the latest?

I wouldn't be at all surprised that Patrick's parents still think of him as a child if they bother to think at all (also unlikely) - possibly helped by his being an only child? Certainly my own mother never thought of such things until she decided to explain the facts of life to me when I was moving out, aged 17 - she was quite shocked that people I was at school with had relationships with boys. Had never crossed her mind, and I certainly wouldn't have mentioned any such thing. And this was 1992!

Also as the Marlows have grown up knowing Patrick, they may well think of him more as 'extended family' and therefore off-limits for any relationship-type thoughts?

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

If it's paid for, do you assume that the woman is responsible of taking care of that side of the business, and if she doesn't, well that's her look-out?

(accidentally posted first below)

[coughingbear]

That's very astute - I had thought about the Claudie/Monica not-mentioning thing (Patrick doesn't ever really know about Monica, does he? I think he only half believes she exists when Ginty goes to stay with her), but not the mirrored problems of presence/absence.

I think they both don't really know what to do with the other, both performing. Nicola observes that Ginty is, with the books she is borrowing from Patrick, but the reader can see that Patrick is too.

[coughingbear]

I bet that's true - we know he read Sayers' Dante translations, after all.

Though I recognise the 'is it more of a sin if you care a lot or if you don't care at all' discussions.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Spending unsupervised time with a male friend is different from going out with a boyfriend, though - especially since the events at home are in the holidays, not distracting them from everyday schoolwork. Perhaps if the Marlow and Merrick parents do suspect that something is going on they are choosing not to make an issue of it and assuming it will fade away, rather than either forbidding it (on what grounds? That Patrick and Ginty are closer in age and it's not allowed, but he can still go round with Nicola?) or pushing it into becoming something their children feel they have to defend, and thus making more of it.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, I remember the 'does Monica really exist or is Ginty staying prudently out of the way?' conversation between Nicola and Patrick - is it in Run Away Home? I wonder where Patrick thought Ginty was if not with Monica. I can't imagine Mme Orly being particularly sympathetic to being used as a bolthole to avoid parental wrath, nor the unmarried aunt whose name I'm blanking on.

[coughingbear]

Yes, I think it's Run Away Home.

Is it Aunt Molly? I remember her surname is Maunsell from the conversation in the bathroom in Ready-Made Family. I suppose Patrick may not realise they are an unlikely bolthole, or imagine that there are loads of other relatives around that Ginty might visit. Perhaps no more unlikely than rushing off to succour a close friend that he'd never heard of before.

[(Anonymous)]

This is interesting stuff though I take issue with some of it: I don't remember Miranda's mother ever been described as beautiful, for one thing (don't think she ever appears in the books, does she?) and I never picked up anything sexual about Mr West. When he takes Nicola out for dinner it is all very charming but not really erotic - or am I just missing a whole dimension?

I think your point about it being adolescent/adult relationships generally that are quite "charged" is interesting though. There's a sort of attraction-repulsion thing going on with Peter and Foley; and Patrick and Jukie too I would say, though I'm not sure it's exactly sexual...but of course AF is also quite interested in the same-sex "crush" and the kind of feelings that evokes. In the historicals it is really quite dangerous - Lord Southampton and Essex.

[antfan.livejournal.com]

sorry that was me