trennels | Peter's Room and Cricket Term

theladymoppet.livejournal.com posting in

I recently snapped up reasonably-priced copies of PR and CT and re-read them for the first time in quite a few years. Here are some of my thoughts:

1. The Bronte discussion in the library in PR is fascinating but are we really supposed to agree with Karen that Gondal and Angria were a complete waste of time? Charlotte gave up Angria but it's an obvious influence on the Rochester backstory in Jane Eyre. I seem to remember from Juliet Barker's biography of the Brontes that Wuthering Heights is much more of a Gondal story than it seems as the Gondal setting was similar to Yorkshire. If Gondal and Angria were essential to the published works, weren't they a necessary part of the Brontes' creative development? Has critical opinion changed on this in the decades since PR was published?

2. When Peter pins Nicola down and twists her arm behind her back, it seems cruel and out of character for him. It could just be that he hasn't quite realised that he is getting too strong to fight with her like they did as children - but then I remembered that Foley does something similar to Nicola in TMATT and I wondered if Peter was subconsciously copying him. Foley gets mentioned in PR (because of the treachery theme coming up again I guess) and it's stated that Peter doesn't remember all that happened. I wondered if the arm-twisting incident was something he internalised and is now acting out - so that, whatever he says, Foley is still an influence on him.

3. Cricket Term - how far ahead is Karen planning? She tells Nicola that Colebridge Grammar is one of her arguments for staying in the Tranters' cottage. I wonder if she is looking ahead to starting a family of her own, because if they save on school fees and/or her family waive the rent for the cottage it makes it harder for Edwin to say they can't afford any more children. I can't see him being keen on going through the dirty nappy stage again and maybe she is already thinking how to counter his arguments?

Otherwise, I'm not sure why Karen is so keen to stay near to Trennels. Edwin doesn't get on that well with her family and you would think they'd do better making a fresh start further away.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

penguineggs.livejournal.com

I'm surprised you think of Peter's action against Nicola as being out-of-character; part of the plot exploration in PT is people exploring the dodgier bits of their own psyches through Gondal, and I always thought that Peter's combination of internal insecurity, strong personal role models he was constantly measuring himself against and failing, misguided career choice* which exacerbates the foregoing etc that it was entirely probable that if he turned to the dark side, a bully would be the sort of dark side he'd turn to.

I wonder if Karen in the library emphatically rejecting the life of the mind/imagination is foreshadowing her own conflict which comes out in TRMF? After all, she must be already involved with Edwin at that stage.

*I really think given what we know about Peter's judgment of character and ability to cope in a crisis naval officer is not an optimal career move

From:

theladymoppet.livejournal.com

I didn't mean out of character in the sense of unconvincing, just that it's a darker side to Peter than we've seen before. But I totally agree that Gondal is a vehicle for people exploring their dark side (except Nick who doesn't really want to play).

I'm no judge of whether Peter is suited to a naval career or not, but I do think his main reason for choosing it was because Giles and his father did. It's competitiveness/emulation rather than a genuine vocation. I would guess that if he'd had to wait until 18 to go to Dartmouth he would have done something else.

Yes, it's interesting to think that Karen would already be seeing Edwin! Perhaps she actually comes to see her degree as self-indulgent because she has no definite career in mind.

From: (Anonymous)

1. I think we are supposed to agree with Karen, because everything in the book also points to the same conclusion, the dangerous allure of fantasy - eg Patrick almost jumping on Nicola and not really caring or snapping out of his "Rupert" role, and of course the almost shooting. And that's why Nicola decides to stop Gondalling - she remembers what Karen has said, or rather it has been nagging at her all along.

It's rather odd that a novelist should be so against imaginative games-playing, but there you are.

I think her point is that if you write a novel you are producing something definite with your imaginings, but that otherwise drifting about in a dream world is rather self-indulgent, and not ultimately creative. Not saying she's right about that, by the way.

3. You could be right, but I think Karen maybe just doesn't fancy the upheaval of a move, now that they are sort of settled.

From:

theladymoppet.livejournal.com

My blood runs cold when I think about what nearly became of Patrick. But I've never found it a convincing argument against Gondals, because plays would be just as dangerous if loaded guns were used as props.

It makes more sense that writing a play or a novel or making a canoe would be a better use of the time, because it's constructive and Gondalling isn't. Still I don't think they gave the Gondal its best chance by holding it in the Shippen, which appears to be cursed. No good was likely to come of it.

From:

lilliburlero.livejournal.com

I'm re-reading Peter's Room at the moment as well. I find Forest's repression of emotion agenda disturbing in all the books. It's wholly characteristic of her era and worldview, I know, but I'm coming to feel that the disconnect between that and the painstaking attention to characterising inner lives is actually the artistic motor of the whole series.
Karen's homily in the library I think is meant to be slightly repellent, even though it probably expresses a cruder version of Forest's own views: it's a good example of the noveliest testing her own viewpoint to destruction, I think. I also like the idea of Edwin being an influence on Karen's slightly gritted-teeth good sense (though I don't know enough about Forest's process of composition to know if Edwin was thought of at that point: there's some 7 years between Peter's Room and The Ready-Made Family, isn't there?)
I find the characters who are caught up in the game much more interesting than Nicola for most of it, but the novel delivers a wonderful flip on that in the hunting and party episodes. I think there's a genuine intellectual interest and conflict around the issue of imagination, play and utility which is really done no favours by reading it as an anti-rolepaying novel*. The GGB reprint has some pretty ghastly didactic cover copy in this regard.

*Himself Indoors, who was a teenage Dungeonmaster in a conservative though not wingnutty American Christian family during the D&D moral panic of the 1980s, is completely fascinated by it, btw.

From:

antfan.livejournal.com

That's a really interesting thought. Are you saying there is a contradiction though between detailing internal thoughts and being against emotional display?

From:

lilliburlero.livejournal.com

Not a contradiction in terms: I mean that being so interested in emotional states and yet so determined that the right thing to do is not to express them to others is a powerful artistic motive.

From:

jackmerlin.livejournal.com

One of the dangers of getting too absorbed in a fantasy world is that it prevents one from engaging fully in real relationships. Patrick spent the best part of a year thinking he was in love with 'Rosina' before the circumstances of TAT woke him up to the realisation that Ginty was Ginty - with her own weaknesses and failings - and not Rosina. By then, real people had had real feelings hurt.

From:

lilliburlero.livejournal.com

But the roleplaying is surely a symptom and not a cause of that in both Patrick and Ginty -- that is, they are attracted to roleplay because of their pre-existing tendency to make fantasy versions of people, rather than roleplay fostering that in them. I get the sense from Attic Term that they both -- in their different ways -- would have created idealised versions of one another, Gondal or no Gondal.

From:

rosathome.livejournal.com

I think it's both. You're right that they both have that natural tendency which is why they are the only two to continue Gondalling after PR, but the role-playing legitimises it and gives it a name and thus makes them both take it further (individually and together) than they otherwise might have done.

From: (Anonymous)

1. I do think we're meant to agree with Karen in the library, although the meat of what she says is slightly over-laid with some issues that are very Karen-y (like just how angry she is with Charlotte B for reading Emily's poems. But this does fit with the Marlows as a very private family, I suppose. My reasons:

a) Karen's being presented here as a scholar, and as quite sensible and generally right - she gets to correct Nick about Haklyut, for example. All this goes toward her characterisation at this point as intellectual authority.

b) Karen is arguing AGAINST Ginty - whom we're rarely meant to sympathise with

c) Her view of art and artists is a pragmatic, no-nonsense one of the kind I should think AF shared or at least admired. There's a lack of humbug about it: don't pretend you're sad when Best Friend fails her exams; don't tell your sister her poetry is good when it's not

d) she's given an emphatically pro-Rowan line here, when she gets cross with Nick for calling her a 'bossy type'. I think this means AF is lining herself up with Kay at this point.

e) Karen is proved right because Gondalling does go bad - and there's even a suggestion it's a bit devilish, isn't there, with Peter thinking about his coin turning to fairy gold?

I think AF's approach to art was like her approach to life - direct and down to earth. Interestingly, we do find that both Gin and Nick sometimes try to write poetry, so obv she doesn't think it's namby pamby in itself. You just shouldn't waft about '*being* a poet' at the expense of writing some poetry. Cf also Tim's 'father's not at all artistic. Father paints'.

(I also think it's irrelevant that by the book's timeline, Kay should have met Edwin by then. I don't think AF thought that for a moment)

2. Peter twisting the arm isn't so out of character - they can all be a bit handy when they need (Nick thumping Pomona, for instance!). Peter is a bit of a git and has a bit of a temper. I don't think he's meant to be subconsciously aping Foley - just that in AF's world, people do twist other people's arms sometimes. I've always thought it rather overdone the way Nick won't admit that it hurt, though!

3. Karen is planning. As Nick says 'you're just like Lawrie - you make your thing happen and pooh to the rest of us!'. In fact both Nick and Lawrie over-plan in the first book, but by later on, it's only Lawrie who still goes in for plans and intentions. Interestingly, Ginty is prone to this too. AF seems to see it as a function of a slightly narcissistic character, maybe? I think she wants to stay there because it's Trennels and family and all the rest of it - and possibly also doesn't want to lose Mrs M's help with the children! Rose and Chas aren't going to board anywhere if old non-church-going, Guardian-reading Mister has anything to do with it, and at least the Colebridge Grammars seem like a known quantity.

Karen also likes things to stay the same, I think - hence wearing stripey jamas even at Oxford! She would, I think, generally balk at moving away and setting up home somewhere new and alone.

And I don't think either of them want babies!

From:

antfan.livejournal.com

What a great analysis! (Whoever you are) I think you are right on all counts!

(Except I think possibly Karen might want a baby. After all, she doesn't rule in out when Lawrie says they have to do is symmetrically - in fact she says something like "we'll see what we can do".)

From:

theladymoppet.livejournal.com

What exactly does Lawrie say and when?

I think that when Fob is nine or ten, Karen will bring up the idea of more children, and when Edwin rejects the notion, she will calmly stop taking the Pill. Once pregnant she reminds a fuming Edwin that only abstinence is 100% effective.

From:

antfan.livejournal.com

Lawrie says - over lunch, when Karen first breaks the news - that the older Dodds are almost like going on from the Marlows but Fob is a bit of a jump. But that it might work out if Karen waits for a bit before having a baby herself.

Karen is amused and says something like "all in the cause of symmetry, I'll see what I can do"

It always intrigued me, because if it's going to be symmetrical around Fob, then presumably Karen has to have a vast number of children. (marlows plus elder Dodds). Unless I've missed what Lawrie is getting at here.

From: (Anonymous)

I think that might be a non-serious answer to the random babblings of a child - the suggestion could well have come from a 6-year-old and I think it may have been answered accordingly.

From:

colne-dsr.livejournal.com

[Last message from colne_dsr]

From:

theladymoppet.livejournal.com

Thanks antfan, I'd forgotten that bit.

colne_dsr, I agree Karen isn't really taking Lawrie seriously, but I think the fact she is amused shows that she doesn't consider the idea of future children to be an issue at all. If she anticipated any conflict with Edwin over it, I think she would be slightly flustered (even by a very lighthearted comment) in the same way she is when it comes up (can't remember how) that Edwin and his first wife hadn't made the final decision to divorce and, had it not been for her untimely death, might have reunited.

From:

ethelmay.livejournal.com

I always read that as Karen being expected to have two more, fairly close together, the first one as far after Fob as Fob is after Chas, and the second one as far after the first as Chas is after Rose. Never thought of it including symmetry for all the Marlows as well!

From:

theladymoppet.livejournal.com

Going off at a slight tangent, Christmas must get pretty expensive in Marlow-land. Seven siblings to buy for, then the three Dodd children on top. And then Karen starts having children...

From:

antfan.livejournal.com

From:

theladymoppet.livejournal.com

I think Rowan is a bossy type (eg when she puts pressure on Gin to enter the diving competition) but she would never raid someone's private stash of poetry and insist that the writer published it. So AF/Karen is on Emily's side at that point even though Emily continued to wallow in her private fantasy world rather than breaking free as Charlotte did.

I'd forgotten about Tim's father! Yes, it makes a lot of sense in that context.

From:

lilliburlero.livejournal.com

Kay should have met Edwin by then. I don't think AF thought that for a moment

Though it does make rather a nice retrospective irony that by the time the Ready Made Family rolls around Karen has ended up doing just what Ginty and Patrick do, but with adult and permanent consequences -- I get the feeling that she idealises Edwin rather at Oxford, and it's not until she gets him on home turf that she recognises him for the person he is.

From:

jackmerlin.livejournal.com

I think too much is being read into the arm twisting and I disagree with describing Peter as a bully. My brother and I were close in age and size and strength until our late teens much like Nicola and Peter and we would fight and wrestle and occasionally hurt each other but without malicious intent. I think as theladymoppet says, Peter simply hasn't realised he is getting stronger than Nicola.

From: (Anonymous)

Thanks antfan - I'm ElaineRees (not in real life, obv. Don't even live at Hendon), but can't remember my password!

You are right about Karen and more babies, I'd forgotten that line - it actually breaks the bad atmosphere for a moment, doesn't it? And SO right that she would just stop taking the pill!

From:

antfan.livejournal.com

Yes, I think she'd just decide too...

From:

jackmerlin.livejournal.com

Although what era is RMF officially set in? If it is set in the hazy "sometime after the war period" then the Pill does not exist, and the issue of whether or not Edwin and Karen had children or not might not even have been discussed that much as it was taken for granted that married people probably would end up having children. I wonder if that was part of Edwin's initial apparent reluctance to marry Karen.

From:

ethelmay.livejournal.com

Doesn't Ginty, when thinking about a dress, want something gear and mini and what not? That says sixties to me, and that says Pill :-)

From: (Anonymous)

In the forward to one of the books AF writes that each is set at the time it is written - and so as a hwole the books chronical between the 40's and the 90's. It will be interesting to see if the new 'Spring Term' follows this tradition or is stuck at same period as FAH.

From: (Anonymous)

Another thing which is interesting - Karen is actually quite prescient in terms of the way critics and biographers now think about the Brontes - Juliet Barker and also Lucasta Miller (I think her name was - book called The Bronte Myth) work very hard to explode the myth of them being up on the moors surrounded by gravestones and mad Dad. Barker also points out the whole imaginary landscape business itself wasn't entirely unique at the time.

I've always thought it was interesting how ahead of her time Karen is in all this!

From:

theladymoppet.livejournal.com

I've read the Barker biography several times and enjoyed Lucasta Miller's book too. Although IIRC some of the things Karen says have been discredited - eg Anne Bronte's romance with a curate - I agree that she's mostly very ahead of popular opinion. I don't agree with Karen that Anne kept on with Gondal just to please Emily but she seems to have kept it well under control and didn't draw on it for her fiction as Charlotte and Emily did. I've always thought Wildfell Hall is a hugely underrated novel and if Anne hadn't been Charlotte and Emily's sister, her reputation would stand much higher, even with only one major work to her credit.

From:

theladymoppet.livejournal.com

Another question.

Before the hunt Mrs Marlow runs through hunting etiquette with her offspring and tells them, "Don't coffee-house at a check - it distracts the hounds, poor sweeties."

I interpreted this to mean, "Don't start chatting loudly amongst yourselves when the hounds have temporarily lost the scent, it distracts them from finding it again."

That I can understand. But when everyone stops to have something to eat, "All round people were dismounting and opening flasks and packages and slabs of chocolate" and Patrick and Ginty ask Nicola where she's been and find out that Nicola jumped the Cut, "Lawrie...nodded to where their mother, still immaculate, sat not coffee-housing with those around her..."

Isn't there a difference between a check and a hunt breakfast, even when the breakfast is only really a short break for a very informal picnic? My point is, it seems a bit unsociable of Mrs Marlow not to chat with her neighbours at that point. Or are they all supposed to sit and eat their sandwiches in perfect silence?

I never learned to ride much less hunt so I'd be grateful for opinions from others who are better informed.

From: (Anonymous)

I've never been sure what coffee housing is, if it's anything more specific than having a bit of a break!

Karen's 'all in the cause of symetry' comment I agree is just a moment of relative humour and not taking anything Lawrie says very seriously. I did think if anything they just meant the same gap from Fob to the next as from Nick and Lawrie to Rose...

But Lawrie is strikingly thick about sex and stuff, isn't she? Like when she says in all innocence 'd'you have to get married in such a hurry?' and Pam reassures one and all that she didn't mean anything mucky! And it's in Cricket Term that Rowan says They would 'never let a lower fourth stamp around saying it wishes it'd've violated Miranda's honour.....'.

Re. timeframe of RMF, I think it's meant to be roughly when it was written, as they usually are - there's Ginty's comment about beatniks and friends with divorced parents (though that comes in End Of first, doesn't it?), and something I've never quite understood about green lipstick and 'spectre' in Oxford. In fact, if anyone can explain that jokette to me, I'll be very grateful!

On the subject of Christmas presents, I don't think they go in for them much (except the revolting sounding frocks in RAH). Remember in PR, when they basically can't wait for Christmas to be over so that 'the holidays proper' can begin? Big pressies a bit non-U, I should think!

ElaineR.

From:

occasionalhope.livejournal.com

"the same gap from Fob to the next as from Nick and Lawrie to Rose"

But in fact, that reveals Lawrie's innumeracy, because Karen would have to start at once to replicate that gap.

From:

mrs-redboots.livejournal.com

James Bond's enemies came from SPECTRE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPECTRE

From:

jackmerlin.livejournal.com

Didn't Nicola buy everybody sticks of sealing wax because she was short of money? What did people use sealing wax for?

From:

theladymoppet.livejournal.com

There are a lot of gaps in Lawrie's knowledge because she's so self-absorbed that she doesn't take in much that doesn't relate directly to her. She starts experimenting with make-up and trying to attract the opposite sex in TTA, but IIRC she doesn't anticipate that she might be in any physical danger running around with Red Ted's gang (and nor does Peter who is equally naive). I don't think Lawrie has a clue about what goes where but then how could she? Sex education isn't on the curriculum at Kingscote and I can't see Mrs Marlow expecting to discuss it with her until she's much older.

Then there's Lawrie's startling comment about how if Kay's marriage doesn't work out she can always get a divorce. I think it's a mixture of childish simplicity and an attempt at a sophisticated worldly-wise attitude but once she gets out into the real world, I think the attempt will rapidly become the real thing. I can imagine the horror round the Marlow dinner table when Peter nonchalantly reveals that Lawrie has "shacked up" with a fellow actor in London. Mrs Marlow will bravely refer to it as a "trial marriage" to an agog Helena Merrick when the subject comes up over morning coffee.

They do only start thinking about Christmas decorations and presents a day or so before, rather than weeks in advance as many people do now, and the sealing wax suggests it was okay not to spend all that much. I used to play around with sealing wax when I was a teen because I inherited a Victorian seal from my grandmother. In the 1960s I think sealing wax might still have been in practical use to seal string knots on brown paper parcels. I got my sealing wax from old stock from my grandparents' shop. From the same place came a large roll of brown wrapping paper, far thicker and better quality than what is sold today, which is still in my father's attic AFAIK.

The frocks in RAH, BTW, sound very much as if they came out of my Sindy doll's 1980s Emmanuel-designed wardrobe.

From:

ethelmay.livejournal.com

I think she might perfectly well know about what goes where, but not think that she herself was in any danger of getting raped (that happens to other people, like, uh, I dunno, famines or something). There is a big difference between knowing the "facts of life" and having the ability to size up a social situation realistically. At that age I don't think I would have had a clue about date rape, either (whereas I *had* had some rather frightening brushes with strange men, fortunately not resulting in anything serious).