Spring Term: A review

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

1. Cover. The picture isn't bad, I suppose. Very reminiscent of the 1980's covers, featuring Ginty, Ann and a bed exactly like the ones we had at my boarding school. The text on the cover looks like it was done with MS Paint. Dreadful. It says 'Antonia Forest's Kingscote SPRING TERM' near the top and 'Sally Hayward' in smaller letters near the bottom.

2. Length. It feels longer than AF's school books (though I haven't actually checked the page counts) and it definitely needed stronger editing to tighten it up.

3. Plot. Is a mix of all AF's story elements thrown together. I don't think there's actually one new idea in the whole book. In no particular order we have: Nicola in a singing competition; Lawrie in a play with Tim directing it; Edwin with some discoveries about the farm log; Patrick and Nicola hawking together; Ginty doing something really stupid and intrusive and then getting all aggrieved when she is found out; Lawrie having to go into a B form; and the rest.

4. Characterisation. I think this is where Hayward is weakest. All her characters sound like Nicola. Now, I like Nicola, but she is not Miranda or Lawrie. She's certainly not Ann or Ginty. And so on. I didn't get any of the depth of characterisation which makes AF's writing so incredible. I didn't learn anything new about any of the characters, mostly because they don't learn anything new about themselves.

5. Prose. Is mostly okay. There are times when I longed for AF's beautiful, clear, precise use of language, but Hayward's writing is more than serviceable for the most part.

6. Setting. Is around the time of Run Away Home, rather than contemporary. Hayward explains that this was in large part for plot reasons, so that she could use letters rather than texts/emails etc. Meh.

My verdict:

It's moderately good fanfiction. It's not the best AF fic I've read, but it's far from being the worst. What it's not, in my view, is worth paying actual money for when you can read excellent fanfic online for free. I know GGBP have previously published Chalet School fic, but I hope that they are not tempted to publish any more AF fic.

Oh, I forgot to say. It's not safe to read if you have any kind of aversion to italics or exclamation marks which are liberally spread through the whole book.

Comments

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

I have to totally disagree with some of your points.
1. I liked the cover precisely because it was reminiscent of the eighties covers.
2. This didn't seem any longer to me than the original school books. I'm going to count pages now.
3,4,5, Good fan-fic/ continuation novels are written as a homage to the original author, you can choose whether to read them or not as you please. They are supposed to be good pastiche, not startling originality. If there were anything "new" or different to do with plot or character in the book the author would rightly be accused of making the characters do things that the original author would never have intended or approved of. I have a couple of niggles with the plot, but on the whole I found it satisfying that there was nothing in the book that hadn't been pointed to in the canon, and that all the characters' actions felt true to what we know of them.
6. What is your complaint with the setting? All of AF's books up to Thuggery Affair were set in the same post-war setting, before she then jumped to the 60s for TA; RMF and Cricket Term could be any setting as they're so family/school orientated; and Attic Term and RAH were contemporary to the time of writing. In my opinion the least successful of the Marlow books are the ones that jumped into the future (TA, AT and RAH) - I think the Marlows in the mid- eighties stretch my suspension of disbelief and I don't think even AF could have brought them into 2011.

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

My points were mostly observations not complaints.

But I do think that if you are going to publish a book and sell it to people, it will be held to higher standards than online fanfic. As a book, I think this is weak.

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

It has just occurred to me that End of Term and Peter's Room must have been Sixties too because Patrick is going on about the Vatican 2 changes. But you wouldn't really know from anything else in the feel of the background setting.

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

Now for my niggles. Would a school really suspend a pupil for reading another pupil's letter, especially when it was between family members?
Does the author know how much ponies cost? If Lawrie hadn't paid Nicola for the half of the Idiot Boy that she swapped for the Folio, how did Nicola have enough savings left to buy another pony? And Peter couldn't have just given Lawrie his half for a record token! I'm sure the Marlow parents would have insisted on Lawrie paying both of them back from her own Savings Bonds or whatever it was that they had.

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

If that pupil had previously received a Conduct Mark, then yes, I think the suspension is believable.

[charverz.livejournal.com]

Yes, since the rule is to prevent thefts as much as anything. So Ginty has to be made an Awful Example. An actual theft would probably mean expulsion, barring extenuating circumstances.

[jinty]

I have lurked off and on in this community but am now moved to join, having just read Spring Term.

I don't think the cover is much cop, to be honest. It is quite reminiscent of the 80s covers as you say but it's not great drawing.

Overall I agree with jackmerlin below that publishing it as continuation fic rather means that the SH is bound to have to make it slightly conservative in plot & character developement - I don't think much in the way of startling originality would be a very good idea. I love the way that fanfic has the flexibility to be utterly out of canon and to explore character development that the original author didn't think of / wouldn't have anticipated / possibly even would have been outraged by(!) but I don't think that is what would be appropriate for continuation novels.

I think that when I started the book I would have agreed more with your overall comments, but from at least half-way I found myself utterly gripped, couldn't put it down, laughed out loud at several bits, and when I finally finished I felt like I'd read an actual AF book that mostly gave me what I wanted.

There is some fanservice, particularly for Nick/Patrick shippers of course, and I think Ginty gets stomped on pretty hard. I don't mind those aspect personally but I do think those aspects are more fannish and less AFish.

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

I wasn't hoping for wildly outrageous innovation. I was hoping for something more than a pastiche of previous AF plots.

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

I think one thing that is absolutely NOT AF is Nicola choosing Bakewell tart instead of special chocolate cake in the Copper Kettle!

cover

[sprog-63.livejournal.com]

Initially I was happy with the cover (I too have some of the Puffin 80's pbks), but after I read the chapter Ginty's Crime I became disatisfied: Ann can't see what Ginty is doing as Ginty's back shields her from Ann's view. The plot hinges on Ann having seen Ginty reading the letter. But then you don't judge a book by it's cover (!) and I was totally absorbed in the story and loved it.

[lizarfau.livejournal.com]

How could a continuation novel be set in 2011? At some stage, if Ginty were mentioned, one would have to refer to the events of The Attic Term - and the idea of her having to use the secretary's phone the previous term is ridiculous in an age of texting, FB etc. In re-reading the series, I find The Attic Term to be the most dated after The Thuggery Affair because of the technological shift. The rapidity of technological change is an aspect many contemporary series authors struggle with, and I don't think it would work well for the Marlows. Has there been any fan fic that has the Marlows with iPads updating Twitter?

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

AF managed with the references to the Blitz in her later-set novels.

[intrepid--fox.livejournal.com]

I mainly enjoyed it. As rosathome says, Sally H isn't up to AF's standard as a writer, but who is? (Not to mention that anyone who wrote *that* well would probably be off writing their own stuff, not fanfiction. But just here and there a phrase made me smile and think of AF.

My main criticism was that there seemed to be so much stuffed into the plot. I'm not sure there was a character in canon who didn't get a mention. Of course, the compulsion to explain how everything worked out for everyone is understandable in writing this kind of follow-on: AF had the luxury of knowing that she could pick up on a theme or a character in the next book. The inclusion of Selby, for example, was completely wasted - it could have been used to throw an interesting sidelight on someone's character, but wasn't.

I was happy with the early 80s setting: as jackmerlin says, I just can't see the Marlows, or even Kingscote, in 2011; and the contortions to bring mobiles/emails/the internet into the frame would have been much more jarring. AF might have been able to do it, but we'd've cut AF more slack!

The other thing that struck me was the slightly different take on the religious elements. It's striking, in canon, that none of the young characters, with the two notable exceptions of Ann and Patrick, believe in god. Nicola is interested in religion/catholicism, but not a believer, and all the rest have a cheerful unbelief. I found it very hard to believe in Lawrie telling Ann that she should have prayed for guidance, or in Nicola thinking that God might be nearer than she'd ever thought.

But overall, a good solid B.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

(Not yet read it.) I can sort of see Nicola thinking God might be nearer than she'd ever thought - in the right moment, totally unsentimental - because Nicola has got this introspective, interested streak in religion, and I can see her, in a moment, being moved and _thinking_ it - consciously. But not conventionally, not romantically, and certainly not as something that would be natural to think.

Whereas Lawrie's main belief, as I recall, is in the power of Them.

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

Yes, Selby could have been usefully used to make Patrick jealous, seeing Nicola getting on well with another boy.
One of the bits I loved about this book was Peter's description of his father arriving home to a house full of strange children - I thought this section very close to the 'real thing'.
I wasn't sure about the mention of their father sailing off to the Falklands war at the end, mainly because I thought that if the Falklands were going to be brought into it, we should have seen the Marlow girls worrying about it and talking about it at school. It would have been too major a thing to be happening in all their lives to be mentioned only in passing.

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

Rowan in End of Term talks about sometimes believing and sometimes not.

I agree that all the characters seemed to have been stuffed in just for the sake of being there. One of the things that works well in AF's books is the focus on different characters in each story. There's even a whole book without Nicola.

[charverz.livejournal.com]

I think in some ways Nick is more spiritual than Ann (and Ann certainly could use a good spiritual advisor if she isn't going to turn into a total wreck). Whether Nick could end up Catholic under Patrick's influence is a possibility, but not a certainty.

Ann's religion strikes me as more of a code of behaviour plus a set of practices, rather than an internal thing, as it is with Patrick.

[(Anonymous)]

I think there's some nitpicking in the OP's reading of it - if ros was expecting something indistinguishable from what AF wrote, she was bound to be disappointed. For me, well worth the money, and I would certainly buy the next in the series (hopes?)

As the OP says, there isn't much entirely new, EXCEPT FOR Ginty's troubles - she's always wriggled out of difficulty before.

There are some great laugh-out-loud lines in there as well. I especially liked Chas's comment about Patrick and Nicola having lots of children together, and P&N's reaction.

There are huge differences between this and the original fanfic, no longer available online. I'm very sorry to lose Cory Corey, and although Broomhill in the original was absolutely too bad to be true, it's a great shame to lose all the Patrick angst that goes with it. And the ending to that fanfic was beautiful. My commiserations to all who didn't get to read it - I'm no publisher, but frankly the two are so different that I don't really see why the fanfic has to be withdrawn. Maybe the "deleted scenes" could be republished?

(As for the price of the pony, it's not way out. Nicola's windfall brought in £79 and a few shillings, if memory serves; that would be worth £2250 or so in 2011 prices, which is plenty to buy a pony.)

[colne-dsr.livejournal.com]

Anonymous at 2011-11-04 11.05 am was me, forgot to log in, sorry.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Mod note - comments are getting deleted to remove spam, not because of any attempt to stop the very interesting discussion of Sally Hayward's book. There seems to have been an uptick in spam over the whole Livejournal site this week.

[lizzzar.livejournal.com]

I can't remember Patrick mentioning Vatican II in either End of
Term or Peter's Room. They are both set in the late forties in
theory, although Peter's Room does contain some references that
are in fact fifties.

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

In my memory of Patrick he is always going on about the changes in the Catholic Church so I probably projected my memories back too far! It's yet another reason why I think you couldn't set a Marlow book in 2011, being Catholic for a 16 year old boy would be a completely different experience.

[res23.livejournal.com]

I liked many things about it. I'd read the original fan-fic ages ago, and had forgotten much about it, though I did remember more about Patrick and Broomhill in it.

I do agree with other characters coming out as too Nicola, particularly Lawrie in the scene on the roof at the end, and her feelings before the play. That just didn't ring true to me. I can't see her being nervous in quite that way, or perhaps not introspective about it like that. She just never seems self-aware enough for some of the things in this book.

The Edward Oeschli thing coming out to everyone also didn't seem likely; in fact, I thought there were hints in Run Away Home about some generic future time when it was hinted that it hadn't actually come out, although I could very well be wrong about that.

I thought the ending was very harsh on Ginty, and wasn't altogether convinced by it, though I don't know whether that is a criticim of the book or just that I felt a bit sorry for her. Perhaps it's that I didn't know enough about her friends to know quite how they'd react, particularly Monica.

Plenty of re-used phrases and plot devices from previous novels, but that didn't stop me enjoying it, and there were lots of things I liked, including Nicola's visits to the cathedral.

[(Anonymous)]

sorry, my browser won't allow me to log in and create a name etc.

I enjoyed the novel a lot - to me, it was just like having a real AF to devour. In fact, I preferred it to Attic Term where I think AF was just too out of touch with the zeitgeist to convince, I found all the Changegear stuff horribly creaky. This was more in the spirit of, imo, her masterpiece -The Cricket Term.

Yes, perhaps too many characters were crammed in for the sake of it. I also found Patrick declaring his love so openly a bit unlikely, and as a Marlow would say "icky." As is pointed out, Nick is only 14, really too young for a grand love affair. I also thought Ginty's downfall was too complete - it leaves her with little room to move into if there's a follow up (and GGB, please note, I really hope there is because I would buy it). I think AF would have treated Ginty with slightly more ambivalence, she would either have fooled her friends, or the school, or her family - to see her shamed in everyone's eyes was too unsubtle.

To whoever said liberal use of italics - AF loved italics. Cricket Term is stuffed with them. Exclamation marks I didn't notice.

All in all, muchas congrats to Sally Hayward, I think she pulled it off as well as anyone could have done. Please write another soon - set at school, not Trennels!

[cacklingmags.livejournal.com]

Great book, well done to Sally Hayward. Yeah, Lawrie was getting a bit too sensible and poor old Ginja nearly morphed into Lois Sanger. But it was a gripping read and very, very satisfying. Get writing Sally.

Ginty - Lois similarity

[sprog-63.livejournal.com]

In my reading of the canon, Ginty and Lois (and Marie Dobson) have always shared the characteristic of eschewing the truth in favour of whatever story will put them in a better light. The only one of the three who has the slightest insight into this behaviour is Lois (Autumn Term). We see this when she asks Redmond if she has passed the hike and then briefly meditates on how unfair it is - and then realises that she (Lois) is being idiotic. Similarly she does try and make amends to the twins by helping with Prince and the Pauper [I love her mental conversation with herself where she convinces herself that they would prefer this to her telling the truth to Redmond: and of course it wins Lawrie over]. I don't think Ginty would even think there were amends to be made in such a situation - rather she would continue to put all blame onto the twins for disobeying her! The most recognition of her own internal dishonesty that Ginty manages in Attic Term is a flicker of guilt about having pretended to Monica that she messed up the diving on purpose so that Monica would win. I've never thought there was much to chose between Ginty and Lois in this respect.

[(Anonymous)]

I really enjoyed Sally's book and thought she got the feel of AF pretty well.Infact I read Run away home last week in preparation for reading this and I enjoyed this more!!

[(Anonymous)]

I was ordering some Christmas stuff from Amazon and decided to treat myself to this - it arrived yesterday, just at the end of a very busy couple of days, and I was able at last to spend an evening lying around reading. Maybe this helped me to be more well disposed to the book, which I hadn't read in its fanfic version, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Yes, sure, there are a few points where one could debate whether Forest would have had such-and-such happen but I think that's a fairly pointless exercise (although quite interesting, in an academic sort of way) when it comes to assessing the book on its own merits. Everybody was basically in character, the language was basically appropriate and the plot engaged me. I felt for Ginty too, while being exasperated with her, and the punishment was stupidly severe. Hayward, I think, comes down slightly more on the Staff ACTUALLY being wrong while Forest left that judgement to the characters and the reader's discretion, but I didn't mind really. And I could see Monica, or anyone, finally being driven to distraction by the lies - she might have forgiven Ginty in the end if it weren't for the last one about diving. It was dramatic, certainly, but enjoyably/painfully so. I'd be glad to see another Hawyard sequel.

Re the Falklands ending, I got the impression that he had only just been given the orders ie the conflict had barely started so the girls wouldn't really have been aware of it yet. Set up for a sequel, perhaps. Frankly, I hope the old duffer snuffs it, I have never cared for this absurdly absent father who makes much less sense the further the saga shifts in time and the (in character) scene of him being annoyed to find a houseful of people he doesn't recognise - including his own daughter's stepchildren he's apparently never met! - when he's never there just exacerbated this feeling.

Most entertaining passage was where Ginty muses on how Miss Keith has looked the same since the war and whether she'll still look young when she herself is 60 ... sneaky!

- Andrea

[colne-dsr.livejournal.com]

The Argentine invasion was on Friday April 2nd, and Easter day was April 11th. So presumably the play was on the weekend of the invasion - or possibly just before, because I think British intelligence had a day or two warning of the invasion, so if Captain Marlow just happened to be in the nearest ship in the Atlantic, he could have been sent on his way post haste.