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trennels2014-05-23 12:10 am
lilliburlero.livejournal.com) wrote in trennels2014-05-23 12:10 am
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Readthrough: Autumn Term: Chapters 1-5
I'm just going to plunge in straight away with some suggestions for things you might like to discuss, but do feel free to raise topics and questions in the comments. If you don't have an LJ and you're commenting anonymously, please sign your comments.
The economy with which Forest draws her characters in the first few paragraphs is really remarkable, I think: we learn about Nicola's inquisitive restlessness, Lawrie's relative timidity ('stuck to chicken and ice-cream' on their restaurant lunches), Karen's slightly uncertain authority, Rowan's sarcasm, and (parenthetically) Ginty's 'unreliability'. We even get a sketch of Giles, who isn't going to show up again for a good few chapters. Ann is less vividly present, and Peter has to wait for the conversation with Tim to get a mention. But although there is a fair amount of info-dump in these opening pages, it's really rather suavely done as part of Nicola's twitchy internal monologue. I'm immediately alert to how the characters might fulfil or disappoint these initial glimpses.
The idea of Tim apparently emerged from a correspondence in which Forest's interlocutor suggested that it would be fun to have a schoolgirl related to an authority figure who, instead of being shy about it, is determined to exploit it for all she's worth. But the privilege (and the disadvantages) of having illustrious relative at school is a serious theme in the novel. Our sympathetic and pov characters are the privileged ones, but we get glimpses of how sheerly aggravating Marlow (and other) privilege might be to those who do not enjoy it.
Ambition and showing off: ambition is mandatory, talking about it is firmly discouraged--the authorial voice as well as Nicola squashes Lawrie's confessions of the twins' fantasies of success to an outsider. I find this a really interesting analogue to the way in which Forest outlines characters with highly developed inner lives who nonetheless vigorously suppress manifestations of emotion, either positive or negative. Of course 1940s codes of English middle-class behaviour demand such suppression, but Forest is I think notable in her deep interest in complex emotion and her characters' parallel investment in not letting it show.
Crushes and queerness: Lawrie's various pashes--on Margaret to start with, then on Lois, are more prominent than I remember. Elsewhere, sympathetic characters express vigorous disapproval of crushes as soppy, but there is I think a general sympathy with same-sex attachments in the series as a whole. (Do share your sexuality headcanon for Forest characters!)
The contrast between Lawrie and Nicola, symbolised by the gifts of watch and knife respectively.
Staff-pupil interactions: Miss Cromwell's frank disapproval of prefects and Karen's confusion. The staff are very engagingly flawed in Forest's novels, I think--sometimes to the point of outright pottiness; Miss Keith being no exception.
Rowan's suavity: her treating Nicola to a raspberryade in a crisis situation offers a parallel to Giles, later on. Rowan's one for the competence kinksters among us, I think--how do you feel about her?
Ginty not being 'the tomboy of the Remove': Forest's consistent commentary on the clichés of school stories.
The taboo on crying is, of course, simply part of childhood and adolescence, but am I alone in feeling Forest lays very particular stress on the ignominy of tears, and interestingly, particular emphasis on coping with the embarrassment of others weeping?
More views of the Marlows from outsiders' perspectives and how that's very interestingly constrained by limited (if variable and multiple) POV: Lois's unfriendliness to Rowan.
Nicola's photographs of Nelson and Giles's ship are rather adorable: as we see them at the moment, her crushes are deflected where Lawrie's are straightforward, it seems.
The ethics of trespass and pear-scrumping: what do you make of Nicola's scruples about Tim's apparent theft?
That segues with an almost word-associative flair into the arrival of Pomona. (Pause to appreciate![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ankaret's fic about the Marlow cousin who practised her pretty wiles on grownups. This should have a damn sight more attention, imnsho.)
Tim's wonderfully sophisticated hostility to artyness: 'Father's not at all artistic. Father paints.' 'My father and hers were at school together [...] One fagged for the other, or they blacked each other's eyes or something equally touching.' Tim Keith, 12 and a half going on 35. Plausible? More commentary on school-story clichés, we note, boys' ones this time. Tim's disgust at Pomona's dress and behaviour seems to feed into a very common aversion to 'progressive' thought and education in novels of the period, for children and adults alike: it's there in writers as different as C.S. Lewis and Mary Renault, for example.
In Tim's mention of an Anti-Pomona League there are the first hints of a--to me--very disturbing storyline about bullying, narrated almost exclusively (but not quite, which is what is rather chilling about it: it's not that Forest hasn't considered the victims' feelings, she just seems to dismiss them) from the point of view of the bullies.
The exam scene is beautifully atmospheric, I think: Forest catches examination panic wonderfully. Share your stories.
And that emotional repression again: the code of behaviour demands the suppression of disappointment, and later, we'll find, pleasure and elation too. It does raise questions about what the purpose of it all is. What the the tenor of life is like, if everyone is successfully quashing their feelings to a steady, self-possessed politesse?
There's some great stuff in this chapter about attachment to objects in childhood, whether it's Nicola's desire to have heirloom books, or the desk itself. I was fascinated aged 9 and am fascinated now (as a lecturer whose classes fill from the back, like buses, and who has to coax students towards me with repeated assurances that as a 5'2" bantamweight with no formal combat training, there's very little harm I can do them) that front-row visibility might be desirable to schoolchildren.
The evolution of the Tim/Nick/Lawrie triad, and Nicola's distrust of Tim's 'reliability as an ally'. Forest is fascinated by unreliable, disloyal, subversive, do-it-for-the-thrills-and-the-heck-of-it characters, I think, and she writes brilliant ones: Foley, Jukie, Patrick anyone?
Marie Dobson: how I'd love to read fic from her perspective. Anyone know any, or do I have to write it? What do people think of Marie?
The Delicate/Backward/Plain Stupid taxonomy delighted me on first reading and delights me now, and I really enjoy the underdog solidarity of Third Remove. But the educational philosophies of Kingscote are entirely baffling to me: would anyone care to make sense of them?
As I've said, the bullying of Pomona is disturbing to me as an adult, though as a child reader I accepted it quite readily. I feel a sense of Forest's complicity with her sympathetic characters, who behave really rather appallingly to a child who has done little else wrong than wear an odd frock and object under Marie's dubious tutelage to Tim's skulduggery in securing the desks, even as she is showing those characters behaving in distinctly unedifying ways. But perhaps other people feel sympathy is distributed differently?
Karen shows herself to be very indifferent in managing disorder, especially with the added embarrassment of her sisters involved. Effective command is an important theme in the Marlows books, and it's fascinating to see which characters have a gift for giving orders, and which can manipulate others. I'd really like to hear people's thoughts on that.
This has already been rather an epic post: so I think I'll leave it there. I'm sure there's much I've missed, so do feel free to suggest other topics for discussion in the comments. Looking forward to all your thoughts! Do feel free to link to other blog posts or fic that you think might be of interest, too.
Note: Comments contain spoilers for other books in the series.
The economy with which Forest draws her characters in the first few paragraphs is really remarkable, I think: we learn about Nicola's inquisitive restlessness, Lawrie's relative timidity ('stuck to chicken and ice-cream' on their restaurant lunches), Karen's slightly uncertain authority, Rowan's sarcasm, and (parenthetically) Ginty's 'unreliability'. We even get a sketch of Giles, who isn't going to show up again for a good few chapters. Ann is less vividly present, and Peter has to wait for the conversation with Tim to get a mention. But although there is a fair amount of info-dump in these opening pages, it's really rather suavely done as part of Nicola's twitchy internal monologue. I'm immediately alert to how the characters might fulfil or disappoint these initial glimpses.
The idea of Tim apparently emerged from a correspondence in which Forest's interlocutor suggested that it would be fun to have a schoolgirl related to an authority figure who, instead of being shy about it, is determined to exploit it for all she's worth. But the privilege (and the disadvantages) of having illustrious relative at school is a serious theme in the novel. Our sympathetic and pov characters are the privileged ones, but we get glimpses of how sheerly aggravating Marlow (and other) privilege might be to those who do not enjoy it.
Ambition and showing off: ambition is mandatory, talking about it is firmly discouraged--the authorial voice as well as Nicola squashes Lawrie's confessions of the twins' fantasies of success to an outsider. I find this a really interesting analogue to the way in which Forest outlines characters with highly developed inner lives who nonetheless vigorously suppress manifestations of emotion, either positive or negative. Of course 1940s codes of English middle-class behaviour demand such suppression, but Forest is I think notable in her deep interest in complex emotion and her characters' parallel investment in not letting it show.
Crushes and queerness: Lawrie's various pashes--on Margaret to start with, then on Lois, are more prominent than I remember. Elsewhere, sympathetic characters express vigorous disapproval of crushes as soppy, but there is I think a general sympathy with same-sex attachments in the series as a whole. (Do share your sexuality headcanon for Forest characters!)
The contrast between Lawrie and Nicola, symbolised by the gifts of watch and knife respectively.
Staff-pupil interactions: Miss Cromwell's frank disapproval of prefects and Karen's confusion. The staff are very engagingly flawed in Forest's novels, I think--sometimes to the point of outright pottiness; Miss Keith being no exception.
Rowan's suavity: her treating Nicola to a raspberryade in a crisis situation offers a parallel to Giles, later on. Rowan's one for the competence kinksters among us, I think--how do you feel about her?
Ginty not being 'the tomboy of the Remove': Forest's consistent commentary on the clichés of school stories.
The taboo on crying is, of course, simply part of childhood and adolescence, but am I alone in feeling Forest lays very particular stress on the ignominy of tears, and interestingly, particular emphasis on coping with the embarrassment of others weeping?
More views of the Marlows from outsiders' perspectives and how that's very interestingly constrained by limited (if variable and multiple) POV: Lois's unfriendliness to Rowan.
Nicola's photographs of Nelson and Giles's ship are rather adorable: as we see them at the moment, her crushes are deflected where Lawrie's are straightforward, it seems.
The ethics of trespass and pear-scrumping: what do you make of Nicola's scruples about Tim's apparent theft?
That segues with an almost word-associative flair into the arrival of Pomona. (Pause to appreciate
ankaret's fic about the Marlow cousin who practised her pretty wiles on grownups. This should have a damn sight more attention, imnsho.)Tim's wonderfully sophisticated hostility to artyness: 'Father's not at all artistic. Father paints.' 'My father and hers were at school together [...] One fagged for the other, or they blacked each other's eyes or something equally touching.' Tim Keith, 12 and a half going on 35. Plausible? More commentary on school-story clichés, we note, boys' ones this time. Tim's disgust at Pomona's dress and behaviour seems to feed into a very common aversion to 'progressive' thought and education in novels of the period, for children and adults alike: it's there in writers as different as C.S. Lewis and Mary Renault, for example.
In Tim's mention of an Anti-Pomona League there are the first hints of a--to me--very disturbing storyline about bullying, narrated almost exclusively (but not quite, which is what is rather chilling about it: it's not that Forest hasn't considered the victims' feelings, she just seems to dismiss them) from the point of view of the bullies.
The exam scene is beautifully atmospheric, I think: Forest catches examination panic wonderfully. Share your stories.
And that emotional repression again: the code of behaviour demands the suppression of disappointment, and later, we'll find, pleasure and elation too. It does raise questions about what the purpose of it all is. What the the tenor of life is like, if everyone is successfully quashing their feelings to a steady, self-possessed politesse?
There's some great stuff in this chapter about attachment to objects in childhood, whether it's Nicola's desire to have heirloom books, or the desk itself. I was fascinated aged 9 and am fascinated now (as a lecturer whose classes fill from the back, like buses, and who has to coax students towards me with repeated assurances that as a 5'2" bantamweight with no formal combat training, there's very little harm I can do them) that front-row visibility might be desirable to schoolchildren.
The evolution of the Tim/Nick/Lawrie triad, and Nicola's distrust of Tim's 'reliability as an ally'. Forest is fascinated by unreliable, disloyal, subversive, do-it-for-the-thrills-and-the-heck-of-it characters, I think, and she writes brilliant ones: Foley, Jukie, Patrick anyone?
Marie Dobson: how I'd love to read fic from her perspective. Anyone know any, or do I have to write it? What do people think of Marie?
The Delicate/Backward/Plain Stupid taxonomy delighted me on first reading and delights me now, and I really enjoy the underdog solidarity of Third Remove. But the educational philosophies of Kingscote are entirely baffling to me: would anyone care to make sense of them?
As I've said, the bullying of Pomona is disturbing to me as an adult, though as a child reader I accepted it quite readily. I feel a sense of Forest's complicity with her sympathetic characters, who behave really rather appallingly to a child who has done little else wrong than wear an odd frock and object under Marie's dubious tutelage to Tim's skulduggery in securing the desks, even as she is showing those characters behaving in distinctly unedifying ways. But perhaps other people feel sympathy is distributed differently?
Karen shows herself to be very indifferent in managing disorder, especially with the added embarrassment of her sisters involved. Effective command is an important theme in the Marlows books, and it's fascinating to see which characters have a gift for giving orders, and which can manipulate others. I'd really like to hear people's thoughts on that.
This has already been rather an epic post: so I think I'll leave it there. I'm sure there's much I've missed, so do feel free to suggest other topics for discussion in the comments. Looking forward to all your thoughts! Do feel free to link to other blog posts or fic that you think might be of interest, too.
Note: Comments contain spoilers for other books in the series.
no subject
Re the litter theme: school stories I read as a child would occasionally feature a paper chase (the accidental destroying of a crucial piece of paper often being uppermost) so I wonder if paper broke down more efficiently before the 50s? My father, brought up in the 20s and 30s, later found it extraordinary that he and his family would throw fish and chip newspaper wrapping out of the car window.
I think picnic rubbish came into a different category and 'well brought up' families would always have disposed of it properly.
no subject