Readthrough: Autumn Term: Chapters 1-5

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

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 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.

Comments

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

I think the emphasis on not showing emotions and the depiction of bullying are linked. Exposing your feelings does make you vulnerable to others who want to attack you in your 'weak spots' and Pomona does make things much worse for herself by stamping and crying. Pomona would have been bullied in any school, and it was entirely believable to me as a child, and now as an adult (and teacher). As adults we are horrified by how unfeeling the characters are towards Pomona but that's exactly what children are like. I think AF explores this later in the book with Marie after the guide expedition, and in End of Term when Nicola realises Tim doesn't like her, but those discussions are in the future!
I too was interested as a child in the way the main characters chose to sit at the front. I think Nicola is the sort of person who would like sitting at the front, but I find it odd in Tim.
I think the twins had been to day schools - they weren't entirely uneducated up to that point.
One thing that I never noticed as a child but did now - They pull the window down to throw the sweet paper bag out. Really? Did well brought up girls just throw litter out of trains? wouldn't they have found a bin? I know it's partly a plot device to get the window open so the knife can fall out, but considering how horrified Nicola is later by the pear stealing, I would have thought she would have minded Tim throwing rubbish.
The pear stealing episode certainly dates the book. No modern child would consider picking fruit as stealing; and if they did pick fruit it would only be to throw it at another child - not to eat it! Or am I just getting too cynical?!

[emily-shore.livejournal.com]

I think the twins had been to day schools - they weren't entirely uneducated up to that point.

Nicola says: "We haven't been to school either, much. Every time we started we always caught something. But we haven't caught anything now for six months - " Which suggests to me that they had been enrolled in day schools but had never had any sustained period of schooling. As a point of comparison, in Falconer's Lure Patrick Merrick says he's been out of school for two years due to illness. In *that* book it says "she and Lawrie had also been sent to day school till a year ago for the same sort of reason." But I suspect this may be one of the canon facts that got slightly adjusted between 1948 and 1957.

I definitely would point out that "never/rarely been to school" and "entirely uneducated" are very much not the same thing (though obviously in this particular case the twins don't distinguish themselves in the examination).

One thing that I never noticed as a child but did now - They pull the window down to throw the sweet paper bag out. Really? Did well brought up girls just throw litter out of trains? wouldn't they have found a bin? I know it's partly a plot device to get the window open so the knife can fall out, but considering how horrified Nicola is later by the pear stealing, I would have thought she would have minded Tim throwing rubbish.

Though there's a slight question mark in my mind about this, I think that public concern about littering may be a lot higher now than it was in the mid-twentieth century. It may seem an odd comparison to Antonia Forest, but there's a scene in Mad Men set in 1960 or so where the point is to demonstrate how unconcerned the characters are about leaving their rubbish behind after a picnic. So it's possible that this is just one of those moments that tells us the past was a different country.

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

My feeling is that there would have been a prohibition on littering the open country or a beach, and it would have been framed in class terms--I think I can remember such strictures from stuff published in the 30s, and I can imagine Commander Marlow having Views about the sort of people who left their picnic rubbish behind, and they are not our sort. But the more industrial landscape of a railway siding, with something as perishable as a paper bag? Maybe not so criminal. I do think Tim is framed as slightly foreign in Autumn Term , though, a bit unEnglish? And I can remember from my own 80s childhood the notion that littering was a Continental vice as as well as a yobbish one, expressed by people of roughly the right vintage.

[emily-shore.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a sensible take on it.

[coughingbear]

I'm pretty sure the Swallows and Amazons dig holes and bury their rubbish, and are scathing about trippers who don't.

[biskybat.livejournal.com]

The read through is such a good idea. Thanks to lilliburlero for thinking of it.

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.

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

It's probably true that paper decomposed more easily then - wasn't paper particularly thin and flimsy during the war because of rationing? I suppose the modern concern about littering is due to the prevalence of plastic bottles and tins and plastic bags which can never rot down.

[serriadh.livejournal.com]

I kept expecting Tim to turn out to be Jewish, because of that coded foreigness you mention.

[sarah barnard (from livejournal.com)]

Patrick consists shows a desire to learn at home by himself and judging by the books he chooses to have in his bedroom I would imagine he would easily educate himself perfectly well in the sense of acquiring an eclectic range of knowledge...less in the passing of exams, for which he has no respect in any case.

Although Nicola and Lawrie don't necessarily know the things that would be expected of IIIa, they are clearly not uneducated either. They just need a bit of catching up. Well, I say that..*Nicola* is clearly not uneducated. but Lawrie's general ignorance is sometimes rather staggering!

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

Good catch on the littering; I hadn't thought about it and I suppose it's telling that Tim does it, and there's a degree of "concealing the evidence" about it, as it comes hard on the heels of wondering about not being allowed sweets, but I'm pretty certain that Nick and Lawrie would have had "no littering" drummed into them at Brownies, if nowhere else.

[mainerobin.livejournal.com]

"I think the emphasis on not showing emotions and the depiction of bullying are linked. Exposing your feelings does make you vulnerable to others who want to attack you in your 'weak spots' and Pomona does make things much worse for herself by stamping and crying. Pomona would have been bullied in any school, and it was entirely believable to me as a child, and now as an adult (and teacher). As adults we are horrified by how unfeeling the characters are towards Pomona but that's exactly what children are like. I think AF explores this later in the book with Marie after the guide expedition, and in End of Term when Nicola realises Tim doesn't like her, but those discussions are in the future!"

Upon first reading this, I found it interesting that Pomona is the subject of ongoing bullying rather than Marie. As I reread now, it strikes me that at the beginning of term when everyone is new to each other. Tim sees Pomona as a threat to her own social status in the class and quashes that quickly by starting the APL. I expect upon meeting Tim the first time, the other students sized her up, much as Nicola did, and thought it best not to have her as an enemy. So they joined the APL to save their own status.

It strikes me as very odd during this year in Third Remove that Marie is not bullied, but ignored--as though she doesn't exist. (and that's mentioned again at the end of EOT and in CT) It's a human need to be acknowledged. Whether she ever tried the more socially acceptable ways of getting attention and belonging to the group we don't know, but by the age of 12, we see that she whines, cries, tattles, butts in, laughs inappropriately, and so on. All of these breaking the cardinal rule of not showing emotions. Only Pomona puts up with her, but I never sensed that Pomona liked her.

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

That's so true of the dynamics of bullying. The leader picks the victim to be bullied, and the others join in or risk being bullied themselves.

[schwarmerei1.livejournal.com]

It strikes me as very odd during this year in Third Remove that Marie is not bullied, but ignored--as though she doesn't exist.

That's a form of bullying in itself though.
"Do you hear something?"
"No, not me. Why, do you?"
One of the cruelest. At least attacking someone to their face acknowledges that they exist in your reality.

One of the things that always struck me even as a child was how deliciously flawed every character was compared to other books for youth. Usually they had a few varying archetypes of sympathetic characters for different readers to have as their personal hero, one whiner to dislike (who may go through a transformative arc), and one villain who can't be redeemed. In AF, just about everyone does something spectacularly horrible at some point.