Autumn Term, Chapters 8-10

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

This chapter title and that of chapter 7, interestingly, are ironic, unlike others in the novel.

So, we left Chapter 7 with Lois's rather candid and--one would have thought--unwise admission that she is going to go on 'pretending' that the twins just ran off; she immediately begins to reframe it as 'not particularly pretence'. But the admission has been made, cementing permanently Nicola's implacable dislike of Lois.

(Side note: Rowan is almost-sentimental about an almost-Arundel Tomb in Wade Abbas cathedral. Oh, Rowan.)

Anyone have any feelings on Nicola's lunge at Marie? Her second physical fight, after that with Pomona. I remember fighting quite often at Nicola's age, but I was a little hellcat. Nicola's habitual Job's comfort 'in x number of hours it will all be over', which nobody else finds the least bit useful, has always delighted me.

The Court of Honour itself is a great setpiece, I think, but I have no idea about its verisimilitude, having never been a Guide. Has anyone first hand experience of one of these awful occasions?

The mere notion of playing with matches seems not to prompt the universal, generic horror that it did in my childhood: it's understood as a rather foolish thing to be doing, but something that might be mitigated by stamping on them to make sure they'd gone out, for example. I remember it rather being a synonym for idiocy: maybe those gruesome 1970s and 1980s Public Information films that we watched regularly at school had some permanent effect after all.

Redmond handles her questioning appallingly, I think: she asks Nicola to give her account, then at a crucial moment in it--when the twins are alleged to have disobeyed Lois, switches to Lois, and then back to Nicola again, then calls Marie, then returns to Nicola again. I certainly don't envy Rita Calthrop having to take the minutes of that lot! It would seem to be a way virtually to ensure that stories get confused and truth gets elided, not to mention making it very tricky to determine if somebody is lying or not: even if absolutely everyone were acting in good faith, it would be difficult under those circumstances for people not to be influenced by others' narratives. It also seems not to occur to her that Lawrie's tears might be the natural result of stress rather than guilt: the poor mite is only twelve, after all. Not to give her a chance to calm down and speak seems the height of unfairness. Redmond has notably poor judgement throughout the series, and perhaps she rather favours Lois (there's another incident in End of Term which suggests so). She gives Lois a dressing down at the end of it, but makes allowances for 'lack of experience and excess of zeal' in her case when she won't do the same for a couple of 12-year olds who have only been Guides for ten minutes. Loathsome woman. Maybe others can view her in a kinder light? Lois's reaction is an interesting mixture of weakness and misguided (ahem!) determination.

Muriel Pollick's reaction--she had always wanted to see a full-dress Court of Honour, but actually didn't take any vicarious pleasure in it at all--is to me a nifty (if necessarily unconscious, as Forest intended the novel as a stand-alone at first) parallel to Miranda's delight in a damn good row. Forest does pitiless Schadenfreude rather well, I think.





I'm an unapologetic sucker for Marlow family dynamics, and I adore this chapter. We have, I think uniquely in the series, a full deck of Marlows around the breakfast table. They are a fairly ruthless family with regard to each others' feelings: it's also gloriously funny, from Peter's account of 'miming ballads' as witnessed at a friend's sister's school (and Nicola's secret agreement with him at the wetness of this activity--has anyone first-hand experience of it? It sounds gloriously batty, and I speak as someone who loves folksong and traditional balladry) through Commander Marlow's immediate concern for his wallet over matters of honour, to Karen and Rowan's sardonic commentary on 'character-building' at Kingscote. Even Giles, of whom my low opinion is a matter of noisy record, manages to appear amusing and charming in this setting: 'a lot of the orderly chaos I'm always reading the service is so good at and [...] a lot of sea in places we usually try to keep it out of.' As a child reader, I was particularly taken by the references to naval signals too rude for juvenile and feminine company (and longed to see some); I notice now that Giles and Geoff's amused fastidiousness on the matter is shortly followed by Giles swearing 'So you are by -- (what's a good salty oath?)' I'm still not sure what the oath might be that Forest so delicately preserves us from: please submit your suggestions. His perverse taste for Mickey Mouse is almost endearing too. Does anyone know, by the way, what Giles is attempting to quote: 'Never expect, young Nicola, to be sufficiently praised for your virtues, or sufficiently condoled with over-flagrant injustice; but always remember -- no, I can't imagine what it is you should always remember.' Or is he just being a pompous tosser?

Seriousness does break in: Rowan is persuaded to give an account of the match row, which reveals her capable of some unpleasantness herself; Ann realises just how low Lois has sunk in her mendacity; the family push the twins a bit too far in their teasing of them--and here it is Nicola, rather than Lawrie, who breaks. That interests me: Lawrie is susceptible to humiliation at school, perhaps, but feels secure and cosseted as the baby of the family even when she is teased? Whereas Nicola has prickly pride even at home? Or that Nicola has bottled her feelings successfully after each humiliation, where Lawrie has already got it all out of her system?

Finally, Giles makes his own error in judgement of character and tone in encouraging the twins to be 'bad'. I'd be really interested to hear how people who read the novels as children read his tone back then. I remember knowing that he wasn't serious (as I think even Nicola truly does), but still being angry with him for his unfairness in chapter 13.





In which we get a glimpse of how the A and B forms regard Third Remove, and are introduced to Miranda West, who later becomes a close friend of Nicola's in particular, but is here only a haughty antagonist.

Tim is cured of her desire for favouritism as Headmistress's Niece in a rather nice, complex and ironic way, I think: it isn't just a case of 'getting what you wish for' being unexpectedly unsettling--it's that what works on Keith is an appeal to her rather levelling sense of egalitarianism: she softens notably at the idea that Third Remove have been treated dismissively by the rest of the Thirds.



Another rather epic post. I'm sure there's lots I've missed nonetheless, do feel free to raise topics in the comments.

Comments

[occasionalhope.livejournal.com]

I like the filmgoing and the way Lawrie effectively announces her acting ambitions without anyone taking it the least bit seriously. (And if it wasn't for this bit, I would always think of Lawrie as going to become a solely stage actress.)

Nicola feels things quite as strongly as Lawrie, but I think Lawrie's easy weeping acts as an escape valve which N lacks.

I don't think Giles's age is ever given, but he can't really be more than 19/20 here given that everyone else is so very (too in some cases) close in age). Reading it as a child he seemed significantly older to me - thanks to being seen through Nicola's eyes?.

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

One of the things I rather like about Autumn Term is that it was never originally intended to be part of a series, so Forest presumably felt free to add little character details without thinking of how she might develop them. Seeing which ones she does develop (and the ones she ignores/forgets) is fascinating to me.

No, we never get Giles's age. He's a lieutenant (I always think of him as a sublieutenant at this point, but Nicola, when she meets him in Port Wade, says 'the other lieutenant', and I don't think that's something Nicola would get wrong.) I believe you have to be 20 to be a sub even, so he might be 21 or even older. (The tag 'mrs marlow's obstetric record' in this comm has some fascinating discussions about the sometimes unlikely gaps between Marlow births, but perhaps Geoff Marlow had a distant posting between Giles and Karen.) He's always seemed about 19 going on 45 to me, but he's clearly in his way just as prone to flaps as Karen or Lawrie.

[intrepid--fox.livejournal.com]

Yes, I've always assumed that Giles/Karen is the only significant gap in that very unlikely family, making Giles early twenties to Karen's 17. Which might explain his lordly air of entitlement: being the precious only son for five years and them being supplanted, not just by one or two siblings, but by a never-ending succession of them, would keep a therapist in smoked salmon for years (not that a Mk 1 Marlow* would ever unburden itself to a therapist, of course).

*mk 1 Marlows: Geoff, Giles, Rowan, Nick. And Jon. Peter would like to be, but isn't.
Mk 2: Ginty, Peter, Lawrie. Ann has schooled herself to be Mk 2, but is fundamentally Mk 1.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Which is Karen? Mk2?

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

Yes, inquiring minds. My feeling is that Giles is actually possibly Mark 2, but gets a pass for being Eldest Son and Heir. Karen flaps and makes Poor Life Choices, but also shows Unexpected Steel and Cunning, and might be an interstitial case.

[intrepid--fox.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think I was hesitating over Karen and then forgot to include her. I think you're right and she's an interstitial case, but probably closer to mk 2. Like Peter, she's a bit of a bully when she wants to be.

[learnsslowly.livejournal.com]

Perhaps Ann is a mk 1 at school and a mk 2 at home? And Giles something of the other way about? Do we see Peter away from his siblings and Patrick ever? I haven't managed to read all the books.

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

We get bits of Peter on his own in Traitor, Falconer's Peter's Room and Thuggery, yes; and Forest does have sympathy for him--it's just that despite him clearly being pretty good at things--diving, photography, handicrafts, (rotl-13ed (http://www.rot13.com/) spoilers) fubbgvat sbezre Anmv erne-nqzvenyf naq unjxf va gur urnq, we somehow carry away an impression of ineffectuality, because he's his author's go-to guy for studies in the psychology of fear and uncertainty.

[learnsslowly.livejournal.com]

Ah - thank you. I've only got/ read Falconer's Lure of those, I think.
Does that make Ann the least" viewpoint shown" Marlow after Giles then?

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

Now that would be an interesting study, if anyone had the patience: how much viewpoint time do various characters get? And there's quite a bit of omniscient authorial as well--I sense more than we perhaps realise given we tend to follow the twins and particularly Nicola.

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

He's a rotten judge of character, judging by how his family respond to his friend Selby, and can be a bit of a bully.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

He's not exactly unique among Marlows in the latter case, though.

[hooloovoo_42]

Blimey! I used to have a hand-written ROT-13 translation (a-m/n-z) stuck on my monitor 10 years ago. At one point I could do it in my head, but that just took 2 minutes to work out.

[cleodoxa.livejournal.com]

I read Autumn Term in my childhood and then as an adult spent some time looking at descriptions of the rest of the books longingly before finally sorting out some inter-library loans, and the thing that struck me at that stage as being different about the first one was Lawrie. I was a little taken aback by Lawrie being described in the kind of terms Lawrie tends to be described in, because at this stage I think there's much less difference between her and Nicola. Nicola isn't so distinctly the centre of the series, and Lawrie isn't so distinctly less capable than Nicola. Forest didn't reinvent Lawrie entirely, but I feel she's not the gloriously convincing babyish cowardly unempathetic talented fantasist she is in the rest of the books.

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think I rather agree. This is one reason why I'm avid to find out if Forest ever read Mary Renault's contemporary-set novels: Lawrie shares a lot of characteristics with the male lead of Return to Night, Julian--and Renault's novel was published in 1947, probably a bit too late to be a significant influence on Autumn Term, but certainly in time for the rest.

[emily-shore.livejournal.com]

When you first mentioned the Lawrie = Julian concept to me, I didn't quite see it, but at that point I'd only read Autumn Term. Now that I've read a few more of the books, I agree that there's a distinct shift in characterisation towards what one might call the Julianish end of the spectrum. It's certainly possible that he was an inspiration for the character, given that we know Forest read other Renault novels. (And given what we know about Forest, I can see Renault's writing appealing to her.)

Only Lawrie doesn't have a mysterious fondness for caves or fall passionately in love with an older woman, so there's that...

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

The Ellen Holroyd chapter in Falconer's would beg to differ on older women, though I can't think of any caves offhand. Lawrie isn't claustrophobic like Ginty, though; I do seem to remember the Merrick priesthole gives her pause, but she weathers it.

[intrepid--fox.livejournal.com]

There's the cave where they have their Christmas picnic in RAH, and Lawrie seems ok with the cave as such: it's the picnic she doesn't like.

[antisoppist.livejournal.com]

I see the Ellen Holroyd episode as Lawrie being definitely not Julian in that Lawrie does not self-sabotage her future career chances but it's a telling comparison - for a future discussion.

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

Pam Marlow is a great deal saner than Elaine Fleming, though! I don't think Julian would engage in the weird self-sabotage he does without the complex that Elaine's given him about acting...

[antisoppist.livejournal.com]

Everyone is saner than Elaine Fleming!

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

One of the things I like about these chapters is the way Lawrie's acting ability is being signposted. She shines at the Guide Enrollment, she manages to look pale and wan before the Court of Honour, she 'mimes convincingly' and she tries to explain to the unheeding Giles and Nicola that it would be interesting to act the female villain in the film. It's all part of AF's skill in creating characters with the deftest of touches.

[elktheory.livejournal.com]

Yes, I love this aspect of the book. I vividly remember reading Autumn Term the first time and chuckling over Captain Marlow's comment ("one good lady bursts into paeans of joy and says that Nicola 'mimes with enthusiasm.' Lawrie, on the other hand, 'mimes convincingly.' I wonder what the subtle difference is?"). And then when Lawrie's acting talent is fully revealed later in the book, I recalled that moment and realized that AF was giving us clues all along. I think it was one of the first times I really understood how a writer can lay clues for the reader to pick up and how part of the joy of reading involves piecing together these clues.