trennels | Entries tagged with ginty

sprog-63.livejournal.com

Inspired partly by the question from

schwarmerei1 about sexting and partly by my boredom at my own incompetence technologically I am wondering which Marlows, indeed which characters in Forest overall, would embrace technology and social media and who would struggle ....

Ginty, of course I see as facebook (and similar) obsessed, on her phone all the time.
Lawrie perhaps following actors/actresses she admires on Twitter?
Ann competant and a surprisingly enthusiastic user of social media.
Karen, having left University before the web, found it hard to get back into academic work, as she lacked the necessary on-line research skills.
Anthony Merrick becomes an early adopter of all things web-based, one of the first MPs to tweet reguarly, and Chairing parliamentary committees about social media. Some are surprised at this, but he explains that his theological position does not make him a Luddite. He is also an anti-pornography campaigner, much to Helena's emabarrassment.
Patrick held out until not having an email address made functionning in the adult world very difficult, but has never read one of Anthony Merrick MP's tweets on principle.

At school ...
Jan didn't join the class of 19xx leavers facebook page set up by Val ...
The consquences of sexting are immediate expulsion, but it takes a while for the staff to believe that such a thing could happen, let alone at Kingscote. That is as far as I care to go down that street - but others may be braver!

bookroom.livejournal.com

Hi all, am new here, but can't see that this has been discussed before.

I was reading End of Term recently, and got thinking about whether AF's account of who precisely can tell Niccola and Lawrie apart stands up to scrutiny (aside entirely from the implausibility of their mother not being able to find the merest freckle, mole or scar to distinguish the unconscious Lawrie from Nicola in The Marlows and the Traitor.) There are lots of indications, not surprisingly, that members of staff and other Kingscote girls who don't know them that well can't tell them apart throughout the series. What interested me more in End of Term was the extent to which their siblings and close friends and classmates can or can't distinguish them.

When Lawrie and Nicola switch for the netball match after Lawrie bruises her leg, they sleep in one another's beds, and Ginty and Ann don't spot the ruse in the morning when Lawrie (as Nicola) pretends to be ill, though Nick at least seems to have a moment of tension when she's afraid Ann will realise - but both twins seem to be able to presume that neither of their sisters will see through the switch, or presumably they would have known in advance it would never have worked. Nick walks in to the gym, and Miranda, her best friend, likewise thinks she's Lawrie until she's told otherwise. Yet when they go in to breakfast Tim knows immediately Nick isn't Lawrie, and we're told she 'had never had the least difficulty in telling them apart'. From Nicola remembering what Peter once told her about how Lawrie always hitched at her stockings and Nick put her hands in her pockets, presumably he can tell them apart too (despite seeing an awful lot less of them than their sisters)? It's unclear whether Jan Scott has guessed before Lois guesses 'Lawrie' is really Nick, while watching her play brilliantly in the netball match, but it emerges that the outcast Marie Dobson has guessed, based simply on the way in which Nick bumped into her and apologised in the gym doorway earlier that day.

Is it plausible that siblings who share a room with the twins would be taken in by an identical twin switch, basing their interpretation of who was who entirely on situation stuff like who was in which bed/wearing which games kit etc? Is Ann just too honest and straightforward to suspect, and Ginty too self-absorbed, and we are to assume that the redoubtable Rowan would have seen through it in a millisecond, even if all concerned were wearing identical school uniform?

Are there ever any indications that any of the other Marlows can't tell the twins apart? Why has Tim never had any difficulty telling them apart, yet observant, intelligent Miranda is fooled initially, when Marie Dobson isn't? (Just that Tim has known both twins since the start of their schooldays, and is Lawrie's best friend, while Miranda only becomes Nick's close friend at the start of End of Term? Or has Marie's outcast status sharpened her powers of observation when it comes to pranks she's being left out of? She's sharp and sly enough to check Nicola's hat name tag to confirm her suspicions.) Esther is a new girl at the start of End of Term, and very diffident, but there is never the slightest reference to her checking that she's talking to Nick, rather than Lawrie, in the way that, say, Jess Geddes does when they find the hawk carving in the Minster.

Anyway, just wondered what anyone else's thoughts were. Is it plausible that even siblings' recognition of identical twins might depend heavily on context (that is Nick's bed, therefore the person in it is Nick)..?

antfan.livejournal.com

Just read Attic Term, almost for the first time (read it once from the library in childhood).

Loved it! Funny, witty, not as intense as some of the earlier school books, and lots of great comic/psychological moments in best AF style.

However was (unintentionally) very amused by the way nobody in their families refers to the relationship (it's clearly a boyfriend:girlfriend relationship by now) between Patrick and Ginty. I would have thought in most families Ginty's siblings would have teased her mercilessly...but the Marlows don't say ANYTHING. Nor do the two sets of parents. Patrick's mother, in his presence, tells a third person that she pities the person who marries Ginty - rather bizarre, given that Ginty is basically Patrick's girlfriend. But although everybody KNOWS nobody SAYS. Even Lawrie the tactless. The only exception I can think of is when Peter makes a couple of oblique teases to Ginty in the Ready Made Family "And who with as if we didn't know" but that is it. And Ferguson does ask Nicola obliquely if the parents approve of the "friendship" but again it's all very veiled.

Is it because they are just terribly polite and English that nobody says anything?

I guess so because in order to discuss what the buttoned-up Marlows and Merricks won't AF introduces Claudie, the amoral French au pair. She is quite prepared to ask all about Patrick's sex life (and wonder at the lack of it). Really I guess Claudie is as much of a stereotype as the amoral French girls who turn up in Enid Blyton school stories (one of them was called Claudine too) though you can never feel reading them that AF's characters are stereotypes.

Is this really how English families were at that time? Just can't believe it - even of the Marlows.

ooxc.livejournal.com

Please can someone help me?
Aren't I right that Ginty got buried during the blitz - before the events of Traitor? It's buried under cardboard boxes, so I can't check - but I've just been told that I'm RONG about this.

Current Mood: confused

res23.livejournal.com

1. Nick and Lawrie are still on the Junior netball team, even though so much of the switch in EofT was because Nick would never again have the chance to do this because they'd be too old?

2. There seem to be so many more rules than ever before at school. I guess there must have been before, but somehow they just seem more prominent now. Nick and Miranda shopping for the play in End of Term didn't seem to involve nearly so much fuss as these shopping saturdays do - I know they were sent by a staff, but they seemed to be a lot more trusted then than later on.

3. What, exactly, were the millions of shopping party rules that they broke? OK, not telling Gina exactly where they were going - but surely girls didn't always know what shops they'd be in or what they'd be buying, specially as they were looking for things like birthday gifts, where they were undecided already about what to buy. Buying clothes? Did they know that was such an offence? they don't seem to have been aware at the time that they were breaking so many rules. Buying things for others? Well they were gifts, so was that really a problem? I know that it led to others finding Changegear, and doing illegal things like swapping clothes or getting Day Girls to provide things to swap. But what was so wrong about what Nick and Miranda did that day?

4. And why the sudden emphasis on Day Girls? Just a plot device? Or were they there all along and just not mentioned as much. Or perhaps schools by the time Attic Term was written did have a lot more day girls. (and a lot more rules!).

5. Miranda's Jewishness being such a problem at school Xmas events. (not just Attic term, but also End of Term). Why do they all care so much? I know that sometimes Jewish girls objected to being made to participate in Christian events, and fair enough, but she seems to want to do it, and is never allowed - not because her family would object, but because other people would, a feeling that it's somehow not proper/respectful etc of her to being doing it. That way around is something that seems less common, with everyone somehow worrying that someone else woudl object, but we never actually see anyone who finds it a problem. Is anyone really offended? Maybe people like Ann?

6. Patrick really does seem to be in love in Ginty at times. I tend to think of him as mostly just fancying her because she's there and she is so obviously keen on him - but that's probably because I know how it ends up. At the time, he seems quite keen on her, too, wishing she'd phone, wishing he could magic her there to be with him, etc. When he and Claudie are discussing sex, and he says he is innocent, and she gives him a long look - he then says 'no' - is she offering? I tend to read it like she is, but then sometimes I think she is just somehow questioning the fact that he doesn't want it. I don't really understand/like Patrick so much in this book. The whole crying at classical music, and just lots of other interactions, don't seem realistic to me, somehow.

jackmerlin.livejournal.com

Me yet again, for which apologies! For so long I have loved AF books without meeting another person who had even read them...(Although my husband did once read some of them to see what I liked about them and bearing in mind that grown men don't usually read girls school stories was very impressed.) Any way my query this time relates to Catkin, namely, why does Ginty get given Catkin? It seems such a massively expensive and special present to give one member of the family in which money is always tight ( all those hand-me-down clothes) In Thuggery Affair Ann has a bike which was partly a present, partly saved up for. So poor Ann gets half a bike, while Ginty, whose interest in riding always seems relatively superficial, gets a pony. For once I think Lawrie is totally justified in her cries of 'unfair'!
In musing on this I came up with the following theories-
Ginty was so badly affected by the events of Marlows and the Traitor that her parents think that encouraging her to take up a healthy outdoor pursuit will help her get over it,
Her grandmother who was recently staying has given the Marlow parents some money to buy her favourite granddaughter something special,
It's a mere plot device to draw Patrick and Ginty together,e.g. the scene in the stableyard when Ginty is trying to ride Catkin out of the lorry (madness! what was Mrs M. thinking of letting her do it?) and Patrick realises how beautiful Ginty is even in ordinary clothes and straw in her hair (or somesuch) Any other thoughts?

rosathome.livejournal.com

( Ginty and The Dress )

( Patrick with Glow-in-the-Dark Eyes )

( Crommie in stainless steel )

alliekiwi.livejournal.com

I was re-reading The Attic Term today and got a little confused as to the period over which Patrick took his O-levels.

For example, a page or two before the end of chapter 10 is the following passage:

~*~*~
Being anything but reckless, Ginty had meant to let at least two weeks go by before phoning Patrick again: and then, on the Monday evening, listening to the other four deciding to play ping-pong in the gym and mentally preparing a plausible Cat-That-Walked withdrawal, remembered that Patrick's O-levels began tomorrow: she ought - she must - phone and wish him luck.
~*~*~

Following that we have half-term which is when Miranda and Tim write the short Christmas carol for Nick to sing etc. Patrick has his half-term the week after Kingscote, and then along comes Chaper 13 and the fateful Maths O-level paper debacle. The chapter starts:

~*~*~
In the summer term, the sitting of O- and A-levels was something of an occasion: Miss Keith announced their commencement during Assembly and wished the candidates well on behalf of the school. But in the winter term, when a mere handful of unfortunates was at risk, the event was hardly mentioned, and it was only because Ginty was sitting-in on the Tutorial fifth's Latin revision that she knew when O-levels would make their delayed start as soon as Patrick did. Telephoning him that evening, she found him depressed and edgy.
~*~*~

Why is Patrick 'starting' his O-levels twice like that?

Current Mood: curious

ex-lizzzar998.livejournal.com

I have only just found this community - wish I'd been able to participate earlier. Despite not being as gorgeous or popular as Ginty at school, I always had some sympathy for her. Does anyone agree with me that perhaps things will work out OK for her, despite her certainly very questionable behaviour in Attic Term? After all, she is only fifteen although I can understand Patrick being upset ( even if he doesn't mind the ultimate consequences) as she does lie, if only by omission. Sometimes I do think that AF has it in for her for being a conventionally feminine teenager - I'm pretty sure she is about the only Marlow would wouldn't be considered slightly odd at the schools I went to - but perhaps sheer Marlow confidence and force of personality would carry them through...

Also, does anyone have any comments on her name? I've heard of Ginty and McGinty as a surname (I think usually Irish or Scottish) but not as a short form of Virginia, which I think Is usually Ginny. Nevertheless, I guess it fits with the general gender ambiguity of Marlow female names (Nick, Lawrie, Rowan, even Kay used for a man in Malory, although less often subsequently, I think) If she's not stuck being called Ann, maybe she's redeemable (actually I think Ann's a perfectly reasonable name, but it doesn't seem that cool in Marlow terms.)

antfan.livejournal.com

This kind of follows along from the last discussion, but I thought I would give it a new thread. It’s basically that I just can’t get along with Falconer’s Lure. I fell joyfully on my GGB copy, having not read it for decades, only to find it a crushing disappointment. (And Marlows and the Traitor, too, sad to say.)

It feels so dated. The characters seem much less complex than in later books (for the first time I understand why people find Nicola annoying) and the style doesn’t seem so assured. It’s a much more conventional family story than the other holiday books: dad makes the decisions – nobody really questions his authority – mum is gently supportive - the only character who really steps out of line (Ginty) is shown the error of her ways.

In terms of her writing craft, AF doesn’t seem to handle her material well: a key theme is Jon’s death and the family’s reactions, yet we hardly get to know Jon; all the Unity Logan discussion seems a bit pointless when we never encounter her (and I just can’t imagine the adults being that interested in a totally unknown adolescent); in the scene in the attic, there are no less than three big chunks of poetry read/sung aloud to intense reactions from the audience – over-egging it surely? (And so many blooming competitions: diving, sailing, swimming, reciting, singing, gymkhana…) Its structure is a bit of a mess, and usually that is something AF does so well.

Above all, there are no really magnificent, memorable passages, like, say, the hunt in Peter’s Room. (Here I don’t think AF did herself a favour picking falconry. “It was quite impossible to make them understand why the flight at gull had been so thrilling” – quite. )

So I’m wondering:

i) Is Falconer’s Lure irredeemably “dated”?

ii) Or do AF’s books simply need to be read several times? Will I eventually come to appreciate FL?

iii) Or does AF’s writing simply get better as she grows into her style/gets to know her characters? Are the middle books just better than the earlier ones?

lavenderhill.livejournal.com

Hi there – I am also new to this group, but have been an avid reader of AF for over 15 years. I have all the books, and have re-read them frequently.

I have been thinking for a while that the Marlow stories would make a great early Sunday evening family television series. When you think about it, they combine the teenage school highs and lows of The OC (bullies/ school teams/ boyfriends) with the kind of drama reserved for Eastenders (step families/ runways/ child abduction..). It also has some kind of glamour, as the main protagonists are of a class that most people are not.

The more I thought about it, though, the more I realised that the stories would have to be set in the present day, in order to gain enough interest from viewers, and also the backing from a production firm. This started me thinking about how to update some of the storylines, which are often a product of the time they were written in. The telephone saga in The Attic Term, would be an interesting one, although in my mind, I would have Ann owning the ‘family’ mobile, on which calls home are made. Ginty ends up using the office phone due to the queues and lack of privacy on the payphones near the common room. Some schools are strict about mobiles and insist that the housemistress keeps them until after classes are over, and I could see Kingscote doing this, and Ann obviously obeying.

Another issue would be the make-believe in Peter’s Room, which I cannot see teenagers in 2006 doing. An interesting way round this, would be to have ‘Gondal’ as a new online computer game, which they start playing whilst hold up in Peter’s Shippen, and gradually become addicted to – apart from Nicola, who would much rather be herself out doing something! There was some research done about these kind of online ‘quest’ games, where quite ordinary people in real life, are ‘kings’ of these online worlds. This plot would not only allow the story to develop as it does in Peter’s Room, but also look at the effect of kids spending too much time on computers..

The Thuggery Affair I would love to turn into Chavs, but this is probably rather un-PC!! And the Marlows and the Traitor would have to be drug smuggling as I don’t want to touch 21st century terrorism..

Talking to my sister, another AF fan, about this, we got onto the characters. She says that Nicola is unlike any modern day teenage girl. What 12/13/14 year old is mad about the Navy and into cricket? If there was someone like that at school, they would be really picked on by the ‘trendy gang’ .But I don’t know – I think Nicola as she is in the books would work, and I would still have her dropping her new penknife out of the train (do modern trains have windows that open, though?). She is also safe from the ‘trendies’ in that she a Marlow, and is actually part of the Main Clique with Tim, Miranda and Lawrie. I would, however, have Lawrie and Tim as being quite skinny-jeaned/ Top Shop cool, whereas Miranda would be in Seven jeans and a Chloe top. Nick would be more jeans and tatty converse boots (previously Rowan’s). If any of you live in London, the Top Shop, H&M and Zara on Kensington High Street on a Saturday are full of upper middle class teenage girls in all their glory…. Just to give you an idea of what Kingscote girls would be like in 2006…

Anyways, just wanted to share these thoughts, and wondered what you all think. Would it work? Is it worth me writing a proposition and sending it to the BBC??!

Apols for long post...

leapingirbis.livejournal.com

The discussion about Kay below made me wonder how many children each of the Marlows would end up producing. I hope this hasn't been discussed before - if so I apologise! My thoughts are as follows:

Giles - lots, of course. Borne by a meek and long-suffering wife?
Kay - not sure. Maybe two, by a later marriage.
Rowan - I haven't decided whether Rowan will settle down in a same-sex partnership, in which case I don't think she will bother with children, or whether she will marry, initially decline children, but then suddenly decide in her mid-thirties that her biological clock is ticking and ultimately end up with two sons.
Ann - Ann will marry mid-twenties and - ironically and unfairly - have great difficulty conceiving. They will adopt two children before she finally produces a daughter.
Ginty - boy and girl? Followed by divorce?
Peter - don't know. Perhaps he will surprise everyone by becoming the real pater familias?
Nick - I reckon four boys, and would quite like them to be by Robert Anquetil.
Lawrie - after a succession of affairs with her leading men (and because she likes to shock and likes the attention probably a couple of leading ladies too), Lawrie will settle down with a somewhat older and very dashing film star, will initially reject the idea of children, but aged 37 will suddenly decide she wants one and immediately and without difficulty produce a daughter, which will really rub Ann's nose in it.

What does everyone else think?

res23.livejournal.com

Let's hope this works. I have finally remembered my user name, but it's taken me ages to remember how to post a new message instead of a comment...

Anyway, I've always wondered what the various Marlow siblings were like as children, and a comment in the thread below about prequels made me think about it even more. I find the twins different in Autumn Term than pretty much everywhere else, somehow very much younger (Nick jumping out of the train, etc). And I'd be curious about how much all the others changed as they grew up, too. It would be easiest to write a prequel with them all much as they are now - Ann being very good, Rowan still supremely confident, Kay very academic, but I think that would be losing something. Was Rowan as insecure as Nick sometimes is about her capabilities? Was Ann always so at peace with helping everyone, or did she sometimes resent it more as a child? Was Karen ever silly? How did Ginty's bomb shelter experience change her? Was she always pretty, and did she notice as a child, or is some of her shallowness later on a result of that? What was Lawrie like before she realised she was supremely good at acting? (and indeed, was that actually known before the play in Autumn Term? It seemed like it was really sort of discovered then - was Nick always seen as the one who was best at everything before then?) Did Peter hide his fears just as well as a child? (I guess we get some clues in Falconer's Lure, that Patrick at least knew some of them. Come to that, we also hear a little about Nick as a child in that one too, wanting to trail after the boys), and a million other similar questions... So, what do you think all the characters were like as children??

childeproof.livejournal.com

We know that Nicola has a fairly well-established Family Liking List, according to which she habitually ranks the members of her family, with Ann always coming last, presumably after Bucket, Tessa, and assorted Marlow horses. We might also assume that Giles tops the list, with Rowan close behind him.

My questions are (because I've just begun what looks to be hellish workday, full of politicking and collegial back-stabbing, and I fancy some Marlovian amusement on the side):

How do the rankings work in the middle of Nicola's list - who is next to Ann as second-last? Ginty? Does Lawrie figure as a kind of twinnish second-self or would she get her own independent liking ranking?

Also, f we imagine the other Marlows to have their own Family Liking Lists, how do they rank each other? (If Ann were to allow herself for a moment to be uncharitable enough to deviate from 'But of course I love them all the same - they are my family', who would she like most? Karen, who seems to be least unpleasant to her?) What does Giles really think of the Marlovian Lower Deck? Are we to assume Peter hero-worships Giles, or does his slightly-taken-aback reaction to no longer being the only male on the scene in Run Away Home indicate seething sibling-Naval rivalry?

tinyjenny.livejournal.com

Hello - I am new to this community and I've loved reading the posts. One thing I feel whenever I read the Marlow books is that I cannot warm to Rowan. I admire her and I can see her many good qualities but could never imagine actually enjoying her company or feeling as though I would want to be her friend. She seems quite brusque and insensitive and judgmental, despite her evident capabilities. However, I always get the impression that I am pretty much alone in this view. Am I? Does anyone else feel anything like this? I warm more to the characters who are more obviously flawed like Ginty and Lawrie. I also like Esther very much and relate to her. But Rowan - I respect her but I cannot warm to her.

Current Mood: anxious

childeproof.livejournal.com

Re-reading the beginning of Attic Term and two things struck me for the umpteenth time. And now that I have somewhere to niggle, quibble and poke...

One was that the Marlows and Merricks always have dinner in the middle of the day, or at least a meal which is referred to as dinner and which is clearly fairly substantial (involving in Nicola's case gammon and salad, followed by damson pudding, all wheeled in by Doris). In fact, midday dinner becomes a minor plot point in, I think, Run Away Home when the indefatigable Mrs Bertie, presumably weary of continually putting up sandwiches for various Marlows, says she plans to ask Mrs Marlow if they can have dinner in the evening instead.

Now, while I grew up on midday dinner as a working-class child in 1970s Ireland, I wondered about the (a) the logic and (b) the class issues surrounding midday dinner in the (admittedly sliding) timescale of the Marlow novels. Midday dinner, as distinct from midday 'lunch' and an evening dinner, has always been a working class arrangement for me, or, I gather, a regional designation for any kind of midday meal in some places. (But, I thought northern, so not Trennels, then.) Also, while I see the logic of active outdoor workers like Rowan having a substantial midday meal for energy purposes, but it seems deeply inconvenient for all at Trennels in the school holidays...? And while I am capable of appreciating the various factors that contributed to the moving around of the dinner-hour in the 18th and 19thc - fashion, snobbery, daylight vs artificial light etc - I realise I know much less about the moving about of mealtimes in the latter half of the 20thc.

Are the Marlows representative of their time and class in their meal times? (What do they eat at night and what do they call it? Am only recalling the much more informal meals, like the late-night omelettes of Run Away Home, and speaking of which - I've always been intrigued by the sweet and rum omelettes, of which I have never previously heard. My partner claims Forest must mean crepes or pancakes, but I say that if she says omelettes, that's what she means...)

Second question, which is actually just that, as I know little or nothing of hunting:

At the post-cubbing Merrick breakfast table at the beginning of Attic Term, Mr Merrick is unobtrusively defending Nicola against the mild-but-not-all-that-pleasant jibes of Patrick and Ginty about her riding skills. When Nicola retorts to some remark about a hunting fall she had the previous season by saying to Patrick 'And you jumped on me, near's no matter', Mr Merrick's eyebrows 'commented unfavourably on this breach of hunting etiquette.'

Now, is the actual 'breach of hunting etiquette' the fact that Patrick almost jumped on the fallen Nicola, or the fact that one or both of them has breached hunting manners by dragging up old scores from the previous year which should be put to bed politely by now?

coughingbear

Prompted by

forester48's query about Patrick's O-levels, I picked up Attic Term the other day and inevitably re-read it. And noticed some bits and pieces about Patrick and Ginty's relationship that hadn't fully come through to me before. I'd seen Patrick as attracted by her looks, and them bonding over the role-playing in Peter's Room, and obviously sharing a passion for and skill at riding, but had not really thought of them as similar in character. But then I reread the scene when Patrick is arguing with his father about why he doesn't need to stay at school for A-levels:

'having any number of more or less outlandish notions vaguely in mind: as for instance, that he might join an expedition to the Himalayas or a dig at one of the local archaeological sites or become the Queen's Falconer or unearth incontrovertible conclusive proof that the two princes were alive and well and living in the Tower when Richard Third was killed at Bosworth...'

This struck me as remarkably like Ginty's imaginings, such as the Mother Teresa fantasy when she's staying in the san. And I also noticed how very sulky both of them can be with the adults, and what teenagers they are, and remembered how one bonds with other teenagers over the total awfulness of the grown-ups. I read Attic Term first as a student, I think, and felt rather guiltily at one with Ginty as she thought 'when she was suddenly famous and interviewed on T.V. she would say There's one thing I can never forgive my mother--' and embarrassed for her over the way she speaks to Mrs Marlow on the phone from the Merricks'. But this time it occurred to me that the text doesn't suggest Patrick reacts badly to her rudeness to her mother at all (though one can feel Mr Merrick silently judging). Patrick's attempts not to be introduced to Mrs Harman at the concert had a similar feel to me, and though I admit that he has had an exceptionally stressful day, it's suggested that this mainly means he doesn't have the stubbornness to stick to his refusal.

Also I had always thought of the moment when he realised that 'If it had been Nick, he wouldn't have needed to ring off...' as conclusive in the end of his feelings for Ginty, especially as it's followed shortly afterwards by the Kissing Of Claudie. I still think it's crucial, but in fact the letter saying he is 'yours devotedly' - addressed to both Ginty and Rosina - is written after that. (Protesting too much? Attempting to open up a new dimension to their relationship after his recent exposure to the joys of the flesh?) Anyway, it's Ginty's decision to go to Monica's that seems to be the final disaster. Of course this is her chameleon qualities working against her, because if Patrick had known about Monica as her best friend from the beginning, he might have accepted that decision. Instead it just looks like running away. Which of course it is, even though it's also the right thing to do.

Probably these are not new observations, but I thought I'd toss it out and ask what other people make of Patrick and Ginty.

forester48.livejournal.com

Why does Patrick take all his O'levels in the Christmas term? I can't see the point of it and also, I vaguely remember that this was very much a retake time and really only for the essential Maths or English - although could be wrong and you could retake anything.
But asuming he were to pass them what next? Start the A'level syllabus in January? Why?
Or is he catching up as he's a year late because of falling off that cliff? But from Ginty and Patrick's converstaion at the beginning of TAT it seems as if it's policy at his school.

blonde222.livejournal.com

I was rereading the Attic Term (courtesy of frankie_ecap, thank you PH) and came across a passage which has always confused me.

I'm talking about the first conversation we witness between Patrick and Claudie. In which, she asks him if he is sleeping with his girlfriend, and he vociferously denies having any desire to, on the grounds he is "terribly backward". At which point she offers to initiate him... and he says: "Well, since you ask, because I think it should only be with someone you - care for, or - okay - if it's paid for."

Firstly would anyone like to comment on this conversation in general - for example, is he saying he doesn't think of Ginty in that way (bad luck, Ginja) or is it he just doesn't want to talk about it with Claudie? And also, what's with the "paid for" comment? He can't possibly be saying that the only alternatives are marriage or prostitution???

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Antonia Forest fans

Entries tagged with ginty

Computer literacy

Telling the twins apart

Don't mention Patrick and Ginty...

Blitz

Attic term

Catkin

More action figures

O-levels query

Ginty

Falconer’s Lure: Dated, Difficult or Plain Dreadful?

(no subject)

Continuation of the Marlow line

Marlows as Children

Marlow Family Liking Lists

Rowan

two minor queries

Ginty and Patrick

Patrick's exams

Patrick