"Delicately balanced on a razor edge of mutual toleration": Rowan Marlow, Saint or ?

Absolutely! Falconer's Lure does locate things a bit more in relation to WWII in terms of the Marlowverse.

Though I think I was almost more amazed, aged ten, that Nicola, an intelligent, enquiring type who is interested in family history, was entirely unaware that her mother had lost four brothers in WWI -- that it had simply never come up in conversation. I know they were Maunsells, rather than Marlows, but still... I mean, I wasn't born till the 70s, but I still knew we'd lost several great-uncles in WWI, and that one had survived but had shrapnel in his thigh till his death.

(Were the brothers Piers, Something, Giles and Rollo?)

I was about ten, and puzzled as to how Lawrie is dressing up as a punk while her sister is claustrophobic because she was trapped in a cellar in the Blitz.

Yes - it’s even more jarring if you only read the school-set books as the jumps are bigger. In End of Term Mrs Marlow talks about her brothers being killed in the First World War, and in the next school book (Cricket Term), Marie dies when getting up to watch Top of the Pops! You just have to go along with it really.

And is given the most appallingly tragicomic death -- her heart stops when she gets up to turn on Top of the Pops. Poor Marie!

I agree that ride home in the dark is brilliant.

Though I think I only realised years later (like most people, I imagine, having read the books piecemeal via the library and secondhand shops) just how dangerous and careless Patrick's behaviour is when he starts galloping and jumping bushes when reciting 'How They Brought the Good News From Ghent to Aix', and Mr Buster follows him, because it's only from reading the earlier books that you realise how inexperienced a rider Nicola is. She's only just got used, the previous summer, to sitting on Buster and walking, and has probably never gone above a trot, or a a brief, gentle canter. She has no idea what she's doing, has never jumped or galloped, is lucky not to have fallen off rather nastily, and Patrick isn't remotely apologetic.

Was anyone else, as a child reader, completely bamboozled by the timeline, not being aware that AF set each book when it was published, despite the internal logic of 'Marlow time' only advancing eighteen months between Autumn Term and Run Away Home?

I was about ten, and puzzled as to how Lawrie is dressing up as a punk while her sister is claustrophobic because she was trapped in a cellar in the Blitz.

Yes , Lawrie really shows her immaturity when Marie dies. She doesn’t even pretend to care.

She dies in Cricket Term, and basically none of them care. 😢

Yes. Marie’s story is so clearly and devastatingly written. Am I wrong, did she end up leaving? My deteriorating memory is letting me down here - clearly time for a full reread.

Yes, admittedly the main point in Edwin's favour for me is that he whacks Peter with a handy riding crop. Mind you, I think I'd have forgiven him for strangling him, too, as long as it stopped P doing his 'Mummerset' voice.

Yes, Peter (and to an extent Patrick) are at their most interesting because vulnerable in Peter's Room. Which I think is partly a brilliant novel, partly semi-skippable italicised chunks of what their Bronte-influenced 'Gondal' fantasy game was. I've always enjoyed the conversation that Ginty has with Karen in the Trennels library about the Brontes, though it always makes me want to shout 'STAY AT OXFORD, KAREN! DON'T BECOME A DOWNTRODDEN HOUSEWIFE! EDWIN'S NOT ALL THAT!'

The casual cruelty of their treatment of Marie is so physiologically accurate. They basically don’t even intend to be cruel - they just don’t really see her as a person with feelings, because she’s irritating and not very bright.

I must say I’d forgotten hints of Patrick going into the army. I saw him more as a publishing type. The au pair snogging was horrific but perhaps shoehorned in to suggest he isn’t going to be a priest or a monk.

Always happy to come across more Forest fans. They are genuinely some of the most psychologically astute books ever written and criminally underrated. My favourites are End of Term and Cricket Term - I reread EoT just before Christmas, which is when it should be read. Both the Christmas play scene and the scene where Nicola and Patrick ride home from Wade Abbas in the dark are extraordinarily evocative. Cricket Term is brilliant for the very realistic reactions to Mari’s death and for Lois finally getting her comeuppance at the cricket final! I could honestly talk about the books for days.

Oh, and Patrick absolutely grows up to be a horrible tradcath Rees-Mogg type. I mean what normal teenage boy is that obsessed with Vatican II?

I don’t hate Patrick either. He’s obviously a prat at times, even actively unpleasant, but he’s only 15/16 and a lot of teenagers are like that. He probably improves as he gets older. I agree the army seems a likely career, at least for a while.

Similarly, I think that Nicola and Lawrie being absolute idiots on the Guide hike is very convincing, as lots of 11-year-olds ARE absolute idiots.

AF is very good on the brutal struggle for status that is life at school.

Honestly I think most teenagers can be quite dickish, and AF is just portraying that accurately rather than some fluffy Chalet School-type world.

@JoanOgden that’s an interesting article. The point is that Ann is actually a likeable character, she has friends and the staff at Kingscote all like her. It’s her family who find her annoying which I think is true to life. Having someone close to you who is constantly sweet and helpful can be annoying! I don’t think it’s true that Nicola can’t stand her - she just frequently finds her irritating. And those saintly characters of EBD’s like Robin would have been very irritating in real life.

(Sorry - I only posted the link once! something weird happened)

There's a great article by Fen Crosbie about Ann in particular here:

<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100813072718/www.maulu.demon.co.uk/AF/articles/familyfailing/index.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/20100813072718/www.maulu.demon.co.uk/AF/articles/familyfailing/index.html

I don’t think Karen would necessarily divorce Edwin. Remember he reads the Guardian, he might actually support her in her career ambitions once the children are less dependent. I don’t mind Edwin. Initially we only see him through the eyes of the younger Marlows and Peter is absolutely infuriating at this point. By the end of the book Nicola at any rate has begun to see how difficult ( and sad) the whole situation is for him.

Patrick - the suggestion he might join the army and go to Northern Ireland sent a shiver down my spine. I don't think he'd end up as a psychopath disposed of in a pet food factory after MI5 and the army washed their hands of him, but . . .

OK, my ideas of Patrick's afterlife are now wavering between Jacob Rees-Mogg and Robert Nairac... (I'd forgotten RN was a falconer...)

Strange how many people wish Ann well. In many ways I think she's the most enigmatic of the Marlow girls.

Patrick as Jacob Rees-Mogg is spot on.

I see hope for Ann somewhere in the charity or activism sector - feminist campaigning, putting her background behind her. Lawrie is obsessed with acting and is prepared to read and work to hone her interpretation of odd characters, rather than relying on being a pretty young blonde, so there's hope for her too.

Ginty - being good at games, charming and pretty, will probably have a lot of fun for a decade or two before hitting the gin and going to seed.

Karen is going to realise she made a horrible mistake, muddling up her enjoyment of college and the academic glamour of one of the first non-family adult men she met with real life.

Giles, Rowan and Nick are full of the spirit that built the British Empire. I'm Irish.

I don't hate them, but I'd prefer them to stay in Britain.

G will hit the rum, R the whisky.

Peter is very hard to predict because the set-up he started off in, child sailing cadet, ceased to exist mid series. A bit of a weasel. Minor post in an embassy somewhere not very important.

Patrick - the suggestion he might join the army and go to Northern Ireland sent a shiver down my spine. I don't think he'd end up as a psychopath disposed of in a pet food factory after MI5 and the army washed their hands of him, but . . .

Oh I fully support Karen as a top civil servant. It’s interesting that the only visible Marlow marriages that I can remember are either apart all the time or so depressing. Deliberate?

Actually Patrick’s parents’ marriage looks quite nice IIRC. Though the heavy weighting in all the marriages towards wonderful leaderish Daddies and awful domestic Mummies (cf Miranda’s parents) is tiresomely Freudian.