Antonia Forest Fans ...

[TarquinGyrfalcon]

Calling all Antonia Forest Fans.

Why do you love AF books? And what/who is your favourite books/scene/character?

I think for me it is the fact the characters are quite self aware or their weaknesses are so well written by AF that I can identify with so many of their failings and feelings.

I've just reread The Marlows and the Traitor and Peter's shame at the boat thing resonates with me. The fact that he can barely bring himself to think about it but he can't out it out of his mind.

My favourite character changes all the time - I have a soft spot for Rowan - I would have loved to see what happened to her when Giles returned to claim Trennels in later years.

Aha, that would explain why Karen and Patrick are both swots😀

All very true, well said 👏

But Karen does very well academically, wins scholarships etc (at least until she ditches Oxford to become a Dodd), whereas Patrick, while clearly bright, and good at some subjects, isn’t in her league…

Yes, Patrick does get distracted by hawks etc
Does Karen have any hobbies,?

We’re not told that she has. She seems to spend her life doing academic work until she (mistakenly imo) ditches Oxford and becomes a sahm. She’s a very bad driver, a poor head girl and doesn’t like riding. In fact she’s probably the least well realised of all of them. Though because it’s AF she still comes to life.

Actually I may be wrong about the riding. I think Rowan says somewhere that ‘ Kay rides quite decently’. But it doesn’t seem to be a thing she does.

It’s true the reader ends up doing all kinds of mental gymnastics to try to equate clever, highly-academic Karen, who doesn’t really do anything with vim but read, and who appears to be a natural scholar, given to brief, illuminating lectures on Austen and the Brontes’ juvenilia, with the Karen who is so anxious to marry a middle-aged divorcé-turned-widower (with three young children! who never seems to be that nice to her!) that she ditches Oxford after a couple of terms.

Endless Forest fan speculation about whether she has the classic ‘big fish, small pond’ experience when she goes up, and discovers she’s not that clever by Oxford standards, so Edwin is an escape route etc etc. But AF never tells us, just makes it clear it’s Karen pushing to marry immediately, not Edwin. And those scenes of a clever 19/20 year old turned drudge making puddings for three bemused children who barely know who she is are so grim…

Yes, and it’s particularly odd when we’re told that she ‘ can’t abide the human young’ so why does she do it? After all , Edwin doesn’t seem that much of a catch. Though to be fair we only see him through Marlow eyes.

I think Karen is one of those people who can only focus on one thing. So initially it was study and Oxford and then Edwin and his children.
I'm in the little fish in a big pond camp. She did well at Kingscote but only because she worked really hard and was devoted to her studies. Perhaps on Oxford she found herself completely outclassed.

@TarquinGyrfalcon I’m not sure that she would have been outclassed academically. I actually read Classics at Oxford, a bit later than Karen would have done, but still at a time when only five colleges were open to women. It was fairly difficult to get in and very
difficult to get a scholarship , even from a ( presumably) top school like Kingscote ( I didn’t get one). So I think she would have kept up ok. Maybe she struggled socially? She doesn’t seem to have had much of
a friendship group, unlike the other Marlows. Or many outside interests. Hence she related better to the older Edwin than to her contemporaries.

I'm not sure AF really thought about Karen all that much after the first book. She is described as 'not being able to abide the human young', but elsewhere, she and Ann are running children's games at a party or something because that's the sort of thing they naturally liked to do.

I get the feeling that she was kind of surplus to requirements after Autumn Term, and only comes in useful occasionally when needed - to make the plot of the Oxford/Rose book possible, etc. She never seems quite as fully developed as the other characters (though obviously head and shoulders above minor characters by other authors!).

Agreed, very well put again!

Ah, now that's an interesting point - was Kingscote a top school? Grandma Paris thought so.
I suppose it pushed the girls academically and in other ways, and whatever decade AF was writing in, they were expected to go to university and have proper careers rather than be good wives and mothers.
By contrast the Pamela character in Malory Towers has to become a deb, find a husband and run the family estate. Though is Rowan the equivalent of that, skipping the deb bit? Pamela acknowledged in the TV version that 'it's a way of life that's dying', but meanwhile she's stuck with it.
I'm inevitably reflecting my own state girls' school, similar in the ambition department, maybe similar sizewise - c600 girls, with a gaggle each year groomed for Oxbridge. So Karen would be one of those, from a small fish into a big pond..

Wasn’t Kingscote loosely based on Sherborne Girls? It wouldn’t actually have been that big a pond though. In my women’s college there were 5 of us in the classics intake (early 70s); 2 from grammar schools, three from independent. The other women’s colleges would have been similar.

Just found this thread, how exciting! Not had time to read it all yet but will be back to do so.

I've loved these books since I first read Autumn Term when I was around the age of the twins at the time. (A long time ago.) I've read all the Marlow books at some time, but very long ago in some cases. Gradually re-gathering them, which is obviously hard without paying crazy prices.

Love the writing, the dialogue, characterisation and how complex, believable and relatable the characters are.

Well if you want to get lost in a rabbit hole of all things Antonia Forest, have a look at the archived discussions, read throughs, fan fics, articles, and so on at

https://trennels.dreamwidth.org/

It will occupy you for months!

I do! And I will!

Thank you 😀

Me too, thanks!