Is there a current chalet school thread? Anyone fancy it?

[FelicityBeedle]

Was introduced to these on MN a few years ago, having a reread. Forgotten the extent to which I want to shake Mary Lou!

Well, that's the thing, isn't it? I don't think for a moment EBD was conscious that she was writing a scene in which the power of a charismatic, wildly popular sister-of-the-Founder HG over a gentle, ineffectual and unwilling Head is being demonstrated, but it's certainly open to that interpretation. Especially when it's followed shortly by the whole Matron Besly fiasco, which largely comes down to her not having been properly briefed on school rules (prefects don't get order marks, are allowed to read in bed, and staff don't enter their bedrooms) and not realising she's supposed to recognise that Joey is a 'dear girl' and be given special treatment.

This is one of the things I find most compelling about the CS, and why IMO it supports so much dissecting (and also fanfic for the same reason). There's this gloriously frequent disconnect between what the author definitely wants to say, ever so didactically, and all the other stuff which definitely happens and which is completely at odds with the deliberate message! It's like her own world is misbehaving.

I love the dormitory descriptions. As a child I just straightforwardly enjoyed them (although I'm sure i had no clue what a 'cretonne' was). These days it's a sort of nostalgic affection for the absurd. I love the lengthy discussion of new dresses in one of the later books (Ruey?) in much the same way.

Also, Margot Venables. As a child I didn't really notice that there was anything odd about her just 'fading away', but isn't she like... 40?

@FelicityBeedle

Just read a bizarre like in trials “ “Verity, who possessed a knack of rubbing hair dry that her “sister-by-marriage” declared was a positive gift.” Can one person really be that superior at drying hair?

@FelicityBeedle

Does anyone know of it was normal to be fined for misdemeanours in school? I know it goes to the san but it still feels very mean

My school (80s/90s) went in for fines, although not for slang It was 20p for forgetting your locker key and 10p for criminal carelessness with the test tubes. So I always found that part of the CS very believable!

@FelicityBeedle

Just read a bizarre like in trials “ “Verity, who possessed a knack of rubbing hair dry that her “sister-by-marriage” declared was a positive gift.” Can one person really be that superior at drying hair?

Those famous Chalet School superpowers ...

Weather prediction
"French" fingers to set clothes / hair straight
Eyes that have never needed glasses
...
Uncanny knack for towelling hair dry

@NellWilsonsWhiteHair

Well, that's the thing, isn't it? I don't think for a moment EBD was conscious that she was writing a scene in which the power of a charismatic, wildly popular sister-of-the-Founder HG over a gentle, ineffectual and unwilling Head is being demonstrated, but it's certainly open to that interpretation. Especially when it's followed shortly by the whole Matron Besly fiasco, which largely comes down to her not having been properly briefed on school rules (prefects don't get order marks, are allowed to read in bed, and staff don't enter their bedrooms) and not realising she's supposed to recognise that Joey is a 'dear girl' and be given special treatment.

This is one of the things I find most compelling about the CS, and why IMO it supports so much dissecting (and also fanfic for the same reason). There's this gloriously frequent disconnect between what the author definitely wants to say, ever so didactically, and all the other stuff which definitely happens and which is completely at odds with the deliberate message! It's like her own world is misbehaving.

I love the dormitory descriptions. As a child I just straightforwardly enjoyed them (although I'm sure i had no clue what a 'cretonne' was). These days it's a sort of nostalgic affection for the absurd. I love the lengthy discussion of new dresses in one of the later books (Ruey?) in much the same way.

Also, Margot Venables. As a child I didn't really notice that there was anything odd about her just 'fading away', but isn't she like... 40?

Exactly, @NellWilsonsWhiteHair (and may I say how attractive the poudré effect is on you... ). There is this massive disconnect between EBD's conscious message, and the farrago of often far more weird, interesting and contradictory things that actually go on in the novels.

And yes, absolutely me too, having an affectionate sense of the absurdity of some of the key components of EBD's visual aesthetic -- I also adore the lingering descriptions of the new uniform dress ideas, and all her approving descriptions of Joey and Madge's salons (and of course the terrible comedown that is Joey's house in Carnbach after Plas Gwyn...)

It must have been recommended here before, and you need to know Antonia Forest, but my favourite fan fiction on the whole of the internet is the terrifyingly convincing romance between Giles Marlow and his one and only ...
www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=rose_and_lizard&keyword=Giles%20Marlow%27s%20One%20And%20Only&filter=all

In fairness, though, when so many of the girls, especially in the early novels, have huge swathes of very long hair, and are only able to towel-dry it by a stove or fire in winter and no doubt Matey has a total horror of girls having even slightly damp hair for a second longer than necessary a magical hair-drying super-power would be pretty useful.

I remember being fascinated by that episode where some of the Middles cornflour one another's hair and the punishment is for the miscreants to wash the hair in question, and it's clear that it's considered quite a big deal, the whole shampooing and drying thing. I mean, you can see why they didn't wash their hair often, especially the ones with masses of thick waist-length hair, and why the short-haired girls in the earlier books are so reluctant to grow it you couldn't wash it often, and when you did, it was a real faff. When Joey and co get back from their night on the Stubai glacier, Joey has a bath, and we're told she's clean 'even to her hair, as she had given it a rubbing' presumably if you were short-haired, this was mostly what you did, just give it a quick scrub in the bath?

True, and there is quite a hair theme going on in book 1, when you think about it. Arrive in Austria - get hair washed (and never hear the end of a tiny slip in your German). Want a friend - cut off hair. And then that baffling bit where the doctor sees Joey through her - brain fever - and orders Madge off to get her hair washed ...

That line is telling us something Very Important about Verity

My hair is past my hips and not very thick but still doesn’t necessarily dry over night so I do see what a massive faff it is. Just not convinced one person can be all that much better at it! I’m starting theodora and I think I’m only a few books off the furthest I’ve read, I definitely didn’t finish them last read

That was thoroughly enjoyable @YesToThis, and cheered up a pretty horrid day. Thank you!

[quote YesToThis]It must have been recommended here before, and you need to know Antonia Forest, but my favourite fan fiction on the whole of the internet is the terrifyingly convincing romance between Giles Marlow and his one and only ...
www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=rose_and_lizard&keyword=Giles%20Marlow%27s%20One%20And%20Only&filter=all[/quote]
I haven’t read it yet, but I’m cherishing the possibility of Giles (much my least favourite Antonia Forest character) keel-hauling OOAO after she suggested he cast his eyes up to the hills.

@FelicityBeedle, are you also ultra-blonde, quiet and a natural peacemaker?

@BinocularVision

I haven’t read it yet, but I’m cherishing the possibility of Giles (much my least favourite Antonia Forest character) keel-hauling OOAO after she suggested he cast his eyes up to the hills.

There is indeed some lifting up of eyes ... unto Rum Beacon.

It's a lovely comfort read - just reread it. Both universes in character. There may even be an EBD doctor as a prize for one of the Marlow girls ...

@BinocularVision it is fascinating how much EBD implies without realising it, and how people can read the books and take away something completely different. Like the Maynards being EBD's perfect family but they're actually deeply screwed up. Read Jo to the Rescue and then Trials, and you can see very clearly how the Maynard triplets behave exactly the same way, even though they're toddlers in the former and teens in the latter. (Btw are you CJ/Sunglass? I know CJ is on here. She namechanges from time to time.)

I always imagine the cubicles to look like Laura Ashley. Actually, the yellow rooms sound quite pretty. Somebody in another thread asked if EBD was on the spectrum and I do wonder, because of her obsession with minute details and special interests showing up in the books (cellos and folk dancing being the most obvious). I also think one reason why the books appeal to autistic people - I'm not the only one in this thread! - is because they're fairly repetitive. I could recite the sheepdog's speech to new girls in the Swiss era in my sleep. Hat goes here, hankies go there, hump your mattress, take your baths cold or chill off, keep your drawers tidy or Matey will have something to say, etc. Same with the prefects' meetings. You know some girl will go on a tangent and the Head Girl will say, "Back on topic, please, there's a lot to get through and we don't have any too much time." Or "Look at the time! We'd better scram or we'll be late for Kaffee und Kuchen, and won't the kids crow?" And there will be whole chapters devoted to things like picking a tennis team or the new copies of the Chaletian coming out.

(Ruey is the one with the new dresses. And the lacrosse. Oh, the lacrosse.)

I was just googling to try and remind myself of the name of the dentist in Tirol (no luck!) and found a wonderful old CS thread with a great little quiz if anyone wants to test their self. I didn’t do too badly I don’t think
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/childrens_books/1335219-Chalet-School-fans-Radio-4-programme-with-Val-McDermid?pg=4

[quote FelicityBeedle]I was just googling to try and remind myself of the name of the dentist in Tirol (no luck!) and found a wonderful old CS thread with a great little quiz if anyone wants to test their self. I didn’t do too badly I don’t think
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/childrens_books/1335219-Chalet-School-fans-Radio-4-programme-with-Val-McDermid?pg=4[/quote]
Isn't that Herr von Francius, who somehow follows the school from Innsbruck to Interlaken (presumably not via Armiford and the Island).

Thanks for the quiz - will try

See I thought it was Herr Vom Francius in Innsbruck too! I need to have more faith in my memory for pointless details. Yet another weird follower of the school

At least even EBD doesn't try to convince us that he was devoted to Joey like every other hotel keeper / apple seller / servant / random Tirolean.

@FelicityBeedle do you have all the books or -ahem- the infamous transcripts?

Isn't there someone called Parker123 who had access to the Dropbox? Btw if you want the GGBP versions (and they are worth getting) and don't want to fork out a shit ton of money for them, there's a site called Topsy Turvy Books that sells them: www.topsyturvychildrensbooks.co.uk. Betula is usually the one I buy from, I'm not sure how many CS books Sally has.

Herr von Francius was totally stalking them. Maybe he had a grudge against Joey.

Let’s say I have access to them all

@YesToThis

At least even EBD doesn't try to convince us that he was devoted to Joey like every other hotel keeper / apple seller / servant / random Tirolean.

I assumed he’d trekked on foot across Europe after Joey and the school, with his dental drill on his back, like whoever it is that shows up with Rufus (Jockel? I have a feeling he was one of those picturesque simple-minded peasant types EBD liked because they were grateful for their keep and never talked about raises or holiday pay?)

That or all dentists in the CS world are Herr von Franciuses, like all Matrons are Matey.

I’ve reached ‘In Tirol’ and when lamenting the possible demise of Roland Carey they only mention how awful it is for Mary Kou and her mum, what about poor Verity who was missing her father most of her life!

Yeah, they're all worried about how OOAO might have to give up her career to look after her mum and Verity. Never mind that Verity, you know, just lost her dad.

At that point, EBD had got so thoroughly invested in Verity Anne (or did the Anne part get quietly dropped at some point?) as the poor, weak, clinging vine basically Doris Mark II that I think EBD had entirely forgotten that about five minutes earlier she was a stroppy little madam with a mulish attachment to her own way of doing things and a tendency to act as a corrective to Mary-Lou.

And what always strikes me is that what changed in the interim was less the return of her father than getting OOAO as a 'sister-by-marriage', bouncing about setting the world to rights and taking over from her grandmother in treating Doris as though she was a child. Proximity to Mary-Lou kills off Verity's personality, and turns her into a useless, 'moony' deadweight with a voice too weak for a singing career, whereupon she and widowed-again Doris become The Things Keeping Mary-Lou From Being Indiana Jones, until EBD kills Doris and consigns Verity to a convenient marriage which is viewed by the entire CS community as essentially consigning her to a care home for the 'moony', hence removing her as an obstacle to OOAO.

EBD did love the courtship-and-marriage narrative of highly-strung/emotional/ill/ been-through-a-lot woman collapses into the arms of a strong man, didn't she?

I loved Verity when she was younger! She was such a stubborn little kid and even Joey couldn't convince her. Even. Joey. And even after she gets over her anti-German thing, she's still really determined, like when she keeps climbing out of a window to get snow to melt down for hot drinks, even when she's in pain, and OOAO has to tell her to knock it off. And she acts as a sort of counter to OOAO's gregariousness. Simone's personality transplant at least makes sense, she had to go to uni and get a job to support her family, and she met Andre, and World War 2 happened, so she had to grow up and stop mooning over Joey all the time. Verity just turns into this useless drip who everyone can't wait to be married off (and her singing voice goes from lark-like to weak? WTF?) and needs Mary-Lou to hold her hand all the time.