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

[CreativeGreen]

Apologies if the quotation isn't quite right there: no Forests to hand.

Inspired by a post on another thread, I need to talk about the Marlows. Is Rowan spectacularly awful, and Lois an Unsangered heroine? Is Giles ghastly? (I think yes). What's your Marlow Family Liking List?

(I will be posting and running for now but I have many thoughts and wanted to start the thread while I remembered to)

I think Rowan is ok, personally. I do think Giles is pretty dire and never really understood why Nicola worshipped him so much. For all one is supposed, clearly, to like Nick and Rowan most, I'm sure I have more in common with the self-serving, often cowardly, Lawrie and Ginty. Peter is a little arsehole though, and all my sympathies are with Edwin and his riding crop in Ready-Made Family.

But the worst characters to my mind are the useless parents.

What makes AF such a good writer is that her characters have such depth. Lois , for example : she does some mean, petty things but AF gets you to see why she might behave like that. I like Rowan but she does sometimes come over as a bit arrogant. Marie Dobson is unpopular and you can see why, but again AF gets you to see that she has feelings, ‘same as the rest of us’. Compare the characters in Enid Blyton’s school stories . They’re all either plucky and honourable or spiteful and selfish.

I adored Rowan when I was a child, but am now much more cats' bum mouth about the illegal driving and child smuggling. I suspect that's part of AF's aim, though.

Have you ever been a member of the Trennels community? I was when it was on Livejournal, but I didn't follow it to Dreamwidth when LJ folded, and it seems to be defunct now, though you can still read the archives.

<a class="break-all" href="https://www.dreamwidth.org/captcha?returnto=trennels.dreamwidth.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://trennels.dreamwidth.org/

There is, somewhere, a quite spectacular row about whether Pam Marlow was wrong to blow the proceeds of the Last Ditch on buying herself Chocbar and Catkin for Ginty, when family finances were dicey and some Marlows were horseless. It had a million vituperative posts, and covered everything from social class to bad parenting to hunting to sharing in big families, and tempers flew very high.

I loathe Rowan, who is always so damn sure of herself, and a natural games captain type (which I do not mean as a compliment). I think she'll end up heavy-drinking and embittered if she stays on the farm.

Giles is a far worse, male version of the same thing, all Fair Isle jumpers and natural air of command. Nicola just worships him because he's male and in the Navy (though I've always felt that the moment in RAH where she sees him across a railway station, doesn't at first recognise him in the distance, and thinks he looks 'fairly gorgeous' is weird).

I vaguely feel it would have made the world a better place if Surfrider had gone down with all hands, because Giles is awful, and Peter is headed for a career where his incredible lack of judgement about risk, and his terror of his own fears, is might potentially kill a lot of other people.

If, as one hopes, he recognises the Navy isn't for him, he might turn out OK, especially if he confines 'testing himself' to running ultramarathons or something.

Patrick grows up to be Jacob Rees-Mogg, the foul, yellow-eyed, ultra-Tory little beast.

I like to imagine Ann as something big at an international charity, maybe running Medecins Sans Frontiéres or Red Cross operations in a warzone, or something. and actually being admired for her level-headedness and generosity. In my head she marries a devout Muslim medic, they are incredibly happy, and she calms down about little things like refusing to lend her bike to someone going to a Tridentine mass.

I suspect both Ginty and Lawrie have to cop on once they leave school and the family environment and discover that the world in general doesn't light the gas for them or forgive them everything because they're pretty, charming and good at hockey.

I think drama school might be the making of Lawrie, especially if she realises lots of people are just as good as her, and some better and has to really knuckle down.

Ginty I imagine not in fact marrying young, but ending up as the longtime mistress of a Tory MP. Not Patrick. Someone much older who treats her rather badly.

Nicola is hardest to predict.

I think I might agree with every last word of this!

(and yes, used to frequent Trennels a fair bit)

Oh my goodness I love the Antonia Forest books! Part of what I love is how none of the characters are 100% likable (except perhaps the sainted Nicola, but then we mainly see things from her pov). They are all thoroughly human. Ann is the only one it seems even the writer can't stand, all because she's actually nice. I hope she grew up and went NC and lived a happy successful life!

I’ve always thought that Judi Dench reminds me of Lawrie. Somehow I don’t think Dame J is that nice. But a lot of fun.

I’m glad to see that someone else sees Patrick Marlow for the future horror that he is, though I see him more as William Cash, briefly the Heritage Secretary of UKIP I think. I went to university with quite a few Old Catholics of his ilk and was happily vaccinated against them; I’m sure there were some lovely ones but I only encountered the ones who either wore tweed waistcoats (in 1990) or aspired to jobs at the Spectator, or both. I was poleaxed by their genuine belief in the sexual mores of the 1930s (Waugh not Woolf) which led them to look at me with a kind of generalised disgust for everything I represented, thinly veiled with ‘chivalry’.

Sorry that seems to have tapped an artery rather than a vein.

I haven’t grown out of Rowan Marlow, she’s an interesting character I think and still appealing to me. Though I am team Ginty - a perfectly normal person, and portrayed as the weak link for being pretty which makes me wonder about Forest’s unresolved conflicts. In reality Ginty I hope would grow out of any interest in Patrick (surely a symptom of boredom) and become an actual fashion model followed by one of the semi accidental careers that some women of the era got into, secretary to a producer at an ITV company followed by producing the equivalent of Dramarama and Magpie.

Nicola I do see becoming a naval spouse after her time in the Wrens. It’s not exactly a tragedy, she’d have a great life posted around the world and probably multiple children. She might eventually have a late in life blooming with another woman.

Karen i can only see dying fairly young somehow. Theres a permanent sense of tragedy around her.

@PermanentTemporary, were you at Oxford? That's where I met Patrick's ilk of Catholic in the 90s (having grown up in Ireland, where Catholicism is very low church, the Oratory's 30 biretta-clad priests on the altar for the average Sunday mass, and twed-clad Young Fogeys muttering Latin, blew my mind. And, given that the chief fear of that type of Catholic was that they would get for a service or confession, a 'bog Irish' priest (not at the Oratory, obviously, you got the 'right type of priest' there), so you can imagine how well I went down.) 'Generalised disgust' sounds about right!

I actually think you're right that Ginty might be a TV natural who makes the transition from assistant to presenter to producer.

And I'd forgotten entirely about poor Karen. Yes, I agree, it's hard to imagine anything good following for her, after her inexplicable decision give up Oxford to marry a recent widower who doesn't seem that bothered about her, evict the Tranters, take on his three young, bewildered children, and lead a life out of a kitchen sink drama.

Those scenes where Nicola drops in on Karen and the children, and they're having toast and dripping and orange-juice-and-cream and Karen is dolefully making a glum dessert out of the ruins of some previous baking experiment or mending costumes, are unbelievably depressing.

I mean, at least when the Marlow parents eloped, it was (at least initially) to a life of naval postings and parties.

I always feel sad for Karen leaving Oxford before she’s finished her degree and essentially becoming a housewife, particularly as AF says elsewhere that she can’t abide the human young. However I don’t foresee a sad end for her. I think after a couple of years she gets fed up of domesticity, takes an external degree
somewhere and becomes a high flying civil
servant. It’s clear that although not assertive
she is quite obstinate once she’s set on something. Like getting the Tranters out of their tied cottage.

I really hope so. Does she divorce the gruesome Edwin in this scenario?

Goodness me that must have been very weird. Cambridge… stumbled into one of the tweedier colleges. I had no idea how Protestant I was until I got there, the conflict in my house being my dad and I going to an Anglican parish church vs my extreme Baptist brother, so thought of myself as the ‘high’ one. I must admit, the Calvinists I encountered during a brief visit to the Christian Union were even worse. Who knew people actually believed that stuff.

Maybe Ann Marlow became a deacon? She might not have believed in women’s ordination though.

I didn't mind Edwin. Peter was so utterly obnoxious that I was Team Edwin (The Ready Made Family). I've never managed to track down Peter's Room, which might show him in a different light?

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.

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 . . .

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.

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...)

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.

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

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

@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.

Peter is rather more likeable in PR - I think we see him as a bit more vulnerable in various ways in that one. Although still something of a little prick, of course. I'm sad for any Forest fan who hasn't read this one, though, which in many ways is my favourite - is it still available from Girls Gone By?

I imagine like a lot of people I picked these up haphazardly when I found them, and didn't read in sequence for a long time. So it was always great to have those moments like 'oh so THIS is where Peter says that Nick puts her hands in her pockets while Lawrie hitches at her stockings' 😂

Also yes - Patrick. What a heel. So disgusted at Ginty's dishonest character that he .... gets off with the au pair (and imagine snogging someone and then them saying 'that was rather pleasurable. Might we do that again some time? 😩). And then makes significant moves on her sister over Christmas, having ignored Ginty's birthday or least being pleased to remember he forgot it. It's better than evens he'll go to the bad rather than the good.

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

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.

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.