Reading: The Marlows and the Traitor
Apr. 20th, 2016 08:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
white_hartI read Antonia's Forest's four school stories (Autumn Term, End of Term, The Cricket Term and The Attic Term) from the public library when I was ten or eleven and a huge school story fan, but although at some point I became vaguely aware that she had also written a number of non-school set books about the same characters I only ever managed to read The Thuggery Affair and Run Away Home. This didn't matter too much, as continuity-wise I was all over the place anyway; I'm pretty sure the first one I read was The Attic Term, which is the last but one, but when I saw that Girls Gone By were reprinting them all I was keen to get them. The Marlows and the Traitor is the second in the series, after Autumn Term; it was reprinted a few months ago but didn't feel like the right kind of book to read in winter, so I saved it for spring.
I'm not sure why I was surprised that it's really quite a disturbing book. Even as a child, I knew that the Kingscote books were much more realistic than the jolly fantasy of Malory Towers or the slightly Stepford-esque Chalet School where every troubled new girl is transformed into "a proper Chalet girl" by the end of her first term, part of the big happy Chalet community. (Apart from Joan Baker, who is unable to overcome the terrible disadvantage of not only being working class but completely unashamed of it, and who therefore remains an outsider until the end of her time at school.) And the other Forest "holiday books" I've read were also pretty heavy on the not-particularly-mild peril and light-to-nonexistent on the cosiness of remembered childhood. But even so, and even given that I'd read enough online discussion of Forest to have a reasonable idea of the plot, I was still surprised by just how scary I found bits of it (to the extent that it definitely gave me nightmares last night). It's fantastically well written, of course, and contains some really atmospheric descriptive passages. And I love the Marlows; they're such complex, real characters. Nicola has always been my favourite, mostly because she's a reader (and was the person who first got me interested in Hornblower) but I was surprised by how much Traitor made my sympathise with Ginty, who is normally one of my least favourites.
Next up will be Falconer's Lure, which is due to be reprinted at the end of May. I don't know why Forest isn't better known, when she was such a good writer; thank goodness for Girls Gone By at least, as older copies are incredibly expensive even where they are available.
I'm not sure why I was surprised that it's really quite a disturbing book. Even as a child, I knew that the Kingscote books were much more realistic than the jolly fantasy of Malory Towers or the slightly Stepford-esque Chalet School where every troubled new girl is transformed into "a proper Chalet girl" by the end of her first term, part of the big happy Chalet community. (Apart from Joan Baker, who is unable to overcome the terrible disadvantage of not only being working class but completely unashamed of it, and who therefore remains an outsider until the end of her time at school.) And the other Forest "holiday books" I've read were also pretty heavy on the not-particularly-mild peril and light-to-nonexistent on the cosiness of remembered childhood. But even so, and even given that I'd read enough online discussion of Forest to have a reasonable idea of the plot, I was still surprised by just how scary I found bits of it (to the extent that it definitely gave me nightmares last night). It's fantastically well written, of course, and contains some really atmospheric descriptive passages. And I love the Marlows; they're such complex, real characters. Nicola has always been my favourite, mostly because she's a reader (and was the person who first got me interested in Hornblower) but I was surprised by how much Traitor made my sympathise with Ginty, who is normally one of my least favourites.
Next up will be Falconer's Lure, which is due to be reprinted at the end of May. I don't know why Forest isn't better known, when she was such a good writer; thank goodness for Girls Gone By at least, as older copies are incredibly expensive even where they are available.
