Reading: Falconer's Lure

[white_hart]

Falconer's Lure, recently reprinted by Girls Gone By Press, fills in a lot of the gaps that confused me as a child reading Antonia Forest's Kingscote books; how the Marlows seemed to live a long way from the school at first, and then much closer, and who Patrick was, and why he only appeared later on, and where the hawks came from. It's a much more "typical" children's holiday story than The Marlows and the Traitor, or indeed Peter's Room which I finally read a couple of years ago, with a loose and episodic plot covering typical (and not so typical) summer holiday activities; swimming, riding, hawking. Forest being Forest, though, this isn't your typical sunny summer holiday book; death and bereavement loom large, and the Marlows continue to be deeply dysfunctional in a stiff-upper-lip kind of way and not entirely likeable.

There are some really stunning passages in this book; the scene where Nicola and Patrick are on the Crowlands, watching Jon's plane in the distance, struck me in particular (I knew from reading later books, online synopses and fic what was going to happen, but it was still incredibly well done). I love how Forest shifts the viewpoint from character to character, never letting the reader completely sympathise with anyone but giving everyone, even the rather difficult characters like Ann and Ginty, at least a moment of sympathy. And Peter's diving scene reminded me of the thing I most loved about the Marlows as a child, and still do now: the way they use quotations and scenes from fiction and poetry to understand and interpret the world. I never really identified with any of the Marlows; they were all too brave and sporty and outgoing for me, apart possibly from Lawrie in whom I can see a lot of the things I least like about myself, but I absolutely recognised that way of filtering life through art, and I don't think I'd ever seen it described before. Certainly not in such a recognisable way. (Also, the idea of Peter and Selby earnestly debating whether Childe Roland defeated what was in the Dark Tower or not until the person behind them got fed up is wonderfully entertaining, and also absolutely the kind of thing I would do too.)

There's now only one Marlows book I haven't read, The Ready-Made Family. I was going to wait until Girls Gone By reprinted it, but having just realised that it comes after The Thuggery Affair and not before and is therefore likely to be more like 18 months away than 12 I have ordered an expensive secondhand copy. I hope this one turns up - I did try this once before and was then told that the book had been returned to the sender after being damaged in the post, though I can't help wondering if they actually had it to send in the first place.

Comments

[naraht]

The Ready-Made Family is actually my favourite of the Marlows books, but I know this is a very unusual opinion among proper Marlows fans, so I'll be interested to hear what you think...

[white_hart]

I particularly want to read it because of the Oxford bit - "fictional depictions of Oxford, accuracy or lack of thereof", is definitely one of my Things.

[naraht]

Yeah, same here, although oddly enough the Oxford bit is not why I liked the novel so much. I didn't find anything terribly inaccurate but I didn't find it all that evocative either.

[antisoppist]

If you'd said, I'd have lent you it. Do shout if it doesn't turn up and you can borrow my GGBP copy. I also have hardbacks of most, and in fact three different editions of Thuggery, which is plainly ridiculous. Er...

My Falconer's Lure was 50p in a library sale in my teens and I was so delighted because when you'd only had the school ones for a decade it made sense of so much!

[white_hart]

Thank you, I will bear that in mind. I obviously want my own copy eventually, but would be happy to wait for GGBP to reprint it if I read it from elsewhere, as I am Thuggery and Run Away Home, which I read when in my teens (not that either of those was much good at explaining the backstory, though!).

[perennialanna]

I found Readymade Family AND Thuggery Affair for 50p each in a charity shop in my second at university. And I gave them both to my sister because I thought she was more of a Marlow fan than me. One of the several misguided decisions I made that year, though pre-ordering GGBP editions was at least easier than divorcing C.

[white_hart]

I wish now I'd asked the school librarian if I could keep the copy of The Thuggery Affair she'd brought in for the library but decided she couldn't keep there as I'd pointed out (after reading it) that it had a paint splodge in. Though then I'd probably just have ditched it in my off-to-university-putting-away-childish-things fit of culling instead.

[mrs-redboots.livejournal.com]

coughingbear has transcripts of all the Forest novels if you want them for your Kindle.

[auntyros.livejournal.com]

Ooooh.... *drafts email to coughingbear*

I think I must have read a library copy of Falconer's Lure while I was reading the school stories. For a long time I thought I'd imagined it, there it all was on the page. I do love a lot of scenes in this book, though I'm not sure that the whole thing hangs together. But Nicola breaking down in the middle of the singing comp (doing exactly that thing of filtering life through art) has stuck in my head for years. I've never seen Coriolanus, but I love that poem because of Jael and Nicola.

[white_hart]

I love "Fear No More" too. Though it's the easily-confused Cymbeline not Coriolanus (I had to google to check, because I have seen Corolanus both at the RSC with Toby Stephens and on film with Ralph Fiennes and didn't recall the song in either. Whereas I have never seen Cymbeline, but do have tickets for the live screening of the current RSC production next month).

[auntyros.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes of course. I haven't seen either.