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Best friends
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Author:  Maeve [ Sun Feb 22, 2009 8:28 pm ]
Post subject:  Best friends

It's a bit strange to me that when I think of various key characters in the CS, I can't really say who their best friend was. Mary Lou, for example -- was she closest to Verity or Vi Lucy or someone else? She was good friends with Clem, but best friends? Who was THE person she would go to?

Or Joey -- which one of the quartette was it? Sometimes I think she was closest to Frieda, but it's hard to be sure. Or Grizel or Juliet or Corney or Len or Katherine Gordon, and on and on. There are a few best friend pairings that we hear about -- Margot and Emerence and the Lucy-Chester cousins who were of an age, and Gay and Jacynth, but overall, people -- even the main figures -- seem to be friends with lots of people. Which is nice, of course, but does that seem realistic in a school setting?

When I was at school, best friendship was a fairly big deal and in the Malory Towers books you have Darell and Sally and in Antonia Forest's Kingscote, people certainly discuss best friends, even if those relationships are sometimes fluid.

*Just my end of the week-end waffle :oops: *

Author:  Nightwing [ Sun Feb 22, 2009 9:13 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

Mary-Lou I find particularly interesting - she's described as being particularly good friends with Verity, but by the time the school gets to Switzerland she seems a lot closer to Vi Lucy. Whereas Mary-Lou/Verity is an 'opposites attract' friendship, where the biggest thing they have in common seems to be that their fathers were friends, Mary-Lou/Vi have a lot more in common; Vi has a lot of the same qualities that ML has, even if ML's are the ones that are really emphasised to the reader. Her friendship with Clem also seems to fall away, although this is more realistic as they both begin to make friends with the other students in their own classes.

Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Sun Feb 22, 2009 9:21 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

It always strikes me that a lot of the friendships we see are based on the sheepdog system - whoever is sheepdogging the new girl is also going to be her friend. It makes sense, I suppose, in that the characters would naturally grow close thanks to being together a lot, and at the same time it saves EBD from having to introduce a lot of characters.

The CS, rather than having best friends, seems to have cliques - the Quartet, the Quintette, the Gang. While for other series, like Malory Towers, having 'best friends' works well because the author is only focusing on one or two characters, for the CS, cliques seem to work very well. Personally, it does define different eras in the CS. The Quartet largely govern the Austrian years, along with the Quintette, the Gang always mark out Switzerland for me, the Trips and friends are a large part of the end of the series etc. It also still allows for more exclusive friendships, which happen in the background, and give a realistic feel while still allowing EBD to focuse on many characters easily.

Best friends that come to mind are - Grizel and Wanda, Gisela and Bernhilda, Simone and Joey (if it was never fully returned), Jack and Jem - we mustn't forget the doctors! - and Madge and Madmoiselle, Gay/Jacynth/Gill, Elisaveta and Joey, Margot and Emmy.

Author:  Lesley [ Sun Feb 22, 2009 9:25 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

We tend to see 'best friends' more in the Staff than the girls - with Hilda/Nell and Nancy/Kathie as the most obvious ones. I wonder if that was a deliberate ploy of EBD's? To try and show that, as a girl, it was better to have a group of friends rather than one 'be all and end all' friendship. She certainly, from the first, tends to discourage these - Joey and Simone for example.

Author:  Abi [ Sun Feb 22, 2009 9:33 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

An interesting question. For Mary-Lou I would probably have plumped on Verity, who seems to be her best friend long-term. I think it's also important that with many of the characters, like Mary-Lou, Joey and Grizel, we see them over many, many years - it's natural that they wouldn't always be friends with the same people.

I actually find Grizel interesting - she starts out as closest to Joey, mostly because of their circumstances but in her first few terms at school she has close friendships with Juliet and Wanda and by the end of her time at school she becomes friends with Deira. These changes seem to follow the changes in her own character - different people are important to her at different times for different reasons. Of course she always remains close to Joey and by the end of the series it is again Joey who seems to be her closest friend - full circle!

I also think it's sometimes typical that teenagers in particular don't always have one special friend, or that these will change and evolve within a close group - it's that age where you get a strong gang feeling and this is sometimes (not always, obviously) more important than the individual friendships.

Author:  JayB [ Sun Feb 22, 2009 9:43 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

I think Madge was always Jo's best friend, in the sense that Jo would always turn to her first, at least until her marriage. As an adult I'd say Jo was closest to Frieda, because Frieda lived with her during the war, and they both had the experience of worrying over a delicate child.

I think the ML-Verity friendship was an unequal one - ML rushes round helping Verity get dressed etc., but doesn't seem to get much in return - when Doris dies, ML doesn't expect any support from Verity. I think Jo was ML's best friend by the time she left school.

Author:  Alison H [ Sun Feb 22, 2009 9:54 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

At our school most people did have a "best friend", although maybe not to the extent that you get in Malory Towers where everyone seems to be paired off.

Margot and Emerence're the most significant "best friend" pairing in the books, I think. There are a few others - Ricki Fry and Sue Mason, and Christine and Catriona "the inseparables" - but their friendships don't really impact much on the story. I feel sorry for Elisaveta, who always counts Joey as her best friend (asking her to be her chief bridesmaid, naming José after her) even though the feeling doesn't seem to be mutual - not unrealistically so given that Elisaveta leaves school young to be trained for her (expected) future role as queen whereas Joey carries on living in the "normal" world of school et al. Grizel and Deira are interesting in that they seem to become long-distance best friends after they've left school and their lives have gone in different directions.

Most people at the CS seem to be part of cliques or gangs, and it does work quite well because it means that there's usually a group of people involved in a storyline: it's hard to imagine some of the "pranks" and other things working so well if only two people'd been involved.

Girls sometimes do seem to feel the lack of a "best friend", though: we see Vi feeling a little sad that Mary-Lou is closer to Verity than to her, and Madge is pleased when Josette pals up with Jo Scott because Josette, although she's part of Mary-Lou's Gang, hasn't had a "best friend" until then.

Author:  Cat C [ Sun Feb 22, 2009 10:03 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

I think Lesley has it right - EBD was seemed very much of the opinion that friends are for sharing, and quite often makes her favourite characters a mouthpiece for that philosophy, starting with Joey lecturing Simone about how she won't have just one friend.

There's a bit in one of the books about GO literature in general that contrasts the various ideas the authors had - EB pairing people up, and EBD insisting that friends should be shared.

It does get a bit extreme when you've got OOAO telling Jessica that she's selfish for not wanting to share her mother with Rosamund, mind you.

As for M-L herself, I always thought that Vi was her best friend, since Verity was dubbed her sister, and Clem more of an older cousin-type, although great friend in the holidays.

Author:  Sunglass [ Sun Feb 22, 2009 11:37 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

I'd agree that EBD thought friends were for sharing - the apostles and Jesus etc as OOAO points out somewhere - and is more interested in friendship groups, and in who the influential/leader girls of those groups are. Part of this must be that there is so little unstructured free time at the CS after the very early years - there would be very little time or opportunity for a pair of best friends to regularly go off and spend exclusive time together as a pair away from the rest of their form/the other Middles/the people in their common room. Also, a lot of the ways in which 'exclusive' best friendships were expressed when I was at school, and in other GO stories, aren't applicable at the CS, bar 'booking' partners for walks - where you sit at meals is assigned, you march from your common room in order, classroom seats usually seem to be assigned also. There don't seem to be extracurricular activities one could opt to sign up for as a pair. Now that I think of it, this relentless schedule makes the stress on your walk partner in some of the Swiss books more understandable - it would be possibly one of the few times you got to be one on one...

Author:  Caroline [ Mon Feb 23, 2009 10:45 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

I think there's also an element of EBD not favouring the all-in-all rather sentimental (and possibly open to various interpretations by modern readers...) friendships portrayed by Angela Brazil, for example, where girls go around holding hands and with their arms around each other and declaring their love all over the place.

Possibly this type of friendship was common in books which slightly pre-dated EBD and she was part of a backlash against them - as was DFB with her anti-soppists...

EBD is certainly very determinedly against exclusive best-friendships in all bar a very small handful of special cases, and seems to portray them as almost unhealthy in their exclusivity.

Author:  Abi [ Mon Feb 23, 2009 8:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

Caroline wrote:
Possibly this type of friendship was common in books which slightly pre-dated EBD and she was part of a backlash against them - as was DFB with her anti-soppists...


I think there was definitely a general backlash against this kind of exclusive all-in-all friendship. There was a whole big reaction against lesbianism around this time I think, especially after books like The Well of Loneliness were published - that was in 1928 which was around the time of the earlier CS books. I think a lot of authors went too far the other way so as not to be accused of influencing girls 'unhealthily'. if any of that makes sense...

Author:  macyrose [ Tue Feb 24, 2009 5:34 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

From Three Go, Gran is talking to Mary-Lou
Quote:
Gran considered. 'What I mean is this. Learn to share your friends with other people. If they're worth having, they and you will be all the closer for it. It's the people who demand everything and won't share who are to be doubted. They're jealous, and jealousy breeds lack of faith, and that, sooner or later, means a bad break in the friendship. Never ask too much from your friends. No one can give everything to one person. A good deal - probably the best they have to give - yes; but not all. Friendship should mean complete trust; otherwise it becomes an insult. Remember that! No; you don't understand more than half of what I'm saying, but if you remember, you will later. Never be jealous or exacting or selfish in your friendships. And never give in to that sort of thing either, or you'll only end by making yourself and the other person miserable.'

This quote has always stood out for me as EBD's view on friendships. Which may explain that while she did portray some friendships as one one one best friends like Margot and Emerence most of her girls hung out in groups.
When I was growing up it was important to have a best friend - just one. I had one best friend from nursery school to grade three then another one from grade five until college. It was only when I was an adult that I realized one can have more than one best friend at a time - I now have three.

Author:  MJKB [ Tue Feb 24, 2009 1:19 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

I should have taken more notice of that quote because it makes sense and would have saved me from alot of heartache. Needy people, who find it difficult to deal with friendships other than one/one tend to gravitate towards me. People like that put a great deal of pressure on one and are often openly hostile to other friends one might have. I won't bore the site with accounts of how this type of relationship has weighed me down over the years. It's only now that I've learnt to cope with people like this, and thankfully I have a number of people who qualify as close friends. Friendship is so important and gives colour and shape to life.

Author:  JS [ Tue Feb 24, 2009 3:17 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

I think that while Mary-Lou and Vi started out being attracted to each other as 'best friends', by the end of the series it's more Mary-Lou and Verity and Vi and Barbara.

I think with Joey and the other three that it's a bit like a Sex and the City scenario - all three are friendlier with Joey (Carrie) than they are with each other.

Author:  KathrynW [ Tue Feb 24, 2009 4:13 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

JS wrote:
I think with Joey and the other three that it's a bit like a Sex and the City scenario - all three are friendlier with Joey (Carrie) than they are with each other.


I vague remember a wine-induced discussion about this as a potential drabble at a gather once and trying to work out which of the four would be Samantha :lol:

Author:  Fiona Mc [ Wed Feb 25, 2009 12:17 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

And with Joey, I always got the impression that the longer Joey was at school the more she would have preferred to be best friends with Frieda than Simone and Simone she was only friends with partly cos she felt sorry for her

Author:  macyrose [ Wed Feb 25, 2009 3:47 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

After leaving school I think Jo was closer to Frieda then to the others - they seem to have more scenes together than Jo has with Simone or Marie and they just seem closer somehow. I think once Simone matured Jo liked her as much as her other friends - they seem close in Rescue and Goes to the Oberland.

Author:  JB [ Wed Feb 25, 2009 10:35 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

I don't see Mary Lou and Verity as best friends by the time they're in their last years at school. In one of the books (wish I could remember which), there's a line which stood out for me on my last reread where Mary Lou pretty much discounts Verity as a friend or an equal.

Verity becomes a character we see only through other people's eyes. I'd have liked to see more about what she thought about things.

Author:  MJKB [ Wed Feb 25, 2009 11:18 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

Mary Lou is a 'friend to all the world' type, she never comes across to me as having a close and equal friendship with anyone in the Gang. I suppose the closest would be Vi, but then Vi becomes close to Barbara for a while, anyway. When ML leaves, there is never much mention of her remaining in close contact with anyone from the school, apart from Joey herself. She is treated very differently to the School's central figure whose friendships remain very much a significant part of her life.
In a drabble I read recently, ML writes to Joey (Ithink) after she has graduated and discloses the fact that she has not made many friends in Oxford. I thought it was quite an interesting thing to pick up on.
Who is Sybil's closest friend, does anyone know?

Author:  Alison H [ Wed Feb 25, 2009 11:53 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

We're told in Kenya that Sybil's closest friends are Ruth Lamont, who is hardly ever mentioned, and Elinor Pennell whom I can't remember ever "seeing" Sybil with. In fact, IIRC at one point Josette goes to stay with Elinor Pennell during the holidays whilst Sybil goes to stay with Mary-Lou :? :? .

Joey never seems to see much of the rest of the Quartette in the later books, even though Frieda was only in Basle and Marie was within fairly easy travelling distance. There isn't even any mention of her going to see Marie in Joey & Co or Future, which is strange as the Schloss Wertheim was supposed to be fairly close to the Tiernsee.

There seem to be a lot of general CS friendships, if that makes sense! Evadne takes Rosalie away on holiday after Rosalie's illness: it's very kind of her, but there'd never been any mention before that of her being particularly friendly with Rosalie. And in Reunion Grizel sends Verity a wedding present: again, it's very kind of her, but there was no real connection between them at all.

Author:  JS [ Wed Feb 25, 2009 12:24 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

Quote:
And in Reunion Grizel sends Verity a wedding present: again, it's very kind of her, but there was no real connection between them at all.


It's a bit like Phoebe giving her wedding cake to the school. Very kind and all that, but why? Maybe the books operate on a karma system where random acts of kindness work themselves out in the end!

Author:  Tor [ Wed Feb 25, 2009 1:06 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

Quote:
This quote has always stood out for me as EBD's view on friendships. Which may explain that while she did portray some friendships as one one one best friends like Margot and Emerence most of her girls hung out in groups.


Except that I am *sure* I read somewhere (Behind the CS??? Can anyone else remember something similar?) that EBD was herself prone to intense friendships, that would often end bitterly, implying she was just the sort of person Gran was warning against. Was this paragraph, perhaps, cathartic/self-referential in some way? Perhaps advice she'd received and was trying hard to act on?

Quote:
I vague remember a wine-induced discussion about this as a potential drabble at a gather once and trying to work out which of the four would be Samantha


Well, I'd pop for Simone as Miranda, Frieda as Charlotte, so that leaves Marie... she also did have a certain spark to her!!!!

It is very true tat ML didn't seem to have any really close friends, but seemed more linked to the school in general - I guess that ultimately, friendship has to be a two way street, and a person can't spread themselves out over too many people before it starts to undermine the deepness of each realtionship. Mary-Lou, in giving so much time to tso manypeoples problems, would have lost out on building up her own relationships, I feel. :(

Author:  Sunglass [ Wed Feb 25, 2009 1:07 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

I was saying on the thread on Reunion that the cover illustration smooths out the large age differences between the adult characters depicted (between, say, Evvy and Matey), but come to think of it, EBD tends to do this herself in the books, like showing Grizel giving a wedding present to a girl a generation younger whom she can't have known, apart from as just another pupil.

People were remarking on another thread about the big difference in age between Kathie Ferrars and Nancy Wilmot, who are close friends, but I find that less noticeable than the way in which former pupils and mistresses, with large age and experience gaps between them, socialise and consult with no apparent consciousness of their former mistress/pupil relationship, or the age gap. I'm not putting this very well, but Hilda Annersley is a good generation older than Joey, and remembers her as a Middle (probably?), yet, despite being an extremely experienced longtime Headmistress, she often seems to rely on her much younger former pupil! Reunion mingles current and former staff and pupils perfectly happily, although I'd have said that in a real-life equivalent, at least some people wouldn't be wild about having to spend time in close quarters with their ex-teachers, or Matey, who dosed and scolded them all their school lives - not to mention vice versa!

Which is a long way round of saying that I think sometimes EBD is so focused on the CS as eternal community that she glosses over things like age disparity, or whether Evvy or Cornelia would actually want to spend four days in close proximity to Matey or Bill! I'm not saying it's impossible - I'm now on very good terms with someone who taught me as an undergraduate - but there's no denying that the fact she's my mother's generation, and considerably professionally senior to me makes a difference to the terms of our relationship, but this doesn't seem to come up in the CS.

Author:  MJKB [ Wed Feb 25, 2009 3:27 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

I think it's in a United CS that Joey, Bill and Miss Stewart discuss the relative differences in their ages. Bill is then 30, Con, 28 and Joey 19. Joey remarks that neither seems that much older than her now that she has left school. Somehow or other, I don't believe leaving school confers that much experience, particularly when less than a year on.
I taught along side two of my ex teachers when I started teaching first and I was still a little in awe of them. And, becuase they had taught me, I still felt like someone from another generation. One of them was only about 6 years older, but she had been very hard on me at school so I never thought of her as my colleague.

Author:  astrodominie [ Mon Mar 02, 2009 7:07 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

Fiona Mc wrote:
And with Joey, I always got the impression that the longer Joey was at school the more she would have preferred to be best friends with Frieda than Simone and Simone she was only friends with partly cos she felt sorry for her


Sorry if this is off-track, but I have to agree with this. It was in one of the early books that I really thought so, when they suspect Robin has tuberculosis (yes, they did for about 40 books, but this was the main one). I think it was either New House.. or Chalet School and Jo. Madge breaks the news to Joey and she goes through this entire week of depression, but confides only in Frieda and Marie.

And later on, when they find out that Robin's okay after all, she tells Marie and Frieda the happy news and then there's this really odd line about how Marie and Frieda have to make sure that Simone doesn't know and so on.

Why wouldn't Joey tell Simone? Granted, she's clingy and emotional and immature, but by then, they seem to be close friends, and Simone's a prefect and everything, and I'm sure she's fond of Robin too.

Sorry for being so long and garbled!

Author:  Alison H [ Mon Mar 02, 2009 8:52 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

That bit is very odd. Madge tells Joey that she can tell Marie (who was staying there at the time) and Frieda, but that Evadne is too young and the others aren't that close to Robin. OK, Marie was on the spot when Joey needed a friend, and I think she and Joey were sharing a room so she'd've realised that Joey was upset anyway, but I'd never noticed that Frieda or Evvy were closer to Robin than anyone else was.

Author:  Emma A [ Mon Mar 02, 2009 12:05 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

I see this as real thoughtlessness on Joey and Madge's part - yes, Simone has been clingy and possessive of Joey, but in And Jo, she's much more sensible, working hard, and supportive of Joey in her role as head girl. I think Simone, if she found out (and she must have done, given Joey's depression during the testing and wild relief when they were given the all-clear), would have been very hurt that she was not considered a friend enough to be told the fears, and later, the good news.

Author:  Sunglass [ Mon Mar 02, 2009 12:28 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

Yes, EBD presents them as a quartette (or as Joey plus her three best friends), but it's clear it's not as straightforward as that in practice. (As I suppose it never is in reality, but EBD never tells us there are internal divisions within the quartette, we only get it in little hints, like Simone not making the 'inner circle' on Robin's illness.) I'd agree that at school and shortly after school, Frieda is closest to Joey - though to be honest, Simone is the only one of the other three who really emerges as an actual personality during their school days. Frieda is a quiet peacemaker, and Marie is sporty and beautiful, but that's it. You might find Emotional Simone a bit much, but she does jump off the page in a way the other two don't during their schooldays. (And I'd agree with Emma A that she might with reason have been very upset to find she'd been excluded from this important crisis over the Robin's illness...)

Things seem more equal between the four of them by the time of Jo to the Rescue, but there's still a slight sense of EBD comparing Restrained Adult Simone (good) with her emotional, clingy teenage self (bad), as though she's only now really 'earned' her place in the quartette by becoming 'quiet' and 'self-controlled'.

Although I always find myself wondering how Adult Simone is now labelled the completely unimaginative one by Jack (when he wants her to observe whether Phoebe is actually in love with Frank Peters to curtail Joey's imaginativeness), when the younger Simone struck me at least as pretty imaginative, cutting off her hair to impress Joey etc!

It just seems to me sometimes that Simone being thoroughly approved of by EBD has involved her suppressing/growing out of everything that used to define her as a character - the clinginess, the emotionalism, the need. And what used to interest me about younger Simone was that she was one of the few individuals to make demands of Joey that seemed to test Joey or take her out of her comfort zone.

Author:  MJKB [ Mon Mar 02, 2009 8:30 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

Sunglass wrote:
like Simone not making the 'inner circle' on Robin's illness.


I could never undrstand why Joey excluded Simone. How hurtful for Simone to find she'd been excluded from the circle, for, presumably she would have done at some point. It may have prompted her to suppress firmly her emotional nature, as Sunglass has pointed out, in order to be fully integrated into 'Joey's gang.'

Author:  Nightwing [ Mon Mar 02, 2009 9:00 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

MJKB wrote:
I could never undrstand why Joey excluded Simone. How hurtful for Simone to find she'd been excluded from the circle, for, presumably she would have done at some point.


To me it always seemed like Joey was fond of Simone - not as 'violently' as Simone did for her, but she does usually go out of her way not to hurt Simone's feelings, and Frieda follows her example. But Simone is someone who is easily offended where Joey is concerned - such as when Gillian Linton asks Joey to partner her for a walk and Simone's first reaction is anger/annoyance - and I can see Joey excluding her at times just so as not to have to deal with Simone's reaction. This is not the nicest way to deal with Simone, but I think it's understandable.

I think it's also a point of note that although Simone has matured a lot by the time she's a prefect, she still has moments of being highly emotional. It's not until we see her again as a teacher that she seems to have completely lost that aspect of her personality. Perhaps it was something that happened at university that made her change - or the death of Mademoiselle, combined with worry over her parents and sister (who I think she lost contact with for a while?).

Author:  Maeve [ Tue Mar 03, 2009 3:41 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

Nightwing said
Quote:
and I can see Joey excluding her at times just so as not to have to deal with Simone's reaction. This is not the nicest way to deal with Simone, but I think it's understandable.


So, that's where Len learned how to deal with people like Margot and Jack (from over on the Jane thread), only Len chose to pacify her difficult* people at all costs, whereas Joey avoids.

*Not that I consider Simone a complete loss, or anything. As someone else said, she actually has much more personality than Marie and early Frieda.

Author:  MJKB [ Tue Mar 03, 2009 7:49 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

Maeve wrote:
So, that's where Len learned how to deal with people like Margot and Jack (from over on the Jane thread), only Len chose to pacify her difficult* people at all costs, whereas Joey avoids.


Interesting observation, Maeve. Len isnot like her mother at all in the way she deals with people. Can't imagine young Joey putting up with Jack and her possessiveness. Joey would have taken the skin of Jack had she witnessed that awful 'interchange' between her and poor Jane in the corridor.

Author:  Cat C [ Tue Mar 03, 2009 8:09 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

MJKB wrote:
Maeve wrote:
So, that's where Len learned how to deal with people like Margot and Jack (from over on the Jane thread), only Len chose to pacify her difficult* people at all costs, whereas Joey avoids.


Interesting observation, Maeve. Len isnot like her mother at all in the way she deals with people. Can't imagine young Joey putting up with Jack and her possessiveness. Joey would have taken the skin of Jack had she witnessed that awful 'interchange' between her and poor Jane in the corridor.


That would be a scene worth writing!

Author:  Maeve [ Tue Mar 03, 2009 8:46 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

MJKB wrote:
Quote:
Maeve wrote:
Quote:
So, that's where Len learned how to deal with people like Margot and Jack (from over on the Jane thread), only Len chose to pacify her difficult* people at all costs, whereas Joey avoids.



Interesting observation, Maeve. Len isnot like her mother at all in the way she deals with people. Can't imagine young Joey putting up with Jack and her possessiveness. Joey would have taken the skin of Jack had she witnessed that awful 'interchange' between her and poor Jane in the corridor..


Actually, I was being a bit tongue in cheek -- I should have added a wink smilie :wink:

But now that you mention it -- I think Joey might be as bad as Jack herself in a way. Consider her interactions with Eustacia. She (a prefect who has been told she will be the next head girl) is described by EBD in her first 5 minutes with Eustacia as abrupt, impatient, furious, disgusted and dying to laugh. After the prefects see her over the library incident and Mary Burnett, the current head girl, worries that they may have been too harsh, Joey says:

Quote:
‘”Hurt her feelings,” indeed! If she got what she deserves she’d get a good spanking! She talks like a silly baby!


After Eustacia expresses her unfortunate opinion about taking care of a local peasant child, Joey
Quote:
...promptly lost her temper. ‘You perfect little beast!’ she said furiously. ‘How dare you talk like that, as if Gredel were a kitten or—or a pigling! It’s a pity you weren’t drowned when you were a baby! Then we shouldn’t have had you here, with your beastly suggestions!’


I know Jane is much more sympathetic than Eustacia, but Joey's behaviour doesn't look especially sterling next to Jack's. Especially as she knows Eustacia doesn't fit in at all at school and has no friends. Jack was jealous of Jane because Jane was a "success" in a way, very likeable and, of course, having Len's attention. Joey seems simply lacking in any consideration and kindness towards Eustacia who has nothing. And as for the whole hoo-ha about blaming her and snubbing her over Robin's ill-health!!!! Maybe older Joey could have sorted Jack out, but I'm not sure I'd hand her over to young Joey.

Author:  Nightwing [ Tue Mar 03, 2009 9:32 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

Maeve wrote:
Joey seems simply lacking in any consideration and kindness towards Eustacia who has nothing. And as for the whole hoo-ha about blaming her and snubbing her over Robin's ill-health!!!! Maybe older Joey could have sorted Jack out, but I'm not sure I'd hand her over to young Joey.


It's been ages since I read Eustacia - it's not one of my favourites! - but it seems to me like Joey's more insensitive than usual in it. Isn't she told that Eustacia's running away is partly her fault? This is the first time that Joey has really had to deal with the repercussions of her own charisma, apart from her dealings with Simone.

Actually, in some ways Jack's behaviour is a little like Simone's, in that she is possessive of Len and jealous of others who get close to her. But whereas Joey tells Simone that she's going to have other friends and Simone is going to have to deal with it, Len deals with Jack by trying not to get into situations where Jack has an excuse to get jealous.

Author:  Alison H [ Tue Mar 03, 2009 10:57 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

Miss Wilson told Joey that it was partly her fault that Eustacia had run away, but to be fair to Joey I think Miss Wilson was very hard on her there. Eustacia had recently lost both her parents, had to leave her home and been sent to a school she didn't like, so I think it's a bit rich that Bill thought the main reason she was unhappy was that the wonderful Joey didn't want to be friends with her :roll: .

I do however think that Joey's very insensitive towards Grizel in the later Tyrol books. On one occasion, when she visits the Annexe and Grizel says how nice it'd be if they could have a chat, Joey just says "Can't. Where's my Robin?" and walks off - and then EBD criticises Grizel, for supposedly being jealous of Robin. Could Joey not have said "I'd like to see Robin first, but I'll definitely come and catch up with you later?" instead of being so downright rude to a close friend? Then she lets Robin be the one to tell Grizel about her engagement - surely she should have told her oldest friend her big news herself.

Author:  MJKB [ Wed Mar 04, 2009 2:19 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

Maeve wrote:
After Eustacia expresses her unfortunate opinion about taking care of a local peasant child, Joey
Quote:
...promptly lost her temper. ‘You perfect little beast!’ she said furiously. ‘How dare you talk like that, as if Gredel were a kitten or—or a pigling! It’s a pity you weren’t drowned when you were a baby! Then we shouldn’t have had you here, with your beastly suggestions!’


I don't think Joey is far off the mark here. Anyone who could speak so dispassionately and cruely about a child's illness and pending death deserves the angy words that Joey flings at her. I was far more shocked by Eustacia's lack of compassion for the little peasant girl than I was for her assault on Kitty.
Having said that, I do agree that Joey could have been more sensitive to Eustacia's situation from the beginning. Her apparent inability to empathise with a recently orphaned fourteen year old reflects no credit on an aspiring Head Girl. Where Joey and the rest of the prefects show no flexibility or understanding is in the incident over the libary key. I think it was Joey too who suggeted the wholesale punishment of forbidding her the library for a full two weeks. For an intellectual child like Eustacia, it must have caused her untold misery and frustration. If Eustacia had been cut a little slack here the school might have been saved trouble later on.

Author:  Sunglass [ Wed Mar 04, 2009 11:03 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

I agree, Eustacia's remark is possibly the single nastiest thing ever said by a CS girl (even if we credit my theory she's parroting something her mother may have said - and posssibly said in the impersonal context of discussing epidemic prevention, rather than being unpleasant about an individual sick child). But Joey's response (or at least the bit about wishing Eustacia had been drowned when she was a baby) is inappropriate for a prefect - it takes what presumably should have been a reasonable, prefect's rebuke of an indefensible statement down to the level of a childish slagging match. And of course that gives Eustacia a 'reason' not to listen to the CS ethos, because it's expressed in a 'hooligan-like' manner!

I'd agree that this and the library punishment (and then Joey forgetting she's forbidden Eustacia to use it) do contribute to a lot of trouble later on.

Author:  KatS [ Sun Mar 08, 2009 3:46 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

I've been reading Does it Again, and noticed that the girls' seats at table are assigned at the beginning of term, and that they have to march to the Speisesaal in seating order, as someone mentioned earlier.

Was this normal for boarding schools of the era? Both my high school and middle school (very un-CS establishments) couldn't have cared less where we ate, and even in elementary school, where we did have to sit in the cafeteria, there were no rules about who you had to sit with. It seems desperately petty to me - how the girls ever got a chance to interact with their friends when they weren't supposed to talk in the hallways or visit each others cubicles, and couldn't choose to sit next to them in class or at meals is beyond me.

Author:  Alison H [ Sun Mar 08, 2009 5:44 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

I assume that it was done to try to save time - just get everyone in and sat down rather than having people wandering about trying to make up their minds where to sit and arguing about who was going to sit next to whom, especially as they couldn't start until everyone had sat down as meals were served at the tables rather than everyone queuing up to collect their meals individually. It does all sound very regimented, though.

Author:  CBW [ Sun Mar 08, 2009 7:54 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

Which book is it that they change the house structure so that all ages are in together and the forms are spread between all the houses?

I seem to remember reading something about friends not being able to spend time together becuase it was really hard to socialise with people in other houses. Or am I getting muddled with a drabble?

Author:  Maeve [ Sun Mar 08, 2009 8:03 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

CBW asked:
Quote:
Which book is it that they change the house structure so that all ages are in together and the forms are spread between all the houses?

I seem to remember reading something about friends not being able to spend time together becuase it was really hard to socialise with people in other houses. Or am I getting muddled with a drabble?


I think that's from Gillian which is a fill in by Carol Allen.

Author:  Lottie [ Mon Mar 09, 2009 12:41 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

KatS wrote:
I've been reading Does it Again, and noticed that the girls' seats at table are assigned at the beginning of term, and that they have to march to the Speisesaal in seating order, as someone mentioned earlier.

Was this normal for boarding schools of the era? Both my high school and middle school (very un-CS establishments) couldn't have cared less where we ate, and even in elementary school, where we did have to sit in the cafeteria, there were no rules about who you had to sit with. It seems desperately petty to me - how the girls ever got a chance to interact with their friends when they weren't supposed to talk in the hallways or visit each others cubicles, and couldn't choose to sit next to them in class or at meals is beyond me.

I went to a day school (1963 - 1973), and we had seats assigned for school dinner each term. We didn't have to march in order, though, we just went to the right place at the right table. Over the years the system for the allocation of places varied. At one point tables of ten had two girls each from Lower IV, Upper IV, Lower V and Upper V as well as two sixth formers. So you had a chance to sit with your best friend. Numbers were sent to the dining room each day, and if there were lots of absentees fewer tables would be set, and those girls whose tables weren't there had to fill up the gaps on other tables as assigned by the mistress on duty. I remember one term when I was a permanent floater, which was a nightmare, because the places were found by the mistress asking for girls with a spare place on their table to raise their hands, and people tried to keep quiet about a space, because it meant more food for the rest if your table wasn't full. We had a system where dishes of food and piles of plates for each table were collected from serving trolleys by two of the girls, and the head of the table dished out. Looking back, I can't think why were reluctant to have a space filled, because we didn't really like most of the dinners very much, and we were hardly starving, and it was only one meal in the day since we were at home for the rest!

Author:  MJKB [ Mon Mar 09, 2009 12:47 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Best friends

In boarding school we had assigned places at table as well as in class. It saved times at meals if everyone knew where they were sitting. Also, it saved some poor girls the embarrassment of having to move if a place had been 'bagged' for someones's best friend a la Mary Lou that time on the coach.

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