Trials for the Chalet School
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#1: Trials for the Chalet School Author: Rachael,  PostPosted: Mon Jun 14, 2004 10:24 am

Starters for discusson: Fave/worst scenes? How well do EBD and her characters handle Naomi's lack of spiritual belief? Views on the depiction of Naomi's disability? What do you think of the latest trip disaster? How well does Mary-Lou come across in this book? Anything else?

 

#2: Re: Trials for the Chalet School Author: Nicci, Location: UK PostPosted: Mon Jun 14, 2004 11:29 pm

Fave/worst scenes? - love the lost property stunt. - hate the art class scene - it felt like a ploy to get rid of herr whatsisname. it was horrible. How well do EBD and her characters handle Naomi's lack of spiritual belief? - I'm torn on this one. It annoys me that everyone has to be religious in these books, and people just stand in shock when they met someone who's not. I know the girls were sheltered but honestly, it can't have been that strange, can it? (feel free to correct me on this!) But I do think that ML handled it pretty well. I can't remember the scene exactly, but isn't it the one where they are chatting together upstairs when Naomi is in bed. Views on the depiction of Naomi's disability? - It strikes me as odd now, that in a school where so many children suffered from illness, that they had never experienced any form of disability before. oh and i'm not entirely sure what Rachael meant by the question, if someone could explain please. Do you mean the way Elinor depicted it? or the way it was treated in terms of the school? I wasn't keen on the first conversation about her between Hilda, nell and rosalie. What do you think of the latest trip disaster? - I like this one, especially as Verity gets to do something cool for once. I think they should have been stranded there longer though! Twisted Evil How well does Mary-Lou come across in this book? - I like her here. I think I've mentioned on another thread somewhere, that she's quite courageous amongst her friends in this one. She stands up to them about Naomi, and that can't be easy. But I suppose in the same way its also annoying because you wonder why on earth Elinor couldn't let Hilary (ok, not so good example) or Vi (better example) be the one to say, 'hey, lets at least give this girl a chance'. Anything else? - yes. I know Naomi is very bitter about her disability, but did Elinor have to make her so unpleasant? I think Elinor could have portrayed a very miserable girl much more sensitively than she does.

 

#3:  Author: Ann, Location: Newcastle upon Tyne, England PostPosted: Mon Jun 14, 2004 11:46 pm

I'm not sure I'm qualified to comment on this book. I've only read the pb and I understand this is one of the books Armada hashed up good and proper.

 

#4:  Author: Kathy_S, Location: midwestern US PostPosted: Tue Jun 15, 2004 3:38 am

This is also based on the PB, so who knows what’s missing given the “very major cuts” classification on FOCS. For example, do they ever come up with a chalet for poor Herr Laubach? What an awful way to end a career! (even though I’d likely have been among those thrown out of his art classes) I didn’t see any particular problem with Naomi’s handicap, only with Naomi. Her chip-on-the-shoulder attitude was a bit overdone – but then, I have run into people who bristle about a problem or perceived prejudice almost as obnoxiously. I did find it rather amusing that punishing Ailie et al. seemed to contribute more to Naomi’s conversion than all ML’s efforts. I quite liked ML in this book. (*hears everyone laughing because they knew I’d say that*) She’s human enough to find Naomi extremely annoying, but keeps right on trying, by methods direct and indirect. I do sometimes wonder if she (and the CS girls in general) would have continued being so absolutely certain about their faith as they grew older. On the down side, I didn’t find the pantomime terribly well integrated with the rest of the book, since we don’t see the reactions of the major protagonists – unless you count Naomi’s accident on the way home. On the other hand, I liked the way the girls pitched in when the mistresses started going down with scarlet fever – also their sudden realization that oops, mistresses are human too. And the avalanche and lost properties prank were well up to par in their respective categories.

 

#5:  Author: Ann, Location: Newcastle upon Tyne, England PostPosted: Tue Jun 15, 2004 5:32 pm

Kathy_S wrote:
For example, do they ever come up with a chalet for poor Herr Laubach?
He moves into a maisonette in the chalet which originally housed St. Nicholas's, along with the Dennys and Frau Meiders, her mother and sister. There's a reference to it in Feud.

 

#6:  Author: Ruth, Location: Lincolnshire, England PostPosted: Thu Jun 17, 2004 9:20 am

I like this book. I really like the lost property scene and when the girls help out when the mistresses (of all people) get scarlet fever. And there are no scenes that I particularly dislike. I think the school handles Naomi very well. I think Naomi would have made a better impression if she had not deliberately drawn attention to her disability - the Chalet School has trained the girls well and there is not the usual staring that is the normal wont with humanity.

 

#7:  Author: Lesley, Location: Allhallows, Kent PostPosted: Thu Jun 17, 2004 2:11 pm

On the whole I like the book.I think Naomi is rather well drawn as regards her drawing attention to her disability and delighting in seeing other people uncomfortable - that is a way some people cope with the horror. I thought the Lost Property scene was good and Mary Lou comes across well. I do have a problem with the ending - not the accident so much - but that in later books we are told that Naomi had been cured, almost straight by the doctors at the San - it was a TB clinic for goodness sake! It's almost as if EBD didn't think her readers could cope with knowing that there were some disabilities that couldn't be fixed. I feel that was a shame - she could have had Naomi - still handicapped, but having learnt a better way of dealing with it from the CS. While the CS girls could have learnt something of dealing with handicapped people.

 

#8:  Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire PostPosted: Thu Jun 17, 2004 4:34 pm

I also enjoyed the lost property scenes, they were the funniest bit of the whole book. I agree that Naomi perhaps should not have drawn attention to her disability in the way that she did, but her responses showed that she was highly intelligent, as did her perforance in what we are told about her classes. I do find it a drawback that EBD insisted that a girl could not make good, be a regular member of society unless she was a practising Christian. I don't want to offend anyone on this board, but why? I know that EBD was a convert to Catholicism and believed deeply, but I'm sure that not every girl in the School was, or was drawn as, a deep believer. And I'm really quite dubious about the unstated premise that Naomi would never get to be well again unless she did so. Lesley, have you ever known a hospital like it, anywhere else? It was a TB hospital, so where did they get all the specialists for the emergency operations that they carried out? When I was working in an RAF hospital, a man was brought in after he had sent himself through a hangar roof in an ejector seat. All the specialists in the hospital were in the theatre with him in succession, ending with the dental surgeon who had to repair his jaw, and I'm sure that he would not have wanted a TB specialist who did a bit of operating on the side to have been the one to patch him up.

 

#9:  Author: Lesley, Location: Allhallows, Kent PostPosted: Thu Jun 17, 2004 7:32 pm

And every single one of those specialists would be a surgeon not a TB specialist and therefore a physician! No Jennie, I don't know of any other hospital like it - if it had been set up as a General HospitalI could understand but it was a TB Sanitorium!!

 

#10:  Author: Kathy_S, Location: midwestern US PostPosted: Fri Jun 18, 2004 5:37 am

I find this particular Sanitarium story even more bizarre than usual. We hear that Naomi's life-saving operation involves dealing with three broken ribs and removal of a piece of bone from the skull. How on earth would these interventions cure lameness??? In defense of the San doctors, though, their mandate did include such ailments as “tubercular hip” as well as pulmonary TB. Since treatment for this normally involved surgery, I’d expect Jem to have hired people with appropriate credentials. Even today I believe surgery is sometimes called for if infection in the bone marrow causes too much damage before the actual Mycobacterium infection has been treated successfully with antibiotics. (What happens if it’s an antibiotic-resistant strain I have no idea.)

 

#11:  Author: Lula, Location: Midlands, UK PostPosted: Fri Jun 18, 2004 11:18 am

I do like this book it's one of the first I ever read (I got it, and Theodora, for 99p at Safeways... incredibly abridged though, they went so far as to cut Nell out of the first chapter, something I've never understood). When I first read it (age ten or so) I wasn't shocked by the approach to Naomi's lack of religion, because at that age, I'd lived in a very religious environment, where belief in God was essential for being a good person. Needless to state, I no longer believe this, and now find it almost patronising... it's very moralistic, but I suppose that that was what she was going for.

 

#12:  Author: Cazx, Location: Swansea/Bristol PostPosted: Sun Jun 20, 2004 4:10 pm

I love the lost property scenes in this book (possibly because Ailie, Janice and Judy are three of my favourite characters), I also like how it was Naomi who came up with their punishment! I didn't really like the way that the girls were so shocked at Naomi's lack of faith, I always thought it was strange that in a school of over 200 there was only one girl who was not religious.

 

#13:  Author: caz, Location: Cambridge PostPosted: Sun Jun 20, 2004 7:45 pm

Perhaps there were more girls who would have agreed with Naomi's views, but didn't feel confident in expressing them publicly before formmates and friends who were believers.

 

#14:  Author: Ann, Location: Newcastle upon Tyne, England PostPosted: Sun Jun 20, 2004 7:52 pm

Drabble opportunity there, I think.

 

#15:  Author: Kathy_S, Location: midwestern US PostPosted: Sun Jun 20, 2004 8:59 pm

I see that in Kathy Martin: Assignment in Alaska (1961), Kathy ends up dealing with lots of TB patients having lung tissue removed surgically. Not that a juvenile nursing series is the best source of medical information Rolling Eyes , but it seemed relevant to the question of whether EBD's TB specialists would be expected to have surgical know-how. *wishes local used book store would rotate its stock a little more*

 

#16:  Author: Ally, Location: Jack Maynard's Dressing Room!! PostPosted: Sun Jun 20, 2004 9:25 pm

Just reading Exploits, where Jem performs an emergency op to remove an appendix. I think this is the first mention of both a non TB and surgical case, and it seems from the book that Jem was treating him as a patient before hand. Obviously they also performed the function of the only hospital in the area!!

 

#17:  Author: Ray, Location: Bristol, England PostPosted: Mon Jul 19, 2004 3:28 pm

Just want to throw my 2 cents in on the San before I do the book: I got the feeling/impression from the Swiss books that this San was far more of a general hospital than strict TB san. For starters, you have Dr Peters who's a rhumatics specialist (irrc from Rescue!) which is surely not a derigour appointment in somewhere that purely specialises in TB. Also, it does, as someone mentioned, seem to take on the role of being district hospital, so from that point of view, I have no problem with them looking after general cases. I don't think, from what I recall of the PB of trials, that it's said at the end of there, that Naomi will be almost straight again I think that's something that comes later (in Leader) where it's prefaced by the arrival of a specialist from Canada. On to Trials itself... Favourite scene: Much as I like the Lost Property stunt and all entailed with that, I think for me, my favourite scene has to be when Naomi steps forward and offers to help with the typing. It's such a big step forward for someone who up until then had been really, truly unpleasant. Least favourite scene: Not so much least favourite as absent scene: The flood! It's advertised and then Armada went and cut it! Why?!! It's not as if Trials is that long a book as it is. *headdesk* How well does EBD handle Naomi's lack of belief: Very well, I think, given the context/background. I'm with Kathy_S on the "why does everyone have to have faith to be a good CS girl", BUT that's a main feature of the series as a whole, so I'm prepared to swallow it, and I do like the way Mary-Lou handles the conversation at half term, AND the fact that Naomi doesn't instantly convert. View's on Naomi's disability: Again, I think EBD does this fairly well as much as I dislike Naomi's chip-on-the-shoulder routine, I can equally well see where it's come from and equally well believe that someone could exist like it. How does Mary-Lou come across in this book: Pretty well, I'd have said, but then again, I don't think I find her as irritating as many people on the board seem to. I do like the fact that she stands up to Hilary to keep Naomi company and that she keeps trying even though she knows she's as likely as not going to get kicked for it. I think, in fact, this is probably the best of the three books in which she's head girl, in that respect. She's barely in Richenda and she's a bit OTT in Theodora, but here I think she's everything that the HG ought to be. The disasters: About parr, really. Anything else: I guess, more than anything, I'm stumped as to why Armada would write the blurb and say there's a flood then cut out the entire chapter it was in. Even allowing for some of their more rediculous pieces of editing, that one takes the buiscuit, the kaffee and the kuchen. Ray *bemused*

 

#18:  Author: patmac, Location: Yorkshire England PostPosted: Mon Jul 19, 2004 5:34 pm

Lesley wrote:
And every single one of those specialists would be a surgeon not a TB specialist and therefore a physician!
TB takes many forms and some are only treatable by surgery - or were before the appropriate antibiotics came into general use in the 50's. TB sanatoria were experimenting with artificial kidneys in the 50's, there were orthopaedic wards with surgeons who dealt with spines and most other bones and also wards where TB of the intestines was dealt with. Evidence and a bit of detail on this site http://www3.shropshire-cc.gov.uk/roots/packages/med/med_i03.htm

 

#19:  Author: Lisa_T, Location: Belfast PostPosted: Tue Jul 20, 2004 2:56 am

And we mustn't forget the maternity part, which apparently existed for the sole convenience of CS OGs in the vicinity! Laughing (that catty enoughj for you, Jennie? Wink ) I like Trials, I've always liked it, though, like Ray, the missing flood intrigued me. Then when i realised the books had been cut...ah ha! Naomi and her attitude: doesn't surprise me at all. I've known lots of deaf people, deaf from birth, who have precesiely that attitude and manage to make life very unpleasant for the hearing people around them *restrains self from rant* Religion: didn't bother me. It's a core part of the school philosophy. I went to a pentecostal christian school when in Oz and everyone there was expected to understand pentecostal christianity. Also, on a different but similar theme, at Mary Hare (which is oral) a lot of BSL users would complain that they weren't allowed to sign. The school's line was that they were open about their oral philosophy parents knew about it, kids knew about it. There are signing and bi-lingual schools- you choose to stay here, you stick with the rules and ethos of the school. Same principle. Play I skipped first time but then read it and (to my surprise) enjoyed it. some nice slapstick. I like the scarlet fever and aftermath of the accident and the Sixth realisingf that the Staff, including the Head, are human.

 

#20:  Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire PostPosted: Tue Jul 20, 2004 3:29 pm

Goes off in a huff because Lisa_T thinks she's catty.

 

#21:  Author: Lisa_T, Location: Belfast PostPosted: Tue Jul 20, 2004 7:00 pm

*runs after Jennie to soothe her* OK, catty was a bad choice of word, but I couldn't resist it after reading the NHS drabble! ROFL

 

#22:  Author: Ellie, Location: Lincolnshire PostPosted: Tue Jul 20, 2004 11:22 pm

I've only got the pb of this book, and I think it contains one of the worst bits of editing ever! When the party are trapped by the avalanche they are away on a school trip - they went on a bus, for heavens sake, yet after they were rescued the School matrons are there to meet them and rush them back to school. This so annoys me that it completely overshadows the rest of the book.

 

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