Josette Russell
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#1: Josette Russell Author: JosieLocation: London PostPosted: Mon Sep 05, 2005 6:33 am


Please discuss Josette here...

 


#2: Will start this one off! Author: Alison HLocation: Manchester PostPosted: Mon Sep 05, 2005 1:13 pm


I feel a bit sorry for Josette because she seems to get pushed from pillar to post - sometimes she's part of the Gang, sometimes she's friendly with her cousin Maeve, and for one book she's best friends with Jo Scott, but she never seems to "belong" anywhere permanently.

We miss a lot of her early years because of the "missing years" between Rosalie and Three Go and then her time in Canada, and all we really see of her is the Sybil/boiling water incident. She becomes a really nice person when the school goes to Switzerland and we see more of her: she's a good leader without being bossy, and she's nice without being sickly sweet, and she's involved in things but not to the extent that you get fed up with her.

Then, after always being described as really clever(one of the smallish number of girls who are allowed to be really clever AND really pretty), she just gets carted off to Australia by Madge and gets married in her teens (and that always seems more like a plot device to convince Len that she herself isn't too young to marry Reg than being a storyline based around Josette) and after that she's hardly mentioned. Unpromising start, very promising middle, unpromising end!

I really liked Madge in the early books when she had the guts to start the school, and it's a shame that none of her daughters turn out like her.

 


#3:  Author: jenniferLocation: Taiwan PostPosted: Wed Sep 07, 2005 5:29 pm


I think it's a shame we don't see more of Josette - she's a nice girl, very intelligent and pretty, but not stuck up about it, a leader, but at the same time, a pleasant, cheerful kid. I'd certainly prefer her as a friend to Mary-Lou! She does sort of get lost in the shuffle betweeen Mary-Lou and the Gang on one side, and the triplets on the other.

I think she gets a very raw deal at the end of her schooling. She not only doesn't get to go to St Mildred's, but she finds out that she can't go via a chance comment by Miss Annersley, who then won't elaborate, but says she must talk to her mother! That's just plain cruel - "oh yeah, you're not going, but I can't tell you why, you'll find out later." It's not like she's planning on a year of finishing school before returning home - she has very definite plans for her futher schooling and career.

I always found it ironic that she then married an Australian at age nineteen. Madge won't let her go to St Mildred's because she (Madge) wants her company in Australia, both so she won't be lonely, and because she won't see much of Josette after she starts her university course. [News flash - your kid's been in boarding school in a foreign country for the past five years. It's a bit late to notice now]. Now Madge has both her daughters settling on a different continent, and will only see them briefly thereafter.

 


#4:  Author: ChangnoiLocation: New Mexico, USA PostPosted: Fri Sep 09, 2005 2:18 am


I generally liked Josette. I thought she had a pretty name and was nicer than Sybil and seemed to be, by description, pretty, in the fairly unusual in the real world black hair and blue eyes sort of way. Except that I never knew what "speedwell" blue was, and then I looked up "speedwell" and found a picture. Someone with black hair and speedwell blue eyes would look freaking freaky.

I too feel sorry for Josette that she cannot go to LSE. I am also a bit surprised that she gets married so soon. She's so young, and she's been in an all girl boarding school so long! Did she think she had to marry the first man who spoke to her at a party?

Chang

 


#5:  Author: patmacLocation: Yorkshire England PostPosted: Fri Sep 09, 2005 3:26 am


For quite a while, I felt Josette was a plot device to show how bad Sybil was.

btw, if her burns were that bad, wouldn't she have needed skin grafts? or at least to be admitted to hospital. It's a wonder she didn't get an infection.

She came to life later but I agree on that point that she hadn't been at home for years and then Madge got lonely. I think that could have been written differently and the reason could have been that it was a big adventure for them - they might have even been pleased but EBDs reason was lame and made Madge look pathetic. although EBD was probably clearing the way for the triplets to be the lead characters and wanted to write the Russells out of the story, you've have thought she cared enough for Madge - who was central in the early books - to give her a more sympathetic point of view!

She does come across well in Switzerland as everyone says.

 


#6:  Author: KBLocation: Melbourne, Australia PostPosted: Fri Sep 09, 2005 4:11 am


patmac wrote:
btw, if her burns were that bad, wouldn't she have needed skin grafts? or at least to be admitted to hospital. It's a wonder she didn't get an infection.


I'm not sure how widely done skin-grafts were at that time, but I think she did get an infection. In Gay (some only in the hardback) we get a lot of information:

And the worst of it is we daren’t say anything to Lady Russell as we’d do ordinarily, for Josette – I told you about the poor babe when I wrote before – is still very ill, and they’re very anxious about her. [This is some weeks after the accident.]

Josette, her youngest, is very ill, poor baby, and she can think of nothing else at the moment

Josette is a shade better, poor kiddy. They think the scalds are going on well; but the shock has been very bad, and she’s still frighteningly weak. Jem says that if she weathers another week she’ll pull through... Josette is stronger again. Her heart is steadier, and though he refuses to say anything definite, he has better hope of her now. But they’ve very nearly lost her.

‘Lady Russell is seeing nobody until Josette is safe,’ retorted Matron.

‘Had Josette been so ill? Jo told me about the accident, and she said she was rather badly hurt; but she never told me there was any real danger.’
‘She’s safe now, thank God! But they’ve nearly lost her. However, she is coming round at last. I saw her yesterday, poor mite. She’s shrunk to a mere scrap, and her poor little face looks all eyes.

Then coffee, please, Rosa,’ to Marie’s younger sister, who was the Russells’ nanny and who had accompanied her to carry little Josette and lay her on a wide settee in a far window. to Marie’s younger sister, who was the Russells’ nanny and who had accompanied her to carry little Josette and lay her on a wide settee in a far window. ‘I am sorry,’ continued Lady Russell, ‘but Josette wants to be with me, and just at present we are obliged to spoil her, I’m afraid. – Josette, say “How do you do?” to Miss Bubb, pet.’
Miss Bubb looked at the child. Josette had her mother’s black curls and cameo-like features; but her eyes were speedwell-blue. She was very white and thin, poor mite, and there were still marks of suffering on her little face. The tiny hand she held out was clawlike, and Miss Bubb, after greeting her, said to her mother in an undertone, ‘How ill she still looks! I am afraid she has had a time. I had no idea it was such a serious thing.’
‘Oh, she’s much better now,’ said Madge Russell quickly. ‘Of course, she was in a grave condition for some days, and the shock upset her heart. But she is much better now – well on the highroad to recovery. The doctors all say that in a year or so she will be as well as ever. But in the meantime we have to go slowly. No school of her for another year no!’

To me, all the comments about her heart would suggest high fever, almost certainly the rest of infection. The fact that it was half a term before she was really getting stronger would also emphasise the idea that she did suffer at least one bout of infection.

 


#7:  Author: CazxLocation: Swansea/Bristol PostPosted: Fri Sep 23, 2005 3:15 pm


I think that Josette does get to go to university but in Australia rather than in the Uk, which would suggest that she would go in from home each day. As her future husband is described as a brother of a friend of her's at Sydney university-think that is in redheads.

 


#8:  Author: macyroseLocation: Great White North (Canada) PostPosted: Sat Sep 24, 2005 3:25 pm


Cazx, I actually started a thead on Josette and university here:

http://chaletian.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5707

because it was unclear to me if it was Josette who went to university or just her friend (or both).

I thought Josette had a lot of potential academically and was disappointed that she ended up getting married so early (even knowing that marriage was cosidered by EBD to be the best reward for a good Chalet girl ) so I hoped she had some time at university even if she had to give it up after marriage.

 




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