The CBB :: View topic - Books: The Chalet School Triplets

[Len said]...see if we can placate Burnie for being late. Thought up how best we can do it, either of you?”
“Of course!” Margot was ready at once. “ All we've got to say is that the Head sent for us. She can't make a fuss then.”
“We'd better say Mummy sent for us,” Len observed. “ She'll be even less likely to say anything then."

“ Aha, Mdlle l'Accomplice! So I have you, at least! Soon, very soon, we shall have your partner in crime also. Of no use to struggle! You are caught and it is I - I, Achille Dupleix - who has caught a bare-faced thief! And it is the first day of my engagement here!”

on the verge of offering the entire contents of the store to them by way of recompense for the insult, offered to Len, the school and the Sanatorium.

Her sisters looked at her. Con was first to speak.
“ Gosh! I hadn't thought of that. Len, you don't mean she'll - well, be bothering with - love affairs?”
“ Nothing more likely,” Len replied. “ She's - what - twenty, isn't it?”
Margot grinned suddenly. “ Her folk will have some-thing to say if she's getting engaged to an Australian!

It may be that; or -- have you ever thought that Emmy's grown-up now? For she is, you know. Nineteen, isn't she? I know she's about three years older than you three.”
“ Glorianna!” Con exclaimed. “ So she is! I say, Ros, you don't suppose she's written to announce her engage-ment to someone, do you?”
“ She's old enough,” Rosamund said reflectively.

By the way, did I tell you that I had a letter from Joan Baker yesterday, telling me that she's more or less engaged to a boy she met at her commercial college?”
“ Not really? Rosamund Lilley! She can't be! Why, she only left school the term before last!” Con's dark eyes were wide with amazement as she looked at Rosamund. “ She's just your age, isn't she?”
“ Nearly a year older. I'm seventeen and Joan was eighteen last November. Not,” added Rosamund as they reached the door of the Senior commonroom, “ that it may ever come to anything.”
“ But there's always a chance that it may. Well, I think it's horrid!” Con said with decision.

Margot held them up a moment. “Just a sec!You two don't feel I'm being ghastly selfish going off like this and leaving you to do all the odd jobs when the hols come, do you?” She eyed them anxiously.

Joan is at most a year younger than Emmy (18 last November vs. 19), but her "more-or-less" engagement is "horrid", whereas Emmy's is a natural result of her being "grown-up". More evidence that Joan can't do anything right!

Emerence being made to feel that Mary-Lou's injury in what was an accident caused by the toboggan hitting an uneven patch of ground was due to her carelessness

It’s covered by the snow, of course, and you can’t see it. If your toboggans caught it, you might have a nasty accident.

Quote:[Len said]...see if we can placate Burnie for being late. Thought up how best we can do it, either of you?”
“Of course!” Margot was ready at once. “ All we've got to say is that the Head sent for us. She can't make a fuss then.”
“We'd better say Mummy sent for us,” Len observed. “ She'll be even less likely to say anything then."
This implies that Joey's summonses are of more importance than the Headmistress's!

“ Your own mother was only twenty-one when you three were born, wasn't she?” Rosamund asked as she opened the door. “ That would mean she was married at twenty at the latest and it isn't so very much older than Joan is now.”
“ That was different,” Con replied. “ Mamma had been having the ghastliest adventures, escaping from Hitler, and Papa brought her through them. Besides, they'd known each other for years before that -

Cat C, the engagements conversation is in the pb, and in my Armada edition is on page 8, or two pages into the book, but contains only a reference to Joan, nothing about Sybil and Emerence.

Poor Con - do we ever actually get her response to Len's engagement to Reg? Judging by this, she would be very shocked and unhappy...

I wonder if Joan is merely 'going out with someone' which in Chalet-Land means engaged, especially if there is no chaperone. To Ros now indoctrinated, she must be more or less engaged. I'm surprised at Con talking about Sybil embarking on love-affairs - note the plural. You are only allowed one! Remember Bill asking Elma(?) in Oberland if she is engaged to the boy who has written to her? All very Jane Austen and completely out of date by the 1960s, but EBD didn't know that.

Granted, but are we talking about the time when the books were written or when they were roughly set? According to Jennifer's spreadsheets, Triplets is "set" in early 1955, where such an attitude would still be prevalent. A girl wouldn't even receive letters from a boy or man not a relation unless permitted to do so by her parents (say, a friend of the family).

And those references (in A Future, maybe?) to Rix Bettany not being interested in girls yet at 24, because medics can't afford to marry young, strike me as coming from cloud cuckoo land.

She had to have been aware of changes in society's attitudes towards sexualty morality and it would surely have affected her writing. I think it saddened her greatly, as I'm sure it did many people of her generation, and she protects her characters by taking up an entrenched position on such matters. I have a sneaking sympathy for her desire to hold on to a world that is so clean and pure and highminded and uncomplicated.

How on earth does Matey appear to magically 'predict' Con sleepwalking? She's searched the entire school on a hunch and found nothing, so how does she figure out with no proof that it must be Con doing something everyone thinks she's outgrown years ago? The bit that particularly cracks me up is that she thinks, if Con isn't out of her bed, then she's going to have to rouse the Head, because she can't find anything wrong to explain her hunch!

She got no sympathy from the Head, who heard her in grim silence before she finally uttered a crushing rebuke. [...] "Go away, Len, and please try to overcome this absurd scrupulosity of yours. If it goes on, you will end up by becoming morbid. No blame attaches to you for whatever they are up to, and no blame is attributed to you. Now please go away. I have too much to do to be worried by the need to soothe your conscience.”

"As the eldest, you are largely responsible for the little ones. If they see you disobeying, they will follow suit. If they get into trouble for it, part of the blame is yours.”

I find EBD to be more conservative, or even prudish, as far as courting goes, that many other authors, even ones writing earlier than her, so I don't think it's just an issue of what things were like at the time.

In EJO there are also some very quick/ridiculous engagements ... but she does show many of her characters dealing with unwanted suitors, or not being sure about whether they want to marry, rather than pairing up with the first interested man.

As for Con and the engagements, I really don't feel her reaction to Joan's news was particularly motivated by class differences - just the response of a 'young' 16-year-old to news that somebody she thought of as her own age could be moving into the adult world like that. She was shocked enough at the thought of Sybil doing it, and Sybil was a good bit older.

Going off at a slight tangent, I was rather struck by what Hilda Annersley says to Len, after she tries to assume the blame for Jack and co going off, because she wasn't able to ask permission to take them out with her, as promised:

Quote:

I know she was deathly worried, but do think Hilda was overly harsh with Len here, even though there was an element of truth in her criticism. I rather expected her to apologize later, or at least feel mildly guilty.

I think it's clear that this is the way EBD would have liked things to be - as she would have liked all schoolgirls to be given to spontaneous prayer when they get lost, which is one of the odder moments in Triplets - though she must have known they weren't.

The popularity of the books with sunday schools (loads of my second hand copies seem to have been someone's sunday school prize) make sense in this respect - but I do so prefer the Tirol books, which are less heavy handed.

Fascinating to hear about real, live, 50s Lens! I can never quite realize that they should still be alive...

I didn't mean it like that :oops:

I mean, I know really that if the triplets were born just before the war, then obviously they are still alive, but the whole Chalet universe just exists in history in my mind.It's really interesting to hear what it was actually like.

And yes, I do hope I live to be a Len :wink:

sunglass wrote:

Not odd at all to me! I most certainly would have done the same - and still do.

As would lots of other people I know. I don't think I'm a religious nut! :halo:

She [Joey] and Simone were chattering in French about Mr Denny. Simone considered that he looked "romantic".

"He looked an ass!" returned Joey briskly. "I loathe men who have their hair bobbed! And why couldn't he wear a decent collar and tie like other folks?" which put a complete stopper on the one thing Madge had feared when she finally agreed to letting him have the singing.

.... As the Head said when she came to hear of it, "It would be rather difficult to be sentimental over Plato!"

I think the reason that Con has a problem with the news is that firstly, Joan has only just left school, and secondly, that she knows this man a wet week... Joan ... has plans to go to college, work and travel. She has worked exceptionally hard in school, got an excellent education. She is barely six months out of the very sheltered environment of the CS, and has only just started a college course. She is ambitious, and has good prospects. Then she announces out of the blue that she is more or less engaged.

(Has Con at this point noticed Reg sniffing round Len, I wonder? It's in the next book that we hear of him having spoken to Jack.)

She [Joey] and Simone were chattering in French about Mr Denny. Simone considered that he looked "romantic".

"He
looked an ass!" returned Joey briskly. "I loathe men who have their
hair bobbed! And why couldn't he wear a decent collar and tie like
other folks?" which put a complete stopper on the one thing Madge had
feared when she finally agreed to letting him have the singing.

this 5 foot nothing adonis, with mousy brown hair cut in a pudding bowl style, a few strands of hair across his upper lip that looked in need of a smidge of immac and, to cap it all, a pair of national health glasses perched on his acne scarred nose, addressed the girls with a firm look in his myopic eyes and said, "Now I don't want any of you young ladies having silly crushes on me...."i

I'd want to advise her to wait until she had completed her course, worked, met more people, seen a bit of the world. Get to know the man better, and if he was still her choice, then go for it. If Joan was your friend, would you not feel the same way?

and to poor Verity, who seems to be disposed of as 'Mrs Alan Trevor' just as Doris Trelawney is killed off, so V can cling to someone else and OOAO can be free!

I still find myself wanting to give Agony Aunt style advice to Joan, but also to Nancy Chester and Julie Lucy, to the Russell girls, to Len (obviously!), and to poor Verity, who seems to be disposed of as 'Mrs Alan Trevor'

What gets me is the way Joey says "Oh, that's all off!" as if Julie's changed her mind about a day's shopping or going to the pictures instead of packing in the career plans which she'd worked so hard towards.

I could also understand Daisy having given up being a doctor. Having a home of her own and raising her children would have been important to her

Primula married Nick Gardener if that's who your thinking of and AlisonH you should know that as you wrote an entire drabble about Primula! :lol:

It's Con who asks the question about Julie's career, isn't it, just as it's Con who makes the remark about Joan? Would she have been the one to turn a handsome doctor down, I wonder?

I could see Con settling into a slightly bohemian artistic life without any real hurry to marry. I think she'd like hanging out in coffee shops discussing poetry and philosophy, writing until the wee hours of the morning without anyone to chastise her, living in a shared flat with other artists.

I find EBD to be more conservative, or even prudish, as far as courting goes, that many other authors, even ones writing earlier than her, so I don't think it's just an issue of what things were like at the time. ...

In even earlier books like Anne of Green Gables or Little House on the Prairie, young men will offer to walk a young woman home from social events or church functions, or visit them at their home, or take them out riding or for a walk. Tame by modern standards, but it did involve some sort of getting to know each other, choosing the person stage.

Author:	Róisín [ Mon Feb 09, 2009 10:48 am ]
Post subject:	Books: The Chalet School Triplets
Synopsis here. Lots of adventures in this book, mainly centered on the triplets, who are now in VIb. This is the one where Margot throws the bookend at Betty, Len is accused of shoplifting, Mary-Lou's mother begins to sharply decline and Cecil is mistaken by a confused woman in the woods for her own daughter. How did you enjoy it! I'm sure there are lots of opinions on whether Margot should have been expelled as a result of the incident with Betty. Do you think that the Cecil incident resembles the Robin incident from Headgirl at all? Is EBD killing Mrs Trelawney so that OOAO can have her career? Please raise any issue you like in the comments below, in relation to The Chalet School Triplets. Next Sunday: The Chalet School Reunion

Author:	Alison H [ Mon Feb 09, 2009 4:14 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: The Chalet School Triplets
This, like a lot of the Swiss books, isn't a favourite. The Cecil kidnap plotline and the shoplifting plotline are both rather poor, IMO. I think that Doris Carey was bumped off so that Mary-Lou was free to pursue her career - and I know that it's also been suggested that it was a way of drawing Mary-Lou closer to Joey, as happened with Ted Humphries being killed off so that Robin had no "blood relatives" around. I'm glad that OOAO was allowed to pursue her career, though. EBD must have been tempted just to find her a nice doctor so that she could settle down to life on the Gornetz Platz and abandon her career plans, and I'm glad that she didn't. The Margot incident really winds me up. Given some of the punishments meted out for fairly minor misdemeanours - e.g. Anne Seymour not being allowed to be Head Girl because she slipped whilst picking flowers - and the guilt trips laid on people over things that weren't really their fault - e.g. Stacie being made to feel that if Robin had got TB it would have been her fault, Thekla being told that she'd have been "a murderess" if Mrs Linton had died, or Emerence being made to feel that Mary-Lou's injury in what was an accident caused by the toboggan hitting an uneven patch of ground was due to her carelessness - it almost defies belief that Margot is let off so lightly for doing something which could have killed someone. However annoyed you may be, there is absolutely no excuse for throwing a heavy object at someone. Betty could have been killed - and none of the staff seem to care less about the poor girl. Margot doesn't even seem to show the sort of remorse that Deira did after the snowball incident: IIRC (may be wrong as I haven't read this one for a while) we don't even see her apologising properly. Also, I know that it was a school incident, but given the seriousness of the offence shouldn't Joey and Jack have been involved? And it wasn't even Margot's first serious offence: she'd already planned to blackmail Ted. Sorry for ranting! It just really annoys me . At the very least, I'd like to have seen a conference of senior staff on what to do about it, maybe with a phone call to Madge in Australia as well. And a lot more concern for poor Betty.

Author:	andydaly [ Mon Feb 09, 2009 4:36 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: The Chalet School Triplets
What really irked me about this was not so much that Margot got away scot-free, but the way in which Betty was blamed for speaking when she knew Margot was in a bad temper!

Author:	Emma A [ Mon Feb 09, 2009 5:22 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: The Chalet School Triplets
There are some good things about this book - Con's appearance in the St Mildred's panto, for example, where she is anything but dreamy. Though I do like the fact that Len is too tall to play the part, whereas Con - only an inch shorter - is okay! I do like the way the triplets combine in their search for Cecil, and frankly I don't see it as being particularly far-fetched that a grieving woman would kidnap a child - these sorts of things do happen. The incident does make Rosli look careless and hysterical, when she's supposed to be quite stolid and phlegmatic - but I suppose her behaviour is written to contrast with the triplets' stoic calm and sense. I do dislike the way the triplets are dragged out of school to look after their brothers and sisters when Joey goes haring off to England to look after Mary-Lou - that would not be allowed at any other school! It does seem to be that other people's children are more important to Joey than her own. Perhaps I'm being unfair here, since Mary-Lou is almost a daughter to the Maynards. I'm not sure what experience Joey has with the kind of business that Mary-Lou has to do (shutting up the house, getting her mother to Switzerland, etc.) - would have been better if they could have got someone in England to help. And as for the bookend business (that's been discussed quite a bit lately in the thread about Margot being a bad games prefect), and it is quite shocking to read - not so much that Margot does it, but the reaction of everyone else. Miss Annersley remits a punishment because Margot is repentant and in pain (from the toothache which caused the temper). Len and Alicia tell lies about how Betty was injured (admittedly to scotch gossip) which makes some of the Seniors blame the cleaning staff for polishing the floors too much. And Betty admits that she was partly to blame for being tactless! Perhaps Margot was not a devotee of detective novels, but she only considers that she might have killed Betty when Miss Annersley tells her so. The first hints about Margot's vocation are given in this book (though only visible through hindsight, I think), when she's talking to Len and Con about doing her MB. I like that Margot makes a comment about Sybil: "Her folk will have some-thing to say if she's getting engaged to an Australian!" and that's exactly what happens! The invitation from the Hopes takes up quite an inordinate amount of space, and Joey pulls all three out of a lesson (gym) to tell them that Margot may visit Australia. And then: Quote: [Len said]...see if we can placate Burnie for being late. Thought up how best we can do it, either of you?” “Of course!” Margot was ready at once. “ All we've got to say is that the Head sent for us. She can't make a fuss then.” “We'd better say Mummy sent for us,” Len observed. “ She'll be even less likely to say anything then." This implies that Joey's summonses are of more importance than the Headmistress's! The skiing adventure ends with the usual blizzard, and I don't understand how Len, Con and Michelle could get so badly behind the others that they lose all sight of all the other girls (some of whom must have been equally as inexpert as Michelle), and have to have a search party called to find them in the shrubbery!

Author:	Sunglass [ Mon Feb 09, 2009 8:04 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: The Chalet School Triplets
Quite apart from the outrageous cover-up of Margot nearly killing Betty, this is quite a weird book, with lots of melodrama that doesn't quite add up and odd little things that strike me as odd. Like - why does Joey, when deciding whether she should allow Margot to go to Australia, appear to forget that her own sister and her family are there and can keep an eye on her, until she's reminded by Hilda? Why does Hilda have a private phone line between her office and Freudesheim? Declaring nuclear war? OK, it was an unexpected blizzard, but given that there are lots of girls making their first attempt at ski-ing, isn't it a bit dangerous to expect them to be able to ski fast back to the school, even with the help of the more experienced girls? Len and Con are big, strong and really experienced skiers, and have only a smalll twelve-year-old novice to help along, but all three nearly die! How on earth does Matey appear to magically 'predict' Con sleepwalking? She's searched the entire school on a hunch and found nothing, so how does she figure out with no proof that it must be Con doing something everyone thinks she's outgrown years ago? The bit that particularly cracks me up is that she thinks, if Con isn't out of her bed, then she's going to have to rouse the Head, because she can't find anything wrong to explain her hunch! There are quite a few really forced contrivances in order to set up an occurrence - like the entire staff mysteriously disappearing so Len can't find a single staff member to give permission to take Jack and co out with her, or the fact that we're suddenly told that Margot doesn't like three of the four school matrons, and won't report her toothache because the one she likes is away! And the whole shoplifting episode is a bit strange - given that Len has actually had jewellery planted on her by the thief, surely there's no need to have the store detective be quite such a Cartoon Foreign Baddie: Quote: “ Aha, Mdlle l'Accomplice! So I have you, at least! Soon, very soon, we shall have your partner in crime also. Of no use to struggle! You are caught and it is I - I, Achille Dupleix - who has caught a bare-faced thief! And it is the first day of my engagement here!” Also, surely the detective was within his rights to investigate further, as Len did have the stuff in her pocket - was there any need for the manager to publicly abuse him, and appear to be Quote: on the verge of offering the entire contents of the store to them by way of recompense for the insult, offered to Len, the school and the Sanatorium. The mention of 'insult' and the San appears to suggest that whether or not Len had a pocketful of jewellery, she should never have been suspected, as a CS girl and the daughter of the Head of the San! There's something a bit troublingly stereotypical (and very un-EBD) about Over-reacting Silly Cartoon Foreigners Not Getting Heroine's Social Position, and that only the passing Englishwoman (who is a total stranger) immediately believes Len is innocent...? And while I really like Con taking on the Panto Fairy Queen and being brilliant and beautiful (and undreamy), I do find myself wondering why it couldn't be postponed slightly to allow for new casting - it seems a bit crazy for a one-off school pantomime to have St Mildred's grabbing Clem Barrass from her sketching holiday, and apparently seriously considering trying to get Verity to come from London to reprise her part? Mind you, immediately after this, Joey rushes off to Mary-Lou, which is very generous of her (though it involves pulling her three Sixth form daughters out of school a month before their exams to look after their siblings, which seems a bit irresponsible!) not to help with Doris, but, more oddly, to help 'close up' the house... Poor Verity and Doris in this one, too - one gets killed off and one married off so they won't get in OOAO's way!

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Books: The Chalet School Triplets http://www.the-cbb.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=5677

Author:	Alison H [ Mon Feb 09, 2009 9:39 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: The Chalet School Triplets
It's ages since I read this book, but reading the bit Emma quoted about how it was OK to miss lessons because Joey said so and the bit Sunglass quoted about the cartoon character store detective - I'm just imagining him sounding like Monsieur Leclerc in 'Allo 'Allo - and it being insulting to the San have just made laugh so much that I'm going to have to read it again ASAP!

Author:	KatS [ Mon Feb 09, 2009 9:58 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: The Chalet School Triplets
On the Joan Baker engagement front, I was struck by the difference between the treatment it's given by the triplets, and the way Emmy and Sybil's potential affairs are talked about. For Sybil: Quote: Her sisters looked at her. Con was first to speak. “ Gosh! I hadn't thought of that. Len, you don't mean she'll - well, be bothering with - love affairs?” “ Nothing more likely,” Len replied. “ She's - what - twenty, isn't it?” Margot grinned suddenly. “ Her folk will have some-thing to say if she's getting engaged to an Australian! For a twenty year old Sybil, love-affairs are considered likely, and engagments possible. I read Con's hesitation as schoolgirlish shyness For Emmy: Quote: It may be that; or -- have you ever thought that Emmy's grown-up now? For she is, you know. Nineteen, isn't she? I know she's about three years older than you three.” “ Glorianna!” Con exclaimed. “ So she is! I say, Ros, you don't suppose she's written to announce her engage-ment to someone, do you?” “ She's old enough,” Rosamund said reflectively. Again, a nineteen year old is considered well old enough to be engaged. But in the next breath - literally, during the same conversation, we hear Joan's engagement described thus: Quote: By the way, did I tell you that I had a letter from Joan Baker yesterday, telling me that she's more or less engaged to a boy she met at her commercial college?” “ Not really? Rosamund Lilley! She can't be! Why, she only left school the term before last!” Con's dark eyes were wide with amazement as she looked at Rosamund. “ She's just your age, isn't she?” “ Nearly a year older. I'm seventeen and Joan was eighteen last November. Not,” added Rosamund as they reached the door of the Senior commonroom, “ that it may ever come to anything.” “ But there's always a chance that it may. Well, I think it's horrid!” Con said with decision. Joan is at most a year younger than Emmy (18 last November vs. 19), but her "more-or-less" engagement is "horrid", whereas Emmy's is a natural result of her being "grown-up". More evidence that Joan can't do anything right! ETA: This also sprung out at me - when Joey has oh-so-graciously allowed her 16 year old to go on a free trip to Australia with her best friend, Margot says Quote: Margot held them up a moment. “Just a sec!You two don't feel I'm being ghastly selfish going off like this and leaving you to do all the odd jobs when the hols come, do you?” She eyed them anxiously. It just makes me so sorry for the Maynard triplets - the summer holidays are seen as a succession of odd jobs.

Author:	Nightwing [ Mon Feb 09, 2009 11:23 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: The Chalet School Triplets
KatS wrote: Joan is at most a year younger than Emmy (18 last November vs. 19), but her "more-or-less" engagement is "horrid", whereas Emmy's is a natural result of her being "grown-up". More evidence that Joan can't do anything right! Ah, but if Joan is "more-or-less engaged" than it suggests that perhaps she has been dating the said boy, as opposed to the tried and true method of collapsing in to his arms at a moment of emotional stress! A Proper Chalet Girl would mark out her One True Love in this manner, as opposed to horrible common girls who - shock! horror! - may actually go out with more than one boy in their lives, and probably didn't even fall down a mountain to meet them!

Author:	jennifer [ Tue Feb 10, 2009 2:51 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: The Chalet School Triplets
I'm also mixed about this one. I like seeing the interactions between the triplets, on a healthier basis than some of the previous books, and how Margot tries to control herself when she is excited over the trip to see Emerence. I like Con's performance in the pantomime, and how she does in the limelight. However, the kidnapping and the shoplifting come across mainly as overly melodramatic. The bookend thing is pretty outrageous, but not atypical - it's actually pretty similar to the way Diera's offence was handled. She threw a rock at another student she was feuding with in a fit of rage, seriously injuring them, and had no punishment aside from being repentant, and things were covered up. This one's a bit worse, though, as there isn't the mitigating circumstances of a heated snowball fight, and Betty is actually partly blamed because she told Margot to be quiet. I'm sure if someone chucked a lacrosse stick at Margot when she was being tactless in practice, injuring her, they wouldn't be let off. I think it would have done Margot a lot of good to have a solid punishment, rather than a stern talking to. An in-house suspension, or being sent home for a while would be warranted for a senior who seriously injures a classmate in a fit of rage. In any school I attended it would be an automatic suspension, or even expulsion, and charges would probably be laid. I can see why Joey goes to help Mary-Lou, as there really isn't anyone else to support her - she has no close adult relatives other than her mother, and packing up a house while dealing with a dying mother is a pretty big task. But the fact that all three triplets are called out of school for an extended stretch of time to babysit their younger siblings seems pretty unfair to them. Surely there was someone on the Platz who could take one or two of the kids.

Author:	Kathy_S [ Tue Feb 10, 2009 4:53 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: The Chalet School Triplets
Alison H wrote: Emerence being made to feel that Mary-Lou's injury in what was an accident caused by the toboggan hitting an uneven patch of ground was due to her carelessness I won't comment on Triplets until I reread, but really think Emerence was pretty culpable. She is warned off that part of the slope precisely because of the downed pine that causes the accident: Quote: It’s covered by the snow, of course, and you can’t see it. If your toboggans caught it, you might have a nasty accident. Although Emerence couldn't predict that ML would be a victim, and wasn't mind-reader enough to get the extra paragraph of worried foreshadowing when Biddy identifies the snag's position after warning the girls, it was downright idiotic to make that run -- even if you ignore the disobedience factor.

Author:	JS [ Tue Feb 10, 2009 8:38 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: The Chalet School Triplets
Emma A wrote: Quote: Quote:[Len said]...see if we can placate Burnie for being late. Thought up how best we can do it, either of you?” “Of course!” Margot was ready at once. “ All we've got to say is that the Head sent for us. She can't make a fuss then.” “We'd better say Mummy sent for us,” Len observed. “ She'll be even less likely to say anything then." This implies that Joey's summonses are of more importance than the Headmistress's! This reminds me of the (alleged) excuse given to teachers (or presumably 'masters' as it was Eton) by Prince Harry when he wanted a weekend away. He used to say it was an invitation from 'Granny'. Haven't read this book for ages, but seem to remember taking the engagement talk more as a kick against growing up - similar to Joey's comments about 'another one' getting engaged in the Tyrol. So Con wasn't saying that Joan was horrid, but that the idea of being old enough to get engaged was. Could be wrong - long time since I read it. Echo everything else about Margot and poor old Betty and about the 'Allo Allo shop-lifting episode. The kidnapping was very sad, though.

Author:	Emma A [ Tue Feb 10, 2009 8:51 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: The Chalet School Triplets
Perhaps Con was being so shocked an Joan's almost-angagement because Joan had been in the same form as Con, and therefore considered her to be of a similar age - whereas Sybil was a good deal older, had been a prefect, etc. (not sure how it works with Emerence!).

Author:	Sarah_G-G [ Tue Feb 10, 2009 9:38 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: The Chalet School Triplets
I agree with the above two posts in terms of Con's reactions to the engagements. She's the one who comments on all three and each time she reacts with surprise, only to be reminded that Sybil is 20 so it's pretty natural, Emmy is 19 so it's to be expected... and then the third time the age is brought down to 18 and it's a girl that she thinks of as being much the same age as she is. Plus it's the third time in the space of a few weeks that she's been told a friend/ relation is going to get engaged! If you think of Joey's reaction to marriage when she was 16, it's not dissimilar. I haven't read this book in a while but I do remember enjoying it for its focus on the triplets, despite the episodic nature of it. The Len-shoplifting story seemed a bit silly even when I was a child. I think it just seemed weirdly out of character for the books and severely anti-climactic in the end! I liked the panto storyline largely because it was a variation on the usual one, plus I liked Clem coming back for it and Con getting the chance to shine. Margot and the bookend... well, it felt a bit like a re-hash of Joey-with-toothache plus Deira-with-stone. On the whole I can't help thinking Con got by far the best deal in this book! Margot reverts to childish temper tantrums in her story and Len doesn't really do anything in hers. I can't really remember the Cecil storyline I'm afraid, or anything that happens in the rest of the book!

Author:	andydaly [ Tue Feb 10, 2009 10:32 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: The Chalet School Triplets SPOILERS IN WHITE
I always found the kidnapping plotline to be very sad, as JS said. That sort of thing does happen, and I think EBD does a fairly good job of portraying the kidnapper. She is not written simply as a standard frothing maniac, but as a woman whose reason is broken by grief. She writes of the woman refusing to believe her baby is dead, and wandering around afterwards looking for her, which always makes me have a little cry at the end of the book, it is such a believable and painful little detail, and distressing to read as an adult, never mind a child. Achille Dupleix always makes me think of Inspector Clouseau, and is so clumsily portrayed that it makes me wonder if EBD was asked to put in some light relief to counterbalance the sadness of the kidnapping plot.

Author:	Sunglass [ Tue Feb 10, 2009 12:18 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: The Chalet School Triplets
On Joan Baker's possible enagement, I was interested in Con's response to Ros Lilley's reasonable remark that Joey married at around the same age as Joan may: Quote: “ Your own mother was only twenty-one when you three were born, wasn't she?” Rosamund asked as she opened the door. “ That would mean she was married at twenty at the latest and it isn't so very much older than Joan is now.” “ That was different,” Con replied. “ Mamma had been having the ghastliest adventures, escaping from Hitler, and Papa brought her through them. Besides, they'd known each other for years before that - Con is probably right that Joey and Jack wouldn't have married so soon if it weren't for the onset of war. But why exactly does the fact that Joey and Jack had already known one another for years makes their early marriage 'different' to Joan's (other than that Joey married a known quantity) in terms of the quite negative feelings Con seems to have about early marriages and having to 'run a house' aged twenty? I mean, running a house aged twenty would be the same whether or not you'd known your husband since you were thirteen, surely? Is it something to do with the fact that Con (who emerges as very reluctant to think of her peers marrying) is able to think of her mother as not 'growing up' sexually at a young age because she married someone who was a kind of semi-family figure AND because the war forced her into a young marriage? I can't help feeling sorry for Joan, who never gets any breaks, even after she's left the CS and done what is expected of her by finding a man - even her possible engagement is greeted with Ros's lack of excitement and Con saying she thinks it's 'horrid'. Should we read something into the fact that she's only 'more or less engaged', and that Ros, who is the only one who's read Joan's letter, says 'not that it may ever come to anything”? I don't ever remember any one else's engagement being announced as a 'more or less', or there being the suggestion that, while there is some form of relationship, it may not end in marriage...?

Author:	Cat C [ Tue Feb 10, 2009 12:26 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: The Chalet School Triplets
Was some of the stuff about engagements cut from the pb? I re-read it recently, and can't remember all the bits quoted above. I read the Joan Baker bit as suggesting that she's doing all sorts of unspeakable things with boys, and the only way it can be discussed is to say she's 'more or less engaged' (a bit like the way people are asked if they'd like to 'wash their hands', rather than use the toilet), and that's underlined by the way it's said it may not come to anything. In short Joan's behaving in her typical loose/fast/cheap way, and EBD has to tie herself in knots to get that across in a children's book - especially if you link it in with what Jack said to OOAO in Problem about Joan belonging to the type of people who leave school at 16 and have to grow up earlier.

Author:	Alison H [ Tue Feb 10, 2009 12:34 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: The Chalet School Triplets
Peggy seems to have a similar thought process to Con in Oberland: although her own mother married at 18, she finds it strange that Elma at that age is talking about marriage. I can understand how both she and Con feel, but not why it's OK for Sybil and Emerence to be thinking about marriage but not for Joan. When Josette gets engaged, we're told that Sybil "may" be next, although the implication is that Sybil's young man just hasn't got round to asking yet, rather than that he might not ask at all. Given that Joan's boyfriend was still at college, I would think it unlikely that he and Joan would've planned to get married for a while yet, purely for financial reasons, but Bride and Juliet also had long engagements whilst they and their respective fiancés saved up. I think it's probably just that poor Joan really couldn't do anything right. EBD was still having a go at her long after her "reformation" in Problem, and she never got any credit for her bravery during the flood in Richenda or the hard work she put in due to knowing that she was going to have to support herself financially. I really hope that Joan had a brilliantly successful life and turned up at some future school reunion full of tales of her wonderful career and with her handsome, successful husband by her side!

Author:	andydaly [ Tue Feb 10, 2009 12:55 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: The Chalet School Triplets
Cat C, the engagements conversation is in the pb, and in my Armada edition is on page 8, or two pages into the book, but contains only a reference to Joan, nothing about Sybil and Emerence.

Author:	Cat C [ Tue Feb 10, 2009 1:15 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: The Chalet School Triplets
andydaly wrote: Cat C, the engagements conversation is in the pb, and in my Armada edition is on page 8, or two pages into the book, but contains only a reference to Joan, nothing about Sybil and Emerence. Thank you - I thought it was a bit unfamiliar! I shall have to go and have a look at the transcripts site. I don't think we should be too hard on the illogical-ness of the reactions to various engagements. Social norms change, and some people are more grown-up / marriage-ready at 18 (or 19 or 20) than others, quite apart from what's normal in different social classes or milieu.

Author:	Mel [ Tue Feb 10, 2009 1:49 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: The Chalet School Triplets
I wonder if Joan is merely 'going out with someone' which in Chalet-Land means engaged, especially if there is no chaperone. To Ros now indoctrinated, she must be more or less engaged. I'm surprised at Con talking about Sybil embarking on love-affairs - note the plural. You are only allowed one! Remember Bill asking Elma(?) in Oberland if she is engaged to the boy who has written to her? All very Jane Austen and completely out of date by the 1960s, but EBD didn't know that.

Author:	Sunglass [ Tue Feb 10, 2009 2:16 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: The Chalet School Triplets
It's not the illogicality of it for me, more that EBD seems to be trying to juggle a bunch of different norms here - changing times and sexual mores, the traditional stance of the GO heroine being uninterested in marriage, and (I think) EBD's fear that Joan is being explicitly compared to Joey as someone also likely to marry young! You have Joey herself going straight from GO schoolgirl heroine proclaiming she'll never marry to danger/ escape from the Nazis and a war which allows the narrative to skip over the 'transition' period of love, engagement, wedding, early marriage and pregnancy - and then presents us with Joey already a mother. The war is a kind of cover-all excuse - Joey can't be accused of being ungirlish and oversexed/marriage-mad, or over-eager to bag a doctor, or even laughed at for changing her mind so completely because the war legitimises her quick marriage for very good reasons. I do think EBD is uncomfortable with the fact that Joan (whom we might assume is a hot-blooded, sexually-mature young woman, as implied by lots of other characters) and her unchaperoned hell-raising at secretarial college might end up in the same situation as Joey, marrying young, and she uses Con to try to underline the fact that it's completely different! Joey had to marry because of the war, and it was to a highly-repectable, older family friend and virtual relative, not out of some flash-in-the-pan attraction to a 'boy' at commercial college! Poor Con - do we ever actually get her response to Len's engagement to Reg? Judging by this, she would be very shocked and unhappy...

Author:	Cat C [ Tue Feb 10, 2009 2:27 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: The Chalet School Triplets
Quote: Poor Con - do we ever actually get her response to Len's engagement to Reg? Judging by this, she would be very shocked and unhappy... Oh, but that would be different - Reg has known her for years (since she was three, in fact, which sometimes gives me pause, but that's another thread entirely). To give EBD her due, she is at least trying to show the differences between different people - I mean there was nothing obliging her to tell us anything at all about Joan, or really Sybil and her (putative) love affairs. The really odd one to my mind is Emerence - I don't think we ever hear about her getting engaged or married, or do we? My memory of the later books is very hazy and I've only read the pbs.

Author:	Emma A [ Tue Feb 10, 2009 2:34 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: The Chalet School Triplets
Mel wrote: I wonder if Joan is merely 'going out with someone' which in Chalet-Land means engaged, especially if there is no chaperone. To Ros now indoctrinated, she must be more or less engaged. I'm surprised at Con talking about Sybil embarking on love-affairs - note the plural. You are only allowed one! Remember Bill asking Elma(?) in Oberland if she is engaged to the boy who has written to her? All very Jane Austen and completely out of date by the 1960s, but EBD didn't know that. Granted, but are we talking about the time when the books were written or when they were roughly set? According to Jennifer's spreadsheets, Triplets is "set" in early 1955, where such an attitude would still be prevalent. A girl wouldn't even receive letters from a boy or man not a relation unless permitted to do so by her parents (say, a friend of the family). Perhaps Ros means that Joan would like to be engaged, but the chap hasn't asked her? I guess, though, that it's the equivalent of "going steady". We don't hear about Emerence getting engaged at all - it's just something that the triplets come up with as a reason for why she might be writing such a long letter to Margot! In Prefects, Con is aware (almost before Len is) about Reg's feelings for her sister, and makes the comment that Reg is sure what he wants, or words to that effect. I think that there's an attitude there that she expects Len will get engaged to Reg.

Author:	Alison H [ Tue Feb 10, 2009 2:45 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: The Chalet School Triplets
IIRC we're told somewhere that Emerence has no interest in getting married for the time being and is enjoying herself concentrating on surfing. Good for Emerence, I say ! I suppose I should be criticising her for not going out and getting a job or something (not that she needed to, given that her dad had so much money), but I really like the idea of her spending her days at the beach and surfing - it sounds more like Home and Away than the Chalet School and is refreshingly different from what most CS Old Girls do. It would be interesting to have seen the reunion between Emerence, who was apparently living a very free-and-easy happy-go-lucky life, and Margot, who by this stage must have been thinking very seriously about becoming a nun.

Author:	Sunglass [ Tue Feb 10, 2009 3:01 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: The Chalet School Triplets
Emma A wrote: Granted, but are we talking about the time when the books were written or when they were roughly set? According to Jennifer's spreadsheets, Triplets is "set" in early 1955, where such an attitude would still be prevalent. A girl wouldn't even receive letters from a boy or man not a relation unless permitted to do so by her parents (say, a friend of the family). Even for 1955, EBD was pretty old-fashioned, I would have said - or maybe idealistic, conservative and worried about passing on lax sexual morals to her young readers! (I would have said that the receiving letters issue was specifically a school chaperonage restriction - as with Elma Conroy at St Mildred's, because the school couldn't take responsibility - not a general thing.) I'm reading quite a bit of 1950s literature at the moment, and Sylvia Plath (respectable, high-achieving, middle-class daughter of academics, looking round for a husband) writing in her diaries from her last year at school and her student years at Smith and Cambridge (1950-55 approx) is very frank about the sexual double standards that prevailed among middle class young people. You were considered a slut if you went all the way, certainly, but there was a fair amount of pairing off on group dates/at dances and slow-dancing/groping etc in the life of the average young woman, as she describes it - all under a veneer of respectability and clean-cut-ness. I know EBD isn't aiming for realism or exposures of 1950s teenage sexuality in the CS books (the idea!), but it seems to me that her notions of relationships are definitely old-fashioned by this point in the series. Maybe that's what the Joan Baker reference is about, slightly - a slightly distasteful recognition that some young women these days had relationships (plural) that did not end in marriage. And those references (in A Future, maybe?) to Rix Bettany not being interested in girls yet at 24, because medics can't afford to marry young, strike me as coming from cloud cuckoo land. I think in having Len get essentially engaged at school, younger than even the previous generation of early-marrying Continental girls, EBD is trying to save her from meeting, at Oxford, the Rixes who can't afford to marry yet, but aren't prepared to do without women! if you see what I mean.

Author:	Alison H [ Tue Feb 10, 2009 3:21 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: The Chalet School Triplets
I would think that Rix and David both enjoyed squiring young ladies about, and just didn't want to tell their mothers and aunts about it because they knew that if they did then they'd be wanting to meet the girls in question and before they knew it would be making wedding arrangements . There's a lovely section in Lorna Hill's Return to the Wells in which Mariella Foster, having always imagined that she'd end up marrying Nigel Monkhouse but then realised what a git he was, is "seeing" Robin Campbell - all very properly, usually in the presence of several other friends - and reflects on how this is a lovely time in their lives, when they've kind of reached an understanding but aren't yet officially engaged, so that they can enjoy being together without people driving them mad about guest lists and menus and bridesmaids and then the boring domestic stuff that'll come after that. We never really see anyone in the CS books have that, especially as babies almost always arrive within a year of marriage. Sadly I can imagine that a lot of CS girls had problems in the real world, having been led to imagine that if a boy asked you to go to the cinema with him, for example, he would either have nefarious things in mind or else would have an engagement ring in his pocket. Nothing in between .

Author:	Cat C [ Tue Feb 10, 2009 3:32 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: The Chalet School Triplets
Quote: And those references (in A Future, maybe?) to Rix Bettany not being interested in girls yet at 24, because medics can't afford to marry young, strike me as coming from cloud cuckoo land. I think you're right about him almost certainly being interested in girls, but the bit about no early marriage for medical students sounds about right, and was true until at least the 60s I believe (unless of course he was actually gay, and using an excuse...) Unless EBD wants us to think that a male clan member (that makes it sounds as if it's the KKK doesn't it?) wouldn't dream of even so much as looking at a young lady until he was in a position to marry?

Author:	JayB [ Tue Feb 10, 2009 6:02 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: The Chalet School Triplets
I think it's interesting to compare the incidents featuring the triplets individually in this book. Margot storylines are the invitation to Australia (in which she doesn't actually do anything) and of course the bookend incident, in which we're shown Margot reverting to the child who can't control her temper. I can't help smelling a whiff of favouritism about the way Margot is treated here. I'm sure if it had been Francie, say, who was creating a row where the Juniors might hear, and Len had spoken to her and had a bookend chucked at her, Francie would not have got off so lightly. Len's story is the shoplifting, in which Len is entirely the passive victim. Did EBD find it difficult to make Len interesting when she's away from school and family, I wonder? It's only Con, in the pantomime, who overcomes a personal challenge and shows real character growth. As to Con's comments on the engagements, Con says more than once that she doesn't want to marry young, so I took her remarks as reflecting her general dislike of the idea of early engagements and marriages. EBD completely forgets about Margot's Australian trip, doesn't she? There isn't a mention of it after this book.

Author:	MJKB [ Tue Feb 10, 2009 9:10 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: The Chalet School Triplets
It is interesting that Jack Maynard in Problem accepts as natural that someone of Joan Baker's age is likely to be interested in boys. Mary Lou's reply - "Well WE'RE not you know...." is really telling. It suggests a consciousness of class differences in such matters and a rejection of everything other than middle class standards of social behaviour.(For middle class read CS middle class). How awful Joan Baker must have felt at times, living among people who made little attempt to disguise what they felt about the values she had always taken for granted. I agree with Sunglass when she states that EBD's views on marriage and courtship were outmoded. Although the later books are set in the 'fifties, they were actually written in the '60s. She had to have been aware of changes in society's attitudes towards sexualty morality and it would surely have affected her writing. I think it saddened her greatly, as I'm sure it did many people of her generation, and she protects her characters by taking up an entrenched position on such matters. I have a sneaking sympathy for her desire to hold on to a world that is so clean and pure and highminded and uncomplicated.

Author:	andydaly [ Tue Feb 10, 2009 9:24 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: The Chalet School Triplets
MJKB wrote: She had to have been aware of changes in society's attitudes towards sexualty morality and it would surely have affected her writing. I think it saddened her greatly, as I'm sure it did many people of her generation, and she protects her characters by taking up an entrenched position on such matters. I have a sneaking sympathy for her desire to hold on to a world that is so clean and pure and highminded and uncomplicated. I think you're right. Jane Austen seems to have done the same thing in Mansfield Park - as though as she got older, she felt that she should be setting a good example to the reading public through her dutiful heroine, a standard against the lax morals of the time.

Author:	jennifer [ Wed Feb 11, 2009 9:00 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: The Chalet School Triplets
I find EBD to be more conservative, or even prudish, as far as courting goes, that many other authors, even ones writing earlier than her, so I don't think it's just an issue of what things were like at the time. EBD steers almost completely away from details about the courting phases, and there is almost a complete absence of any romance that doesn't lead directly and quickly to engagement. A CS girl and a doctor meet, the doctor is attracted, and half a semester later they are engaged. In even earlier books like Anne of Green Gables or Little House on the Prairie, young men will offer to walk a young woman home from social events or church functions, or visit them at their home, or take them out riding or for a walk. Tame by modern standards, but it did involve some sort of getting to know each other, choosing the person stage. In EJO there are also some very quick/ridiculous engagements (Virginia Kane and Gilbert Seymour spring to mind), but she does show many of her characters dealing with unwanted suitors, or not being sure about whether they want to marry, rather than pairing up with the first interested man. Joan seems to be regarded with absolute horror because doesn't slot all men within 20 years of her age into either surrogate brothers/uncles, or the man she is going to marry, and because she is engaging in behaviour meant to actually attract masculine attention. Other than falling into lakes on school trips, that is.

Author:	Cel [ Wed Feb 11, 2009 10:18 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: The Chalet School Triplets
Sunglass wrote: How on earth does Matey appear to magically 'predict' Con sleepwalking? She's searched the entire school on a hunch and found nothing, so how does she figure out with no proof that it must be Con doing something everyone thinks she's outgrown years ago? The bit that particularly cracks me up is that she thinks, if Con isn't out of her bed, then she's going to have to rouse the Head, because she can't find anything wrong to explain her hunch! I love this! Can you imagine that conversation between Matey and the Head? Hilda, sleepily rubbling her eyes: "Gwyneth, I'm afraid I'm just not sure what exactly it is you want me to do. You say you have been over the whole house; all the girls are asleep, the doors are securely locked and everything is as it should be. What, then...? No, no, I quite understand about your hunch, but short of ringing up the Polizei, I don't know what else I can do - and I hardly think they're going to come haring up from Interlaken on the basis of your hunch - not knowing your particular clairvoyant talents as we do, of course..." As for Con and the engagements, I really don't feel her reaction to Joan's news was particularly motivated by class differences - just the response of a 'young' 16-year-old to news that somebody she thought of as her own age could be moving into the adult world like that. She was shocked enough at the thought of Sybil doing it, and Sybil was a good bit older.

Author:	Carys [ Wed Feb 11, 2009 10:29 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: The Chalet School Triplets
I've never read triplets so can't contribute to this very interesting discussion, but does anyone know if GGBP are planning on publishing this soon? As it's very hard to get hold of and seems to be abridged?

Author:	Sunglass [ Wed Feb 11, 2009 10:47 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: The Chalet School Triplets
Going off at a slight tangent, I was rather struck by what Hilda Annersley says to Len, after she tries to assume the blame for Jack and co going off, because she wasn't able to ask permission to take them out with her, as promised: Quote: She got no sympathy from the Head, who heard her in grim silence before she finally uttered a crushing rebuke. [...] "Go away, Len, and please try to overcome this absurd scrupulosity of yours. If it goes on, you will end up by becoming morbid. No blame attaches to you for whatever they are up to, and no blame is attributed to you. Now please go away. I have too much to do to be worried by the need to soothe your conscience.” I mean, I agree with this - Len does rush about taking responsibility for things which are not her fault - but both Len's family and the CS ethos usually encourage this over-developed sense of responsibility and the assumption of blame by people who aren't perpetrators of whatever incident. As early as Rescue, we see three-year-old Len taking the blame for one of Margot's tantrums, and In A Future, Jack tells Len Quote: "As the eldest, you are largely responsible for the little ones. If they see you disobeying, they will follow suit. If they get into trouble for it, part of the blame is yours.” And in Triplets we get Betty, who is the victim, acknowledging that 'at least half the blame was hers' for being injured by Margot - whereas all she did was (rightly) remind Margot to keep her voice down in the dormitory or the Middles next door would hear her shouting! And all the way through the series, you get people who weren't actually involved in a misdemeanour claiming it was really their fault. In the context of this kind of spreading about of blame being normal, doesn't it seem quite harsh that Len is being blamed by Hilda Annersley for accusing herself? Especially given that she's considerably harsher to Len than she is to Margot, who narrowly misses killing someone, but who is only told she is 'childish' and has 'disappointed' Hilda. What she says to Len is really harsh for the CS, where usually the talks in the study are all sympathy and understanding - here Hilda tells Len she's being morbid and self-indulgent and that her character is becoming warped, and quite impatiently tells her to go away!