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What influenced new ideas in the CS?
http://www.the-cbb.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=5785
Author:  RroseSelavy [ Thu Mar 05, 2009 5:18 pm ]
Post subject:  What influenced new ideas in the CS?
Several recent discussions got me thinking. In the last few weeks we've touched on quite a few areas where EBD introduced a 'new' aspect or 'new' type of character to the CS. Examples are:

- The introduction of Ros and Joan as the first girls from state schools
- Books with an idiosyncratic 'theme' (the theatre in Jane, cinema in Mystery, cop drama in Redheads)
- The function of the finishing branch

All these started me wondering whether EBD was ever asked by her publishers, readers or friends to introduce some specific aspect to her writing. In the case of the publishers, this might be in response to real or perceived changes in the readership or their tastes (I'm thinking most about Problem, Redheads and the invention of St Mildred's here).

What does everyone think? Is there anything that, to you, smacks of a response a specific external influence and what might the motivation be? And if so, how well did EBD deal with it?
Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Thu Mar 05, 2009 5:41 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: What influenced new ideas in the CS?
I think that the war was very much an external influence, but that EBD handled it very well - particularly during re-reads now she somehow manages to portray the real dangers and horrors of life in war time Britain far better than many authors did (and I'm not just saying that because I have to read 'war literature' for my course, honest) to me. I can't say what it is about her writing, but somehow it makes it seem far more real to me than many texts that I've read.

I do think that cultural changes may have influenced EBD's writing - her language changes over time as do her character's expectations and the school as a whole. 'Redheads' in particular seemed to me to be trying to introduce a racier style to keep up with what readers then would have wanted, and I can't help but feel that perhaps her publishers had some input on it, given her comments on 'the things children watch in the cinema and read nowadays'.

In a way, that is what makes her writing stand out more than other GO authors, who can become dated as times move on. But EBD does move with times, to an extent, and also manages to incorporate many cultures (which, again, would probably have influenced her writing) while still making it feel real and relevant to the average reader.

Ok, essay over :)
Author:  Katherine [ Thu Mar 05, 2009 5:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: What influenced new ideas in the CS?
Quote:
She somehow manages to portray the real dangers and horrors of life in war time Britain far better than many authors did

For me part of this is the way that we’ve had a dozen books where we have got to know characters who live in a cosy safe little world that is suddenly blown apart by the war. They haven’t been introduced in a contrived way so that they can be affected by the war, they are pre-existing characters we already care about. That makes the war and its effects more significant and realistic for me.
Author:  Tor [ Thu Mar 05, 2009 6:04 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: What influenced new ideas in the CS?
Nice topic - I was just thinking along similar line in the Redheads thread!

There did seem to be some self-referential comments creeping into the books in the Swiss years that make me think EBD was maybe rebelling a bit at having to keep on writing the series at all (presumably she needed the income, or her publishers told her they weren't interested in non-CS titles?), or as you say finding she was having to incorporate themes at the request of publishers and/or fans.

Apologies for no quotes or book refs, but I think one of the earliest example of this is an episode where Joey has a good old whinge about annoying fans who write and send their terrible writing to her for advice.

Then we see the *seemingly* self-aware joke at her own expense in Jane with Joey's comment about the play. She must have written that with a wry face!

I wouldn't be surprised in any way if she recieved some forceful 'guidance'. Her fan base seem to have been pretty vocal, and there were the CS newsletters, which indicate there was a thriving fan community and that EBD probably got a fair amount of fan-mail, with questions about old charcters, or pleas for the return of absent ones (like bring back Mary-Lou, I should imagine).

I would love to know though - isn't their an agent or a publisher directly involved with such still alive? I'd have thought that sort of perspective would have been sought in the various PhD theses and scholarly works written over the years.
Author:  RroseSelavy [ Thu Mar 05, 2009 10:16 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: What influenced new ideas in the CS?
Tor wrote:
Apologies for no quotes or book refs, but I think one of the earliest example of this is an episode where Joey has a good old whinge about annoying fans who write and send their terrible writing to her for advice.

Then we see the *seemingly* self-aware joke at her own expense in Jane with Joey's comment about the play. She must have written that with a wry face!


Yes, I'd never thought of these as being self-referential until the recent discussions on here, but now I definitely see more than a hint of irony in them!

I think the book that really stands out for me as a potential response to a request on behalf of the publishers is Problem. I can imagine that the demography and wants of the potential market for school stories would have been changing noticeably in the 50s, and a publishing company would want its products to keep up with this. And maybe EBD also started to get letters from girls at high/grammar schools asking if she could include a character more like them. Similarly Redheads really does seem like a trial at writing something dramatic and even somewhat televisual, in an attempt to boost a long-running and perhaps flagging series.
Author:  Alison H [ Thu Mar 05, 2009 10:51 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: What influenced new ideas in the CS?
The War's the obvious one. Other than that, I would think that a lot of it was just trying to find something different, as with all long-running series. Her main characters usually have to be female, aged between 10 and 18, and from fairly well-to-do backgrounds. That's a pretty small proportion of the general population, so she was fairly limited as to what she could do.

The storyline with Prof Richardson and his spaceship strikes me as a (badly misjudged!!) attempt to modernise things. So to some extent does Problem.

I'd like to know what made her introduce the San, which turned out to be such a crucial part of the series. I strongly suspect that she just decided that it was time for Madge to marry but didn't want to "lose" her, and setting up the San seemed like the most realistic way of getting a suitable British (there aren't many mixed-nationality marriages in the series) man of the "professional class" to come to live near an Austrian lake, and that all the many storylines with other people marrying doctors and the school getting the San's patients' relatives as pupils just sort of happened by accident as a result, but maybe she did think it all out long term first ...
Author:  Sunglass [ Fri Mar 06, 2009 9:02 am ]
Post subject:  Re: What influenced new ideas in the CS?
Alison H wrote:
I'd like to know what made her introduce the San, which turned out to be such a crucial part of the series. I strongly suspect that she just decided that it was time for Madge to marry but didn't want to "lose" her...


I quite like the idea of EBD sitting down with a sheet of paper and saying to herself 'How do I get a suitable man, worthy of Madge, to come and live close to the school? She can't marry a foreigner. I don't want her to marry someone who's wealthy enough not to work, or someone who's unmacho/undirected enough to be prepared to give up his job and come and live as the CS as a kind of married-in extra Headmaster. (Imagine! Headmaster Jem!) No peasants who turn out to be disguised princes, no tourist reps, no hotel owners, no pro ski-ers/birdwatchers/mountaineers/eccentric fresh-air-fiend geologists, no space explorers. OK, TB sanatorium director it is then...'

It does make you think, though, as Alison H says, about whether that was an entirely adventitious decision. If so, the single desire to give Madge a husband who would keep her in the vicinity of the CS dictated so much of the rest of the series, including the CS 'specialism' in health and delicate girls - and the ability to keep whole swathes of Old Girls in the series by marrying them to doctors. Possibly the CS would have been a far shorter series otherwise, focusing specifically on girls' schooldays and then losing them as they moved on - I doubt Joey could have remained central unless she didn't marry and stayed on as a mistress...? And there would have been no point in writing in health-related plot lines like Robin's suspected TB, or Stacie's accident, as presumably it would have meant that they would have left the vicinity of the school to be cured...

Sorry, only tangentially relevant, but maybe interesting to think that, if we can in some sense read some of the CS books as war stories, we can maybe also include some of the CS in post-Magic Mountain books about TB/sanatoria.
Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Fri Mar 06, 2009 9:26 am ]
Post subject:  Re: What influenced new ideas in the CS?
Headmaster Jem would be brilliant. He just strikes me as the type of man that would parade the corridors swishing his cane and trying to sound learned, while not listening to anything that Madge has to say.

I think that maybe the Sanatorium was a deliberate choice by EBD when she started the series - after all, Jem is introduced in 'School At'. Also, it gaver her a good reason for English girls to be brought to the school, because I doubt that many people would hear of it if it relied on word of mouth at home.
Author:  Alison H [ Fri Mar 06, 2009 9:44 am ]
Post subject:  Re: What influenced new ideas in the CS?
Just trying to remember whether or not EJO's Swiss books - complete with San - pre-date the CS ...
Author:  abbeybufo [ Fri Mar 06, 2009 10:20 am ]
Post subject:  Re: What influenced new ideas in the CS?
Alison H wrote:
Just trying to remember whether or not EJO's Swiss books - complete with San - pre-date the CS ...


Yes they do, or at least they start earlier - Two Form Captains 1921; Captain of the Fifth 1922 - then Troubles of Tazy 1926, Patience and her Problems 1927 and the 'retrospective' Camp Mystery (set between Capt of Vth and T of Tazy) 1932
Author:  Karry [ Fri Mar 06, 2009 10:27 am ]
Post subject:  Re: What influenced new ideas in the CS?
Quote:
Tor wrote:Apologies for no quotes or book refs, but I think one of the earliest example of this is an episode where Joey has a good old whinge about annoying fans who write and send their terrible writing to her for advice.

Then we see the *seemingly* self-aware joke at her own expense in Jane with Joey's comment about the play. She must have written that with a wry face!

To me, this was a direct "lift" from Jo March in either Little Men or Jo's Boys, who moans about the self-same thing! I find a lot of Jo's qualities being echoed in Joey - with Jo's "foster" children taking the place of the long family - but with the sexes reversed, Jo having more boys than girls.
Author:  MJKB [ Sun Mar 08, 2009 8:16 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: What influenced new ideas in the CS?
Katherine wrote:

Post subject: Re: What influenced new ideas in the CS? Reply with quote
Quote:
She somehow manages to portray the real dangers and horrors of life in war time Britain far better than many authors did


I think she did this brilliantly too. The war books are written with such balance and compassion that they might almost be written in hindsight.
In Exile, Joey, angry about Freda's incarceration, start railing against the German regime and Madge gently points out to her that she is going against the spirit of the Peace League. I'm actually surprised that she was allowed to hold such views in a children's series throughtout the duration of the war.
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