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Books: Adult Matters - Summer Term at the Chalet School
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Author:  JB [ Sun Mar 14, 2010 2:53 pm ]
Post subject:  Books: Adult Matters - Summer Term at the Chalet School

Summer Term at the Chalet School is the 54th book in the Chalet School series. It was first published in 1965, the same year Adrienne and the Chalet School. Summer Term was printed once by Armada in the early 1990s and has also been reprinted by GGB.

Joey Maynard is walking down Oxford Street when she’s approached by a girl who says “Oh, excuse me, please, but - but I think you must be my Aunt Joey Bettany!”. The girl is Erica Standish, daughter of a friend Joey made whilst in India some 20 years earlier. Erica is now an orphan and Joey is her guardian.

On their journey back to Switzerland, the pair are involved in a train crash. One of the other people to be rescued is a toddler called Marie Claire, whose mother was killed in the accident. Erica becomes instantly attached to Marie Claire and begs for her to be taken in by the Maynards.

Erica settles down quickly at school, although she makes an enemy of form-mate Victoria Wood. This term also sees the school’s 25th Anniversary and the school suggests ways to celebrate this, including a portrait of Lady Russell and a written history of the school. The Kate Greenaway themed sale ends unexpectedly when a storm breaks out.

This week’s discussion will focus on the theme of “adult matters” but please do comment on any other aspects of the book too. Here are a few questions to start things off:

Joey reacts very calmly to the news that she’s the guardian to a girl she’s never met before. How did you feel about this when you first read the book? Can you imagine leaving guardianship of your child to someone you knew briefly a long time ago and who lives on the other side of the world? Do you think it’s fair to the Maynard children to take on another ward? Or does Joey have no choice in this?

What do you make of the brief appearance of the two beatniks and Joey’s (or EBD’s) forthright opinions of them?

During the train crash, Joey comforts herself with the knowledge that, if she died, Len would “take hold” of the family whilst, at the same time, Jack would see to it that Len “lost nothing” and it didn’t spoil her future. If Joey had died, how do you think Len’s future would have unfolded?

Should EBD have used more emotion in her description of the death of Marie Claire’s mother? Or would that make it too adult for a children’s book?

The de Mabillon family planned to send Marie Claire to a convent school after which she could earn her living as a teacher or a nurse, or possibly enter religion. Does this seem a believable story for the 1960s? Do you think it likely they would allow her to be adopted by the Maynards? What do you think about the romantic story of her parents and his aristocratic family? Did this interest you as a child reading the books or did it distract from the school story?

Author:  Alison H [ Sun Mar 14, 2010 5:31 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Adult Matters - Summer Term at the Chalet School

Sorry to start this off on a negative note but this is really not one of my favourites: I just can't take it seriously. I can just about accept that Erica might have recognised Joey from an old photo, and if I try very hard I can just about accept that she might have bumped into her in London because strange coincidences like that do happen. However, I just can't accept that Erica's mother would have left her child to the guardianship of someone she'd only really known briefly and had lost touch with over 20 years earlier. &, on top of being accepted to swallow that, we're then told that Erica's mother talked about the Chalet School and that Erica was a fan of Joey's books ... but apparently it had never occurred to either Erica, her mother or the solicitors to try contacting Joey either via the school owned by her sister (surely they could've found out the address of the school from someone) or, more obviously, via her publishers. Sorry EBD, but I sometimes wonder what you'd been drinking when you wrote the first chapter of this :lol: .

It puts Joey in an impossible position, really. She couldn't really say much in front of Erica, but I'd like to've seen her reaction had she heard the news in a letter. I don't think there's any way she and Jack would have refused to take Erica in, but it would've been a major shock to them. A lot of people in CS-land are suddenly called upon to take in children, although admittedly usually nieces or granddaughters rather than children they don't know, and it would've been interesting to see a discussion on how to cope with this.

The Marie-Claire story about the nobleman who runs off with a ballerina and then tragically dies would have worked OK in a book set 60 or 70 years before this one. & the bit where the authorities agree to let the Maynards take an unidentified child out of the country on hearing that Jack is the head of the wonderful San doesn't quite ring true either! I think that it would all've made a lot more sense had Joey and Jack "inherited" two children from a long-lost relative instead.

& there seem to be a lot of characters in it whom we're supposed to know but don't - am I the only one who has trouble even remembering the names of "The Crew"? & isn't there some bizarre line about someone (Val Gardiner?) sort of being a member of The Crew because she's a member of it but then she's not really because her best friend isn't, which a) sounds like some sort of CS version of the Schleswig-Holstein Question and b) makes it sound as if gangs had very formalised membership, which they might have at some schools but which doesn't sound very CS-ish.

The bit with the beatniks makes me laugh. I'm sure it was meant to make Joey sound very sensible, but it just makes her sound ridiculously out of touch - which, living somewhere as insular as the Gornetz Platz, she very probably was - , old before her time and very snobbily upper-middle-class. Sometimes it really doesn't work when EBD puts her own opinions (assuming that that's what they were) into characters' mouths :lol:.

Er, sorry for being so negative :oops: . I do like Erica. & we're told somewhere in this book that Grizel is very happy, which is lovely: Grizel deserved to be happy. I just find a lot of this book very silly.

Author:  RoseCloke [ Sun Mar 14, 2010 9:06 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Adult Matters - Summer Term at the Chalet School

I'm afraid I'm going to have to agree with Alison on the negativity issue. I saw this topic posted, with the synopsis, couldn't quite believe it and so started reading the book. I'm only a little way in (Erica and Joey have arrived in Paris on their way to Switzerland) and it's already one of my least favourite CS books. Bumping into Erica is so implausible and Joey's attitude towards the beatniks does come across in a very jarring way. It does read very much as Alison has suggested - someone else's words (EBD's) in Joey's mouth.

It has stuck me that Joey is extremely controlling in this book - the way she sweeps Erica and her governess into the tea room, for example. Trying to imagine that behaviour in London is very different from imagining it in the enclosed world of the Platz where Joey more or less always gets her way. If I saw someone do that to two customers of mine I'd form a very negative opinion of her quite quickly.

So far I'm really not enjoying this one - does it improve as the story goes on? Here's hoping! :lol:

Author:  Fiona Mc [ Mon Mar 15, 2010 11:06 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Adult Matters - Summer Term at the Chalet School

I didn't mind this book mainly because I liked Erica and her gang of friends at school and I was glad to finally see more of a second generation Austrian girl with Gretchen Von Ahlen (Frieda's daughter).

I guess I didn't find Joey and Erica bumping into each other too odd as I've run into some I knew in New York by mistake and I'm assuming Erica's Mother (Daicia) would have shown Erica all the photos she had of Joey and Joey hadn't changed her hairstyle since she left school and how many people wear their hair the way Joey did? I guess I struggle with the lack of family Daicia had but it does happen. I'm actually kind of surprised Miss Waller wasn't given guardianship. I know had I been Miss Waller I would have offered at least and at least Daicia would have known her more recently and probably a lot better.

In regards to Marie Claire, I always wished EBD allowed Phoebe Peters to adopt her. I think it must be hard being Phoebe watching Joey getting guardianships left, right, and centre and Phoebe is only allowed one and the promise of a second one

Author:  JS [ Mon Mar 15, 2010 12:30 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Adult Matters - Summer Term at the Chalet School

Is this the one where we find out about Marie-Claire's parentage and it sounds like a Verdi opera, with the respectable businessman spending his days at work 'but his nights were for XX', who was a dancer? It sounds so courtesan-ish but they were married etc and that's how it happens, isn't it? Unless you work night shifts, generally you do spend the say at work and nights with each other.
I mean, I'd find it bizarre if my husband said 'I spend my days at my job but my nights are for JS' or vice versa! It just sounds so louche the way that Joey puts it - and very different to the idyllic 'quiet happiness' of the Robin's parents, for example - there was no suggestion that Capt Humphries' 'nights were for Marya' although presumably they were!

Author:  MJKB [ Mon Mar 15, 2010 3:37 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Adult Matters - Summer Term at the Chalet School

Before I start, could someone tell me how to change my password. I keep having to apply for pws, which I then lose! I'm a complete technophobe!
JS wrote:
Is this the one where we find out about Marie-Claire's parentage and it sounds like a Verdi opera, with the respectable businessman spending his days at work 'but his nights were for XX', who was a dancer? It sounds so courtesan-ish but they were married etc and that's how it happens, isn't it? Unless you work night shifts, generally you do spend the say at work and nights with each other.
I mean, I'd find it bizarre if my husband said 'I spend my days at my job but my nights are for JS' or vice versa! It just sounds so louche the way that Joey puts it - and very different to the idyllic 'quiet happiness' of the Robin's parents, for example - there was no suggestion that Capt Humphries' 'nights were for Marya' although presumably they were!

I read it that way too! I just cannot swallow the idea of suddenly being presented with a ward, without having been consulted by the ward's parent. Is it within the bounds of possibility that that would have been allowed in the early sixties. Mind you, I like Erica, but the storyline ain't believable.

Author:  Alison H [ Mon Mar 15, 2010 3:50 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Adult Matters - Summer Term at the Chalet School

I may be totally wrong here, but I'm not sure that there's a requirement (in English law, although Erica's mum's will may have been made under Indian law) to have someone's consent to appoint them as guardians in your will, although presumably they've got the right to refuse when they find out. It just seems bizarre that anyone would name someone they hadn't been in touch with for 20 years, though - maybe they would if that person was the child's grandparent or aunt/uncle and there'd been a family fall-out but there was no-one else to name, but not if that person was just a casual friend.

It's particularly odd as they seem to've lost touch before Joey left Tyrol, so Dacia wouldn't have known where she was living, or - if she didn't know that Joey had got engaged to Jack - whether Joey was still Miss Bettany or whether she was now Mrs Anything Else, so they wouldn't even've had a surname to go off :shock: . Not to mention whether she was in a position in terms of health, finance, lifestyle etc to look after Erica. I really don't know what EBD was thinking of :? :lol: .

Author:  Loryat [ Mon Mar 15, 2010 3:55 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Adult Matters - Summer Term at the Chalet School

I have only read this once after getting it out of the library near my Grandma's when I was about nine. I can't remember much about it. Since most of the books my library had were the earliest ones, I don't think I knew who half the characters were but I think I liked it. I don't remember being struck by anything particularly outlandish so maybe I was just being very tolerant.

Does anyone have a transcript of this? I'd really like to read it again.

Author:  ammonite [ Mon Mar 15, 2010 5:30 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Adult Matters - Summer Term at the Chalet School

The plot at the beginning does sound a bit outlandish but they do say that they are going to look for the school to find Joey

Quote:
but he said there were people who knew all about schools and we’d better get on to them and find out where the Chalet School was and they’d probably be able to put us on to you.”


However even that seems risky, what if the school had closed or been sold during that time? Or what if Joey had died - who looked after Erica then?

This was said to be the reason Erica was left to Joey's guardianship:

Quote:
Mrs Standish told me that you were one of the most understanding people she had ever known. That was why she left Erica Jane to your guardianship. She thought the child might find school life difficult at first as she has never had much to do with girls of her own age, and she said you would know how to help her to cope with it.”


What I want to know though is how Joey knew there was a tea shop on that street that sold excellent hot scones if she lived in Switzerland most of the year?

Edited to say just reading through there is an interesting bit about Len's fate during the train crash scene.

Quote:
She had thanked God that if this ghastly business did end fatally for herself and Erica, the child would be safely with her parents; and as for her own family, Len would take hold at once. Nor would it mean that her life must be spoilt. Jack and she held strong views on the iniquity of expecting elder sisters to take charge at the sacrifice of their own futures. He would see to it that Len lost nothing.

Author:  Llywela [ Mon Mar 15, 2010 6:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Adult Matters - Summer Term at the Chalet School

It's been years since I read this one, so my memory of the details is hazy. I will say, though, that I'm torn over what to think about the contrived circumstances in which Joey finds herself guardian to both Erica and Marie-Claire. On the one hand I completely agree that the circumstances are contrived and highly implausible. On the other hand, I like the way that fostering (kind of) and adoption are presented here: that people don't always get into it by premeditated choice, but sometimes families can be made almost by chance. Because that has been my family's experience of it, more than once. Back in the early 70s, my grandparents found themselves with an extra child more or less by default - their youngest son's best friend lost his mother, and the father wasn't coping, so young Graham started spending more time at my grandparents' house, usually just for the evening meal after school, sometimes sleepovers...but one day his father just up and vanished without a word. There was an older sister who had just married, was living in rooms, and wasn't in a position to provide a home for a child, so my grandparents took responsibility for Graham - and he lived in their household for the next 20 years, only moving out when he married in his 30s. He is still very much a part of our family.

More recently, my parents adopted my little sister - not because they had set out to adopt or wanted to extend their family. Far from it. They were in their 40s with three grown up/teenage children and were looking forward to greater freedom. But this baby came into their lives and things just snowballed from there: her home situation fell apart, she needed a loving home, her prospects of finding one were grim, and by then they loved her too much not to want to give her a chance. So they sought and secured a residence order first (and it was seen as hugely unpredecented that non-related persons should be granted custody in this way) and later full adoption. And seriously, if we were to write up everything that happened during those years and publish it as a book or TV show, it would be written off as too implausible to ever be real, yet it happened. And that was in the late 90s.

So I am inclined to be tolerant of EBD's Erica and Marie-Claire storylines...although reserve the right to reverse that opinion upon re-reading!

Author:  Mel [ Mon Mar 15, 2010 8:57 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Adult Matters - Summer Term at the Chalet School

That's an interesting quote about Len, because that is exactly what Madge does with Joey. When she is left without a guardian she plans for Joey and would even delay her marriage for her sister's sake.

Author:  Nightwing [ Mon Mar 15, 2010 9:01 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Adult Matters - Summer Term at the Chalet School

Quote:
She had thanked God that if this ghastly business did end fatally for herself and Erica, the child would be safely with her parents; and as for her own family, Len would take hold at once. Nor would it mean that her life must be spoilt. Jack and she held strong views on the iniquity of expecting elder sisters to take charge at the sacrifice of their own futures. He would see to it that Len lost nothing.


I actually like that line about Len - EBD definitely has the idea that when a mother dies, it's the oldest unmarried daughter's responsibility to take care of the family. I know that it's often discussed that Len has far too much responsibility for someone her age, and I agree, but she's really just the extreme of the eldest sister "type" that EBD is so fond of.

The reason I like that passage is that here EBD actually acknowledges that these girls were very much sacrificing their own futures for their family, and that she doesn't want that to happen to Len. I think she's right, too - I don't think Jack would let Len give up her plans, even if she had to put them off for a year or two.

I wish that EBD had found a more sensible way to introduce Erica! Because I really like her as a character, and I like her friends, too. The whole Marie-Claire storyline is a little bizarre, especially as she seems to be forgotten about in subsequent books!

Author:  Fiona Mc [ Mon Mar 15, 2010 9:58 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Adult Matters - Summer Term at the Chalet School

Alison H wrote:
I may be totally wrong here, but I'm not sure that there's a requirement (in English law, although Erica's mum's will may have been made under Indian law) to have someone's consent to appoint them as guardians in your will, although presumably they've got the right to refuse when they find out.


I don't know if they need to consent but you would certainly want them to so there were no problems after you die. I know here in Australia you can actually contest who has been made guardian, if you want to, so if Miss Waller met Joey, and didn't like or approve of her, or her circumstances, I know here she could contest it, if she wanted to.

Author:  ammonite [ Mon Mar 15, 2010 11:10 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Adult Matters - Summer Term at the Chalet School

I hadn't thought about this before sparked by the discussion in Law about adoption here and trying to think which countries law would cover the will and adoption. Erica has come from post partition India. In particular she said she is from Kashmir, which is on the border and has been disputed. Which countries law would cover her and her mothers will - British, Indian or Pakistani and would this have been a safe place for Erica to have grown up in being obviously British?

Author:  MJKB [ Tue Mar 16, 2010 1:23 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Adult Matters - Summer Term at the Chalet School

Nightwing wrote:
I actually like that line about Len - EBD definitely has the idea that when a mother dies, it's the oldest unmarried daughter's responsibility to take care of the family. I know that it's often discussed that Len has far too much responsibility for someone her age, and I agree, but she's really just the extreme of the eldest sister "type" that EBD is so fond of.


I brought this up in a thread before, but I've always been irritated by Len's designated oldest sister status. Half an hour for goodness sake!

Author:  Jane [ Wed Mar 17, 2010 1:46 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Adult Matters - Summer Term at the Chalet School

I'm with Alison on this one - it really is one of the weakest books in the entire series. It's not just the pile of implausibilities - the whole thing just doesn't hang together. It was one of the books that immediately made me decide that I wouldn't try to buy the later Swiss books in hardback - they are far too expensive as well as being generally lower quality. My attitude was not helped by the appalling electronic proofreading of the first Armada edition, with random accents all over the place - almost unreadable!

Author:  Loryat [ Wed Mar 17, 2010 2:46 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Adult Matters - Summer Term at the Chalet School

I just reread this on transcript (thank you rosecloak) and though I didn't think it was one of the best in the series, I still quite enjoyed it. Though maybe that is because I read it when I was a child. If I'd read it for the first time as an adult I might feel differently.

Actually I think if you close your eyes to the implausibility of it all, the Erica/Marie-Claire storyline is probably the strongest one in the book. I like the attachment Erica feels for Marie-Claire and the idea that she wants someone of her very own, an outsider like herself. At least here we get some insight from EBD that's more on a par with her early writing (even if it is toally implausible). Plus I do think Erica is quite a strong character.

I also liked the 'Crew' - though not the fact that they have the same name as Jack Lambert's gang. It's nice to see the multiculturalism of the earlier books emerging again. None of the Crew emerge as particularly individual characters unfortunately, except for Freda the 'Spider' and it's a shame we don't see more of her.

I also like the detail of the TES being found in the Junior common room. :D

However, much of the book just seems to be writing by numbers. Even the unusually frequent disasters are written in a lackadaisical style where it's often not very clear what's happening and you get none of the vividness of earlier catastrophes such as Joey and Maureen crashing through the ice or even Annis' attempt to row to the mainland.

This book also seems to have a really unusual amount of EBDisms, for example two different girls being named as library prefect on practically the same page. And it's a bit random that after all the fuss they made for the coming of age, no-one remembers the Jubilee till that term and when they ask the girls to guess it takes Jack Lambert to figure it out :? rather than any of the prefects who were actually at the coming of age ceremonies.

Author:  Cosimo's Jackal [ Thu Mar 18, 2010 10:09 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Adult Matters - Summer Term at the Chalet School

JS wrote:
Is this the one where we find out about Marie-Claire's parentage and it sounds like a Verdi opera, with the respectable businessman spending his days at work 'but his nights were for XX', who was a dancer? It sounds so courtesan-ish but they were married etc and that's how it happens, isn't it? Unless you work night shifts, generally you do spend the say at work and nights with each other.
I mean, I'd find it bizarre if my husband said 'I spend my days at my job but my nights are for JS' or vice versa! It just sounds so louche the way that Joey puts it - and very different to the idyllic 'quiet happiness' of the Robin's parents, for example - there was no suggestion that Capt Humphries' 'nights were for Marya' although presumably they were!


Yes, I've always thought this sounded like a bit of rejected script from Phantom of the Opera or something! It makes a valid marriage between two consenting adults sound as if Marie-Claire's father is keeping a ballerina bit on the side in some shady suburb! It's a very 19thc idea of the ballet dancer as sexually available because she's on stage - which seems very odd for a book written at the height of Margot Fonteyn's fame, when EBD's readership would have been likely to be ballet-mad, and when one of the Maynards (Cecil? Felicity?) wants to train as a ballet dancer!

The bit about Len 'taking hold' at home in the event of Joey's death reminds me of Clover having to 'come to the fore' in What Katy Did Next, when Katy goes on her European trip. I'm pleased that Joey thinks Jack would at least be careful to see it didn't ruin Len's life, but it would have been a welcome moment of realism in a very silly book if the brush with death had made Joey re-think her habit of picking up wards and adoptees all over the place - after all, she would be enlarging the burden on her 'eldest' daughter if she ever did have to take over running the family. Of course, we've already seen Joey pull her three eldest out of school in their final year to babysit their younger siblings while she runs off to the UK to help Mary-Lou close up Carn Beg, so maybe we should take it all with a pinch of salt...

Author:  Sarah_G-G [ Thu Mar 18, 2010 11:16 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Adult Matters - Summer Term at the Chalet School

That bit about the marriage does sound weird, especially when you consider that surely most of her evenings would have been taken up with dancing anyway! To be honest I'd hope that for both of them their nights were "for each other" because if he was down the pub every night after she danced, or she spent all her time out on the town with her chorus friends, theyd never have seen each other at all. :lol: It does make Marie-Clare's background sound more romantic the EBD says it though, so perhaps that's what she was after?

Author:  janetbrown23 [ Thu Mar 18, 2010 1:30 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Adult Matters - Summer Term at the Chalet School

I wonder if she was a real ballet dancer or someone who danced in a little down at heel club somewhere on the Left Bank.

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