The CBB :: View topic - Reunion- Romance

I think that Reg asking Jack's permission to court his daughter in a few years' time was a very outdated approach by the 1950s, but at this stage I think that Jack and Joey handled an awkward situation well, and I think that there were definite hints about Ian Hamilton being interested in Con.

‘Is it ‘Yes’, Grizel?’ is almost as bad as Reg's smug 'I take it we're engaged' - why not simply say 'Will you marry me?'

As far as asking for the father's permission - there's a great difference between the tradition asking the father before asking the woman to marry you and asking your Boss for permission to court his young, naive 16 year old daughter when you are some 12 years older and the daughter looks on you solely as a friend..

‘Grizel’s free, white and twenty-one.’

The sentence that always freaks me out a bit for a novel of the early 60s is when Jack says something to Joey about how Grizel can't be stopped from going to England, because

Quote:

‘Grizel’s free, white and twenty-one.’

I think the reason I find Neil-Grizel interesting is that I can't quite decide to what extent EBD intends us to find it 'ideal' (assuming Jack-Joey is her unparalleled ideal of a romance and marriage).

Yes, exactly! Though I must add that, even were I inclined to marry my partner, the idea that he might approach my father as if I were some chattel to be transferred between men would make me beat him to death with the shower attachment.

"Free, white and twenty one" is a very old stock phrase used to describe somebody who is their own master - I'm sure Jack meant it tongue-in-cheek rather than that he was thinking of those specific attributes as making Grizel a free agent.

I'm with Alison about Mollie Maynard; I really wish EBD had said more about her reunion with Jack and meeting her huge number of nieces and nephews. And I am actually quite surprised that Grizel spends so little time with Rosalie - weren't they the same year at school?

BTW Margot is supposed to be the most beautiful of the trip so why doesn't she get a second look?

I don't see anything wrong with Neil's proposal; my own was much less romantic!

Oh, and why does Sophie have to be plain AND unmarried AND fat AND clumsy AND vain about her new buttons? It is very un-EBD to make a Tirolean a comic character.

I don't like the idea of Hamilton for Con - it would seem so dull. But I do like the bit where he checks her out; somehow it just conveys the idea of the triplets growing up and maturing far better than Reg being all proper and talking to Jack first, which always seems so terribly middle-aged.

My biggest problem with Reunion is that it was too short! I wanted to see more of more characters, preferably doing things instead of just reeling off lists of husbands and offspring

What sort of proposal would people have in mind for Grizel? I actually think she'd be a secret sucker for something really soppy; I often think that, underneath that hard exterior, lurked a fragile, sensitive soul that craved love. I like to imagine something super gooey for her, and I think that Neil would have been up to the task!

Cel wrote:

I am well aware it's a stock phrase. It strikes me as in poor taste, though, to have a character use it flippantly in a novel published the year of the Birmingham, Alabama church bombing and Martin Luther King's 'I have a dream' speech, at the height of the civil rights movement. And I realise it's not 1963 in the internal timeline of the book, but EBD is still, presumably, living in the real world and reading the newspapers!

Getting back to the proposal, if I were Grizel I wouldn't feel too flattered by Neill's comment that they are two lonely people who have found each other. It smacks a bit too much of 'every old shoe finds an old stocking'.

I don't know, I think that that's exactly how Grizel feels, too. She has friends, but she doesn't have anyone who "belongs" to her - neither blood relatives nor family-by-marriage - and with both Deira and Joey, their husbands are going to come first.

Nightwing wrote:

Yes, but the truth can hurt, and in this instance it makes them both seem a bit sad.

However lame that proposal might have been, sometimes proposals are lame. And I don't think that, between two like-minded people, what he said would go down as inoffensive if said in the right tone, with the right look, and the right level of shared understanding.

Post subject: Re: Reunion- Romance Reply with quote
Hangonaminute; Grizel isn't middle-aged, she's not even forty is she?!!

A lot of what seems patronising or distasteful to modern ears is probably because EBD was writing from the perspective of a much earlier age. When EBD was young, a woman of 40 was middle-aged, and a spinster (horrible word!) to boot. Such a woman was very often at the mercy of her family for board and lodging and even if she had a job, the thought of retirement on tiny savings would have loomed large. In those circumstances, a proposal of marriage would surely be a godsend. (Think of Charlotte Lucas and what she says to Lizzy Bennet about her marriage to Mr Collins.) Marriage was a way of escaping poverty and, in some cases, destitution.

It's still a rather strange thing, mind - a middle-aged doctor in the 1950's to be intimately aware of a book that is one hundred years old - so much so that he can tell Len the meaning of her name and comment on the names that are no longer popular and new ones that are. Seems he's been considering names - and baby names for sometime - unusual in most men. :lol:

I read baby name books for my own amusement!

Possibly I am just strange... :lol:

...always makes me think of Mr Collins in Pride and Prejudice, when he decides that he wants to marry into the Bennet family and then tries to decide which of the daughters he'd prefer!

I have a daughter of !6 and I'd be quite horrified if a 26 year old man declared his intentions towards her. Joey, on the other hand, doesn't seem particularly fazed by it, although she discourages any mention of a relationship between them until Len has left school.

[ In another thread there's some discussion about how she would have coped outside the Platz - wouldn't Reg, who embodied many of her own values, seem much more attractive than a boy her own age who was relishing the freedom of university (I don't know how much alcoholic partying students did back then, but I'm guessing it was a fair bit, if not so obvious as today's students!).

I wonder at that stage if it was the Maynards en masse that held the great attraction for Reg. To be part of a large family must have seemed very appealing to a lad who had no real family and Joey and Jack had been very good to him.

Not convinced she would have necessarily wanted that kind of social life, anyway...?

Oh, he's a dear fellow. We're all fond of Reg. As a kid he used to be huffy and sulky at times, but Jack soon got him out of that. He's honest and upright; very keen on his job and really ambitious to do well; and he's kind-hearted. You ask Phoebe Peters. He was awfully good to her years before we met either of them. If it's what Len really wants, I think he would probably make her very happy. But she must be old enough in mind to be absolutely certain that is what she wants. She certainly isn't now and we don't want her to be hurried into it. If it is, though, neither Jack nor I will try to put a spoke in their wheel. Oh, well, nothing can come of it for at least two years to come. I shan't worry about it until I must.

Grizel had held to her determination to know him better and now they were quite good friends. She looked up with a smile at the very tall, dark young man who perched himself on the balustrade. Reg Entwistle was a pleasant-looking fellow with a delightful smile and twinkling dark eyes. With Len in her mind, Grizel had watched him keenly and decided that, on the whole, he was quite satisfactory.

Len doesn't wait two years to make up her mind, though, given that it's only 3 books later that, after another of those meaningful eye contact conversations, Len "realized that her future was settled, once she had finished her formal education." She just doesn't say anything about it yet, possibly because she'd still be considered too young to do so.

a teenage girl is going to fall in love with someone, anyone!

Coming from a society where marriages are usually arranged, I wonder why the CBBers in general did not like the proposal of Nigel to Grizel.
What was wrong?

My objection is that it's just not very romantic... it doesn't pander to my overblown notions of expensive romantic meals, single velvety red roses, orchestras playing in the background etc etc.... :lol:

& it would be a terrible waste of money if the person said no :lol:

.

People who propose over the tannoy at sports grounds or in theatres must be very confident that they're going to get the right answer :roll:

What irritates me about Neil's proposal to Grizel is really to do with EBD's pretty stilted and formulaic ideas of 'romance', rather than anything to do with either character - the way he says 'Is it 'yes', Grizel?' sounds insufferably smug to me, as if he's perfectly convinced of her answer ahead of time, and he knows she's dying to marry him. I just think it's poor form to sound so sure!

But I think that's EBD's notion of a romantic proposal, rather than saying anything about Neil, just as him 'silencing' Grizel 'firmly' with a kiss is supposed to sound romantic, rather than if he's putting some kind of anti-barking device in Bruno!

SLOC would never go for a big romantic gesture but is the most thoughtful and loving person every day. I'd much rather have that than flowers and expensive meals.

...
"And all I've got you is two books and a pepper grinder"

And as far as I am concerned, that was just perfect.

People who propose over the tannoy at sports grounds or in theatres must be very confident that they're going to get the right answer :roll:

I opened the box, and low and behold, there was a ring in it. I just stared at the ring, and then stared at SLOC. I was so desperatley overwhelmend, and happy, but a little voice in my head said "It's a ring, yes, but is it THE ring?", so I just sat holding it, and waited.

Alison H wrote:

& it would be a terrible waste of money if the person said no :lol:

.

People who propose over the tannoy at sports grounds or in theatres must be very confident that they're going to get the right answer :roll:

I know and how embarrassing if/when the person says "no"!

Isn't Grizel's the only proposal we that was written in the book?

mohini wrote:

Isn't Grizel's the only proposal we that was written in the book?

Aargh, no. You've forgotten Len and Reg. Much, much worse than Grizel and Reg.

Although one always has more questions than answers about Joey's onset of feelings for Jack. We know how Jack felt about her all along, and that he was waiting for her to grow up and to show by any sign that she had some feeling for him, before he would declare himself. But there's never so much as a hint that Joey had any feelings beyond friendship for Jack until the SLOC moment, despite the fact that her friends seem to see it all years in advance! Would EBD have intended us to imagine Joey only realised what she felt in one fell swoop when she discovered Robin was OK...? Or had she been fighting her developing feelings because she didn't know Jack shared them, or because she felt like a fool because she'd been so strongly against marriage...?

I suppose that's true, too - that Joey isn't alone in being embarrassed and self-conscious about being engaged. EBD does present women as blush-prone and terribly coy about it

Maybe I am just low-minded*, but I have always taken the embarrassment of the various people to be related to S-E-X; with marriage effectively heralding the start of such things (seeing as it is a strictly within-marriage thing, after all :wink:

). Hence the embarassment - I'd certainly be embarrassed if chums started shouting out about my impending sex life all over the shop.

To be honest, nowadays seeing as so many of my friends' marriages were precipitated by pregnancy/the decision to have children, marriage has almost become a code-word for impending business (in the CS-sense). So much so, that I often found myself going red when I announced my engagement, as I prepared myself for the knowing looks or barely-veiled interest in my womb!!!

*quite likely!

Author:	Fiona Mc [ Sun Jun 06, 2010 4:24 am ]
Post subject:	Reunion- Romance
The Chalet School Reunion was the first and only book written solely for the reader to be reunited with some very old characters of the book. It was the fiftieth book in the Chalet School series and was written to commemorate that. It was published in 1963, along with Trouble at Skelton Hall and has been printed four times in its full unabridged version. Grizel is returning to the Continent permanently. Joey decides to have a reunion for the girls who attended the school during the Tyrol years. We meet a number of old friends and the triplet’s take groups of girls off for day trips. One ends badly and Grizel saves Len’s life. The book ends with a romance for Grizel. The main theme we will be discussing is romance. There are a number of points involved with this. We have unrequited love. Grizel falls in love with Tony; however, Tony is in love with Deira and marries her. Grizel although happy her friend, is bitterly disappointed that she doesn’t have that relationship with Tony and feels it’s unfair as Deira already had a husband and daughter. We also have the romance between Grizel and Neil, which begins to develop on the ship going to England. Neil insists on staying in contact with Grizel. In Switzerland, Neil comes to Grizel’s aid during the nasty accident involving Len. We also have Neil proposal, one of the few, EBD actually writes out. Was this proposal what Grizel needed when Neil offers to take care of her and buys their house without consulting her? Or was this an insult to an independent woman; bearing in mind Grizel had born the brunt of the load with winding up her business, her stepmothers estate and watching a man she love marry her friend? Do we see the hint of a future romance between Con and Ian Hamilton? He gives Con a second look when he sees her. Is this a hint from EBD of more to come? We also see how the romance between Jack and Joey has developed into a deep and abiding love and how united their relationship has become, with their concern about Grizel. We also see the start of the romance between Len and Reg. Reg has spoken to his mentor and asked would Jack mind if he courted his daughter. How do readers view Reg’s conversation with Jack about this? Should he have talked to Jack or should he wait until Len was much older? Please discuss this and anything else, you may think of

Author:	Cosimo's Jackal [ Sun Jun 06, 2010 1:04 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Reunion- Romance
I think the reason I find Neil-Grizel interesting is that I can't quite decide to what extent EBD intends us to find it 'ideal' (assuming Jack-Joey is her unparalleled ideal of a romance and marriage). EBD has often written very ambivalently about Grizel (as about Sybil and Margot), and it makes me wonder whether we're supposed to see Neil-Grizel as EBD's idea of an absolutely perfect romance, or (especially given that the EBD norm is for women to marry by their early twenties, meaning Grizel is positively superannuated in her late 30s) simply Good Enough for Problem Girl Grizel...? For one thing, it's the only CS romance where you could plausibly see it as a rebound relationship! Or Grizel simply settling for 'Mr Right Now' (Dr Right Now?) rather than 'Mr Right'! In any other writer I'd find it most odd that Neil, when he first sees Grizel on the boat, seems almost more interested in her as a depressed patient than as a potential mate - but that's probabably normal for CS-land! Likewise that Grizel kind of speaks her love in the middle of a potentially serious mountaineering accident (for which Len is absolutely at fault!) I do like Neil, despite his odd tendency to break into lectures about naming fashions and Charlotte M Yonge out of the blue to Len, and his awful proposal, which doesn't fit at all with his nice character. ‘Is it ‘Yes’, Grizel?’ is almost as bad as Reg's smug 'I take it we're engaged' - why not simply say 'Will you marry me?' Plus his kissing is described as ‘he silenced her firmly’ (which sounds more like he produced a gag, for God's sake!) And then he says that after they marry they’re going to settle down in their new chalet ‘like an old married couple’, which seems a bit prematurely ancient, as if they're both heading for 100! I do think the 'Neil taking care of everything' thing is very much EBD's personal fantasy about someone Taking Charge, so I think the last thing she intends is that we are to see it as an insult to independent, capable Grizel. It would have been interesting - but not very EBD - if Grizel had been less than thrilled about it, though and pointed out to Neil that she wasn't eighteen, and has at least two careers and a lot of travelling behind her at this point! But of course, from EBD's point of view, part of Grizel's tragedy is that no one has been 'looking after her' so far, so she's presumed to be desperately craving it, rather than preferring to run her own life! I do also have a theory that Joey's idea of reunion fun (compulsory mountain rambles and paper games! Joey and the triplets as team leaders marshalling everyone around like a school!) is so exhausting Grizel thinks marriage is the better option.

Author:	Alison H [ Sun Jun 06, 2010 1:07 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Reunion- Romance
I think that this is the most "adult" book in the series, and considering that the series was going downhill by this stage it's very well-written. The happy-ever-after storyline with Neil is a bit corny, and the way he comes over all masterful and takes charge of everything is annoying to say the least, but Grizel deserved a happy ending and the portrayal of her depression is very well done. (BTW, am I the only person who initially misunderstood EBD and thought that Grizel was jealous that Deira was getting married, rather than that Tony was getting married?) There are a couple of unpleasant bits in this - Joey telling everyone about Reg's finances, and some of what's said about Deira's daughter - but they've been discussed before. I think that Reg asking Jack's permission to court his daughter in a few years' time was a very outdated approach by the 1950s, but at this stage I think that Jack and Joey handled an awkward situation well, and I think that there were definite hints about Ian Hamilton being interested in Con. Incidentally, the reunion itself sounds like a nightmare! If I were invited to a house party with a load of old friends, and then arrived to be greeted by someone telling me how fat I was and to find out that I was expected to go off hiking up mountains like some sort of horrendous management bonding course rather than sitting around gossiping over tea and cakes, I think I might find that a sudden crisis at home meant that I had to leave very quickly! & why should the poor triplets have had to spend their holiday acting as team leaders for Joey's friends? It was lovely to catch up with the Old Girls, but Joey's idea of a house party definitely isn't my idea of fun .

Author:	ChubbyMonkey [ Sun Jun 06, 2010 2:10 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Reunion- Romance
Alison H wrote: I think that Reg asking Jack's permission to court his daughter in a few years' time was a very outdated approach by the 1950s, but at this stage I think that Jack and Joey handled an awkward situation well, and I think that there were definite hints about Ian Hamilton being interested in Con. OT, but just to throw in that my step-sister got engaged a couple of weeks ago, and before he asked her fiance came over to ask for my step-father's permission. Not quite in the same league, though. But I do think it was a nice thing for Reg to do, all the same! I only read 'Reunion' as an adult, and definitely appreciated it more than I would have as a child! The romance is lovely, and I like that EBD breaks her own mould a little in this one and has Grizel meet her Dr. Right before the life threatening accident, rather than during it. The portrayal of Jack and Joey is also lovely, and it really comes across here how strong their love for each other is, IMHO (though I'd love to go OT again and speculate on how this made Grizel feel, having just been rejected by the man she loved, given that there are hints in 'Exile' that she felt something for Jack before that. I can almost picture her marrying Neil in a 'see, I can meet someone else too!' sort of way).

Author:	Lesley [ Sun Jun 06, 2010 3:14 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Reunion- Romance
As far as asking for the father's permission - there's a great difference between the tradition asking the father before asking the woman to marry you and asking your Boss for permission to court his young, naive 16 year old daughter when you are some 12 years older and the daughter looks on you solely as a friend. At least Jack did nothing until after Joey had left school and allowed things to progress naturally. Joey's ideas on what constituted a good reunion for an exhausted and depressed older friend seem completely at odds with her supposedly sensitive nature. Had I been Grizel I think I'd have taken myself off to stay with Rosalie or the Heads. Neil seems a good man though his proposal is the second worst in the history of the CS. If I'd been Grizel I'd have told him to stuff it - and I bet she had words with him afterwards - she was always feisty.

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Reunion- Romance http://www.the-cbb.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=7972

Author:	claire [ Sun Jun 06, 2010 4:00 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Reunion- Romance
Cosimo's Jackal wrote: ‘Is it ‘Yes’, Grizel?’ is almost as bad as Reg's smug 'I take it we're engaged' - why not simply say 'Will you marry me?' Imagine him holding out an engagement ring then after a minute saying the 'Is it yes?' and it's not bad

Author:	Jennie [ Sun Jun 06, 2010 4:04 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Reunion- Romance
Well, I did say that Grizel ought to have hit Neil over the head with a heavy article! EBD simply didn't know how to do romance, did she?

Author:	Mel [ Sun Jun 06, 2010 5:43 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Reunion- Romance
I think the book was a great idea to mark the 50th Chalet story, but I feel that EBD struggled to make it long enough for a complete book, hence Neil waffling about names (why do these doctors travel with weird books upon them -Elsie Books/CM Yonge?) Also, Grizel is hospital bound for a third of the book and the triplets' excursions sound deadly dull. As for Reg, I can't imagine any man asking father's permission to court in the 1960s (I always see the books in 'real' time like AF's) As someone else said, the Old Girls would have been happy gossiping or having gentle trips to Interlaken. And there's zany Joey of course with the hilarious crashing breakfast crockery and taking Rufus to see Grizel. Oh, and why does Sophie have to be plain AND unmarried AND fat AND clumsy AND vain about her new buttons? It is very un-EBD to make a Tirolean a comic character.

Author:	Cosimo's Jackal [ Sun Jun 06, 2010 6:03 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Reunion- Romance
Lesley wrote: As far as asking for the father's permission - there's a great difference between the tradition asking the father before asking the woman to marry you and asking your Boss for permission to court his young, naive 16 year old daughter when you are some 12 years older and the daughter looks on you solely as a friend.. Yes, exactly! Though I must add that, even were I inclined to marry my partner, the idea that he might approach my father as if I were some chattel to be transferred between men would make me beat him to death with the shower attachment. I would like to have seen Jack say 'Not on your life, matey' and threaten to fire Reg if he sulked the way he did as a boy... I agree that while the reunion was clearly terribly well-meant on Joey's part, it must have been a real strain for someone depressed and physically below par, as Grizel was. Especially when, as Alison H says, this reunion - in the great tradition of school reunions! - seems to have been largely about being critical of other people's appearances, initially anyway! Especially when seeing all these old faces would start reminding Grizel yet again of Deira in their schooldays, and I imagine she's the last one Grizel wants to have on her mind! Not to mention all the domestic happy-talk from all those old girls - is Grizel the only one there who is unmarried, apart from CS staff adn Sophie Hamel? (I agree it's a shame she's made into a kind of figure of fun...) No, EBD couldn't write romance to save her life, bless her! But I do like Neil - he's read Charlotte M Yonge, after all, a wonderfully unfashionable and unlikely author to have been reading for a man of Neil's generation! (Clearly EBD likes a doctor with an interest in somewhat unlikely reading...) The sentence that always freaks me out a bit for a novel of the early 60s is when Jack says something to Joey about how Grizel can't be stopped from going to England, because Quote: ‘Grizel’s free, white and twenty-one.’

Author:	Cel [ Sun Jun 06, 2010 7:19 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Reunion- Romance
Cosimo's Jackal wrote: The sentence that always freaks me out a bit for a novel of the early 60s is when Jack says something to Joey about how Grizel can't be stopped from going to England, because Quote: ‘Grizel’s free, white and twenty-one.’ "Free, white and twenty one" is a very old stock phrase used to describe somebody who is their own master - I'm sure Jack meant it tongue-in-cheek rather than that he was thinking of those specific attributes as making Grizel a free agent. I always liked Reunion, it's a change from the usual one-term-one-book of that period, and it was nice to catch up with old friends. I don't remember the specifics of Neil's proposal, but was it really so awful? Maybe I'm just very unromantic, but I don't see what's wrong with "Is it yes?" in the right context...

Author:	Tor [ Sun Jun 06, 2010 7:23 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Reunion- Romance
Quote: I think the reason I find Neil-Grizel interesting is that I can't quite decide to what extent EBD intends us to find it 'ideal' (assuming Jack-Joey is her unparalleled ideal of a romance and marriage). I've always had a soft spot for Liss' (I think) idea that Joey is who EBD wanted to be, but Grizel is her true alter ego (apols Liss if I have misappropriated you idea here), which would bring an interesting layer to the above question. Especially when it comes to the who 'wish fulfillment' aspect of having come along and sort ones life out. I was totally expecting something to ome of Ian Hamilton, and kept on looking for him to pop up in Prefects (I read Reunion before this). And, sorry, but Reg asking permission like that. Well, I am afraid that just set him up as creepy as anything in my book, and he never recovered from it.

Author:	Josette [ Sun Jun 06, 2010 7:30 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Reunion- Romance
Cosimo's Jackal wrote: Quote: Yes, exactly! Though I must add that, even were I inclined to marry my partner, the idea that he might approach my father as if I were some chattel to be transferred between men would make me beat him to death with the shower attachment. Me too - I was going to say "though I am 38 now so it would seem a bit of an odd thing for him to do" but I think my 16-year-old self would have reacted even more violently, if anything! I thnk EBD captures depression very well in this book: I didn't read it till I was an adult and really felt for Grizel. A woman having feelings for a man which are not returned is such an unusual thing for EBD to write - good CS girls don't fall in love until someone falls for them, and then they gracefully capitulate! Does this mean Grizel had good reason to think Tony was interested in her? Or is just another of the mistakes she has to make before she gets her "reward"? I do agree that we're meant to see Neil as her reward, coming to take this heavy burden off her - however high-handed he appears to us. I liked what we saw of Ian Hamilton (not much, admittedly) and preferred him for Con over Roger Richardson - possibly because he's outside the "clan" and she might be allowed to get to know him in her own time, unlike Len with Reg.

Author:	Alison H [ Sun Jun 06, 2010 8:20 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Reunion- Romance
Unfortunately, it can be an easy mistake to make (re Tony)! If Grizel and Deira usually went out together, and Tony kept coming over to talk to them at friends' houses or offeing to buy them drinks in bars or wherever (if CS girls went to bars!), or kept just happening to pop into the shop where they both worked, it might've been very easy to work out that he was interested in one of them but - especially if he was trying not to be too obvious or Grizel just wasn't very good at reading "signals" - not quite so easy to work out which one of them it was. Grizel had had so little affection in her life that I can imagine her getting attached very quickly to a man whom she thought really liked her, and it must've been a horrible shock to find out that she'd got it all wrong . ETA - it's interesting to see Mollie Maynard turn up in this, presumably the first time she and Jack had seen each other in about 20 years and (although EBD doesn't show us the meeting) the first time she'd ever met the Maynard children. She's hardly ever mentioned after she emigrates: I know that she was on the other side of the world, but surely she and Jack must have been in touch.

Author:	2nd Gen Fan [ Mon Jun 07, 2010 6:14 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Reunion- Romance
I'm with Alison about Mollie Maynard; I really wish EBD had said more about her reunion with Jack and meeting her huge number of nieces and nephews. And I am actually quite surprised that Grizel spends so little time with Rosalie - weren't they the same year at school? And both came (like Joey) from Taverton originally? Plus the years where they both worked at the Sonnalpe, and later at the main school. I think she'd have had a far more restful time staying with Rosalie.

Author:	mohini [ Mon Jun 07, 2010 6:57 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Reunion- Romance
EBD has described the depression very well in the book. I for one actually like Joey's idea of excursion. It would make Grizel so tired at the end of the day that she would fall asleep exhausted.And walking meant full concentration is needed. So no time to think. The same principal was used in one of A.J Cronin's book. I cannot recall the name. But the wife of the doctor dies and his friend takes him on a hike for the whole day. In a week he is a little out of depression. I like Neil's and Grizel's romance here. IIRC this is the first time a proposal was actually shown.Rest of the girls get married between the lines and chapters, we never get to see how they were proposed. BTW in which book is Tony and Deira mentioned. I do not recall anything about them and while reading the book it comes as a shock. I even went back to see, but no luck. Or has it been but in paper back? Reg asking permission is also possible because he comes from a different background. He must have wondered if he was acceptable to the Maynards. BTW Margot is supposed to be the most beautiful of the trip so why doesn't she get a second look?

Author:	Cosimo's Jackal [ Mon Jun 07, 2010 8:27 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Reunion- Romance
Cel wrote: "Free, white and twenty one" is a very old stock phrase used to describe somebody who is their own master - I'm sure Jack meant it tongue-in-cheek rather than that he was thinking of those specific attributes as making Grizel a free agent. I am well aware it's a stock phrase. It strikes me as in poor taste, though, to have a character use it flippantly in a novel published the year of the Birmingham, Alabama church bombing and Martin Luther King's 'I have a dream' speech, at the height of the civil rights movement. And I realise it's not 1963 in the internal timeline of the book, but EBD is still, presumably, living in the real world and reading the newspapers! 2nd Gen Fan wrote: I'm with Alison about Mollie Maynard; I really wish EBD had said more about her reunion with Jack and meeting her huge number of nieces and nephews. And I am actually quite surprised that Grizel spends so little time with Rosalie - weren't they the same year at school? I agree with all this. Unfortunately, I think the problem is that Joey's indefatigable centrality (as well as the micro-scheduling of the reunion!) means that everyone interacts with her, or via her, rather than separately with other old friends, which gives the impression that everyone's relationships with Joey are stronger than their friendships with other people. I know other people have objected in the past that Reunion couldn't simply be a book about old friends getting together again, but given that EBD seems to have written it for precisely that reason, and as a commemoration, I wish she'd taken the chance to use Grizel's return as a way of reconnecting us with other characters who are present at the reunion, but hardly speak. But I suppose the problem is that so many of them have had their 'happy ever after moment' long before, and EBD seems to think the only possible things that happen to women after they marry are increasing numbers of children! By definition, their 'news' can only be minimal. mohini wrote: BTW Margot is supposed to be the most beautiful of the trip so why doesn't she get a second look? I assume because EBD seems to agree somewhat with Grizel's rather critical verdict on Margot's 'showy' looks, compared to her sisters' subtler charms! Clearly the 'right kind of man' looks past bosomy, striking Margot to Len and Con! And of course the right kind of man magically intuits that one triplet is already spoken for and opts for the free agent - though one wishes in fact that Ian Hamilton had given Len, rather than Con a second glance, and possibly saved her from Reg!

Author:	Alison H [ Mon Jun 07, 2010 9:11 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Reunion- Romance
I hate that comment about "showy" looks: maybe it's just the way I read it but it sounds as if Margot's somehow doing something wrong by being the wrong sort of beautiful, like it sounds as if Joan Baker's doing something wrong by being "cheaply" pretty rather than just pretty, whereas Len manages to be the perfect sort of beautiful!

Author:	sealpuppy [ Mon Jun 07, 2010 9:31 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Reunion- Romance
I think the point about Grizel being happy to 'be taken care of' is very important. Yes, she's travelled a lot, had a couple of careers and has money, but she's never been loved - or not since her grandmother died. I have a friend who said to me once: 'but you've always been loved; I haven't and it makes a difference to the way you look at the world'. Grizel has seen most of her friends and contemporaries end up with happy marriages or fulfilling careers and she's had neither, until the job with Deira, and even that goes pear-shaped. She must have secretly expected everything to go wrong for her and suddenly to find a man who will give her the love and emotional security she's longed for, must be wonderful. (And yes, I appreciate that plenty of people in her circumstances might well have made their lives fulfilling, but that's not Grizel's way.) I don't see anything wrong with Neil's proposal; my own was much less romantic!

Author:	Cosimo's Jackal [ Mon Jun 07, 2010 9:47 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Reunion- Romance
sealpuppy wrote: I don't see anything wrong with Neil's proposal; my own was much less romantic! It's not a lack of romance issue for me - EBD's ideas of 'romance' and my own are so at variance they'd be unlikely to mesh, anyway! - it's that it seems a bit presumptuous! I don't think EBD means it like that, but to me it feels like he's feeding a woman who hardly knows him her lines! To me, Neil's is a 'been together for years and have been moving towards this moment gradually' proposal, rather than one that comes after a relatively short period of knowing one another - it implies to me he's pretty confident Grizel will say yes, whereas I wouldn't have said he could possibly be in reality! And presumption just isn't attractive...

Author:	emma t [ Mon Jun 07, 2010 7:10 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Reunion- Romance
The reunion was a great idea to get in as many old characters as possible though there are one or two that did not appear in it that I would have liked to have seen mentioned, For example Elisaveta - did she not send her daughter to the school at some point? Yes, I think that Reg should have talked to Jack some more; I feel that Len may have felt some pressure on Reg's part; I know there were hints on how she feels throughout the later books, but what if she met someone when she went to university that she felt more for? What would she have done in those circumstances? I also feel that Reg is a bit too old for her anyway; whilst I have nothing against age gaps; Reg has already seen something of life, etc, whereas Len has not. Maybe straying off the point here.... I also think that EBD does hint about Con and Hamilton I loved it when he gave her that second look, and if he followed his friend to work at the san, then it might be fitting if Con felt the same way!

Author:	Mel [ Mon Jun 07, 2010 8:23 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Reunion- Romance
Oh not Hamilton for Con! I've nothing against him, but not another one settling at the Platz outdoing one another in babies!

Author:	Alison H [ Mon Jun 07, 2010 9:16 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Reunion- Romance
I hope Con escaped the Platz too! When Mary-Lou turned up in Reunion, feeling all alone in the world and having temporarily dropped out of university, it does sound as if she, more so than Len, Con or Grizel, is in line to be swept off her feet by a doctor and to settle down to living on the Platz and having a zillion sets of twins, and I'm always very glad that EBD lets her go back to university and get on with her career. Maybe she thought that the Platz just wasn't big enough for both Joey and Mary-Lou , or maybe she was waiting until either Rix or David was ready to get married, but I'm glad that Mary-Lou got the chance to get away from CS-land and do her own thing.

Author:	Nightwing [ Mon Jun 07, 2010 9:43 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Reunion- Romance
Mel wrote: Oh, and why does Sophie have to be plain AND unmarried AND fat AND clumsy AND vain about her new buttons? It is very un-EBD to make a Tirolean a comic character. Not to mention a drastic shift from the Sophie of the Tirol days, where she was last seen as a perfectly capable prefect who was rightfully proud of her father's business acumen. I actually really like Reunion. Even though I roll my eyes at the paper games, the excursions sound like fun, and it's in keeping with the Chalet School idea of girls being too busy to miss home for Grizel to be distracted by the trips Joey's planned. And, I do feel like I should point out that while the people here may have hated Joey's idea of a party, no one in the book seems to!

Author:	Kathy_S [ Mon Jun 07, 2010 10:21 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Reunion- Romance
My biggest problem with Reunion is that it was too short! I wanted to see more of more characters, preferably doing things instead of just reeling off lists of husbands and offspring. I think I'd have enjoyed most of Joey's activities much more than those of a standard school reunion, though I daresay I'd have rambled more slowly than the triplets and not taken log crossings in a standing position. (That was a challenge even at their age.) I imagine the hostess did take preferences into consideration when arranging outings (though sign-up sheets might have helped!), as well as trying to balance groups so that no one felt left out.

Author:	Abi [ Mon Jun 07, 2010 10:47 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Reunion- Romance
I love Reunion; it's one of my favourites of the later books. It's so fun to see everyone together again, and I especially like Corney as an adult - she's still the same person, but grown up. And I think it's great that Grizel finally finds happiness. In a way, I think her story is one of the most interesting in the series. Of course, it's a shame about that terrible proposal, but I overlook that on the grounds that Neil is lovely in every other way! I don't like the idea of Hamilton for Con - it would seem so dull. But I do like the bit where he checks her out; somehow it just conveys the idea of the triplets growing up and maturing far better than Reg being all proper and talking to Jack first, which always seems so terribly middle-aged.

Author:	Tor [ Tue Jun 08, 2010 6:01 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Reunion- Romance
Quote: I don't like the idea of Hamilton for Con - it would seem so dull. But I do like the bit where he checks her out; somehow it just conveys the idea of the triplets growing up and maturing far better than Reg being all proper and talking to Jack first, which always seems so terribly middle-aged. Yes, I totally agree with this! Quote: My biggest problem with Reunion is that it was too short! I wanted to see more of more characters, preferably doing things instead of just reeling off lists of husbands and offspring And this! What sort of proposal would people have in mind for Grizel? I actually think she'd be a secret sucker for something really soppy; I often think that, underneath that hard exterior, lurked a fragile, sensitive soul that craved love. I like to imagine something super gooey for her, and I think that Neil would have been up to the task!

Author:	Mel [ Tue Jun 08, 2010 6:08 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Reunion- Romance
What amuses me is that they all turn to Grizel for leadership during the doomed excursion, as she had been HG when they were all Middles 20 years previously.

Author:	MJKB [ Wed Jun 09, 2010 11:49 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Reunion- Romance
Tor wrote: What sort of proposal would people have in mind for Grizel? I actually think she'd be a secret sucker for something really soppy; I often think that, underneath that hard exterior, lurked a fragile, sensitive soul that craved love. I like to imagine something super gooey for her, and I think that Neil would have been up to the task! I love Renion and am so glad that it sees Grizel happy and in love, even if it means her life narrows considerably. But the proposal does Neil no favours whatsoever. The deepened voice, Grizel's coy protest....embarrassing.

Author:	Alison H [ Thu Jun 10, 2010 7:32 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Reunion- Romance
I don't like the proposal, but we're told in one of the later books how happy Grizel and Neil and little Nigel are, and - although the nice doctor/happy ever after thing's a bit clichéd - it's lovely that Grizel gets that happiness if marriage and motherhood are what she wants. Usually, EBD puts CS girls and mistresses into either the married with lots of kids camp or the dedicated teacher camp by the time they're 30. Grizel and Evadne are the only two who immediately spring to mind who marry but don't marry (for the first time) young, and in Evvy's case she would have married young had her fiancé not been killed. It's hard to imagine Mlle de Lachennais or Matey or any of the other senior members of the CS staff suddenly announcing that they were getting married, and it's interesting that an exception's made for Grizel.

Author:	Mia [ Thu Jun 10, 2010 7:21 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Reunion- Romance
Cosimo's Jackal wrote: Cel wrote: "Free, white and twenty one" is a very old stock phrase used to describe somebody who is their own master - I'm sure Jack meant it tongue-in-cheek rather than that he was thinking of those specific attributes as making Grizel a free agent. I am well aware it's a stock phrase. It strikes me as in poor taste, though, to have a character use it flippantly in a novel published the year of the Birmingham, Alabama church bombing and Martin Luther King's 'I have a dream' speech, at the height of the civil rights movement. And I realise it's not 1963 in the internal timeline of the book, but EBD is still, presumably, living in the real world and reading the newspapers! Not sure how much the ACRM would have penetrated Redhill, Surrey... I'm always a bit suspicious of Neil and his carting a book of baby names halfway across the globe...

Author:	MJKB [ Thu Jun 10, 2010 9:24 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Reunion- Romance
Getting back to the proposal, if I were Grizel I wouldn't feel too flattered by Neill's comment that they are two lonely people who have found each other. It smacks a bit too much of 'every old shoe finds an old stocking'.

Author:	Nightwing [ Fri Jun 11, 2010 12:03 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Reunion- Romance
MJKB wrote: Getting back to the proposal, if I were Grizel I wouldn't feel too flattered by Neill's comment that they are two lonely people who have found each other. It smacks a bit too much of 'every old shoe finds an old stocking'. I don't know, I think that that's exactly how Grizel feels, too. She has friends, but she doesn't have anyone who "belongs" to her - neither blood relatives nor family-by-marriage - and with both Deira and Joey, their husbands are going to come first.

Author:	MJKB [ Fri Jun 11, 2010 12:24 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Reunion- Romance
Nightwing wrote: I don't know, I think that that's exactly how Grizel feels, too. She has friends, but she doesn't have anyone who "belongs" to her - neither blood relatives nor family-by-marriage - and with both Deira and Joey, their husbands are going to come first. Yes, but the truth can hurt, and in this instance it makes them both seem a bit sad. I'm really, really glad that Grizel finds love and romance, and I think it particularly courageous for EBD to show that middle aged people can find love too. Most young readers just about tolerate a 40 year old widow marrying, they don't tend to accept that 'old' people can experience love and romance. I read Reunion as an adult so I was thrilled not only to meet up with Grizel again but also to see her gain her reward.I'm not sure if I'd have felt the same had I read it as a child.

Author:	Cosimo's Jackal [ Fri Jun 11, 2010 11:48 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Reunion- Romance
MJKB wrote: Nightwing wrote: I don't know, I think that that's exactly how Grizel feels, too. She has friends, but she doesn't have anyone who "belongs" to her - neither blood relatives nor family-by-marriage - and with both Deira and Joey, their husbands are going to come first. Yes, but the truth can hurt, and in this instance it makes them both seem a bit sad. I'd agree with that, especially when you add it to his post-proposal comment about how they're going to settle down in their chalet like an 'old married couple'. Whatever my own private feelings of exclusion from other people's domestic happiness might have been, in Grizel's position, I'd resent the hint that this was some kind of Middle-aged Lonely and Desperate union! It does, to me, hint of 'For every old shoe...' (which my partner's father, who is given to malapropisms, always renders as 'For every old shoe, there's an old boot', and then doesn't get why we laugh!) It's funny how EBD allows only a slight deviance from the 'norm' of her self-sufficient, masterful doctors (I mean, Jem must have been around Neil's age when he married Madge, right, without any hints of loneliness...?) and those are both in marriages she presents as 'solutions' to problems of loneliness - Phoebe and Dr Peters (who is presented as lonely after his mother's death), and 'lonely' Neil and Grizel. Though I acknowledge that Grizel would have been a much older bride by the standards of her day than she would seem today, and EBD was brave to put in a relatively unorthodox romance in a girls' school story series. Although it occurs to me, too, that EBD has quite a double attitude towards the nuclear family. On the one hand, she portrays unmarried people (outside of the CS mistresses, who clearly never suffer from regrets or isolation - Bill, who spends Christmas alone at the CS at the start of Lavender is not pitied, but seen as curling up with chocolates and novels) as rootless and unballasted. There's some reference to marrying giving a person 'roots' at the start of Reunion, and there's a general attitude from married women like Joey and others that certain characters (Gillian Linton, Simone) are 'too sweet to teach' their whole lives - and of course that only marriage. children and a 'home of her own' will stop Gillian being at the beck and call of Joyce! So from that point of view, the unmarried are somewhat cut off, without homes of their own and roots etc. But, on the other hand, the entire CS universe presents us continually with resolutely non-nuclear families which are absolutely open to other people - Joey's 'family' is continually open, not just to wards and adoptees, but to longterm adult semi-permanent residents like Doris Trelawney and Stacie Benson. In some ways, this is very much not a world in which an unmarried person need feel excluded.