The CBB :: View topic - Books: Changes - The School at the Chalet

I often wonder how far ahead EBD thought when she wrote the first book, or if she was just waiting to see how it was received before thinking any further. She couldn't have foreseen that the school would be forced to leave Austria, but, whilst obviously the school had to flourish because it wouldn't have been much of a series if Madge had had to go home with her tail between her legs and a load of debts, did she intend for it to carry on as a little dame school or was she already thinking in terms of it becoming a big institution with hundreds of pupils?

It must have been really good for the first readers, not knowing how things were going to go and waiting to find out. I'm a bit jealous: I read the books completely out of order, because some were easier to get than others, so I never got that!

The one change that I would have liked to see which isn't really there is Joey dealing with the foreignness of Tyrol and the languages, as well as with having more contact with other people of her age than ever before. I've always found it difficult to get my head around how she was more or less fluent in French and German, and extremely cosmopolitan in outlook from a couple of holidays...

I've always wondered how much older than Madge Jem actually was? I imagine him being well into his thirties when they meet - but he doesn't seem to age at all throughout the books.

I'd love to know how the Bettanys were fluent in French and German after a few holidays abroad! I can't imagine that they'd been on some sort of Grand Tour, so soon after the First World War and without that much money, so they can only have been for a couple of months at a time at most.

24 does seem ridiculously young to start up a school (she says, still being two months out from reaching that fine age) but there are dozens of contemporary examples of young people starting up successful enterprises.

Men can carry on having kids for years, Jack could be well into his sixties and still fathering children

Author:	abbeybufo [ Sun Nov 08, 2009 3:56 pm ]
Post subject:	Books: Changes - The School at the Chalet
Continuing our consideration of EBD’s books by theme, we come to the first book in the Chalet series, The School at the Chalet, considered in the light of change. The School at the Chalet was published in 1925, EBD's fourth book, after three titles in what we now call the La Rochelle series. Throughout the book a series of changes occur, with varying consequences and degrees of importance: There is the change in Madge and Dick’s lives, with the recent death of their guardian, and the consequent need to earn their living, and there is the change in Joey’s life, in the move from the town she had grown up in to a place where her health might improve. Moving outside this small family circle we see the change in circumstances for Grizel, whose life has already seen more changes than she would have liked, but who threw herself into the new venture at first as a way of getting away from her stepmother. Then there is Mademoiselle Le Pattre, who is moving from the status of a governess to being a partner in a new enterprise. And this is just the first few chapters! Change is also seen in the Tyrolean village in which the school is founded. For the village itself in having a new source of employment and a new set of patrons for its shops and hotels, and for the girls of families whose parents spent time in the villages from Innsbruck and other towns, in having a source of quality education without needing to go back to the town. By the end of the book Madge's life has changed; she has acquired another ward in Juliet, as well as the increase in pupils, and she has met her future husband. Finally the Chalet School itself changes over the course of the book from a small enterprise of fewer than half a dozen pupils to a going concern that had new pupils promised for the coming term, and looked set to do all that Madge had hoped. What do you think of these changes? Are they all predictable? How much of a change in EBD's writing can you see from the other books she had tackled up to this time? Please comment below on these and any other aspects of the book.

Author:	Alison H [ Mon Nov 09, 2009 12:55 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Changes - The School at the Chalet
I think it's all hugely exciting - I wish my life would turn round like that! I particularly love seeing Grizel's excitement when she goes abroad for the first time and sees places which, whereas now a lot of places are depressingly samey, are totally different to what she's known before. I love the family atmosphere of the books too. This book is very 1920s, and in that way it's closer to EBD's earlier books than to the later books. It's also set much more firmly in the real world than the Swiss books are, with references (mostly cut out of the pb) to world events. I often wonder how far ahead EBD thought when she wrote the first book, or if she was just waiting to see how it was received before thinking any further. She couldn't have foreseen that the school would be forced to leave Austria, but, whilst obviously the school had to flourish because it wouldn't have been much of a series if Madge had had to go home with her tail between her legs and a load of debts, did she intend for it to carry on as a little dame school or was she already thinking in terms of it becoming a big institution with hundreds of pupils? Jem was presumably introduced as a future partner for Madge - was she thinking in terms of an Abbey-style set-up with the books being as much about married old girls/former mistresses as about the school itself? When did she decide to scrap the "really English" idea in favour of speaking three languages and going on about curtseys and milky coffee? It must have been really good for the first readers, not knowing how things were going to go and waiting to find out. I'm a bit jealous: I read the books completely out of order, because some were easier to get than others, so I never got that!

Author:	Cosimo's Jackal [ Mon Nov 09, 2009 8:05 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Changes - The School at the Chalet
Alison H wrote: I often wonder how far ahead EBD thought when she wrote the first book, or if she was just waiting to see how it was received before thinking any further. She couldn't have foreseen that the school would be forced to leave Austria, but, whilst obviously the school had to flourish because it wouldn't have been much of a series if Madge had had to go home with her tail between her legs and a load of debts, did she intend for it to carry on as a little dame school or was she already thinking in terms of it becoming a big institution with hundreds of pupils? That's an interesting thought! I don't know the Abbey books, or indeed much about other school stories of the period, but it seems that quite a few of EBD's other books deal with pretty small schools in interesting locations, as do some Angela Brazils, so I suppose it's entirely possible she might have intended the CS to remain single chalet-ish in size and very family-ish in atmosphere. Though to set against that, everyone is terribly proud of the growing numbers even in School At - I mean, other than just Madge, who is presumably thrilled that starting a school didn't turn out to be a dud move! I have to say I personally am a sucker for the informal, school-as-family stuff in the early books, where Amy Stevens is being bathed by Juliet in the dormitory, Joey gets into Madge's bed at the crack of dawn, and the girls wander round freely in the woods and go to buy apples and walk down to the ferry landing etc. The one change that I would have liked to see which isn't really there is Joey dealing with the foreignness of Tyrol and the languages, as well as with having more contact with other people of her age than ever before. I've always found it difficult to get my head around how she was more or less fluent in French and German, and extremely cosmopolitan in outlook from a couple of holidays...

Author:	ChubbyMonkey [ Mon Nov 09, 2009 10:52 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Changes - The School at the Chalet
Alison H wrote: It must have been really good for the first readers, not knowing how things were going to go and waiting to find out. I'm a bit jealous: I read the books completely out of order, because some were easier to get than others, so I never got that! I'd never thought of it like that; although I read almost all of the early ones in order, we had the collection up to 'Coming of Age' by the time I came to it, so I could kind of tell what was coming! And there's the fact that all I can remember is just knowing 'School At' almost in its entirety, because I started reading and re-reading it so early on. It is a very exciting book, and I think what makes it such a brilliant one, IMHO, is that although there is a lot about the school - and especially starting up the school, which I always used to love reading about - there is also a lot which isn't about the school; the journey there, the trip to get Madge's birthday present, the holidays at the end of term etc. We aren't just told of the changes, we get to see them happening.

Author:	trig [ Mon Nov 09, 2009 5:47 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Changes - The School at the Chalet
Cosimo's Jackal wrote Quote: The one change that I would have liked to see which isn't really there is Joey dealing with the foreignness of Tyrol and the languages, as well as with having more contact with other people of her age than ever before. I've always found it difficult to get my head around how she was more or less fluent in French and German, and extremely cosmopolitan in outlook from a couple of holidays... I've thought that too, but then it's amazing how cosmopolitan you feel even after one foreign holiday now - I remember the first time I went to France I ate nothing but French food for weeks after I came back. In the twenties it would have been a real difference too (no Mcdonalds in Paris then!) so EBD probably did think a few holidays made the Bettanys cosmopolitan. I too love the family atmosphere that continues up until about New House. It's never really recaptured even in the second half of Exile when the school feels like a large one but in fact is quite small again. The insight into the adults' feelings and thoughts are part of the attraction. This was the first CS book I read, aged about 10, so Madge seemed pretty old to me (I remember not understanding the "only 24" bit as this seemed ancient) but even fifty years after it was written the parts about Grizel enjoying her first trip abroad were fabulous to me as I had never been further than Wigan. Now, when I have a read through I have to skip bits as I know it almost off by heart, and could probably write the first chapter from memory. It also seems far less probable - now I'm older the though of any 24 year olds I know being able to start up a school is laughable...

The CBB http://www.the-cbb.co.uk/

Books: Changes - The School at the Chalet http://www.the-cbb.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6838

Author:	Carrie A [ Wed Nov 11, 2009 9:03 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Changes - The School at the Chalet
I came to the books late (having read only a couple as a child) and so I always thought that Madge was really young at 24! I think it shows a lot of enterprise and confidence on her part, although those were the days when anyone with a modicum of education themselves could teach! No teaching standards to reach, no parents breathing down your neck because of course anyone these days who has ever been to school can do the job so much better than a teacher!!!! (Sorry, bit of a rant there I'm afraid! ) However, she does seem to do a good job - she has the girls love and respect quite early on, despite a few little glitches. As regards the languages issue - perhaps the Bettanys are just naturals at learning languages? I am having to teach French to my Y4's this year and am having to drag up my learning from 40 years ago, despite having several French holidays! I've always wondered how much older than Madge Jem actually was? I imagine him being well into his thirties when they meet - but he doesn't seem to age at all throughout the books.

Author:	Nightwing [ Wed Nov 11, 2009 9:24 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Changes - The School at the Chalet
24 does seem ridiculously young to start up a school (she says, still being two months out from reaching that fine age) but there are dozens of contemporary examples of young people starting up successful enterprises. I suspect the biggest challenges Madge would have faced weren't her age, but how people viewed her because of how young she was - and of being a single woman running her own business. The school grows hugely after she becomes engaged to Jem, and maybe it would have done so anyway - but maybe the fact that the school then effectively had the backing of a successful man helped parents' impressions of it? As for Joey's language prowess... . She certainly paved the way for all those future girls becoming trilingual after one term, didn't she?

Author:	ChubbyMonkey [ Wed Nov 11, 2009 9:49 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Changes - The School at the Chalet
Carrie A wrote: I've always wondered how much older than Madge Jem actually was? I imagine him being well into his thirties when they meet - but he doesn't seem to age at all throughout the books. I think that tends to largely depend on what you're reading! We can date Madge's birthday to within a year (I think that I got 1900) but AFAIK there is nothing to indicate how Jem aged. Personally, I slide his age around to fit my purpose - same with Jack! It's an interesting dilemma, though. EBD does seem to have a tendency to like men to be much older than her characters, but there's never any indication that Jem (and, indeed, Jack) actually are. I think that Jack would be about the same age as Madge, and Jem maybe a year or two older - certainly I can't see a huge age gap between them, and Jack would have to have been fairly young to still be having children with Joey when he was!

Author:	Mel [ Wed Nov 11, 2009 10:04 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Changes - The School at the Chalet
In 'Rescue' we are told that Jem is 48, and with Jo at 24 (the triplets are 3) that makes Madge 36 (12 years older than Jo). 12 years is a big gap when you think of Len/Reg later, but of course Madge is not a schoolgirl when they get engaged.

Author:	ChubbyMonkey [ Wed Nov 11, 2009 10:10 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Changes - The School at the Chalet
Sssssh! I don't want to know that right now Thanks for pointing it out though! I'd never noticed that before.

Author:	claire [ Wed Nov 11, 2009 10:14 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Changes - The School at the Chalet
Men can carry on having kids for years, Jack could be well into his sixties and still fathering children

Author:	Alison H [ Thu Nov 12, 2009 12:41 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Changes - The School at the Chalet
Needless to say, there's confusion about Jem's age! From what it says in Rescue, it sounds as if he is 12 years older than Madge. In New House, when Margot turns up, Madge would have been 29 or 30, but IIRC think we're told that Margot is 43 and Jem several years younger. Even assuming that the money he used to set up the San was inherited rather than earned - which it must have been, unless he had a very high-paid job indeed in England! - logically he must have been in his mid-30s at least to have had the medical experience to be head of an organisation like that. & Madge always seems mature for her age - understandably so when she's been running a household and acting as a mother to a 12-year-old. I'd love to know how the Bettanys were fluent in French and German after a few holidays abroad! I can't imagine that they'd been on some sort of Grand Tour, so soon after the First World War and without that much money, so they can only have been for a couple of months at a time at most.

Author:	Mair Cail [ Thu Nov 12, 2009 1:28 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Changes - The School at the Chalet
I have just finished reading the uncut unabridge GGB edition of The School at the Chalet, and I am so glad as I have had so many questions answered. I had never particularly liked this book as a child. It was boring and there was a lot of unanswered questions. Like who on earth was Mademoiselle La Pattre, why did Grizel dislike her step-mother, etc. The first copy of the School at the Chalet I read was put out by Armada Books.

Author:	Liz K [ Thu Nov 12, 2009 6:47 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Changes - The School at the Chalet
Alison H wrote: I'd love to know how the Bettanys were fluent in French and German after a few holidays abroad! I can't imagine that they'd been on some sort of Grand Tour, so soon after the First World War and without that much money, so they can only have been for a couple of months at a time at most. Me too! My family lived in Germany for 3 years in the early 1960s (Dad worked for the Civil Service and was sent out there and wanted his family with him). We only came home during the school summer holidays so other school holidays were spent travelling around (we visited Germany, the Black Forest, Switzerland and Austria). Dad leapt in at the deep end and learned how to speak German and when Mum, Dad and I went back in 1975 for a camping holiday (the only time I've been back to Germany since), the German came back to him with no trouble at all. He learned French while in France during WWII.

	All times are UTC [ DST ]
Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group http://www.phpbb.com/

Author:	Sunglass [ Thu Nov 12, 2009 8:40 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Changes - The School at the Chalet
Nightwing wrote: 24 does seem ridiculously young to start up a school (she says, still being two months out from reaching that fine age) but there are dozens of contemporary examples of young people starting up successful enterprises. See, I think Madge would have seemed far less young at 24 at that period than she would be considered today. Yes, she's young to be a Head, with its associatons with older, experienced people, and I suppose the assumption that she would have considerable teaching experience (though not, surely, for the kind of little dame school the CS seems to have originally been intended to be by her?) But 24 then wouldn't have had the 'possibly still a student/and or wondering what to do with your life/ and/or living at home for financial reasons' connotations it often has today. she wouldn't have been considered young to be married, for example, whereas I think she would in today's UK. I think we've artificially stretched the teens well into the mid-twenties. claire wrote: Men can carry on having kids for years, Jack could be well into his sixties and still fathering children Indeed! http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ed-25.html And the world's recorded living oldest father in 2007 was apparently 91, so I don't think we need to worry about Jack's potency just yet...

Author:	ChubbyMonkey [ Thu Nov 12, 2009 8:47 am ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Changes - The School at the Chalet
I think that even for a couple of months at a time they would have been reasonably fluent after two or three goes - particularly if either Dick or Madge had learnt some in school and was able to teach the others. I found on my trip to Austria that suddenly a lot of GCSE German (which I failed) was coming back to me, and that was many years ago now.

Author:	sealpuppy [ Thu Nov 12, 2009 6:31 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Changes - The School at the Chalet
They lose a few years quite early on, don't they? In the first book (pub 1924ish) Madge is 24 and Joey is 12. However, if Joey is 21 when the triplets are born in 1939, she was herself born in 1918. I think you have to let EBD get away with that -ism and go for the 1918 birth date, which gives Madge a birth date of 1906. Certainly by the time Jem is 48 in Rescue (approx summer 1943) everyone's on the later timeline, so his birth date would be 1895, making him around 11 years older than Madge. Then Madge is only in her early 40s when she has the twins which makes more sense.

Author:	cestina [ Thu Nov 12, 2009 6:43 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: Books: Changes - The School at the Chalet
There are children who quite effortlessly pick up several languages with only limited exposure, provided it happens at the right age. I can remember two friends, one with a mother from Ceylon and an English father who spoke four languages by the age of 8 and another little girl, I don't remember the nationality of her parents though I know they did not share the same nationality, who spoke French, German, English, Spanish and Italian and could follow Dutch. She was about 9. I think the father was in the diplomatic service and they made sure that whichever country they were in, they employed staff of that nationality and insisted that the national language be spoken.