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Books: Summer Term at the Chalet School
http://www.the-cbb.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=5853
Author:  Róisín [ Fri Mar 20, 2009 3:33 pm ]
Post subject:  Books: Summer Term at the Chalet School
Synopsis here.

It's the school's silver anniversary and many plans are afoot to commemorate this; do you think these (a painting of Madge, a history and a painting of the original school among others) were suitable? Is the heavy involvement of the Old Girls realistic? Marie-Claire's relations have decided that it would be best if Joey and Jack adopt her; should EBD have continued the expansion of the Maynard family so late into the series? Other than these storylines, the main part of the book follows Erica as she settles into school - do you enjoy 'her' book?

Please join in the discussion below :D

Next Sunday: A Challenge for the Chalet School
Author:  Alison H [ Fri Mar 20, 2009 3:54 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Summer Term at the Chalet School
I have no objection to Erica, but the beginning of this book is so silly that I just can't take any of it seriously. Mrs Standish appoints someone whom she lost touch with over 20 years earlier as her daughter's guardian? Erica is a fan of Joey's books and yet it never occurred to Mrs Standish, before her death, to try to contact Joey through her publishers? Jack and Joey are just allowed to walk off with an unidentified baby on the grounds that the San is so super-famous? And the story of Marie-Claire's parents - the aristocrat and the ballerina - would have worked much better had it been written 60 years earlier!

Sorry to be so negative, but I don't know what EBD was thinking about when she wrote all that :roll: . If she wanted to bring in some more wards for the Maynards, couldn't she just have said that some Maynard relative had died and appointed Jack as guardian to their children? I read this one for the first time as an "adult", and maybe it wouldn't have seemed so silly if I'd read it when I was younger, but none of the other books ever seem nearly as daft!
Author:  Carys [ Fri Mar 20, 2009 5:25 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Summer Term at the Chalet School
Summer Term does get a lot of bad press so I feel I ought to stick up for it as it is probably my favourite of the Swiss books.

I know the storyline is silly but I think it ought to be remembered that it is a children's book and a lot of other children's books have silly storylines. Erica's mother sounds a bit vague and not really with it so I think that's an explanation as to why she never thought to get in touch with Joey's publishers. And as for Marie-Claire well Joey was just doing an Angelina Jolie, long before it became fashionable. Also the option for Marie-Claire after the train crash was either an orphanage or Joey and Jack and I'm sure the good nun's realised that after being in a horrific train crash and loosing her mother she needed to be in a loving family environment rather than in a over-stretched orphanage.

I think the most important thing about Summer Term though is that Erica is such a nice character, and I'm sure she'd have been prominant in the series if EBD had written more books. Although there's not much plot in Summer Term there are lots of nice scene's and the other members of Erica's form are also very likeable.

To me Summer Term represents two girls who have lost their parents finding a family to love and care for them again, EBD could have possibly been a bit more realistic in the storyline (as Alison said she could have had some long lost nieces/cousins of Jack turn up) but all the same it is very heartwarming when you think about it.
Author:  Nightwing [ Fri Mar 20, 2009 8:16 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Summer Term at the Chalet School
I agree that the set-up for this is definitely bizarre, but I think it speaks highly of Joey and Jack that they're willing to welcome two children who have nowhere else to go into their home, however unrealistic it might be.
Author:  JB [ Fri Mar 20, 2009 8:34 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Summer Term at the Chalet School
I didn't find the Erica situation all that bizarre when I first read the book (perhaps because there had been so many long lost relatives and adoptees by this point). Having the train crash on top of that was a bit much though. For Joey to come home with one extra child would have been quite enough.

I find the book disappointing because it's so episodic with threads not woven in and it ends very abruptly. I like Erica and the incidents with her group of friends, but the book's so light on plot.
Author:  Rosalin [ Sat Mar 21, 2009 9:21 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Summer Term at the Chalet School
I don't think Joey and Jack should have been allowed to adopt Marie-Claire. They obviously aren't fit guardians considering how they manage to mislay her in subsequent accounts of their nursery :roll:

In terms of the series I don't feel it works well having 2 new people join the Maynard family this late in the series, but as it only ended with EBD's death she presumably didn't know there were only 4 books left.
Author:  jennifer [ Sun Mar 22, 2009 8:10 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Summer Term at the Chalet School
Alison H wrote:
I have no objection to Erica, but the beginning of this book is so silly that I just can't take any of it seriously. Mrs Standish appoints someone whom she lost touch with over 20 years earlier as her daughter's guardian? Erica is a fan of Joey's books and yet it never occurred to Mrs Standish, before her death, to try to contact Joey through her publishers? Jack and Joey are just allowed to walk off with an unidentified baby on the grounds that the San is so super-famous? And the story of Marie-Claire's parents - the aristocrat and the ballerina - would have worked much better had it been written 60 years earlier!


Yeah, it's pretty wild.

I kind of like Erica, though. She strikes me as a bit ditzy - not a bad girl, but the kind that could easily be led into bad behaviour, and who would be interested in being trendy and fashionable. Seeing Joey deal with that would be fun - her own kids are very unworldly, and are either very well behaved, or tend to lead the mischief.
Author:  Kathy_S [ Mon Mar 23, 2009 12:18 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Summer Term at the Chalet School
I think in this one I most enjoy the parts that aren't replete with accidents -- I mean, Erica alone suffers train crash, her 'little hop of joy,' and the swarm of bees, all topped off by near death under collapsing lightning crater wall. And those poor books, abandoned to the storm! Favorite scenes include the way Joey deals with Erica & the newly engaged governess, and especially the many classroom details we get as Erica settles in. Perhaps Astrid's coterie could have taken center stage in the post-triplets era? Jo's diffusing Gretchen's colourwash with the green story was also rather nice.
Author:  Fiona Mc [ Mon Mar 23, 2009 9:04 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Summer Term at the Chalet School
I really liked this mainly cos I really liked Erica and finally we see Margot in a positive light when she offers to visit Erica at the San!
Author:  MJKB [ Tue Mar 24, 2009 3:38 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Summer Term at the Chalet School
I liked Summer Term too and enjoyed the episodic nature of the book. It does require quite a suspension of belief to swallow the circumstances of Erica's adoption by the Maynards but that's children's literature for you! I always enjoy the out-of -school scenes in the CS and thought the opening scene with Joey walking up Oxford Street a lovely little glimpse into 50's London. Also, as someone has already, remarked, it's nice to see a pleasant side of Margot for once.
Author:  Sunglass [ Wed Mar 25, 2009 4:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Summer Term at the Chalet School
I find this one likeably daft overall - you'd think EBD, who mocked elements of her own writing in Ruey's play and the gangster mime only a few books back, wouldn't have been able to write the Orphaned Train Crash Baby of Dancer and French Aristocrat with a straight face! The thing that slightly cracks me up about EBD's moments of melodrama, though, is that they almost all end in food! The sudden confrontation with the unknown ward on Oxford street ends in a scone-fest, the train crash in soup, delicious rolls and red wine with the nuns - EBD really does believe everything gets better with a restorative meal...

The other thing that strikes me in this is the tone of fogeyism that comes up more than once - Erica disliking the look of the beatniks, Joey saying they give the impression of being 'lazy and untrustworthy', the nun implying French and Belgian people aren't as clean as the English, Nancy Wilmot saying at least Peter Young will paint Madge
Quote:
‘as she is and not give us some weird picture which may not be even human.

(EBD is no Picasso fan, then!) And she's so obviously keen on the pretty old-fashioned Kate Greenaway Sale dresses! I think you get a strong sense of her anti-modern preferences here...

For some reason I find it funny that Erica is rescued from the crater by the life-risking collective efforts of Biddy's doctor husband, Grizel's doctor husband, and Len's doctor-husband-to-be. (What a clean sweep there would have been if it had fallen in!) Though, oddly - or it seemed odd to me - there's no mention of Reg as Len's intended, he's just a passing doctor-to-the-rescue..? I'm not wrong in thinking they are already engaged now?

The other thing I remember about this one is the amount of truncated preps and cancelled classes around the 25th anniversary voting. At one point, the entire school skips a morning class to meet to discuss the celebrations, has Mittagessen early, and then finishes afternoon school at three to go for a ramble - how did anyone ever manage to teach or be taught anything!

Oh, and I thought I noticed Joey being extra physically affectionate with little Claire, whom she kisses and cuddles a lot - taken along with the slightly wistful reference to Geoff and Phil being almost four and currently the tail of her long family, are we to assume Joey is dying for another, preferably the threatened quads?
Author:  Kate [ Wed Mar 25, 2009 4:54 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Summer Term at the Chalet School
Sunglass wrote:
Though, oddly - or it seemed odd to me - there's no mention of Reg as Len's intended, he's just a passing doctor-to-the-rescue..? I'm not wrong in thinking they are already engaged now?

They don't get engaged until Prefects.
Author:  Alison H [ Wed Mar 25, 2009 4:55 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Summer Term at the Chalet School
Sunglass wrote:
Though, oddly - or it seemed odd to me - there's no mention of Reg as Len's intended, he's just a passing doctor-to-the-rescue..? I'm not wrong in thinking they are already engaged now?



Reg started sniffing around in Reunion, but they didn't actually get engaged until Prefects i.e. a year after this. It all gets a bit confusing, because Jack asks Reg not to say anything to Len until she's left school but then suddenly Len's asking Hilda for advice about marrying young (in Adrienne, I think) and by the beginning of Prefects half the Gornetz Platz seems to know that Reg is after her :? .

There's an incident somewhere in which Reg is helping out with a school play, and his eyes and Len's meet across a crowded broom cupboard or something like that, at which point Len instantaneously grows up (which she then does again when Reg has his accident in Prefects), but (I don't re-read the later Swiss books that often so) I can't remember which book it's in.
Author:  Tor [ Wed Mar 25, 2009 5:02 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Summer Term at the Chalet School
Quote:
I'm not wrong in thinking they are already engaged now?


Nope, or rather, yep! that delightful event occurs in Prefects, doesn't it? But they are 'intended' by EBD by this point, and have been the subject of various hints and blatant discussions so it is strange/sad that EBD didn't use his presence in the story to build up the Reg-Len romance a bit.

I never picked up on the reference about the Peter Young painting of Madge. Brilliant! Poor old EBD, I think modernity was getting to her (but then it seemed to be getting to her in the 1930s!). I wonder what she thought of Lucien Freud.... Figurative, but not flattering and certainly not cutesy like those fairy paintings someone put a link to a few weeks back. He was a leading portait artist for the Hoi poloi about then, wasn't he?

ETA: crossed with various other posts r.e. Prefects.
Author:  JayB [ Wed Mar 25, 2009 5:15 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Summer Term at the Chalet School
I wonder if EBD was half-thinking of the Sutherland portrait of Churchill, commissioned for Churchill's 80th birthday, which he famously loathed:
http://www.churchill-society-london.org.uk/SthPtrt.Jpeg
Author:  Sunglass [ Wed Mar 25, 2009 5:17 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Summer Term at the Chalet School
Thanks, everyone, I got my chronology in a twist - I think because of that scene with Miss Annersley and the Marriage is For Life talk in Adrienne. I'll adjust my position to thinking it would have been a godsend for Len if Reg were to be heroically killed in the crater.

Tor wrote:

I wonder what she thought of Lucien Freud.... Figurative, but not flattering and certainly not cutesy like those fairy paintings someone put a link to a few weeks back. He was a leading portait artist for the Hoi poloi about then, wasn't he?


Oh, this would be an adorable subplot - imagine Madge coming across Leigh Bowery at the studio and getting cross when LF went on about his forty illegitimate children (I suppose he could have supplied a few more Maynard wards!). And then the portrait is unveiled and they have to hide it in the attic forever!
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