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Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
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Author:  abbeybufo [ Sun Nov 22, 2009 10:28 pm ]
Post subject:  Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
We are now looking at the theme of Travelling. Joey Goes to the Oberland is a natural starter for this theme, treating, as it does, not only being in a different country, but getting there. In addition this particular book is about moving to another country, so the packing up is much more thorough than just packing for a holiday would be.

Joey Goes to the Oberland was first published in 1954, the same year as The CS and Barbara, the adventure story Chudleigh Hold, the stand-alone Nesta Steps Out and the part mystery, part career book Kennelmaid Nan. That is five titles in a year. Do you think this one suffers at all from being produced along with so much else? The previous year had also seen five titles of EBD’s being published, so she was perhaps used to working at this pace.

This is the book in which Daisy’s wedding is shown, and she makes the journey into married life – starting with a honeymoon trip by aeroplane. We also say goodbye to Robin, who is going on a journey of a different kind, into her future as a nun.

Jo and her family are driven to the cross-channel ferry and have a surprise meeting with Evadne and her father at Boulogne. Then they travel by the boat-train to Paris, where Simone also has a surprise for them. The break of journey at Simone’s is a day longer than Jo expected, and they have a lift in André’s car to a more direct train ride to Basle, where Jack meets them, and where they stay for another unexpected break in the journey.

    Did the breaks in the trip appear realistic to you, or did they seem merely plot-devices to enable EBD to reintroduce Jo’s old friends?

    In what state would Jo have arrived if she had done the journey as originally planned?

    There is some doubt as to whether EBD had herself been to Switzerland, the eventual destination of Jo and her family in this book. Did this seem apparent to you when you read the book as a child? Or even when reading it as an adult?

Please comment below on these and any other aspects of the book.
Author:  cestina [ Sun Nov 22, 2009 11:32 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
I've always loved this book, perhaps because it's so much the way I travel through Europe, stopping off at various friends on the way.

I can't remember when I first read it but it has never seemed anything other than realistic to me. I thoroughly enjoy the glimpses into Simone and Frieda's lives and the only thing that jars slightly is the meeting with Evadne which does seem what the Germans call "weit hergezogen" (hauled in from a long way off) an apt description that we lack in English for improbable coincidences.
Author:  Alison H [ Mon Nov 23, 2009 1:37 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
There are lots of little bits I really like in this book. It's good to see Simone so happy, it's lovely to see EBD actually remembering that Primula exists, and I particularly like the bit where Karen tears strips off Joey and Jack for leaving the kitchen window open and they both just sit there and take it :lol: . & I think it's very sweet when Laurie says that he wants Primula to feel that his and Daisy's home is her home too. I can live without the ridiculous opening scene with Joey falling into a packing-case, though :roll: .

The journey across Europe with all the stops and bumping into people does have the feeling of one of those "around the world with [Michael Palin/whoever]" type TV programmes, but it's nice to see so many old friends again.

It really was a trek to get to either the Tiernsee or the Gornetz Platz from Britain, wasn't it, bearing in mind that most of the staff and girls were making the journey six times a year and that CS people seemed to need a rest after doing anything even remotely tiring? There's something kind of exciting and romantic about long rail/road journeys across Europe in theory, but it's a fair way even as far as Dover if you live in Northern England, North Wales or Scotland. & it's amazing no-one ever got left behind at any of the changeover points!

The descriptions of Switzerland do tend to read as if EBD'd copied them out of a travel guide, and from what Behind the CS says it sounds unlikely that she'd ever been to Switzerland. The Gornetz Platz never seems as real to me as the Tiernsee does. However, she was in a difficult position with wanting to move the school back to the Alps but not being able to move it to Austria because of the political situation there, so I suppose it was a case of making the best of things.
Author:  Cosimo's Jackal [ Mon Nov 23, 2009 6:09 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Alison H wrote:
There are lots of little bits I really like in this book.


I'd agree with this - especially meeting Simone at her chateau and getting to see Frieda again, plus Daisy's wedding, though Joey's attention-hogging at said wedding drives me nuts (has no one ever told her to let the bride and groom have a smidgen of the limelight, and to stop rushing about throwing wedding cake and last-minute bon mots?) and the packing case incident fully deserves its notoriety as one of the sillier episodes in the entire series.

On the other hand, what I find difficult to take about this book (which I only read for the first time a couple of years ago) is that it doesn't really have a plot or a point - it screams 'filler' overall. (So yes, it probably does suffer from having been written when EBD was pushing out a lot of words.) When I read it for the first time, I genuinely thought that it would be an account of the major final activitites, like the wedding and Robin's departure, at Plas Gywn, a chapter or two on the journey, and then various Swiss adventures and events centred around settling in to the Gornetz Platz. I remember being completely appalled when I realised that the title is literal - and that we get a blow by blow account of the actual 'going' to the Oberland for most of the book!

Now I was already an obsessive CS reader by the time I picked up this book - by definition I was already interested in what EBD had to say about these characters and situations - and even then the manic detail of exactly what towel went in which crate and who sat where in which car and train on which part of the journey struck me as very odd indeed. I do think EBD at times (more as the series goes on) suffers from an inability to see the wood for the trees - she'll write up an long debate about whether to reintroduce lacrosse, and then never build an plot event out of it, or have a kerfuffle about motorboat racing at the school regatta for chapters, and then cancel the regatta. But what galls me particularly about the manic travelling detail in Joey Goes is that she doesn't need it as filler, there are loads of things I really wanted to see - Robin saying a longterm goodbye to Joey, for one thing, which is skipped! - that seem to get crowded out by the endless packing and exactly who slept in which bedroom at every one of the stops and what they ate at every meal!

Given that this is the middle of a huge upheaval, with Daisy and Robin departing, Primula bereft, Madge and Joey going to separated as never before, the CS and San opening new branches etc etc, why tell us about the individual damp face flannels and why on earth tell us in detail about the lost raincoats and their Paris replacements???
Author:  Sunglass [ Mon Nov 23, 2009 9:19 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Cosimo's Jackal wrote:
Joey's attention-hogging at said wedding drives me nuts (has no one ever told her to let the bride and groom have a smidgen of the limelight


There are little episodes I like from this book - especially Simone's happiness and Karen going mental at the end - but one of the problems of it for me is that, I agree, Joey begins to be the insufferably attention-seeking person she can become (at her worst, not always) in the Swiss books. She butts in appropriately sometimes - her intervention with Primula is very nice - but there was absolutely no need for her to plaster herself all over Daisy's wedding. She comes close to some kind of Mother of the Bride Limelight-stealing stereotype there, I think, and it always colours how I read some of her behaviour for the rest of the novel, like the Prostrated Invalid with Exhaustion at Simone's (when she has had lots of help with packing, has distributed childcare around her 'responsible' male and female eldests, her niece-in-law, and her faithful maid, and could have easily simplified the journey with a bit more forethought) and the zany sandwich fillings.

It's funny, really, because if this was anyone other than universally popular and beloved Joey, I'd have said that attention-seeking behaviour was a sign of someone who felt neglected and overlooked, and was screaming 'Me! Me! Look at me, world!' But Joey has all the love and attention anybody could want, no? It's clearly not that EBD intends us to see her as neglected. And then she also (contrarily?) develops in this one a sort of stranglehold on her own reputation, by issuing commands about no one being allowed to mention the fall into the crate or the boys getting at the blacking!

I do agree that the travel details clog up the story and weigh it down. Only I think that from this book on (which contributes to the relative weakness of the Swiss books), major plot arcs tend to fade in importance behind EBD's desire to fill in every little detail about the CS and Freudesheim. If the CS was a sci-fi series, you'd say the worldbuilding takes over from story. So we get the endless towel packing rather than Robin's goodbye!
Author:  JB [ Mon Nov 23, 2009 10:39 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Given that so many important emotional journeys take place within the book – Joey leaving Plas Gwyn, Robin going to Canada and Joey and Madge’s separation, it is a shame that we don’t see much of them. Poor Madge doesn’t’ even appear, as she’s ill and infectious.

I wonder if EBD found them too difficult to write, so concentrated on all that detail.

I love, though, that we get to something of Primula (for the only time?).

I think the meeting with Evadne is unnecessary (as is the one in Ruey) but I love seeing Simone and Frieda at home. The breaks in the journey do seem realistic. It’s the first time Joey has been to mainland Europe since the war so it’s a good chance to meet up with friends.

The book does reinforce the idea of Joey needing a lot of rest but perhaps that bears out the original description of her as having more spirit than strength.

I’ve never thought about Switzerland while reading the book or whether EBD had been there! Perhaps that in itself suggests that she didn’t create the same atmosphere that she did in Tyrol, where the Bettanys and the school become such a part of the community. If EBD hadn’t been to Switzerland, this might have been something that was harder to imagine and why we get the guide book type descriptions.

Having said that, I do like the book and it’s one I’ll pick up for comfort read.
Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Mon Nov 23, 2009 11:57 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
I've only read this book twice, I think, and it certainly hasn't left much of an impression, which I think speaks volumes! I can say, though, that I remember a lot of the little details (such as Joey's light dinner at Simone's) over the more important things - I probably couldn't have told you offhand which book Robin left in, for example.

It is a big time of change for the series, and personally I think it marks the beginning of the end of EBD's best writing. After this the plots tend to become more same-y, and the characters a little more two-dimensional.
Author:  abbeybufo [ Mon Nov 23, 2009 12:10 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
I was struck, as I skimmed it through in order to do the introductory post to this discussion, at Joey's reaction to the Jungfrau, and her insistence that her new saal would have a view towards it.

Did this seem particularly guide-book-y to people? It didnt to me, it rang rather true. In which case could it be argued that EBD herself was similarly struck by that mountain, hence she might have visited the area, albeit briefly, on her earlier continental trip?

I can't remember the Jungfrau being quite so foregrounded in the subsequent Swiss books, but then I'm not as familiar with them as the Tirol and Armishire ones ...
Author:  Loryat [ Mon Nov 23, 2009 6:28 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
I've never read this one and I really want to as it seems to fill in so many missing bits (on the other hand it could just be that those bits are never filled in and I am heaping too many expectations on this one book). Is it readily available and affordable (eg under £20 max) or does anyone have a transcript? Or are GGB releasing it? I have a feeling they've already done it.
Author:  JB [ Mon Nov 23, 2009 7:09 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
GGB have published it but I can't remember when. There is a transcript. If you PM me your email address i'll send it over.

I know what you mean about heaping expectations on a book. I did that with several of the titles I read last.
Author:  shesings [ Mon Nov 23, 2009 7:57 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
I read this as a child, probably not long after it appeared, and I think it was the first book where I began to find Joey irritating! Hitherto, I had wanted to BE her but between the packing case, the wedding and her clodhopping remarks about 'real families' to Simone - who would have been justified in smacking her in the chops - I was thoroughly disgruntled with her. Then we got the sandwiches.........................

ETA And I have never been convinced that she was at all familiar with the Interlaken area or the Bernese Oberland generally.
Author:  abbeybufo [ Mon Nov 23, 2009 8:19 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
I've already emailed Loryat a transcript
Author:  Nightwing [ Mon Nov 23, 2009 8:30 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
This was one of the books my public library had when I was a kid, and even though I must have read it a lot, the only thing that I ever really remember is the part where Joey stays with Simone (oh, and Con sleep-walking, but only because that's the picture it had on the front cover!)

As others have said, EBD is clearly fascinated by small details, to the detriment of the actual plot, and this is one book where it really shows. Robin and Daisy were such important characters in England (and in the Tirol, in Robin's case) and it's sad that as readers we don't get to say a proper goodbye to them. Perhaps EBD did find the scenes too difficult to write, but as a reader I've always felt a little short-changed.

I think one of the reasons this book is not particularly memorable is that it doesn't feel like either a holiday book or a school story. There is nothing of particular interest in the plot for a child, although as an adult I do think that the idea of this being a book about journeys is a good one!

Barbara is one of my favourite CS books - it doesn't seem to have suffered for EBD's large output in this year. Joey Goes, on the other hand, definitely felt like it has.
Author:  JB [ Mon Nov 23, 2009 9:43 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Nightwing wrote:

Quote:
This was one of the books my public library had when I was a kid, and even though I must have read it a lot, the only thing that I ever really remember is the part where Joey stays with Simone (oh, and Con sleep-walking, but only because that's the picture it had on the front cover!)


My cover has Joey falling into the packing case. :roll:
Author:  JayB [ Mon Nov 23, 2009 9:48 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Quote:
It’s the first time Joey has been to mainland Europe since the war

This hadn't occurred to me before. I don't think there's any sense of it in the books, is there? We don't see Joey looking forward to seeing Paris again, or the Alps, or hearing German spoken, or other aspects of Continental life which she might have missed.
Author:  Jennie [ Mon Nov 23, 2009 11:19 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Frankly, the PB of this made me wish that Jo had stayed in the packing case, with the lid firmly screwed down.

Or, even better, if I had been Simone, Jo wouldhave been under one of my new floors.

i didn't need a description of the b......y face flannels, and what about all those trunks. We never saw them opened, so why they didn't go onthe van, and the family fly out, I'll never know.

Most of this book was a failure for me, tho' I did like Karen bawling them out about the window.
Author:  Mrs Redboots [ Mon Nov 23, 2009 11:25 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Frankly, this journey wasn't one-tenth as good as the first journey of all - Madge, Joey and Grizel going to the Tiernsee. Now that was well-written and touching.
Author:  Alison H [ Mon Nov 23, 2009 11:27 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
I've got the GGBP edition. The front cover shows Joey (wearing such high heels that it's no wonder she fell over) falling into a box, watched by Robin, who has the most perfect 1950s hourglass figure, and by the triplets who are wearing identical lime-green dresses and have identical lime-green ribbons in their hair :lol: .
Author:  Abi [ Tue Nov 24, 2009 12:04 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
As a kid I always liked this one and I think that a major part of that was because, having never travelled outside England myself it seemed so exotic and exciting - all those intimate little descriptions of what the boys got up to on the boat, and them playing games in the train. I was fascinated by the chateau and loved the meeting with Frieda and the bit where they first saw Freudesheim. I even found the sandwich part at the end funny!
Author:  Pado [ Tue Nov 24, 2009 3:07 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
As much as I've always wanted to hate it, especially because it graces the cover of the edition I have, I consistently find myself chuckling at Jo falling into the packing crate.

(Reminds me of my mother toppling into a garbage can outside our back door. These things do become the mainstay of family legend.)

But then I feel better when I get annoyed at how this winds up with her being sent off to bed to recuperate.

(I mean, really.)

(Ah. Unless Jack discovered she was literally tipsy, and sent her to bed to sleep it off...)
Author:  Sunglass [ Tue Nov 24, 2009 11:37 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Pado wrote:
(Ah. Unless Jack discovered she was literally tipsy, and sent her to bed to sleep it off...)


Well, we do see her drinking wine more often in this one than in any of the other books that I can think of, offhand, so maybe that isn't so far-fetched. Maybe she was 'finishing up' the drinks cupboard at Plas Gwyn to save the bother of moving it to Switzerland, or something. :D

Slightly OT, but also occurs to me about this one that Jack emerges as someone with strong, but rather anxious ideas about how his family should behave in public, and who seems very easily put out/embarrassed/freaked out when they trangress them - which seems out of character for someone who's married to someone unconventional and accident-prone, and has a lot of mischievous children, and an untrained big dog.

He's twitchy about Joey's hat at Daisy's wedding (where it also emerges he is shy about having to say two words in public, which always struck me as odd for one of EBD's masterful doctors):

Quote:
“Will that thing stay on your head like that?” he demanded. “I ask because I’m not going to be made a show of at anyone’s wedding, and that titfer of yours seems to be perched most precariously on about three hairs, so far as I can see.”


Despite being a father of eight, he's mortified by his tired eleven-month old babies crying briefly in Basle railway station:

Quote:
“In you get” Jack said grimly to his excited family. Like most men he detested being made an exhibition of and people were turning to stare at the screaming twins. “Can’t you smother that kid?”


Then he shoves two adult women into someone else's bathroom when he's afraid that their reunion (inside a private home!) may become bothersomely emotional!:

Quote:
“Come out into the hall. Why Jack should push us into the bathroom of all places, I simply don’t know.”
Jo was herself again. “Nearest place, my dear. You ought to know Jack by this time. He has a horror of tears – like most men – and I know he thought we were going to let loose the floods. Well, I don’t mind owning I came a lot nearer it than I’ve been for some time; but it didn’t come to the real thing.”


And when the removal truck arrives before schedule at the Platz (which admittedly is irritating, but hardly intended as a personal insult to him), Jack is furious and seems to take it very personally:

Quote:
Jack, on the other hand, said what he thought in good plain Anglo-Saxon. Why in Heaven’s name, did people try to make a fool of him?


And when Con sleepwalks onto the porchroof and Joey falls off the ladder into the thorn bush, he seems primarily relieved they have no neighbours but the CS and worries that the screams will have earned him the reputation of a wife-beater!

Does this side of Jack appear anywhere else? I just think of him generally being much more easygoing and unflappable than this! Surely no one who was potentially worried about his wife's hat falling off and somehow reflecting on him, or babies (or women) crying in front of him would be happily married to Joey???
Author:  Abi [ Tue Nov 24, 2009 12:12 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Isn't house moving supposed to be one of the most stressful things to do? Maybe it was undue stress that made him jumpy about those things and normally it wouldn't have bothered him.

Or perhaps his loving Joey had made him overlook these things at first, but what with having been married to her for a while and noticing that he got into a lot of embarrassing situations with her, he started to stress more. People do get more particular sometimes as they get older, and maybe he was worried about his position at the San too.
Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Tue Nov 24, 2009 1:39 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
I think that partly it would be to do with having to start all over again. Presumably the new branch of the San would be mainly or all new doctors that won't have known him before, and he has got to be their boss for the next few years. The last thing he needs, in that instance, is for them to find him with all his furniture on the front lawn and two screaming children attached the leg of a wife he's clearly been beating (though I don't suppose anyone would have mentioned the last?) What would you think of a new boss if that was how you met them?

I think that being married to Joey has got a lot to do with it as well; she starts it all off by falling into a packing case, which just sets the tone for the whole journey really. He probably knows that he can't trust her to get there without a single mishap, or embarrassing herself in some way.

May I also disagree about EBD's doctor mould? He strikes me as very much a 'manly man handsome doctor' :lol: The repeated "like all men" seems to be her way of justifying it and making it manly.
Author:  Alison H [ Tue Nov 24, 2009 1:42 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Do we take "good plain Anglo-Saxon" to mean English as opposed to Swiss-German, or do we interpret it in the more usual sense, i.e. that Jack was effing and blinding all over the place :lol: ?
Author:  Abi [ Tue Nov 24, 2009 1:44 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
I was assuming the latter - the other interpretation hadn't even occurred to me. :roll:
Author:  Cosimo's Jackal [ Tue Nov 24, 2009 1:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
He certainly swears like a trouper after that near-miss on the road in A Future - I bet he has quite the mouth!

Sunglass wrote:
Then he shoves two adult women into someone else's bathroom when he's afraid that their reunion (inside a private home!) may become bothersomely emotional!


I've always vaguely seen that bit as suggesting that the Joey-Robin parting (which EBD clearly felt was too upsetting to even write about!) involved so much weeping and clinging that Jack had had his bellyful. Especially if you add in the eighteen-year-old Primula losing it completely over a parting of approximately three weeks from her sister - Robin says Primula would have 'fretted herself into a fever' if it wasn't for Joey's scheme to basically introduce her into Daisy and Laurie's honeymoon! Jack certainly does seem to be rather clinging to Bruno and undemanding male company in Basle - they go out for a walk together to presumably discuss current affairs and sport in a manly manner!

However, I think Jack has only himself to blame for Joey's emotionalism a lot of the time. I think the kind of physical mollycoddling he (and others, especially in this book, with their own problems) gives her has largely prevented her from growing up, to the point where she prides herself on it, and seems to have infected her children with her own fear, not that they will grow up, but that she will!

Quote:
“Before I know where I am you girls will be Sixth Formers and prefects and saying that poor Mother’s getting on now!”
“Oh, no we won’t!” Len cried. “I – I don’t believe you’ll ever be like that. You’re not the getting-on kind!”
The other two joined in. “All the aunties say you’ve never really grown-up and you never will,” Con remarked. “I heard Auntie Hilda saying it to Auntie Doris when she came to bring Mary-Lou’s new frock.”
Margot regarded her mother with wide blue eyes. “I hope they’re right and that you never will. We’d hate it if you went all proper and old ike Auntie Doris. f’rinstance.' ...
'Don’t worry, my lambs! I haven’t the faintest intention of turning elderly on you much before I’m sixty – and by that time, you’ll probably be married ladies with long families yourselves and I shall be a granny! You’d want me to grow up then!


I really have a problem with Joey's conception of herself as Eternal Schoolgirl having given her three ten-year-olds a complex where they think that their mother being an adult is a bad thing! (Kind of Peter Pan Syndrome by proxy?) I have no issue with children of that age helping out - it's a good thing - but it depresses me rather that ten-year-olds who are still playing with dolls have already learned to reinforce their mother's preferred fantasy about herself. And, from their father, to treat their perfectly-well mother with kid gloves, and especially the specific technique that everyone around Joey uses - ignoring her saying she doesn't need to rest, and enforcing it by appealing to some authority, like Jack, Jem or Matey, which they can already perform to perfection:

Quote:
Len caught what she said and looked up from her game. “Is Mamma sleepy? Then do make her rest, Aunt Primula. We’ll be good – honour bright, we will.”
Jo gave her a drowsy smile. “It’s all right, honeybird. I can manage.”
“No, but Papa would say you ought,” Len returned. “We won’t make any row at all if you’ll try to have a sleep – will we?” she gazed round her brethren.
“We’ll be angels, Mamma,” Margot said earnestly. “You do look awful! Your eyes are like saucers. You go to sleep and us three will look after the boys.”


I suppose I'd also be more sympathetic to Joey's prostration if EBD hadn't made it very plain how much help she has with the packing and on all parts of the journey, its stops, and at their final destination.

Also, am I crazy, or does it seem a little disproportionate that the Headmistress of a new school branch only a few weeks from opening, is seen as finding the time to take over childcare and meals for Joey, who is, after all, only opening a house for ten or twelve people, not a business housing/educating/employing several hundred, as Hilda is? I even find myself raising my eyebrows at the fact that Frieda and Simone devote themselves to nursing Joey, as though she's the one to be pitied and coddled, despite the fact that Simone has just moved into a huge, ramshackle chateau which badly needs renovation, and Frieda has also just moved house, is in ill-health herself because of worry about her daughter, but still finds room for eight extra children and four extra adults in her 4-bed flat!
Author:  lexyjune [ Tue Nov 24, 2009 2:44 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
I think this book is one of the few chalet school books which I haven't read. I would be really greatful for a transcript. Thanks.
Author:  JayB [ Tue Nov 24, 2009 3:34 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Quote:
Then do make her rest, Aunt Primula.


Why is Len calling Primula 'Aunt'? If there's any relationship between them at all it's, as Robin once said of Daisy, 'sort of cousin'. Primula is only about 18, and was at school with the triplets the previous term, wasn't she? Surely they didn't call her 'aunt' if they encountered her at school!
Author:  Thursday Next [ Tue Nov 24, 2009 3:58 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
JayB wrote:
Quote:
Then do make her rest, Aunt Primula.


Why is Len calling Primula 'Aunt'? If there's any relationship between them at all it's, as Robin once said of Daisy, 'sort of cousin'. Primula is only about 18, and was at school with the triplets the previous term, wasn't she? Surely they didn't call her 'aunt' if they encountered her at school!


Not sure about that. In one of the earlier books (The Highland Twins?) it is said that the triplets (aged about 3 or 4 at the time) had decided totally without prompting to call Daisy Auntie Daisy but that Primula was never called Auntie. As Robin was Auntie Robin and Daisy always seemed to be with Robin at that time I suppose calling her Auntie made sense to the triplets but I have no idea why Primula suddenly becomes Aunt.
Author:  blanchgirl [ Tue Nov 24, 2009 10:13 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
I loved the travelling part of the book. Especially the reunions with Simone and Frieda. However, I hated when Joey said to Simone about "real families" and ordered Simone and Andre to sell jewels etc (I know they asked her advise but still!!). It also drove me mad that Joey constantly had to lie down! What is with her and her delicate ways!! :banghead: :banghead:

I also hated the packing case incident and how Madge couldn't go to Daisy's wedding and Jem didn't either...why not? Surely he wasn't that indispensable and there were other doctors in the San??

And this is the book that confuses me no end about the Triumvirate!! Daisy has done her years (7??) in medical school and has won medals. Now she's married. However in the CS and Barbara, Beth Chester who was one of the Triumvirate is going to be Joey's governess...and it sounds like she's just left school herself...what was she doing in the interim?? And what happened her plans to become a gardener?? As for Gwensi, she's still in Howells keeping house for her brother! Why couldn't EBD leave Daisy to continue doctoring and let Gwensi get married??
Author:  mohini [ Wed Nov 25, 2009 6:44 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Quote:
I also hated the packing case incident and how Madge couldn't go to Daisy's wedding and Jem didn't either...why not? Surely he wasn't that indispensable and there were other doctors in the San??


I never registered this. But Jem was the real Uncle of Daisy and Jo was not directly related.

I liked the book but do not feel like reading it again and again unless I want to refer to some incident mentioned in subsequent books.
It seemed too descriptive and less of action was there.
I liked the meeting with Simone and Frieda and felt it was necessary. The journey would have been tiring with all those kids and change of country and of weather and Jo must have felt relaxed to see familiar face in a new place
I did not know that there was so much different type of linen and towels and napkins in the house. Did it never fade or was stained or got torn?
This journey would have been more interesting with the girls who went to Oberland for the first time.
Author:  Cosimo's Jackal [ Wed Nov 25, 2009 8:04 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
blanchgirl wrote:
However in the CS and Barbara, Beth Chester who was one of the Triumvirate is going to be Joey's governess...and it sounds like she's just left school herself...what was she doing in the interim??


Beth went to Oxford after the CS, I gather, which makes becoming Joey's mother's help seem like a slightly odd progression, unless it's intended as some kind of genteel European 'living with a nice family to keep up her languages'-type waiting period before she marries. (Also, I think EBD is so dazzled by the glamour of Freudesheim that she never thinks how odd it is for her to send various unlikely people to work there as various kinds of mother's help, like Beth, Maria Marani and Carla von Flugen.)

I'm not sure whether we're ever told how recently Beth got her degree, or how it might line up with Daisy having had time for her entire medical training in the interim... :dontknow:
Author:  Nightwing [ Wed Nov 25, 2009 8:09 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Cosimo's Jackal wrote:
I'm not sure whether we're ever told how recently Beth got her degree, or how it might line up with Daisy having had time for her entire medical training in the interim... :dontknow:


Maybe Beth spent some years helping at home with Barbara either before or after she went to Oxford? ...or maybe she fell in love with the wrong sort of man and her parents sent her away to Switzerland to keep them apart? :devil:

I love that both Maria and Beth meet their husbands while working for Jo, though. Perhaps she worked a discrete match-making company on the side? She and Jack do have a large pool of single and eligible male and female acquaintances between them...
Author:  Sunglass [ Wed Nov 25, 2009 8:31 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Nightwing wrote:
or maybe she fell in love with the wrong sort of man and her parents sent her away to Switzerland to keep them apart? :devil:


I love that idea - Freudesheim as Love Gulag, like being sent to the saltmines! :D

Nightwing wrote:
I love that both Maria and Beth meet their husbands while working for Jo, though. Perhaps she worked a discreet match-making company on the side?


I have this terrible sense you'd fall in love with anyone vaguely eligible on the Platz, such is the general lack of activity/stimulation. Plus being primarily responsible for Mike would make anyone jump at the chance of a respectable reason to leave (and, like the CS mistresses, the only acceptable way to stop being Joey's mother's help is matrimony - if you simply moved on to a higher-paying job, say, running a creche down the road at the Pension Caramie, you'd be regarded with as much incomprehension and disapproval as Miss Slater leaving for a more senior position and a better salary!)

Remind me, someone - Barbara Chester is supposed to live at Freudesheim and be a day girl until it emerges that Joey's children have German measles, so she has to board, right? But were the triplets going to be daygirls or boarders that first autumn term at the Platz? I know there's talk later that they have to board in winter because they can't get back and forth (even though the CS and their home are next door...?), but what was the original plan before the German measles, especially given that they're technically too young to be at the Swiss branch anyway?
Author:  Alison H [ Wed Nov 25, 2009 8:51 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
The ages never work properly - Sybil stays 14 for about 3 years - but, based on Primula being 18 in this book, Daisy would have been 25. That just about gives her time to do her medical training, but it does definitely make you wonder what Beth had been up to in the meantime :roll: . Having a year working as a mother's help in Switzerland sounds very exciting for someone who's just left school or just left university, but it seems an odd choice for Beth and Maria.

Also, why aren't Beth and Gwensi even mentioned at Daisy's wedding? Surely she would have wanted them as bridesmaids, but they aren't even mentioned as being guests, although I'm sure they were there!
Author:  Sunglass [ Wed Nov 25, 2009 10:05 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Alison H wrote:
Also, why aren't Beth and Gwensi even mentioned at Daisy's wedding? Surely she would have wanted them as bridesmaids, but they aren't even mentioned as being guests, although I'm sure they were there!


I always wonder why we're explicitly told that for Daisy and Robin, parting after Daisy's wedding

Quote:
this goodbye was probably goodbye for always.


OK, EBD kind of backtracks on it and has Daisy say something about starting to save to visit Toronto, but it struck me as odd in the first place that EBD would even say it was a permanent goodbye. These two spent quite a bit of time essentially as foster-sisters at the Sonnalpe, in Guernsey and Howells - and if Joey and co are likely to visit Robin, why not Daisy?

Plus I do feel as if Robin should say at least once to someone before she leaves, that, of course, she's been accepted as a postulant, but that doesn't automatically mean she'll make it through to the novitiate, far less be allowed to take her permanent vows - women would have been asked to leave, or left of their own accord, at all points along the way. EBD must have known that, but maybe CS girls sail through their postulancy and novitiate as reliably well as they get into university?

Just think how different the world of the CS would be if it contained a few people who'd tried and failed at something - people who had failed exams and dropped out of degrees, or not made it through their religious training - or even just changed their minds about something major midway. I know it would wobble the cosiness a bit - and I'm not suggesting a CGGU-type inferno of unhappiness - but it would have given EBD something slightly different to say in her 'news of old girls' round-ups, other than 'got married'.
Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Wed Nov 25, 2009 10:11 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
But would a Good Chalet Girl ever give up on something? Or, actually, (sorry, it's too early for me to be coherent), there is that kind of thing for some of the girls, where they plan on a career which changes suddenly. Obviously it's never explicitly stated as such, but I know how a lot of people feel on here about Daisy and Julie Lucy 'giving up' their careers for marriage, which unless you're EBD could be seen as something negative.

Back on the theme of travelling, I think that Daisy's is a very realistic response to Robin going. Robin won't be able to come to her, and she's facing a whole new life as a wife and mother, the last thing she - or Laurie! - would expect to do would be to go straight over to Canada.
Author:  Alison H [ Wed Nov 25, 2009 10:30 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
It's not a case of giving up on things - sometimes things just don't work out. You apply to a particular university, or try to get into a particular line of work, and don't get in because there are 3x number of people applying for x number of places. Or, as happens to Alicia in Malory Towers, you are ill on the day of an exam (this happens to Ros Lilley, and I'm not sure but I think it might've happened to Reg as well, but of course they end up being rescued from the situation). Or you work really hard for an exam but fail anyway. Or start on a course of training but then realise that you're not suited to it.

Sorry, that sounded really miserable! But it's so unrealistic that we never see anyone failing an exam, or not getting into their first choice university, or even having their book rejected by the first publisher they send it to.
Author:  JB [ Wed Nov 25, 2009 7:15 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Quote:

Quote:
I love that both Maria and Beth meet their husbands while working for Jo, though.


Beth has known her husband-to-be since she was a small child. We're not told specifically who he is but we are told she'll be Blossom Willoughby's aunt after she marries so it's assumed she marries Noel Atherton, the brother of Rosamund's mother. The families meet each other in the La Rochelle books.

I can so see Joey as a matchmaker though, inviting single doctors round to meet her latest mother's help and probably encouraging Maria to go to Montreux when the boys are at the Emburys.
Author:  Jennie [ Thu Nov 26, 2009 1:15 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
When I'd read the transcript that Ruth very kindly sent me, I was absolutely appalled that Jo couldn't let Simone have a few moments of pride over Pierre. To tell the poor young woman that she wasn't the only one with a son, and then add that she had four was the ultimate in boastfulness. As I've said before, she'd be under the new floorboards if I'd had my way.

And they could have flown, a four-hour journey, instead of putting so many people to so much trouble, especially as they stayed at the school for the first few days.

And after making those awful sandwich fillings, which no-one could eat, why did she complain about the waste of good bread and butter? She was the one who had wasted it.
Author:  Cosimo's Jackal [ Thu Nov 26, 2009 2:15 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Jennie wrote:
When I'd read the transcript that Ruth very kindly sent me, I was absolutely appalled that Jo couldn't let Simone have a few moments of pride over Pierre. To tell the poor young woman that she wasn't the only one with a son, and then add that she had four was the ultimate in boastfulness. As I've said before, she'd be under the new floorboards if I'd had my way..

:D :D :D

I'll help you re-lay them afterwards. :devil: I agree, it's appallingly rude.

Quote:
“Here! Take that inanely self-satisfied expression off your face!” Jo protested. “Other folk have had sons besides you. I’ve four of my own this minute!”


And she does exactly the same thing much later to Eugen Courvoisier when Biddy gives birth to their twins. We're supposed to read it as 'breezy' Joey ribbing her old friend, I suppose, and she does eventually prise the baby (though continuing to remind Simone, who's thrilled she's had this nine-month-old, how far she's lagging behind in the baby stakes and that even if she has five more, she'll only be breaking even!) but it strikes me as just monumentally rude, however funny she believes she's being. Especially as Joey boasts endlessly about her own babies - isn't it interesting that she objects to a behaviour in Simone in which she herself continually indulges? (And that's leaving aside entirely the fact that, as she goes on to acknowledge herself, Simone has been sad at not having had more children - why on earth, in the circumstances, wouldn't you let one of your oldest friends show off a bit?)

It's one of the occasions when I find myself thinking that Joey simply has, at times, very bad manners. I know EBD would be horrified at that charge being laid at the door of her favourite character, but it's true at least some of the time. Plus I don't think EBD intends it as rudeness, just Joey 'being Joey'. But whereas at least people debate Mary-Lou 'just being Mary-Lou' - and what she says is never rude or thoughtless, just irreverent - no one ever points out to Joey that she should think a bit more about other people. I don't even mean things like this episode, but much smaller things like expecting all visitors to be OK with being knocked over by a large, untrained dog and behaving as though it's all part of the zany fun of visiting Freudesheim.
Author:  Liz K [ Thu Nov 26, 2009 2:20 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
And I daren't mention this is the book where the children are called "brats" umpteen times.
:banghead:
Author:  Mrs Redboots [ Thu Nov 26, 2009 2:23 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Jennie wrote:
When I'd read the transcript that Ruth very kindly sent me, I was absolutely appalled that Jo couldn't let Simone have a few moments of pride over Pierre. To tell the poor young woman that she wasn't the only one with a son, and then add that she had four was the ultimate in boastfulness. As I've said before, she'd be under the new floorboards if I'd had my way.


To be absolutely fair, we don't hear the tone of voice in which she said it - EBD probably heard it very clearly in her head, but it does come across as awful when we only see the printed word on the page.

Quote:
And they could have flown, a four-hour journey, instead of putting so many people to so much trouble, especially as they stayed at the school for the first few days.


Actually, in the early 1950s, probably not - it would have been prohibitively expensive for so many of them. Cheap air travel in Europe is a development of the last 10-15 years.

Re "Brats" - this was not meant pejoratively as it would be today; my mother often referred to us as "the brats" with no idea of being pejorative, so I think this might be a word that has changed its meaning in the last 50+ years.
Author:  cestina [ Thu Nov 26, 2009 2:49 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
One really didn't fly with a family in those days unless one was very well off indeed. In the early 70s, which is some twenty years later than the book is set, when we travelled regularly to Germany with two small children, it would never have occurred to us to fly, we drove or went by train. Train was in general more relaxing because the children could run about and were not stuck in a car for hours on end.
Author:  Thursday Next [ Thu Nov 26, 2009 2:56 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
The flights might not have been direct either. Flying might well not have been an easy option, particularly with so much luggage, although why they couldn't have packed more and sent it with the removal van I don't know.
Author:  JayB [ Thu Nov 26, 2009 3:17 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Quote:
why they couldn't have packed more and sent it with the removal van I don't know.

A couple more competent adults would have helped, too. I know Primula was there, but she wasn't part of the original plan for the journey, she isn't assertive and we don't really see her taking the initiative with the children. Bride and/or Peggy, who have more natural authority, and are used to taking charge on train journeys, would have been far more use.
Author:  Alison H [ Thu Nov 26, 2009 3:24 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
The way Jo talks to Simone is awful. I know some people say that it's meant light-heartedly and maybe it was, but it doesn't come across that way. The comments in Coming of Age about how families were really important to them all and Simone and Andre had begun to fear that Tessa was going to be an only child suggests that they desperately wanted to have more children sooner; and IMO it was very tactless of Joey to say what she did.

She's rude to Eugen Courvoisier as well, as Cosimo's Jackal said, and when Phil Graves proudly tells her that Hilary has given birth to a 10lb baby she just has to say that Stephen weighed more than that and that she's "outdone Hilary in every way". Not to mention her rude remarks to Samaris about how her parents should have provided her with brothers and sisters - Samaris's mother could have suffered a series of miscarriages for all she knows.

It's the sort of thing where the person making the remarks insists that they're only joking, but it's not actually very funny to the person on the receiving end.
Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Thu Nov 26, 2009 3:59 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
I don't disagree with that at all, Alison - but I do disagree with the amount of criticism being heaped on her for it! Not even because she shouldn't be criticised for it, I agree that she should, but because when she's a schoolgirl there seems to be some praise for EBD for writing her as being tactless because it makes her seem more "real". There are a lot of complaints about older Joey being artificially perfect but there isn't this level of criticism for some of her more tactless remarks during her school years - like the Stacie situation and telling her to come to the library. Either Joey is tactless and we accept that or we don't; it can't be a good thing that she's tactless sometimes and not others.

I am aware that someone is now going to pick me up on it being the way EBD presents the two, but even when she's younger EBD can gloss over it.
Author:  Alison H [ Thu Nov 26, 2009 4:03 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
If this doesn't sound muddled, part of the problem is that she isn't criticised in the books. If Simone, Eugen, Phil or Samaris had pointed out that Joey's remarks were tactless, then it would be fair enough. Also, as OOAO Mary-Lou said to Con, when people grow up they should try to acquire a little tact.

Poor Con is always criticised for being tactless, but I can't think of an occasion on which she actually is tactless apart from the Margot/Emerence clock thing.
Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Thu Nov 26, 2009 4:11 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
But there's also the point that she should have been criticised in 'Camp'; she calls Grizel "girl" first, but it's Grizel who's criticised for retorting with the same insult, when Grizel is a mistress. I guess what I'm really saying is that if you're going to criticise EBD for not criticising Joey enough, please do it indiscriminately and not just towards Adult Joey!

All of which is completely OT :oops: So I shall say that yes, her comments to Simone are awful. Though I did enjoy the part of the book discussing what she should do with the castle, just because it's a dream of mine to either build a house from scratch or buy something old and crumbly and falling down and completely restore it.
Author:  sealpuppy [ Thu Nov 26, 2009 4:19 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
I only read this for the first time about 5 years ago so (as an adult, though probably not if I'd read it earlier) I was irritated by the packing case and particularly by the sandwich filling. I can't remember the date it's supposed to be, late 40s? But rationing had barely ended and still lingered for some things, so for a woman with a family to waste good food like that shocked me.

I sniffed at the 'real family' comment but filed it under 'just Joey' but what really annoyed me was telling Simone to sell the family jewels and burn the family furniture! OK, as a former antiques dealer in a small way I felt that particularly, but it irked me that everyone waits with baited breath for Joey's suggestions. And I'd like to restore a castle too, but I wouldn't (even then) have chucked out stuff that could have been shoved away pro tem in any of the dozens of unneeded rooms!

I actually enjoy reading the travel bits but agree that Jo hogs the limelight and wilts when convenient, but I was shocked, again because they'd barely emerged from years of shortages, when instead of making do till they got to Switzerland, Jo decided to buy new raincoats all round. They were travelling in cars and trains and could have made do with a clutch of new brollies instead of however many coats they forked out for. It's so extravagant!
Author:  Cosimo's Jackal [ Thu Nov 26, 2009 5:14 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
sealpuppy wrote:
But rationing had barely ended and still lingered for some things, so for a woman with a family to waste good food like that shocked me.


That always struck me too - I take the argument that part of the CS's appeal for people reading the series during the rationing years was the relatively lavish food, and the relative lack of much mention of rationing even during the UK war years was part of that. (I mean, there are some mentions, but it's not made a big deal of - the girls aren't going around remembering the cream cakes of the Tiernsee with tears in their eyes while eating turnip sludge or anything! :D ) But I would have said the sandwich incident, rather than showing Joey as a charmingly klutzy housewife, risked making her look wasteful and careless to contemporary readers who'd lived through severe food restrictions and wouldn't necessarily be amused...?


On the Joey and tact thing - I think a reader will cut a schoolgirl more slack than an adult woman, and will also not feel anywhere near as inclined to point the finger when a chaarcter is specifically constructed as tactless by the narrative. EBD tends to talk generally about Joey's tactlessness and heedlessness as a teenager, so every time Joey says something dopey without being smacked on the wrist for it, we can just see it as another aspect of that side of her character - we don't necessarily need EBD to wade in and punish her for individual instances, because it's acknowledged elsewhere.

But as an adult, we hear all the time about her great capacity for understanding and empathy, so when she makes crashingly insensitive remarks and the narrative doesn't indicate their awfulness, I think we feel the need to point it out here, precisely because it seems EBD doesn't realise she's made her favourite character say something really rude. I think the problem for me with that particular exchange about Simone's baby is that it seems to indicate a complete blindness on EBD's part towards Joey. A generally beloved and essentially faultless character is behaving with appalling insensitivity towards one of her best friends, but EBD doesn't seem to see that she's not being even-handed.
Author:  shesings [ Thu Nov 26, 2009 6:27 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
I have always wanted to punch Joey for what she says to Simone in 'Oberland'. She must know that Simone and Andre have had problems conceiving a second child and to come out with the crack about real families and to boast about having four sons to Simone's one is frankly just insensitive, thoughtless, ill-mannered gittery! It would be unacceptable in a teenager never mind a woman of Joey's age!
Author:  emma t [ Thu Nov 26, 2009 7:00 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
I have always loved this book, though some of it does seem far fetched in my opinion. Joey always manages to sail through all aspects of the journey - even if everyone is tired. Maybe Joey's lack of tact towards Simone is because she is tired; anyone would be after such a long journey - hense the term brats. Are they called 'brats' simply because Joey is tired? It's always bugged me, though, as the children are very well behaved throughout the journey.
Author:  Liz K [ Thu Nov 26, 2009 9:06 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Re Joey's comments to Simone about "real families" reminds me of before I was married; I'd told my ex I was adopted - he told his mother and she said any children we had would only have one set of "real" grandparents, i.e. herself and my ex's father.

If they could have seen my parents with my nieces, they would have had to revise their opinions pretty sharpish. Mum and Dad adored my nieces, they thought the world of them.
Author:  Lesley [ Thu Nov 26, 2009 9:22 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Sounds as though you were well shot of the entire family Liz. What a thoroughly nasty thing to say. :shock: :banghead: #



((((Liz))))
Author:  Nightwing [ Thu Nov 26, 2009 9:29 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
I daresay this makes me a terrible person but I don't think there's anything wrong with either of Joey's comments to Simone. The comment about sons sounds more like she's teasing her than anything else, and given that Jo and Simone are so close, I think it's very likely that the 'real family' remark is something that Simone herself believes - and perhaps has even said as much to Jo herself previously. I do think that Joey's constant one-upmanship of everyone else's families is bizarre, but I don't think she's doing that to Simone at all - I think she's genuinely pleased for her.
Author:  Liz K [ Thu Nov 26, 2009 9:36 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Thank you, Lesley, I certainly am well shot of them, Big Mistake Number 1 of my life, ever marrying That Man!
Author:  violawood [ Thu Nov 26, 2009 10:10 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
emma t wrote:
Maybe Joey's lack of tact towards Simone is because she is tired; anyone would be after such a long journey - hense the term brats. Are they called 'brats' simply because Joey is tired?


I think it's been mentioned before but EBD does seem to get hold of a new word or phrase every so often and then use it to death in her next book :D and I think that's why they grate. There's a later book where every one starts saying 'can do' for 'yes' and there's the 'moke' book (brain goes blank) as well.
Author:  Abi [ Thu Nov 26, 2009 10:25 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
I can see what people are saying about Joey's comments to Simone, but that honestly never even occurred to me. I always read it as a light-hearted joke that - I suppose in its manner - still acknowledged that it was a big thing for Simone. I guess maybe that was me trying to keep the character of Joey consistent in my mind, but till I read these comments I'd never thought of it any other way!
Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Thu Nov 26, 2009 10:27 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
I hadn't thought of it another way, either. But I tend to read the books quite fast (as in within a couple of hours) and I'd never really picked up on the comments about Simone's difficulty in starting a family, which I guess is really why the comments seem so bad.
Author:  Tor [ Fri Nov 27, 2009 12:34 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
I remember changing my viewpoint about the Simone comment following a previous discussion on the cBB - I decided that (as I think Nightwing is also saying) it could equally be read as though Joey was aware of the difficulty Simone and Andre had having children, and knew they were desperate for it, and so was voicing her pleasure at Simone fulfilling her own dreams.

I know that if I had a friend who, say, really wanted a child (or another child) and I'd been with them (in letters, phone calls etc), sharing their anguish and disappointment as they kept on failing, and also knew that *they* saw it as wanting to build a 'real' family, when they finally had success I would probably congratulate them on their own terms, rather than reading them a lecture on how there are many types of 'family' or not acknowldging their struggle at all.

However.....

I do wonder if this is what EBD meant! Judging by a number of Jo's other comments about big families, I think EBD was having a wee bit of a propaganda mission on the big family front.

And Ariel, you are absolutely right that Joey had her moments as a child too. But they were generally picked up on. In Camp, I think we see the start of a slippery slope.... :wink:
Author:  Sunglass [ Fri Nov 27, 2009 9:55 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
I don't even necessarily include the 'real families' comment in what makes me annoyed about that passage between Joey and Simone - for me, it's straightforwardly Joey not allowing Simone one single, minor instance of showing off, even though she does it herself all the time, about her own child-bearing.

The fact that what she then says, about not being able to have another child for so long having been a source of grief for Simone, just compounds my sense that Joey is being (as Cosimo's Jackal said above) plain insensitive, in not allowing Simone one moment of satisfaction at having had a beautiful healthy baby boy, without undercutting it by pointing to her own greater 'achievements'.

Even if this conversation was about growing prize dahlias, rather than the more emotive ground of having children, and even if it was between two women who were not close friends, I'd still find it massively rude. If I had run eight marathons with competitive times, and had a friend who'd been plagued by injury, and was absolutely thrilled at having run a good time for the first time in seven years, would I tell her to wipe that self-satisfied look off her face and remind her of my eight finishing times? Not unless I was a real prat. (Or about six years old!)

Though, actually, I was just thinking about whether it's fair to say Joey boasts about her children, and I thought of one thing that hadn't quite struck me before. We all know people who boast about their children's achievements - little X has just passed his grade five piano, Y got the top First of his year etc - but Joey (in fairness to her) never does this that I can think of. Her boasting is entirely restricted to her having produced said children, not about anything they then do themselves. Which is actually quite odd, when you think about it!
Author:  violawood [ Fri Nov 27, 2009 12:03 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Sunglass wrote:
Even if this conversation was about growing prize dahlias, rather than the more emotive ground of having children,
!


Competitive horticulture can be unbelievably emotive :roll: :dontknow: I digress :D

Sunglass wrote:
Though, actually, I was just thinking about whether it's fair to say Joey boasts about her children, and I thought of one thing that hadn't quite struck me before. We all know people who boast about their children's achievements - little X has just passed his grade five piano, Y got the top First of his year etc - but Joey (in fairness to her) never does this that I can think of. Her boasting is entirely restricted to her having produced said children, not about anything they then do themselves. Which is actually quite odd, when you think about it!


This does come up somewhere in the series - someone says something like 'Joey really does try to see straight with her children' and I think there's another comment along the lines of every parent thinking their child is a genius :D I know the latter came over as very heartfelt as, of course, it came from the pen of an experienced teacher . . .
Author:  sealpuppy [ Fri Nov 27, 2009 4:28 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Tor wrote:
Judging by a number of Jo's other comments about big families, I think EBD was having a wee bit of a propaganda mission on the big family front.


I agree; partly because as a convert she'd be more Catholic than the Pope so very hot against contraception (presumably) and also because that generation of maiden lady girls own authors had no experience of childbirth (or probably sex, either) on their own account so it was all 'dressing dollies' to them. :lol:
Author:  Cosimo's Jackal [ Fri Nov 27, 2009 5:09 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Sunglass wrote:
We all know people who boast about their children's achievements - little X has just passed his grade five piano, Y got the top First of his year etc - but Joey (in fairness to her) never does this that I can think of. Her boasting is entirely restricted to her having produced said children, not about anything they then do themselves. Which is actually quite odd, when you think about it!


It is quite odd, now you mention it. I mean, I'm glad Joey doesn't boast about her children's places in form and how many years Len and Con are ahead of their age group etc - it's always tedious, no matter how well-disposed towards the children in question you are!

But now that you point it out, it's slightly weird that, while Joey doesn't go in for that kind of boasting, she does go on an awful lot about having produced so many children, and about having produced triplets, even when the triplets are in their mid-teens and you tend to think the novelty would have faded for her. And the way she tends to bring it up always seems to be looking for admiring responses like 'You were always a wholesale creature, Joey!' (I have to say, meanly, I would crack up laughing if someone just once looked shocked and pitying, tutted, patted her arm and said 'You poor creature, you must be worn out, and you always were a sickly thing in your schooldays...' I imagine Joey would be highly indignant!)

Plus she does also like to draw people's attention to her children's very different colouring, and to have them comment on how 'not-boring' the very different looks of all eleven are, as though having eleven black-haired, dark-eyed children would have been less of an achievement than producing a motley collection of completely different-looking offspring. Which I think supports Sealpuppy's suggestion that it's a bit like dressing dollies for EBD - or those games little girls play about picking names for their imaginary future children, and saying what they'll look like, and how many of them there will be etc etc. Sometimes the Maynard offspring in all their multiplicity and differentness sound a bit like a slightly show-offy little girl's dream! You know, her friend said she wanted two boys and two girls, and they'd all have curly brown hair and be called David, Andrew, Emily and Sarah, and this little girl says 'That's stupid. I'm having eleven, and the first ones are going to be triplets and.... '
Author:  Alison H [ Fri Nov 27, 2009 5:20 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
I find it quite depressing that Joey boasts so much about her own "achievement" in producing so many children and yet I honestly can't think of any occasion - although I'm sure someone'll correct me - on which we see her expressing pride in anything that any of her children've done :( .

OK, the sort of parents who constantly boast about how wonderful their little darlings are are incredibly annoying, but surely Joey should have taken pride in her daughters' academic achievements, Con's writing and singing, Margot's sporting achievements, something the boys'd done ... anything, really! Madge is, quite frankly, a pretty rotten mother to Sybil at times, and yet we see her looking pleased and proud when Mlle says that they're raffling Sybil's embroidered cloth at the Coming of Age sale because it's so good that they wouldn't get its true value if they just sold it. We also see Doris Trelawney looking chuffed when Mary-Lou wins a swimming race against a much older opponent. Joey seems prouder of Mary-Lou than she does of her own children :roll: .
Author:  JennieP [ Fri Nov 27, 2009 7:10 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Maybe the boasting about the number of children she's had is an EBDism for "I'm so great in bed that Jack can't keep his hands off me" or alternatively, "What a stud Jack is, he only has to look at me to get me pregnant".

*Returns to the gutter*
Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Fri Nov 27, 2009 7:18 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
JennieP wrote:
*Returns to the gutter*


*quickly joins*
Author:  Kathy_S [ Fri Nov 27, 2009 7:23 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
I still persist in seeing the "real family" conversation as part of an ongoing and positive dialog between two caring friends. (Of course, I've never been able to follow the reasoning that makes Jo's baby race banter more than just that, if sometimes a bit preemptive given the comments that large families are apt to receive.) In this particular case, the tone of the "other people have babies too" follows on Simone's just pulling off the magnificent coup of keeping the castle a surprise. The minute Simone looks indignant, Jo stops teasing to make admiring comments and communicate what I take as a heart-felt rejoicing that Simone's fears of not having a "real family" are naught. Before the scene can lapse into too much emotion, she lightens the tone again and goes back to the banter. Pretty impressive for running on 3 hours of sleep.
Author:  ammonite [ Fri Nov 27, 2009 7:31 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
I always took it as teasing especially as Jo didn't want to get married but yes I think it could come out wrong or be read wrong - Simone though knew what Jo was like and would be able to cope with her!

In EJO they boast about the size of the families as well - including the amount of twins and girls v boys. Is that just the way in books of this age that once the women settle down to have families they seriously have families as many of the girls books have the families - I seem to remember as well the Anne of Greengables books have a large family not to mention Jo's youthful writings on the Charlotte Yonge family - which she consistently talks about hers as,.

We should just be thankful she never did have quads!

Some people though do just like being pregnant and having babies. There was a program on it a while ago. The most disturbing part of which was were the guy liked having the babies around but did absolutly nothing to help his wife with either the house or the family. At least Jack did some and Jo had faithful Anna.
Author:  Nightwing [ Sat Nov 28, 2009 1:06 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Back on the subject of boasting - I'd say it's odd that Joey seems to see having so many children as her real achievement, as opposed to the many (well-liked) books she has written, or the many girls she has managed to help out of trouble!
Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Sat Nov 28, 2009 1:08 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Perhaps it's because she never expected to have children. She was always going to be the maiden aunt who wrote books, so she must have expected to be successful in her career, and of course she couldn't really boast about helping all the new girls because that was just something she did because she was her, if that makes sense. But having children must have been completely unexpected for her, which would only make her prouder.
Author:  Emma A [ Sat Nov 28, 2009 3:37 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
I think that boasting about the children she had produced is one of those things that Jo could legitimately boast about without it being seen as swanking - in that she hadn't done anything special (obviously except get pregnant seven times and carry her children to term). Whereas boasting about her books, or how well her children did at school, would perhaps be seen rather too much as blowing one's own trumpet. She can't really take credit for having so many children, so she makes it into a joke boast that no-one can get upset about. Also the fact that Stephen had been a ten-pound baby - well, that was nothing Joey had done, and it would have been the carrying and delivery of such a gigantic baby which would have been worthy of admiration (or, more likely, pity and sympathy!)!

I fear I'm not phrasing this very well...
Author:  sealpuppy [ Sat Nov 28, 2009 8:49 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
I'm sure there's no mention of Stephen being a ten pounder at the time of his birth announcement, is there? Is this just an example of a fisherman's tale - only with a baby instead?
Author:  claire [ Sun Nov 29, 2009 12:27 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Just checked and it just says he's a big baby, no mention of actual weight
Author:  Fiona Mc [ Mon Nov 30, 2009 11:22 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
I actually find Joey's boasting about the size of her family and people's reactions to her boasting a little odd. My mother had thirteen and never boasted of the fact. In fact she tended not to let people know she was pregnant with the second half of the family as people tended to offer their condolences not congratulations and looked at her with an expression of you must be mad to have so many. There was only one in the second half of the family where that didn't happen and that was the one that came after my older sister dying and the reaction tended to be, oh thats lovely, this will replace the other one. My mother wasn't particularly happy with that reaction, understandably.

I must admit when I was reading the books, I did mentally think in my head to Joey's boasting 'my mother out does you and she doesn't have help' and picture myself putting her in her place when she's boasting.

I guess the one consoling thought for the kids was at least they would always know they were wanted and weren't an acident
Author:  Alison H [ Mon Nov 30, 2009 11:40 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
It's not the boasting as such that gets to me, it's the fact that having a family can be a very sensitive subject for people who would like to have a family but due to medical problems or not having a partner are unable to do so, or who have lost a child. Simone struggled to have a second child; we're told in Exile that Marie was trying for a couple of years before having her first; Gisela lost a baby, as did Carla and as did Miss Durrant/Mrs Redmond (and IIRC as did either Wanda or Bernhilda); and several people whom Joey knew lost husbands or boyfriends in the war, and yet it never seems to occur to her (or to EBD whilst writing the scenes!) that her comments about how everyone should have a big family might be upsetting people.

I'd really like to see Anna point out that her aunt and uncle (and maybe her mum and dad as well, although I'm not sure about that because in the early books it's always Marie's siblings we hear about rather than Anna's) had to bring up a big family on a shoestring and definitely without any "help", and that they just got on with it! Frau Pfeifen even managed to run a guest house at the same time :D .
Author:  Lesley [ Tue Dec 01, 2009 7:43 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Fiona Mc wrote:
There was only one in the second half of the family where that didn't happen and that was the one that came after my older sister dying and the reaction tended to be, oh thats lovely, this will replace the other one. My mother wasn't particularly happy with that reaction, understandably.


That happened to my parents too, Fiona. They only had four children ( :wink: ) but my brother David was born nearly two years after the death of my sister Linda at age five from leukaemia. My Mum said she lost count of the number of 'well-meaning' people who, on hearing the news that she was pregnant again said that was good as it would 'replace' Linda - as if anything could replace a child. :banghead: Mum also said she was pleased David was a boy as some people had even suggested he be given Linda's name. :roll:
Author:  JB [ Tue Dec 01, 2009 10:27 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Fiona Mc wrote:

Quote:
I must admit when I was reading the books, I did mentally think in my head to Joey's boasting 'my mother out does you and she doesn't have help' and picture myself putting her in her place when she's boasting.


I'm imagining you at the new girls' tea party at Freudesheim, Fiona. :)
Author:  Sunglass [ Thu Dec 03, 2009 1:26 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Nightwing wrote:
Back on the subject of boasting - I'd say it's odd that Joey seems to see having so many children as her real achievement, as opposed to the many (well-liked) books she has written, or the many girls she has managed to help out of trouble!


Mmm. It must be some kind of distinction between what kind of boasting looks show-offy and conceited in EBD's mind, and what kind of boasting is indirect enough to sneak under the radar. And clearly telling people about how many novels she's published, or the size of her advances would be unacceptable, whereas the endless banging on about her large family is OK (not sure why - because it looks artless? because it appears 'natural' and not as the result of ambition or striving?)

But what makes it interesting for me is that many mothers and fathers who boast about their children's achievements are very obviously basking in the indirect praise for themselves which is reflected back ('Young X wouldn't have got his grade five piano unless we'd put in hours of weekly practice and taken him to the symphony'). But Joey, as other people said, doesn't do that at all. What she keeps drawing attention to is the sheer biological fact of her having produced so many children and multiple births. You'd expect that when the triplets were newborns - it's easy to see newborns as straightforwardly productions of the parents, and multiple births are unusua - but it seems much weirder when the triplets are prefects and high-achieving and diverse individuals in their own right, to say nothing of the boys and the younger Maynards, for Joey to be still seeming to exhibit them as an aspect of her 'wholesale' self and her own achievement...?

It strikes me as significant too -with EBD and Joey both being successful and prolific writers - that Joey never makes reference even in the most innocent way about her books' success, despite clearly being a well-known and successful writer - no references to gushing fan letters, to publishers impatient for a new book.
Author:  JB [ Thu Dec 03, 2009 1:38 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Sunglass wrote:

Quote:
It strikes me as significant too -with EBD and Joey both being successful and prolific writers - that Joey never makes reference even in the most innocent way about her books' success, despite clearly being a well-known and successful writer - no references to gushing fan letters, to publishers impatient for a new book.


Joey's writing does fit in seamlessly and calmly into a life with lots of children and time spent at the school. This is such a contrast to things we know about EBD's writing - one manuscript was late to the publishers because her cat had kittens and was nesting on it, and her mother taught classes at the Hereford school when EBD was busy with a new book. I think there's a great deal of wish fulfilment on EBD's part here.

I often think of the comment in Gay from China as being very close to EBD's heart too. When Joey mentions taking over as Head after the bus crash, Madge says:

Quote:
And in any case, do you mind explaining how you imagine that you, of all people, could see to the organisation? It needs a tidy mind for that sort of thing, my child.’
Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Thu Dec 03, 2009 1:58 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
I like the idea of EBD being as harum-scarum as, say, Irene from MT, and never living in the real world. She's always seemed to me to be an omniscient, omnipresent individual who could write part of her book while supervising prep and was forever multi-tasking seamlessly.

She sounds a lot more realistic if she is a fellow sufferer of that horrific condition known as over-imagination, for which I well recognise the symptoms!
Author:  JennieP [ Thu Dec 03, 2009 3:50 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Over-imagination (or, as my supervisor once described it, "a rich and varied fantasy life") can be a bit tricky... At least you use it to entertain us all, Ariel!
Author:  Mel [ Thu Dec 03, 2009 8:03 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Perhaps Joey boasts about having so many children because it was a physical achievement for her, after being the puny kid who was frequently at Death's Door. "Who would have thought it of little old me?"
Author:  Mia [ Thu Dec 03, 2009 9:33 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
JB wrote:
one manuscript was late to the publishers because her cat had kittens and was nesting on it


Oh, I just love EBD so much! I'd love to have met her.
Author:  mohini [ Fri Dec 04, 2009 7:09 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Maybe Joey doesn't refer to her books as it is her personal achievement and CS girls blush rosily when they are praised for their achievements.
Mary Lou saying to Doris about her bowling. I cannot recall the exact incidents.
Which makes me wonder why should any one turn color of peony if their talents are discussed?
Unless the girl has confidence in her ability, she will not say that she can do a certain thing - say play or be a bowler. She cannot wait till the authorities discover her talents. And that is not boasting.
Author:  JayB [ Fri Dec 04, 2009 3:54 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Quote:
Unless the girl has confidence in her ability, she will not say that she can do a certain thing - say play or be a bowler. She cannot wait till the authorities discover her talents. And that is not boasting.


I think young girls probably often don't have the maturity to know the difference between legitimately saying they have a particular ability, and showing off. And of course some children do claim to be better at things than they actually are, to seek attention, or because they've been led to believe by doting parents or grandparents that they're specially talented. Yseult and the Christmas Play is the best CS example I can think of, offhand. It's rather like the sneaking vs reporting debate - children and teenagers can't always see where the line should be drawn.
Author:  Mrs Redboots [ Sun Dec 06, 2009 5:22 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
mohini wrote:
Which makes me wonder why should any one turn color of peony if their talents are discussed?
Unless the girl has confidence in her ability, she will not say that she can do a certain thing - say play or be a bowler. She cannot wait till the authorities discover her talents. And that is not boasting.


Oh no, you must never, ever say you are good at anything! If you do, you'll get asked whether your trumpeter has died (because you are "blowing your own trumpet"!), or firmly told that "Self-praise is no recommendation".

It's actually very difficult for me to admit I have any strong points, and I'm sure I'm not the only Englishwoman of a certain age (perhaps made worse, in my case, because of having been an Evangelical?) who has this trouble.
Author:  Alison H [ Sun Dec 06, 2009 5:38 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Oh, I think we all had it dinned into us that self-praise was wrong! Even now, the press are always very quick to praise any sports player, actor or other well-known person who shows "humility" and quick to criticise anyone who obviously thinks well of him or herself as being arrogant. We've even got in in The X Factor :lol: - Danyl's the favourite to go out tonight because the press don't like him because he's seen as being too self-confident :lol:. At best, it's OK to say that you're "not bad" at something. I am absolutely hopeless at job interviews, and one of the main reasons is that I instinctively put myself down rather than talking myself up (not that I've got any great talents to talk up anyway, but you know what I mean!!), and I know that plenty of other people have the same problem.

I'm trying to think of a CS equivalent to someone like Gladys Hillman in St Clare's, the girl whose acting ability only comes to light when a classmate overhears her by accident. It'd've been really good to see it come to light that someone like Odette Mercier was a genius pianist/brilliant actress/junior international standard hockey player but that no-one'd realised earlier because she'd been too shy to put herself forward.
Author:  Sunglass [ Sun Dec 06, 2009 7:14 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Alison H wrote:
I'm trying to think of a CS equivalent to someone like Gladys Hillman in St Clare's, the girl whose acting ability only comes to light when a classmate overhears her by accident. It'd've been really good to see it come to light that someone like Odette Mercier was a genius pianist/brilliant actress/junior international standard hockey player but that no-one'd realised earlier because she'd been too shy to put herself forward.


I'd love that too. Mind you, the talent thing works different in the CS than at EB's Malory Towers (which seemed to emphasise talents more than St Clare's from what I remember?) We're simply told Belinda and Irene are art and music/maths geniuses from the word go, and we keep being shown them drawing and composing, and even more problematic cases like Mavis and Amanda are established as outstandingly talented. All go on to plan careers in their fields of expertise. But none of it is initiated by the mistresses - it's the girls themselves who talk about their own particular gifts and whose demonstrations of their talents are accepted by their peers - there's no suggestion that Mr Young 'discovered' Irene's musical talent, for instance, or the art teacher Belinda's.

Whereas at the CS, the designation of a girl as talented does seem to come much more from the staff, like Joey being specially trained by Plato. The staff appears to do all casting for Nativity plays/summer entertainments, with the exception of 'joke' entertainments like the St Clare's orchestra, or the mime thriller in Redheads. I know that mock 'audition' that Maureen is put through in In the Fifth in Malory Towers is horrifying, but presumably if she had come up with something good, it might have been incorporated into the pantomime - and some of the casting recognises talents the girl in question didn't realise she had, like shy Mary-Lou being a great success as Cinderella. There don't ever seem to be auditions at the CS for anything, so I sometimes wonder whether there might have been lots of unidentified Odette Mercier-style geniuses. How would the school know, given that new girls were expected to take a back seat, and self-praise was largely frowned on?
Author:  KatS [ Sun Dec 06, 2009 7:30 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Yes - I'd never really realized how ludicrous it is that there are never any auditions for all those plays. If some new girl was given a small, non-speaking part, as seems to be the general rule, she would have to have unbelievable acting talent to make herself noticed among the hundreds of other girls in the play :roll: , so there'd be no obvious way of her getting a better part other than seniority, really.

And Ms. Ferrars, who I think is the producer in the later books, teaches Junior math and geography, so it's not obvious how she would have a good sense of who are the school acting stars...
Author:  Alison H [ Sun Dec 06, 2009 8:16 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Is it Lawrie Marlow in one of the Kingscote books who actually writes to the drama teacher in the holidays to say that she thinks she should have a particular part in the school production of Twelfth Night :roll: ? That's a bit (well, a lot!) OTT, but I can understand Yseult being annoyed that she isn't even given a chance of getting a big part in the play, especially as she had't really settled down at the school and it would've been a chance for her to've got involved in a major school event.

There are no "tryouts" for the sports teams either, although at least they're picked by the games prefect and the games mistress who've had plenty of chance to see who's good and who isn't. I wonder how you got into the choir or the orchestra - presumably it was a case of people volunteering and then either being accepted or rejected depending on how good they were, but I can't remember ever being told. There'd've been much more chance for a teacher to pick up on someone being good at music than someone being good at acting, though.
Author:  Nightwing [ Sun Dec 06, 2009 8:32 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
I always got the impression that the girls who were particularly good at memorising lines for English were more likely to have big parts - which makes sense, really! - as well as that girls who looked a certain part (golden curls for angels and 'big' girls for men) would play that kind of role.

It would be pretty annoying if you had a gift for acting and weren't give a big part, but on the other hand, the fact that the girls who got to play a big role changed every year seems fairer than the same few girls always getting the big parts, which would probably cause a lot of resentment. The only exception I can think of is Jane, who presumably was talented to the point that it would have been silly not to give her a major part.
Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Sun Dec 06, 2009 9:05 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Sunglass wrote:
We're simply told Belinda and Irene are art and music/maths geniuses from the word go, and we keep being shown them drawing and composing, and even more problematic cases like Mavis and Amanda are established as outstandingly talented.


Please do correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Belinda only 'discovered' after she does a drawing that all of the girls love? And of course Irene is already an established character, so that it's natural they should know about her talents before the books are set.

Then we also have Nina, who I think is very similar to them in that she's a genius, rather than just talented. They are all recognised as not just being the best in their form but the best and better than someone their age could be expected to be, and the CS does its best to foster that.

Plus we do get people discovered; take Polly Heriot (?) borrowing the art book and Herr Laubach discovering her talent that way.
Author:  JB [ Sun Dec 06, 2009 9:28 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Alison H wrote:

Quote:
Is it Lawrie Marlow in one of the Kingscote books who actually writes to the drama teacher in the holidays to say that she thinks she should have a particular part in the school production of Twelfth Night ?


It is Lawrie who writes to say she'd prefer to be Caliban rather than Ariel in the Tempest. Kingscote had the truly dreadful method of choosing parts for the Christmas play, based on character, rather than acting or musical ability.
Author:  Lesley [ Sun Dec 06, 2009 9:33 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Belinda is discovered by the girls - but as she's a new girl that's only to be expected - the Art teacher is also the one able to identify her work on first sight. Both she and Irene are acknowledged as geniuses by all.

Can't say I'm too impressed with Herr Laubach - only discovering Polly's talent by accident - what did she do in his lessons? Or was she so terrified of his temper that she did nothing?
Author:  JB [ Sun Dec 06, 2009 9:35 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Lesley wrote:

Quote:
Can't say I'm too impressed with Herr Laubach - only discovering Polly's talent by accident - what did she do in his lessons? Or was she so terrified of his temper that she did nothing?


I think Polly's bad drawing in lessons is another thing that's attributed to her "old-fashioned" education prior to joining the school. When Herr Laubach sees the drawings Polly's done in hobbies, he asks her why she's done such bad work for him if she's capable of drawing to this standard. Still doesn't make much sense though. How do you draw in an old-fashioned way? :?
Author:  Nightwing [ Sun Dec 06, 2009 9:36 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
I seem to remember that she only does very small, very Victorian drawings in his lessons - does that sound about right? - but she's copying designs when he 'discovers' she does actually has talent. I always found that scene a bit muddly, truth be told!
Author:  Sunglass [ Mon Dec 07, 2009 9:07 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
And, oddly, given that the CS mistresses seem intermittently obsessed with neatness in one's copybooks, some mistress complains that she wishes for an untidy page of modern methods, compared to Polly's presumably neat but 'niggling' old-fashioned work... But given that I can't imagine Herr Laubach favoured violently cubist or Picasso-type approaches to art classes, I wouldn't have said neatness and 'old-fashionedness' would have been a problem!

I know Belinda's talent is 'discovered' by the girls - what interests me is that it's pretty much never staff at Malory Towers, and that, as with established talents like Irene's, the girls don't look to the staff to validate their sense of what constitutes real talent. Whereas I'm less clear about that at the CS - that first reference someone quoted recently to 'no one having realised Joey had such a beautiful voice' in one of the first Tyrol books, doesn't make it clear who is the one deciding, girls or staff.

At AF's Kingscote you get to see staff disagreeing about casting by character vs casting by talent, talented girls not being cast or not being any good at certain parts, and a choirmaster brought in from outside for the nativity play who overturns school decisions for the singing. And OK the astonishing nativity play has Ann, who is very devout, playing Mary with total religious sincerity, CS-style, and being very effective, but Lawrie doesn't even realise anyone really believes in God, Nicola's dubiousness doesn't affect her singing, and Miranda's not being a Christian doesn't stop her being perfect as an angel. Whereas in the CS, the plays are seen as effective because of the deep religious faith of the girls.

(Although there is a bit of CS 'casting by character' too - in that we see more than once someone losing their Christmas play part due to bad behaviour!) But I always wonder how the CS casting really gets done - supposing the obvious physical casting for the Virgin Mary can't sing a note, while the 'big' girl who would be physically perfect for Joseph or the innkeeper has an astonishingly beautiful high soprano which suits Mary or an angel better? Are we to imagine staffroom wrangling?
Author:  Cosimo's Jackal [ Mon Dec 07, 2009 10:28 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
What would have happened at the CS if someone had said 'Actually, I don't think I'd be any good as the angel Gabriel, and I'd really like some kind of small character part instead?' Or if one of the 'school beauties' said she wasn't keen on continually being cast as the fairy queen or the Virgin Mary because of her hair, and could she please play her violin in the orchestra for a change? Or a cellist who desperately wanted to be on stage?

How are the girls even notified that they are playing a particular part?It can't really a kind of workshopping situation where people get tried out in rehearsals, given that on several occasions we hear of people taking down their parts by dictation right at the start. But there's no mention of them being announced at Assembly or put on a noticeboard that I can think of.
Author:  Alison H [ Mon Dec 07, 2009 10:42 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Just remembering the time we did Toad of Toad Hall at primary school and the headmaster's son was cast as Mr Toad!

There must have been plenty of wrangling in the background over who got which part, and in some years there must have been plenty of wrangling over who was going to be Head Girl :wink: .
Author:  JackieP [ Mon Dec 07, 2009 1:53 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Nightwing wrote:
I seem to remember that she only does very small, very Victorian drawings in his lessons - does that sound about right? - but she's copying designs when he 'discovers' she does actually has talent. I always found that scene a bit muddly, truth be told!


It actually makes sense to me - I'm terrible at art - can't get perspectives right and things - but if I'm copying something from another drawing, I can usually do a fair copy - so it was probably something like this - Polly wasn't too good at drawing things from scratch or from life - but she could copy from another design or picture.

JackieP
Author:  Mel [ Mon Dec 07, 2009 8:01 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
I don't think Herr L likes her approach, isn't it said by someone that he likes paint 'all wet and watery and seeing purple in every blessed thing'?
Author:  Fiona Mc [ Mon Dec 07, 2009 10:52 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
There's one author where the issue of boasting comes up all the time. Noel Streatfeild often has her characters acknowledge how good they are at things and it's seen as very poor form if you don't state the truth. I know in Apple Bough, the children are so matter of fact about it and seem to realise how hard they will have to work at their particular talents. There's usually a couple of characters that find the children's statements of I'm good at this or this difficult to take and tell them off for blowing their own horn until the governess steps in and says thats what their parents want and it's not boasting if its the truth. I actually really liked Noel Streatfeild's way of dealing with it because, I don't think it's boasting if you are really good at something unless it's like Mavis in Mallory Towers where that's all she was, a voice and nothing else
Author:  Mel [ Mon Dec 07, 2009 11:25 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
In N Streatfeild it doesn't seem to be boasting if you are near-genius, so Posy and Lydia are allowed to say outrageous things, but it is accepted. Therefore Nina, say, in the CS should be allowed to say how goood she is - she doesn't of course!
Author:  Nightwing [ Mon Dec 07, 2009 11:35 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Nina's attitude reminds me more of, say, Veronica Weston in Lorna Hill's Sadler's Wells series, in that it's not about how good she is, simply that music is the be-all and end-all of her existence: she lives for music. Veronica is undoubtedly the best ballet dancer of her generation, but to her it's not really about being an amazing dancer, it's about her feeling like she has to dance. Nina is the same: I don't think she ever really worries that she's not good enough, but she doesn't boast because it doesn't even enter her head that other people can't or won't understand what music means to her.
Author:  Sunglass [ Tue Dec 08, 2009 9:14 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
On a related topic - or back to Joey and her writing, really - does Joey's gift get quietly downgraded somewhat between her schooldays and her subsequent career? I was noticing the way Joey is described at the end of New House:

Quote:
She looked round at her friends as they stood there—Jo, tall and dark, and with that something about her that told of a great gift; Simone, little, and dark, and keen; Frieda, pretty as a picture in her white frock, with the coronal of plaits swung round her head.


And there are all those references during her schooldays to her mercurial temperament being that of an artist, and people saying that she will be very happy and suffer terribly because of it.

But by the time she settles down to write in Jo Returns, though, it's become a much less grand-sounding 'have a go at a children's book for the babies', and the resulting book is clearly an ordinary, if very readable (and publishable) school story:
Quote:
Jo had a crisp, racy style of her own, and she could tell a story well.


Joey is successful, popular, and clearly sells well - at least her books for girls, anyway (do we ever hear of adults new to the CS circle having heard about her for her adult books?) and is admirably prolific. But EBD writes about her career rather as if she's a magpie, or a collector, rather than a maker - picking up plots (like the lost staircase), names and titles, and claiming at some point that she only takes dictation from what her characters say to her. And by the time Nina comes on the scene, she's making a distinction between Nina's 'genius' and her own 'talent':

Quote:
But you always have to pay heavily for a valuable thing and the geniuses of this world pay very heavily for their gifts.... It's like a lever, propelling you along one straight path and it won't let you side-track—or not for long, at any rate. Sooner or later, you have to come back to it and no one and nothing can ever really come between it and you. That's why so many geniuses make unhappy marriages. They're so absorbed in their art and it means so much to them, that they have very little time for anything else. You see, it's an obsession and obsessed people are never quite—well—sane.


And when Mary-Lou objects that Joey herself is a genius at writing

Quote:
Joey shook her head. "No, thank heaven! I'd be sorry for your Uncle Jack and the family if it were. It's talent where I'm concerned, Mary-Lou, and that's not nearly such an urgent thing as genius."


Here 'genius' is seen as something of a burden, and a cause of domestic unhappiness, and Joey is very glad she can't lay claim to it. But what I wonder is whether EBD planned, during Joey's schooldays - when she didn't know the series would continue for so long - for her to be an authentic 'genius' writer, whose life would be entirely dedicated to her art - hence all those hints about her obvious 'great gift' etc. And then, when it became clear that Joey was going to continue to be a central character well after her schooldays, and EBD wanted to give her a husband and children, she decided that was incompatible with 'genius', and quietly made Joey's writing a much more ordinary 'talent' which is compatible (in her eyes) with family life?
Author:  Alison H [ Tue Dec 08, 2009 10:11 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
That's how it seems to me. In the early books, Jo seems much more like Nina, the sort of person whose "gift" may prevent them from interacting normally with people - someone mentioned on another thread recently the discussion between Madge and Jem about how Jo feels things very intensely and her life is going to be full of highs and lows rather than ordinary life experience. There's a sort of crossover period in Exile and War/Goes to it when she gets hysterical on the journey out of Austria and then collapses on the journey from Guernsey to England, which is the sort of highly-strung behaviour that EB associates with "genius", but after that things settle down. We don't even see Jo going off in a daydream about her writing in the way that Con does.

Most of the "geniuses" (genii :D ?) in GO books are musicians or ballerinas, and it would be much more difficult to combine marriage and a family with those careers, which involve a lot of travelling around and late nights, than with writing.

Just thinking about the recent Enid Blyton documentary on British TV - I don't think anyone would call Enid Blyton a genius, but the (not very objective, admittedly) idea of it was that her books took over her life and her first husband and her children suffered badly as a result. I can understand EBD not wanting to show that happening with Jo, but it is a shame that her "genius" gets downgraded in the way it does.
Author:  Mel [ Tue Dec 08, 2009 12:06 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
EBD herself had talent as a writer rather than genius, so perhaps she did not want to be bettered by her creation?
Author:  Sunglass [ Tue Dec 08, 2009 3:44 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Mel wrote:
EBD herself had talent as a writer rather than genius, so perhaps she did not want to be bettered by her creation?


I appreciate she wants Joey to write things that appeal primarily to the schoolgirl age bracket, so she wouldn't have made her be Virginia Woolf, but at the same time, she does hint at a Woolfish-career of 'genius' or near-genius in Joey's schooldays...? (Plus it sometimes occurs to me that, while Joey didn't have lengthy, incapacitating breakdowns, and wasn't prevented from having children on health grounds, her psychological fragility, liability to collapse when overtired or shocked, and the way her health is policed by her husband, do suggest Woolf, and her husband's continual policing of her wellbeing.)

But what EBD has Joey say about 'genius' in Genius suggests she's shifted ground somewhat since the Tyrol books, and now views it as an unbalanced, isolating thing that Joey is lucky not to have. Presumably she wouldn't have wanted anything to come between Joey and the CS/the family, and it does seem that she's anxious to establish that Joey's work doesn't get in the way, Enid Blyton style.

Does the fact that we never see Joey, as a girl or an established author, off in a dream about her work, but we do see Con do it all the time, suggest EBD intends Con to be viewed as possessing 'genius' as a writer in a way her mother doesn't?
Author:  Alison H [ Tue Dec 08, 2009 4:42 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Possibly. Len is going to get married and presumably provide Joey with legions of grandchildren and Margot is going to be a nun, so that leaves Con to be a career woman - and CS girls are generally only allowed to be career women if they're either CS staff or geniuses (genii?).
Author:  trig [ Tue Dec 08, 2009 5:53 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Joey does go off in a dream about her writing in Jo Returns, doesn't she? It's seen as bad even there, though, and producing a bad book. I find that very realistic, reminding me of endless essay sessions at Uni, and greatly sympathise with the awful book as I've written lots :oops: .

I get irritated by the generally accepted idea that if an author is successful and popular they can't be a genius. What's so bad about writing stuff that people actually want to read rather than highbrow that no-one understands (James Joyce?) It's as if we all say "Wow I can't identify with this at all, or even get a sentence into my head - it must be genius!"
Author:  Abi [ Tue Dec 08, 2009 6:54 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
trig wrote:
What's so bad about writing stuff that people actually want to read rather than highbrow that no-one understands (James Joyce?) It's as if we all say "Wow I can't identify with this at all, or even get a sentence into my head - it must be genius!"


It's so we can all look down on the people who don't see it our way. :lol:

Seriously, though, I do sort of agree. But on the other hand, genius is exceptional natural talent - so although a bestseller may be a work of genius, not all bestsellers will be. Of course, that begs the question of how we distinguish one from t'other - and indeed, whether it really matters. I think genius is often partly a personal thing - a personal obsession which because it's so deep and powerful, produces exceptional work. And (finally coming back on topic!) I don't think Joey has that. We see her spending a lot of time on other things, especially on people and she doesn't seem to allow other things to suffer for it (except, as Trig said, in Jo Returns).
Author:  emma t [ Tue Dec 08, 2009 8:12 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
trig wrote:

I don't think Joey has that. We see her spending a lot of time on other things, especially on people and she doesn't seem to allow other things to suffer for it .


Yes, Joey seems quite sane on that point; but I've often wondered when Joey does get the time to write when she is busy with her long family; the school and variouse other ploys in her life. I know we see her writing, and that she mentions it frequently, borrowing ideas from various things that people tell her.

Also if Joey does not consider herself as being genius, I wonder how her fans see her? Does she ever get recognised by fans when on her various travels? I'd love to have seen her followed by a school girl in 'Oberland' whilst on her way there :wink: .
Also she is often drugged by Jack so she does not become highly strung...How on earth did he ever get away with doing that?!
Author:  Kathy_S [ Tue Dec 08, 2009 8:20 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
If we believe Behind the Chalet School, EBD herself was prone to going off into her dream world, sometimes becoming distracted even while she was talking to someone or when she was supposed to be teaching a class. Clearly it isn't something you simply outgrow, though having 11 kids to hold you down to earth might well have an impact. Possibly EBD's criticisms of Con's (and early Jo's) not-quite-there lapses was rooted in her own desire to be better at compartmentalizing?
Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Tue Dec 08, 2009 9:44 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Kathy_S wrote:
If we believe Behind the Chalet School, EBD herself was prone to going off into her dream world, sometimes becoming distracted even while she was talking to someone or when she was supposed to be teaching a class. Clearly it isn't something you simply outgrow...


Oh dear!

I would argue that you don't get genii in writing at all; you get popular writers who can tell a convincing tale, but it is completely down to cultural and societal preferences as to who is considered a 'good' author or not. After all, being a writer is just having a good enough imagination to let other people in and a good enough education to record their tale well, there isn't really a skill to it, IMHO, beyond knowing the different techniques of writing.
Author:  Abi [ Tue Dec 08, 2009 10:04 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
ChubbyMonkey wrote:
After all, being a writer is just having a good enough imagination to let other people in and a good enough education to record their tale well, there isn't really a skill to it, IMHO, beyond knowing the different techniques of writing.


I'd have to disagree with that. I think there are people who have an instinct for writing, just as there are people who have an instinct for music, art, or anything else. They know, without having to be taught, how to appeal to people's emotions, how to grip them and turn them inside out. They know how to paint a word picture that people can see in their head, how to vary their language enough so that each character has a unique voice to the reader. These are things that can't be learnt, or not entirely. I've never heard that J. K. Rowling (to take an obvious example!) has ever had a writing lesson or studied the technique.
Author:  Nightwing [ Tue Dec 08, 2009 10:29 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
I'd agree, but then I think people like Rowling are good story-tellers, but not necessarily good writers. And I think a lot of 'popular' writers, who are disparaged by critics but loved by readers, are the same. They're not good writers, but they do know how to tell a good story.
Author:  Abi [ Tue Dec 08, 2009 10:40 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
I'm not sure why this doesn't make them good writers? I mean, what constitutes a good writer and why are writers whom people like to read not good writers? Who determines what a good writer is, and what are the criteria?
Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Tue Dec 08, 2009 10:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Abi wrote:
They know, without having to be taught, how to appeal to people's emotions, how to grip them and turn them inside out. They know how to paint a word picture that people can see in their head, how to vary their language enough so that each character has a unique voice to the reader.


Imagination forms such a large part of that, though; if you can lose yourself in your imagination sufficiently that you're there and experiencing what the character is, then you just describe what is happening. The difference between a writer and a non-writer is firstly having that ability, which I agree isn't taught, but also having the education to know language and techniques of language that bring the situation to life and allow the audience to appreciate what your character and therefore what you are experiencing. That's why you also, I think, get "good" and "bad" readers. If somebody is reading a book, whether by a good writer or otherwise, but they don't understand the techniques and the language that the author is using, they won't enjoy it and they won't think of that person as a good writer - take Shakespeare!

Either you can write or you can't. It just depends what you use that ability for that determines whether or not you are a good writer. Would we hold Shakespeare in such high regard if he'd written plays for Mills and Boon?
Author:  Nightwing [ Tue Dec 08, 2009 10:50 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
ChubbyMonkey wrote:
Would we hold Shakespeare in such high regard if he'd written plays for Mills and Boon?


You mean Romeo and Juliet wasn't a Mills and Boon production?
Author:  ChubbyMonkey [ Tue Dec 08, 2009 10:52 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Ah, no, Nightwing - you see, they never got their happy ever after!
Author:  Lesley [ Tue Dec 08, 2009 10:59 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Some of the language Shakespeare uses would probably be considered too bawdy for Mills and Boon! :lol: But I see your point. I started writing pretty much by accident and had (and have) never had any lessons other than the standard school lessons for English language and literature more years ago than I care to remember. In no way would I classify myself as a genius but I can see where Con would get her dreaminess from - it is sometimes hard to stop thinking about scenes and consider the real world. (Though sometimes very much encouraged when driving along a motorway at 70+!)

I think you can have geniuses in any walk of life, though, I would classify a genius as someone who has a talent that is above most other people's level of aptitude for their chosen profession by an order of many magnitudes. A talented engineer will be able to listen to an engine and immediately diagnose the fault, a genius engineer will be able to design a new engine that will never have that fault.


EBD had the view that a genius was not completely of this world, that their need for their particular skill would over-ride all other considerations. She didn't seem to completely approve of genius.
Author:  Abi [ Tue Dec 08, 2009 11:02 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
ChubbyMonkey wrote:
Ah, no, Nightwing - you see, they never got their happy ever after!


:shock: Don't even suggest that!

I suppose I just think that 'good' and 'bad' are very definitive words to use when it comes to matters of the imagination. People see things so very differently that I feel that phrases like 'good writing' or 'well written' are dangerous because they are very vague: one person might mean 'it makes me see pictures in my head' and someone else might mean 'it's grammatically well executed', which are nothing like the same thing!
Author:  Sarah_G-G [ Tue Dec 08, 2009 11:20 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
That's an interesting point, Abi, and very true. I think that also hold true for other areas of talent vs. genius in the field of arts at any rate. A technically proficient dancer can be very dull for the majority of the audience to watch. (This argument appears in Strictly Come Dancing most years...) The greatest dancers are remembered for catching the imagination of people who can't necessarily recognise perfect technique but are moved by the performance even so. Any ballet dancer in a proper ballet company has excellent technique- they wouldn't be able to get through the ballets if they didn't- but only a few will ever have that spark that lifts them to the heights of Margot Fonteyn or Darcey Bussel. Similarly, anyone with a passing grade at GCSE can technically write a story, but it's the combination of imagination, knowledge of your audience and a certain "way with words" that makes a writer. Equally I think all of us on here would say that EBD wrote "good" books that caught at our imagination and that we love, but someone who didn't enjoy the books could very easily argue that she wrote "bad" books because they're very formulaic and easy to read. Who's right?
Author:  Fiona Mc [ Wed Dec 09, 2009 12:59 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
And I think time plays a huge part. Like JK Rowling both Shakespeare and Charles Dickens were popular in their day by the masses but neither were critically acclaimed at the time, that came much later as their books have stood the test of time. It'll be interesting to see if JK Rowling's books are still popular or considered classics or are even still read in another centuary or two the way Shakespeare or Dickens is.

I do think EBD must have been reasonably talented as her books have lasted much longer than a lot of the other school stories written in her generation. I'm not saying she was a genius but she must have been above average for her books to have lasted as long as they have.
Author:  Alison H [ Wed Dec 09, 2009 1:31 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Other than Joey, does the CS produce any writers? When the first edition of The Chaletian was printed, the staff raved about Joey's story and Amy's poem and how they were both destined for greatness, but it never happened again. Amy presumably never made it as a poetess, and if Gwensi Howell ever made it as a writer it's never mentioned. Even Con's writing is generally talked about in terms of daydreaming rather than the stories she actually writes. Shame we never get to see some otherwise colourless new girl provide a great work of fiction for the magazine.

I'm not sure how some of the best books of all time would fare iwith the critics if they were published today! The plot of Jane Eyre, with mad wives locked up in back corridors and all the rest of it, would probably be ridiculed. &, as Helen Fielding brilliantly plays on in Bridget Jones's Diary, a lot of Jane Austen's work can be seen as Georgian chicklit: the conversation between Elizabeth Bennet and Charlotte Lucas about whether Jane Bennet should make it obvious that she likes Mr Bingley or whether she should play it cool translates into Bridget and her friends talking about things like how soon they should ring a man after a date.

I'd love to see a recommended booklist written by Hilda Annersley or one of the other CS mistresses. Our English teachers were always giving us recommended reading lists in our first three years at secondary school, and I dutifully tried to plough my way through them and some of the books they suggested bored me rigid :roll: .
Author:  Sunglass [ Wed Dec 09, 2009 12:07 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
No, the CS produces several other people who're said to have writing talent in their schooldays, but if anything comes of it later, we're never told. I think EBD worried about stealing Joey's thunder in literature, rather as, when Nina arrives, we're told that Jacynth Hardy, despite being a very gifted musician, is not quite in her league.

Also, on the topic of Joey not generally being preoccupied to the point of absent-mindedness about her work (apart from, significantly, the first 'bad' novel, Malvina Wins Through!) - I did just notice this at the start of New Mistress. Biddy says Joey has leapt at the chance of 'getting rid' of Mike to Winnie Embury's boys' tutor in Montreux five days a week, and attributes it partly to the fact that she's 'simmering a new book'. Apparently she doesn't want to send him to prep school in England with Steven and Charles until he's seven, and this is better because 'he's fairly handy if Jo wants to see him apart from the weekends'. When asked what will happen when the snows come, Biddy says Winnie may keep Mike at Montreux 'for the rest of the term.'

I thought it was interesting because it does show Joey visibly preoccupied with a new book in a way we don't really see after her first novel. Also because, even though EBD clearly doesn't intend us to find it heartless - it's supposed to be so he can have other boys for company - the idea of wanting rid of your five-year-old five days out of seven (before you can get rid of him for most of the year to a different country for school) does grate a bit on modern ears, I think, whatever the reason! (Sounds slightly Enid Blyton-ish in fact!) Especially when, in the same conversation, Biddy says most parents don't want to send their girls away before the age of thirteen or fourteen, and Kathie says she thinks that's still 'awfully young'.

Also, it's kind of interesting that the only time Joey is depicted as absolutely absorbed in a book, Con-style, forgetting to eat and cancelling social engagements, it results in a 'bad' novel (or, at least Matey thinks so...) and Matey tells her she should be ashamed of herself for writing about such really bad girls, and accuses her of selfishness. Obsession not seen as producing good books?
Author:  Tor [ Wed Dec 09, 2009 3:10 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: Travelling - Joey Goes to the Oberland
Genius.... I think we use the term too easily these days. I work with lots of exceptionally clever, obsessively hard-working people (it depresses me - I can't compete unless I sign away my life...), but I think I can safely say there are no geniuses among them. A lot of them are completely socially deficient, which usually means other people are more likely to classify them as special and otherwordly, but again, I'd dispute they were geniuses.

Actually maybe I just hate the term. But if I had to define it, I'd want evidence of paradigm shifting ability (as Leslie says, inventing a new engine, rather than fixing it), and even then I think it needs to be extra special. I think people like Hooke, Newton and Liebnitz probably qualify, but not Darwin for example (though I'd argue that Darwin had probably the most impact as to revolutionizing modern thought - but then I'm a biologist - his idea is rather simple, and borne out of solid work and a foundation of thought that meant it was on the way to being put together but a whole lot of people, including Wallace). But again, this might be because I think maths is hard, and so the achievements of Newton et al are more impressive to me

For writers, I'd want something similarly impressive. I don't think anything written as quickly, or with such a high turn-out, as a number of our best-selling authors can qualify as genius. A great read, perhaps. But I would expect a great artist to challenge themselves (and the reader/audience) and test and push the boundaries of their art. I'm not sure who'd come int this category... certainly not EBD (or JMB)
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