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

Books: Gay from China at the Chalet School
http://www.the-cbb.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3926
Author:  jennifer [ Sun Jan 27, 2008 7:43 am ]
Post subject:  Books: Gay from China at the Chalet School
A synopsis can be found here

An eventful book and one that has plot elements that are referenced frequently in later books.

So, what do you think of the infamous Miss Bubb - an evil woman who deserved to be sacked, tarred and feathered, or merely someone who didn't fit the Chalet school ethos? What about the infamous case of the wicked Sybil and the scalding of Josette? How do Joey and Simone do, coming back as a mistress? What do you think of the accident as a plot device? Can anyone figure out Gay Lambert's family tree :lol: Then, of course, there is the case of Jacynth and her aunt, and Gay running away.

As a note, although this books is listed as 'minor frequent cuts' it is one that is best read in the unabridged edition, as numerous small details and references are deleted in the paperback which really add to the story.
Author:  JayB [ Sun Jan 27, 2008 2:33 pm ]
Post subject: 
This is probably my second favourite CS book, with Exile first. Unlike many (most?) of the Swiss books, which are little more than a sequence of incidents, EBD weaves together several plot strands in Gay.

I love Gay and Jacynth and their friendship. It's one of the closest and warmest friendships we have in the series, without being at all soppy or sentimental. I wish we could have seen more of them, and Gill, as they went up the school. (And it seems Gay and Gill lost touch after they left, too.)

It's also one of the few books after they leave Tyrol to show the school as part of the wider world, with Gay and Jacynth's train journey and Grandma and her family.

It also makes a pleasant change to have a running away that is well planned and succeeds in its objective, with no-one getting pneumonia or brain fever!

EBD had done the unsympathetic staff member before, of course, with the two Matrons, but never in such a dramatic fashion. Miss Bubb does come across as rather a two-dimensional villain, although EBD tries to show her motivation. Could the remaining staff have done more to try to reach a compromise?

Jo is a perfectly competent teacher when she puts her mind to it. She has authority, and she knows her own subjects. I wouldn't give her a class of older girls who were working for public exams, but she's fine with the younger ones.

Whether it was a good idea to have her teaching when she was still breastfeeding Stephen is a different matter. Miss Bubb had a point when she complained about her abandoning her class to go and see to him.

Josette's accident is a plot device to keep Madge out of the action. There'd have been no plot if she could have stepped in and overruled Miss Bubb at every stage! I don't mind that, or even the way in which it happened. I don't like the way Sybil was blamed. Why were she and Josette left alone with a boiling kettle with no adult within earshot?

One little thing that used to annoy me was that Tommy Lambert wrote to Jem after Gay ran away. Jem has nothing to do with school affairs. But I reasoned that he wouldn't want to write to Miss Bubb, and Gay would have told him about Josette, and that Madge wasn't to be bothered, so he would feel he couldn't write directly to Madge either.
Author:  Alison H [ Sun Jan 27, 2008 5:09 pm ]
Post subject: 
I feel very sorry for Sybil. OK, she was old enough for Rosa to've felt able to leave her unsupervised and she should have known not to mess with boiling water, but it was an accident and unfortunately accidents do happen. And didn't Josette stand on her toe, which was what made her drop the kettle? Making out that Josette's injuries were due to Sybil being vain about her looks was very unfair.

I really like Gay and Jacynth - and Auntie's letter is very moving :cry: . I always took it that Gay's cousin on her mum's side had married Gay's half-brother on her dad's side, i.e. that the married pair were no blood relation to each other although both were related to Gay, but it's all very confusing ... and I used to assume that there was more about their adventures in China in another book somewhere and was disappointed when I realised that there wasn't!

I think Miss Bubb was given a hard time. Wanting to get good exam results is hardly an unreasonable thing for a headmistress to do. And I just want to slap Jack Maynard when he tells Miss Bubb that she has to let Gay go and sit outside. What on earth does he think gives him the right to tell the acting Head how to run the school, especially in front of a pupil? I wish she'd told him to mind his own business!

Plus Joey annoys me when she writes to ask Nell to hurry back, even though Nell has just been through a terrible trauma and is still recovering from her injuries. Although their later conversation, when Nell talks about how the accident has made her realise how important Hilda is to her, is very moving, and very well-written - one of the best scenes in the series about the relationship between any two characters.
Author:  Lesley [ Sun Jan 27, 2008 5:53 pm ]
Post subject: 
Alison H wrote:
Although their later conversation, when Nell talks about how the accident has made her realise how important Hilda is to her, is very moving, and very well-written - one of the best scenes in the series about the relationship between any two characters.


Yes, I love that conversation too. :lol:


The premise for the book is good - to get the senior staff out of the way so that someone new can come in and completely upset the entire School. I agree that there had to be some way of getting Madge out of the way because otherwise she could just have taken over - it was only for less than half a term anyway. However the accident did seem very unfair on Sybil - I know that she had been set up for years before as a jealous and nasty little madam and that she was disobedient. But the accident was just that - not deliberate or malicious in any way. Yet not only is she punished severely at the time but the episode is held against her for the rest of her school life. She was a perfect pupil from then on, as far as we are aware, yet only actually managed to make Prefect as an afterthought.

In a way it's a pity Joey couldn't have considered being temporary Head - she was the same age that Madge was when she started the School, or even Simone or Grizel - both of them well versed in what should and should not be done. Miss Bubb is set up from the start as an unsympathetic character, her voice, her appearance, her name, all calculated to immediately point her out as someone that the girls reading the story will be able to recognise as 'not one of us'. It would have been more realistic to have had someone that initially came across as pleasant and amenable - like Delores Umbrage in HP! To her debit, Miss Bubb didn't really attempt to get to know the traditions of the school, and , although told it was only a temporary post, seemed determined that she was there to stay and that Miss Annersley would never return (Hah!!!)

I love the friendship between Gay and Jacynth and the love between Jacynth and her Aunt - that letter still manages to have me reaching for the tissues when I read it. For once Jacynth's grief is handled well and Joey is lovely there - and I like that Jacynth, in future years, never does manage to shake off her grief - far more realistic.

To be honest I'm not really sure why the book was entitled Gay From China - like others I was expecting the uncut version to give much more in the way of info about Gay but it's barely mentioned. And Gay doesn't figure any more strongly than Jacynth, rather less so really - her only real scenes other than with Jacynth being the row with Miss Bubb and running away to return with German measles - which, incidentally, would have made her very popular with all the parents - my Dad told me once that he was very popular as a child when he contracted the same - all the neighbourhood families sent their young girls around in the hope that they would catch it and prevent problems with pregnancy later on. Back to the plot - cannot understand why Gay was awarded with the prize at the end of term - she'd not really done a great deal to warrant it.

The one thing I was very surprised about was the length of time Miss Bubb was there - she left before Half Term!!!

All in all one of my favourite books and one that I have read, cover-to-cover, more times than I like to remember! :wink:
Author:  LizzieC [ Sun Jan 27, 2008 7:18 pm ]
Post subject: 
Alison H wrote:
Making out that Josette's injuries were due to Sybil being vain about her looks was very unfair.


Not that I ever scalded someone, but certainly when I was the age Sybil was at the time the accident happened I had the reaction whenever I did something wrong to try and cover it up (one memorable occasion being when I cut my own hair and then tried to hide the fact I'd done it by putting the hair in an envelope and putting that under a pile of books), so it always seemed natrual to me that Sybil tried to cover up her "crime" by removing Josette's clothing - she was not to know that Josette was so badly injured or that her clothes would stick to the skin and the whole lot would come off. I feel rather sorry for the fact Sybil is never allowed to forget the mistakes she made here, as many people are allowed to forget the mistakes they make when they are silly children.

JayB wrote:
It also makes a pleasant change to have a running away that is well planned and succeeds in its objective, with no-one getting pneumonia or brain fever!


To some extent this is true, and it makes it actually a much more realistic event than if it had been unsuccessful or come down with some ridiculous illness. I would have found it hard to believe that a girl of Gay's intellect and age would have been unable to use train timetables to get home ok. It is a matter of some irritation that she had to bring back German Measles with her though. It's as though EBD couldn't quite let go of unauthorised expeditions ending in some sort of disaster or illness.
Author:  JayB [ Sun Jan 27, 2008 7:33 pm ]
Post subject: 
Quote:
It is a matter of some irritation that she had to bring back German Measles with her though. It's as though EBD couldn't quite let go of unauthorised expeditions ending in some sort of disaster or illness.

And if German Measles was around, someone at school was bound to pick it up, either in the village, or from the domestic staff, or when they travelled at half term. It's unfair to blame it entirely on Gay.
Author:  miss_maeve [ Sun Jan 27, 2008 11:43 pm ]
Post subject: 
Alison H wrote:
didn't Josette stand on her toe, which was what made her drop the kettle?

I'd never heard that until now...I suppose that's yet another cut made from the paperback editions.
Author:  KB [ Mon Jan 28, 2008 12:06 am ]
Post subject: 
miss_maeve wrote:
Alison H wrote:
didn't Josette stand on her toe, which was what made her drop the kettle?

I'd never heard that until now...I suppose that's yet another cut made from the paperback editions.


Yes, I think it was:

Quote:
‘The final court of appeal is my Aunt Madge. Only, I don’t want to bother her if we can help it. Josette’s really very rotten. It’s a nasty scald, poor baby – all over her tummy, and down one leg. I know they’re anxious about her. I should think this will teach young Sybil to be a little less cocksure in future. Auntie says she is very sorry; but Uncle won’t let Sybs go home till half-term. If she hadn’t been messing about with the kettle, Josette couldn’t have run into her, and then it wouldn’t have got spilt. Josette stood on Sybil’s foot, and she shrieked and dropped the kettle. It fell on the poor baby, against her chest, and upset all down her tummy. Rosa wasn’t here – she was in the poultry-yard – and Sybil had no more sense than to drag Josette up to the bathroom, and take her clothes off, one by one. By the time she’d finished, her vest was sticking to her, and Sybs just yanked it off – and half the skin with it. If it hadn’t been for that, she wouldn’t have been so bad. It’s all Sybil’s fault.’
Author:  jennifer [ Mon Jan 28, 2008 3:29 am ]
Post subject: 
I also sympathize with Sybil. She was only eight years old, which is old enough not to play with a boiling kettle, but not old enough to be left in a kitchen with a boiling kettle, in charge of an active four year old, and no-one near enough to hear screams. Being blamed for not knowing proper first aid for scalds is a bit much, too, as if that's anyone's fault it is her doctor father's. The fact that this continues to haunt Sybil for years afterwards, and causes an immediate, lasting personality change (including self-consciousness and shame about her looks) drives home how unfair her treatment was.

I like this book. The friendship with Gay and Jacynth and Gillian is a lovely one, where their personalities complement each other - Gay is fun loving and light hearted and not too serious or studious, Gillian is a nice, steady, reliable girl, and Jacynth is overly serious and earnest and sensitive.

Miss Bubb - I do wonder why the terms of her employment weren't more fully spelled out in terms of this being pro-tem, what the traditions and standards of the school were, and what she wasn't allowed to change. I can understand her frustration, going from an exam oriented day school to a boarding school where the prefects have a great deal of authority, classes are cancelled during nice weather, and things like guides, sports, dramatics and music are given equal weight with coursework. She strikes me as someone who would be a very competent, if not very flexible, teacher, but as a headmistress is totally over her head.

I like the little references to the war and surrounding events - Granny and her family, Miss Durrant and the death of her husband and daughter, Gay and her brother and sister. It's much more tied into the world than many of the later books, and has a more period feel.

Having two teachers with young babies does strike me as a problem. Stephen is still being breast-fed, and Joey will naturally make him a priority. Tessa is about a year, I think, which means she's starting to get mobile. They don't seem to have anyone babysitting when the mothers are teaching, which could be very disruptive. I wonder that they don't tag team - Joey watches Tessa while Simone teaches and vice versa.
Author:  Tor [ Mon Jan 28, 2008 4:01 pm ]
Post subject: 
I really love this book, despite only having the paper back. It is one that has many scenes that stayed with me vividly, though I'd often not remember that they were all in the same book.

Sybil's/Josette's accident is one of these. i join the general consensus that it was handled very badly and unfairly by the adults involved... but.... I do think that is it one of the key events that helps to make the 'adult'characters much more real to me. They did, I think, handle it in the way I wold have expected. And we see further unreasonable behaviour throughout the series wrt to discipline. Or rather, inconsistent with the ethos that, for example, that Joey preaches. And I also think it is very realistic that the characters involved don't see themselves as behaving badly - most people think their way of bringing up their kids is correct, whatever the consequense :twisted: As a consequence, we as readers are, form that point on, I think much in sympathy with Sybil, and she isn't a 'baddy' any more. It's not just because she 'reforms' through guilt, but that i think that most children (and adults :lol: ) tend to recoil imediately from the idea that she's at fault. I know that I did as a child - I'd say it was on reading that book that Joey stopped being a complete heroine to me.
Author:  Billie [ Mon Jan 28, 2008 8:31 pm ]
Post subject: 
Do we meet Gay Lambert at all before this book? Because when I first read it she came across as an established character, but I've not seen her name in the previous books, even in passing. It's quite unusual to have the focus on a character who is neither a new girl nor even been mentioned before. It makes me feel we've missed something, or made me aware of the gap between this one and Lavender. (How long has passed since Lavender?)
Author:  Lottie [ Mon Jan 28, 2008 10:52 pm ]
Post subject: 
Billie wrote:
It makes me feel we've missed something, or made me aware of the gap between this one and Lavender. (How long has passed since Lavender?)

I think Gay is supposed to be the term straight after Lavender.
Author:  jennifer [ Tue Jan 29, 2008 2:01 am ]
Post subject: 
Gay is mentioned in Lavender, briefly as a chosen guest at the new girls' tea, although she's mentioned as a friend of Jean Mackay. We get her back story at the tea

Quote:
Gay, most of whose people lived in the heart of China on a tea
plantation, nodded. "Ruth had a letter from Mummy just before we came
back. It seems to be still fairly quiet where they are; but Paul and
Basil are both in the Air Force now, of course, and Uncle Tom is
having a hectic time on his own. Micky went back to school the same
day as I did. We had a gorgeous time with Ruth and Tommy - he got
leave for Christmas. And little Nan is a dear. I wish you could see
her, Mrs Maynard
Author:  Katherine [ Tue Jan 29, 2008 9:30 am ]
Post subject: 
I wonder if it’s because EBD had planned/written a Gay’s Adventures in China book and thus we were meant to know her from there.
Author:  Sugar [ Tue Jan 29, 2008 9:40 am ]
Post subject: 
Katherine wrote:
I wonder if it’s because EBD had planned/written a Gay’s Adventures in China book and thus we were meant to know her from there.


How frustrating typical if she had!
Author:  meerium [ Tue Jan 29, 2008 10:09 am ]
Post subject: 
This is one of my favourites! I think the relationship between Jacynth and Auntie is brilliantly written and completely plausible. I always end up in floods when I get to Auntie's letter. I love the description of Gay's midnight walk as well - it's a very deftly drawn picture of landscape in the moonlight.
Author:  Angela [ Fri Feb 01, 2008 1:11 pm ]
Post subject: 
This is one of my favourite books, especially since I obtained a hard back copy.

The only thing that makes me angry about it is the treatment of Sybil - fair enough she's a brat in some of the other books, but really, leaving her unsupervised for so long is absolutely ridiculous, with Madge & Jem in particular simply abrogating their own responsibilities and being so nasty to her. Any adult who leave a couple of children so young in the company of a boiling kettle is downright negligent.
Author:  patmac [ Sat Feb 02, 2008 10:16 am ]
Post subject: 
This is a book I will re-read out of order because I really do like it - apart from Miss Bubb being so two dimensional! Even then, I read it as a child quite uncritically and it's only when I went back to the books in my 20s that I saw her as a cardboard cut out. I often wonder if EBD had back stories for some of her characters in her head which obviously weren't included in the books? Perhaps she *knew* the character and what caused her attitude so she didn't seem two dimensional to her?

All the coincidences - Gay and Jacynth meeting on the train, Gay being brought back to school by Mrs Learoyd still don't bother me because these things do happen in real life and make good plot devices in the story.

Auntie's letter is a box of tissues episode and, possibly, some of EBDs best writing.

The Sybil/Josette incident is even more unbelievable than Miss Bubb's character. It just doesn't ring true from the idea of the children being left unsupervised in the kitchen to the attitude taken by the adults to Sybil. I would have been more inclined to blame Rosa than Sybil - why did she leave them there?
Author:  Ela [ Tue Mar 18, 2008 1:42 pm ]
Post subject: 
I've just read this (in a GGBP edition which also printed a short story by, IIRC, KB, about the scalding incident, from Sybil's viewpoint), and agree that it's one of EBD's best CS books. The relationship between Jacynth and Gay is lovely, but I also like Gill's acceptance of Jacynth into the friendship she already has with Gay. The glimpses of their backstories are also fascinating - is it Gill whose adventures are fictionalised in the Chudleigh Hold books?

I found it interesting to read about the young Miss Slater, who is portrayed very sympathetically, and as a born teacher. Very different to how she ends, only interested in pupils good at maths and inimical to the "spirit of the school".

If Miss Bubb had not let her ambition o'erleap itself, she might actually have done some good at the school, Making big, sweeping changes is not really the best thing to do as a headmistress, particularly if you haven't been brought in to turn around an ailing school. Perhaps Madge really hadn't been emphatic enough about what was wanted, and under what constraints Miss Bubb would be expected to operate. And to find, too, that she was to be overruled by doctors who weren't even her employers seems a bit rich. Jack should have been more tactful, but I guess he wouldn't have been inclined to be so if Joey had told him how frightful the new Head was. Madge states at the end of Miss Bubb's tenure that she will not make appointments in a hurry again, but really, what else could she have done? None of the other candidates were at all suitable, and the other teachers were too young and inexperienced to undertake the role.

The balance between school and Joey is good here - Joey hasn't yet become the butter-in of legend: she's occupied with her young children, very much a mother; a capable teacher; and ready with a word of comfort when necessary. One can see why Jacynth (and the other pupils, too) would find her loveable.

I found Miss Durrant's brief appearances rather moving - her rather bitter grief about her daughter's death is realistic - the way she tells Joey not to cling too closely to her own children is very sad.

The Sybil short story was excellent, though I think KB treated Sybil with more sympathy than EBD did. Wanted to slap Jem for ignoring the poor girl, so good for Matey! I liked the way Sybil went from a rather bumptious and overconfident child to the sobbing penitent.
All times are UTC
Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group
http://www.phpbb.com/