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#1: Book: Gerry Goes to School Author: jennifer, Location: Taiwan

Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2007 11:29 am
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In a slight departure from what was stated last week, we will be starting the book discussions with Gerry Goes to School, and progress through the Chalet books, Tie-Ins, Fill-Ins and La Rochelle series in reading order (i.e. internal chronology).

Gerry is the first book EBD wrote, and the first of the loosely connected La Rochelle books, which connect to the Chalet School in the second half of Exile, via the Chesters, Lucys, etc. Gerry also makes a brief appearance in Head Girl of the Chalet School.

Twelve year odl Gerry Challoner is an orphan (her parents were killed by a tornado), who has been raised by her great aunts along very old fashioned lines. Her aunts must travel abroad for health reasons, and she is sent to stay with her distant relations the Trevennors, a vicarage family with ten children. She settles into life at a day school surprisingly well, making friends with her school chums as well as Paul, the eldest son. However, Jill, one of the Trevennor girls, is jealous of her and starts a feud, which narrowly avoids ending in tragedy. Along the way there is a strike of the middles, protesting their treatment by the prefects, an incident with a runaway horse, and an engagement or two.

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So, how does this stand up against EBD's later books? Is Gerry a reasonable character, or does she adapt to modern life too easily? How are the Trevennors as a family? Does the family/day school setting work as well as the more familiar boarding school environment?

What do you think of the portrayal of the middles/prefects conflict? Is this a scene which you could see happening in the Chalet books?

#2: Author: Maisie, Location: St Albans, Herts, UK

Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2007 7:39 pm
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I have acquired this one but not had a chance to read it yet - have 10 more chalets to go in my read-through before I start the La Rochelle's!

Will be back once I get to it....

#3: Author: dorian, Location: Dublin

Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2007 9:01 pm
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I've always thought Gerry adapted too easily to her new life - on the other hand, I do love the Trevennor family, and while reading I can accept Gerry's rapid acclimatisation; it's only after I stop reading that it looks wrong.

(And, of course, the end of the Gerry/Jill feud so got recycled in "Rivals of the Chalet School"!)

#4: Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster

Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2007 9:03 pm
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It's a while since I read it. EBD uses the theme of an old-fashioned upbringing in the CS books too, with varying treatments. I like Gerry - I seem to remember her being a real person. Mybe she did take to modern methods very quickly, but I suspect that it was all so wonderfully fresh for her and different that the excitement brought her through the changes. I'm not sure I've put that very well!! Very Happy

#5: Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester

Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2007 9:30 pm
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When I first read this I felt as if it must've been written years and years before the earliest CS books, even though I knew it wasn't. It's probably just me, but the style of the prose - not the storyline as such, just the way it was written - seemed to be from an earlier age. That's not a criticism, just an observation!

It's hard to compare it to the CS books because we get to know the CS characters over a long period of time, but I quite like the Trevennors - EBD seems much more comfortable dealing with boys as well as girls in the La Rochelle books than she does in the CS books - and I quite like the way Gerry adapts to things.

In some ways I wish I'd read this first, then I wouldn't've felt as if the rescue-from-icy-lake/girl-from-old-fashioned-background-adapts-to-school-life storylines'd all been taken from somewhere else, instead of it being the other way round ... if that makes sense Rolling Eyes

#6: Author: Tamzin, Location: Edinburgh

Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2007 9:37 pm
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I loved the runaway horse and trap. The whole book just seems so evocative of it's time - the post Great War period but before most of the changes and innovations of the 1920's onwards.

Actually, on reflection, I suppose that life in a quiet sleepy village would have continued like this well into the 30's and 40's - people weren't so exposed to the changes outside their immdiate sphere as they are today. London and the cities might have been changing but the village where the Trevennors live would have probably gone on in much the same way as before the Great War even though the schoolgirls skirts were shorter and they were allowed to be more tomboyish than previously.

#7: Author: Mel, Location: UP NORTH

Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2007 10:28 pm
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I found it a lovely period piece. I love the way Gerry revels in wearing modern weekend clothes i.e. a skirt and tie which would be dreary school uniform for modern kids. This is EBD trying out various ideas which she perfected later. Peggy is a first run of the adored older sister which she used again and again until she became Madge Bettany. Elinor in one of the newsletters dismissed the book, saying that no-body would be interested in it now, but I thought it was a pretty good first novel.

#8: Author: Cath V-P, Location: Newcastle NSW

Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2007 12:30 am
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This felt like a 1920s book in ways that the first CS didn't - possibly because St Peters is a day school rather than boarding so you see characters in tems of a whole social scene rather than in the enclosed world of the school.

To me Gerry seemed to settle rather too easily into school and life with the Trevennors; I would have expected some rather more 'Eustacia-like' difficulties. Possibly EBD thought this too when she revisited the theme later.

But the Trevennors were lovely - very realistic in the way that they relate to one another and a lot of fun too.

#9: Author: Fiona Mc, Location: Bendigo, Australia

Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2007 3:07 am
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I enjoyed reading the book but didn't like reading it as much as the others in the series. Could certainly tell it was EBD'd first book, however I did like Gerry as a character and thought the Trevenors were lovely

#10: Author: Caroline, Location: Manchester

Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2007 7:21 am
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I like this book very much - I think I agree that Gerry perhaps adapted to all the changes in her life a little too easily, but still, it's fun meeting the Trevennors and St Peter's School through her.

I like the whole atmosphere of St Peter's. In some ways, it's my biggest regret about the La Rochelles that we don't have another school-focussed book after A Head Girl's Difficulties. There are so many attractive girl characters here - I would have loved to see Jose Atherton and her gang as Prefects, for instance, many years in the future. I also find it more reminiscent of some of DFB's schools - the strange names, the focus on relationships and jealousies and anti-soppism... It makes me think of the Jane Willard Foundation (Dimsie) much more than it does the CS.

I agree about the 1920s thing, too - maybe that's why I find myself thinking of DFB! - but Gerry (and A Head Girl's Difficulties too, really) is a book which just screams 1920s. I don't ever find that with the CS - maybe it's the Austrian setting, which means we can attribute strange customs to Being Abroad, rather than Being Old Fashioned, but reading the early CS books I find them much more ... well, timeless, I suppose.

One thing, though - other than Jill and Paul, I always find I get confused about which Trevennor is which and have to write myself a list. EBD does a much better job in handling the characterisation of a large family group in later books than she does in this one, IMO. But then, it was her first book, so I think she can be forgiven.

#11: Author: Lisa_T, Location: Belfast

Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2007 11:10 am
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'Gerry' was one of my bargains, and I've always rather loved it. It's a lovely period story- and very typical of it's time with the preoccupation with strikes. 'Dimsie Goes to School' published only a few years before uses the same plot device with very similar results and responses from the authorities. I've come across a few others as well.

Personally, I've always thought Gerry was the original for Verity-Anne rather than Eustacia- although again, she adapts to her new life much better than either of those two do.

In fact, I may re-read it later on today. Very Happy

#12: Author: Fiona Mc, Location: Bendigo, Australia

Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2007 10:35 pm
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Lisa_T wrote:

Personally, I've always thought Gerry was the original for Verity-Anne rather than Eustacia- although again, she adapts to her new life much better than either of those two do.

I'd have to agree with you on that one. I always thought Cressida in Heather Leaves School was more similiar to Eustasia than Gerry. The only other one potentially similiar to Gerry was Polly. Same sort of old fashioned up bringing and then settles really well into modern day. At least with Polly, her guardians realised she was having an old fashioned upbringing

#13: Author: jennifer, Location: Taiwan

Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 2:42 am
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I see Gerry as a model for Polly - very old fashioned background with elderly aunts, but takes to modern life like a duck to water. I do find her adaptation unbelievably smooth, though. I'd expect more struggles interaction with other children, as from the description of her life I'm not sure she's ever even talked to other kids.

I like the Trevennors, although the younger ones blur together somewhat. Paul seems like an early form of Jack or Julian - kind but can be authoritarian and likes to tease.

I never saw this as distinctly 1920s, though, but that could just be not having the context of other stories written around then. I did sympathise with the middles though. It sounded like the prefects were being rather nasty - insulting the middles generally because of the fecklessness of a few, being overly condescending, name calling, etc. I'm firmly of the view that authority needs to be respected, but those in authority have to behave in a manner worthy of respect - instant unquestioning obedience and veneration is not owed to someone purely because they have the power to punish you if you don't comply. And the middles did have no power to object to the unfair treatment.

#14: Author: Kathy_S, Location: midwestern US

Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 4:22 am
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I've just finished Gerry, and mainly just enjoyed it. The plot elements were fairly generic -- ice rescues, jealousies, maiden aunts and whatnot long predating EBD -- but it was a pleasant read with believable characters. One thing that did strike me as uncommon in the genre, if true to life, was the portrayal of differing faces of characters in home vs. school environments.

It didn't evoke a particular decade for me. I just roughly placed it between the advent of 'motor cars' and the loss of horses for ordinary transportation, a fairly broad period, though there was that reference to "the fifties" that made me giggle, because Gerry's description so reminded me of a childhood friend, boi-oi-oing curls and all (wrong 50s!). I've never particularly associated strikes with the 1920s, since they were enough of them to lead to lead to the declaration of Labor Day as a national U.S. holiday in 1894, and they've been around (with greater or lesser success) ever since. I was only disappointed that the prefects didn't unofficially deal with Alicia as well as issuing their squashing order.

It was interesting to see some of the phrases we associate with EBD already present: "The Splasheries;" "grey, still and to all appearance dead" (OK, slightly out of order); "Sheila is a broken reed, although she means well." However, did anyone else do a double-take at the precept that one should "lie with conviction" rather than get anyone in trouble? I suppose I was expecting the same old CS ethos.

Oh, and I was pleasantly surprised that it was Larry, rather than Gerry, who fainted. Very Happy

#15: Author: Mrs Redboots, Location: London, UK

Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 1:46 pm
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Kathy_S wrote:

I've never particularly associated strikes with the 1920s, since they were enough of them to lead to lead to the declaration of Labor Day as a national U.S. holiday in 1894, and they've been around (with greater or lesser success) ever since.

Here, we had the General Strike in 1926, which seems to have been the yardstick for all other strikes before or since, in this country!

I much enjoyed "Gerry goes to school"; I thought that all that we love (and possibly, that exasperates us) about EBD was foreshadowed.

I do wonder how much she thought back to it when holding Joey's had through the writing of "Cecily holds the Fort"!

#16: Author: Lisa_T, Location: Belfast

Posted: Wed Apr 25, 2007 2:57 pm
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I've always assumed that the fate of Malvina and Co. was EBD talking about her own first attempts to write something publishable! Although I did laugh at the bit when Joey makes careful lists of all her characters and their details. It's a pity EBD didn't do likewise... some 'isms you can forgive in a long series, but considering that within a few books EBD forgot the precise nature of Simone's relationship to Mlle Lepattre and the latter's first name... Rolling Eyes

#17: Author: Hannah-Lou, Location: Glasgow

Posted: Fri Apr 27, 2007 6:34 pm
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It's a while since I read this, but I remember I liked the family atmosphere. EBD presents a family in its entirety (SP? Confused

) here better than in any of the Chalet books, I think, and doesn't shy away from dealing with the boys as well as the girls. I too got a bit muddled with who was who, but I think that's partly because in the biggest families in the CS books, the children are presented one by one through the series, whereas here a fairly large family is presented all at once. (Chudleigh Hold does that too, I think, but it's even longer since I read that, decades maybe Laughing

, so I can't remember what it's like from that point of view.) It did feel like it was set a while before the Chalet books, though there can't be more than a couple of years in it.

This is the only La Rochelle I've read, and I'm looking forward to the others, when I manage to get hold of them!

#18: Author: Maeve, Location: Romania

Posted: Sat May 05, 2007 3:42 pm
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I've just read this for the first time (I'm trying to do a complete read-through of everything to go along with the formal discussions this time through!) and quite enjoyed it. I did find Gerry's worship of Margaret/Peggy a bit OTT and soppy, especially as in the CS, they are always so down on this kind of "sentimentality."

Kathy S. wrote:

Quote:

One thing that did strike me as uncommon in the genre, if true to life, was the portrayal of differing faces of characters in home vs. school environments.

I especially liked this back and forthing between home and school settings. It gave a fuller picture of the different characters and also spoke to how we can be quite different people in different parts of our lives.

#19: Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland

Posted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 5:22 pm
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Alison H wrote:

When I first read this I felt as if it must've been written years and years before the earliest CS books, even though I knew it wasn't. It's probably just me, but the style of the prose - not the storyline as such, just the way it was written - seemed to be from an earlier age. That's not a criticism, just an observation!

Absolutely. The horse-as-transport, the sailor suits for the children, the importance of skirt lengths... all these things made me feel much more as if I were reading an L. M. Montgomery book (and we know EBD was a fan of her) rather than an EBD. The large family setting reinforces this. I haven't read the Dimsie books yet - are they comparable to LMM too?

#20: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 11:18 am
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I bought 'Gerry Goes To School' last Saturday, gulped it down and enjoyed it.

Gerry's transformation into an ordinary sort of schoolgirl was rapid, but it does pay to remember that she was already longing for friends when she was still living with her aunts, even though she was obedient to them and never did anything to upset them, but the inner rebellion was already there. Gerry knew, inside herself, that the life that she was living was too sheltered and old-fashioned, and she was tired of it.

I think that a point to remember is that Peggy and Helen Trevennor were welcoming and friendly to Gerry, and helped her enormously. That first morning at the vicarage was a turning point for the child, the real start of a new, different life. She went from extensive piano practice and sitting demurely on a stool to do her embroidery (and this was holiday time for her) to lessons in a large school with a very mixed bunch of girls. Apart from the first day when her old-fashioned upbringing comes through, she has to sink or swim. She chose to swim and enjoy her new environment, learning in different ways from before, and also learning to judge character, and enjoy her life.

I think, too, that though Gerry gets far more freedom at the Trevennors, she still has to comply with the rules of the household, and learn to do household tasks, and the conduct of the entire family is governed by rules that we would find extremely restrictive and old-world, and certainly focussed far more on the community than on personal wants and needs.

I enjoyed the Trevennor family, they fitted well together, and it was good to see a large family and its friendships and quarrels, and the sensation of real life, lived in all its hurries and complexities, the problems they had, and above all, the sharing they they all did.

Gerry, perhaps, also transferred her loyalties to the Trevennors. She was loyal to those she loved, as we see when she comes out with her aunts' prejudice against actors and acting, and defends them.

It was also good to meet the Athertons, who, as we know, figure in the La Rochelle series, and in the CS too.

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