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#1: Books: Jo to the Rescue Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 2:05 am
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The Quartette, plus ten children, locate to a holiday cottage on the edge of the Yorkshire Moors for a summer. There they meet some new characters who become part of the CS canon - Phoebe Wychcote, Reg Entwhistle and Zephyr Burthill. Joey helps Phoebe in many ways, not least by helping her out of a situation with the Burthills. Jack visits, and news comes from the Round House.

For how many of you is this book a favourite? Laughing

Do you like the out-of-school snapshot of the CS world? How do you find the Quartette as adults - do they still act with the same group dynamics as they did as schoolgirls? What do you think of Sybil being brought there with them? Could Joey's interest in Phoebe and Reg be construed as interfering rather than helpful? Did you think the 'humorous incidents' (eg the burglar) were funny?

There are lots of things to talk about in relation to this book - please join in below Very Happy

Next Sunday: The Mystery at the Chalet School

#2: Author: Lolly, Location: Back in London

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 10:26 am
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I really liked this one - although I thought the Zephyr Burthill storyline pretty silly and was a bit bored by Jack's heroics. I don't usually think EBD was at her best describing Joey's domestics, probably because she had no experience of having a family herself, but I enjoyed the descriptions of the family on holiday and also Joey's relationship with her friends. I also like the glimpse of the grown up Robin.

For me this is probably the turning point...I'm not so keen on the books that come after this one as I find her sermonizing a bit annoying, but in this book Joey hasn't yet become 'supermum'.

#3: Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 10:37 am
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I like seeing the Quartette together - and it's also nice to see EBD acknowledging the existence of the North of England which she does all too rarely, especially considering that she was a Northerner herself!

I don't really see the point of the Zephyr storyline or the silly storyline with the burglar, but I like Phoebe and Frank and wish that we saw more of them later on. It's also nice to see one of EBD's few attempts at being romantic Laughing

- it's rather clumsily done (the bit where Phoebe sees Joey and Jack looking at each other and thinks how sweet it is) but it's nice all the same. And of course it's nice that Frank and Phoebe get together too Very Happy

.

Sybil was presumably packed off with the others to give Madge, who was expecting Ailie at the time, some peace and quiet - she might have felt pushed out, but she seems fine about it so that's OK. The bits about the triplets having to confess their sins worry me a bit, but that's been discussed before.

The one part of it that I really don't like, though, is the attitude towards Reg: I know that it's a different time and all the rest of it, but the remarks about how Reg must "get" his ambition to be a doctor from his father's side because his mother's family were working-class just really grates on me. I also find it unrealistic that Jack and Joey, who can't have been that wealthy and already had 4 children of their own to support, should have offered to put a virtual stranger through medical school.

.

#4: Author: Sunglass, Location: Usually London

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 4:47 pm
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Jo to the Rescue for me is a truly bizarre novel - most of it is about housework, with a few fairly wild cello-stealing, Zephyr-saving, Phoebe-curing plots tacked on for good measure. Honestly, EBD has always specialised in repetition - the way you have to with a long school series, I suppose, where new girls keep getting introduced to the CS rules etc etc - but this one takes the biscuit for EBD dementedly putting in as much domestic detail as possible!

I know some of this is down to the fact that Joey and Co and a whole parcel of offspring are supposed to be roughing it with no servants with them - despite the fact that they have two part-time chars coming in for the heavy work, and Debby ends up taking over a lot of the rest. But virtually every single chapter contains endless descriptions of making and serving meals, washing and feeding children, making coffee, milk-fetching, making beds, carving meat, dusting, polishing floors etc etc. I know that large chunks of the average life are spent on precisely this kind of chore, but it tends to be omitted from fiction in general, and here I think it swamps the more melodramatic bits of plot.

I'm never quite sure what EBD would have expected her original audience to make of this - would she have intended them to enjoy/be surprised by the fact that a Countess and 'a doctor's wife -a lady' (to quote Zephyr Burthill) are seen hoeing in at housework? Is she making some kind of point about how four women can perfectly happily share a house without scrapping? I find the depiction of Sybil as domestic helper a bit problematic - we never see her do anything but read and help out with chores, and she seems pathetically grateful for the smallest adult attention...

What tends to crack me up are some of what seem to me unnecessary elaborations in domestic procedure - even on a day we've been told several times is scorchingly hot, Louis and Tessa, aged three and two, are undressed and put into dressing gowns before being bathed! (A fear of infant nudity? The same thing comes up again in one of the Swiss books where a baby - Cecil? - is put into a dressing gown despite being put into her bath immediately after she's undressed, but I suppose that might be down to the cold, rather than some sense of baby nudity being improper!)

Also, we are still on rationing during this novel, aren't we? They seem to drink copious amounts of tea and coffee!

#5: Author: patmac, Location: Yorkshire England

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 7:06 pm
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I was a child when I read it first and the Zephyr and the burglars bit didn't bother me at all then. Wink

so she got at least one of her audience right.

I've always liked the book for it's portrayal of the quartet as adults and Simone's maturity which comes across so well. But I do tend to like the holiday books anyway.

I do remember being a bit horrified that they were able to change Reg's life so dramatically and, apparently casually, and he never got a mention again till he was a doctor at the San. But then, I've got a soft spot for Reg anyway!

#6: Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 7:49 pm
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Sunglass wrote:

Jo to the Rescue for me is a truly bizarre novel - most of it is about housework...

This, for *me*, is what makes it her best book! Laughing

EBD was all about selling a lifestyle and this book was where she indulged in a manual.

Also, because I am an adult now, my favourite parts of the CS are the bits that feature the adults most - another reason why this book ranks so high with me.

#7: Author: Sunglass, Location: Usually London

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 9:20 pm
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Róisín wrote:

This, for *me*, is what makes it her best book! Laughing

EBD was all about selling a lifestyle and this book was where she indulged in a manual.

Absolutely she's selling a lifestyle - but I suppose I'd see the most immediately appealing aspects of that lifestyle in the more obviously 'continental' bits of the School - curtsies, Kartoffeln and trilingualism etc. Dainty cubicles and TTirolean lakes and so on. Isn't this book one of her least life-style-y, or am I misunderstanding what you mean?

#8: Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 11:00 pm
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Sunglass wrote:

Róisín wrote:

This, for *me*, is what makes it her best book! Laughing

EBD was all about selling a lifestyle and this book was where she indulged in a manual.

I mean lifestyle as in her middle-to-upper-class ideals of literally how to live eg what to eat, when to eat it, how to do your hair, what way to cut the bread for the tea, and what the proper conversation is to have around that tea etc etc. It's the detail in the ordinary, rather than in the exceptional (which is what I would see as attractive in the continental bits).

That said, a summer spent in 'Yorkshire moors' with a quartette of four different nationalities, was already fairly exotic to the eleven year old reader on the west coast of Ireland which I was Laughing

#9: Author: andi, Location: London

Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 11:00 pm
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This never used to rate as one of my favourites - then I re-read it when I'd had a couple of months of being ill, and suddenly appreciated how nice it would be to have Joey sweep in and solve all my problems, and fix me up with a doctor to boot! Laughing

#10: Author: Sunglass, Location: Usually London

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2008 11:38 am
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Róisín wrote:

I get you. Yes, it strikes me there is something of the latter-day conduct book in lots of EBD, with lots of behavioural instruction for the aspirational. I notice it more in CS books where an ungroomed new girl is introduced to EBD notions of 'daintiness' (Ruey Richardson being taught to brush her hair so as to preserve her pillowcases etc) - but Rescue doesn't focus it around someone new being introduced to this world - this is just the way this is. Even if you are roughing it with ten children on the moors, everyone will still sponge their faces and hands before tea and sit down around a dining table. (Though there's a Lifestyle Baby moment in 'A Future CS Girl' that always cracks me up - the Maynards are making their way to the Tiernsee, get delayed en route by the tree falling, and as they finally approach Die Blumen, Geoff, a tired small baby, is depicted as longing for his milk, his cot and 'a nice, clean nighty'! Because God forbid that an EBD baby would happily countenance sleep in his grubby day clothes...)

Also, I've always enjoyed the way that the Quartette's faded old ginghams and wreathed plaits are coded as more genteel than Zephyr Burthill's new-money elegance and make-up (which makes her look like an 'Easter Egg' - something that always reminds me of the 'Beauty School Drop-out' part of 'Grease'...)

Presumably the al fresco dining and pretty wicker furniture felt exotic to her original audience anyway, who would have been dealing with the dinginess and restrictions of the end of the war.

#11: Author: tiernsee, Location: Devon

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2008 12:50 pm
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I think the holiday books are some of my favourites. It is good to see different stories which don't involve the standard plot line of a new girl arrives at the school, has problems and Jo/Mary-Lou/Len sorts them out!
This isn't though my favourite of the fill-ins (that one is Chalet School Reunion, which overall is my favourite book) and I do agree that the Zephyr/Phoebe/cello triangle is a little bizarre. It is good, though, to see the quartette in a different situation and how they interact with each other. An enjoyable read and much better than the later Swiss books.

#12: Author: Mona, Location: Hertfordshire

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2008 12:54 pm
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Hmm, yes, it is a bit of a lifestyle manual, isn't it?

I really enjoy this book, mostly because it's the only time we really see the Quartette all together as adults, and I like the glimpse of how their friendship developed as their lives changed.
The Zephyr plot seems fantastically unlikely, but is entertaining all the same.
The one thing that does bother me is the relationship between Phoebe and Frank Peters. I'm sure I wouldn't have noticed it had I first read the book as a child, and perhaps standards of medical ethics were different then (although I doubt it), but Phoebe's engagement, within what seems to be a matter of weeks, to a doctor who was treating her, is just all sorts of wrong. I I think it's the fact that Jem and Jack seem to actively encourage it that bothers me most. I like Phoebe and Frank together, but really just can't get past the utter inappropriateness of their relationship.

#13: Author: Sunglass, Location: Usually London

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2008 1:07 pm
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Mona wrote:

The one thing that does bother me is the relationship between Phoebe and Frank Peters. I'm sure I wouldn't have noticed it had I first read the book as a child, and perhaps standards of medical ethics were different then (although I doubt it), but Phoebe's engagement, within what seems to be a matter of weeks, to a doctor who was treating her, is just all sorts of wrong. I I think it's the fact that Jem and Jack seem to actively encourage it that bothers me most. I like Phoebe and Frank together, but really just can't get past the utter inappropriateness of their relationship.

This always strikes me a hugely problematic, too. It's just terrifically inappropriate and presumptuous for someone medically treating someone with a serious chronic illness to allow himself to act on a sexual interest in the patient, particularly when it's evident that said patient is entirely unconscious of the situation - and when common sense suggests that agitation might well problematise her progress.

However, the autocratic doctor who assumes medical authority over a fragile woman (whom he then marries) is one of EBD's givens - Jack appears to to spend half his marriage enforcing bedrest on Joey and sedating her without her knowledge...

#14: Author: Miss Di, Location: Newcastle, NSW

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 2:16 am
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Sunglass wrote:

Though there's a Lifestyle Baby moment in 'A Future CS Girl' that always cracks me up - the Maynards are making their way to the Tiernsee, get delayed en route by the tree falling, and as they finally approach Die Blumen, Geoff, a tired small baby, is depicted as longing for his milk, his cot and 'a nice, clean nighty'! Because God forbid that an EBD baby would happily countenance sleep in his grubby day clothes...

Maybe it was code for a nice clean nappy. Given that no one in CS world uses toilets though I doubt it!

I don't like the way that Joey tries not to let Jack know what Margot is like (tanties and so on) but that is from a modern point of view. For the 1940s he was probably as hands on as a dad ever got to be.

#15: Author: JayB, Location: SE England

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 10:59 am
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Miss Di wrote:

I don't like the way that Joey tries not to let Jack know what Margot is like (tanties and so on) but that is from a modern point of view. For the 1940s he was probably as hands on as a dad ever got to be.

Does this take place the summer after Jack was reported dead? He still had to spend quite a long time recuperating when he came home, didn't he? Maybe Jo had fallen into the habit of being overprotective of him and shielding him from family problems during that period. Understandable, and a nice reversal of roles, for once!

It's a very, very long time since I read this book, so I can't really contribute any useful comments.

#16: Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 8:10 pm
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All babies wore nighties in those days I think. I certainly don't remember seeing anything special for male babies, and bought nighties before my first was born. Babygrows were just coming in then and I had lots of those too. But nighties for night-time.

#17: Author: Sunflower,

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 9:28 pm
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I remember thinking that the frienship between Phoebe and Reg was unusual, when I first read the book when I was younger, but I totally accepted the whole business with the burglar.

I remember loving the portrayal of the Vicars wife. she was a cartoon charachter! Very Happy

#18: Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 9:36 pm
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What did annoy me hugely about this book was that it was impossible to tell what age Reg and Zephyr were, until it was explicitly stated that he was 12 and she was 16 (or something along those lines). Until that point, they could really have been any age, from the way that EBD talked about them.

#19: Author: Sunglass, Location: Usually London

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 11:55 pm
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Pat wrote:

All babies wore nighties in those days I think. I certainly don't remember seeing anything special for male babies, and bought nighties before my first was born. Babygrows were just coming in then and I had lots of those too. But nighties for night-time.

I didn't mean that the idea of a baby wearing a nighty was unusual at that time - it just cracked me up that EBD represents a tired, hungry small baby as specifically longing for his clean nightclothes! The right kind of baby (the Maynard kind) clearly has to be dainty in its habits!

Maybe Miss Di is right, and the clean nighty is EBD code for a clean nappy - her babies always appear to default to freshly-powdered and chuckling, rather than producers of explosive nappyfuls of horrors...

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

Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 9:12 pm
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Sunglass wrote:

What tends to crack me up are some of what seem to me unnecessary elaborations in domestic procedure - even on a day we've been told several times is scorchingly hot, Louis and Tessa, aged three and two, are undressed and put into dressing gowns before being bathed! (A fear of infant nudity? The same thing comes up again in one of the Swiss books where a baby - Cecil? - is put into a dressing gown despite being put into her bath immediately after she's undressed, but I suppose that might be down to the cold, rather than some sense of baby nudity being improper!)

Time and place - that was the norm back then. Even now, I (born ten years later than this story was set) feel rather odd if I don't put a dressing-gown on between my bedroom and the bathroom, and I'd not dream of doing so when visiting my parents. At least, not if I weren't wearing a nightie - my nighties are perfectly decent, so I don't worry if I am wearing one!

#21: Author: Sunglass, Location: Usually London

Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 9:28 pm
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Mrs Redboots wrote:

But for a small baby in arms, when cold wasn't an issue, and it was being undressed to be put straight into a bath?

#22: Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster

Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 9:38 pm
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That's not necessary unless they're being undressed in the bedroom and carried into the bathroom. Even then I'd have thought wrapping in a towel to be sufficient.

#23: Author: KB, Location: Melbourne, Australia

Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 10:35 pm
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I had a memory of a baby Maynard being carried down a hallway wrapped in a towel. However while hunting for it, I found this instead, from Three Go:

Quote:

Mary-Lou jumped up from the low stood on which she had been sitting, for Anna came in with the big cans of hot and cold water, and when Auntie Jo had tested the temperature of the mixture with her elbow, Michael was popped in. He sat shrieking delightedly, and splashing vigorously. Jo soaped him carefully, and then let the small girl squeeze the sponge over him until all the soap was gone, and he was lifted out on to the warm towel and dry-patted.
'Now you can go to the others, Mary-Lou,' said his mother as she picked up the big puff

The mind boggles! Shocked

#24: Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster

Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 10:41 pm
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I would guess she meant a powder puff. A soft thing for patting on loose powder. Mum used to use loose powder (different sort!!) on her face and had a small powder puff for that.

#25: Author: Kathy_S, Location: midwestern US

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2008 1:05 am
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I have a feeling the puff anxiety must involve one of those local language innuendos that go over my head. Confused

It sounded like normal application of baby powder to me, though admittedly the big tins of powder that required a puff were replaced by plastic shaker bottles very early in my childhood.

***
This was the only CS text I hadn't read as of 2005, when I got to visit Patmac's collection. Very Happy

(Now, thanks to GGBP, I have my very own copy. Smile

) So, no long-held opinions, but I do enjoy this book, particularly the general domesticity and the interactions between the quartet. Simone, especially, comes into her own. The caring attitude of the lot of them -- Jack, Reg, Phoebe & Debby included -- makes the whole book a good comfort read.

The concept of spoiled-rich-girl-coveting-cello, and the resulting antics, didn't seem at all out of keeping to me, though Zephyr's acquiescence to the Robin plan and its success seemed remarkably bump-free. Usually in the series book genre it takes a few setbacks and a dramatic rescue before spoiled-rich-girl becomes human.

The one thing that does strike me as odd is the lack of emotion over Bob's death. It comes across more as an inconvenience than a tragedy.

***

As usual, I had vocabulary questions.
1. Is "sodger" derived from a real word, or is it a pure Debbyism? (I started out thinking it was a local pronunciation of 'soldier,' but that didn't make a lot of sense in the context. It could as easily rhyme with "roger.")
2. What's a wimberry? From the color I guessed it was more likely a blueberry/huckleberry relation than something from the blackberry/raspberry connection.
3. Whatever a Li-Lo is, two babies can lie on it.

#26: Author: Sunglass, Location: Usually London

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2008 1:29 am
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Kathy_S wrote:

I have a feeling the puff anxiety must involve one of those local language innuendos that go over my head. Confused

The one thing that does strike me as odd is the lack of emotion over Bob's death. It comes across more as an inconvenience than a tragedy.

***

As usual, I had vocabulary questions.
1. Is "sodger" derived from a real word, or is it a pure Debbyism? (I started out thinking it was a local pronunciation of 'soldier,' but that didn't make a lot of sense in the context. It could as easily rhyme with "roger.")
2. What's a wimberry? From the color I guessed it was more likely a blueberry/huckleberry relation than something from the blackberry/raspberry connection.
3. Whatever a Li-Lo is, two babies can lie on it.

1. 'Sodger' only makes sense to me as 'soldier' - and a reference to the sergeant-majorish tendencies of the Vicar's wife. I've seen it used elsewhere as an indicator of working-class speech, so I'd say less a Debbyism per se than EBD indicating non-standard English.
2. I think wimberries are what I would call bilberries, though I couldn't swear to it. Small blue or purplish berries that grow wild - possibly some distant relative of US blueberries?
3. A Li-lo is an inflatable air-mattress.

I didn't immediately understand why a powder puff was worthy of comment either, but I'm assuming a double-entendre with 'poof' (UK slang for a gay man, in case that doesn't translate).

And I absolutely agree about the matter-of-fact way in which Joey mentions Bob's death - it's always struck me as very odd! He may not be a favourite with Joey, but he's still her husband's brother - and it's not so long since she thought Jack was dead in the war! And when you think of the emotion devoted to whoever the random San patient was who 'fell asleep to wake with God', back in the Tyrol days, you'd think Jack's brother's demise deserved a little more narrative attention! But it isn't even mentioned as an item of news, just in passing as Joey says that she and Jack may not move back to the continent with the San, if it does, because of the problem of Pretty Maids suddenly being Jack's...

#27: Author: Liz K, Location: Bedfordshire

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2008 7:29 am
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Kathy_S wrote:

As usual, I had vocabulary questions.
3. Whatever a Li-Lo is, two babies can lie on it.

In agreement with Sunglass, a Li-Lo is an airbed. When we went camping when I was little, we had 4 of them; I've still got one although it's not too comfortable nowadays with my back!!!

As for Zephyr's age, isn't there a description of her wearing so much make-up she resembles an Easter Egg? In which case, I'd have put her in her early 20s.

#28: Author: Travellers Joy, Location: Middle of Nowhere

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2008 7:57 am
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Liz K wrote:

As for Zephyr's age, isn't there a description of her wearing so much make-up she resembles an Easter Egg? In which case, I'd have put her in her early 20s.

She's 19 (p171), around 6 months or so older than Robin.

#29: Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2008 8:44 am
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Wimberries are small blueberries. I think they're called bilberries in America.

#30: Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2008 7:35 pm
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A puff would be a fairly normal thing to apply talcum powder with, no?

#31: Author: Kathy_S, Location: midwestern US

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2008 8:16 pm
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Thank you, everyone.

My dictionary translates bilberry as "The European whortleberry (Vaccinium myrtillus)" or a similar species. I think I'm happy enough just placing wimberry as a Vaccinium (blueberry).

#32: Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2008 10:26 pm
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Seeing as it's Sunday night and I'm procrastinating from going to bed, I've just looked this up! Apparently, what is known as a wimberry here in Lancashire, and also in Yorkshire (where Rescue is set) and in most other parts of Northern England, the Midlands and Wales (or sometimes as a whinberry), is known as a whortleberry in the South of England, a blaeberry in Scotland, and a bilberry and sometimes alternatively a huckleberry in America. Why the same small fruit has so many different names I have no idea Confused

.

I'm sure no-one wanted to know that, but I thought I'd write it down anyway!

#33: Author: KB, Location: Melbourne, Australia

Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2008 11:13 pm
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Okay, so clearly my imagination works differently from everyone else's. I imagined that the puff being picked up was Michael wrapped in the towel and wondered how large and fluffy the towel must have been!

...

*crickets chirp*

...

I'll go now...

#34: Author: Kathy_S, Location: midwestern US

Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 12:33 am
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Alison H wrote:

Seeing as it's Sunday night and I'm procrastinating from going to bed, I've just looked this up! Apparently, what is known as a wimberry here in Lancashire, and also in Yorkshire (where Rescue is set) and in most other parts of Northern England, the Midlands and Wales (or sometimes as a whinberry), is known as a whortleberry in the South of England, a blaeberry in Scotland, and a bilberry and sometimes alternatively a huckleberry in America. Why the same small fruit has so many different names I have no idea Confused

.

I'm sure no-one wanted to know that, but I thought I'd write it down anyway!

Very interesting! I was originally taught to use huckleberry only for Gaylussacia, another genus of the Vaccineaceae with bigger seeds, but it seems that's not really a hard and fast rule. However, the genealogy of that whole group seems very confused, so it's not surprising the common names are also twizzled up.

#35: Author: jennifer, Location: Taiwan

Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 8:06 am
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I like the scenes of Jack and Joey and the Quintette together as adults, away from the school. I hadn't thought about the lifestyle manual, but am curious to reread with that in mind.

The Zephyr/cello/burglary seemed a bit far fetched, at least when the burglary kicked in. The Phoebe storyline was pure EBD, if not professional by modern standards.

#36: Author: JenniferG, Location: Durham

Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 9:10 am
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How strange! I was brought up extremely close to where "Jo to the Rescue" is set, and we've always called that particular fruit bilberries. The only time I've heard them called wimberries was on a trip to Wales last year..

-Jennifer

#37: Author: Lolly, Location: Back in London

Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 9:54 am
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I think they're what we called whortleberries when we used to pick them on Dartmoor. Smaller than blueberries & much nicer to eat.

#38: Author: Sunglass, Location: Usually London

Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 10:10 am
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JenniferG wrote:

How strange! I was brought up extremely close to where "Jo to the Rescue" is set, and we've always called that particular fruit bilberries. The only time I've heard them called wimberries was on a trip to Wales last year..

-Jennifer

*laughs*

Come on, this is EBD, the woman who has a native French speaker tell a student that 'est-ce que' is always followed by the subjunctive! Accuracy isn't her strong point!

Do we know whether she even knew Yorkshire at all?

#39: Jo to the rescue Author: JoMoran, Location: Wiltshire, England

Posted: Thu Feb 21, 2008 7:53 pm
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I like this one because we get to see something of the quartet grown up, although it is a very 'busy' book and I can understand why the publishers didn't think the readers would be very keen on it - hence why its hard to find - thank goodness for GGBP. As for the nightie thing - I think this was probably normal for the time and dressing gowns definately.

#40: Re: Jo to the rescue Author: keren, Location: Israel

Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 12:18 pm
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JoMoran wrote:

I like this one because we get to see something of the quartet grown up, although it is a very 'busy' book and I can understand why the publishers didn't think the readers would be very keen on it - hence why its hard to find - thank goodness for GGBP. As for the nightie thing - I think this was probably normal for the time and dressing gowns definately.

This is what I wanted to write
It is a rare and possibly one of the only opportunities to see the Quartette together grown up after so much was made of them in the Tyrol books (they had sort of vanished away) and a long time passes until we see all 4 together again (I think coming of Age)

this is my only hard back actually

#41: Author: patmac, Location: Yorkshire England

Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2008 5:53 pm
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I'd pronounce sodger like lodger. My Dad used it to describe someone very like 'the Vicaress'. He came from the Rochdale in Lancashire which is only about 13 miles from Halifax in Yorkshire and it's used here, too - unlike several other dialect/slang words which are quite different.

Kathy - yes, the Vaccinium family is incredibly confusing and I've looked them up before because I've seen them in other countries in Europe. They grow in any temperate or sub-arctic climate with acidic soil. Your blueberries and huckleberries are closely related and I wonder if they are a very old Genus which survived continental drift?

I've always called them bilberries btw!

I've always thought that EBDs unconcern with Bob's death is due to her including it as a plot device to add some uncertainty to where the Maynards were going to live? She does make Jo seem casual and unconcerned about it but, in the context of the conversation, I think we might well be criticizing her for writing an emotionally overwrought Jo if she had seemed upset.

Jack, of course, was a man and not allowed emotions Rolling Eyes

#42: Author: Anjali, Location: Sydney, Australia

Posted: Mon Mar 03, 2008 5:02 am
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This was among the first paperbacks that I bought and read as a child....and is one of my favourites. I too really like seeing the quartette all grown up. Re the 'lifestyle manual' observation, I think that's a really good point, because when I first read it it seemed like an idyllic holiday to me - very far removed from the large family vacs that we had. My mother and aunts compared very unfavourably in my mind to Jo and her friends:)!

Back then, I also accepted the Zephyr-Phoebe-cello triangle unquestioningly and thoroughly enjoyed the storyline - though I wasn't at all convinced even then by her being cured by a couple of months in the San, a TB hospital(my dad has rheumatism and wonder drugs are unknown even today)!

On the whole, I find it an interesting book beacuse it's very different, even from the other holiday books.

#43: Author: Sunglass, Location: Usually London

Posted: Mon Mar 03, 2008 10:43 am
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patmac wrote:

I've always thought that EBDs unconcern with Bob's death is due to her including it as a plot device to add some uncertainty to where the Maynards were going to live? She does make Jo seem casual and unconcerned about it but, in the context of the conversation, I think we might well be criticizing her for writing an emotionally overwrought Jo if she had seemed upset.

I think that's what I thought was strange, though. I appreciate it's only a plot device involving characters we've never met, and introduced just so Jo and Jack and their ever-increasing family won't just tramp predictably off to wherever the San next goes. But EBD has carefully constructed Jo as a very sensitive, emotional, imaginative character, and we've seen her mourn the death of San patients she's never met, and in Rescue be immediately moved by Phoebe's plight within two minutes of meeting her, so it still seems to me to have been an odd decision of EBD's not to show Joey as even slightly moved by her brother-in-law's death, even if only on Jack's account. And it's not just her apparent unmoved-ness by the death of a man we're told she has a fairly warm relationship with (although she dislikes his wife), but the fact that is only mentioned in passing in relation to her and Jack's future plans. She's known the news since the morning, but is only mentioning it now! When have we ever seen EBD pass up an entirely legitimate reason to show Joey as distraught?

Does anyone think this may have been one of the moments she planned to write Jo off in a different direction, away from the CS, and that maybe she planned novels about Jo as chatelaine of Pretty Maids?

#44: Author: Catherine, Location: Newcastle upon Tyne

Posted: Mon Mar 03, 2008 1:53 pm
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This is one of my favourites ... I didn't read it until I had read all of the school stories as Armada didn't publish the holiday stories until after I'd collected up the rest.

It makes a refreshing change from the school setting and as others have said, it is good to see the Quartette together again. It has never struck me as anything other than a story about four friends and their families on holiday together and yes, it may be too domesticated for some people but if it was full of wild adventures, people would be complaining that it was unrealistic. I think the cello plot was quite realistic - there are plenty of people who will go to any lengths to get what they want and if they've got money / influence that can get other people to do the dirty work for them, so much the better.

The only thing that did stand out for me is that though it is set during the Second World War, and barring the odd mention of war, it reads much more as though it is set in peacetime. I think this has been discussed before though.

#45: Author: Travellers Joy, Location: Middle of Nowhere

Posted: Mon Mar 03, 2008 2:06 pm
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The only problem I had with the cello plot was that with all the attempts Mr Burthill made to get the cello by legitimate means - or semi legitimate when he sunk to emotional blackmail - he was clearly going to be the prime suspect in any attempts to get it by foul means, so that part of the plot doesn't really stand up to close scrutiny. The fact that he was so pushy was quite believable, just not the burglary part of it.

#46: Author: patmac, Location: Yorkshire England

Posted: Mon Mar 03, 2008 4:54 pm
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Sunglass wrote:

Does anyone think this may have been one of the moments she planned to write Jo off in a different direction, away from the CS, and that maybe she planned novels about Jo as chatelaine of Pretty Maids?

I hadn't thought of that but it is possible - who would she have put in central place instead? The triplets are much too young and she'd already written a rather ruined character for Sybil. If it had been later, I'd have said Mary-Lou but she hasn't arrived yet.

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