The CBB :: View topic - Books: Mary-Lou of the Chalet School

I agree with most of the comments above. But what really puzzled me was the state of Mary-Lou's hair on the cover of my paperback (the yellow Armada - prob 1970s). I read the book waiting for an incident where her head was covered in autumn leaves.

This is also the book where they have 'the great famine' because they had a veggie diet for a few days. The poor dears.

though one notices that all the school, not just the Catholics, obey the 'no meat on Friday' rule.

(I always imagine Jack saying 'Not tonight dear, I've a headache', and Joey saying 'But I'm ovulating! And the Bettanys are drawing even! Must have biggest family!')

I never understood why Mary-Lou's mother and Emmy's parents weren't informed right away. Surely someone from the school could called to informed them that the girls had been in an accident.

I think the thing that really annoys me is the way that ML, Emmy and Margot are treated after the accident. Joey spend several days camped in ML room while ignoring her own daughter who cried herself almost sick.

Even arriving late after her grandmother's funeral (and why does no one mention this, or say they're sorry for her loss?)

It's the beginning of the end for Doris of course as EBD kills off all ML's relatives (and friend's parents) so that she can be truly Joey's. Why didn't she make her an orphan whom Joey could adopt?

Although I imagine it can't have been easy to get fish on the Platz, or indeed anything except locally available dairy produce. Fresh fruit and veg in particular must have been hard to come by, even in season - no wonder we hear so much about bottling and preserving.
.

but on the fish front, there were two fairly large bodies of water at Interlaken!!!!

(I find myself wondering how other Catholic fasts and dietary restrictions would have worked, given that all the school apparently eats the same food, and there's a lot of emphasis on people eating a 'proper meal'? For instance, Catholics on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday would have had to fast (well, one meatless meal and a two collations), which would have meant skipping a CS meal, and given that Catholics regularly at the minimum gave up eating any kind of sweet food for Lent, that would cause some difficulties with the very fancy twist- and cake-based Kaffee und Kuchen...)

Yes, but there were a lot of people living on the Platz - School, San, pensions, local residents - and limited access - one road suitable for heavy vehicles (which IIRC went a long way round and added miles to the journey) and one light passenger railway which probably didn't carry much freight.

Having plenty of something at Interlaken is one thing; getting it up to the Platz in large quantities is something else entirely. Apart from the logistical considerations, food on the Platz would almost certainly have been more expensive than down in Interlaken, because of the transport costs.

They wouldn't have been in school for Good Friday, as the holidays would have begun. As to fasting, children under 18 don't have to - though the Catholic staff would have had to. But fasting for a few staff wouldn't have been a problem, I shouldn't imagine, not just for one day.

The latter would have been difficult, given that milky coffee is practically its own food group at the CS!

What I never understood was how OOAO was supposed to have gained all this remarkable wisdom and such an enormous ability to sort people out, virtually overnight - she was, what, 15? Maybe turned 16? At least EBD gave Joey until she was 21 or so - it's really only in War that she has become the Joey we know and love(?) in the later books.

I think that's a fair point, that ML's wisdom is not really accounted for at all. The reason that's always given by EBD for her 'wise beyond her years'-ness AND her 'cheek' (only, of course 'it's not cheek, it's just Mary Lou!', though frankly, I never quite grasped the difference - is something only cheek if you intend it to be?) is that she spent her early life with older people, but that doesn't make a great deal of sense to me.

MaryR wrote:

We always fasted from the year we made our first communions, in 1970s Ireland, and Lent self-deprivation was taken very seriously at home and at school even for children. Also, they would almost certainly have been at school for Ash Wednesday, and for most of Lent, and the older Catholic girls at least, would have fasted and practiced various restricted eating during Lent.

I wonder how often, if she ever had time to/could bear to, EBD read back through the early books and re-read the way she had originally written Joey?

people like Eustacia, Polly (whose surname escapes me - the one who ran away from her elderly Guardian in the Tyrol)

Adolescent ML has lots of faults, but they are presented as virtues - her bossiness, her cheekiness, her familiarity, her busy-body tendencies, her judgementalness - all are seen as being 'just Mary-Lou'.

Somebody (member of staff, can't remember which) once did warn her to be careful or she'd turn into one of these interfering women nobody likes. Shame that that perspective seemed to get lost in the later books.

...Lesley and Hilary had “bagged” a couple near the platform by the simple means of each lying full-length on hers until the rest joined up. The Gang, augmented by Jessica and Clare, who had lately taken the new girl under her wing, fled to take their places, for Hilda Jukes and Jill Ormsby from VA were beginning to argue that they wanted those seats for their crowd.
Hilary sat up with a look of relief as Mary-Lou arrived. “For any sake, Mary-Lou, make these two realise that these seats are bagged!” she said.
Mary-Lou grinned at the pair. “Sorry; but it’s so,” she said as she pushed Hilary’s feet on to the floor and sat down. “Come on, Verity! Room for a little one!”
Hilda and Jill grimaced and retired to find seats further down the room. They knew their Mary-Lou! In any case, the remaining thirteen had been ready to back her up...

I understand why EBD had Mary-Lou recover from the accident, but it would have been interesting to see what would have happened if she had been badly injured, and not able to walk for months/years. Then how dismissive would she be of Rosamund's life, I wonder?

Frankly, I disliked Joey's character during much of the period in which she was Head Girl. She could be incredibly capricious, one moment matey with the middles and younger seniors the next moment pulling rank. I didn't blame Anne Seymour for her outburst to Simone, or was it Freda? - when she accuses Joey of being childish. I preferred Mary-Lou, actually, and I think Len was a really good Head Girl, kind as well as firm, much nicer than her mother in the role.

Maybe EBD subconsciously intended sabotaging Joey's character and at some level was aware of how obnoxious the adult Joey character could be.

the first we hear of Margot's weak consitution is in Peggy, no illness was ever referred to before that, so no worries there!

Joey, however, is apparently bouncing with energy just after giving birth to triplets - despite the fact that she's so delicate that she gets seriously ill from standing near the door in cold weather .

At the risk of sounding morbid, it's a shame. We see a lot of Joey playing slidey mats et al, but we don't really see much of the more serious and caring side of her character. She comes across very well in Rescue, for example, when she's asking Jack what can be done to improve Phoebe's quality of life.

We're told from quite early on that Margot is delicate, but we never actually see any of it. <snip> but we never really see Joey and Jack having to cope with Margot's "delicacy". And Phil is on the road to recovery before her illness is even mentioned.

At the risk of sounding morbid, it's a shame. We see a lot of Joey playing slidey mats et al, but we don't really see much of the more serious and caring side of her character. She comes across very well in Rescue, for example, when she's asking Jack what can be done to improve Phoebe's quality of life. It would've been good to've seen more of that, and seeing her coping with Margot or Phil being ill would have been one way of showing it.

"Mrs. Landon, I'm afraid Betty has once again shown that she is still very short of what we expect from our CS seniors. Owing to her outrageous tactlessness she caused another girl to fling a bookend at her head resulting in a near fatal injury. We do not intend to punish the girl any further as she has punished herself enough. Poor child, she was certain that she had killed Betty and, indeed, had Betty been killed it would have been her own fault entirely!"

I know this point has been made before, but it has always amazed me that the CS is prepared to allow violent outbursts go virtually unpunished. Len's dismissive attitude toward's Betty's injury and her focus on Margot's feelings only is really reprehensible, especially as it is reinforced by authority in the person of Miss.A.

But understandable in Len as she is Margot's sister and close to her so more than likely far more sympathetic to Margot than with Betty whom she isn't particularly close to. Miss A should have known better

“ All that happened was that Betty hit her head against something and cut it. It was rather a nasty knock and she was stunned at the time. Len and Margot and I were there and we got Matron Henschell and helped her to carry Betty along to her own room to have the place plastered up. As for streams of gore, what else do you expect from Junior Middles? Exaggeration is no word for the yarns that crowd can send round!”

Betty's tactlessness means that she deserved to get nearly killed by Margot.

A tactless woman. She must in some way have invited murder.

MJKB wrote:

PS. Mrs Landon, as we at the CS are sure you will understand, your daughter is a minor character whose only characteristic is tactlessness, who never gets a major storyline and only appears in the narrative when someone calls attention to her being tactless. It is therefore unfortunate that she was chosen at random to be almost fatally injured by a major character who gets much more airtime and is a member of the Founding Family into the bargain. You cannot really expect us to consider your daughter's near death as anywhere near as important as the mild guilt of the major character. Yrs sincerely etc.

Author:	jennifer [ Wed Jul 16, 2008 3:03 am ]
Post subject:	Books: Mary-Lou of the Chalet School
Our OOAOML in her eponymous book; a synopses can be found here. What do you think of Mary-Lou's reformation of Jessica and the way it is handled by Joey, the mistresses and the other students? Do you like Mary-Lou as a senior? What about Emerence's big sled accident, and how the aftermath is handled (Mary-Lou's mother not being told about the accident at the time, Joey staying with Mary-Lou and not going to see Margot, Mary-Lou's response to Emerence after the accident)? Anything Else?

Author:	Anjali [ Wed Jul 16, 2008 5:43 am ]
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This book is not one of my favourites..... Mainly because I rather liked Mary-Lou upto this point, but from here on she seems to morph into part adult-Joey. She was more fun as a junior! I didn't like Joey revealing Jessica's history to ML, and I find the way Jo guilts her into butting-in rather horrifying. How would Jessica have felt had she known ML already knew her story? Mary-Lou's mother not being told about the accident immediately strikes me as another instance of the 'delicate, gentle woman' stereotype....and poor Margot, she really did try hard to stop Emerence and is rewarded by more brilliant Maynard parenting!

Author:	Elle [ Wed Jul 16, 2008 6:20 am ]
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Do we know how much was cut from the hardback? I only have the paperback. I also feel that Margot is treated very badly in this book by both Joey and Jack, but as Anjali says, that is fairly typical Maynard style parenting!

Author:	Alison H [ Wed Jul 16, 2008 6:51 am ]
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I also feel that Mary-Lou starts to become a bit of a busybody in this book - although the way that she helps Jessica is praiseworthy. Joey telling her about the Wayne/Sefton family's private business was really not appropriate. BTW, am I the only one who thinks that the accident was partly Mary-Lou's fault for standing around yelling at Emerence to stop, instead of getting out of the way?!

Author:	JayB [ Wed Jul 16, 2008 7:54 am ]
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I re-read this recently after a long time and decided it's not a favourite. I don't like the focus on one girl. Even when we get a chapter with the prefects it feels tacked on, as if EBD or someone suddenly said 'Oh, better stick a bit about the prefects in here.' I think the book lacks a feeling of the school as a community as a result. ML and Joey are both annoying here. Joey really has no business knowing the Seftons' private affairs, and she certainly has no business repeating it to ML, especially without Hilda's knowledge. (And absolutely no right to speculate on the reasons why Mrs Wayne might have married Mr Sefton.) The Seftons would have been justifiably angry if they'd known their family business was being blabbed to all and sundry. I also don't like the insistence that the fault is all on Jessica's side and that's it up to her, a fourteen year old girl, to fix her family's problems. Yes, of course it's right that Mrs Sefton should want to try to give Rosamund a better quality of life. But if that meant she had no time at all for her own daughter, I'd say Jessica had a right to feel aggrieved. And if I'd been in her position and had ML starting to preach at me about it, I'd want to give her a kick in the teeth. (And the tone-deafness thing - isn't that the sort of information that should come with a new girl from her parents or previous school?) On the other hand, much as I think ML should be slapped down from time to time, I do think the scolding she received over the cupboard incident was unfair. The Staff themselves had created a situation in which crowds of over-excited teenage girls were running madly round the house; it was inevitable that something would happen.

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Books: Mary-Lou of the Chalet School http://www.the-cbb.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4773

Author:	Sunglass [ Wed Jul 16, 2008 9:34 am ]
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This book is all about he Joey/OOAO combo at its most irritating for me. I quite agree about Joey having no business to share the Seftons' private affairs with a schoolgirl, and that Mary-Lou's butting in is entirely well-intentioned, if a bit much - but quite apart from her main 'intervention', ML is absolutely unbearably bumptious throughout this novel! Even arriving late after her grandmother's funeral (and why does no one mention this, or say they're sorry for her loss?), she immediately snaps back into Gang Boss mode, demanding to know why Jessica Wayne isn't in class, forgetting she isn't still head of the middles, haranguing her form on why they haven't sorted out Jessica in the first week, enjoying the sensation of her new hairdo, and generally taking over Joey's role of being literally unable to be in a room without being the centre of attention. I also find Joey's emotional blackmail of ML into helping Jessica unpalatable - particularly the pregnancy-related one, which I always imagine Joey deliberately setting up for the maximum emotional impact, producing the baby clothes knitting at exactly the crucial moment. Though frankly, Joey's had so many babies with apparent ease at this point that one would think it no longer counted as Extremely Special Circumstances. Especially when Joey, as ever, explains her pregnancy as wanting not to let the Bettanys catch up with the size of her own family. (I always imagine Jack saying 'Not tonight dear, I've a headache', and Joey saying 'But I'm ovulating! And the Bettanys are drawing even! Must have biggest family!') Also, it makes me smile that on the two occasions in this book, when EBD has to talk about second marriages - Jessica Wayne's mother and Mr Sefton, and Mary-Lou's mother and Verity's father - she uses the expression 'became friendly with' and 'made friends'. I know this is a children's book, but would saying 'fell in love' really have been so inappropriate?

Author:	JS [ Wed Jul 16, 2008 10:41 am ]
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I agree with most of the comments above. But what really puzzled me was the state of Mary-Lou's hair on the cover of my paperback (the yellow Armada - prob 1970s). I read the book waiting for an incident where her head was covered in autumn leaves. This is also the book where they have 'the great famine' because they had a veggie diet for a few days. The poor dears.

Author:	Sunglass [ Wed Jul 16, 2008 11:43 am ]
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JS wrote: I agree with most of the comments above. But what really puzzled me was the state of Mary-Lou's hair on the cover of my paperback (the yellow Armada - prob 1970s). I read the book waiting for an incident where her head was covered in autumn leaves. This is also the book where they have 'the great famine' because they had a veggie diet for a few days. The poor dears. I had the same edition - I'd completely forgotten that her hair is very oddly coloured in the cover illustration, and does look like she's wearing leaves on her head! (Perhaps one of St Nicholas's demons gave them to her as a punishment, only it didn't last long as she had to have her hair shaved off after the accident and subsequently grew back all curly and wondrous, when EBD decided her favourite character could no longer be stocky, straight-haired and only 'pleasant-faced'?) And yes, as a vegetarian, the Great Famine also amused me, as clearly I live in a permanent state of famine. Mind you, rationing is not far in the past, in which meat and fats were severely restricted, so I would have said that the British staff and girls at least wouldn't be panic-stricken at living on vegetables, eggs and bread for a week. nteresting that there's still a prevalent idea that growing girls need meat - rather than protein from whatever source - and Matey adds that so do the staff, as they work so hard. Presumably no vegetarians at the school at this period, if ever (Leelamani?) - though one notices that all the school, not just the Catholics, obey the 'no meat on Friday' rule. (I find myself wondering how other Catholic fasts and dietary restrictions would have worked, given that all the school apparently eats the same food, and there's a lot of emphasis on people eating a 'proper meal'? For instance, Catholics on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday would have had to fast (well, one meatless meal and a two collations), which would have meant skipping a CS meal, and given that Catholics regularly at the minimum gave up eating any kind of sweet food for Lent, that would cause some difficulties with the very fancy twist- and cake-based Kaffee und Kuchen...)

Author:	JS [ Wed Jul 16, 2008 12:09 pm ]
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I'm veggie too and am just about to tuck into a sandwich of home-made, wholemeal bread packed with seeds and filled with hummus and watercress; six baby plum tomatoes and a nectarine. Famine? I think not. I don't recall any mention of Lent either, Sunglass. Bit odd now you mention it.

Author:	JayB [ Wed Jul 16, 2008 12:16 pm ]
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Quote: though one notices that all the school, not just the Catholics, obey the 'no meat on Friday' rule. Even today in the UK, schools, works restaurants and so on, tend to serve fish on Fridays. Elizabeth I actually issued proclamations urging her subjects to eat fish on one (or more?) day a week, because there were concerns that the fishing industry was suffering from the switch to Protestantism and thus the ending of meatless days. Although I imagine it can't have been easy to get fish on the Platz, or indeed anything except locally available dairy produce. Fresh fruit and veg in particular must have been hard to come by, even in season - no wonder we hear so much about bottling and preserving. With the School, the San and the various pensions, the railway and the motor road must have had constant streams of produce coming up from Interlaken and beyond.

Author:	JustJen [ Wed Jul 16, 2008 6:16 pm ]
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I think the thing that really annoys me is the way that ML, Emmy and Margot are treated after the accident. Joey spend several days camped in ML room while ignoring her own daughter who cried herself almost sick. I never understood why Mary-Lou's mother and Emmy's parents weren't informed right away. Surely someone from the school could called to informed them that the girls had been in an accident.

Author:	Dreaming Marianne [ Wed Jul 16, 2008 6:41 pm ]
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Sunglass wrote: (I always imagine Jack saying 'Not tonight dear, I've a headache', and Joey saying 'But I'm ovulating! And the Bettanys are drawing even! Must have biggest family!') Oh dear, that made me laugh out loud! Am hesitant to comment too much on this book, as only have ever read paperbak, and that not too recently. Suffice to say that I felt terribly sorry for poor Jessica - I felt she had an awful lot heaped upon her with not too much sympathy. And Joey is pretty maddening throughout. Why is Joey such an attention-seeker? I mean, if you look all the way back to "School at", she's actually a fairly reasonable sort of human being. Sorry, slightly OT.

Author:	JayB [ Wed Jul 16, 2008 7:22 pm ]
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Quote: I never understood why Mary-Lou's mother and Emmy's parents weren't informed right away. Surely someone from the school could called to informed them that the girls had been in an accident. As I understood it, the Careys were contacted immediately, but Commander Carey didn't tell Doris at that point because she was too unwell to travel and the worry would have delayed her recovery. So that was his decision, not the School's. I don't think anything is said about whether Emmy's parents were told or not. Quote: I think the thing that really annoys me is the way that ML, Emmy and Margot are treated after the accident. Joey spend several days camped in ML room while ignoring her own daughter who cried herself almost sick. Is anything said about why Madge didn't come? She offered to fly out for Jo Scott, whom she'd never met, in the previous book. She had much greater reason to come this time.

Author:	Abi [ Thu Jul 17, 2008 7:45 pm ]
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Maybe one of the reasons Mary-Lou is so interfering in this book (which isn't one of my favourites either) is because she's lost her Gran. Perhaps she's trying to forget, or compensate, and be the sensible person she's meant to be. There never seems to be much sympathy at the CS for people who are grieving. Having said that, I think she dealt with Jessica pretty well, especially as she's only fifteen. Girls aren't meant to be perfect at that age!

Author:	Mrs Redboots [ Sun Jul 20, 2008 2:28 pm ]
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Sunglass wrote: Even arriving late after her grandmother's funeral (and why does no one mention this, or say they're sorry for her loss?) Not Done, in those days. IIRC - and it's awhile since I last read the book - we don't actually see OOAO's arrival at the school, and presumably Miss Annersley or someone would have said something when she went to report in. But the school at large had probably been told not to say anything (as we were when someone's Mum died!).

Author:	Sunglass [ Sun Jul 20, 2008 4:04 pm ]
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Yes, I assume Miss Annersley would have said something on her arrival, and I realise that there would have been far less of a culture of discussing M-L's loss among her peers than the equivalent situation today. I do still find it odd that EBD doesn't even suggest by a single phrase that the Gang - her closest friends, especially someone like Vi, who is far from insensitive - is conscious that M-L has just lost someone she loved, even if it's only conveyed by a look of concern, or awkwardness.

Author:	Mel [ Sun Jul 20, 2008 4:46 pm ]
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This is the book where I think that EBD and Joey become totally obsessed with Mary-Lou. Again, Jo has to be there for her at a bad time because Doris is ill. (Refer back to Father's death) This means ignoring her own difficult child who needs her and also appearing heroic with the usual near collapse afterwards. It's the beginning of the end for Doris of course as EBD kills off all ML's relatives (and friend's parents) so that she can be truly Joey's. Why didn't she make her an orphan whom Joey could adopt?

Author:	Alison H [ Sun Jul 20, 2008 6:04 pm ]
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There's definitely a change in the early Swiss books in terms of both Joey and Mary-Lou becoming involved in anything and everything. The British books are far more balanced in terms of main characters - Daisy, Bride, Peggy, Gay, Tom etc never dominate in the way that Joey, Mary-Lou and to some extent Len do, and although Joey does keep popping up she doesn't quite get involved in everything the way she does in Switzerland.

Author:	claire [ Sun Jul 20, 2008 7:26 pm ]
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In Does it Again one of the girls lost her mother during the holidays and one of the triplets says they have been told not to mention it unless the girl (Nan Wentworth I think) brings it up first. Presumably Mary-Lou never brings it up

Author:	Sunglass [ Sun Jul 20, 2008 8:21 pm ]
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Mel wrote: It's the beginning of the end for Doris of course as EBD kills off all ML's relatives (and friend's parents) so that she can be truly Joey's. Why didn't she make her an orphan whom Joey could adopt? I've always assumed EBD didn't kill off Doris at this point partly at least because she was a handy offstage foil for Joey - an older, gentler, rather staid variety of mother in contrast to zingy, slangy, breezy Joey with her perennial teenage antics. When you think of it, it's interesting that Doris is always constructed as a bit of a gentle nonentity, given that she was essentially a single mother with a largely absent husband whom she must have feared dead long before the news of his death filtered back. Maybe the presence of her mother (who seems to play rather a Head of the Family role, as though she's being the absent husband) keeps her from having to be independent and spiky?

Author:	Lolly [ Mon Jul 21, 2008 8:03 am ]
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JayB wrote: Although I imagine it can't have been easy to get fish on the Platz, or indeed anything except locally available dairy produce. Fresh fruit and veg in particular must have been hard to come by, even in season - no wonder we hear so much about bottling and preserving. . True that Switzerland actually doesn't produce a lot of its own food and has to import a great deal.....but on the fish front, there were two fairly large bodies of water at Interlaken!!!!

Author:	JayB [ Mon Jul 21, 2008 9:11 am ]
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Quote: but on the fish front, there were two fairly large bodies of water at Interlaken!!!! Yes, but there were a lot of people living on the Platz - School, San, pensions, local residents - and limited access - one road suitable for heavy vehicles (which IIRC went a long way round and added miles to the journey) and one light passenger railway which probably didn't carry much freight. Having plenty of something at Interlaken is one thing; getting it up to the Platz in large quantities is something else entirely. Apart from the logistical considerations, food on the Platz would almost certainly have been more expensive than down in Interlaken, because of the transport costs.

Author:	MaryR [ Mon Jul 21, 2008 12:32 pm ]
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Sunglass wrote: (I find myself wondering how other Catholic fasts and dietary restrictions would have worked, given that all the school apparently eats the same food, and there's a lot of emphasis on people eating a 'proper meal'? For instance, Catholics on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday would have had to fast (well, one meatless meal and a two collations), which would have meant skipping a CS meal, and given that Catholics regularly at the minimum gave up eating any kind of sweet food for Lent, that would cause some difficulties with the very fancy twist- and cake-based Kaffee und Kuchen...) They wouldn't have been in school for Good Friday, as the holidays would have begun. As to fasting, children under 18 don't have to - though the Catholic staff would have had to. But fasting for a few staff wouldn't have been a problem, I shouldn't imagine, not just for one day.

Author:	Lolly [ Mon Jul 21, 2008 1:06 pm ]
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JayB wrote: Yes, but there were a lot of people living on the Platz - School, San, pensions, local residents - and limited access - one road suitable for heavy vehicles (which IIRC went a long way round and added miles to the journey) and one light passenger railway which probably didn't carry much freight. Having plenty of something at Interlaken is one thing; getting it up to the Platz in large quantities is something else entirely. Apart from the logistical considerations, food on the Platz would almost certainly have been more expensive than down in Interlaken, because of the transport costs. Well, that is certainly the case in Wengen and Muerren today, but you would be surprised what they get up there by train...given that the only other way of transporting stuff up there is by helicopter!!! Certainly that is how all the stock for the shops comes up......from Interlaken In fact in Wengen they have a small trout farm..... But my point really was that I don't think it it is any more of a stretch of the imagination to suppose that enough fish could be provided, than meat or vegetables.

Author:	jennifer [ Tue Jul 22, 2008 2:17 am ]
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In my university they always served clam chowder in the cafeteria on Fridays... I find that ML goes downhill once they hit Switzerland. In Changes and Bride she's still a cheeky middle, and gets slapped down hard but appropriately when she over steps the bounds. In Switzerland, we have the rise of The Gang to a force of nature, with ML as undisputed leader - in the previous book, they've taking to auditioning their new members on approval for most of their first term! In this book, we see her busybody tendencies coming out, ably fueled by Joey. She's not malicious about it, but she does over estimate how far she should go, and what her responsibilities are when it comes to reforming problem new girls. Plus, she's given too much detailed information about the personal history of the girl. What gets me is that after this book, the other girls discuss what a good job ML did in reforming Jessica, who is apparently known through he school as the girl ML Reformed. I agree that Jessica was given a raw deal by her parents. She went from being her mother's sole focus in life, and best friend, to having her mother absorbed in two other people, while Jessica is exiled to weekly boarding school to get her out of the way, and then shipped out of the country completely. And this at age 13. I find Joey's behaviour after the accident very cruel to her own daughter. By the sounds of it, she doesn't so much as speak to Margot, who is extremely upset and relatively innocent in the affair, and rather spends her time camped out in another girl's room. I can see wanting to help Mary-Lou, but an hour or two to reassure Margot couldn't hurt.

Author:	Sunglass [ Tue Jul 22, 2008 10:39 am ]
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MaryR wrote: They wouldn't have been in school for Good Friday, as the holidays would have begun. As to fasting, children under 18 don't have to - though the Catholic staff would have had to. But fasting for a few staff wouldn't have been a problem, I shouldn't imagine, not just for one day. We always fasted from the year we made our first communions, in 1970s Ireland, and Lent self-deprivation was taken very seriously at home and at school even for children. Also, they would almost certainly have been at school for Ash Wednesday, and for most of Lent, and the older Catholic girls at least, would have fasted and practiced various restricted eating during Lent. I was just thinking about how I would have been able to reconcile the kinds of things I wouldn't have eaten during Lent with the compulsory CS diet - nothing sweet at all, and no milk in tea or coffee, for example. The latter would have been difficult, given that milky coffee is practically its own food group at the CS!Also, I can't imagine Matey lying down under girls refusing food!

Author:	LizzieC [ Tue Jul 22, 2008 10:51 am ]
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Sunglass wrote: The latter would have been difficult, given that milky coffee is practically its own food group at the CS! Now I'm imagining a CS "food pyramid" - featherbeds of whipped cream, fancy bread twists, milky coffee, little potato balls, crispy on the outside and creamy in the middle...

Author:	Alison H [ Tue Jul 22, 2008 10:52 am ]
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I did wonder about this whilst writing a drabble once. Most of the domestic staff in the Swiss books would have been fairly strict Protestants as most of the people in the Oberland were in the 1950s, but Karen, coming from Tyrol, would probably have been a fairly strict Catholic ... so I decided that Karen would probably have avoided serving meat dishes on Fridays, but I ended up not referring to it because it all got a bit complicated and wasn't really relevant. I was surprised that EBD, given her preoccupation with religious matters, didn't mention it, though ... but then she rarely mentions any religious festivals other than Christmas either. Certainly in Tyrol there must have been local celebrations of saints' days with processions etc, which would've made for interesting interludes in the books.

Author:	JennieP [ Tue Jul 22, 2008 7:58 pm ]
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What I never understood was how OOAO was supposed to have gained all this remarkable wisdom and such an enormous ability to sort people out, virtually overnight - she was, what, 15? Maybe turned 16? At least EBD gave Joey until she was 21 or so - it's really only in War that she has become the Joey we know and love(?) in the later books.

Author:	evelyn38 [ Tue Jul 22, 2008 9:43 pm ]
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Its very much like my mother in law whose husband left her when my husband was 4. Left with 2 children she fell back on her parents and reverted to the "gentle nonentity" role, while the grandparents ran the family and disciplined her children. She rather fell to pieces when the grandparents died one by one, even though she was herself by then married again (to another gentle non-entity who was simply absorbed into the whole family unit).

Author:	jennifer [ Wed Jul 23, 2008 2:54 am ]
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JennieP wrote: What I never understood was how OOAO was supposed to have gained all this remarkable wisdom and such an enormous ability to sort people out, virtually overnight - she was, what, 15? Maybe turned 16? At least EBD gave Joey until she was 21 or so - it's really only in War that she has become the Joey we know and love(?) in the later books. That's a good point - Joey as a senior is not the all-wise being she is in later years - she often has to have things pointed out to her, and have her duty as head-girl in helping new girls directly specified. She also gets very caught up in her own emotions whenever she feels strongly. For Joyce, Thekla and Eustacia, the problem girls of her prefect years, she clashes badly with all of them, and has to have their point of view explicitly stated to her. Very unlike OOAO's spontaneous decision to personally reform the equally troublesome Joan. Mary-Lou was raised by a gentle, weak willed mother and a domineering grandmother until the age of ten, not really socializing with many other people. Then she spent the next five years at boarding school with a bunch of girls her own age.

Author:	Sunglass [ Wed Jul 23, 2008 8:32 am ]
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I think that's a fair point, that ML's wisdom is not really accounted for at all. The reason that's always given by EBD for her 'wise beyond her years'-ness AND her 'cheek' (only, of course 'it's not cheek, it's just Mary Lou!', though frankly, I never quite grasped the difference - is something only cheek if you intend it to be?) is that she spent her early life with older people, but that doesn't make a great deal of sense to me. I don't think that spending your early life surrounded only by adults in itself is going to inculcate wisdom and sympathy - this is something that happens to various CS girls, and is treated as something of a disaster, as it's mde them stuffy or pedantic, or rebellious - people like Eustacia, Polly (whose surname escapes me - the one who ran away from her elderly Guardian in the Tyrol), Verity - and others. None of them overflows with the wisdom of the ages, they're just seen as odd. Even if you treat ML's upbringing as a special case, it's hard to see - Doris Trelawney seems like a gentle nonentity, dominated by her mother and daughter, and old Mrs Trelawney doesn't seem at all the type to engage with her granddaughter on a very adult level. It's all scoldings about manners and tomboyishness. I mean, you can see where Joey's precocity comes from - she's been brought up by siblings not much older than her, who've always included her in big decisions - but I agree it doesn't add up with Mary-Lou. Though I was just thinking that there are a few occasions where ML brings in Christianity to help someone - Jessica Wayne is made to see the error of her ways with a little story about Jesus and the apostles, which would have made me, were I Jessica, push her off the edge of the cliff near the Auberge - and I wonder if we are supposed to think of this as the thing that inspires ML's butting in? (Joey only started to talk this way well into adulthood and after the war...) Although my own theory about ML's butting in is that she's more or less forced to be that way by Joey, who elects her as her successor in the same way as she makes Len do similar sheepdogging things. Given a youngster with an already over-developed sense of responsibility, and the burden of being the daughter of a dead hero, Joey has fertile ground to work in. I'm now trying to remember how many of ML's buttings in were commissions from either Joey or someone else...?

Author:	Alison H [ Wed Jul 23, 2008 8:52 am ]
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Jack Maynard told Mary-Lou to butt in over Joan Baker, instead of telling her to mind her own business. And Joey told Hilda to get Mary-Lou to butt in with Naomi, when it would have been more logical to ask Barbara Chester, who already knew Naomi and was in the same form as her,to do so. (Hilda should have taken no notice!) She took it upon herself to butt in with Margot and Ted, though - although no-one else seemed to have noticed that there was a problem so it was a good job that she did. Hilda insisted that Joey let Althea could stay at Freudesheim when Joey really wasn't keen on the idea. And Daisy consulted Joey about Tom Gay, and I think (could be wrong, though) that Peggy's friends consulted Joey about Eilunedd.

Author:	Kate [ Wed Jul 23, 2008 12:31 pm ]
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Sunglass wrote: I think that's a fair point, that ML's wisdom is not really accounted for at all. The reason that's always given by EBD for her 'wise beyond her years'-ness AND her 'cheek' (only, of course 'it's not cheek, it's just Mary Lou!', though frankly, I never quite grasped the difference - is something only cheek if you intend it to be?) is that she spent her early life with older people, but that doesn't make a great deal of sense to me. I think there is a difference in 'cheek'/'not-cheek'- I encounter it in children in school sometimes. It's very difficult to define. Some children can say things that would sound cheeky written down, but it's just them, while if another child said it, it would be cheeky and rude. I don't know if it's to do with intent, but I think it does have to do with sincerity and/or innocence. I taught a child this year who spent a lot of time with his grandfather and did come out with things that from another child could be cheeky (e.g. 'you have big dark shadows under your eyes, teacher, I think you should go to bed early tonight.') Most of the children I see this in are SEN children though, who have trouble with social boundaries anyway. Mary-Lou would not have fallen into this category!