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

Books: The Chalet School and Barbara
http://www.the-cbb.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4693
Author:  jennifer [ Wed Jun 25, 2008 3:00 am ]
Post subject:  Books: The Chalet School and Barbara
The school moves to Switzerland! A synopsis can be found here.

What do you think of this book? Do you like all the descriptions of Swiss scenery and customs, or find them redundant? What about the plot-line with the triplets, Beth and the quarantine? How is Barbara as a lead character, given that we've only heard about her ill health and spoiling second hand in previous books? Any comments on OOAOML?
Author:  Alison H [ Wed Jun 25, 2008 5:59 am ]
Post subject: 
I love all the descriptions of Switzerland in this book :D . I really like Barbara too - she is shown as someone who's been spoilt by her parents, to the extent that at 14 she can't even brush her own hair properly, but is still likeable and tries really hard to adapt to her new environment. It's much more realistic than the rather dramatic personality changes we see in some other characters who are "reformed" by the CS.

The "Gang" are a bit annoying in the way that they dominate their age group, but I find that very realistic, and I like the way that Vi sticks up for Barbara when she (another realistic storyline - sorry for over-use of the word "realistic" :lol: ) falls foul of bullies.

The bit where they get stranded by weather conditions gets repeated rather too often in later books, but at this stage the idea of being stranded in the Swiss Alps is still new and exciting-ish.
Author:  Elbee [ Wed Jun 25, 2008 7:50 am ]
Post subject: 
This was one of the first books I read (original Armada paperback) so I've always had a soft spot for it. To me at the time, the whole idea of going to Switzerland for school sounded so exciting, I just lapped up all the adventures!

Re-reading it as an adult and knowing a lot more about the whole series, I found it strange that Barbara knew so little about the school and the main characters eg Joey, when the Chesters had been so closely involved with the school in Guernsey and Armiford. Equally, Matron did not appear to know about Barbara's delicacy either (her comments after the bathroom incident near the beginning of the book).
Author:  JayB [ Wed Jun 25, 2008 9:37 am ]
Post subject: 
Yes, I find it strange that Matey didn't know Barbara's history. She knew all the families personally on Guernsey and in Armishire, there's no way she could not have known about Barbara. And she must have known about Barbara being a day girl, and the reason why.

And even if she didn't, one would think she'd automatically get health reports on all new girls, especially those about whom there was any particular concern. I can't imagine she'd be left to find it out in casual staffroom conversation. (Unless she'd been so busy with the move, she hadn't got round to reading the reports yet!)

I quite like Barbara. I think her desire to stand on her own two feet and show her cousins she's not the spoiled brat they think she is, is admirable and quite realistic.

As this is the first Swiss book for the School proper, I think all the descriptions and history is quite reasonable, as part of the scene-setting - it's only when one re-reads, having read a lot more of the same in later books, that it becomes tedious.

Very little Joey in this book, after her having dominated the last. The German measles was a plot device to make it necessary for Barbara to be a boarder from the start, but it also meant that Joey and the triplets could be left in the background and the focus be on Barbara.

For me, this is the book in which Mary Lou begins to be annoying. She dominates her form and bosses everyone. She's no longer the annoying Middle who is sometimes amusing; she's the leader of the Middles who will someday be Head Girl. From this point, she can really do no wrong.
Author:  Loryat [ Wed Jun 25, 2008 6:17 pm ]
Post subject: 
I like this book and I like Barabara, think most of the storylines are very believable, the girl who frames Barbara is a nasty piece of work. Interesting that she was never caught.

The only thing I remember not liking, and this might have been the fault of the editors not EBD, are the bits where Vi is comparing Barbara at school to the one she is familiar with from home. We seem to be expected to know exactly what is going on and it wasn't till I read some La Rochelles that it made sense to me.
Author:  Pat [ Wed Jun 25, 2008 8:48 pm ]
Post subject: 
I'd have thought that her mother would have prepared Barbara for school a bit more than she did. Like making sure she coulfd do her hair properly for a start. And tell her that she would have to clear up after herself too. I know it makes a good plot device, but that bit is too much!!!
Author:  Caroline [ Fri Jun 27, 2008 7:52 am ]
Post subject: 
JayB wrote:
I quite like Barbara. I think her desire to stand on her own two feet and show her cousins she's not the spoiled brat they think she is, is admirable and quite realistic.


Don't you think there's a paragraph missing in the chapter where we are with Mary-Lou and Vi and Co. on the train coming to school?

Later on in the book we get several thoughts and comments from Vi which suggest that we should know that she has been asked by her mother to look out for Barbara and that she doesn't want to and also actually rather dislikes Barbara. Yet we are never actually told this in the beginning...
Author:  Joyce [ Wed Jul 09, 2008 6:37 am ]
Post subject: 
There is a line about Vi realising the feeling of "vague dislike" was disappearing and finding out she does like her cousin.

I always felt that the change in feeling was very realistic.

I'm sure the extended family must have felt it was not fair that they had to constantly give way to Barbara's demands. And they would have been too young to fully understand they she actually had the worse end of the deal.

It would probably have meant that Vi's contact with Bab's was limited to very quiet games and so they wer enot close. Her only feeling about her cousin could well have been "oh that's the one I always have to be careful around in case she breaks."

I agree it seems strange Matey did not know about Barbara. Unless she knew in a general sense that Barbara was delicate, but not the extent that Barbara had been mollycoddled to the point she didn't know how to clean up after she makes a mess.

I like the book though. And it is one of the very few CS in which the wrong doer is not caught and formally punished. Which is much more real.

Cheers,
Joyce
Author:  Pado [ Wed Jul 09, 2008 10:38 pm ]
Post subject: 
Since Barbara was originally slated to be a day girl living with Joey, perhaps Matey didn't get a full dossier on her?
Author:  Abi [ Thu Jul 10, 2008 8:23 pm ]
Post subject: 
Loryat wrote:
I like this book and I like Barabara, think most of the storylines are very believable, the girl who frames Barbara is a nasty piece of work. Interesting that she was never caught.


That's an interesting point - normally the villains are strung up to be pecked at by crows (figuratively, anyway!) but that never happens in this book. To me that plotline always felt a bit like an afterthought, maybe because it happens in so many school stories that somehow it always seems less real. But EBD never made very much of that whole incident.
Author:  MJKB [ Wed Nov 12, 2008 9:15 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Books: The Chalet School and Barbara
I really liked this book and particularly enjoyed the chapter describing Barbara's first morning at the School. I thought Beth a bit wet referring to Joey as 'auntie Joey'. Daisy, Beth's best friend, had dropped the title years before.
Also, why is Rosalie so surprised that Beth is not married? She is only in her early twenties, after all. Being pretty, or in Beth's case, beautiful is hardly a prerequisite for an early marriage surely. Rosalie herself is regarded as very 'trig', so I wonder why there wasn't a doctor with her name written on his heart. Its a tad disappointing that an independent career woman like Rosalie should see marriage as a compliment conferred on a woman by a man.
All times are UTC
Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group
http://www.phpbb.com/