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Books: Three Go To The Chalet School
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Author:  Róisín [ Wed Apr 09, 2008 12:01 pm ]
Post subject:  Books: Three Go To The Chalet School

There is a synopsis here. This is the book that introduces OOAOML, Verity-Ann and Clem. The beginning of the book has lovely seaside scenes involving a nine-year old Mary-Lou and the Barasses. But there is no *suitable* nearby school for them to attend, so the two girls end up at the CS, where they meet Verity-Ann. Other major events in this book include the return to being tri-lingual, tragic events in the lives of Mary-Lou and Verity involving their fathers, Gillian Linton falls in love.

So, what do you think of this book? Is it a fitting debut for OOAO *g*? What do you think of Verity-Ann's character here, and how she is in the later books? What about the way that the Barasses are bringing up their two children? Or Gillian's meeting with Clem's godfather? Do you like the glimpse we get here of the Maynards at home?

Please raise any issue or opinion you like below :D

Next Sunday: The Chudleigh Hold Series

Author:  Sarah J [ Wed Apr 09, 2008 12:14 pm ]
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This book introduces us to a major character and it is interesting to see how she changes between now and the Switzerland books. I like the way Mary-Lou is portrayed in this book - she has led a fairly solitary life and is very upset at idea of being taken away from 2 recent friends, she has a real eye-opener of how different other families can be from her own when she sees the Maynards at home. The scene where she talks about how she can't show grief for her father of whom she has no memory is, I think, fairly true to life.

Verity - well what a different girl from later on - stubborn to the nth degree in this book!

Author:  Alison H [ Wed Apr 09, 2008 12:58 pm ]
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I like the way all three girls are portrayed in this book - I'm only sorry that later on we see so little of Clem and both Mary-Lou and Verity change (IMHO) for the worse. There aren't many books which concentrate on the juniors and this is a good one.

Author:  CBW [ Wed Apr 09, 2008 4:27 pm ]
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This was one of the first books I read and its one of my favourites. I like Mary Lou in this one where I can't stand her later on.

Verity Ann is odd but reasonably explained and I like her strength. With the later books I'm never really sure whether that strengh disapears or just transfers into getting things done for her by being pathetic. However it is you have to give her credit for being the only girl in the series that beats Matron in the cubicle stakes!

Author:  JB [ Wed Apr 09, 2008 6:18 pm ]
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This book always feels to me like a bridge between two halves of the series. Several years have passed since the previous book - a different number of years for different characters. :)

It introduces characters who will be important through to the end of the series yet it also has a similar feel to the other Plas Howells books. The children of Wanda and Marie are mentioned as pupils before disappearing from view, and the Lucy family feature prominently.

It was a long time before I read the uncut edition and I liked all the added detail.

Such a shame that Verity's character changed so completely.

Author:  Anjali [ Thu Apr 10, 2008 1:32 am ]
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I really like the 'Three' in this book, and it's nice to read about the Juniors for a change. ML has plenty of faults in this book, and that's probably why I like her - e.g. the part where she doesn't want to be a boarder, and resents her unknown roommate who of course coincidentally turns out to be Clem :roll: !

I also like Gillian Linton's romance - Gillian is one of my favourite characters and I was so glad she didn't marry a doctor. It's a pity most of it was cut from the pb and I didn't get to read it until recently!

The Maynard family is also nice in this book - the scene in which Mary-Lou first meets them in the garden is great - but they are already so stereotyped, ie Len is the self-sacrificing one, Margot the selfish one and Con the tactless one!

Author:  meerium [ Thu Apr 10, 2008 10:27 am ]
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This was the first Chalet School book I owned and read, so for that it always holds a very special place in my affections!

More generally though, it is one of my favourites - I just think the 'three' are fantastic characters in this book, with very distinct personalities. I've always loved Clem's mix of maturity and childishness, and Verity and Mary-Lou are both very human characters as juniors, rather than ciphers. And the episode where the word comes of the Murray-Cameron expedition and Mary-Lou's response to her father's death is very well written and very honest.

What a shame EBD developed them the way she did!!!

Author:  Caroline [ Thu Apr 10, 2008 10:49 am ]
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JB wrote:
This book always feels to me like a bridge between two halves of the series. Several years have passed since the previous book - a different number of years for different characters. :)

It introduces characters who will be important through to the end of the series yet it also has a similar feel to the other Plas Howells books.


Yes, this book does rather feel like the passing of the torch is happening before our eyes.

Firstly, Joey has definitely become Mother in this book, rather than Prefect's Friend (who happens to have children) as she was in the Highland Twins year - it helps, I think, that with Robin and Co., Daisy, Peggy Burnett and Joanna Linders having all left school now, there is no one left as a student who was actually at school with Jo...

Secondly, we meet the triplets as actual characters with individual personalities in this book - this is the first book set in the school itself where they really stand out as individuals, preparing us for them joining the school and eventually taking Jo's place as key characters.

Thirdly, we meet Mary-Lou - the girl who, in terms of Series Heroine, bridges the age gap between Joey and Len.

I've always really loved this book. It helps that ML is one of my favourite characters and I love her gradual introduction to us and to the school / school ways. This is one of those titles where the HB / GGBP version really adds something, too, with the Gill Linton story line.

I've never been bothered by the change in Verity - she always seems a rather passive, self-contained girl (aside from the random streak of stubborness thing). OK, maybe not exactly dreamy, but it always seemed a gradual and rather natural transition to me - it's not like she was dynamism personified in the St Briavels books and then completely changed character in the Swiss books - she was always quiet and on the edge of ML's friendships with Vi and the others. She just became a bit more so over the years (probably as EBD lost interest in her in the midst of a lot of more vibrant characters demanding attention).

What does bother me is the lack of starring role for Clem in the rest of the series - I mean, she only even makes Games Prefect because Annis leaves a term early. I really saw Clem as being marked out for greatness - Head Girl, even, if Julie Lucy hadn't stayed on an extra year - and it so wasn't realised.

Author:  JS [ Thu Apr 10, 2008 2:56 pm ]
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One of my favourites and I actually think it stands alone as a book in its own right, which you can't say for them all. Maybe it's because so much of the activity is away from school, certainly at the beginning?

Author:  jenster [ Thu Apr 10, 2008 8:21 pm ]
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I'm in the middle or rereading a whole load of CS books but am jumping about all over the place so getting quite confused..I think this is one i need to reread asap, I have fond memories of it and i think it will fill in a lot of the blanks I have from reading later books - its amazing the details you find as an adult - altho always wondered if it was possible to get brain fever from studying maths at night - tried it as an excuse on a housemistress of my own at school and she wasn't having any of it!- bitterly disappointed :?

Author:  Ray [ Fri Apr 11, 2008 11:52 am ]
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I'm going to be the lone dissenting voice here and say that out of all the CS books, this is probably my second least favourite (least favourite is Princess). The major thing I dislike about it is the fact that it's such a floating and disconnected story. It doesn't really tie to the previous Plas Howell stories and it doesn't relate well to Island and the St Briavals books.

I'm also one of the few people who think that child-Mary-Lou is as annoying as sin and MUCH prefer her as a senior!

That said, I think this book always suffers in my imagination because of the utter hatchet job Armada made of the paperback - I reread it quite recently in the GGB edition and it made a little more sense, although it still had the disconnected feel to it.

Having said all that, the one thing I do like about it (which you can only really appreciate in the full text!) is the Gillian Linton courtship. Considering how badly EBD does romance, I think that bit came off and came over really well.

Ray *may be requiring asbestos undies*

Author:  CBW [ Fri Apr 11, 2008 12:07 pm ]
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Quote:
I'm going to be the lone dissenting voice here and say that out of all the CS books, this is probably my second least favourite (least favourite is Princess). The major thing I dislike about it is the fact that it's such a floating and disconnected story. It doesn't really tie to the previous Plas Howell stories and it doesn't relate well to Island and the St Briavals books.



Whilst I really like the book I do agree with you about its disjointed feel. In some ways it feels more like the start of a school series than the middle of a well established run.

Was there any reason ever given for the strange breaks around this time?

Author:  Alison H [ Fri Apr 11, 2008 12:27 pm ]
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I don't think any reason was ever given for the long gap in the series between Three Go but I'm guessing that it was because of the War. One of Lorna Hill's books - I forget if it was a Patience book or a Marjorie book - was refused publication because it covered the war years, even though it was just the next one in the series, because the publishers (rightly or wrongly) felt that by the 1940s people wanted to move on from the war years and no longer wanted children's books covering that time.

EBD possibly thought, or was told by her publishers, that it'd be better to "jump" to the late 1940s and get away from the war period. Why she then missed the next term out I don't know, though :? .

Author:  JB [ Fri Apr 11, 2008 12:37 pm ]
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It isn't my favourite book but neither is it one I particularly dislike. I agree that it's disconnected - the chapter about the seniors catching jaundice doesn't fit with a story that focuses on the younger pupils, unless it's just a way to introduce the prefects. I can't think of any other interaction between the prefects and the younger girls on whom the story focuses.

One of the reasons I see this one as a bridge is because it has new characters (and some old ones) in the familiar Plas Howells setting before moving the school for the next book and then steaming ahead to the end of the series with no more missing terms.

Author:  claire [ Fri Apr 11, 2008 9:28 pm ]
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I disliked it purely for the fact that I thought it would be about the triplets and it wasn't.

In general I did like the book (hardback much better - the romance does add something to it) but I think it jars a little with Verity-Anne's personality later in the series. Mary-Lou isn't too bad in this one, guess she hasn't found her feet so she's quite likeable in this book IMO

Author:  jennifer [ Sat Apr 12, 2008 3:06 am ]
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Yeah, it is kind of disjointed, even though I like it.

We get some important new characters: Mary-Lou, Clem, Verity, plus the triplets, Josette and Vi as students rather than infants.

On the other hand, there is carry-over from the older books - characters like Gillian, Gay, Jacynth etc, a brief mention that is probably Joanna Linders, plus daughters of old girls like Josefa vWertheim, Maria von Gluck and Gretchen Mensch who never appear again. It's the last book at Plas Howell, too.

I can see why, though. If EBD wanted to move away from the war years, plus move to a more interesting location (St Briaval's as an island, has more scope for adventure post war), then she needs a bridge from the earlier series, rather than starting with a completely new set of characters, and in a new location.

Skipping the term after doesn't worry me. She does this a lot in the earlier series, skipping a term here or there. In some ways I think that was better for the series than the book per term formula - it's certainly better for fill-in writiers :D

I've never really liked the Gillian romance theme - it seems too cliched and fast to be believable. I like Clem best of the new characters, she's such a nice, friendly, level headed girl, without coming across as too perfect.

ML is interesting here. You can see all the seeds of what she becomes later - the forthrightness and borderline cheekiness, the leadership qualities, the tendency to butt in, her popularity, her determination. I find here that it comes across as more balanced, though. She's forthright, but also cheeky, and crosses the line into rude periodically. She's determined, but not necessarily with the best judgement. She's opinionated, but the opinions are not necessarily right. And the staff is willing to pull her up when necessary, rather than giving up.

Verity doesn't match well with her later incarnation, but her slide from quiet and old fashioned but independent and pigheadedly stubborn to weak, dependant and slow is a gradual one.

Author:  JB [ Sat Apr 12, 2008 10:34 am ]
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Quote:
I disliked it purely for the fact that I thought it would be about the triplets and it wasn't.


I thought that too but had completely forgotten until I saw your post. I'd read about half the series by the time I got hold of this one and speculated about what the others would be about as I'd written to Collins for a full list of titles.

Author:  Meg14 [ Sat Apr 12, 2008 11:38 am ]
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I always thought the Gillian romance thing was very strange. Her main confidantes seem to be her pupils and I find this odd bearing in mind how the pupils are discouraged from talking about boys etc.

As for Mary-Lou I think she is a more likeable character in this book than later. I can't understand though why a lot of the annoying parts of her later character is put down to having spent so much time with adults when she is very respectful to her gran who definitely comes across as someone who wouldn't allow the kind of precociousness (I think I may have made that word up!) she displays when she is older.

Author:  jennifer [ Mon Apr 14, 2008 3:02 am ]
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Meg14 wrote:
I can't understand though why a lot of the annoying parts of her later character is put down to having spent so much time with adults when she is very respectful to her gran who definitely comes across as someone who wouldn't allow the kind of precociousness (I think I may have made that word up!) she displays when she is older.


Nope, it's a real word. Spelled right, too. :D

Actually, it's interesting that Mary-Lou gets much more annoying when her grandmother isn't there to keep her in line. She dies at the beginning of Mary-Lou of the CS, the beginning of the second year in Switzerland, and was presumably ill or failing for a while before that. This corresponds to Mary-Lou's more extreme tendencies starting up.

Maybe her grandmother was the only person with the strength of will to reign her in, unlike her mother or Verity, who are weak, or Joey, who encourages her, or the staff, who all say "it's just Mary-Lou" and reward her for her behaviour.

Author:  Alison H [ Mon Apr 14, 2008 6:53 am ]
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Everybody encouraged her! Mary-Lou herself was surprised when she was asked to look after Naomi Elton even though Naomi already knew both Barbara and Vi: IIRC that was Joey's idea. And Jack should have told her that Joan Baker's behaviour was none of her business (or his for that matter) instead of telling her to stick her oar in.

Similar things happened with Joey - not to the same extent, but e.g. in Eustacia Miss Wilson made out that Eustacia had run away because Joey hadn't tried to be friendly with her (like losing both her parents and her home hadn't affected her at all!) and went on about Joey's power to influence everything.

It's no wonder that they both turned into such busybodies :roll: !

Author:  jennifer [ Mon Apr 14, 2008 7:55 am ]
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I think Jessica Wayne is the first time ML is specifically recruited to reform a new girl (along with private information about the girl's home life). If I remember correctly, this was Joey's idea, and Miss Annersley was not consulted.

The year before that is when the special position of "Head of the Middles" is constructed for Mary-Lou.

It does look like Switzerland was bad for Mary-Lou's development. Less time with her grandmother's stern discipline, much more time with Joey (who definitely did feed ML's feeling of importance and busy-body techniques), a special position in U4, followed by a sudden promotion in Vb, form and dormitory prefect duties and so on.

I think the mistresses could have done more to control her - spreading the responsibilities around to other members of the form, pulling her back when she gets too forceful, quietly keeping the Gang from being too insular, and so on.

Author:  Caroline [ Mon Apr 14, 2008 10:16 am ]
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jennifer wrote:
I think the mistresses could have done more to control her - spreading the responsibilities around to other members of the form, pulling her back when she gets too forceful, quietly keeping the Gang from being too insular, and so on.


Very probably, but their attitude seems to be that she's going to be Head Girl eventually, so she might was well get experience of being a leader properly by being a dormy pree and a form pree etc.

Actually, thinking about it, the staff do do this with other girls (isn't it Peggy in her eponymous book who is told that being form prefect in about every form she's been in for the past few years is practice for being HG?), but it is all rather more subtle than it is with ML.

Also, ML gets all her formal responsibilities lumped on her in one go - at the start of her eponymous book - just as she is still grieving for Gran, which is a bit unfair of the staff IMO. Although maybe they saw her promotions as good things - rewards, even - things she could feel positive about which might help her / take her mind off her grief?

(BTW, it would have been nice to see a bit more of things in Mary-Lou from her internal point of view - struggling to cope with all these responsibilities on top of Gran's death, maybe deciding to live up to Gran's expectations and getting it all a bit wrong, hence the busybodyness?)

Author:  Kathy_S [ Mon Apr 14, 2008 2:32 pm ]
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Hmm, is it time for me to reiterate that I don't think Mary-Lou was a busybody at all, but a kind and caring individual doing the best she could at various stages of development? In this book, she's still not much more than a generic mischievous middle with potential. (Maybe it's the irritatingly "little folksish" sort of narration, but I find it hard to get into the three as people in much of this book.) As an older middle, she shows pretty typical behavior for the age group, which normally does form clubs, gangs, etc. However, most of the more annoying aspects of cliqueiness/claims of "exclusiveness" are perpetrated by other gang members, if sometimes in her name, while ML herself manages to bring in people who would not normally have been accepted by their peers. It's one of the main reasons the staff see her as an influence for good, rather than a leader of a bunch of trouble-makers. By the time she's a senior, and the gang has been outgrown, I quite admire her, and sympathize with her bewildered state in New Mistress when Kathie takes a dislike. In the late books, I do find some of the reasons she's brought back a bit absurd, but I attribute it to the general state of the series, not to ML, who is (among other things) one of the few allowed to keep her career throughout the series.

I like Three Go, but think its main strength is the positive way in which it paints e.g. the interaction between Jo & ML after ML's father's death. It also gives us a pretty clear idea of EBD's definition of friendship.

Verity-Anne's immediate conversion upon her father's appearance I find all too consistent with her subsequent tendencies. For the first part of the book she leans on her previous associations; then she leans the other way. (However, the one thing I never accepted in ML was her dismissal of her sister-by-marriage in the incident later on, after all her efforts to include her. I'd attribute it to a bout of depression, but think she should have been at least a little remorseful afterwards.)

Author:  Ray [ Mon Apr 14, 2008 5:05 pm ]
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Alison H wrote:
Everybody encouraged her! Mary-Lou herself was surprised when she was asked to look after Naomi Elton even though Naomi already knew both Barbara and Vi: IIRC that was Joey's idea.


Joey initially suggested it - then went back and suggested "do nothing", pointing out that if there was anything outstandingly odd about Naomi, Mary-Lou would probably intervene anyway, whether anything was said to her or not - which is more or less what happens.

Also, if you'd got a new and quite senior girl, who would you rather hand her over to; the Head Girl or someone who for all her familial relations seems to be as drippy as they come? (Not sure that Vi would really come into it as she's not in Naomi's form and not a prefect, either - at this point anyway.)

Ray *with Kathy_S on the subject of Mary-Lou!*

Author:  andi [ Mon Apr 14, 2008 8:08 pm ]
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Quote:
Very probably, but their attitude seems to be that she's going to be Head Girl eventually, so she might was well get experience of being a leader properly by being a dormy pree and a form pree etc.


Going slightly OT here, one of the things that always annoys me is how, after having been as subtle as bricks from Mary-Lou of onwards about the fact that ML is destined to be HG, EBD/the staff suddenly come over all coy and mysterious in Coming of Age when they make the final decision.

Quote:
[Mddle]"Already she has made Jessica less unhappy. You know what we were discussing last night. I think this should be enough. She is all that is needed in that way.


And then ML herself is so completely amazed to discover that she is to be head girl! Surely she saw it coming?

Author:  Fiona Mc [ Mon Apr 14, 2008 8:15 pm ]
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Alison H wrote:
Everybody encouraged her! Mary-Lou herself was surprised when she was asked to look after Naomi Elton even though Naomi already knew both Barbara and Vi: IIRC that was Joey's idea. And Jack should have told her that Joan Baker's behaviour was none of her business (or his for that matter) instead of telling her to stick her oar in.


I can see why ML wanted to talk about Joan with Jack and see if they could do anything to help as EBD does say in a later book that Joan did come within an ace of being expelled. Wasn't it kinder of ML to help her prevent that than allowing it to happen? Expulsion would have followed with every following school she goes to.

I always feel a bit sorry for ML getting such a bad rap for helping others. She is emotionally blackmailed into helping both Joan and Jessica by Jack and Joey and always does it because she feels she'll be letting them both down if she doesn't. I could always see her in later life rebelling against the adage you have to help others and refusing to help anyone.

I can always see Verity's change in character as being completely believeable and understandable. You see her being strong if a little lonely in Three Go but by the end her father whom she hadn't seen since she was a toddler suddenly returns and the first conversation they have is about her not speaking German. I'm sure she must have felt he would leave again if she didn't become the person he wanted and in doing so lost who she was in the process.

Author:  Ray [ Mon Apr 14, 2008 8:19 pm ]
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andi wrote:
And then ML herself is so completely amazed to discover that she is to be head girl! Surely she saw it coming?


She may have thought that she wouldn't be pitched on precisely because of her habit of butting in. She also doesn't ever come across as being big headed enough to assume she's going to be anything, except the best she can be at what she does. (God, that sounds like a recruiting line - sorry; can't think of a better way of putting it!) Witness her being both shocked and not a little mortified to learn she's the dormy prefect in her eponymous book.

Also, sometimes something can be entirely obvious to everyone except the person concerned.

Ray *who really should go to bed now*

Author:  jennifer [ Tue Apr 15, 2008 1:57 am ]
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I think with Mary-Lou she really does mean well - she wants to help people, and is willing to pitch in and do something about it. However, I think she does cross some lines doing it, in a way that is understandable for a precocious girl who has always been the centre of attention, and hasn't ever considered that she might ever be wrong about something.

When she wants to butt in to help Verity, it is well meant, and I wouldn't expect a ten year old to understand that the teachers can't back down on their punishment without letting Verity win, even if asked by the other students.

For example, in Jessica and Naomi's cases, she is given detailed information about their home backgrounds, and specifically asked to deal with them.

In Joan Baker's case - Joan overhears Mary-Lou telling another student that she is going to keep at her until she turns in to a proper Chalet girl, or in other words, she has no liking or interest in Joan as a person, she just wants to reform her. Joan is later told that Mary-Lou is right, but no-one tells Mary-Lou about the dangers talking about people that way in a non-private space.

With Ted Grantley, she sees that there is a problem and wants to help. Her response is to deal with it entirely herself, and her lecture to the triplets, Emerence and Ted when things blow up is, I think, taking too much on herself, as is her insistence on dealing with things personally up until that point.

Where I think the staff does her a disservice is when it comes to her unrestrained leadership tendencies.

The Gang, for example, leaves a really bad taste in the early Swiss days - their exclusiveness, the tendency to audition people, and the tight control ML has. In one case where she is not on an outing, the Gang promptly splits into smaller groups of two or three, with no particular cohesiveness. ML is clearly the person who keeps them on a tight leash, and under her leadership, and the staff sees this as good, rather than unhealthy for the form.

I find the lesson where Kathie teaches very instructive. Mary-Lou interjects explanations of what is being taught to other students during the lecture, and answers questions directed at other students. Neither is appropriate during a lecture, but ML is totally baffled at being pulled up for this.

Another example is Verity and her chores. Every other student of the 300 odd in the school has to do their own dormitory chores and stay out of each others cubicles. The exception is Mary-Lou and Verity, and the staff turns a blind eye. I think the ML/Verity dynamic is also an unhealthy one.

Basically, I think ML is an intelligent, well meaning girl with a strong personality and natural leadership skills. However, at school she is given the message that she is special - she can get away with things other people can't because she's ML. Everyone will give way to her because she is ML. It's her duty to reform people who don't conform to expected standards because she's ML. No-one else is capable of the emotional insight or help that she can provide, and she is more mature and insightful and intelligent that her peers. Everyone is supposed to like her, and look up to her, and want to be with her.

It's that message that I think will get her in trouble after leaving school, when she hits a world where everyone else doesn't know "It's Just Mary-Lou".



[/list]

Author:  Clare [ Tue Apr 15, 2008 3:15 pm ]
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jennifer wrote:
I find the lesson where Kathie teaches very instructive. Mary-Lou interjects explanations of what is being taught to other students during the lecture, and answers questions directed at other students. Neither is appropriate during a lecture, but ML is totally baffled at being pulled up for this.


From a teacher's p.o.v. I'd have reacted the same way as Kathy - it is so frustrating to have one kid who wants to answer everything while you are trying to assess the learning/understanding of others through directed questions.

With regards to Three Go, I was another who thought it would be about the triplets and wasn't happy when I found out it wasn't! I really like Clem of all of the three, and wish more had been made of her.

Author:  Maeve [ Tue Apr 15, 2008 6:15 pm ]
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I quite like Three with its superabundance of new, rich characters -- not just Mary Lou, Clem, and Verity Anne, but Mary Lou's grandmother and the Barrass parents as well (okay, the latter are not so rich, but definitely note-worthy!) I also agree that Verity seemed much more interesting here than she does later -- as if EBD had some ideas for her at the beginning that she forgot to implement later.

I've always thought the problem with Mary Lou (and also with adult Joey to some extent) is not her character in itself, not what she says or does, but the way others talk about them. The way the staff and even her peers are always saying stuff like, "Well, you'd expect ML to do something, wouldn't you?" The way in Problem there's a mini-storyline devoted to "why is ML so important?" Can't the poor reader be left alone to figure out the character on their own? :roll:

Author:  andi [ Tue Apr 15, 2008 8:42 pm ]
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Maeve wrote:
The way in Problem there's a mini-storyline devoted to "why is ML so important?"


and actually, there isn't an answer given to that, is there? Joey gets out of it by saying that there isn't time to explain it to Rosamund right then, or something along those lines. Maybe even EBD didn't know... :)

Author:  Alison H [ Tue Apr 15, 2008 8:52 pm ]
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Sorry to go a bit OT, but I'd love to know what EBD's long-term plans for Mary-Lou were. One obvious answer is that she'd've married either David or Rix, but there's never any suggestion of that in the books. Rix says at Peggy's wedding that doctors shouldn't marry too young, but EBD could still have hinted that Mary-Lou was going to get together with one of them, as she did with Jack and Joey well before they got engaged.

Len, by contrast, is "tied" to the Gornetz Platz by the time she's 18, and it's made clear when she's only in her mid-teens that that's how her life will go - when she's only 14 she mentions her plans to return to the CS to teach, and by the time she's 16 it's clear that EBD plans to pair her up with Reg (i.e. a doctor at the San).

Can't imagine that EBD would have let her go, but it'd be nice to think that Mary-Lou would have got to do her own thing and enjoy a successful archaeological career travelling all over the world, and would only have returned to the confines of the Gornetz Platz for the odd visit ... :D

Author:  Billie [ Tue Apr 15, 2008 9:01 pm ]
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Yes, it seems amazing that Mary Lou never found herself a nice young doctor. I mean, she had left school a few years before the series ended and yet no sign of someone. Quite the old maid! ;)

I am also quite annoyed that is the question of "What's so important about Mary Lou?" had to be spelled out, there was no answer given. I'd love to know what EBD thought the answer was.

Author:  Jenefer [ Thu Apr 17, 2008 4:14 pm ]
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Mary Lou is an only child and home schooled up to the age of 10. Before she joined the CS, she appears to have had very little contact with other children. Until Clem came, there were no "suitable" girls to play with in the village. This isolated life may explain her lack of sensitivity to others and self importance. Mixing with the other children at the village school would have been good for her.

Author:  Clare [ Thu Apr 17, 2008 6:26 pm ]
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Jenefer wrote:
Until Clem came, there were no "suitable" girls to play with in the village.


I wonder what this meant? In what way were the other children not suitable?

Author:  Lesley [ Thu Apr 17, 2008 7:28 pm ]
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Wrong class, not enough money or breeding - children of 'villagers' ie those of the working/servant classes not gentle breeds.

Author:  Dawn [ Thu Apr 17, 2008 7:50 pm ]
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Jenefer wrote:
Mary Lou is an only child and home schooled up to the age of 10. Before she joined the CS, she appears to have had very little contact with other children. Until Clem came, there were no "suitable" girls to play with in the village. This isolated life may explain her lack of sensitivity to others and self importance. Mixing with the other children at the village school would have been good for her.


OK - apologies if this makes my mother sound really snobby - she isn't really

I am an only one with older parents and when I was a young child I wasn't allowed out to play with the other local kids. My mother didn't really know other parents in the area and she didn't know there were such things as playgroups (or so she now says). She didn't want me to go to the local schools, but to the private girls school in Leeds (about 5 miles away) where she had been (very CS :roll: ). Until I started school at the age of 4 and a half, I'd never really played with other children (most of their friends didn't have kids my age - those that did we saw rarely and my cousins are 10+ years older than me). And of course once I'd started there the local kids didn't want much to do with me as I went to a snobby school - but no-one else from school lived anywhere near me.

Admittedly the local accent is appalling and I can understand why my parents didn't want me to pick that up. Apparently my dad didn't want me to go to LGH - or certainly not from the age of 4, but he was away working quite a lot and I suspect wasn't given much choice as my mother and her mother ganged up on him. I do remember him taking me sledging in the local park and playing with other kids there. And later I became very good friends with a family up the road (kids went to the local school, but their parents were both teachers).

And I suspect I was horribly bossy and not a particularly nice child when I started school, mainly because I'd no experience of that sort of life at all.

Years ago Andy and I went for some counselling and one of the things he complained about was me acting like an only child. At which point the councellor said "that's because she is one and you just have to cope with it" :lol:

Author:  joyclark [ Thu Apr 17, 2008 9:58 pm ]
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How remarkably sensible and realistic of the counsellor!!

Author:  JayB [ Thu Apr 17, 2008 10:12 pm ]
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Quote:
Until Clem came, there were no "suitable" girls to play with in the village.


Gran didn't really approve of Clem and Tony either, did she?

Author:  Maeve [ Sat Apr 19, 2008 4:40 pm ]
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JayB wrote:
Quote:
Gran didn't really approve of Clem and Tony either, did she?

Gran -- and Mary Lou's mother -- didn't object so much to Clem and Tony -- although she did think they made Mary Lou inclined to be less lady-like -- as she did to the Barras parents.
Quote:
Mrs. Trelawney really felt unable to explain to her small daughter that it was not so much Clem and Tony to whom she objected. Admittedly their various activities were death and ruination to Mary-Lou's clothes, and from being a quiet little puss she had turned into a regular tom-boy... The real trouble lay with their parents, Mr. And Mrs. Barras, and especially Mr. Barras. He was an artist with a wonderful flow of language when he was aroused - which happened at least once a day, and frequently oftener.


Interestingly, it's the village girls of Polquenel who are said to be unfriendly to Mary-Lou -- nothing is said of the Trelawneys' attitude toward them.
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It had always been one of the drawbacks to Polquenel that there were no little girls for Mary-Lou to play with except the village girls, and they had turned up their noses at the 'furrin' little one. Their speech was quite different, and so were their ideas.

Once the family moves to Howells, it's Len who makes the perhaps derogatory remark about the village children when Mary Lou says she's not sure if she's going to the CS. Says Len,
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'There isn't any other near 'cept the village school; and you won't go there.'

Author:  Mrs Redboots [ Sat Apr 19, 2008 7:04 pm ]
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Maeve wrote:
Once the family moves to Howells, it's Len who makes the perhaps derogatory remark about the village children when Mary Lou says she's not sure if she's going to the CS. Says Len,
Quote:
'There isn't any other near 'cept the village school; and you won't go there.'


To be fair, it wasn't just that the village school wasn't thought to be suitable; it was that they didn't offer the sort of subjects that would be wanted if the child was to go to a public school later, and then perhaps to university. Secondary education for all only came in in 1944, and although before then clever children could get scholarships to grammar schools (assuming their parents allowed them to take them up, which wasn't always the case by any means), the village schools didn't prepare children for Common Entrance!

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