The Lacrosse League
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The CBB -> News & Views
#1: The Lacrosse League Author: Kathryn, Location: North of Melb PostPosted: Sun Jun 24, 2007 3:09 am
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The Sunday magazine in the The Age (24/6/07) had an article on the new Nancy Drew movie which also discussed St Trinians. So a natural inclusion was a section about school stories including the CS.

Here is the brief section on the CS:
Even more thrillingly situated -in a chalet in the Swiss Alps- the Chalet School starred in 58 books witeen between 1928 and 1970, by which time they were ludicrously anachronistic. Queer historians have seized on the Chalet stories as key lesbian texts. Certainly Chalet girls keep saying that no matter what happens, their first loyalty will always be to the school and their chums. And it's true that marriage offers fewer opportunities for mountain rescues, dog-sledding and catching Nazis. And that's the sort of thing that creates character.

Other books/series mentioned were:
Angela Brazil
Cliff House (from the School Friend)
Enid Blyton's Mallory Towers
#2:  Author: Tan, Location: London via Newcastle Australia PostPosted: Sun Jun 24, 2007 4:06 pm
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Shocked

What an interesting summation!
#3: Re: The Lacrosse League Author: champagnedrinker,  PostPosted: Sun Jun 24, 2007 4:19 pm
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Kathryn wrote:
Queer historians have seized on the Chalet stories as key lesbian texts. Certainly Chalet girls keep saying that no matter what happens, their first loyalty will always be to the school and their chums. And it's true that marriage offers fewer opportunities for mountain rescues, dog-sledding and catching Nazis. And that's the sort of thing that creates character.


Did it mention who those Historians were? The main academic books etc., I can think of are Rosemary Auchmuty's World of Girls & World of Women, Craig/ Cadogan's You're a Brick Angela & also Ju Gosling's work - all of which are more focussed on the "girl" aspect, than their sexuality - it crops up, but isn't key. (Unless I misread them!)
#4:  Author: Carolyn P, Location: Lancaster, England PostPosted: Sun Jun 24, 2007 6:48 pm
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I'm trying to recall a 'dog-sledding' incident in the books.
#5:  Author: Mia, Location: London PostPosted: Sun Jun 24, 2007 9:04 pm
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Jo of? When they go to the Mensches' house for Christmas? I haven't got my copy to check. There is a sled!
#6:  Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster PostPosted: Sun Jun 24, 2007 9:09 pm
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It's horse-drawn, I'm sure.
#7:  Author: PaulineS, Location: West Midlands PostPosted: Sun Jun 24, 2007 9:32 pm
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Certainly horse drawn. The example of dogs pulling sled were milk sleds in towns seen from hotel windows.
#8:  Author: lavender, Location: Peak District, UK PostPosted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 1:29 pm
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Well I have to say any lesbian overtones in the books have completely passed me by.

Although having said that I did always wonder about Miss Wilmot and Miss Ferrars!
#9:  Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster PostPosted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 4:30 pm
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There are none, for the simple reason that it would never have ocurred to EBD that that sort of thing went on! It's only more modern eyes that 'see' them.
#10:  Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland PostPosted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 4:48 pm
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Pat wrote:
There are none, for the simple reason that it would never have ocurred to EBD that that sort of thing went on! It's only more modern eyes that 'see' them.


I don't agree with this at all!

It is certainly *possible* that EBD had no knowledge of sexuality at all, but that isn't something we can ever prove - her not being married isn't proof enough for me. She was an intelligent, articulate, educated, well-read woman who lived into the 1960s - I very much doubt that she remained completely ignorant. In fact, at the time she started writing the books, I can think of many highly exposed court cases that filled the papers with examples of people jailed for homosexuality - possibly homosexuality enjoyed even more press than it does now, for the simple reason that it was so illegal.

Modern queer critics don't want to 'see' things in the sense that they want to imagine something that isn't there. I think that instead, the emphasis is on redressing a balance - giving something that has been hushed up or ignored (for whatever reason) some air time and some criticism, finally.

A wrong situation would be where a literary critic couldn't ask a question of a text (in this case, whether there are homosexual overtones) because of the received views of a current society.
#11:  Author: Mona, Location: Hertfordshire PostPosted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 6:42 pm
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I'm sure EBD would have been aware of homosexuality to some extent, but I doubt that she ever gave any thought to any of her characters being anything but heterosexual. It's worth remembering that the adult women in her books were predominantly of generations where many women didn't ever marry due to the gender imbalance brought about by the two World Wars. It wasn't at all uncommon for women of those generations to have very close female companionships, even to set up home with other women. Some of them may have been lesbians, but very many of them simply shared a very close platonic bond born of shared experience.

Quote:
A wrong situation would be where a literary critic couldn't ask a question of a text (in this case, whether there are homosexual overtones) because of the received views of a current society.

I agree with you absolutely on this, but do think that the circumstances of the time at which she was writing and the effect that had on the relationships women were able to form need to be considered as well.
#12:  Author: Kathy_S, Location: midwestern US PostPosted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 7:06 pm
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I'm with Pat on this one. Although EBD may well have heard of homosexuality, I think it's something that would have impinged off in the distance somewhere -- in the tabloids, or in novels that were, in some cases, still banned in Boston -- not something "real" in the sense that she'd relate it to everyday life. Even if she were relatively open to the idea, her strong sense of responsibility in 'writing for the young' would have precluded any references in the books. I seriously think that attempts to reinterpret the language she used to described friendships are just that -- reinterpretations with no basis in EBD's reality. Remember, this is someone who was even careful about how she presented relatively innocuous slang.
#13:  Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster PostPosted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 7:52 pm
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There is also the fact that although homosexuality was known about - witness the Oscar Wilde business - many people genuinely thought that it was only men who had this sort of relationship.
But whether she knew about it or not - Kathy is right. She would never even hint at such a thing in her books, because she was writing for children. This is definitely one of the areas where it's too easy to look at things with a modern eye, and see what simply isn't there. Anything sexual, whatever the orientation, simply was not written about for the age group she was writing for. It wasn't considered appropriate.
#14:  Author: Kate, Location: Ireland PostPosted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 8:17 pm
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I agree with Róisín, I think - just from some of the things my Granny has said. She'd be a bit younger than EBD (she's 91) but worked in England during the war. A lesbian couple moved in next door to her a few years ago and we thought she'd be either oblivious to their relationship or shocked by it, but she was completely blasé, as she apparently knew (or at least knew of) gay couples when she was in England!

I'm also thinking of people like Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf (and others in their circle). They were, we are led to believe, exceptional. But they may not have been as exceptional in terms of sexuality as we think.
#15:  Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster PostPosted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 8:32 pm
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But would she have included that in her books? No! Not then - it wasn't done. Children were protected from any hint of sexuality - even hetero.
In a way it doesn't matter whether she knew about such things or not. She would never, ever have put it into a children's book.
#16:  Author: Kate, Location: Ireland PostPosted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 8:38 pm
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Not consciously or explicitly, I agree. But perhaps unconsciously, especially if she based some of her characters on real-life people.
#17:  Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster PostPosted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 9:24 pm
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If she wrote it unconsciously it's the same thing. The relationship isn't anything more than friendship, because that's the way she consciously saw it. If you see unconscious underlying meanings, that's what you're seeing, not what she meant.
#18:  Author: Sugar, Location: second star to the right! PostPosted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 9:48 pm
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Róisín wrote:

I can think of many highly exposed court cases that filled the papers with examples of people jailed for homosexuality - possibly homosexuality enjoyed even more press than it does now, for the simple reason that it was so illegal.


You are I presume talking of Oscar Wilde and his associates. Homosexual men. Two men having sexual relationships was illegal.
Lesbianism has never been illlegal. As the courts did not believe it exsisted.

Róisín wrote:

Modern queer critics ...................................giving something that has been hushed up or ignored (for whatever reason) some air time and some criticism, finally.


Interesting choice of words Roisin...

Pat wrote:
But would she have included that in her books? No! Not then - it wasn't done. Children were protected from any hint of sexuality - even hetero.
In a way it doesn't matter whether she knew about such things or not. She would never, ever have put it into a children's book.


No oh course she wouldn't - just like there are no mentions of murderers or rapists.... or maybe we should read that Joey's large family was due to Jack forcing his marritial rights on Joey in the bedroom, as happened in many families, during the interwar/post war period.

Pat wrote:

Children were protected from any hint of sexuality


As a child, in the 1970's/1980's we had a family friend who happened to be a teacher, who lived with a woman, (who I was told was her sister....It wasn't unless her retirement party in the late 1990's (when I was at uni) I found out she was gay...and when I asked my mum why she never told me - her answer: You were a child.
#19:  Author: Kate, Location: Ireland PostPosted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 9:55 pm
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Sugar wrote:
Róisín wrote:

Modern queer critics ...................................giving something that has been hushed up or ignored (for whatever reason) some air time and some criticism, finally.


Interesting choice of words Roisin...


I think Róisín used the word "criticism" in the sense of literary criticism - interpretating and evaluating as opposed to expressing fault.

(ETA: If that is what you meant, I'm rather tired so might be missing points all over the place tonight!! Laughing)
#20:  Author: Dawn, Location: Leeds, West Yorks PostPosted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 10:04 pm
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My mother, who admitedly is pretty naive, was in the WRENS during the war and had no idea that there was such a thing as lesbianism. I think she thinks it's one of the modern inventions Rolling Eyes

When I was at college in the late 70s, it was a huge shock to most of the students when a couple of girls came out as a couple. They'd been on a work placement with another girl - all sharing a bedroom and that was when their relationship started. The third girl who was most definitely NOT the shy retiring type and who was usually one of the first to pick up on gossip about hetrosexual relationships (real or imagined) remained completely oblivious until they announced it to all of us a few months later.


EBD became a staunch Catholic and I don't know enough about Catholicism to know for sure, but would suspect that lesbianism would not at that time be acceptable to the Church. She made it very clear in her books that marriage is the ideal and that being a career woman is second best.

I know that some research was done ages ago that showed that if people who would normally chose a hetrosexual relationship are put in a same sex environment for a long period of time (eg school, prison or possibly shortage of one sex - eg after a war) then a certain (admittedly small) percentage of them will change to same sex relationships. If they are then in a mixed gender environment, some, but not all will revert to a hetrosexual lifestyle.
#21: Re: The Lacrosse League Author: keren, Location: Israel PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:48 am
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champagnedrinker wrote:
Kathryn wrote:
Queer historians have seized on the Chalet stories as key lesbian texts. Certainly Chalet girls keep saying that no matter what happens, their first loyalty will always be to the school and their chums. And it's true that marriage offers fewer opportunities for mountain rescues, dog-sledding and catching Nazis. And that's the sort of thing that creates character.


Did it mention who those Historians were? The main academic books etc., I can think of are Rosemary Auchmuty's World of Girls & World of Women, Craig/ Cadogan's You're a Brick Angela & also Ju Gosling's work - all of which are more focussed on the "girl" aspect, than their sexuality - it crops up, but isn't key. (Unless I misread them!)


The things I saw in Ju Gosling's work are to do with the empowerment of women, but in this case, you are talking about feminism and not lesbian.

On the other hand, EBD when showing relationships between women showed what she saw in the way that she understood it, and as you all said, she would not have understood it in a sexual way.

Intersting idea about women staying single because of a lack of men, but thay say more boys are born to make up for this imbalance
#22:  Author: Mona, Location: Hertfordshire PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 9:12 am
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Quote:
Intersting idea about women staying single because of a lack of men, but thay say more boys are born to make up for this imbalance

There is some evidence that happens, but it only helps the next generation of girls!
#23:  Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 10:12 am
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Sugar: of course I did not mean that literary critics are actually criticising the state of being homosexual. I meant that they were exercising literary criticism. I think that's pretty obvious from the way I said it, and from the context.

In general: I think the important thing here is that every critic, no matter what leaning their criticism has (feminist, queer, racial, postmodern, structuralist, whatever) has the right to ask these questions. Nobody should ever say that *insert pet subject of choice* never, ever, ever appeared in EBD, because that is taking far too black and white a view of the books and frankly, too condescending a view of EBD as an author.

Particularly with homosexuality: I don't think it's possible to conjure up an image of what EBD's knowledge of homosexuality was, because it's obvious just from this thread that different people had vastly different experiences. The important thing to see is that it is all conjecture, and that there is room for interpretation in EBDs biography.

Would she have included it in the books, if we accept there's a possiblity of her knowing about homosexuality? There's a couple of ways of approaching this.
1. Who is to say that the series isn't revolutionary already? It's a community of women that exercise almost complete control over their own lives, and the lives of the children in their charge. It's a depiction of happy, strong, independant spinsters for the most part. Was this the norm in EBD's period? When did it become okay to view the series in this way?
2. Quoting from Pat here - 'Anything sexual, whatever the orientation, simply was not written about for the age group she was writing for. It wasn't considered appropriate.' What about Adrienne's possible future before she meets the Robin? What about the problems some female characters go through with childbirth? What about the discussions of early marriage and the problems with it? What about the constant referrals to breastfeeding?
3. Away from the sexual arena, EBD included lots of themes that might not have been appropriate for children. Eg: the shady kidnapping in Redheads, the backgrounds of lots of her characters that are frankly abusive, bullying, racial discrimation during the war etc etc. And these are all things she included conciously.

I'm not saying that EBD *did* include references to homosexuality, conciously or unconciously. But I think it is very important that queer critics are allowed to ask this question of the text, without blanket refusals from some readers, who shut their eyes to even investigating the possibility.
#24:  Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 11:38 am
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I would think that when EBD was writing it would have been very unusual, whatever the author's personal knowledge and or opinions were, obviously to mention homosexual relationships in books, whether for adults or for children, especially as male homosexuality was illegal then. (IIRC Queen Victoria had refused to believe that lesbianism was possible, and refused to give the Royal Assent to a Bill mentioning it.) I don't think that there was an openly gay character in an English language soap opera until Steven in Dynasty in the late 1970s/early 1980s, so even as late as that it was a subject that some people would have avoided.

It's very hard to guess from the books what EBD was or wasn't getting at with some topics that might not have been considered suitable for children to read about in detail. For example, she refers to Madge and Jem "spacing out" their family, which could mean that they were using contraception whereas other couples in the series perhaps weren't but then again could just be a throwaway comment.

Kathie and Nancy obviously enjoy a very close relationship, as do Hilda and Nell: it just depends how people interpret that. Kathie mentions somewhere that she and Nancy have been away for a weekend together, but then most heterosexual women have been on holiday with a female friend at some point. And, seeing as we'll never know for sure what EBD might have meant, we can all enjoy debating the subject Very Happy .
#25:  Author: Sugar, Location: second star to the right! PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 12:17 pm
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Just for confirmation as people (Kate and the OP, maybe others) seem to think I was thinking that I was commenting about "criticism"

Róisín wrote:

Modern queer critics


Interesting choice of words Roisin... seems a very prejudiced word to use, in a debate.

There is no need to reply Roisin. I was not having a dig at you personally. Just your choice of words.
#26:  Author: Mia, Location: London PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 12:26 pm
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Sugar wrote:
Just for confirmation as people (Kate and the OP, maybe others) seem to think I was thinking that I was commenting about "criticism"

Róisín wrote:

Modern queer critics


Interesting choice of words Roisin... seems a very prejudiced word to use, in a debate.

There is no need to reply Roisin. I was not having a dig at you personally. Just your choice of words.


But again, this is now an academic term, and not used with pejorative intent. If you look at the original article, which I assume Kathryn is quoting directly from? it's used there too.
#27:  Author: meerium, Location: belfast, northern ireland PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 1:02 pm
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Queer Theory is a movement within Gender Studies, and has had currency in academia since the 1990s - it draws a lot on Foucalt and Derrida.

I have a friend who is the LGBT editor for a Scottish paper, and she self-identifies as 'genderqueer', and refers to queer theory, people's sexuality as 'queer' etc quite freely.

Is there a link to that article, or did I just miss it? I think she'd be quite interested in it, as would I. Thanks Kathryn!
#28:  Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 1:04 pm
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I think everyone has made valid points, so thank you all for a lively discussion.

I may not necessarily agree with the critics, but I'd go to the wall for their right to voice their theories.

However, when girls in the books say that they will always be good CS girls, they are expressing loyalty to their school and to the ethos of it which teaches them that good friends are to be treasured and not discarded at the end of their schooldays.

I found EBD's attitude towards childbirth rather laughable, especially from the modern point of view. Nowadays, women are expected to be up and around very quickly, but then women were kept in bed for a fortnight afterwards, and were not expected to go out much for at least a month. And in those days, women would often not be welcome in someone else's house so soon after giving birth, because there was then a strong tradition that women did not visit anywhere until they had been Churched. To be fair, when a character in the books has not had an easy childbirth, she doesn't go into the gory details, just tells us that the character has to rest for quite a while. And she often throws in frail babies, not as a part of the plot, though it is in 'Janie steps In', but merely to flesh out an otherwise fairly minor character, or to explain why that particular girl is needed at home, as in the case of Blossom Willoughby.

As for the breast-feeding, it was accepted that babies were fed in that way, the natural source of nutrition, to be supplemented with bottles where needed, and the characters never made a fuss of it, and if they fed their babies in front of other people, it was only in front of family members or very close friends, never in public or in a mixed gathering.
#29:  Author: Sarah_K, Location: St Albans PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 1:23 pm
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One thing that always fasciantes me in the Chalet books is how often a character will pour scorn on the idea that the girl's might form "grand passions" for each other or for a mistress.

Unless it's just me being dense EBD never makes it enormously clear what the difference between a grand passion and a very deep friendship is, other than being incredibly soppy but then when you look at the way Jane treats people...

Somewhere in the back of my head I think I always read Simone as having a very passionate crush on Joey and then later when she talks about how she and Andre were friends before they married it makes me imagine them hiding there own preferences but then that's just how I read the books. it's one of the strenghts of good writing that the relationships and characters can be seen to have as many, or as few, layers as the reader wants to find!
#30:  Author: Katarzyna, Location: North West England PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 1:24 pm
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Sorry, but no matter who they are used by I find terms such as queer, academic or not, are offensive no matter where or how they are applied. Simply to say you are quoting it from a news article is not an excuse for using it at all. I would be grateful if it wasn't used further in this discussion.

Ok, now my point of view Very Happy

These books are written for children and what ever EBD’s own personal knowledge of homosexuality was she would not have put it into a book for children, certainly her publishers would have made sure that there was nothing which would deem the books as unsuitable for children, if she put it in unconsciously then her editors would have made sure that it didn’t stay there - after all they were written in an age where books were banned if necessary. Modern day readers of the books, particularly adults but also the modern teenager, will see things there that when the books were written would most definitely not have been seen at all either by author, publisher or reader, but that is not down to the writers intention but rather down to our own knowledge.

EBD had experience of teaching in and running her own school – without a doubt she would have come across lesbians, however, she may not have known this, certainly it would not have been something talked about. She will also have come across it during the war years – there was an increase of female same sex relationships during the war years, caused by the gender imbalance in part but also by the loneliness, danger and want of support. I know certainly that you get less throwing up of the hands in horror from those who were in the 20 – 30 age group during the war years than you do from the same age group in either the early 30’s or the 50’s

Dawn’s comments regarding the catholic church and homosexuality of either gender are quite correct, homosexuality is not and has never been acceptable in any form in catholisism, nor for that matter other Christian faiths (or most other faiths). For EBD to write her characters to be homosexual even unconsciously is something I personally just cannot see.

EBD would have taught in a predominantly female environment, she would have had most of her mental and emotional support from other females. Female friendships of the type she portrays throughout the series are I believe to be seen as purely close platonic friendships

K
#31:  Author: Mia, Location: London PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 1:37 pm
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Katarzyna wrote:
Simply to say you are quoting it from a news article is not an excuse for using it at all.


Sorry, but if I may clarify, I didn't say I was quoting from a news article, I actually said it was a recognised academic term, which Meerium confirmed. Furthermore if you read my post it was not actually a word I used myself at any time. I don't see that anybody has used it pejoratively in this discussion, and I'm sure no-one has meant to cause offense. Apologies if I have.
#32:  Author: Chelsea, Location: Your Imagination PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 2:38 pm
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Katarzyna wrote:
Sorry, but no matter who they are used by I find terms such as queer, academic or not, are offensive no matter where or how they are applied. Simply to say you are quoting it from a news article is not an excuse for using it at all. I would be grateful if it wasn't used further in this discussion.


What term would you prefer? Not asking to be snarky, but genuinely don't want to offend by using an offensive term. Within my department, queer studies is the accepted term.

Also, not all Christian faiths are against homosexuality. Mine (United Church) is not. Same-sex marriages are openly performed and the ministers at the church down the street are a same sex couple (who give great sermons).
#33:  Author: RroseSelavy, Location: Oxford, UK PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 2:49 pm
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Hmm, just a few random thoughts I've had reading this debate...

Firstly, I think that these days we're very quick to interpret a homosocial environment in fiction as a homosexual environment, and however much material this provides for fanfiction Wink it shouldn't be construed as the intention of the original author without good evidence.

Secondly, I think the tendency to do this with fiction from several decades ago can be strengthened by the fact that relationships could have been expressed and written about in very different ways than they are today. My mum has a photo of her as a small child in the 1950s kissing a female friend on the lips - quite a normal thing to do then, but how many of us do that these days?

My personal opinion is that sexuality had no business in EBD's books, so she didn't include it. And I wouldn't count mentions of motherhood/birth/breastfeeding etc. as sexual. Again, I think that as a society we're very quick to sexualise fiction (and just about every other aspect of life) and we have to look at work from other times/cultures with a healthy dose of cultural relativism.
#34: The Lacrosse League Author: Tor, Location: London PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 2:49 pm
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This is a really interesting discussion, and has prompted me to make a post (my first outside of saying hello!).

I see the Chalet characters as reflecting the friendships and dynamics that EBD was familiar with herself, particularly in regards to her colleagues at school and the girls she taught. There is a considerable likelihood that some of these may have been in lesbian relationships, and the portrayal of close friendships could reflect this with EBD being aware of it or not.

In that sense it doesn't matter whether or not EBD was intentionally incorporating homosexual overtones into her books. I think it is fairly unlikely that she was, but it remains the case that same sex relationships would have occurred in the time and place setting of the Chalet School, and it is too her credit that her adult and childhood relationships seem to reflect this. I am glad of the ambiguity.

I'm not putting this very clearly... but hope it makes a bit of sense. Summary: Lesbianism did/does occur in schools. Whether aware of it or not it makes sense to me that EBD would have characters that could be interpreted in that framework as they simply reflect the diversity of women and relationships in real life. (hmmm... bit long for a summary!)

Slightly OT has anyone read the Laughter at Stafford Girls High (or something like that?) by Carol Ann Duffy, it is a hilarious long poem and really reminded me of those teacher at scholl everyone knew were struggling with various passions!
#35:  Author: Sarah_K, Location: St Albans PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 2:59 pm
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Tor said:
Quote:
Summary: Lesbianism did/does occur in schools. Whether aware of it or not it makes sense to me that EBD would have characters that could be interpreted in that framework as they simply reflect the diversity of women and relationships in real life. (hmmm... bit long for a summary!)


I think that's a very good point. If EBD manages to write her books as a fairly accurate mirror of school life then that will include the possibility for passions that she wouldn't write about seething under the surface (sorry, I'm being flippant, but I hope I'm making sense). A character might just be jealous of her friend going off with another girl or it mgiht mean something else altogether and that's how we would see an actual school of the period if we were able to look down from outside.

Glad to see you joining in Tor!
#36:  Author: Kathy_S, Location: midwestern US PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 3:48 pm
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Quote:
I'm not saying that EBD *did* include references to homosexuality, conciously or unconciously. But I think it is very important that queer critics are allowed to ask this question of the text, without blanket refusals from some readers, who shut their eyes to even investigating the possibility.

Naturally literary criticism can delve into whatever avenues and subtexts it pleases.

However, as readers I think we should be allowed to see writers in the context in which we believe they wrote, without being accused of blindness. I realize that it's difficult for younger people to envision a world in which there were fairly rigid ideas about what could and couldn't be alluded to in front of children, but it did exist and it was effective. I, growing up at the tail end of that era, never heard of homosexuality until I was 18 -- and then, of course, in the context of literary criticism, where we were told that it symbolized hopelessness and despair, since no children could be born of such a union. Confused I doubt that kind of ignorance would be possible today!
#37:  Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 3:55 pm
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Sugar wrote:
Just for confirmation as people (Kate and the OP, maybe others) seem to think I was thinking that I was commenting about "criticism"

Róisín wrote:

Modern queer critics


Interesting choice of words Roisin... seems a very prejudiced word to use, in a debate.

There is no need to reply Roisin. I was not having a dig at you personally. Just your choice of words.


In your original post you highlighted differently:

Quote:
Modern queer critics ...................................giving something that has been hushed up or ignored (for whatever reason) some air time and some criticism, finally.


so it is understandable that I assumed you were emphasising the word criticism. What does OP stand for?

Queer as a word: yes, I'm sorry, I do think it is the right word to use in this context. I'm sorry that it offends you Kate, but it IS a very valid and very established academic word, and as I am speaking in an academic manner, I think that it is the only word to use. As a word it means far more than just homosexual - it has undertones of all the theory that has gone under the label 'queer theory' for the last twenty years, and I chose that word because I wanted to reflect that. In my university, and other universities that I'm familiar with, queer theory is the official word for this type of study. Also, it is the word used in the article that we are discussing, and that also adds weight to the choice to use it here. The word queer theory and the perjorative word queer are very different: see the explanation here.

Just to reiterate my stance: I have never argued that EBD included homosexual references in her books. But I think that it is right and valid for queer theory academics to question whether she did or not. Everyone has the right to interpretation.

Edited to add: any time I used the word queer it was as shorthand for queer-theory. I would never dream of actually using the word 'queer' to describe the sexual orientation of a person. In fact I haven't even heard it used in that sense in years (locally anyway).
#38:  Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 4:08 pm
    —
Spree for a different reason. With mod-hat on, I tried to find the original article. I found the Nancy Drew one that was mentioned - it's here but found no sign of the section on school stories that accompanied it. If anyone is cleverer than me at searching the site, will you post it up here, ta Very Happy
#39:  Author: Sarah_K, Location: St Albans PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 5:30 pm
    —
Kathy_S you're absolutely right that no reader should be accused of blindness for not seeing what another reader thinks is clear.

It's one of those things about subtext that what is obvious to me may be invisible to you, or vice versa, or even that two people can read exactly opposite subtext into the same piece of text (witness every debate ever in the Harry Potter community about Harry/Hermione vs Ron/Hermione)

I think I said this before in this thread but I think EBD's writing lends itself to being read with as many layers, or filters, as the reader wants. Partly because she's quite good at writing relationships and partly because she leaves us enough space for whatever we see there.

Personally I'm rather a "death of the author" type so I love it when our drabbles take EBD's world and play with it and take it to places she would never have taken it (*cough Jack/Jem cough*) herself but the world, and the CBB, would be very boring if we all agreed![/b]
#40:  Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 5:51 pm
    —
Kathy_S wrote:
However, as readers I think we should be allowed to see writers in the context in which we believe they wrote, without being accused of blindness.


Just noticed this! I hadn't even connected you mentioning blindness with me saying 'shut their eyes' Embarassed

I wasn't accusing you or Pat or anyone else of being blind. I was saying that nobody should *turn away* from any method of textual investigation.
#41:  Author: Mia, Location: London PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 5:53 pm
    —
OP stands for original post or poster, or I've also heard it referred to as opening post/poster.
#42:  Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 6:55 pm
    —
I accept that with modern eyes we can see relationships that might exist between two women such as Kathie and Nancy. We are reading in our own day and age, and with a modern outlook, and can see that a close firendship like theirs could be something more. I'm not blind to that, thank you. I also enjoy the drabbles that explore that theme if they are written well.
My point is what others have said. That it wasn't there intentionally - that it would have been edited out if anyone thought that there was any trace of anything other than what was then considered to be a normal relationship. EBD used a ephemism for being pregnant, so does anyone really believe that she would have written about an area that was taboo at the time? I was reading the CS in the late 50s & early 60s, and I know from personal experience that books aimed at children never had anything like that in them. Romances, such as Madge & Jem, and Joey & Jack, were skimmed over lightly. Anything more would have been inappropriate at that time.
#43:  Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:44 pm
    —
Pat wrote:
I'm not blind to that, thank you.


I did not say you were blind to anything - I have already explained what I meant by the phrase 'shut their eyes'.
#44:  Author: Sarah_K, Location: St Albans PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:53 pm
    —
Quote:
EBD used a ephemism for being pregnant, so does anyone really believe that she would have written about an area that was taboo at the time?


No. I don't think anybody does. Or at least I don't think anybody is trying to say that she explicitly wrote about, as you say, an area that was so taboo. I don't think she'd have written about it in anyway that could be interpreted as such bu children or the general public.

I suppose where I differe from Pat and a few others is that I would say we can never know what EBD was intending and therefore perhaps, in the back of her mind, Hilda and Nell (or any other pair) had a relationship that was more han friendship.

But in the text I would agree with you.

I just tend to be more interested (or at least as interested) in the subtext as the text!

Though it's alway interesting to look at a reading that would be more familair to EBD's original readers and that probably would show up angles I've never even considered!
#45:  Author: Liseke,  PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 9:01 pm
    —
I've commented on this in my own LJ, but am very concerned at the reaction to a perfectly legitimate response grounded in established academic theory. If there are those who think this discussion is more suitable for St Hild's, then perhaps we could reconvene there.

I'd be interested in seeing how CS fans have responded to Larkin's version of the school story - and that is a topic that is certainly for St Hild.

My own view is that we should be open to a variety of critical readings. There is always space for subtext and where would literary criticism be without it? I cannot read any text with uncritical acceptance, that seems wasteful.
#46:  Author: Mia, Location: London PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 9:13 pm
    —
I was just thinking of the Larkin stories! I've actually just hunted for the book on my rather chaotic bookshelves. I'd like to discuss it sometime when I've re-read.

I was thinking about books with this type of subtext... there's also The Hill, which was published in 1905, a book for boys, set in Harrow, and very much a major homosexual text, the author, Vachell, was married with children, I believe. I'm trying to think of any others.
#47:  Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 9:17 pm
    —
I think everyone needs to be careful what terminology they use in any discussion once someone has stated that they find a term/word offensive. Even when it's used legitimately in other people's eyes. We have our friendly welcoming reputation to think of, and I'm sure no one wants to upset another member of the board.
#48:  Author: Carolyn P, Location: Lancaster, England PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 9:28 pm
    —
Liseke wrote:
I've commented on this in my own LJ, but am very concerned at the reaction to a perfectly legitimate response grounded in established academic theory.


I can see, I think, both sides to this, for those in academic circles it does appear from the links provided to be a non perjorative term and used in that way, however, it is still used by people of my parents generation in a perjorative fashion, and if you are most used to hearing it in those terms then it would be all too easy to be offended by it.

I would also add that since the CBB is not an academic forum, and while many of it's members are highly educated, many are also not, or have not been in academia recently or have come from a wide variety of disciplines. This means that a lot of academic terminology will not be understood in the way it may be meant by those who use it. There used to be a rule against using a foreign language without translation on the board, and in some ways some academic terms may be seen the same way.


ETA: It took me that long to try and word this in as non inflamtory way as possible that Pat's reply wasn't there when I went into 'post reply!' or I probably wouldn't have added my two penn'orth.

Last edited by Carolyn P on Fri Jun 29, 2007 9:32 pm; edited 1 time in total
#49:  Author: Liseke,  PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 9:31 pm
    —
Leaving the larger issues of cultural difference and perception aside, please let's not enter a downward spiral of bland comments couched in terms that will not alienate those of a different religious persuasion or educational experience. If a word or term is unclear, we all have access to dictionaries or histories of literary criticism whether online or in book form. That isn't to say that I find Carolyn or Pat's posts offensive in any way - thank you for the warning and we can all strive for clarity.

There are plenty of 'grand passions' in boarding school stories. Clare Mallory deals with them in no nonsense fashion, as does Antonia Forest.

We haven't even got to the cult worship of Mary Lou and the repeated assimilations into the perfect Chalet girl. Plenty of space for every literary theory here.

Last edited by Liseke on Fri Jun 29, 2007 9:46 pm; edited 1 time in total
#50:  Author: MaryR, Location: Cheshire PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 9:37 pm
    —
Dawn wrote:

EBD became a staunch Catholic and I don't know enough about Catholicism to know for sure, but would suspect that lesbianism would not at that time be acceptable to the Church.

It wasn't acceptable then - and still isn't now, Dawn. No matter what we may privately feel, the doctrines of the Church on this are still the same.
#51:  Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 9:46 pm
    —
Liseke wrote:
Leaving the larger issues of cultural difference and perception aside, please let's not enter a downward spiral of bland comments couched in terms that will not alienate those of a different religious persuasion or educational experience. If a word or term is unclear, we all have access to dictionaries. That isn't to say that I find Carolyn or Pat's posts offensive in any way - thank you for the warning and we can all strive for clarity.


Access to dictionaries will not help those who find a term - any term - hurtful and offensive. Nor those who understand the 'common usage' meaning of it.
#52:  Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 9:52 pm
    —
Let's get something clear here: this is not a debate about the use of the word 'queer'. This is a debate about the article that appeared in the Australian newspaper that is quoted in the first post.

This is not an academic forum, but the article we are discussing spoke about academics and used academic language to do this. It didn't use new language either - queer theory has been around for at least a generation in a strong way, for longer in a more tentative way.

There was just one objection to the use of the word queer (Katarzyna's) and there was one observation that the word seemed prejudiced (Sugarplum's). There were very many more posts that either didn't object, or steered clear of interpreting the word and instead stuck to what the article in the first post talked about.

*withOUT mod-hat on*
#53:  Author: Sugar, Location: second star to the right! PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 9:56 pm
    —
Sugar wrote:
Just for confirmation as people (Kate and the OP, maybe others) seem to think I was thinking that I was commenting about "criticism"

Róisín wrote:

Modern queer critics


Interesting choice of words Roisin... seems a very prejudiced word to use, in a debate.

There is no need to reply Roisin. I was not having a dig at you personally. Just your choice of words.


Just to reclarify this.
The OP I refer to was Roisin.
The word I found offensive was queer.
The reason I found it offensive was that I have never heard it used as anything other than an insult. My academic background had never let me be aware of another meaning and I'm sure I'm not the only one of the board who saw queer as an offensive word for homosexual.... just like "poof" or "faggot" etc
It was not a personal attack on the person who used it. I'd have reacted the same way to anyone and to any word I find offensive.
#54:  Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 10:10 pm
    —
If OP stands for Original Poster then that was not me. The article quoting has been up since June 24th with the word queer in it. I posted four days later, using the word in the same sense as the article used it in, which was not perjorative - indeed it would be strange if a national broadsheet printed an article which used a word that is on the same level as poof or faggot.
#55:  Author: Mia, Location: London PostPosted: Fri Jun 29, 2007 10:19 pm
    —
I am asking with my mod hat on, for people to please remember the post in Voice of the CBB entitled Politeness - the Pride of Princes.

Although we do enjoy a good debate on the board, could people please consider their posts before they make them, possibly making judicious use of the 'preview' option. If you think your post might upset somebody then please don't make it. Similarly people are entitled to express their opinions and you should also remember that if you think you have been personally slighted, to contact a mod rather than responding. Please could you also refrain from singling people out by name.

Many thanks Very Happy
#56:  Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland PostPosted: Sat Jun 30, 2007 4:56 am
    —
Mia wrote:
I am asking with my mod hat on, for people to please remember the post in Voice of the CBB entitled Politeness - the Pride of Princes.

Although we do enjoy a good debate on the board, could people please consider their posts before they make them, possibly making judicious use of the 'preview' option. If you think your post might upset somebody then please don't make it. Similarly people are entitled to express their opinions and you should also remember that if you think you have been personally slighted, to contact a mod rather than responding. Please could you also refrain from singling people out by name.

Many thanks Very Happy


This thread is open for business again. Please read what Mia has said.
#57:  Author: Liss, Location: Richmond PostPosted: Sat Jun 30, 2007 8:57 am
    —
I just wanted to add, with the squeenliest of all my hats, that this has been discussed in the Staff Room, and I have decided that, as queer theory is a recognised academic field (see here for example), I cannot in good conscience request that it not be mentioned on the board, especially in the context of this discussion. Obviously any discriminatory or derogatory remarks in relation to sexuality will not be tolerated, but quite clearly that is not the case here. I would ask that if anyone has a problem with this decision, they take it up with me personally rather than continuing on the thread.
#58: The Lacrosse League Author: Tor, Location: London PostPosted: Sat Jun 30, 2007 12:37 pm
    —
If anyone would like to continue this discussion, I'd been having a think about all of the posts and think that the original article seems to bring up a number of interlinking issue relating to the Chalet School as a series, EBD and also the breadth of readership and enduring interest in her books amongst adults for recreation and academic study:

1) the original staement in the article "Queer historians have seized on the Chalet stories as key lesbian texts." Why? How? and why the Chalet School over other GO lit etc. Does author intent matter in these cases?

2) EBD's representation of female friendships. What were the key values that she emphasised in relationships between women in the book, vs those between men and women. Does this explain some of the above in Q1? Again, does knowing about the author inform our interpretation, or is it irrelevant to personal interpretation?

3) Breadth of readership: How compatible are the realms of academic and recreational discussion of the text? What are various reasons the books seem to be able to inspire and maintain interest for both groups of (not mutally exclusive) people?

Very dull and long breakdown, but I did find this discussion interesting. Still i guess each of these things could make separate threads in Formal Discussions or Anything Else.

Tor Smile
#59:  Author: champagnedrinker,  PostPosted: Sat Jun 30, 2007 4:44 pm
    —
Oh gosh ... I hadn't intended to initiate quite such a long debate!

It's been interesting to read - and if anyone knows which historians were being referred to in the original article (and pref the papers they wrote), then I'd still be interested to know what they are.
#60:  Author: keren, Location: Israel PostPosted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 10:12 am
    —
A long long time ago, when I was in university I did a course on feminist interprettaion of Eng Lit.
the lecturer took books which there was no way that the writer would have intended them to be interpreted as a feminist story, and "read" the book in a feminist way.

In that same way of literary "reading", you can take a CS story and read it with a different point of view in mind, such as that suggested here, and "read" the books in that way.

I think it is very interesting anyway to read Ju Gosling's articles which are available online, I believe the formal discussion thread has a link to them
#61:  Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland PostPosted: Sun Jul 01, 2007 11:47 pm
    —
Quote:
Queer historians have seized on the Chalet stories as key lesbian texts.

As one of the mods for this forum, I've tried and tried to find out who these historians/critics were. There didn't seem to be any likely looking titles on the Special Sixth thread. After some research, Ju Gosling is the only author I've come up with as a possible candidate. Here are the relevant quotes from her thesis. She also quotes Auchmuty and McClelland while discussing this topic.

From 'The Significance of Girls' School Stories'

Quote:
Heterosexual constructs of femininity, then, are far from being represented unproblematically in the form of adult characters, the majority of whom, in any case, are single women. And the idealised family always remains the community of girls and women represented in the school itself. This is not to argue, though, that the genre operates as a fantasy of lesbianism for its readers. Auchmuty states that:

Where psychoanalytic theory focuses on sexuality, I prefer to focus on love - that emotion we all thought we understood until sophisticates told us it represented unconscious (and in this case, forbidden) desires we never knew we had . . . love is a natural human emotion, and most women, whatever our chosen sexual identity, have loved other women. I am sure that this would be true of all of us if we hadn't been told all our lives that the love of men was paramount above all other loyalties. . .

What school stories show us is that this truth - that women can and do love other women - was easier to speak in earlier eras in particular literary genres than it is today or in other literary genres. (Auchmuty, Rosemary, A World of Girls, The Women's Press, London, 1992, p210.)

However, the genre stresses that girls and women are equally as important as boys and men: that girls and women do not need boys and men in order to be fulfiled; that they can be equally fulfiled on their own; that if they do have a relationship, one with a girl or woman can be as satisfying as one with a boy or a man (sexuality also being absent from representations of heterosexual relationships); and that dependent relationships are bad. Given these challenges to heterosexual norms, it is plausible, then, to claim the genre as being queer.


From 'The history of Girls’ School Stories'

Quote:
There has been speculation that many of the women who wrote girls' school stories were lesbian, but there has been little evidence to support this, if by being lesbian we mean that they consciously had sexual feelings towards other women, resulting on occasion in genital contact. Helen McClelland notes that Brent-Dyer "was chiefly renowned at college for the way in which she took violent crushes on other students" ; Gillian Freeman describes Brazil's "possessive passion"" for her friend Dorothy Milward; and there is speculation about the nature of Blyton's relationship with her friend Dorothy Richards. It should be remembered, though, that the early part of the twentieth century was still a period when it was accepted that women could have passionate relationships with each other, and that these were generally believed not to be sexual. McClelland warns that:

Today it has become almost impossible to believe in the existence of any adult woman so innocent - and ignorant - that all sexual or homosexual undercurrents flow past her unnoticed. Yet such women did exist. Moreover it seems probable that they numbered among them many of those who wrote schoolgirl fiction in the pre-war days. (McClelland, Helen, Behind the Chalet School, New Horizon, Bognor Regis, 1981 and Bettany Press (revised edition), London, 1996, p93.)

Of course, at the same time it was believed that women did not have sexual feelings at all, so, whether sexual or not, it is difficult to see how their relationships with other women could be ranked below those relationships which they had with men. Certainly the writers were girl- and women-centred, and since they deviated from the heterosexual norms for twentieth-century British women of marriage and motherhood, they can be regarded as being queer.


I've also found this reference:
Quote:
Jansson, S ‘Sentimental Bosh? Ambivalence and the Construction of a 'True Chalet School girl' in Elinor Brent-Dyer's Chalet School Books’ 1995

but can't find any trace of a fully readable article online, or even mention of what journal or book it's published in. The search is ongoing Laughing

EDIT:

From Lesbian Historiography, or A Talk about the "Sweaty Sheet Fantasies of Certain Modern Tribades" by Sally Newman
Quote:
Nancy Sahli provided one of the first in depth examinations of the prevalence of "crushes, smashes and mashes" in US women's colleges in the mid-nineteenth century. [16] Others, such as Martha Vicinus in her lengthy study Independent Women, have examined the erotic dynamics of the "crush" relationship in great detail. [17] Rosemary Auchmuty and more recently Sherrie Innes have discussed girls' school stories for their representation of same-sex love and desire. (Rosemary Auchmuty "You're a Dyke, Angela! Elsie J. Oxenham and the rise and fall of the schoolgirl story", in Lesbian History Group, Not a Passing Phase: Reclaiming Lesbians in History 1840-1985, The Women's Press, London, 1989, pp. 119-140)
But the questions that have animated all of these debates and discussions in lesbian historiography are the dual notions of definition and evidence, and the interlinked problems of reading and interpretation.


The following source sounds really interesting in this context, but I can't find an online transcript of the chapter in the book.

Quote:
Rosemary Auchmuty "You're a Dyke, Angela! Elsie J. Oxenham and the rise and fall of the schoolgirl story", in Lesbian History Group, Not a Passing Phase: Reclaiming Lesbians in History 1840-1985, The Women's Press, London, 1989, pp. 119-140
#62:  Author: macyrose, Location: Great White North (Canada) PostPosted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 1:28 am
    —
Roisin wrote:
Quote:
I've also found this reference:
Quote:
Jansson, S ‘Sentimental Bosh? Ambivalence and the Construction of a 'True Chalet School girl' in Elinor Brent-Dyer's Chalet School Books’ 1995
but can't find any trace of a fully readable article online, or even mention of what journal or book it's published in. The search is ongoing


I've got a copy of this article that I printed off from the Internet (the site I got it from no longer exists). It was originally published in New Comparison: A Journal of Comparative and General Literary Studies, #20, autumn 1995). It's seven pages of small type so it's too long for me to type but if someone can post it somewhere so it can be linked to the board I can scan it and send it them. It's a very interesting article and well worth reading.
#63:  Author: Kathryn, Location: North of Melb PostPosted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 1:54 am
    —
I didn't think the article would spark this type of debate!!

It might be worth contacting the author of the article to try and find out what their references were. I've got the original article still, but as it is 3 hours away, it'll have to wait a fortnight or so as I'm also on my way to NZ. I can't remember if the author was the same as the main article (a link of which is provided earlier in the thread). Would that be worth a go?
#64:  Author: Kate, Location: Ireland PostPosted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 1:28 pm
    —
When I get back home I'll hunt around my old notes and so on and see if I can find anything. I am not sure of how many of the notes relate to CS specifially though.
#65:  Author: champagnedrinker,  PostPosted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 2:40 pm
    —
macyrose wrote:

I've got a copy of this article that I printed off from the Internet (the site I got it from no longer exists). It was originally published in New Comparison: A Journal of Comparative and General Literary Studies, #20, autumn 1995). It's seven pages of small type so it's too long for me to type but if someone can post it somewhere so it can be linked to the board I can scan it and send it them. It's a very interesting article and well worth reading.


Macyrose, does the printout have the original URL - could you find an archived copy at www.archive.org?
#66:  Author: champagnedrinker,  PostPosted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 3:09 pm
    —
Róisín wrote:


The following source sounds really interesting in this context, but I can't find an online transcript of the chapter in the book.

Quote:
Rosemary Auchmuty "You're a Dyke, Angela! Elsie J. Oxenham and the rise and fall of the schoolgirl story", in Lesbian History Group, Not a Passing Phase: Reclaiming Lesbians in History 1840-1985, The Women's Press, London, 1989, pp. 119-140


We seem to have that book in our uni library. I'll go see if it's really there tomorrow (sometimes what the catalogue says & what's on the shelf aren't quite the same...)
#67: The Lacrosse League Author: Tor, Location: London PostPosted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 4:08 pm
    —
I'd just like to say thankyou to all of you making the effort to find all of these articles!

If only i didn't have to finish a paper on elephant legs for a conference in 2 weeks... I want to read them all.

Thanks guys!
#68:  Author: Mia, Location: London PostPosted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 6:14 pm
    —
Liseke has mentioned it above, but people may also be interested in Trouble at Willow Gables and Other Fictions by Philip Larkin (edited. James Booth, Faber & Faber, 2002). The introduction is interesting as it references a lot of Larkin's correspondence in the 1940s to Kingsley Amis in which they discuss lesbian subtext to girls' school stories. It's fascinating.

A book mentioned which contains "unusually legible erotic subtext" is Niece of the Headmistress, by Dorothy Vicary, and also two boys' stories, Lions and Shadows, by Isherwood and The Senior Commoner by Julian Hall which feature an "implicitly homosexual boys' school". I haven't read any of these, but maybe some CBBers have.
#69:  Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland PostPosted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 6:34 pm
    —
macyrose wrote:
Roisin wrote:
Quote:
I've also found this reference:
Quote:
Jansson, S ‘Sentimental Bosh? Ambivalence and the Construction of a 'True Chalet School girl' in Elinor Brent-Dyer's Chalet School Books’ 1995
but can't find any trace of a fully readable article online, or even mention of what journal or book it's published in. The search is ongoing


I've got a copy of this article that I printed off from the Internet (the site I got it from no longer exists). It was originally published in New Comparison: A Journal of Comparative and General Literary Studies, #20, autumn 1995). It's seven pages of small type so it's too long for me to type but if someone can post it somewhere so it can be linked to the board I can scan it and send it them. It's a very interesting article and well worth reading.


Here it is. The text is small but it's possible to enlarge it by either clicking o n the magnifier picture OR by using your normal computer settings to make fonts larger (ie ctrl and + in Mozilla is one way).

Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
Page 4
Page 5
Page 6
Page 7

If anyone has real trouble with the text size because of bad sight etc (I was able to read it fine, but others might not be able to) then PM me with your email address and I'll forward on MacyRose's original email, which has the scan of the article attached in jpg format - which can be made as large as you like in text.

Relevant quotes from the article:

Quote:
...This article aims first to explore some of the ways in which the Chalet School series constructs its ideal of girlhood and womanhood, but how Brent-Dyer sometimes displays a secretive, implicit ambivalence towards this ideal, and secondly to suggest how such a different kind of establishment retains an appeal for contemporary readers, in spite of - or perhaps because of - its difference from their own experience.

Quote:
...Brent-Dyer's construction of girlhood therefore allows a measure of innocent naughtiness and fun. That is, however, one of the key words in her subtext: innocence. The notion that teenage girls could be interested in boys, or could be developing any form of sexuality, is treated with little short of horror: [quote from Problem - the convo between M-L and Jack about Joan not being a lady].
Joan's apparent awareness of her sexuality is clearly seen as a negative quality, if not actually 'unnatural': M-L later quotes Joan as saying that "any natural girl liked to" talk about boys, yet M-L's conversation with Jack Maynard is yet another example that, in the CS, such talk is that of an "unnatural" girl, and therefore Joan is not a "lady". [paragraph develops into finding definitions of ladylikeness in manners and language]

Quote:
...This "sentimental bosh" which M-L refers to in the passage above is the usual terminology for all kinds of emotional relationships in the CS, and is a further element in the construction of feminity: although marriage and children as woman's true destiny are glorified, there are very few "love-scenes", even between happily married couples such as the Maynards... Pregnancy and childbirth are taboo as far as direct reference go: babies just appear, or are coyly hinted at when a character is described as knitting baby-clothes, or through oblique references that someone is going to be 'busy', and won't have any 'spare time'...

There follows a discussion of characters who are reformed, and the contrast between the role models of unmarried women teachers and the greatest gift a pupil could give back to the school - their offspring (!).
Quote:
So we are left with a curiously contradictory set of images: a scathing dismissal of "sentiment" in stories that are acutely sentimental, particularly in the matter of religion...
A series in which divorce, difficult births or miscarriages, and emotional trauma of any kind is outlawed, yet one that conveys tragedies and huge subjects, like the war, with a real sense of identification...[there follows examples from Exile and HT about Jack being lost and Bruno's experiences in the concentration camp]

Quote:
...Brent-Dyer sometimes vacilates between an occasional and insiduous desire to be realistic, and an inability to relinquish her ideal of both her characters and her school: therefore, she allows occasional moments of realism, but almost always qualifies or deflates them by giving them happy endings, or diverting attention on to some happy school event. Jo embodies this contradiction: she is at times utterly convincing and at times wholly idealised, a "schoolgirl" who mothers eleven children, which implies very active sexuality (although her conversion to Catholicism when she marries Jack Maynard offers some explanation for this), a wife and mother who works, a child and an adult...in this sense, she represents much of the ambivalence that one can occasionally detect in Brent-Dyer towards the role of women that she is advocating. This ambivalence is not explicit, and is encoded in the text, rather than overt: but it is there.
#70:  Author: keren, Location: Israel PostPosted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 7:27 pm
    —
Thanks for posting this.
the article is very interesting and seems to be written by someone who knows the series very well.
A number of issues that we often discuss were mentioned in it.
#71:  Author: champagnedrinker,  PostPosted: Tue Jul 03, 2007 4:49 pm
    —
As that scan has the URL on, I've just tested & going to www.archive.org & pasting in the URL, you can get to this page
- which will give you the text version - so you can enlarge it as much as you want.

Or copy & paste it elsewhere.

Edited to shorten the link
- Fatima with mod hat on
#72:  Author: tiffinata, Location: melbourne, australia PostPosted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 7:11 am
    —
Interesting to see the way interpretation of words or scenes have changed since the books were written!
When I was a kid I never thought there could be an alternative meaning, but now when I read Enid Blyton's famous Five and the boys believe 'There is something queer happening on Kirrin island' I have a bit of a quiet laugh.
Even in Georgette Heyer's regency books there are some scenes or words that can be interpreted in different ways. In Venetia 2 women who are great friends are mentioned as setting up a house together and retiring from the world. Innocent reference? Probably.

In other books young men-about-town talk about 'Covent Garden nuns' or 'Abbesses' The slang chosen is deliberate in the style of the day.
#73:  Author: lizarfau, Location: Melbourne PostPosted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 7:39 am
    —
tiffinata wrote:
When I was a kid I never thought there could be an alternative meaning, but now when I read Enid Blyton's famous Five and the boys believe 'There is something queer happening on Kirrin island' I have a bit of a quiet laugh.


I've been reading May Gibbs' Gumnut stories with Gabriel and having a quiet snigger to myself at lines like the gumnuts having to stand very still in a room full of queer people and, even funnier, the bad Banksias exhorting people to "root her and shoot her", in reference to Ragged Blossom! Laughing
#74:  Author: MaryR, Location: Cheshire PostPosted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 7:16 pm
    —
tiffinata wrote:
In other books young men-about-town talk about 'Covent Garden nuns' or 'Abbesses' The slang chosen is deliberate in the style of the day.

See Cath V-P's story in St Clare's archives, re Abbesses, Tiffinata. Laughing
#75:  Author: Sarah_K, Location: St Albans PostPosted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 8:31 pm
    —
Tiffinata said:
Quote:
ven in Georgette Heyer's regency books there are some scenes or words that can be interpreted in different ways. In Venetia 2 women who are great friends are mentioned as setting up a house together and retiring from the world. Innocent reference? Probably.


If I could only find my copy of Venetia I'd check this but I'm fairly sure that the friends setting up that Venetia mentions are real people and that there are definate undertones of something other than just friendship. Though I honestly can't remember if that's later interpretation or something that was said at the time. Certainly Venetia mentions that they can get away with it because they're of a higher class than she is (suggesting there's something odd in it)

The Abbess always seemed a rather odd nickname to me, I suppose the girls were too innocent to know the double meaning but I can't quite believe EBD didn't know.

Quote:
So we are left with a curiously contradictory set of images: a scathing dismissal of "sentiment" in stories that are acutely sentimental

That's from the article linked above and it's something I noticed in reading the series once I was a little older. The continual restatement of the fact that the Chalet School doesn't do that sort of sentimentality ended up sounding to me liek EBD trying very hard to supress any other readings of her characters than one that is strictly of friendship whereas if you remove those statements there is sentiment everywhere and you can see "grand passions" everywhere.

It's interesting how much Grizel is mentioned, we often cling to her on this board as a character we can use because she's slightly outside the norm and, when she does get married, we complain about that awful proposal. I'm not quite sure what I want to say about that except that Grizel is always someone who feels things very deeply, a lot of the early books show how attached she is to Joey and how badly she reacts to being in second place (just as Simone did).
#76:  Author: Rosalin, Location: Swansea PostPosted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 8:35 pm
    —
Quote:
The Abbess always seemed a rather odd nickname to me, I suppose the girls were too innocent to know the double meaning but I can't quite believe EBD didn't know.


I didn't Embarassed Embarassed

I found out whilst reading a drabble about a fortnight ago.
#77:  Author: Sarah_K, Location: St Albans PostPosted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 8:44 pm
    —
Rosalin wrote:
Quote:
The Abbess always seemed a rather odd nickname to me, I suppose the girls were too innocent to know the double meaning but I can't quite believe EBD didn't know.


I didn't Embarassed Embarassed

I found out whilst reading a drabble about a fortnight ago.


I take it back then! Very Happy Obviously my mind is just so corrupted I can't tell anymore Twisted Evil Laughing
#78:  Author: Kathy_S, Location: midwestern US PostPosted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 9:30 pm
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There is another meaning? Embarassed Rolling Eyes
#79:  Author: Kate, Location: Ireland PostPosted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 9:45 pm
    —
I had to look it up, but this is what Urban Dictionary had to say! I had sort of guessed once Sarah said it, but it hadn't really occurred to me before!
#80:  Author: Lesley, Location: Allhallows, Kent PostPosted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 9:51 pm
    —
Oh I am so going to have to use that in RCS! Laughing
#81:  Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester PostPosted: Wed Jul 04, 2007 10:06 pm
    —
This is possibly slightly irrelevant, but I remember reading some stuff about the mid-late 18th century "cult of sensibility" - I usually find the Enlightenment very boring but I was reading this in connection with Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility! - and how the idea of it was for heroes and heroines to be kind and unselfish but also to have grand passions and go around weeping and fainting. The same sort of thing's been true at other points in history. I think maybe EBD, like a lot of other people - Queen Victoria being the most famous example! - sort of got caught between the idea of keeping a stiff upper lip and the idea that being very sentimental showed that people were sensitive and was a good thing ... does that make any sense?

With Joey some of it gets put down to her "creativity", but not all of it. And I can understand Simone getting sentimental over Joey when she's young, and away from home for the first time, but I find that Joey's sentimentality over Robin in the later Tyrol books gets really annoying.
#82:  Author: MaryR, Location: Cheshire PostPosted: Thu Jul 05, 2007 8:57 am
    —
Kate wrote:
I had to look it up, but this is what Urban Dictionary had to say! I had sort of guessed once Sarah said it, but it hadn't really occurred to me before!

Which is why I recommended Cath's drabble - it makes that point very precisely - a play on Hilda's nickname and what she and Nell could get up to when they retire. Laughing
#83:  Author: joyclark,  PostPosted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 5:32 am
    —
Kate wrote:
I had to look it up, but this is what Urban Dictionary had to say! I had sort of guessed once Sarah said it, but it hadn't really occurred to me before!


I didn't know either . . .
#84:  Author: tiffinata, Location: melbourne, australia PostPosted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 7:27 am
    —
MaryR wrote:
tiffinata wrote:
In other books young men-about-town talk about 'Covent Garden nuns' or 'Abbesses' The slang chosen is deliberate in the style of the day.

See Cath V-P's story in St Clare's archives, re Abbesses, Tiffinata. Laughing


I did!! That's what reminded me.
#85:  Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland PostPosted: Fri Jul 13, 2007 6:49 pm
    —
Some more authors that the original article was possibly referring to. The research on EBD has dried up somewhat, but these are all GO authors at least (Forest, Blyton, Oxenham). The last extract in particular talks about the Grand Passions that we've just been discussing.

From here:
Quote:
Being Faithful: The Ethics of Homoaffection in Antonia Forest’s Marlow Novels
Caroline Gonda

I first encountered Antonia Forest’s Marlow novels as an adult lesbian reader in the late 1990s, when all the novels were out of print. The novels are now being brought back into print by a splendid small British press called Girls Gone By, and part of my aim in this article is to introduce Antonia Forest’s work to the wider lesbian audience it so richly deserves. Lesbian Studies is not just an academic phenomenon, but one rooted in real experience, including the experience of reading and self-formation through reading. The general importance of reading in lesbian self-construction is well documented. Fiction, including children’s fiction, is particularly important because the novel is such a powerful ideological medium, one which can represent the rules, restrictions and hierarchies of the world as ‘just the way things are’, or which can challenge them and offer alternative views.


From here:
Quote:
...This early portrayal of a lesbian character with so-called masculine athletic interests and talents helped create the figure of the mythic mannish lesbian and foreshadowed many later fictional lesbian characters.
Another genre of fiction in the early decades of the century--the "schoolgirl stories" of novelists such as Elsie Oxenham and Angela Brazil--makes a connection between sports and intimate female friendships. The team sports and country dancing of the English private girls' school are central to many of these novels...
...In contrast, by the 1940s, many authors of British "schoolgirl stories" had succumbed to public pressure to downplay intimate female friendships and to introduce heterosexual romances...


From here:
Quote:
Nancy Sahli provided one of the first in depth examinations of the prevalence of "crushes, smashes and mashes" in US women's colleges in the mid-nineteenth century. [16] Others, such as Martha Vicinus in her lengthy study Independent Women, have examined the erotic dynamics of the "crush" relationship in great detail. [17] Rosemary Auchmuty and more recently Sherrie Innes have discussed girls' school stories for their representation of same-sex love and desire. [18] But the questions that have animated all of these debates and discussions in lesbian historiography are the dual notions of definition and evidence, and the interlinked problems of reading and interpretation.


The Wikipedia entry on Malory Towers also has this to say:
Quote:
"Special Friends"

Of all of Blyton's work, Malory Towers is particularly known for the subtext of the relationships between the boarders, which often include high degrees of infatuation, jealousy and emotional entanglement. This is a common thread in boarding school stories, dating back over a hundred years, featuring both boys (e.g. Horace Vachell's The Hill - set at Harrow School just before the Boer War) and girls (particularly Angela Brazil's school stories and Dorita Fairlie Bruce's Dimsie sequence, both set in fictional institutions); and has been parodied in other works such as the contemporary Sugar Rush TV series, where the main character speaks about her crush on her schoolmate as an infatuation 'ŕ la Malory Towers'.

Attribution of a homosexual subtext to some of these relationships (particularly that between the "boyish" short-haired Bill - Wilhelmina - Robinson and the very feminine Clarissa Carter) occurs among some readers. In the context of a society in which entertainment media images are highly sexualized (and the lesbianism or bisexuality of prominent female entertainers is openly and widely reported), Blyton's (and Brazil's and Fairlie-Bruce's) "special friendships" can be interpreted in ways that Blyton at least possibly did not intend; for example, close or special friends in Brazil's[1] and Fairlie-Bruce's[2] works are described kissing each other in a manner that implies more than just an isolated peck on the cheek or lips, while girls in Malory Towers tend more to walk around with arms linked, or to hold each other's hands, especially in times of emotional stress.[3] On the other hand, lesbian readers of the books would be more justified in so reinterpreting these "special friendships", particularly in the light of their own experiences and feelings.
#86:  Author: Tara, Location: Malvern, Worcestershire PostPosted: Sun Jul 15, 2007 10:30 pm
    —
I've been off the board for a few weeks (away on holiday then looking after sick mother), so I've totally missed out on this, and it's an area which deeply interests me. Perhaps everyone else is sick of it now, and there's so much I'd like to say that I don't know where to start, so perhaps I'll just list the threads I'd like to pursue, and if anyone responds, I'll write some more.

Basically, I'd like to broaden the discussion, as I think focusing on the sex bit of same-sex relationships, though neither irrelevant nor invalid, obscures the emphasis on love between women (possibly, but by no means necessarily expressed in sexual terms), which is very subversive and very empowering. First, though, there is an enormous difference between author intent and what the text itself does, and I feel quite sure a physical same-sex pairing would never have crossed the mind of any of 'our' authors. I think it's very hard for modern women to understand how very innocent we were, even in my day (I'm 60), particularly people brought up in a strongly religious environment. But the text is different. EBD, in particular, because of her stress on the adults, leaves gaps in the text which can be filled in in any number of ways, and a text, once written, takes on its own life and becomes to each reader what she wishes/needs.

What is incontrovertible is that women have historically been seen as incomplete men, and have been defined by their relationship to men, partly because of scientific and theological discourses, partly because of economic dependence. A woman without a man has been deemed at best redundant, at worst a flawed failure (and we're not completely out of that wood yet, are we!). In the single-sex world of the school story, female relationships are reclaimed, friendship is analysed and celebrated as the major element of life and vital to emotional and moral development, life without men is demonstrated as a genuine and fulfilling option, and deep and abiding love between women is validated. This is in a context where deep, sometimes passionate, friendships between women which had once been seen as normal and ennobling were redefined as diseased and problematic by the sexologists, and had come to be seen as threatening and unnatural and blocking the progress towards marriage. Perhaps the thought that some women might choose to live without men was too frightening to be allowable!

Oh, I can't do this, there's too much. I want to talk about the loss of self inherent in passionate relationships with men (because of the economic structure of society), about 'crushes', about the stress on masculine suppression of emotion as the serious girls' schools tried to pattern themselves on the boys' (in EBD's Skelton Hall, the girls are only allowed to link arms in a strong wind!) ... anyway, I'm going to shut up, and if anyone's interested to carry on, either on here or personally, yell! I do think it's important, 'cos there is still this feeling that life is meaningless without a man, and it's so very sad.

ETA I don't know much about queer theory, but, as I understand it, it's not about finding same-sex relationships under every stone, but about studying gender and sexuality as social constructs. Would this tie up more with the way masculine values are imposed on girls (because the girls' schools, to be taken seriously, modelled themselves on the boys' public schools)? But that's another issue.
#87:  Author: Mia, Location: London PostPosted: Mon Jul 16, 2007 9:11 am
    —
Tara wrote:
I think it's very hard for modern women to understand how very innocent we were, even in my day (I'm 60), particularly people brought up in a strongly religious environment.


I know it does seem as though many of us 'modern women' are discounting your life experience (this is a general 'your', not you specifically Judith!) but I think it's really important not to assume that the life experience of one person is the same as the next. If you look at the article by Philip Larkin below and consider his correspondence while at university, this shows that some people were aware of lesbian subtext in the 1930s - it's not a modern phenomenon. I don't think anyone can say one way or the other of what subjects EBD had a knowledge, based on her background

Hope this makes some kind of sense, I have yet to have my coffee!
#88:  Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland PostPosted: Mon Jul 16, 2007 10:15 am
    —
Tara wrote:
Oh, I can't do this, there's too much. I want to talk about the loss of self inherent in passionate relationships with men (because of the economic structure of society), about 'crushes', about the stress on masculine suppression of emotion as the serious girls' schools tried to pattern themselves on the boys' (in EBD's Skelton Hall, the girls are only allowed to link arms in a strong wind!) ... anyway, I'm going to shut up, and if anyone's interested to carry on, either on here or personally, yell! I do think it's important, 'cos there is still this feeling that life is meaningless without a man, and it's so very sad.


There IS so much to talk about and discuss and thrash around! I found your post so exciting Judith Very Happy One thing I thought of when reading what you said about emulating masculine models to be 'serious' - that girls' school uniforms are just copies of boys' uniforms, I read this before in a feminist book, can't remember which one Embarassed

Also, about crushes, in conversation with another CS fan, she pointed out that she had always seen Juliet's infatuation as being with Kay rather than Donal - I hadn't seen it like this but now I must go back to And Jo and read it again. I'm reading through Antonia Forest myself at the moment (and apologies for the constant comparisons Embarassed) and am at Cricket Term - where Miranda's longstanding, passionate devotion to Jan Scott is discussed in a very objective way at the start of the book. It doesn't occur to the two girls discussing it that it might be sexual in nature, just that Miranda worships Jan and is absolutely devoted to her - this sounds to me like the Grande Passions that EBD was so against (?).

In general, sex, love and infatuation are all different things - in GO I think they are mixed up so much that what emerges is a very cloudy picture that we have to use a lot of speculation with. Maybe each GP was different too? Rambling now so I'll stop Very Happy
#89:  Author: Sarah_K, Location: St Albans PostPosted: Mon Jul 16, 2007 5:44 pm
    —
I'm certainly not bored of the subject yet! I've just not managed to put anything into words recently!

Tara wrote:
In the single-sex world of the school story, female relationships are reclaimed, friendship is analysed and celebrated as the major element of life and vital to emotional and moral development, life without men is demonstrated as a genuine and fulfilling option, and deep and abiding love between women is validated. This is in a context where deep, sometimes passionate, friendships between women which had once been seen as normal and ennobling were redefined as diseased and problematic by the sexologists, and had come to be seen as threatening and unnatural and blocking the progress towards marriage.


I think this is a very important point, alongside everything else we were talking about. One of the great things about the Chalet School boooks, and the Girls Own genre, is that the relationships between women are seen as just as important as the one's between women and en (and, I would say, the one's between two men after all EBD shows quite clearly how much Jem and Jack's friendship means to the pair of them, witness Jem's reaction to Jack's disappearence)

Róisín wrote:
Also, about crushes, in conversation with another CS fan, she pointed out that she had always seen Juliet's infatuation as being with Kay rather than Donal - I hadn't seen it like this but now I must go back to And Jo and read it again.

and
Róisín wrote:
- this sounds to me like the Grande Passions that EBD was so against (?).


I've said this before and I'll say it again, if you ignore EBD's insistence that Grand Passions are a bad thing and no good Chalet girl would have one we see several throughout the series. Juliet and Kay is a good example, Simone and Joey is another, Gay and Jacynth, Margot and Emmie... Kathie and Nancy, Hilda and Nell (I could go on!)

There's something very important about the way these relationships are allowed to be powerful in their own right and that EBD always acknowledges and celebrates the depth of feeling in a true friendship and that's soemthing that doesn't always (or even often) happen outside the genre.

One thing about queer theory is that it not only looks at what is culturally seen as normal versus subversive but also embraces the idea that identities are not fixed (or that they shouldn't be labelled) which leaves space for Simone and Joey to have a very real and deep relationship (of whatever type you like on both/either side) without denying either of their marriages or their relationships with other people.

If that makes any sense whatsoever on this Monday evening!
#90:  Author: Mrs Redboots, Location: London, UK PostPosted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 1:09 pm
    —
I'm sure I read somewhere, and I cannot now remember where I read it, that there is a "Great Divide" in girls' school stories between those published before The Well of Loneliness, and those published after it. As that book, which celebrated a lesbian relationship between two women, was deemed extraordinarily shocking and dreadful (this was some time in the 1920s, but I don't know exactly when), writers after it were rather more careful to write in a way that couldn't be seen as describing a physical relationship, even if it did describe an emotional one.

I'm only a few years younger than Tara but we were certainly aware of lesbian relationships in my growing years, and probably saw them where none existed - there were still plenty of women living with paid companions, or just good friends, who were "left over" from the first world war. "My friend that I live with" was a recognised social phenomenon, whether or not this relationship was expressed physically. We, of course, assumed it was - we were that age - but it is unlikely that it was in all cases!
#91:  Author: Caroline, Location: Manchester PostPosted: Tue Jul 17, 2007 1:39 pm
    —
Sarah_K wrote:
I've said this before and I'll say it again, if you ignore EBD's insistence that Grand Passions are a bad thing and no good Chalet girl would have one we see several throughout the series. Juliet and Kay is a good example, Simone and Joey is another, Gay and Jacynth, Margot and Emmie... Kathie and Nancy, Hilda and Nell (I could go on!)


See, it depends what you mean by a Grande Passion. I've always thought of them as a one sided thing - a pash, a crush. Most of those you've listed I would see as mutual things - an all-in-all friendship of equals.

I'm struck by how rarely EBD uses this motif compared to some other school story authors - DFB springs to mind - who make a huge play of it. There are many instances of pairs of friends in DFB's books where e.g. a third girl arrives and "steals" one of the couple, or there are jealousies and estrangements or misunderstandings between recognised couples of girls. EBD really never features this highly emotion side of girl friendships - most of the instances of pair or trio friendships in EBD exist in harmony.

And thinking about this some more, she does seem to prefer portraying (and maybe we could extrapolate, approve more of or at least made a conscious decision to favour) friendship groups of more than two girls. We have triumvirates, quartettes, quintettes, gangs etc. But really rather few pairs. And most of the fictional friendships she portrays seem to be calm and steady rather than passionate and intense. I do wonder why, when - as I am sure I have read somewhere - EBD herself was rather prone to intense friendships which ended up in fallings out, at various points of her life. Actually, maybe that is why...

Simone / Joey and Juliet / Kay would be the two exceptions to all this - two very one sided friendships / adorations. I would classify both of those as grande passions. You could maybe add Francie's crush on Margot ... And Mary Woodley's for Vi Lucy.
#92:  Author: jonty, Location: Exeter PostPosted: Thu Jul 19, 2007 5:14 pm
    —
Caroline wrote:
Simone / Joey and Juliet / Kay would be the two exceptions to all this - two very one sided friendships / adorations. I would classify both of those as grande passions. You could maybe add Francie's crush on Margot ... And Mary Woodley's for Vi Lucy.


The pairing that's always intrigued me is Jack and Len. It's not one of the egalitarian friendships like the one's in Sarah_K's post, nor does EBD portray it as portrayed an 'unhealthy' grande passion, yet it certainly does seem like a crush, albeit expressed in non-sentimental ways. So Jack uses questions to get close to the adored older girl instead of bringing her flowers, but the emotional impulse behind the relationship doesn't seem that different to me. EBD's insistence that Jack's attraction to Len is good for both girls has always rather reminded me of Oscar Wilde's description of the love that dare not speak its name, which he describes as (amongst other things) intellectual, and the noblest form of affection.

I think it's Rosemary Auchmuty in A World of Girls who describes the changes after the Well of Loneliness Trial (1928? 1929?) made it impossible to describe the kinds of passionate and romantic friendships that had been considered unremarkable in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I'm not completely convinced that it was such a watershed, though. I once had to look up correspondence in the Times dating back to the 1890s, and I found quite a lot of stuff relating to girls and education. There seemed to be a pretty widespread panic at the time that admitting young women to universities would bring about the collapse of civilisation as 'we' (the men) know it - the Times correspondents of the day wrote that degrees would be cheapened if they were made available to women, that standards would drop catastrophically, and that women would find themselves in positions of power for which the poor little things would be eminently unsuited. To my admittedly 21st century eyes, it seemed clear that the male correspondents emphasised women's weakness and reliance on men to make their argument, but what they were really concerned about was the loss of male power. So my theory is that the seeds of men's fear of women's close friendship were sown around that time, and gradually bore fruit in the pages of girls' school stories as they developed in the first four decades of the 20th century, rather than a sudden cut-off when the Well of Loneliness trial hit the headlines. The Well of Loneliness trial may well have given expression to the fear, and enabled an educated minority to express that fear as fear of lesbianism (or female inversion as they might have called it at the time), but I wonder if maybe the earlier fear of women's strength, and their ability to live fulfilling lives without men, exerted more of an influence over the girls school story canon.
#93:  Author: Mrs Redboots, Location: London, UK PostPosted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 1:14 pm
    —
jonty wrote:
The pairing that's always intrigued me is Jack and Len. It's not one of the egalitarian friendships like the one's in Sarah_K's post, nor does EBD portray it as portrayed an 'unhealthy' grande passion, yet it certainly does seem like a crush, albeit expressed in non-sentimental ways. So Jack uses questions to get close to the adored older girl instead of bringing her flowers, but the emotional impulse behind the relationship doesn't seem that different to me. EBD's insistence that Jack's attraction to Len is good for both girls has always rather reminded me of Oscar Wilde's description of the love that dare not speak its name, which he describes as (amongst other things) intellectual, and the noblest form of affection.


I thought the point of the Jack/Len thing was that (however much "in love" with Len Jack may have been), it was good for Len to have to act as a mentor for Jack. As Jack, in her turn, did for Felicity....
#94:  Author: Tara, Location: Malvern, Worcestershire PostPosted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 11:02 pm
    —
Rushing back in for a minute, in the midst of sick mothers and elderly animals who prefer to do puddles on the carpet than use the lake that used to be our garden ...

jonty wrote:
I wonder if maybe the earlier fear of women's strength, and their ability to live fulfilling lives without men, exerted more of an influence over the girls school story canon.
That's very much how I see it, too.

Re G.Ps and 'crushes'. I think the 'masculinisation' of girls' schools made the emotionally intense and physically demonstrative friendships in books of the late 19th early 20th century unacceptable, and, at first glance, the extravagances of the crush seem to parallel the passionate outpourings of those earlier years, seeming to suggest yet another attempt to define passionate affection between women as ridiculous or dangerous. Crushes certainly receive drastic treatment, eg EBD Head Girl's Difficulties, where 'sloppy' juniors are embarrassed into being sensible, or Nancy Breary's A School Divided, where the Head Girl rejects the flowers she is being offered and tells the girl to get up early, run round the garden a few times, and train to become a decent cricketer if she really wants to please her! But the point about the passionate friendships of earlier books is that they were expressions of sincere feeling, girls had risked their lives to save the beloved from the school fire etc. And, even in EBD et al, a fervent admiration for an older girl/mistress is allowable if it is free from 'silliness'. As with Len/Jack and DaisyVenables/Tom Gay the interest of the older girl actively helps the emotional development of the younger and sets standards for her to follow - and the older girl is very aware of the responsibility of influence. Interesting that EBD chooses her most 'boyish' characters to feel this way - perhaps accepting the reality of such feelings, but making sure no soppiness can be suspected!. So does EBD want to portray strong but completely rational, understated frienships as the ideal, but know in her heart of hearts that many women (herself included) want a lot more than that??
The characteristic of a crush is that it's an unreciprocated and uncontrolled affection, a meaningless emotional explosion that is in no way a real relationship and, in many schools ( real and fictional) it became just a fashionable way to behave, creating its own oppression. In several books, a crush develops into a true relationship and the extravagance fades in the face of the much better reality.
I wonder, too, if the extravagance of the crush was useful in making very close but differently expressed relstionships seem totally unremarkable and much less threatening in comparison?

Where EBD differs from almost everyone else is in her treatment of adult friendships, touched on in Head Girls's Difficulties and Judy the Guide, fully formed in the CS with Nell/Con, Nell/Hilda, Nancy/Kathie. Again very understated, only one statement of love each from Nell and Nancy, both in emergencies, but so much subtext that novels have been based on them! Fascinating.

Edited to rewrite a little, as it didn't quite say what I wanted. Still doesn't, quite - a complex subject.
#95:  Author: Tara, Location: Malvern, Worcestershire PostPosted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 9:09 pm
    —
Really sorry to spree Embarassed , but I've just had a related thought. The crush is a really complex thing - can we shed light on it through our own experiences??? Anyone else ever had a crush on a teacher, for example? Why? What did it do for you?
I certainly did. There were also teachers I liked and was (still am, in some cases) friendly with, but the one or two I had a crush on were different. They had to be young, they had to be single - but I didn't want to sleep with them, I wanted to be them. Looking back, I can see that they were the only women I knew who broke the mould, who had lives that weren't bounded by marriage and children - not that there's anything wrong with either (!), but they lived an alternative life. They also validated my own love of learning in a culture where women weren't supposed to be clever and 'intellectual' was a term of abuse.
Any resonances or differences for anyone else?
#96:  Author: Mrs Redboots, Location: London, UK PostPosted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 1:20 pm
    —
Certainly we were "cracked on" older girls and possibly staff when I was at school. But in practice, this was just admiring from afar - one would probably never even speak to the beloved, since friendships between girls in different years and different houses were discouraged, not to say forbidden!
#97:  Author: MaryR, Location: Cheshire PostPosted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 1:37 pm
    —
Tara wrote:

There were also teachers I liked and was (still am, in some cases) friendly with, but the one or two I had a crush on were different. They had to be young, they had to be single - but I didn't want to sleep with them, I wanted to be them.

Bizarre, isn't it, Tara, because the only woman I ever remember having a crush on was the complete opposite. She must have been in her late thirties/early forties, was married and not very attractive. I didn't want to be her, just wanted to be near her - which was a fascinating conundrum as she caught my bus to school, so I was near her but so overcome by panic and nervousness that I was a total idiot and couldn't speak. What did it give me? I suspect a mother figure, as mine was so distant.

Interestingly, we became very friendly later on when I was in the Sixth, even though I had by then abandoned her subject, Maths, and we had great conversations on the bus.
#98:  Author: Elder in Ontario, Location: Ontario, Canada PostPosted: Sun Jul 22, 2007 2:03 pm
    —
There are so many issues being raised here - I just wish I had more time to join in the discussion properly!!

But Tara raised the question of 'crushes.' I must say, my (1950's) experience was very similar to that of Mrs. Redboots, both the 'admiration from afar' and the fact that close friendships between girls in different years were not particularly encouraged, though some did exist. This was despite that fact that, from the 3rd form until 6th form, most dormitories contained girls from all 4 years. The two youngest forms were separated, as were the Upper 6th.
#99:  Author: Bookwormsarah, Location: Cambridge, UK PostPosted: Mon Jul 23, 2007 8:10 pm
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Am fascinated by other people's crush stories. I remember having a major crush on a girl a couple of years older during and after a school play we both had parts in (I was in the third year, she was in the fifth). Again, nothing sexual, but I wanted to rescue her, or be rescued by her, or to be in some sort of situation of proximity with her.

Interestingly, looking back at my male crushes of the time (Hugh Grant came shortly after that) it is a similar situation. I wasn't thinking so much about kissing him, as being rescued by him. When I had a major crush on a (male) classmate a couple of years later, I used to think about kissing *him*. I wonder if it is something to do with wanting intimacy of some sort, but not necessarily in a sexual sense until you are slightly older? A sort of in-between stage?

Actually I miss having crushes. It was such a lovely happy-deliciously mild-angst feeling when just having someone smile couple make you weak at the knees. I never expected anything to ever come of it, which almost made it more fun.
#100:  Author: Shander, Location: the wilds of PEI PostPosted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 4:45 am
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This is a fascinating discussion.
In many ways, the closeness of female characters in the CS reflects my own experiece, especially ones like the closeness between Nell and Hilda.
The person I am closest is woman I met in university. We often moan over the fact we had the misfortune to find our soulmate in another woman since we are both heterosexual. But even amongst the other relationships we are involved in (and she is very much in love with her current boyfriend) there is a level in our relationship, and the way that we understand each other the neither of us have found in other relationships.
It's not kind of relationship that the modern world really prepares us for I think, although a lot of the work I've done (I've spent several years studying social history) tell me that it wasn't that uncommon in the past.
#101:  Author: Shander, Location: the wilds of PEI PostPosted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 4:48 am
    —
This is a fascinating discussion.
In many ways, the closeness of female characters in the CS reflects my own experiece, especially ones like the closeness between Nell and Hilda.
The person I am closest is woman I met in university. We often moan over the fact we had the misfortune to find our soulmate in another woman since we are both heterosexual. But even amongst the other relationships we are involved in (and she is very much in love with her current boyfriend) there is a level in our relationship, and the way that we understand each other the neither of us have found in other relationships.
It's not kind of relationship that the modern world really prepares us for I think, although a lot of the work I've done (I've spent several years studying social history) tell me that it wasn't that uncommon in the past.
#102:  Author: jonty, Location: Exeter PostPosted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 8:40 am
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MaryR wrote: the only woman I ever remember having a crush on was the complete opposite. She must have been in her late thirties/early forties, was married and not very attractive. I didn't want to be her, just wanted to be near her - which was a fascinating conundrum as she caught my bus to school, so I was near her but so overcome by panic and nervousness that I was a total idiot and couldn't speak. What did it give me? I suspect a mother figure, as mine was so distant.

My teacher crushes - and I had several of them - were similar to Mary's. I don't think there was anything physically very attractive about any of the women involved, nor do I remember it as a physical attraction, though the palpitations I got when any of them came near were certainly physical enough! Thinking back, there were definitely times when I had two or three crushes at once, and they all lasted several years. I used to try to hang round corridors where the women might be, not to speak to them, but to see them - I had the same experience as Mary of being terribly flustered in their company, and certainly incapable of coherent speech. As I remember, trying to be around them gave my boring school days an excitement and sense of purpose. My favourite fantasy was that I'd be able to rescue one of them from Deadly Peril. Floods and fires were my fantasies of choice - EBD has a lot to answer for!
#103:  Author: Tara, Location: Malvern, Worcestershire PostPosted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 12:08 am
    —
*Dashes back in, whirling a bit*

Right, where are we, and is there any common insight in all of this that connects up with the texts?

Seems to me that it’s significant that the relationships we’re all talking about are not sexual ones. I want to make it clear that I am completely happy with people reading the gaps in the texts as same sex relationships in some instances, and from a purely personal point of view would love to see, for example, Hilda and Nell and Kathie and Nancy in that way. What is important, though, because we’ve lost it, is the possibility of deep, passionate, ‘romantic’ in some ways, frienships which are not sexual. I think they are very common, very confusing, very denied, and very possibly a potent element in the spell that the CS (and school stories in general) throws over us. As Shander said, 'It's not kind of relationship that the modern world really prepares us for' and perhaps we need to reclaim it.
#104:  Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland PostPosted: Tue Jul 31, 2007 5:33 pm
    —
Very belatedly catching up, but all those great posts have made me think about redefining what I think of as 'romance' and 'love' at all -> what strikes *me* is that in a lot of cases (heterosexual *and* homosexual), sexual and physical attraction is something that belongs primarily to the beginning of a relationship - the first flush of lust as it were. After that, although lust plays a part in different degrees, a long-term relationship or a marriage has many, many other factors at play - such as a mental connection, a social connection, connections that come from things like having children together, or a mortgage together, or a similar career aim etc etc. Point is, I do think that romance can exist without sex, and that there are such relationships that may not be sexual, but are still romantic.

I'm not saying that all the friendships we are discussing are romantic, just that some could be, even though there is no sex involved.
#105:  Author: jonty, Location: Exeter PostPosted: Tue Aug 07, 2007 8:35 am
    —
Shander wrote: It's not kind of relationship that the modern world really prepares us for I think, although a lot of the work I've done (I've spent several years studying social history) tell me that it wasn't that uncommon in the past.

I haven't worked out how to quote two people in one post, but Tara went on to agree, and to suggest we might want to reclaim passionate but non-sexual friendships. I've been thinking about both posts a lot for the last few days, because I agree in part, but am also deeply uncomfortable about looking to the past in this instance.

I've never studied social history, so what I'm going to say now might well be wrong, and based on flawed and partial interpretations of history, together with impressions I've gained from bits of reading here and there over the years. Please feel free to put me right Smile

I'm always wary of looking to a past golden era when there were more possibilities for close, intimate friendships between women. The reason is that I've come to believe (perhaps wrongly) that they were constructed as a result of men's fear/denial/hatred of women's sexuality. The way I understand it, middle class women were widely considered to be asexual, free of desires of their own. They were constructed as romantic innocents, who endured conjugal unpleasantness in order to produce children and/or satisfy their husbands. Romantic friendships between women of that class could therefore be safely encouraged, as they were understood to be non-sexual by definition, and indeed were evidence of women's finer sensibilities. There also existed a social context for middle-class women where their husbands were away all day, leaving whole suburbs populated solely by women during the daytime, so there was plenty of leisure time for relationships of all kinds to develop amongst women. Working-class women, by contrast, were positioned either as undesirable drudges, or as whores, therefore dirty and defiled - and accordingly much more worthy of condemnation than the men who did the defiling, but who were only doing 'what came naturally'. I don't think (but correct me if I'm wrong) that romantic friendships were ever an option for working-class women - now that I've written that, I don't quite know where I got the idea. Maybe it's that there wasn't the kind of leisure time for them to develop, but it could simply be that they weren't written about.

The point I'm trying to make is that the range of emotionally and physically close, but possibly non-sexual, relationships that existed in the past, and whose echoes we find in school stories in the early decades of the 20th century, were part of a very different social context, and the result of masculinist beliefs that women of good moral character were necessarily asexual and took no pleasure in their own bodies - in fact, that women's sexuality was primarily there for men's pleasure and for reproduction.

Fast-forward to the 21st century, and we appear to have gone to the opposite extreme, with sex sometimes assumed to be the *only* physical pleasure that women can get from their own bodies and from relationships with others of whichever gender. The relationships that people have been discussing on this thread seem to be about emotional and physical closeness and intimacy without necessarily involving sex, and I completely agree with Tara's point about such relationships (or fantasies about them) being very common, confusing and denied. It's just that looking backwards to reclaim something lost worries me, because we're inevitably looking back to a time in which women were far more oppressed than we are now. I think the question is one of how to construct something new, that takes account of women (and men) as whole beings, whose emotional repertoire and needs, in respect of intimate relationships, can include but also go beyond the sexual.
#106:  Author: Tara, Location: Malvern, Worcestershire PostPosted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 10:32 pm
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jonty wrote: they were constructed as a result of men's fear/denial/hatred of women's sexuality.

I completely agree with everything jonty said about the perceptions of women's sexuality, but it seems to me that the friendships we've been talking about were not constructed as a result of this, but were able to exist because of it. They became unacceptable and hidden precisely because the sexologists like Havelock Ellis and Krafft-Ebing 'discovered' women's sexual responses (wow!), immediately designated every close female friendship as (even if latently) lesbian, and defined that, in turn, as sick and perverted.

It's useful to remember, too, that the other side of this coin is that women who were economically dependent on men (ie most of them) had to 'get a man' to survive, and were thus in competition with almost every other woman! There seemed little middle ground between the woman-hating woman, locked in a battle for a man, and the woman-loving woman, by definition diseased and twisted - not much scope for female friendship there, and even many women themselves derided their sex's ability to make true friendships!

Also, because, I suppose, women were seen (by science and theology) as defective men, they were never considered as icons of anything. All the classical great friendships are male (except for Ruth and Naomi, come to think of it), and, in EBD's Caroline the Second, when the Head (who hopes the girls will find their first great friendship at school)reads out a story of friendship at the beginning of every year, it is the story of David and Jonathan that she chooses.

Re. working class women - yes, not written about, and too busy just surviving, though there are interesting strands in some early 20th century women's lit which I've forgotten and must look up.

Looking forward not back and creating something new ... I totally see what you mean, jonty, and I'm suspicious of mythical golden ages, too. I also very much agree with our present inability to see beyond sex in relationships. I do feel, though, that, though we, as women, are quite obviously not oppressed any longer in any number of ways, there are areas in which we've slipped back, and defining our worth in terms of men is one of them. The 'Bridget Jones' syndrome horrifies me, for example, yet it quite clearly resonates very powerfully with an awful lot of younger women. Novelists like Anita Brookner actually purvey the same message - true fulfilment is found only with a man. I have no wish at all to knock the finding of fulfilment in a man, but it is NOT the only way!!!!!
#107:  Author: Mia, Location: London PostPosted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 10:51 am
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Tara wrote: in EBD's Caroline the Second, when the Head (who hopes the girls will find their first great friendship at school)reads out a story of friendship at the beginning of every year, it is the story of David and Jonathan that she chooses.

But the story of David and Jonathan is possibly one of the most debated instances of homoerotic subtext ever! Very Happy
#108:  Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester PostPosted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 10:56 am
    —
Mia wrote: Tara wrote:Caroline the Second, when the Head (who hopes the girls will find their first great friendship at school)reads out a story of friendship at the beginning of every year, it is the story of David and Jonathan that she chooses.
in EBD's


But the story of David and Jonathan is possibly one of the most debated instances of homoerotic subtext ever! Very Happy

A clue in the crossword in one of the daily papers earlier this week was "David and ...." (8 letters) and my boss insisted that it must be "Goliath" even though it didn't fit. I then explained the story of David and Jonathan - complete with "subtext" - and a religious colleague looked rather shocked - I don't think he'd heard the "subtext" before Rolling Eyes .

Trying to think of great friendships between women in classical literature ...
#109:  Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire PostPosted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 1:24 pm
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I think that part of the problem is the differences between male friendships and female friendships.

When men get together, they talk about work, cars, football, fishing, etc. This can be heard in any pub, any evening, but women actually talk about relationships and how this affects their lives.

Please don't tell me that I'm being superficial, but men and women have different lives, different agendas, and more often than not, view things in different ways.

For example, my ex-husband absolutely hated me to have close friends and did everything he could to prevent this. He would be extremely nasty to me and to our sons on Thursday evenings, because Thursday evenings where when my female friends, deciding that they'd had enough of the week and their families, would come round to my house and up the stairs to my study. Sometimes there would be a dozen of us, sitting talking and drinking tea, and he hated it. He felt that he ought to be enough for me. Yet, when we used to have to go to his firm's social events, he'd spend most of his time talking about work, and ignoring me.

One person I do blame, post-humously, is Sigmund Freud. He was the person who really started all the sexuality business, insisting that everything was based on sex, and thus ignoring whole areas of social life that gave women an identity and a support system.

Women have been gathering together for years, often to work at sewing or knitting, and talk together, as well as for recreation. Some easy examples of this are the Club Walking in 'Tess Of the Durbevilles', or the young wives getting together to drink tea in the afternoons in 'Lark Rise To Candleford', but this was acceptable to their husbands because the women had no socio-economic power except on the domestic front, but with the change in society, with women being forced to work at often dangerous jobs during WW1, it was impossible to keep them out of the work-place or business, so socio-economic studies were often more a reflection of the bias felt by the men who compiled them, rather than and accurate depiction of what was really happening in women's lives.

Many men still feel far happier if their wives are occupied with home and family than with working, and finding fulfilment in a career.

Last edited by Jennie on Thu Aug 09, 2007 1:36 pm; edited 1 time in total
#110:  Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland PostPosted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 1:35 pm
    —
Mia wrote: Tara wrote:Caroline the Second, when the Head (who hopes the girls will find their first great friendship at school)reads out a story of friendship at the beginning of every year, it is the story of David and Jonathan that she chooses.
in EBD's


But the story of David and Jonathan is possibly one of the most debated instances of homoerotic subtext ever! Very Happy

I'd never heard of the story of David and Jonathan before - just read it now and wow! What a brilliant story! The bible is sensational Very Happy

Interesting that there are three standard interpretations - platonic, romantic and erotic - rather than just 'friendship' and 'sexual'.
#111:  Author: Sarah_K, Location: St Albans PostPosted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 5:06 pm
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I can quite see Jennie's point about the way that, through out history, women's relationships/identities/social groupings have been belittled by a generally masculine world (and academia). It never fails to amaze me when you start looking back into history how you can glimpse at the edges of women's lives but never really see them fully or their significance because nine times out of ten the history is written by men.

On the otherhand I think that whilst sexuality has been used as a tool to show strong women and strong female relationships as perverted or wrong that doesn't mean that we should ignore the possibility that there were sexual elements to some of the close friendships.

Forgive me for the vagueness here. I was thinking about The Well of Loneliness which is about a young woman coming to terms (or not) with her attraction to other women. The thing that strikes me is that Stephen (the woman) has these feelings at first without being able to put them into words and if nobody had given her the opportunity, or the vocabulary, then I wonder how her life would have been? That book is credited with allowing a lot of women to discover that they weren't alone in having these feelings and I sometimes wonder if one of the reasons we look back on an age of sexless, but incredibly passionate and romantic, female friendships is that it wasn't so easy to talk about (relatively) or that perhaps the feelings were there but kept internalised...

Of course the problem is as that is the sort of hsitory that isn't really written you can't tell. Personal anecdotes are all very well but they only give a very limited and personal piece of the puzzle.

I'm just wondering, considering how awkward (for example) Jack is around Jane what would have happened if Jack was given a copy of The Well of Loneliness?

Which is a question that could be answered a thousand ways which is the joy of subtext!

(Edit by Róisín to fix html)
#112:  Author: jonty, Location: Exeter PostPosted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 6:22 pm
    —
This is such an interesting discussion. It's making my brain hurt a bit, but it's fun!

Sarah_K wrote: I'm just wondering, considering how awakward (for example) Jack is around Jane what would have happened if Jack was given a copy of The Well of Loneliness?

I have to admit that I haven't actually read Well of Loneliness, though I've heard plenty about it - not have I read the later Swiss books for aeons, so I don't remember much about Jane and Jack! But if her feelings of awkwardness were to do with attraction, then I suppose, in an ideal world, I would want Jack to feel, amongst other things, that:

1) Intimate same-sex relationships are possible and they have a history
2) Intimate same-sex relationships, like intimate mixed-sex relationships, can be thrilling, confusing, exhilarating, frightening and so on and so on
3) Intimate same-sex relationships can be sexual but they don't have to be
4) Intense feelings towards other people are part of living and growing, and can be difficult to handle - they can sometimes lead to intimate relationships but they don't always, and they generally get easier to handle with practice & increased knowledge of self and others

I suppose what I'm saying is I'd want her to feel the same sort of mixed cocktail of emotions as she might if she was awkward around a boy. I don't mean to imply that I think the situations are identical, but in both cases, there might or might not be sexual attraction as conventionally understood. I'd want Jack to be able to understand her awkwardness as possibly a part of sexual attraction, but not necessarily that.

I've read the last few posts, and they got me thinking that maybe we (as a society) haven't yet recovered from residual understandings of women's sexuality as something peverse, wrong, and challenging to the masculine order of things, so we're still living with the outdated equation that intimate relationships between women = sexual relationships = peversity. If we're going to 'reclaim' or 'construct' or whatever word we want to give it, possibilities for intimate relationships between women that might be sexual but aren't necessarily so, it seems to me that we need to address each bit of that equation. The temptation is to do one or the other. If I'm reading Sarah_K's post right, I think you're describing a situation which only addresses the first bit of the equation - the danger that, if we try to establish the possibility of intimate relationships between women that aren't necessarily sexual we can end up effectively saying something like 'women can have intimate relationships which are perfectly innocent and not at all peverse because they aren't sexual'. What that does is leave intact the second bit of the equation. And if we only address the second bit of the equation, we can end up effectively saying, 'Intimate relationships with women are sexual and let's be proud of it', which leaves the first part of the equation untouched.

I'm probably rambling away in order to say something completely obvious, sorry, it's just that it's so interesting to me Smile
#113:  Author: Sarah_K, Location: St Albans PostPosted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 10:11 pm
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You're right jonty, my post was only giving half of the equation but that was because I felt some of the earlier posters were only giving the other half Wink

As you say, in an ideal world there would be the same mixture of relationships possible between m&m f&m and f&f. Of course in a way ALL the explicit relationships we're given in the Chalet School books have the intimacy without any sexual side because of course they're childrens books! After all in a world where pregnant women are "busy" there's hardly going to be anything showing that clearly Hilda and Nell are partners in every sense of the word...

Which is where drabble writers come in I guess and talk about how Madge and Jem's relationship might work in real times, and who would explain to Joey about her first night as a married woman, and how some of the girls' grand passions might be hiding deeper (or sexual) feelings etc.

I'd reccommend reading The Well of Loneliness. It's a fascinating book and a snapshot of the time it was written but it isn't a cheerful book exactly.
#114:  Author: Tamzin, Location: Edinburgh PostPosted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 8:06 am
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This is such an interesting discussion. I hardly know where to start!

As a teenager and even in my twenties I have been prone to falling heavily for various individuals, some male, some female. In all the latter cases and some of the former I would say that I was almost looking for a "mentor figure", someone I could admire and aspire to emulating. What I was looking for was not sexual (and I rather resent any theory that says it must have been) but rather a longing to share deep, meaningful conversations with the admiree eventually realising that I was a most intriguing person. However I was so shy that none of my admiree's ever knew how I felt! Also I felt vaguely ashamed of these feelings, as if I knoew that society as a whole did not condone my wish for a deep, intimate relationship with another that was not either familial or sexual. I wish I'd known just how many other people shared them. The other daft thing was that I could just as easily develop these feelings for an imaginary character on a TV show, for example, and again both males and females were targetted!

The point is that I also had "g-p's" for certain men which were not constructed like the above examples. These were the men I found attractive in a sexual way and I went about my "pashes" on them in an entirely different way!
#115:  Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland PostPosted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 1:25 pm
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Tamzin wrote: What I was looking for was not sexual (and I rather resent any theory that says it must have been) but rather...

I don't think anyone used the word 'must' - 'could' is, I think, a better approximation of the other posts in this thread. IE not that relationships must have been x or y, but they could have been. The word 'could' allows for the possibility as it were.
#116:  Author: Tamzin, Location: Edinburgh PostPosted: Mon Aug 13, 2007 7:39 am
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Róisín wrote: Tamzin wrote:
What I was looking for was not sexual (and I rather resent any theory that says it must have been) but rather...


I don't think anyone used the word 'must' - 'could' is, I think, a better approximation of the other posts in this thread. IE not that relationships must have been x or y, but they could have been. The word 'could' allows for the possibility as it were.

Oh I wasn't saying anyone in this discussion had said that - I think this has been a most civilised discussion considering how emotive the subject matter can be.

As far as cases like my various "hero worship" crushes go I know that the sexual element is always a possibility to be considered. However I have the idea (very possibly erroeous as I am not an academic and don't keep up with the latest articles etc) that some (rather extreme) theorists tend towards the idea that it must be sexual and that if you are adamant that it isn't in your case it's because you are repressing it. It's tied to my general dislike of other people telling me what I am thinking and what my motivations are, even if they are right in some cases!
#117:  Author: NineLivesBurra, Location: York, North Yorks PostPosted: Thu Aug 30, 2007 1:01 pm
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There were homosexual stories around in the 60s....Lord Dismiss Us, is one of them but all the ones I've ever heard of relate to male homesexuality, not female homosexuality because, I believe, male homosexuality was illegal and therefore more interesting.

I don't believe anyone as devout at EBD would have ever considered homosexuality, let alone written about it and especially not in a book for children.

One thing I'm still unclear about and I apologise if it has been discussed; why is Lacrosse supposed to be a symbol of female homosexuality? Both my sister and I played lacrosse, we loved it and I don't remember any homosexuality.
#118:  Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland PostPosted: Thu Aug 30, 2007 10:18 pm
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NineLivesBurra wrote: One thing I'm still unclear about and I apologise if it has been discussed; why is Lacrosse supposed to be a symbol of female homosexuality? Both my sister and I played lacrosse, we loved it and I don't remember any homosexuality.

I don't think the lacrosse game has anything to do with the comment that mentioned EBD in the article (here). I think the journalist is using the term 'Lacrosse League' to describe the genre of school stories. She says:

Quote:
A St Trinian's girl with a lacrosse stick (or a hockey stick or, quite possibly, a toothpick) was a lethal machine.


... so I imagine that hockey or any sport that was played at girls' schools could have been substituted.

Now, we don't actually have the text of the article that the EBD quote was actually taken from, so that is all just speculation. But that is the bit that involved the lacrosse anyway. Very Happy
#119:  Author: Sarah_K, Location: St Albans PostPosted: Thu Aug 30, 2007 10:40 pm
    —
There were stories about female homosexuality around when EBD was writing, not least The Well of Loneliness, but that was a period in which any books about female sexuality (Lady Chatterley's Lover anyone?) were being condemned.

Actually you just inspired me to look and see if I could find any/many books from the 50s with lesbian characters/themes and it is hard to track them down it seems. I think I need to expand my list of authors Very Happy
#120:  Author: Sunglass, Location: Usually London PostPosted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 1:48 pm
    —
In response to Sarah_K - some female novelists writing about same-sex desire during EBD's writing lifetime, that come to mind, and that EBD might well have known of, as they were well-known in the UK:

Mary Renault (born 1905). Though she's probably now best known for her novels set in ancient Greece, and her Alexander trilogy, she, like EBD, had a long writing career - her first novel appeared in the late thirties, and I think her last was published in the early 80s - and several of her contemporary novels also feature gay relationships, both male and female. She had a lifelong relationship with a woman, with whom she moved to a kind of unofficial gay expat community in South Africa, which seems to have liberated her to be rather franker in her fiction. She's enormously good.

There's also Kate O'Brien (1897-1974), an underrated but excellent, and in her day, best-selling, Irish novelist, who was herself lesbian and dealt either with explicitly lesbian relationships or female-female relationships which were important but not sexual - Mary Lavelle, As Music and Splendour, The Flower of May, The Land of Spices (the three last set partly or entirely in schools). In relation to ninelivesburra's point about EBD's devoutness, KOB's Catholicism was also important to her, though she was unorthodox, and her lesbian characters are almost always devout, while acknowleding that they are viewed as sinners by their church, but rejecting the right of anyone other than God to judge them. (How popular KOB was in England is shown by the fact that in the film 'Brief Encounter', Celia Johnson's character is shown borrowing her latest novel from the library.)

Also Elizabeth Bowen (1899-1973), also well-known, an Anglo-Irish woman living partly in England, who was probably herself bisexual, though married. Her fiction consistently sidelines heterosexual relations to focus on women's involved feelings for/identification with one another, and the kinds of complicated relationships Tamzin discussed above, which aren't primarily able to reduced to 'just' friendship or 'just' sexual desire. A couple of her short stories deal with intense schoolgirl relationships - there's one particular ghost story called 'The Apple Tree', which strongly implies a disastrous sexual relationship between two girls, and one other called 'The Jungle' that comes to mind.

Actually Bowen is a good example of a novelist whose work has only been read for its non-heterosexual themes fairly recently. Leaving aside her own possible bisexuality, which was quite possibly never acted on, in any specifically sexual sense - her biographer claims not - no one is suggesting she was intentionally 'writing about lesbianism'. What interested her was the less easily classified kind of relationship, any kind of unorthodox feeling that couldn't easily be tidied into a category.

Kate O'Brien is also interesting to think of in relation to EOB as some of her novels concentrate on schools as unorthodox, often idealised, all-female communities, in which women and girls are all-important to one another, as teachers and pupils and friends and sources of influence etc. Like EBD she continually shows female friendships formed at school, and relationships with teachers, as crucial and long-lasting, and she's strong on the necessity for female financial independence.
#121:  Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland PostPosted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 3:19 pm
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Sunglass wrote: Kate O'Brien is also interesting to think of in relation to EOB as some of her novels concentrate on schools as unorthodox, often idealised, all-female communities, in which women and girls are all-important to one another, as teachers and pupils and friends and sources of influence etc. Like EBD she continually shows female friendships formed at school, and relationships with teachers, as crucial and long-lasting, and she's strong on the necessity for female financial independence.

Spooky. I'm in the middle of The Land of Spices at the moment and was about to start a thread about it in relation to EBD. Will do so now... Laughing

Edit: in relation to the last post, I don't think Kate O'Brien ever did come out as a lesbian. She did have a failed marriage, and live alone after that, and she did write about a lot of homosexual relationships and issues, but I don't think she ever actually came out and declared her sexuality.
#122:  Author: jonty, Location: Exeter PostPosted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 4:06 pm
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Sarah_K wrote: Actually you just inspired me to look and see if I could find any/many books from the 50s with lesbian characters/themes and it is hard to track them down it seems.

It's the end of the 50s/early 60s, but what about the wonderful Beebo Brinker Chronicles by Ann Bannon? They're a series of six, and the last one to be written is a kind of prequel of the first - it's rather fanfic in style, I think Smile . My favourite is Odd Girl Out, the first to be written. It's set in a fictional midwestern university, and it's supposed to have been inspired by an earlier novel that I don't like, Spring Fire by Vin Packer. The Beebo Brinker Chronicles are the earliest books I know of that really explore lesbian & gay life - and happily, for novels of that era, they don't end with Our Heroine discovering that it was really the love of a good man that she wanted after all!! They were published in the US, and I don't know how available they would have been in the UK when EBD was still writing. I haven't read Kate O'Brien - but I'm adding her at the top of my authors-to-read list!
#123:  Author: Sarah_K, Location: St Albans PostPosted: Fri Aug 31, 2007 5:04 pm
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Thank you for the suggestions!

I've heard of Kate O'Brien before but never got round to trying anything by her so she's top of my list *makes note to go and search local library*

I've read Mary Renault and absolutely love her books, the Alexander trilogy and Last of the Wine more than her "modern" stuff but she's a wonderful author. I've discovered since coming online and reading/writing slash that she seems to be an author a lot of slashers read as teenagers and really latched onto before then going on to effectively try and read similar themes into other source texts.

There's a long(ish) list of books by lesbian authors/about lesbian themes on the Lesbian Literature wiki page but I notice Kate O'Brien hasn't made it!
#124:  Author: Róisín, Location: Ireland PostPosted: Sat Sep 01, 2007 7:00 pm
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Sunglass said:

Quote:
Certainly, Kate O'Brien didn't 'come out', but the idea of declaring your sexuality to the world at large is quite a modern one - I'd be astonished if a provincial Irish Catholic of her time, certainly one who remained close to her family and spent time living in Connemara, had done so in any explicit way, especially when the obscenity trial for 'The Well of Loneliness' had specifically demonised lesbianism as a 'morbid condition'. Her biographer is in no doubt that she was lesbian, listing her relationships with women, especially Mary O'Neill her literary executor, and acknowledgements of her sexuality by people who knew her.

Her husband (for eleven months!) is thought, based on his autobiography, his sympathetic depiction of homosexuality book on Wilde, and resemblances between him and KOB's only explicitly gay male character, Henry Archer in 'The Land of Spices', to have been himself gay or bisexual - it's one of the reasons suggested for the end of her marriage, about which very little is known, and she seems to have had her own first same-sex relationship shortly afterwards.

Relationships between girls and women are at the centre of the novel, particularly between the headmistress and her care for Anna her pupil, though there are no lesbian relationships at all - it's made clear that the school crushes are just the kind of silly GPs the CS disapproves of - though the headmistress originally became a nun to punish her beloved (gay) agnostic father. The novel was banned in Ireland for a single reference to a male-male relationship.
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