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Cross-genre Invasion! (Another bit added 7th May)
http://www.the-cbb.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=5875

Author:  Cat C [ 26 Mar 2009, 22:43 ]
Post subject:  Cross-genre Invasion! (Another bit added 7th May)

I started this a while ago, not sure when I'll get a chance to write much more, but figured I might as well post what I've got and hope to be inspired / encouraged by any feed-back.

Item 5: “Possible cross-genre infraction,” announced Colonel Bradshaw. “Do we have any volunteers?” There was a deathly silence around Norland Park Ballroom. A possible cross-genre infraction meant a delicate investigation, rather than a straightforward operation.
“Next? You don’t have much on at the moment do you? Well volunteered. Miss Haversham will fill you in with the details later. Moving on to item six….”

“What’s the trouble?” I asked Miss Haversham later.

“A possible cross-genre infraction,” she replied briefly. “But we’re going to have to go carefully, for three reasons. Firstly it concerns a late book in a long running series, which was taking some strange turns of its own account, unless there are some other more subtle problems we’ve not picked up. Secondly it’s a children’s book, and thirdly, the invasion comes from action-thriller generics, who must have been pretty desperate.”
“Not the Chalet School again”, I groaned.
“How did you know?” Miss Haversham asked, surprised.
“There aren’t that many long-running children’s series that would be susceptible to action-thriller invasion, and which might have been invaded late in the series.”
“Very clever. At least there aren’t too many men to worry about. Most of them are doctors too and not very well described - B-6, at best. It’s unusual in some ways of course. All the meals are very well described, including breakfast, so you won’t go hungry.” Some consolation, I thought - most of the usual draw-backs still existed, with no toilets whatsoever, and very few of the characters had any sense of smell. Part of the problem was that the later books especially had not originally been built to withstand the level of wear and tear to which they were subjected. They were in fact one of the bains in the life of Isambard Kingdom Bruñel in the maintenance department. He generally had at least three of the books in the series in his workshop at a time, managed by a complicated rotation system to take into account the relative robustness and wear. The series had a resident Jurisfiction Agent in the shape of the school headmistress Miss Annersley - who apart from forestalling most problems in the series did sterling work in policing the grammar of later fiction.

I read my way into her study - arriving in the first chapter, when the action was still with the book’s heroine, Copper, or Flavia Ansell / Letton. I wasn’t too concerned about her - she was an A-8, well realised, and with a decent back story too. The problem was that a standard story-line about a new girl settling into school against a background of worrying about her parent/guardian’s situation (her father was a senior police officer) was in danger of turning into a full-blown action-thriller, centring on the school, and culminating in a four-way shoot-out in Miss Annersley’s office, resulting in the death of at two major characters, which would cause major problems for the remaining books in the series. We had taken the book out of circulation temporarily, firing-up an abridged Armada edition to cover the gap.

When I arrived, Miss Annersley was glued to a small, portable television which was showing the afternoon’s horse-racing. She glanced over when I arrived.
“You should curtsey when you come in, Agent.” She remarked. “House rules.”
“Come on! Move yourself Clip-Clop!” this last addressed to the television screen.
“Oh, well done Clip-Clop!” She reached over and switched off the television.
“I reckon to make a 10% return on my investment, on average, over the year” she remarked. “Now, before we get down to business, I wonder if you’d like to see one of our teams for the up-coming Synchronised Dormitory Routine Tournament? We’ve won every year for the last fifteen years, and we want to win for the next fifteen too!”
I nodded eagerly, and followed her out of her office, as she led the way. The Tournament was fiercely fought with almost all the boarding schools in fiction entering a team. The Chalet School started with a clear advantage, having very well-described dormitory routines throughout the series, but the tactics employed by the Lowood girls, from Jane Eyre meant that no rehearsal was wasted.

We arrived to find the twelve girls of Harebell dormitory ready to go, all with perfectly, and identically, arranged cubicles, poised for the whistle, to be blown by the dormitory prefect, to simulate the rising bell used in the tournament.

On the whistle, there was the sound of twelve lots of bed clothes being thrown back in perfect union, followed by the sound of twelve pairs of feet landing on the floor beside their respective beds. Next, twelve sets of curtains were flung up over their rails, and the four girls due for the first bath picked up their sponge bags and towels, and exited the dormitory in perfect step, while four other girls (due for the second bath) began brushing their hair, and the remaining four began the bed-stripping part of their routine.

It was the first time I had seen a three-part routine - made possible by the Chalet School’s unique tradition of first, second and third baths.
“We’ll follow the second bathers out,” Miss Annersley remarked. “They have developed a wonderful dismount from their cold baths, we're hoping to gain marks for technical merit there, I may tell you!”
As she spoke, the first bathers returned, glowing from the sting of the icy mountain water in which they took their baths, each girl high-fived a member of the second bather group, whom we followed out into the corridor and to the bathrooms. Sounds of synchronised splashing ensued, before the girls re-emerged clad in identically knotted dressing gowns, each executing a beutifully-timed stag-jump into the corridor before running back to the dormitory perfect step, where they in turn high-fived the third bathers who had completed both hair brushing and bed-stripping by this time.

The final part of the routine involved all twelve members of the harebell team donning their uniforms in perfect unison, before lining up in order at the door, ready for inspection.
“Excellent Francie”, Miss Annersley congratulated the prefect in charge, as I applauded. “You’ve managed to integrate the new members of the team really well. You should have a sporting chance of a medal in the competition if I am any judge.”

“The youngest member of that team originally came to us as part of our exchange programme with St Trinians.” Miss Annersley explained as we made our way back to her office. It really has been a most beneficial experience all around, which is more than can be said of our encounters with the girls from Mallory Towers and St Clare’s.” Miss Annersley looked most disapproving as she finished. “Of course we have taken young Felicity on a permanent basis. She was most unhappy as Darrel River’s younger sister, and seems much happier here as the fourth Maynard girl. But apart from that one success, I think we can safely say that our ethos is totally incompatible with that of those schools.”

Author:  JB [ 26 Mar 2009, 23:02 ]
Post subject:  Re: Cross-genre Invasion!

This is brilliant, Cat. I love Thursday Next and Hilda is obviously from jurisfiction. Can't imagine why I've never thought of that.

I would love to see some more.

Author:  Lexi [ 27 Mar 2009, 00:27 ]
Post subject:  Re: Cross-genre Invasion!

This is great Cat, thanks :D May we have lots more please?

*chortles to self at the synchronised dormitory routine*

Author:  Emma A [ 27 Mar 2009, 10:34 ]
Post subject:  Re: Cross-genre Invasion!

Yay! I'm so glad you decided to post this, Cat. I love the dormitory routine, and importing Felicity Rivers as a Maynard, and the idea that the Armada abridgements were stop-gaps to ensure the hard-backs stayed coherent! :lol:

More please, as soon as you can!

Author:  babycassied [ 27 Mar 2009, 11:45 ]
Post subject:  Re: Cross-genre Invasion!

Love this!!!

Author:  Sarah_G-G [ 27 Mar 2009, 12:10 ]
Post subject:  Re: Cross-genre Invasion!

This is brilliant! I love the inter-dormitory competitions and Felicity being much happier as a Maynard! :D

Author:  Pellameera [ 27 Mar 2009, 13:40 ]
Post subject:  Re: Cross-genre Invasion!

This is gorgeous! And SO natural! Thank you. I hope there's more coming.

Author:  abbeybufo [ 27 Mar 2009, 14:48 ]
Post subject:  Re: Cross-genre Invasion!

Brilliant! I love Thursday Next :D

Thanks Cat

Author:  Abi [ 27 Mar 2009, 21:54 ]
Post subject:  Re: Cross-genre Invasion!

Oh fantastic! I love Thursday Next. Love Miss Annersley policing the grammar of the later books, and the fact that most of the men are B-6! Though the thought of Miss Havisham conducting a 'delicate investigation' causes the mind to boggle somewhat...

Please carry on Cat C!

Author:  Tara [ 31 Mar 2009, 23:20 ]
Post subject:  Re: Cross-genre Invasion!

Quote:
The series had a resident Jurisfiction Agent in the shape of the school headmistress Miss Annersley - who apart from forestalling most problems in the series did sterling work in policing the grammar of later fiction.


Quote:
We had taken the book out of circulation temporarily, firing an abridged Armada edition to cover the gap.


And the synchronised dormitory routine - brilliant!

Thanks a lot, Cat, you've cheered my night :D . Do write some more when you can.

Author:  Chatelaine [ 01 Apr 2009, 14:52 ]
Post subject:  Re: Cross-genre Invasion!

This is inspired! I love the Thursday Next books - looking forward to more cross-genre infractions!

Author:  Cat C [ 01 Apr 2009, 16:55 ]
Post subject:  Re: Cross-genre Invasion!

Thank you for all the kind comments... I am working on it, but Fforde's logic isn't always very obvious (working out who's a generic and who isn't, and what's 'visible' to readers and when etc), and his writing style is fairly dense in terms of ideas and jokes, which can take some time to think about.

Can you tell I'm supposed to be working on a thesis? :roll:

ETA: for anyone who didn't know, there's another Fforde cross-over in the Drabble-orum, written by Caz, and focusing on Mary-Lou.

Author:  snowmaiden [ 02 Apr 2009, 15:15 ]
Post subject:  Re: Cross-genre Invasion!

This is brilliant, Cat, thanks very much. *Potters off to drabbleorum to look for more*

Author:  Joanne [ 10 Apr 2009, 18:15 ]
Post subject:  Re: Cross-genre Invasion!

I love this :D

I think Jasper Fforde would probably love it too!

Joanne.

Author:  Liane [ 10 Apr 2009, 20:19 ]
Post subject:  Re: Cross-genre Invasion!

This is fantastic!
Love it, thanks.

Author:  Thursday Next [ 30 Apr 2009, 21:13 ]
Post subject:  Re: Cross-genre Invasion!

Wonderful - more please.

Author:  Maeve [ 30 Apr 2009, 22:45 ]
Post subject:  Re: Cross-genre Invasion!

I've never read any Jasper Fforde but I really liked this, thanks. :)

Author:  Thursday Next [ 02 May 2009, 09:13 ]
Post subject:  Re: Cross-genre Invasion!

Do try Jasper Fforde, he is excellent. I found him by accident - I do quite a lot of driving on my own to dog shows etc and get talking books out of the library and one day picked up The Ayre Affair and from then was absolutely hooked. I even registered one of my dogs as Thursday Next.

Author:  Cat C [ 07 May 2009, 09:29 ]
Post subject:  Re: Cross-genre Invasion!

Finally found time for a bit more...

“Our main problem of course is that so many of our characters are generics”, she explained, after we got back to her office. And then we often have undesignated generics boarded with us, since they’re not too noticeable in the crowds - some of them even end up being recruited, although often only as named characters with the minimum of other description. For some reason they seem to cluster - there were two or three associated with Mary-Louise’s group of friends for example.

“But one way or another it means that we always have generics around, so it’s not obvious in this case whether the proliferation of gangster types is due to generics developing into clones of those that are legitimately here, or whether the extras are actually page-runners who got tired of their own narratives. There may be a similar problem in the next book.” She added thoughtfully.

As ever I was in awe of Miss Annersley’s knowledge of and sensitivity to the text.
“How many of these gangster types are currently appearing in the text?” I asked.
“Eight at the last count,” she replied. “We started with only three, and one of those was a very minor character - they are appearing from somewhere, the question is where?”

“Now, I mustn’t neglect my other duties. There is a meeting of the Head Girls Anger Management Group shortly. You are welcome to come along, although I hope it doesn’t precipitate the sort of reaction you encountered over in Wuthering Heights!” I followed Miss Annersley to a nearby classroom where a group of about twenty girls aged approximately sixteen to eighteen were gathered, talking angrily to each other in small groups.

“Good morning everyone” she said. “Are we all here yet?”
A tall blonde girl with dark eyes tossed her long pigtail over her shoulder.
“All of us except her,” she replied, tersely.
“Thank you Juliet, I know I can always rely on you to keep track of attendance. Now, Miss Next is here today, so I suggest we welcome her to our circle of trust. So, please hold hands everyone.”
The group of girls dutifully formed an approximate circle and held hands. Miss Annersley smiled, somewhat determinedly around the group.
“Thank you. Now, who’d like to start sharing?”
“I am Gisela Marani, and I set the standard for Head Girls at the Chalet School. Without me, the entire prefect system would never have worked in that first year, and yet am I remembered?” she glared around the group.
“Your problems are as nothing for those of us who came later!” retorted an American voice. “I am Louise Redfield, well, usually, and all of us who follow in her wake had an impossible standard to live up to."
“Nothing like those of us from the Swiss years!” replied a handsome girl with dark hair wreathed in plaits around her hand.
I shook my head - there seemed to be some very strong harmonics in the descriptive prose which were beginning to affect my concentration. The girl went on:
“Not only do we exist in the weaker part of the series, but many of us are written as merely foreshadowing She Who Is To Come, as well as being compared to her.”
“Yes, thank you Julie. And Louise and Gisela of course,” interrupted Miss Annersley, hastily. I think that probably summarises our issues as a group. What do you think Miss Next? And are you feeling alright, you look a little faint. I could send for Matron.”
“There seems to be some resentment about someone they’re all talking about,” I replied cautiously. “And yes, although there seems to be some powerful adjectival imperative here, I’m sure I’ll get used to it soon.”
“Ah, yes,” replied Miss Annersley. “Some characters do have particular descriptions very closely associated with them; it can be a little disconcerting at first.”
She turned around at that point, since the girl named as Julie was having to be restrained from having a fist fight with a tall girl whose shapely head was covered in short curly hair.
“She Who Is To Come, indeed!” she was hissing “How dare you compare me to her.”
Another dark-haired girl joined in “And you didn’t have it nearly so bad as those of us who came even later - just keeping the seat warm! Maeve had her age changed. Rosamund even had to leave school early!”
Just as I was trying to sort out all these arguments and untangle what all the various factions were arguing about, a fresh voice came from the window.
“Sorry to be late everyone, but I was up all night with the second twins!”
“Ah. Joey. So good of you to join us.”
“Mamma!” cried a tall girl with chestnut-coloured hair, who had been silent until this point.
“How are you sugar-pie?” asked the newcomer, as she clambered in through the window.
“I, well…”
“Oh, that’s right: Len the peace-maker as usual,” sneered a girl with coppery-coloured curls, who seemed to be of strangely indeterminate age - I wondered if she might be Maeve.
“Miss Annersley, would you mind explaining who all these people are and what they are so angry about?” I asked, in an attempt to defuse the situation.
“Oh dear, I had thought we were making some progress. I am most disappointed in you all,” she addressed the group, fixing them all firmly with her blue eyes, that had never yet needed glasses.
Bizarrely, this mild reprimand seemed to subdue them all completely.

Author:  JB [ 07 May 2009, 13:22 ]
Post subject:  Re: Cross-genre Invasion! (Another bit added 7th May)

Thanks, Cat. How true about the generics - and those adjectives.

Author:  Emma A [ 07 May 2009, 15:59 ]
Post subject:  Re: Cross-genre Invasion! (Another bit added 7th May)

Even Miss Annersley has a phrase attached - no wonder Thursday is feeling a bit faint!

Thanks, Cat (I love the idea of a Head Girl's Anger Management group. Some of them really needed it!).

Author:  abbeybufo [ 07 May 2009, 16:13 ]
Post subject:  Re: Cross-genre Invasion! (Another bit added 7th May)

Continuing to enjoy this immensely Cat - thanks :D

Author:  Joey [ 08 May 2009, 14:06 ]
Post subject:  Re: Cross-genre Invasion! (Another bit added 7th May)

Oh, Cat.

When I saw the title I didn't dare hope it would be a Fforde crossover - but it is!

Thank you for doing this: I've always thought Fforde must be so hard to get right.

More please! (When the thesis allows - I hope it allows lots, often.)

Author:  Cat C [ 08 May 2009, 14:10 ]
Post subject:  Re: Cross-genre Invasion! (Another bit added 7th May)

Joey wrote:
Oh, Cat.

When I saw the title I didn't dare hope it would be a Fforde crossover - but it is!

Thank you for doing this: I've always thought Fforde must be so hard to get right.

More please! (When the thesis allows - I hope it allows lots, often.)


Well, I hope I'm doing OK with the style... as I mentioned previously, there is another cross-over in the drabble-orum (based on Mary-Lou, and someone wrote one in response to the January challenge too).

For anyone who hadn't read any Jasper Fforde, btw, firstly, do consider it, and secondly, the last bit was based on a Rage Management session set in Wuthering Heights, where most of the characters explain why they loathe and despise Heathcliff.

Author:  jonty [ 06 Jun 2009, 15:20 ]
Post subject:  Re: Cross-genre Invasion! (Another bit added 7th May)

I just had to google Thursday Next, because I'd never heard of her. Damn, I can do without another series to add to my to-read list! Thanks, Cat - I loved the head girls' meeting.

Author:  Loryat [ 12 Jun 2009, 15:50 ]
Post subject:  Re: Cross-genre Invasion! (Another bit added 7th May)

This is brilliant, Jasper Fforde couldn't do it better. :D

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