The CBB :: View topic - Visitors for the Chalet School

#1: Visitors for the Chalet School Author: Josie, Location: London

Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2005 8:59 am

Okay, here we go with the first of the fill-ins. A little out of sequence admittedly, due to my brain fade last week.

I'm guessing many of you will never have read this, so there's a link to the synopsis here...
http://www.newchaletclub.co.uk/ncc_library/synopses/synop_visitors.htm

So, what do you think of the characterisation? Is it true to EBD or do any of the well-loved characters grate on you when written by someone else? What do you think of the idea of fill-in's in general? Love them or loathe them? Do you like Patricia as a character? Do you like Joey and Patricia's friendship? Anything else? (Didn't pay a massive amount of attention to this book when I read it - not my favourite of the fill-ins - so have likely missed some vital points of the plot - apologies if I have.)

#2: Author: Catrin, Location: Wirral (holidays), Oxford (term)

Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2005 11:10 am

I was a bit baffeled for the need for a character reformation at the end of a book. I didn't think that was very EBD. However most of it was good, and it was a really good read in itself. I thought EBD's characters were carried on well, but I thought EBD would never have invented Patricia or any of the others. So, overall . . . I liked it.

#3: Author: Dawn, Location: Leeds, West Yorks

Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2005 12:44 pm

I have a bit of a soft spot for this book - I can picture the exact moment I saw it in Smiths in Dewsbury and it was such a revelation that other people were still interested in the CS books.

I do however get very irritated by the whole introduction where Helen says that she and her family agreed there would be "no happening in our story that could not have happened in real life" and then the story of the pony refusing to go past the tree, jsut seemed a little far fetched (although maybe I'm just being cynical).

However as the first fill in I ever read it does have a special part in my heart. I loved reading more about the CS and thought Helen managed to tie in the *known facts* of the term with her story well and carry on the personalities of the CS girls and staff, including Grizel being *unbearably hearty*. Although again I'm a bit dubious about the mistake in the date - I'm sure that if I was organising a foreign trip for a group of school girls I'd want to be absolutely sure that everything was OK and fully booked.

I really loved the guide test and the various entertainments that happen and the fact that the CS girls were quite sulky when they weren't allowed to join in the Rattenberg expedition.

So all in all a book that I'm glad I've got, even though I wouldn't read it on it's own, but as part of the series

#4: Author: KB, Location: Melbourne, Australia

Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2005 12:54 pm

One of the things I like in this is the depiction of the older girls. I think it rather shows up EBD's inability to realistically write girls in the very late teens and early 20s, which might be why books in which Joey is going through this period are rather skipped through by EBD. Comparisons of Visitors and CS in the Oberland do show up the latter rather badly, IMHO.

#5: Author: Bunty, Location: London

Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2005 1:00 pm

I thought it was a great illustration of EBD's peculiar magic. It's a better plot than most of the CS books, has more character development, involves a central issue - Patricia's desire to become a doctor - which modern readers can get their teeth into - and yet it never really sang for me. And I don't know what the 'real' books have that the fill-ins don't.

(Talking of fill-ins, though, I think Gillian of the CS is *brilliant*)

#6: Author: jennifer, Location: Taiwan

Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2005 3:51 am

Bunty wrote:

I know what you mean. As a kid, I loved older authors (L.M. Montgomery, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Louisa May Alcott etc) but books set in the same time periods but written by modern authors didn't have the same appeal. I think part of it is the immersion of the author in the world in which they were writing, and the attitudes and perceptions of the time. No matter how well you research, you can't become someone from that time, and you will always write from the view point of someone from the early 21st century.

As an example - could you picture yourself using a phrase like "working like a nigger" being casually said by a school girl?

#7: Author: Caroline, Location: Manchester

Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2005 7:55 am

Bunty wrote:

For me, it's all to do with the age I read them at and hence the greater emotional attachment I have for the 'real' books, which I read as a kid and have read many, many times. They're so evocative.

Don't get me wrong, I love the fill ins (I should do, I wrote one of them Wink

) and they satisfy that intense craving for *more* CS books, but although I read them with great pleasure, reading them isn't like meeting an old friend in the way that reading the 'real' books is.

On Visitors by the way, I always loved it. No attempt to write in an EBD style, yet still inescapably Chalet in it's ethos. I particularly like seeing Juliet in a non-Chalet setting and also seeing the Chalet through the eyes of other girls.

Caroline.

#8: Author: Susan, Location: Carlisle

Posted: Sat Jun 18, 2005 10:35 pm

I have actually only read this one once so far but I know I will be reading it again when I do my next re-read. I did enjoy it though and can empathise with Patricia's wanting to be a doctor and her mother's horror of the idea.

I actually liked the story of the pony and can imagine it happening.

I actually knew nothing of Visitors until I got my computer and found it, FOCS and CBB about the same time. It was wonderful to know I wasn't the only Chalet fan still around.

#9: Author: Kitty,

Posted: Sun Jun 19, 2005 7:18 am

I quite enjoyed reading it. It's the first fill-in I've read and most of the time it 'felt' CSy to me. In fact the only thing that grated was the depiction of Madge writing signs so Joey doesn't disturb Robin. I can't imagine Madge doing any such thing (and come to that, I can't imagine her secreting Robin away in the first place).

#10: Author: Margot's Devil, Location: Sydney, Australia

Posted: Tue Jul 05, 2005 8:02 am

I had eagerly looked forward to reading this book which I bought on ebay as it was the first fill in book I had read and I must admit I was a little disappointed.
I liked the plot and thought the characterisation was good but to me it just didn't feel like something EBD would have written, I felt the style of writing was too different and I must admit it turned me off reading the other fill ins because I haven't read one since.
I would be interested to hear people's opinion on which fill in books they felt where the closest to EBD's style of writing

#11: Author: Róisín, Location: Galway, Eire

Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 7:07 am

Aaaaand... finished! OK great now I can finally join in with this thread. Very Happy

I really liked Visitors. I thought it was denser than EBD in parts - I mean that in a good way, like it was layered more deeply. The only problem I had with it was that Joey is fifteen in this book, yet the way she is portrayed I always felt that she was a little twelve year old still. Other than that, I was very convinced by the writing style (not completely, but very). Like someone has already said, I thought the reams of introduction at the start spoiled what was to follow a little, as every outing they had after the introduction, I knew something spectacular wasn't going to happen.

I'm glad we have something to tell us about Elisaveta's last term as she was a character that I really missed after she left. So, overall, a big thumbs up to H.McC.

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