This week we are going to look at Gerry Goes to School with particular reference to change. The NCC has a synopsis of the story here. This was the first book written by EBD; it was originally published by Chambers in 1922, and has been reprinted several times since then, most recently by GGBP, although it is now out of print.

Gerry, the heroine, is subjected to an enormous upheaval in her life when she is sent away from the only home she remembers with two elderly and old-fashioned great-aunts to live with the large Trevennor family. As Gerry settles in, the dynamics of the Trevennor family are altered: Jill feels that Paul spends more time with Gerry than with his own sister. Gerry also has to get used to going to school for the first time. There are changes afoot at the school, too, where the younger girls strike to protest at their treatment by some of the older ones. There are changes coming to Margaret, the eldest of the Trevennor girls, by the end of the book.

Please discuss any thoughts about these and other changes in the book below. Feel free to talk about any other aspects, too.


Next week we'll be looking at A Head Girl's Difficulties with particular reference to growing up.

_________________
A schoolgirl answered the question 'In what countries are elephants found?'
'Elephants are very large and intelligent animals, and are seldom lost.'

I thought this had a real period feel to it, much more so than EBD's other early books. That's not a criticism, just an observation . It seems to have more in common with some of Angela Brazil's books or maybe DFB's early books than with the CS series.

A bit OT, but I always thought it was a shame that Gerry's friendship with Grizel was never developed after Rivals.

_________________
We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

It was a good read, but EBD was still finding her way, for instance the huge family was difficult to take in, but a fore-runner of many others -the Athertons (A Head Girl's Difficulties) and of course the Maynards with conscientious eldest girl. Gerry seems to take to school rather easily I found.

I am re-reading this at the moment and I'm sad that it was never mentioned in the CS series that the Athertons knew Gerry. It could have provided a link.

_________________
Margia Stevens even peeped inquiringly into the great jar where the flour was kept. Needless to state, no Jo was there. (Jo of)

Its been a while since I read this, and I really loved it must start a re-read of the seriel.Nice to read about Gerry before we meet her in 'Rivals' when Grizel brings her from music school!

_________________
Wishes the land of Merlin and magic was real

I like Gerry, but Alison has said everything I wanted to say
I think the rivalry between Gerry and Jill is very well characterised, and while Jill is very mean I can understand why, after all she is used to being the cherished younger sister.

_________________
If sparkly vampires are impaled on a wooden stake do they bleed glitter?

I'm rather fond of this as EBD's first effort at a school story. But the family is so big, and the characterisation perhaps a little weak, so I find myself having to write a list every time I read it, so that I can remember who is who.

In fact, I think that is a weakness of both this and A Head Girl's Difficulties - EBD creates a huge cast for herself and then struggles to make the members of that cast sufficiently memorable - a lot of them are "just" names. It's interesting that in the first CS book, she starts with a small number of characters and then builds gradually - a much better approach, IMO, both for her and for the reader, giving us a chance to get to know people as individuals rather than just dumping a large number of people in front of us at the same time and leaving us to get on with it.

It's interesting, then, to compare this with the huge family she creates for Joey - which is so large in the end that she can only deal with it by splitting it up into manageable groups who go off and do things separately. I suppose that the reader will know who, say, Mike is by the later books, and have no trouble slotting him into the family, but I do think that EBD (along with many of her contemporaries) was overly fond of the large family to generate plot - except that EBD seldom does.

_________________
"The purpose of satire, it has been rightly said, is to strip off the veneer of comforting illusion and cosy half-truth. And our job, as I see it, is to put it back again..." - Michael Flanders
Emma's book blog

I think this is one of my favourite books, possibly because it is short enough to read in an evening on the sofa! I like Gerry, and I like the Trevennors, and I think it is a shame she is reduced to a walk on part in A Headgirl's Difficulties as I would have liked to see more of her.

_________________
You're scared of mice and spiders, but oh-so-much greater is your fear that one day the two species will cross-breed to form an all-powerful race of mice-spiders, who will immobilize human beings in giant webs in order to steal cheese.

It's also a real period piece. I love the bit where Gerry is admiring herself in her 'modern' weekend outfit, which is virtually a school uniform, skirt, blouse and tie!

I'm really fond of this book although I only read it as an adult. There is one mention of the Athertons, I seem to remember (in response to someone's point further up). In Rivals, doesn't Gerry say something about having such a friend in Rosamund Atherton?

Completely agree with Caroline on the long families being confusing - and didn't she bump off one of the boys rather casually in a later la Rochelle book?

Back to the topic of change, I did feel that Gerry was assimilated perhaps more readily than was realistic. EBD revisited the idea of the old-fashioned miss in Verity and, to a lesser extent, Polly Heriot, but it seemed as though Gerry started to become a 'normal jolly schoolgirl' rather too quickly.

I thought the strike topic rather original - was it used much in other GO before that?

What I really like about this book, however, is how it sets up so many themes and incidents which we see time and again in EBD's writing (including the 'to all appearance, dead' thing, which made me laugh out loud when I read it). Although I'm not sure if we get another runaway horse anywhere, it did give an opportunity for Gerry to be brave and not hysterical etc etc. The use of a boy's name for the heroine, the problem with Jill, the prim girl becoming modern, the rescue, the cheesy romantic scene - all had seeds in this book.

Don't you think as well that EBD was reviewing Gerry in retrospect, as it were, when she spoke about Joey's first book being published and said it was packed with more incident than you'd normally expect?

I love Gerry, despite its faults!

Re strikes: two come to mind. Firstly (1919) is Dimsie Goes to School. I reread this recently and it struck me what a very political book it is, given its topic and its audience. Secondly, I think a couple of Christine Chaundler's use the device. EBD follows DFB in approach quite closely, though. It's a subject that fascinates me - I keep mulling on a article on the topic, and then getting distracted...

_________________
Her vase was ever sweet pea, gentian, and lobelia,
An ex-celandine thing in woman.
-Kathy S et al *snork*

A change I find very hard to reconcile is the change between Gerry in Goes to School, and then when she appears with Grizel in the Chalet School book.

In School she gains confidence and loses her old-fashioned ways, but remains, essentially, a gentle (still strong-willed) and feminine girl.

By the time she reappers she's much more Jolly Hockey Sticks, a bit like a 'typical' Games Prefect. She loses the gentleness and somehow (for me) her femininity. It's not like Frieda, who remains positively the same person all through, but with more 'oomph' to her. This isn't what hapens to Gerry at all. I wonder if it's to do with the fact that Gerry was Elinor's first book and by the time we get to the one where she visits the School with Grizel, Elinor is a much more assured and confident writer, and writes Gerry as she needs her to be at that point?

But then, perhaps Elinor's skill could have been seen better if she'd kept Gerry recognisable? A Frieda who can remain unfazed by the extraordinary behaviour of the other girls, and who manages to help Grizel control the situation, without becoming the JHS's character Elinor makes her.