{"id":5685,"date":"2018-07-13T18:32:27","date_gmt":"2018-07-13T08:32:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/?p=5685"},"modified":"2018-07-13T18:32:27","modified_gmt":"2018-07-13T08:32:27","slug":"peters-room-part-four","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/2018\/07\/peters-room-part-four\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Peter\u2019s Room\u2019, Part Four"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chapter Six: \u201cAll the Birds of the Air\u2026\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

SPROG IS DEAD HOW COULD YOU DO THAT ANTONIA FOREST POOR LITTLE SPROG DYING ALONE IN THE COLD POOR NICOLA THIS IS SO UNFAIR.<\/p>\n

Of course, Nicola doesn\u2019t allow herself to cry, \u201ceven though when animals died it was always misery past bearing; one would always much<\/em> rather it were one of the family.\u201d<\/p>\n

She is slightly comforted by the thought of Emily Bront\u00eb mourning her dead cat. This doesn\u2019t seem very plausible to me, given Nicola\u2019s previous opinion of the Bront\u00ebs, but I\u2019m not going to begrudge poor Nicola any comfort. <\/p>\n

I suppose one good thing is that now she can take Daks back to school as her<\/em> pet, not Lawrie\u2019s, which will work out better for Esther. I have to say, Daks is having a much better holiday than if he\u2019d been allowed to stay in Esther\u2019s flat. He has Tessa and Bucket as playmates, Peter to fuss over him, and lots of delicious farm smells to wallow in. Poodle heaven.<\/p>\n

Chapter Seven: Dispatches to Angora: II<\/strong><\/p>\n

More Gondalling. The Guards realise that Alcona\u2019s map is wrong, they discover their sealed dispatches are their death warrants, and Lawrie\/Jason reveals that Alcona forced young Jason to watch his loyal rescuers being tortured to death. Patrick admiringly says to Lawrie, \u201cI couldn\u2019t have done Alcona\u2019s particular brand of nastiness better myself.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s an ambush in the \u201cquicksnow\u201d and the Guards fight bravely, get wounded and kill lots of enemies. Unfortunately, Rupert\/Patrick is captured by evil Navarre\/Peter. Threatened with torture, Rupert\/Patrick says he\u2019ll tell \u201canything you want to know\u201d and quickly spills all his country\u2019s military secrets and<\/em> agrees to kill Jason. The Marlows are outraged by this (\u201cYou can\u2019t<\/em> just tell like that!\u201d) but Patrick:<\/p>\n

\u201cfound it imperative to explore, under cover of Rupert, the twilights of cowardice and betrayal: partly, he wanted to know how it felt, partly, Rupert was undoubtedly that sort of person.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Does Patrick want to explore cowardice because it\u2019s so unfamiliar to him? He seems brave when it comes to physical feats \u2013 he doesn\u2019t, for example, avoid cliffs, even after his near-fatal accident, and he\u2019s a fearless horse rider. He does avoid social situations \u2013 but he\u2019s so supercilious and disdainful of others that it seems strange he\u2019d be afraid of doing the wrong thing and having people laugh at him or dislike him (which is the case for most people with social anxiety). This book is set in the Cold War and Patrick has an uncle in the Foreign Office, so perhaps he\u2019s considering spies and traitors and wondering whether he himself might be capable of treachery?<\/p>\n

Ginty goes along with this plot because it has more dramatic potential for her Crispian\/Rupert romance, but she considers:<\/p>\n

\u201cSince she was quite often frightened herself, she thought fearlessness, which she confused with courage, the most valuable and enviable quality in the world.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is a good point to make. Nicola is mostly fearless, but also brave \u2013 she does what she believes is right, even when it scares her. Peter is often fearful and forces himself to be brave, although because he\u2019s under such pressure to Be A Marlow Man, it\u2019s often reckless foolishness, not bravery. Lawrie is neither fearless nor brave, but doesn\u2019t really care about looking cowardly \u2013 she just stores it all up as acting fuel.<\/p>\n

Nicola, by the way, says Rupert\u2019s decision to tell all before the torturing starts is \u201cjolly sensible\u201d, but I think that\u2019s only because she\u2019s bored by all the Gondalling. She\u2019d be horrified if, say, she discovered Nelson had ever behaved in such a cowardly manner.<\/p>\n

On the subject of Nelson, I forgot to note earlier that when Peter discovered the old farm journals, there\u2019s a casual mention of how the original Trennels farmhouse had \u201cbeen built by a Marlow called Joshua who\u2019d made his pile in the slave trade\u201d. None of the Marlows seems to think there\u2019s anything bothersome about this. And I was just reading about Nelson being friends with Caribbean planters and slave owners and how Nelson fought against William Wilberforce and the abolition movement<\/a>. Is Nicola aware of this? Would she care? Given the children\u2019s offhand use of racist slurs, I\u2019d have to assume she\u2019d be perfectly fine with Nelson\u2019s opinions on slavery and Empire.<\/p>\n

Chapter Eight: Dead of Night<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is nice chapter with no Gondalling whatsoever. Nicola wakes up in the middle of the night, convinced a burglar is prowling around downstairs. She bravely goes downstairs in her dressing-gown and grabs a poker (\u201cBetter not wake anyone until she was sure, because though she was<\/em> sure, she\u2019d look an awful fool\u201d if it didn\u2019t turn out to be a burglar). And it\u2019s not a burglar \u2013 it\u2019s Rowan with two newborn lambs nearly dead from cold. While they\u2019re waiting for the lambs to revive, they have a good chat about Nicola\u2019s life plans. Rowan suggests Nicola could train to be a vet (\u201cyou like animals and you\u2019re not nervous of them and you handle them well\u201d) and then she could come back to Trennels to look after their animals.<\/p>\n

Nicola is not very enthusiastic about the living at Trennels bit and gets Rowan to admit that her new life as a farmer is pretty dull. Nicola says she sees that it might help if Nicola came back to keep Rowan company, but Rowan knocks that idea on the head at once:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn twenty years we\u2019d be Two Terrible Tweedy Types known far and wide as The Queer Miss Marlows.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes, they would. Not that there\u2019s anything wrong with that. Antonia Forest must have been reading a lot of Mary Renault.<\/p>\n

What Nicola really wants to do is:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026joining the Wrens for a bit if I could be sure I\u2019d be posted to Malta or Gib or somewhere sensible. And then I\u2019d like to work my way around the world doing all sorts of different jobs, like people do. And if I could find anywhere no one had been yet I\u2019d like to go there and be the first person, ever.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That all sounds perfectly reasonable to me, apart from the explorer bit, and Rowan agrees, as long as Nicola doesn\u2019t mind being poor, which she doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Then, hooray, the lambs come back to life (I don\u2019t want any more animals dying in this book, thanks very much) and Rowan takes them back to their mother and Nicola tidies up the kitchen and falls asleep there.<\/p>\n

Next, Chapter Nine: The Twelfth Day of Christmas<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter Six: \u201cAll the Birds of the Air\u2026\u201d SPROG IS DEAD HOW COULD YOU DO THAT ANTONIA FOREST POOR LITTLE SPROG DYING ALONE IN THE COLD POOR NICOLA THIS IS SO UNFAIR. Of course, Nicola doesn\u2019t allow herself to cry, \u201ceven though when animals died it was always misery past bearing; one would always much … Continue reading \u2018Peter\u2019s Room\u2019, Part Four<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,6,11],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-5685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1950s-and-1960s","category-books","category-young-adult","tag-antonia-forest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5685"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5689,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5685\/revisions\/5689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}