{"id":5706,"date":"2018-07-20T19:09:12","date_gmt":"2018-07-20T09:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/?p=5706"},"modified":"2018-07-20T19:13:02","modified_gmt":"2018-07-20T09:13:02","slug":"peters-room-part-seven","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/2018\/07\/peters-room-part-seven\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Peter\u2019s Room\u2019, Part Seven"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chapter Eleven: The Dispatch is Delivered<\/strong><\/p>\n

One last bit of Gondalling, in which they finally arrive in Angora. Again, the plot doesn\u2019t make much sense. Jason goes straight to the King because \u201cthe matter is of deepest urgency\u201d, but when they meet, Jason doesn\u2019t say a word about the evil Regent\u2019s plots. Instead, he has a nice meal, then when he leaves, Rupert hands over the forged document and claims that he escaped before the Gaaldines could torture him. Rupert goes back to join the other Guards and is horrified to realise they\u2019re about to go and meet the Angoran King, so Rupert\u2019s treachery will soon be revealed. He must quickly kill Jason and escape to Gaaldine, although he wonders whether he\u2019ll be safe there.<\/p>\n

This is the point where Ginty says \u201cLet\u2019s get up and act this properly\u201d, suggesting that sometimes their Gondalling was sitting and talking, and sometimes they acted it out.<\/p>\n

Rupert\/Patrick goes to kill Jason\/Lawrie, who is shocked at Rupert\u2019s betrayal but tells Rupert to \u201cshoot me quickly and make your getaway\u201d (in a way that Lawrie would never do). But just as Rupert is about to fire, the others rush in, now aware of Rupert\u2019s treachery. Jason says Rupert must be taken home and tried as a traitor, which means he will burn at the stake. Rupert urges the others to shoot him now, but Malise\/Peter says he couldn\u2019t do that, indicating his broken arm from the battle (and Peter actually has a broken collarbone now, so the Gondalling foretold that) and Nicholas\/Nicola says Rupert\/Patrick deserves to burn (for Rosina, the geese and not caring when she fell off Buster). Rupert announces he will shoot himself and the children break out of Gondalling to discuss this.<\/p>\n

Peter says suicide is \u201ctoo easy\u201d and Nicola wonders how Rupert can do that if he\u2019s Catholic. Ginty wants to save Rupert by sending him into exile \u201cand we could all go into voluntary exile with him\u201d. But Peter thinks Rupert deserves to burn for being a \u201ccoward and traitor\u201d. Patrick loses his temper and points out that Malise Marlow, the Civil War ancestor who supported Charles, actually betrayed his own side when the Royalists were losing and showed the Parliamentarians how to get into the Royalist castle. And then Patrick\u2019s Royalist ancestor, Anthony Merrick, was captured and shot.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a moment\u2019s violent silence, loud with old betrayals and antique feuds and ancient enmities. And then Nicola said, \u2018Lumme, what a heel!\u2019 and the long dead things went back to their own place. Peter, very pale, said nothing.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Then Patrick raises an actual pistol to his head to shoot himself, Nicola is frightened to see he\u2019s wearing his Rupert face and, \u201cpanic-stricken\u201d, bashes his wrist with the actual sword she\u2019s carrying. The pistol falls and discharges, shooting a hole in the window beside Lawrie\u2019s head and nearly hitting Rowan, who\u2019s outside in the spinney. Because of course, when Peter checked the old pistols were safe, he didn\u2019t do it properly. Didn\u2019t I say<\/em> that Peter and guns should never be allowed in the same place? Everyone hastily re-arranges the scene so that when Rowan arrives, they all look completely innocent, the pistol having fallen off the wall accidentally (although Lawrie is \u201cquietly bleeding to death into her trousers pocket\u201d). Rowan is not convinced, but can\u2019t prove anything and at least she takes all the guns away. I\u2019m just remembering when Peter was carrying around a pistol earlier, in case they met the neighbourhood drunk, and he playfully held it to Nicola\u2019s head \u2013 imagine if it had gone off then. He\u2019s so irresponsible!<\/p>\n

Nicola, thoroughly fed up, announces she\u2019s leaving Gondal, despite Lawrie saying she can\u2019t, they need her and it\u2019s \u201cfour to one\u201d:<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t care if it\u2019s a billion to a quarter,\u201d said Nicola, discarding family democracy at the same time as she put on her macintosh. \u201cI think the whole thing\u2019s quite mad. And I think those Bront\u00ebs of Gin\u2019s must have been absolutely mental<\/em>, still doing it when they were thirty, nearly!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Then Peter, who never wants to hear the word ‘Malise’ again in his life, banishes the others from the Hide. He takes the Malise paper and farm journals and \u201cstuffed the whole thing away at the very bottom, underneath everything\u201d, which is exactly how Peter always responds to trauma. Then he ponders how everything in the Hide transmogrified itself:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sovereigns had become farthings: Malise had turned from hero to villain: even the holiday itself had changed from whatever he\u2019d planned into this Gondal nonsense: whatever Mr. Tranter might say, it did look as if Ted Colthard\u2019s grandfather had\u2013well\u2013you never knew\u2013\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yes, Peter, let\u2019s put all the blame on the devil on the roof. It couldn\u2019t possibly have gone wrong due to your own character flaws.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s a nice scene between Nicola and Rowan, in which Rowan is leaning on a gate, \u201cSaying \u2018Aarrh\u2019 to the crops. It makes them grow,\u201d and Nicola discusses her plans for the rest of the holidays:<\/p>\n

\u201cThen I think I\u2019ll have elevenses and then I\u2019ll get Buster and go for a ride. And tomorrow, if that\u2019s all right with you, I\u2019ll come up to the lambing pen.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Good for you, Nicola. And I hope the rest of your holidays are much better than the first bit.<\/p>\n

Lawrie blames everyone else, but she\u2019ll be fine, Gondalling away by herself in her bedroom. Patrick and Ginty are the most upset by the abrupt end of Gondal. Ginty says, \u201cYou could sort of find out how people feel when things happen to them, couldn\u2019t you?\u201d, which is what fiction does and suggests Antonia Forest isn\u2019t completely against Gondalling. And Patrick says:<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish we could have gone on long enough to find out [what Rupert decided] \u2026 once we really got going, what was happening to Rupert felt much more important than anything that was happening to me \u2026 we could have gone back to before all this happened and seen why Rupert got like this \u2026 Anyway, it was much more fun being Rupert than me.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So Gondalling did seem to have a psychological benefit for Patrick \u2013 it allowed him to consider how other people thought and felt, which is not something he seems to have done before this. After all, the only real danger they faced from Gondalling was due to Peter\u2019s irresponsible attitude to guns. A winter holiday of escapism is not going to cause much harm to most children.<\/p>\n

Ginty and Patrick are very sad that \u201cfrom now on ordinary everyday life will have to serve\u201d, but I don\u2019t have too much sympathy for them, because they both have youth, good health, good looks, lots of money, servants and their very own ponies. And the book concludes with Patrick suggesting, \u201cLet\u2019s get The Idiot and Catkin and go for a ride.\u201d<\/p>\n

THE END<\/p>\n

I can absolutely see why Victoria University has chosen Peter\u2019s Room<\/em> as a set text for their children\u2019s literature course. Apart from being an enjoyable read, there\u2019s so much to explore within the text, especially about the role of fantasy and fiction in children\u2019s (and adults\u2019) lives. <\/p>\n

My personal favourite bits were the discussion about the Bront\u00ebs, the talk Rowan and Nicola had about careers, and the scene with Nicola, Buster and the fox. I found the Gondal bits fairly tedious. I can see why they had to be there, but did they have to be so badly written and clumsily plotted? Of course, the children were \u2018writing\u2019 those bits and wouldn\u2019t be expected to be brilliant at it, but I wondered if the clumsy prose reflected Antonia Forest\u2019s opinion of High Fantasy. Did she like Lord of the Rings<\/em> and Narnia and those sorts of books? I\u2019d guess not from this book. I also got the impression that despite her stern warning about the dangers of Gondalling, she\u2019d had a fair bit of daydreaming experience herself. And after all, she lived inside the imaginary world of the Marlows for decades.<\/p>\n

The next Marlow book is The Thuggery Affair<\/em>. Oh dear. Perhaps it\u2019s not as bad as it sounds\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2018Peter\u2019s Room\u2019 by Antonia Forest<\/a>
\n\u2018Peter\u2019s Room\u2019, Part Two<\/a>
\n\u2018Peter\u2019s Room\u2019, Part Three<\/a>
\n\u2018Peter\u2019s Room\u2019, Part Four<\/a>
\n\u2018Peter\u2019s Room\u2019, Part Five<\/a>
\n\u2018Peter\u2019s Room\u2019, Part Six<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter Eleven: The Dispatch is Delivered One last bit of Gondalling, in which they finally arrive in Angora. Again, the plot doesn\u2019t make much sense. Jason goes straight to the King because \u201cthe matter is of deepest urgency\u201d, but when they meet, Jason doesn\u2019t say a word about the evil Regent\u2019s plots. Instead, he has … Continue reading \u2018Peter\u2019s Room\u2019, Part Seven<\/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-5706","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\/5706","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=5706"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5715,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5706\/revisions\/5715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}