{"id":5834,"date":"2019-06-03T00:55:53","date_gmt":"2019-06-02T14:55:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/?p=5834"},"modified":"2019-06-17T21:55:08","modified_gmt":"2019-06-17T11:55:08","slug":"the-thuggery-affair-by-antonia-forest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/2019\/06\/the-thuggery-affair-by-antonia-forest\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Thuggery Affair\u2019 by Antonia Forest"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the sixth book in Antonia Forest\u2019s series about the Marlow family. I’ve really enjoyed most of them so far, especially the school books, but all I know about this one is that it involves drug-smuggling pigeons, thugs who speak incomprehensible slang and no Nicola. It sounds like some bizarre children\u2019s version of A Clockwork Orange<\/em> and the cover is even worse than that of Peter\u2019s Room<\/em><\/a>. In other words, I have very low expectations for this book, but it could be an interesting<\/em> failure. We shall see.<\/p>\n

\"'The<\/p>\n

Chapter One: \u201cThere\u2019s a Hole in your Boatie\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

This chapter begins with a half-page sentence to rival Henry James<\/a> \u2013 eight commas, two semi-colons, one colon, five em-dashes, one set of parenthesised comments, and by my count, eighteen clauses. Antonia Forest seems to be declaring up front that if a child reader can\u2019t cope with an enormously complicated info-dump of a sentence on the first page, that reader might as well give up now. I think it\u2019s meant to show Lawrie\u2019s tangled thought processes, but this could have been demonstrated just as effectively by adding about ten full-stops.<\/p>\n

Anyway, we learn that it\u2019s half-term (so, February? March?) and Lawrie, Peter and Patrick are trying out the canoe that the boys built at Christmas after all the Gondalling<\/a>. Nicola is staying with Miranda in London and Ginty is visiting her grandmother in Paris. Lawrie is sulking about being abandoned by her twin, although when Nicola quite reasonably points out that she<\/em> wouldn\u2019t object if Lawrie had gone off with Tim, Lawrie says, \u201cBut that\u2019s diff\u2019rent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lawrie is such<\/em> a brat, but I can\u2019t help laughing at her melodramatics. A couple of pages into the chapter, she\u2019s weeping to herself as she imagines being the heroine of BOATING TRAGEDY IN HOGGART\u2019S LOCK (\u201cMrs Marlow, mother of eight, said with tears in her eyes: \u201cI am prostrated with grief. Lawrie was my favourite child\u2026\u201d). <\/p>\n

Lawrie\u2019s fantasy isn\u2019t so far-fetched, because the canoe is rapidly filling with water, nearly crashes into a hidden tree root and ends up sinking when they reach the sea. They are also hours too late to see the ducks fly overhead and Peter is annoyed because he wanted to shoot some fowl. (I can\u2019t believe no one has confiscated his rifle yet! He killed Jael<\/a> with that rifle! Patrick is being a lot more forgiving than I would have been.) Peter is also doing his very irritating regional dialect thing. At least he refrains from shooting one of a pair of swans. (Isn\u2019t shooting swans illegal in England because they belong to the Queen? Or is that only on the Thames?) The boys drag the canoe out of the mud and leave it on the promontory, then they all start squelching their way home.<\/p>\n

Oh, the other thing is that Patrick reveals he\u2019s home alone, with his parents still in London. He only made a fuss about coming to the country because he thought his sort-of-girlfriend Ginty would be at Trennels. Because they clearly don\u2019t write to one another or phone or communicate in any effective way. So I guess their romance hasn\u2019t progressed much since Christmas.<\/p>\n

Chapter Two: \u201cTwo Pigeons Flying High\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

As they walk home, they encounter A Thuggery of Teds, seven juvenile delinquents led by a boy called Jukie. For some reason, the Thuggery are employed by Miss Culver, a tweedy, church-going local woman, to look after her prize pigeons. Neither Patrick nor his parents can stand Miss Culver. It\u2019s unusual for tolerant Mr Merrick to take a dislike to anyone, but<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026he says she stands four-square and looks him straight in the eye and talks to him man-to-man and it frightens him to death. And ma says she\u2019s a natural-born bully.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Miss Culver also had the nerve to tell poor dead Cousin Jon (before he died, obviously) that he should get rid of his hawks, because they preyed on her pigeons. Plus, her pigeons are \u201chorrible little freaks\u201d who\u2019ve been overbred with \u201cso much wattle on their bills they can\u2019t see to fly\u201d. But before the children can discuss this further, a flock of pigeons flies overhead, Peter tries to shoot one and Patrick suddenly intervenes because he realises there\u2019s also a falcon in the air. And it\u2019s Regina! The falcon he was forced to release six months ago because he couldn\u2019t take her to London with him! And dear old Bucket recognises her, \u201chis tail fluttering in ecstatic welcome\u201d. Awww!<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Miss Culver turns up and tries to shoot Regina because the falcon has just killed and started eating one of the Culver pigeons. Patrick stands in her way and Peter raises his own gun, with \u201cthe situation \u2026 rapidly becoming stark, staring bonkers\u201d. Fortunately, Miss Culver realises she\u2019s pointing her gun at the only son of the local MP:<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would have been one thing apparently, thought Patrick hilariously, for Gunslinger Culver to pepper a peasant but quite another to murder a Merrick\u2026\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

She calms down a little, gives him a warning about keeping his hawks away from her birds, and is about to walk off when Peter characteristically puts his foot in it. She explodes with rage:<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was incredulous; he was fascinated; the hope grew that perhaps she would end her \u2013 was tirade<\/em> the word? \u2013 by flinging down her glove and challenging him to a duel.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Lawrie thinks it\u2019s most \u201cfunny-peculiar\u201d for a grown-up to behave like this when grown-ups are supposed to stop<\/em> fights, not start them. Although I\u2019m not sure how respectable Miss Culver can really be when she employs the Thuggery? I think we\u2019re meant to be suspicious of her from the start, based on her \u201cgrotesque\u201d physical appearance. Mind you, in previous books, Antonia Forest has heartily disapproved of women who wear fashionable clothes and make-up, so female characters can\u2019t really win in this world, whatever they do.<\/p>\n

Anyway, it\u2019s nice that Regina\u2019s back. She flies onto Patrick\u2019s fist and they head for home, Patrick\u2019s eyes \u201cblazing with triumph and pleasure\u201d.<\/p>\n

You might also be interested in reading:<\/p>\n

The Thuggery Affair, Part Two<\/a>
\nThe Thuggery Affair, Part Three<\/a>
\nThe Thuggery Affair, Part Four<\/a>
\nThe Thuggery Affair, Part Five<\/a>
\nThe Thuggery Affair, Part Six<\/a>
\nThe Thuggery Affair, Part Seven<\/a><\/p>\n

‘Autumn Term’ by Antonia Forest<\/a>
\n‘The Marlows and the Traitor’ by Antonia Forest<\/a>
\n‘Falconer’s Lure’ by Antonia Forest<\/a>
\n‘End of Term’ by Antonia Forest<\/a>
\n‘Peter’s Room’ by Antonia Forest<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is the sixth book in Antonia Forest\u2019s series about the Marlow family. I’ve really enjoyed most of them so far, especially the school books, but all I know about this one is that it involves drug-smuggling pigeons, thugs who speak incomprehensible slang and no Nicola. It sounds like some bizarre children\u2019s version of A … Continue reading \u2018The Thuggery Affair\u2019 by Antonia Forest<\/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-5834","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\/5834","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=5834"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5834\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5882,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5834\/revisions\/5882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}