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feather_ghyll) wrote2014-08-20 09:41 pm
feather_ghyll) wrote2014-08-20 09:41 pm
REREAD: The Chalet School and the Lintons
The Chalet School and the Lintons: Elinor M. Brent-Dyer Chambers 1940 reprint
I’d previously read this story as split into two by Armada. It was nice to have it all in one hardback volume, although I managed to slosh some coffee over it at one point.
The story is that Gillian and Joyce Linton’s mother is ill, more seriously ill than she knew, and worse than she wants to let her children know i.e. she has tuberculosis in England in the mid 1930s. They seem to have no other family. Her doctor wants to send her to the Sanatorium on the Sonnalpe in the Tiernsee and the nearby Chalet School seems like a godsend. It will be one for the girls, of course.
Very much the elder sister, responsible Gillian sees things more deeply, while fourteen year old, pretty Joyce is happy to be babyish and lazy. The latter is not at all equipped to face the fact that her mother is teetering close to death.
However, the Chalet School is the Chalet School. At this point, it's headed by Mademoiselle Lepâttre, ably supported by Misses Annersley, Wilson etc. Many of the senior girls have been pupils from the school’s inception. Joey is head girl, still struggling with tact and the idea that she is so close to being grown-up, but, nonetheless, a vital influence. Such influences are necessary, for Joyce, meaning to carry on suiting herself, finds that she isn’t as popular as she thought she’d be at her new school, and develops a friendship with Thekla von Stift, who won’t fit in with the ways of the school, deeming them beneath her. Joyce comes close to expulsion, until Gillian, Joey and Thekla, in their different ways, help her to turn over a new leaf, but all this good work almost comes undone when a near truth is overheard by Mrs Linton, endangering her frail health.
Two things jumped out at me: soon after Joey has been influencing Joyce for good, by getting her to think about trying to use her brains and to apply herself properly, a jealous Thekla wakes Joyce up, pulls her out of her dorm and demands that Joyce ‘drops’ Jo, who Thekla resents for her own reasons. She goes as far as to shake Joyce physically, when authority in the forms of Chalet School legends Cornelia Flower and then Bill intervene. Still, in the world of the Chalet School, such violence seems shocking. Joyce is a vulnerable figure, shaking off sleep and not properly dressed, younger and smaller. There is violence in other stories, but usually hotheaded stuff from girls who haven't learned self-control. It doesn't seem quite so much like bullying as this incident did.
When the mistresses later question Thekla about what she was up to, after cutting through her lies, Thekla pretty much admits that she was acting out of hate for Jo. Her behaviour is described as wicked, and the drastic step of expelling her is taken.
I say drastic step, which it is in girls own stories, much as it is in life. In a series like the Chalet School (which was already long-running, although it had barely got into its stride in the Tirolean years) being sent away from this wonderful school that readers were as invested in as the Chalet Girls, from Joey and chums to Maria Marani and Amy Stevens, was chilling. It’s a rare occurrence in the genre and this series (does it only happen one other time?). Generally, firebrands and odd birds are tamed.
Even so, her expulsion is framed as being a chance for Thekla, spiritually, just as Joyce’s earlier punishment for bad behaviour was, although Joyce is painted as thoughtless and selfish, rather than dishonourable, dishonest and willing to perpetrate actual hurt and thus can take her ‘last chance’ at the school. This is Thekla’s second term, and throughout the book staff, prefects and peers bemoan her behaviour, most especially Marie von Eschenau, one of the prees and Joey’s chums, who sees the prideful, haughty Thekla as letting the family down. Some of Thekla’s behaviour is attributed to her Prussian upbringing (this is interesting, because there’s one oblique reference to international tensions and the book was first published in 1936) although her father is disgusted with Thekla when he comes to fetch her from the school. For Mademoiselle Lepâttre has decided that the school is not doing Thekla any good and that the girl may cause actual harm, and thus must be removed from the other girls in the school’s care.
Touchingly, we learn that Thekla did write to Mademoiselle a few years later, thanking her for the ‘check’ that was applied, stopping Thekla’s descent into greater evil. This would have been written before Brent-Dyer could have been aware of the full horrors of war and Nazism, but I like to think that Thekla had changed, learned and survived even as all that was going on because of her Chalet School experiences.
The other striking thing isn’t the themed Sale of Works, the first midnight feast (it leads to sickness because it was poorly planned) or the name party for Sybil Russell, but rather Gillian’s admission of how much she was supporting Joyce and thus enabling her sister's babyish indolence. What was striking is that in the early glimpse of the Lintons’ domestic life, we see that Gillian was copying their doting mother, who was generally willing to write notes on Joyce’s behalf excusing her from homework (can you imagine!?) By the sisters coming to the Chalet School, the school and its systems take responsibility for the education of Joyce, academically and otherwise, and, of course, there’s an insistence that Joyce takes responsibility for her own actions, from using slang to making mischief, as she should, aged 14. Also, when she's up in the Sonnalpe, she's around younger children and though the contrast isn't emphasised, except with the Robin, perhaps, it does frame Joyce's behaviour. This frees Gillian up to concentrate on her own development and, despite the great worry over her mother’s walk in the valley of the shadow of death, to simply be a girl. Of course, she became the Chalet Girl ultime, didn’t she? Wasn’t she a head girl and a mistress? I don’t recall if she married a doctor, though.
Other fun things include the glimpses into the staff room, which are comparatively rare in the genre. They’re as much about the staff hanging out here as discussing the girls. There’s also that onrush towards adulthood that Josephine Mary Bettany will fail to withstand. Frieda and Simone are growing their hair long and putting it up, and Jack Maynard and the Count von und zu Wertheimer are hovering around in the background. Not to mention all the babies (some future Chalet girls!) being born to old girls and family members.
The Tirol era is my favourite of the Chalet School eras, partly because the school is smaller (and it’s striking that so many of the girls are from so many non-British nationalities, even if they’re there to have English ways rub off on them – of course St Scholastika is also around to draw British girls) and there’s a freshness to everything. I enjoyed revisiting this story, which was as wholesome as hot milk.
I’d previously read this story as split into two by Armada. It was nice to have it all in one hardback volume, although I managed to slosh some coffee over it at one point.
The story is that Gillian and Joyce Linton’s mother is ill, more seriously ill than she knew, and worse than she wants to let her children know i.e. she has tuberculosis in England in the mid 1930s. They seem to have no other family. Her doctor wants to send her to the Sanatorium on the Sonnalpe in the Tiernsee and the nearby Chalet School seems like a godsend. It will be one for the girls, of course.
Very much the elder sister, responsible Gillian sees things more deeply, while fourteen year old, pretty Joyce is happy to be babyish and lazy. The latter is not at all equipped to face the fact that her mother is teetering close to death.
However, the Chalet School is the Chalet School. At this point, it's headed by Mademoiselle Lepâttre, ably supported by Misses Annersley, Wilson etc. Many of the senior girls have been pupils from the school’s inception. Joey is head girl, still struggling with tact and the idea that she is so close to being grown-up, but, nonetheless, a vital influence. Such influences are necessary, for Joyce, meaning to carry on suiting herself, finds that she isn’t as popular as she thought she’d be at her new school, and develops a friendship with Thekla von Stift, who won’t fit in with the ways of the school, deeming them beneath her. Joyce comes close to expulsion, until Gillian, Joey and Thekla, in their different ways, help her to turn over a new leaf, but all this good work almost comes undone when a near truth is overheard by Mrs Linton, endangering her frail health.
Two things jumped out at me: soon after Joey has been influencing Joyce for good, by getting her to think about trying to use her brains and to apply herself properly, a jealous Thekla wakes Joyce up, pulls her out of her dorm and demands that Joyce ‘drops’ Jo, who Thekla resents for her own reasons. She goes as far as to shake Joyce physically, when authority in the forms of Chalet School legends Cornelia Flower and then Bill intervene. Still, in the world of the Chalet School, such violence seems shocking. Joyce is a vulnerable figure, shaking off sleep and not properly dressed, younger and smaller. There is violence in other stories, but usually hotheaded stuff from girls who haven't learned self-control. It doesn't seem quite so much like bullying as this incident did.
When the mistresses later question Thekla about what she was up to, after cutting through her lies, Thekla pretty much admits that she was acting out of hate for Jo. Her behaviour is described as wicked, and the drastic step of expelling her is taken.
I say drastic step, which it is in girls own stories, much as it is in life. In a series like the Chalet School (which was already long-running, although it had barely got into its stride in the Tirolean years) being sent away from this wonderful school that readers were as invested in as the Chalet Girls, from Joey and chums to Maria Marani and Amy Stevens, was chilling. It’s a rare occurrence in the genre and this series (does it only happen one other time?). Generally, firebrands and odd birds are tamed.
Even so, her expulsion is framed as being a chance for Thekla, spiritually, just as Joyce’s earlier punishment for bad behaviour was, although Joyce is painted as thoughtless and selfish, rather than dishonourable, dishonest and willing to perpetrate actual hurt and thus can take her ‘last chance’ at the school. This is Thekla’s second term, and throughout the book staff, prefects and peers bemoan her behaviour, most especially Marie von Eschenau, one of the prees and Joey’s chums, who sees the prideful, haughty Thekla as letting the family down. Some of Thekla’s behaviour is attributed to her Prussian upbringing (this is interesting, because there’s one oblique reference to international tensions and the book was first published in 1936) although her father is disgusted with Thekla when he comes to fetch her from the school. For Mademoiselle Lepâttre has decided that the school is not doing Thekla any good and that the girl may cause actual harm, and thus must be removed from the other girls in the school’s care.
Touchingly, we learn that Thekla did write to Mademoiselle a few years later, thanking her for the ‘check’ that was applied, stopping Thekla’s descent into greater evil. This would have been written before Brent-Dyer could have been aware of the full horrors of war and Nazism, but I like to think that Thekla had changed, learned and survived even as all that was going on because of her Chalet School experiences.
The other striking thing isn’t the themed Sale of Works, the first midnight feast (it leads to sickness because it was poorly planned) or the name party for Sybil Russell, but rather Gillian’s admission of how much she was supporting Joyce and thus enabling her sister's babyish indolence. What was striking is that in the early glimpse of the Lintons’ domestic life, we see that Gillian was copying their doting mother, who was generally willing to write notes on Joyce’s behalf excusing her from homework (can you imagine!?) By the sisters coming to the Chalet School, the school and its systems take responsibility for the education of Joyce, academically and otherwise, and, of course, there’s an insistence that Joyce takes responsibility for her own actions, from using slang to making mischief, as she should, aged 14. Also, when she's up in the Sonnalpe, she's around younger children and though the contrast isn't emphasised, except with the Robin, perhaps, it does frame Joyce's behaviour. This frees Gillian up to concentrate on her own development and, despite the great worry over her mother’s walk in the valley of the shadow of death, to simply be a girl. Of course, she became the Chalet Girl ultime, didn’t she? Wasn’t she a head girl and a mistress? I don’t recall if she married a doctor, though.
Other fun things include the glimpses into the staff room, which are comparatively rare in the genre. They’re as much about the staff hanging out here as discussing the girls. There’s also that onrush towards adulthood that Josephine Mary Bettany will fail to withstand. Frieda and Simone are growing their hair long and putting it up, and Jack Maynard and the Count von und zu Wertheimer are hovering around in the background. Not to mention all the babies (some future Chalet girls!) being born to old girls and family members.
The Tirol era is my favourite of the Chalet School eras, partly because the school is smaller (and it’s striking that so many of the girls are from so many non-British nationalities, even if they’re there to have English ways rub off on them – of course St Scholastika is also around to draw British girls) and there’s a freshness to everything. I enjoyed revisiting this story, which was as wholesome as hot milk.