REVIEW: Lavender at the High School
Nov. 12th, 2022 02:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
feather_ghyllLavender at the High School: E. C Mathews, Blackie
At its best, this was an absorbing read. It tells the story of how Lavender Pargiter becomes a part of the community that is her unnamed high school, somewhere in London. The school is referred to as a ‘public school’ and I got the feeling, from the many details, that it was based on a real institution. As a reader, I would have liked even more details sometimes, and the way the last few pages skip over a year and two terms didn’t do much for me. It isn’t quite as good as ‘Barbara at School’, which is the last book but one that I read so it’s fresh in my mind. This is neither as subtle or focused, but it passes the believability test, more or less.
The titular heroine, Lavender, is a rather older new girl than Barbara was at fourteen, shy and dreamy, capable of deep feeling. Her family have just moved from the country to the city, and the book opens with her about to take the entrance examinations, hoping to get accepted at this renowned high school, her first chance of a good education. She’s a keen reader and strong in English, but her French and Mathematics papers were not as good, and she scrapes through, being put into Upper IV and urged to improve her all-round level. She’s very impressed by the school spirit and ideals, its official motto is ‘I serve’ (which I both admire and think is a bit of noblesse oblige, which rankles somewhat).
The school takes study seriously, but also games, charitable activities and the name of the school. It’s a feminine world led by Miss Hereford, a figure much to be admired. You get a sense of the mistresses and old girls as impressive influences. When Lavender and friends talk about what they plan to do in the future, the most practical girl in the group, Evelyn, pooh-poohs talk of getting married and assumes they will all have had or be pursuing careers of some sort.
Lavender’s age puts her towards the top of the Lower School, although at this school, Lover V is also counted as part of the Lower School, as its girls don’t do (public) exams.
But quiet Lavender, the author clearly believes, isn’t quite vivid enough to keep her reader’s attention. I happened to read the list of chapter titles before starting to read the book proper, and one name jumped out, Decima. That is Decima Hamilton, who will become a friend of Lavender’s, and who undergoes a much bigger journey during the course of the book. She’s a year above Lavender, but perhaps two years older, and a very real force in the school. Decima doesn’t get on with authority, especially its most conventional wielders, she only exerts herself at games and art, doing the bare minimum in all other subjects. Her personality makes her a born leader, while she worries the more thoughtful teachers, who don’t feel they’ve ’got at her’ i.e. helped nurture her potential. How they find a way, and Lavender’s influence in this regard, is a more gripping arc than Lavender getting used to the school, gradually overcoming her diffidence and progressing academically to find her niche, and indeed even achieve some of her dreams. (Like Judith in ‘Barbara…’ Lavender is a playwright too, and probably a more convincing one.)
During Lavender’s second year at the school, when she joins the Upper School, less is written about her, and it’s more about Decima and general school life, as the school deals with a spate of objects disappearing from one place and ending up in another (a mystery the reader will solve before the prefects) and an influenza epidemic. Lavender’s little sister Daisy joins Form II, and is quite a contrast, more self-assured, more mischievous, and a little go-getter.
So, there is a real interest in character and personality. One of the things I liked the most was the depiction of friendships, which felt a little more realistic than the usual ‘chums for life’ narrative. On her first day proper, Lavender finds out she and another new girl who stood the entrance exams, Elizabeth, are to be in the same form. Elizabeth is full of herself – the school helps to squash her as much as it helps to bring Lavender out. But Elizabeth sticks to Lavender, who isn’t sure at first that she likes her. Elizabeth’s good qualities come to the foor, but the girls aren’t all that compatible and it’s realistic that their friendship only goes so far and fizzles out.
Lavender is initially put under the charge of the helpful, good-natured Evelyn, who is, usefully for exposition, a Miss Curiosity, but after the first term, when Lavender has become a little more established, she becomes more friendly with Grace and Phyllis, the leading lights of Upper IV, who, like her, are more studious. And then Lavender befriends Decima, despite being in different forms. Although Decima’s detractors might worry that her influence on Lavender makes the younger girl slack, the lasting influence works the other way around, and Lavender is part of Decima’s process of growth (as is plot contrivance), which helps her take up her rightful role in school life. Arguably, we are told more about Lavender and Decima’s friendship than shown it.
I had a few moments when I wasn’t quite with the narrative. For instance, to me, it was striking that Lavender’s father was always at home to hear about her early adventures at school. It turned out that he was a Great Man, which we and Lavender only learned on his prominence at her first school Speech Day. He was/is a renowned traveller, so no wonder he was always about when he was at home (had he done all his travelling while the Pargiters lived in the countryside?) I also thought that the school was asking for trouble by holding its Speech Day, a grand production, before all the examinations, meaning that girls were too busy rehearsing to prepare for exams and bound to find everything flat after the day, but had to behave and slog because either they or others were taking an exam. It just seemed as though this was hardly conducive to drawing the best out of the girls workwise. Imagine how much more honour could have been heaped on the school if they’d arranged things better!
Still, it was no bad thing to read about girls’ education being taken so seriously, and reading about a day school reminded me of my days at my secondary school a little, which boarding school stories rarely do. Although we never learned lacrosse and there were never as many flowers around (but there were boys). But this fictional/fictionalised school had its own flavour – I could almost imagine the building, and the school hall is lovingly described. It has its own customs, such as the ceremony for the older girls to select the candidates to be School Captain, which Lavender finds very impressive.
At its best, this was an absorbing read. It tells the story of how Lavender Pargiter becomes a part of the community that is her unnamed high school, somewhere in London. The school is referred to as a ‘public school’ and I got the feeling, from the many details, that it was based on a real institution. As a reader, I would have liked even more details sometimes, and the way the last few pages skip over a year and two terms didn’t do much for me. It isn’t quite as good as ‘Barbara at School’, which is the last book but one that I read so it’s fresh in my mind. This is neither as subtle or focused, but it passes the believability test, more or less.
The titular heroine, Lavender, is a rather older new girl than Barbara was at fourteen, shy and dreamy, capable of deep feeling. Her family have just moved from the country to the city, and the book opens with her about to take the entrance examinations, hoping to get accepted at this renowned high school, her first chance of a good education. She’s a keen reader and strong in English, but her French and Mathematics papers were not as good, and she scrapes through, being put into Upper IV and urged to improve her all-round level. She’s very impressed by the school spirit and ideals, its official motto is ‘I serve’ (which I both admire and think is a bit of noblesse oblige, which rankles somewhat).
The school takes study seriously, but also games, charitable activities and the name of the school. It’s a feminine world led by Miss Hereford, a figure much to be admired. You get a sense of the mistresses and old girls as impressive influences. When Lavender and friends talk about what they plan to do in the future, the most practical girl in the group, Evelyn, pooh-poohs talk of getting married and assumes they will all have had or be pursuing careers of some sort.
Lavender’s age puts her towards the top of the Lower School, although at this school, Lover V is also counted as part of the Lower School, as its girls don’t do (public) exams.
But quiet Lavender, the author clearly believes, isn’t quite vivid enough to keep her reader’s attention. I happened to read the list of chapter titles before starting to read the book proper, and one name jumped out, Decima. That is Decima Hamilton, who will become a friend of Lavender’s, and who undergoes a much bigger journey during the course of the book. She’s a year above Lavender, but perhaps two years older, and a very real force in the school. Decima doesn’t get on with authority, especially its most conventional wielders, she only exerts herself at games and art, doing the bare minimum in all other subjects. Her personality makes her a born leader, while she worries the more thoughtful teachers, who don’t feel they’ve ’got at her’ i.e. helped nurture her potential. How they find a way, and Lavender’s influence in this regard, is a more gripping arc than Lavender getting used to the school, gradually overcoming her diffidence and progressing academically to find her niche, and indeed even achieve some of her dreams. (Like Judith in ‘Barbara…’ Lavender is a playwright too, and probably a more convincing one.)
During Lavender’s second year at the school, when she joins the Upper School, less is written about her, and it’s more about Decima and general school life, as the school deals with a spate of objects disappearing from one place and ending up in another (a mystery the reader will solve before the prefects) and an influenza epidemic. Lavender’s little sister Daisy joins Form II, and is quite a contrast, more self-assured, more mischievous, and a little go-getter.
So, there is a real interest in character and personality. One of the things I liked the most was the depiction of friendships, which felt a little more realistic than the usual ‘chums for life’ narrative. On her first day proper, Lavender finds out she and another new girl who stood the entrance exams, Elizabeth, are to be in the same form. Elizabeth is full of herself – the school helps to squash her as much as it helps to bring Lavender out. But Elizabeth sticks to Lavender, who isn’t sure at first that she likes her. Elizabeth’s good qualities come to the foor, but the girls aren’t all that compatible and it’s realistic that their friendship only goes so far and fizzles out.
Lavender is initially put under the charge of the helpful, good-natured Evelyn, who is, usefully for exposition, a Miss Curiosity, but after the first term, when Lavender has become a little more established, she becomes more friendly with Grace and Phyllis, the leading lights of Upper IV, who, like her, are more studious. And then Lavender befriends Decima, despite being in different forms. Although Decima’s detractors might worry that her influence on Lavender makes the younger girl slack, the lasting influence works the other way around, and Lavender is part of Decima’s process of growth (as is plot contrivance), which helps her take up her rightful role in school life. Arguably, we are told more about Lavender and Decima’s friendship than shown it.
I had a few moments when I wasn’t quite with the narrative. For instance, to me, it was striking that Lavender’s father was always at home to hear about her early adventures at school. It turned out that he was a Great Man, which we and Lavender only learned on his prominence at her first school Speech Day. He was/is a renowned traveller, so no wonder he was always about when he was at home (had he done all his travelling while the Pargiters lived in the countryside?) I also thought that the school was asking for trouble by holding its Speech Day, a grand production, before all the examinations, meaning that girls were too busy rehearsing to prepare for exams and bound to find everything flat after the day, but had to behave and slog because either they or others were taking an exam. It just seemed as though this was hardly conducive to drawing the best out of the girls workwise. Imagine how much more honour could have been heaped on the school if they’d arranged things better!
Still, it was no bad thing to read about girls’ education being taken so seriously, and reading about a day school reminded me of my days at my secondary school a little, which boarding school stories rarely do. Although we never learned lacrosse and there were never as many flowers around (but there were boys). But this fictional/fictionalised school had its own flavour – I could almost imagine the building, and the school hall is lovingly described. It has its own customs, such as the ceremony for the older girls to select the candidates to be School Captain, which Lavender finds very impressive.
