feather_ghyll (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
feather_ghyll) wrote2011-08-27 12:52 pm
feather_ghyll) wrote2011-08-27 12:52 pm
REVIEW: Jan of the Fourth
Jan of the Fourth: Christine Chaundler. Nelson
We’re not just talking about a Fourth form here, but a Middle Fourth, the lowest Middle form at St Anne’s, a large boarding school. Jan – Janice – is a new girl, an orphan brought up by an aunt who has fallen ill and who has been sent here by another relative. The Middle Fourth could have been friendlier, for, early on in the term, when they decide to ‘slack’ in protest at being forced to play hockey in unseasonably hot weather, Jan doesn’t know about it, having been absorbed in a book. The more we learn about her, the more I wonder whether she’d have gone along with it. Anyway, she’s a good little hockey player, having learned how to play at her previous school – the Red House – a day school. Her classmates describe it in unfortunate, derogatory ways and their assumption of St Anne’s superiority rubs Jan up the wrong way. In fact, it could be argued, as their headmistress, Miss C.asle (definitely an Abbess type) later does, they don’t show its superiority in their behaviour.
One of the girls, Joey - Josephine - uses really unfortunate turns of phrases and Jan, coached by schoolboy cousins, starts a fight. A prefect has to break them up while the form watches in frozen horror. What does it say about me that I settled down to read this book about a Middle Fourth that hosted fisticuffs quite happily?
Jan does not sneak. She also stands up for herself and feels forced to stand up for her school. This mix leads to her taking on dares from her form, but not sneaking to those in authority that that was the cause of what seems like out of character behaviour. When they don’t own up to it (more than once, in increasingly dangerour pranks) and Jan is punished by not getting to play in the newly formed Middle hockey team, the one thing that the school had going for it in her eyes is taken away from her. She pleads to be taken away from St Anne’s, but her uncle refuses. So she takes it into her head to get expelled. Cue lots of rags, but Miss Carlisle and the more senior prefects are wise in their ways and when Jan comes across a burglar trying to steal the school’s silver cups (another school story staple, though I see it happening more in short stories in annuals than full-length stories) she realises that she thinks of it as her school. Er, she came across said burglar because she was oing to run away to Swizerland. Her ensuing heroics win her Joey’s friendship, the amends of her form and a chance to play for the school.
Yes, much of the events in the story are clichéd – the remarkable new girl, the wise headmistress, the rivals becoming gruff pals, the tactless junior prefect in contrast to the beloved head girl and games captain - but the escalating naughtiness is inventive. Another strength is that Chaundler successfully manages to get into her heroine’s mind and keep enough distance to pull back and give relevant information from an authorial/omnipotent POV without being as heavy handed as Angela Brazil. You do understand why Jan has these misguided notions. There’s the irony of girls being so keen on their school, but not doing a good job of representing it. Chaundler also writes quite a good hockey game – although the school has a barking mad system where only exceptional girls playing for the school win their colours and only girls who’ve won their colours get to play in the First Eleven..and yet it’s supposed to be A1 at sports!? Of course, this sustem serves the plot, with Jan truly appreciating the honour of playing for her school by the end of the story.
In a way, I’m not sure if the title was all that apt, because Jan and Joey’s relationship is more important than her relationship with the fourth, and although Joey is a leader in the form, she doesn’t quite represent it, being either better (with a more tender conscience) or worse (suffering jealousy as Jan gets praise for her hockey). With the role that the hockey team and, indeed, the prefects play, the book is more about Jan’s relationship with the school at large and her pranks do affect the school as a whole as often as just her form. However, that’s me overthinking it. The fourth form has its own resonance in school stories, it is the form's failings to make Jan feel welcome that set off the plot, and this was a fun read.
We’re not just talking about a Fourth form here, but a Middle Fourth, the lowest Middle form at St Anne’s, a large boarding school. Jan – Janice – is a new girl, an orphan brought up by an aunt who has fallen ill and who has been sent here by another relative. The Middle Fourth could have been friendlier, for, early on in the term, when they decide to ‘slack’ in protest at being forced to play hockey in unseasonably hot weather, Jan doesn’t know about it, having been absorbed in a book. The more we learn about her, the more I wonder whether she’d have gone along with it. Anyway, she’s a good little hockey player, having learned how to play at her previous school – the Red House – a day school. Her classmates describe it in unfortunate, derogatory ways and their assumption of St Anne’s superiority rubs Jan up the wrong way. In fact, it could be argued, as their headmistress, Miss C.asle (definitely an Abbess type) later does, they don’t show its superiority in their behaviour.
One of the girls, Joey - Josephine - uses really unfortunate turns of phrases and Jan, coached by schoolboy cousins, starts a fight. A prefect has to break them up while the form watches in frozen horror. What does it say about me that I settled down to read this book about a Middle Fourth that hosted fisticuffs quite happily?
Jan does not sneak. She also stands up for herself and feels forced to stand up for her school. This mix leads to her taking on dares from her form, but not sneaking to those in authority that that was the cause of what seems like out of character behaviour. When they don’t own up to it (more than once, in increasingly dangerour pranks) and Jan is punished by not getting to play in the newly formed Middle hockey team, the one thing that the school had going for it in her eyes is taken away from her. She pleads to be taken away from St Anne’s, but her uncle refuses. So she takes it into her head to get expelled. Cue lots of rags, but Miss Carlisle and the more senior prefects are wise in their ways and when Jan comes across a burglar trying to steal the school’s silver cups (another school story staple, though I see it happening more in short stories in annuals than full-length stories) she realises that she thinks of it as her school. Er, she came across said burglar because she was oing to run away to Swizerland. Her ensuing heroics win her Joey’s friendship, the amends of her form and a chance to play for the school.
Yes, much of the events in the story are clichéd – the remarkable new girl, the wise headmistress, the rivals becoming gruff pals, the tactless junior prefect in contrast to the beloved head girl and games captain - but the escalating naughtiness is inventive. Another strength is that Chaundler successfully manages to get into her heroine’s mind and keep enough distance to pull back and give relevant information from an authorial/omnipotent POV without being as heavy handed as Angela Brazil. You do understand why Jan has these misguided notions. There’s the irony of girls being so keen on their school, but not doing a good job of representing it. Chaundler also writes quite a good hockey game – although the school has a barking mad system where only exceptional girls playing for the school win their colours and only girls who’ve won their colours get to play in the First Eleven..and yet it’s supposed to be A1 at sports!? Of course, this sustem serves the plot, with Jan truly appreciating the honour of playing for her school by the end of the story.
In a way, I’m not sure if the title was all that apt, because Jan and Joey’s relationship is more important than her relationship with the fourth, and although Joey is a leader in the form, she doesn’t quite represent it, being either better (with a more tender conscience) or worse (suffering jealousy as Jan gets praise for her hockey). With the role that the hockey team and, indeed, the prefects play, the book is more about Jan’s relationship with the school at large and her pranks do affect the school as a whole as often as just her form. However, that’s me overthinking it. The fourth form has its own resonance in school stories, it is the form's failings to make Jan feel welcome that set off the plot, and this was a fun read.