A Little Forest.

As I have said previously, I have been collecting Antonia Forest.  I had, because Puffin published them in paperback while I was still @ school & inclined to read that sort of thing, all the school stories though they are now in a sad state of disrepair having been reread so thoroughly & so often.

I have now managed to fill all my gaps except for the 2 rarest [& most expensive] of the non school stories.  I would like Falconer's Lure better if  there wasn't quite so much bloodshed & after the first time refuse to read of Peter shooting Jael & have always found it a little odd that the animal loving Nicola so readily participates in blood sports.  Just the same it is full of lovely details about the keeping of hawks & I find it fascinating for that reason alone.

Peter's Room is the one book I never could get my hands on as a child but always wanted to read though as an adult the imaginary world of the Brontes [paralleled by the Marlows during their dreary Christmas break] is wildly disconcerting because in one sense both the writer & the reader are also *Gondaling*, replacing the hum~drum everyday with a far more interesting experience.

I have always wished that Antonia Forest had had a go @ writing fantasy.  She has a knack for sitting on the precipice then bumping you back into reality but that combination of the realistic with the fantastical makes for riveting reading.

Anyway, Amazon having had a spac attack about our GST,  I ordered Peter's Room through the Book Depository ~ whom I always really like because they not only give you free postage but a lovely bookmark @ no cost as well & Girls Gone By has been republishing quite a lot of old but popular children's authors  @ a reasonable cost~ Antonia Forest being one of them.

It is almost impossible to express the delight these books ensure in a reader.  Yes, the characterization is brilliant ~ but lots of authors can do that. Yes, there is plenty of action but~ ditto. Yes, the writing is both succinct & beautiful ~ but...Oddly, for  a children's author of the time, Forest employs both irony & sarcasm ~ wildly delightful to any child mature enough to grasp it & hilarious when you do! The Marlow's formidable grandmother is a joy to behold & Nicola's form teacher, the terrifying *Crommie*, interrogating Nicola over a late library book, is still likely to have me erupting into suppressed giggles.

The other thing that I really, really enjoy [& if your family has never done this I feel sorry for you] is the natural way deep, academic, ethical discussions occur naturally: in the bathroom, on the library floor, while making beds...complex dilemmas with multiple viewpoints: the traditional Catholic Patrick discussing with CofE athiestic Nicola why heresy matters; Lawrie explaining to her cynical grandmother why making people feel *religious* is more important than what she herself believes; academic Karen poring coals of scorn on Ginty's romantic notions of the Brontes [hilarious!].

I have yet to purchase The Marlows & The Traitor or Runaway Home ~ the 2nd & the very last books, both seemingly out of print & otherwise unavailable & neither one of my very favourites.  TM&TT explores betrayal & loyality & how someone can be a likeable person yet quite treacherous @ the same time.  It is a theme she touches on in other books as well: Attic Term; Peter's Room; End of Term; The Thuggery Affair... but RAH I have always found a deeply dissatisfying book with no~one behaving quite like themselves & for Giles [a supposedly responsible naval officer] to behave as he does, just doesn't ring true for me though happily for Peter it is the one book where he begins to understand that courage is not about not being afraid.  Eventually I will purchase them [& replace my tattered school copies] because they form a complete & satisfying whole.