REVIEW: Evelyn Finds Herself
Evelyn Finds Herself: Josephine Elder. Girls Gone By, 2006.
As I said, I really enjoyed this book. It actively made me think about girlhood and growing up/developing because it treats the process far less superficially than most Girls Own books. The story follows the final four years of Evelyn Ingram at Addington High School. Since the age of seven, she and Elizabeth have been unquestioned best friends, and completely co-dependent, to the point where they don't truly think of themselves as separate entities. However, as they enter the Upper Fifth, the last form before the august sixth, growing up is foisted upon them, as they are given an opportunity to join the first eleven hockey team and required to 'set aside childish things' (treating mistresses like teaching machines to play pranks upon if they are insufficiently 'strong'). It isn't an easy process. They have both assumed that things will stay the same, that they will stay the same and that they will both want the same things, and keep to the long-held viewpoint that being good at games is vital, and that being top of the class comes naturally, without undue effort, because that would mark you out as a brain.
Would that life were that simple. Evelyn's place in the first eleven is not as secure as they expected, and as she turns to her work in response, she discovers an aptitude for and an interest in Science that Elizabeth doesn't share. As they progress to the sixth form, their differences loom larger, with Liz assuming that, like her, Evelyn will welcome the more sophisticated Madeline as a third, but Evelyn can't make herself like Madeline, and it isn't just jealousy. With a view to the broader needs of the school, Evelyn supports the nervous and shy Rachel as Head Prefect, whom Liz, like a rebelious lower form, thinks is a rabbit. But Evelyn needs to learn self-reliance and her self-control is tested, all things that stand her in good stead when she is eventually made Head Prefect, and has to deal with the long-time thorn that is Amabel, the first eleven's goal keeper and a slack prefect who puts herself first above the needs of the school or the girls for whom she is meant to be responsible for and to. The story ends with Evelyn and Liz reconciled, able to agree to disagree, not taking each other for granted, and facing Cambridge (at different colleges) in the knowledge that they will once again be small fish.
I note the ending, because it's a point that isn't made that often in school stories, where being a prefect with your friends is formally the high point (old girls marry nice doctor for their own daughters to achieve the same pinnacle :)). Okay, that's a little flippant, but the future is viewed rather hazily. Here, the school is the location at which our heroine discovers herself. The school is about educating and stretching her, not entertaining us, though it does that too. As was stated in the book's introduction, Elder writes an excellent hockey match, and really understands the schoolgirl point of view - backing up the claim that schoolgirls are conservative, liking a certain way of doing things and frowning on aberrations. There aren't that many surprises - Evelyn seems destined to be Head Prefect, the hockey team finally progresses to the final and wins, and though I expected Elizabeth to acknowledge Evelyn's viewpoint about responsibility to the school being the thing that mattered and that that meant more than in games, she never did. At the end, they're drawn as having a friendship of equals as seperate people -at one point, Elizabeth's entitlement is so great that she assumes she can invite Madeline to Evelyn's house for tea on a Sunday - but I was never convinced that Elizabeth had gone through the same sort of self-discovery as Evelyn in her maturation. Of course, this was partly personality types, and probably me over-identifying with the heroine.
Although part of the reason that I responded so strongly to the book was that I felt that there was a real glimpse into girlhood, into growing pains, the intensity of friendship, while keeping true to the touchstones of the genre, I was a bit surprised by how surprising it was to Evelyn herself that she had a 'self' to be true to. I'm not sure whether it's the fact that I never had that co-dependant a best friendship or a historic thing. After all, I grew up at the end of the twentieth century, not it's beginning, when teenagers had been labelled, and well, we had no problem talking about 'me and what I want'. I was also confused, despite having read an explanation in the introduction, by the ages. I read Upper Fifth and thought of my time in the fifth form (year 11), but really, it corresponds to the fourth form (year 10). Still, we were more self-conscious at both ages than these girls.
What also struck me was that in difficult times, Evelyn never turns to her family for succour, not her mother or father. She might as well be in boarding school in some respects. He parents are there to provide direction, walks and Sunday tea, which Liz gets to take for granted, and, although mention is made, after the reconciliation, of Liz avoiding them when she returns to Evelyn's attic after many months, I was surprised that they didn't ask Evelyn about the obvious break and that that wasn't recorded. It would have put in a spoke in the wheel of treating the theme of friendship and Evelyn learning to stand up for herself, yet I found it weird, and a glaring thing the more I thought about it. I can't believe that it was a cultural thing for the time for parents to be so hands off. (The parents in the Farm School seemed to be more hands on and they were running a farm and a school and had a whole brood).
Of course, there are distinct to day school things going on, but the role of prefects and the rules they enforce, hierarchies in school status and forms is much the same as in boarding school stories. Perhaps the relationship with mistresses is different, although Elder makes the point that friendships are rare - Evelyn's relationship with the science mistress Miss Yeo (the Gypsy - nearly every teacher gets a nickname, and so did the E's classmates, but not them, for they were the centre of the class, naturellement) wouldn't have developed in a boarding school.
At first the style seemed a little too simplistic, sentences were short and to the point, but either I got used to the style or, well, it seemed to me as if things did get more complicated, and I rather suspect Elder was conveying the increasing complexity of Evelyn's thought processes and awareness of life. Anyhow, I'd certainly recommend getting a hold of this reprint and reading this (and The Farm School trilogy, which I now want to reread).
As I said, I really enjoyed this book. It actively made me think about girlhood and growing up/developing because it treats the process far less superficially than most Girls Own books. The story follows the final four years of Evelyn Ingram at Addington High School. Since the age of seven, she and Elizabeth have been unquestioned best friends, and completely co-dependent, to the point where they don't truly think of themselves as separate entities. However, as they enter the Upper Fifth, the last form before the august sixth, growing up is foisted upon them, as they are given an opportunity to join the first eleven hockey team and required to 'set aside childish things' (treating mistresses like teaching machines to play pranks upon if they are insufficiently 'strong'). It isn't an easy process. They have both assumed that things will stay the same, that they will stay the same and that they will both want the same things, and keep to the long-held viewpoint that being good at games is vital, and that being top of the class comes naturally, without undue effort, because that would mark you out as a brain.
Would that life were that simple. Evelyn's place in the first eleven is not as secure as they expected, and as she turns to her work in response, she discovers an aptitude for and an interest in Science that Elizabeth doesn't share. As they progress to the sixth form, their differences loom larger, with Liz assuming that, like her, Evelyn will welcome the more sophisticated Madeline as a third, but Evelyn can't make herself like Madeline, and it isn't just jealousy. With a view to the broader needs of the school, Evelyn supports the nervous and shy Rachel as Head Prefect, whom Liz, like a rebelious lower form, thinks is a rabbit. But Evelyn needs to learn self-reliance and her self-control is tested, all things that stand her in good stead when she is eventually made Head Prefect, and has to deal with the long-time thorn that is Amabel, the first eleven's goal keeper and a slack prefect who puts herself first above the needs of the school or the girls for whom she is meant to be responsible for and to. The story ends with Evelyn and Liz reconciled, able to agree to disagree, not taking each other for granted, and facing Cambridge (at different colleges) in the knowledge that they will once again be small fish.
I note the ending, because it's a point that isn't made that often in school stories, where being a prefect with your friends is formally the high point (old girls marry nice doctor for their own daughters to achieve the same pinnacle :)). Okay, that's a little flippant, but the future is viewed rather hazily. Here, the school is the location at which our heroine discovers herself. The school is about educating and stretching her, not entertaining us, though it does that too. As was stated in the book's introduction, Elder writes an excellent hockey match, and really understands the schoolgirl point of view - backing up the claim that schoolgirls are conservative, liking a certain way of doing things and frowning on aberrations. There aren't that many surprises - Evelyn seems destined to be Head Prefect, the hockey team finally progresses to the final and wins, and though I expected Elizabeth to acknowledge Evelyn's viewpoint about responsibility to the school being the thing that mattered and that that meant more than in games, she never did. At the end, they're drawn as having a friendship of equals as seperate people -at one point, Elizabeth's entitlement is so great that she assumes she can invite Madeline to Evelyn's house for tea on a Sunday - but I was never convinced that Elizabeth had gone through the same sort of self-discovery as Evelyn in her maturation. Of course, this was partly personality types, and probably me over-identifying with the heroine.
Although part of the reason that I responded so strongly to the book was that I felt that there was a real glimpse into girlhood, into growing pains, the intensity of friendship, while keeping true to the touchstones of the genre, I was a bit surprised by how surprising it was to Evelyn herself that she had a 'self' to be true to. I'm not sure whether it's the fact that I never had that co-dependant a best friendship or a historic thing. After all, I grew up at the end of the twentieth century, not it's beginning, when teenagers had been labelled, and well, we had no problem talking about 'me and what I want'. I was also confused, despite having read an explanation in the introduction, by the ages. I read Upper Fifth and thought of my time in the fifth form (year 11), but really, it corresponds to the fourth form (year 10). Still, we were more self-conscious at both ages than these girls.
What also struck me was that in difficult times, Evelyn never turns to her family for succour, not her mother or father. She might as well be in boarding school in some respects. He parents are there to provide direction, walks and Sunday tea, which Liz gets to take for granted, and, although mention is made, after the reconciliation, of Liz avoiding them when she returns to Evelyn's attic after many months, I was surprised that they didn't ask Evelyn about the obvious break and that that wasn't recorded. It would have put in a spoke in the wheel of treating the theme of friendship and Evelyn learning to stand up for herself, yet I found it weird, and a glaring thing the more I thought about it. I can't believe that it was a cultural thing for the time for parents to be so hands off. (The parents in the Farm School seemed to be more hands on and they were running a farm and a school and had a whole brood).
Of course, there are distinct to day school things going on, but the role of prefects and the rules they enforce, hierarchies in school status and forms is much the same as in boarding school stories. Perhaps the relationship with mistresses is different, although Elder makes the point that friendships are rare - Evelyn's relationship with the science mistress Miss Yeo (the Gypsy - nearly every teacher gets a nickname, and so did the E's classmates, but not them, for they were the centre of the class, naturellement) wouldn't have developed in a boarding school.
At first the style seemed a little too simplistic, sentences were short and to the point, but either I got used to the style or, well, it seemed to me as if things did get more complicated, and I rather suspect Elder was conveying the increasing complexity of Evelyn's thought processes and awareness of life. Anyhow, I'd certainly recommend getting a hold of this reprint and reading this (and The Farm School trilogy, which I now want to reread).