Cricket Term, chapters 10-12

[coughingbear]

The final section of the book - the Play, the Match, and the End. Just about in time, but my apologies that it's so late; long day at work and trouble with laptop.

Comments

What did happen to Lois Sanger?

[sprog_63]

She dies.

"They could not conceive how much it mattered.
'Oh come on, Lois! It's only a game! Not a matter of life and death.'
But they were wrong."

She goes home, and dies. I generally presume she kills herself, since dying of a broken heart is rare, but she dies: Forest says so.

Re: What did happen to Lois Sanger?

[coughingbear]

I did think about that this evening but I don't know - for one thing it seems wrong structurally after Marie's death, and for another, surely that's the kind of news that would make it back to school and therefore Old Girls?

But it would make sense of her making a not-quite-apology to Nicola.

Re: What did happen to Lois Sanger?

[sprog_63]

I agree, it is wrong structurally - but isn't playing with conventional structure a recurrent theme in these books? I wonder if that is why it has to be so oblique: having written Marie's death so powerfully, there was nowhere else to go with Lois

Re: What did happen to Lois Sanger?

[jackmerlin]

Maybe she doesn't die straight away? Maybe she goes to her PE teacher training college, maybe even gets a job. But every time something goes wrong in her life she goes back to brooding obsessively about 'that game'. No-one picks up that the brooding is a symptom of a mental disorder until one day she takes an overdose.....
I'm very impressed by your textual reading by the way. It had never before occurred to me that she actually dies, but you're right, it does say so!

Re: What did happen to Lois Sanger?

[nnozomi]

Yes, that's how I read it also--that, while she doesn't go straight home from Kingscote and commit suicide, she may well end up doing so later on in life, as an extension of the way she thinks here. (I'm inclined to feel that "But they were wrong" is Forest quoting Lois' inner monologue, rather than a literal reference to life and death, but mileage varies.)

Re: What did happen to Lois Sanger?

[sprog_63]

I agree it doesn't have to be immediate - a gap even of a year means her parents much less likely to tell the school; though my head cannon puts it earlier rather than later. If I let it be a little later I could enjoy Ankaret's fic about her better without thinking, "but Lois is dead" every time I start it!

Re: What did happen to Lois Sanger?

[mainerobin]

I kind of pictured it could be something like this:
one of the Kingscote staff (Not sure if its Redmond, Craven, or Keith) gets a letter from a friend/relative, that contains a news clipping about something of interest to her--Perhaps Miss Carter returning from her world tour. On the back of the newsclipping is a short story headlined:

Girl Falls from Cliff Top

The body of a young woman was found at the bottom of the sea cliffs near Wilvercombe (might as well keep DLS in hand). A search of her person revealed no identity cards, but a search on the cliff above yielded a haversack containing the identification of Lois Sanger, 123 Skytop Road, Puddleford, Herts. A letter of dismissal from a Physical Training College was also in her bag.

Leaving open the question of whether it was suicide or accident

Re: What did happen to Lois Sanger?

[sprog_63]

I'm with you Sprog-63. The way the passage reads to me is:
They told her it wasn't a matter of life and death, but they were wrong and she was never seen again.
The Watsonian objection that people would know, which also came up when this was discussed in August 2007 (see Lois Sanger tag) is all very well, but there is so much in the AF universe that is pretty well impossible (such as Mrs Marlow's obstetric record) that it doesn't convince me.
Poor Lois just doesn't seem to have the knack of inventing plausible excuses that she can believe herself.
Thanks for all the work that has gone into these read throughs. I'm learning a lot
Mrs Kent

Re: What did happen to Lois Sanger?

[nzraya]

*all the thumbs up*

Re: What did happen to Lois Sanger?

[ext_195770]

I have to say, I've always read "But they were wrong" as simply Bill Shankly's famous aphorism translated into a girls' school context, rather than as a literal statement either of fact or intent.

Re: What did happen to Lois Sanger?

[lizarfau]

That's how I've always read it too.

Re: What did happen to Lois Sanger?

[nineveh_uk]

I always read that as metaphorical - that it really does feel like life and death to Lois, not that she will actually die of it. But the fact that it feels like that matters, and also ties into Nicola's invoking not simply brilliant act of fielding, but a murderer, to deliver the death-blow.

Re: What did happen to Lois Sanger?

[buntyandjinx]

I'm certain too this is simply Lois's reading of the situation at the time. I don't think she went and killed herself. BUT I do think the cricket match was the reason she severed all contact with Kingscote, which had previously been the centre of her life, and kept in touch with no one (you couldn't do that now with Facebook etc).

Re: What did happen to Lois Sanger?

[nineveh_uk]

I agree it makes sense in terms of never going back. Had she gone out on (what she perceived as) a high, I bet she'd always want to be there to be congratulated, but as she hasn't, she's never going to be able to forget and everything is poisoned forever.

Re: What did happen to Lois Sanger?

[ext_195770]

"I said I would go to another city, I would go to another land..."

Re: What did happen to Lois Sanger?

[sprog_63]

I ran and found out. *Draws breath.* If Lois feels that bleak and hopeless then suicide would certainly be an option.