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

[slemslempike]

I always assume Val on demos is meant to be sarcastic - they're cheering her up by imagining an unlikely future. Although perhaps her smug's service stripe was for a genuine cause that she's likely to carry on.

Belatedly, and apologies if this was previously discussed, my internet is too poor to go back and check, why can't Nicola have Lower IVa in the cup AND be on the Prospects list? Surely if she gets them further on she's even more worthy of extra coaching herself?

[coughingbear]

I think on the Cup vs being a Prospect it's just a matter of time - if Nicola is still busy coaching her form she's not really available for extra coaching.

Val

[ext_195770]

That was my thought, too: an attempt to cheer Val up by the sheer incongruity. Also, I got the impression here that the Sixth genuinely like Val; she's a bit earnest and a wee bit pompous and not up to getting social cues much (I think her alertness to "typical lower form cheek" is because she can't tell the difference between friendly teasing and actual defiance, so steps on them all), but she genuinely tries to do the right thing according to her lights (see, for example, her stepping up to the plate to call cheers for the Lower IV when Lois fails to do so). And, of course, she finally roused herself to tick Lois off for being "so obsessive about winning." Which I suspect made the more socially acute types exhale and go, "Well, if even Val's noticed..."

Which ties in with two other things, actually; first, I think that explains Nicola's sympathy in the match and it sort of links her to Ann, as someone who's appreciated more by her peers (the other Guides, in Ann's case, and Authority) than by those to whom she's in a different role

Re: Val

[coughingbear]

I think you're both right about the teasing, though the follow-up line to Jan about remaining uncommitted does suggest to me that they think there are things Val might get involved in and even march for. I agree that the rest of the Sixth seem to like her and I like her at the moment when she calls for Lower iV.A at the match.

Re: Val

[ext_195770]

I could actually see her being quite activist about things like contraception and choice, perhaps.

Re: Val

[nnozomi]

Yes, I agree with you that the Sixth like Val--and she actually does seem likable in this scene. She also seems willing to do her best in the cricket matches, even though she's unathletic and unconfident, and they may appreciate that side of her as well. As you say, someone who can be a pain, but is also responsible and dependable.
Now you all have made me very curious about what demos Val might actually march in (and what demos the Kingscote Sixth would have been aware of at this amorphous stage of After the War, and what sides they would have taken...).

Re: Val

[sprog_63]

I mentally set the books in the years preceding publication: which puts this early 70's for me.

So for starters: I think anti-nuclear (CND) would have been a likely possibility. Anti-vivisection another. Abortion too (though can't see Miss Keith encouraging debates on the issue - but my girl's Grammer did - cautiously - in the later 70s). Amnesty International. Anti-Apartheid. Possibly some student related ones about exams etc.? Doubtless someone here was at Cambridge in the 70's and knows what the burning issues were!

Which ones would Val support?

Re: Val

[ext_195770]

There's the war in Vietnam as well.

I can't see Val being massively anti-vivisection, but I can see her being very anti-Apartheid.

Re: Val

[highfantastical]

Oh, yes! That rings marvellously true for me. I'd love to read fic about Val on an anti-Apartheid demo.

Re: Val

[sprog_63]

I agree, Val less likely to be anti-vivisection. [My sentence in previous post was clumsily constructed.] Unity Logan might be at the anti-vivisection ones though?

Re: Val

[ethelmay]

There are a lot of different levels of anti-vivisection feeling, though, aren't there? I should think she could be anti-fur or against certain kinds of experiments on chimpanzees or whatever, without being on board with the people who think animal research should be banned, full stop.

Re: Val

[mrs_redboots]

In the late 1960s there were a great many student demos, sit-ins and so on - I had a cousin at Oxford at the time who wrote to me from the occupation of the Clarendon building! It all kicked off in France in May 1968, when student protests - originally about the Vietnam War, but escalating into other things - were joined by a massive general strike. Then somehow the whole world exploded. The younger generation - they are called "boomers" in the USA, from the "baby boom" that had followed World War II - were now in their teens and twenties, and were longing to have a say in the world, their world (our world - I am a late "boomer", but I am one). The image was that if you were a student, you automatically wanted to be part of this, which is why they tease Val.

Re: Val

[the_antichris]

I'm now imagining Val applying for Cambridge intent on Serious Academic Achievement. The rest of the Sixth have vaguely heard of demos going on, and they do a very-merry-har routine about Val only wanting to go to Cambridge so she can join the demos. Val doesn't take the teasing particularly gracefully at the time, but it plants a seed...

I do think she has the potential to take certain causes very seriously, and from the adults' POV, probably thoroughly deserved her Service Stripe.

Re: Val on demos

[sprog_63]

I really like this characterisation of Val: the link with Ann is something I'd not seen before and just rings true for me. Val, like Cathy, is a character who suddenly becomes more real in these chapters. But for me, it doesn't preclude her carrying a banner

Re: Val on demos

[ext_195770]

Ah! I've just pictured Val meeting up with a charmingly earnest young philosophy PhD from King's on a CND march ("Our opponents paint us as anti-science! But this is a perversion of scientific ideals!" - not the snappiest of chants, but heart-felt) and being blissfully happy envelope-stuffing by his side forever more....

Re: Val

[the_antichris]

I really like this reading of Val. Nicola's brief sympathy in the match (followed by the ruthless 'How little it mattered that one had ever known her') is very like the fleeting moments when she sees Ann as others see her, and likes what she sees. And then Ann says something Ann-like and she's back down the Family Liking List.