The Marlows and their maker

[witandwisdome]

Just seen that GGB have published this.


Has anyone read it?
Tamsin
(apologies if someone has posted about this previously!)

Comments

[oursin]

According to the Girls Gone By website this is only just out, if at all: the Sept 2006 publication date having come and gone, and now being August 2007, according to them. No-one has yet mentioned reading it.

[oursin]

I just received it a couple of days ago (had actually forgotten that I ordered it waaaaay back when they first announced it, so pleasant surprise). I've not finished yet, just been dipping in and out. The analysis of the books isn't that great, but the chapter on the layout/geography of Trennels etc is interesting. I had to put it down for a while after reading the letter from AF to the author (they were correspondents for years) reprinted at the back, in which she proudly announces having just voted Tory. I mean, obviously she would be, but ... ah well. I don't like the cover: I can see what they're going for, with pictures of the Brontes, Shakespeare etc, as inspirations, but it's weird, something more directly Forest-related should have been used. The back cover has a beautiful picture of AF looking like a young Princess Margaret. Once I've finished the book I'll return.

Promethea

[colne_dsr]

She did say she'd have voted Labour if they hadn't changed their policy on Europe!

[robincarmody]

I don't have the book yet - which election was this? Labour were at one point - and I know this is barely imaginable now - more Eurosceptic than the Tories, with the unions seeing the then EEC as a barrier to their ideal of "socialism in one country". This changed in the 1980s when, as the Thatcherites were decisively defeating the Heathites within the Tory party, the Left generally realised - in my view rightly - that a unified Europe was the best hope for what it wanted (Old Labour anti-EU "thinking" - in my view profoundly misguided - is still around, though, c.f. the stupid recent fuss over the constitution).

I can understand how Promethea feels: for me, AF is - as someone else once said - "all aestheticism", though I can understand how proper Shire Tories feel, because the "arrivistes" did to them what the Blairites did to proper social democrats like me (and to proper socialists, which I'm not in the purest sense but can sympathise with).

[ankaret]

Thank you for the reminder! I too ordered it yonks ago and had completely forgotten about it, though my copy hasn't shown up yet.

I wonder if you would mind editing so that Amazon's very long URL is behind a cut tag? It's doing odd things to my friends page. Thanks!

[rosathome]

Ah! That was what was making my friends page look so weird.

[slemslempike]

I've read the sort of previous version to it - she used to have it up online, as AF didn't want it published in her lifetime (IIRC). It was an interesting read in a way, but lacked something for me. I think it was that it was all very descriptive, and didn't have much in the way of criticism. I did like the maps of Kingscote and Trennels though, and will probably get around to buying it sometime in case I take up writing fic and want help with description.

[ankaret]

I used to find the online version very useful when I was trying to remember what Mrs Bellamy taught or whether Hazel in the Third Remove ever had a surname.

[coughingbear]

I'm expecting to be sent a copy because I think I contributed a drawing but it hasn't arrived yet. Like slemslempike I read an earlier version online - I know it's been revised quite a lot - which I didn't find that interesting as literary criticism, but am looking forward to seeing the new version.

As ankaret suggested, could you either put the URL behind a cut tag, or (probably easier) make it a link to a word in your post, please? The instructions for doing that are here (I've made 'here' a link to the LJ instructions).

[witandwisdome]

done

[coughingbear]

Great, thanks very much!

[jen_c_w]

tee hee, that icon always make me giggle.

[mrs_redboots]

I received it yesterday and am in the middle of it. No, it's not critical, but it is a good overview. Apparently Sue Sims is to write a biography of Forest, so there is very little biographical detail in there, either.

All the same, I'm glad I bought it!

[bluebellbicycle]

Hmm, I'm a little disappointed to hear that it isn't very critical or biographical. Presumably Sue Sims is publishing with GGB as well - I hope GGB didn't deliberately cut out biographical detail from this book so that we would feel compelled to buy the next? I suppose I'm saying that I hope this book doesn't suffer from their cutting, if this happened. *incoherent*

[lizarfau]

I just wish they'd get on with publishing The Players and the Rebels, which is what I really want to read!

And I hope that when Sue Sims writes her AF biography, she will tell us exactly why AF and Tim Kennemore fell out ...