Reference to:
Charlotte Sometimes
A novel by Penelope Farmer
1969, Chatto & Windus
Also referenced in 'The Empty World' and 'Splintered in Her Head'
Charlotte Sometimes, the novel
Spoiler alert - buy the book and read it before you read this if possible.
A young girl in a new boarding school sleeps in an old bed and wakes up the next morning to find she is someone else in the same bed 40 years earlier. There is vivid and strange imagery throughout with wonderful prose beautifully chosen by Robert Smith to create a complete experience.
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The opening lines are the opening lines of the song.
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Red Fox version, this is page 3
Part 1, ch1
‘By bedtime all the faces, the voices had blurred for Charlotte to one face, one voice. She prepared herself for bed...’
‘Her eyes felt stretched and huge. The light seemed too bright for them, glaring on white walls...’
Part 2 chap 4
Night after night, Charlotte lay in bed with her eyes open to the dark...
114
“The streets looked strange..”
137
“Charlotte did not cry”
139
“She... had let Charlotte help her sometimes...”
160-161
The people in the road dance over several paragraphs
161
Expressionless
161
“Then all to. Charlotte seemed like a dream”
“It was like having a prison around her of coats and backs and uniforms”
Chapter 7
Her homework done, she played endless solitary games...
P190
“On that bleak track, the sun almost gone again, tears were pouring down her face. She was crying and crying for a girl who had died more than forty years before... She was crying for herself perhaps...”
Charlotte has a different name 40 years earlier
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Blogs by Penelope Farmer
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There was the threat of a legal tiff with the author of this book. But Robert Smith invited her to a show and she autographed his much underlined copy. He later pointed her out to the crowd - the only experience she had of being star.
She blogged about the experience - gracious words from a truly inspired author.
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http://blog.smashwords.com/2012/02/charlotte-sometimes-and-cure.html?m=1
http://grannyp.blogspot.com/2007/06/cured-climaxed.html?m
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Charlotte Sometimes, the song
All the faces
All the voices blur
Change to one face
Change to one voice
Prepare yourself for bed
The light seems bright
And glares on white walls
All the sounds of
Charlotte sometimes
Into the night with
Charlotte sometimes
Night after night she lay alone in bed
Her eyes so open to the dark
The streets all looked so strange
They seemed so far away
But Charlotte did not cry
The people seemed so close
Playing expressionless games
The people seemed
So close
So many
Other names
Sometimes I'm dreaming
Where all the other people dance
Sometimes I'm dreaming
Charlotte sometimes
Sometimes I'm dreaming
Expressionless the trance
Sometimes I'm dreaming
So many different names
Sometimes I'm dreaming
The sounds all stay the same
Sometimes I'm dreaming
She hopes to open shadowed eyes
On a different world
Come to me
Scared princess
Charlotte sometimes
On that bleak track
(See the sun is gone again)
The tears were pouring down her face
She was crying and crying for a girl
Who died so many years before
Sometimes I dream
Where all the other people dance
Sometimes I dream
Charlotte sometimes
Sometimes I dream
The sounds all stay the same
Sometimes I'm dreaming
There are so many different names
Sometimes I dream
Sometimes I dream
Charlotte sometimes crying for herself
Charlotte sometimes dreams a wall around herself
But it's always with love
With so much love it looks like
Everything else
Of Charlotte sometimes
So far away
Glass sealed and pretty
Charlotte sometimes
Songwriters: Laurence Andrew Tolhurst / Robert James Smith / Simon Gallup
Charlotte Sometimes lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group