Soul Music, Sweet and Sour
Fan theories and spoilers throughout. I was chuffed to see someone else enjoying Soul Music recently. It was one book I didn’t really appreciate until I reread it recently. I liked all the jokes and bad puns and music references, but found it a bit silly. I hadn’t spotted the bitter dark chocolate heart in the middle of the occasionally sickly sweet fun. I was too distracted. I found some amazing writing once I started looking. 1) TP is the FIRST to write orphans or boarding school themes within a short while of us hearing of the situation of the Romanian Orphans which broke in 1990 . Rowling, Pulman, Martin etc all came after TP publishing Soul Music in 1994. It turns out there was a small but growing movement discussing Boarding School Syndrome in the UK in the early 90s too - exposing the fact that children placed too young in institutions, even elite ones, could be damaged by the experience (work of Duffel, Beard, later Shcaverein). I hadn’t seen the parallels between the De