I love the focus on anxious Dick and the horror of his discovery that the man he thinks is a fellow bird-watcher is actually a dangerous, greedy egg-collector, and the gleeful determination of the whole crew to thwart him at all costs. I love Titty and Dorothea hanging out together, I love Roger being 'the Sleeping Beauty'. And finally, finally, Titty says something I've waited twelve books to hear:
'... Roger is so awfully cheeky and after all we are on someone else's land.'
'Explorers always are,' said Titty, 'except the ones that go into the Arctic and places like that, and even bits of the Arctic belong to Eskimos and Lapps.'
Yay! A late recognition of colonialism!
It's struck me that Peggy is the character who probably gets the least development of everyone (apart from valiantly trying to take Nancy's place in Winter Holiday). All we really know about her is that she's Susan's sous-chef, she's frightened of thunderstorms, and she's deft with her hands (in this book she makes netting, in Missee Lee she makes paper boxes). But a quick search has revealed quite a body of fan fiction devoted to Peggy Blackett, which I might check out; I'd love to know what became of Peggy.
So farewell to Swallows and Amazons, for now. I will definitely revisit Winter Holiday, We Didn't Mean to Go To Sea, The Picts and the Martyrs, The Big Six and Great Northern? again, and I definitely won't be re-reading Secret Water or Missee Lee. But overall, the world of Arthur Ransome has been a comforting place to visit.
I don't think I'll ever stop rereading Ransome, although, as you say, some are better to revisit than others. I enjoyed this one very much on my last reread, though it hadn't been a big favourite when I was young. I can appreciate now the way the older children are subtly growing away from the younger ones - they're more absorbed in the real life business of sailing and looking after the boat they have borrowed, whereas Titty and the others still want to play explorers. But Dick is the hero of this book and he's always a favourite. As a child I probably didn't appreciate the long description of his day spent photographing the great northern divers, but now I love that sort of description.
ReplyDeleteI felt the same way. These re-reads have really made me appreciate Ransome's delineation of character, which is often pretty subtle. There's nowhere else for the older ones to go after this last adventure. Even in the last few books, Susan has seemed more and more like an adult woman, the surrogate mother figure, and even Capt Flint defers to her sometimes. Dick in his hide, totally absorbed in his divers, is wonderful, and especially as we are just beginning our annual peregrine falcon nest watch here in Melbourne.
ReplyDeleteAt the other end of the seasons, I'm watching the last few days of the ospreys being here (on a webcam); the mother and two of the offspring have gone, just the final young one and then the father to leave.
DeleteOh, how lovely, Ann!
ReplyDeleteI haven't read any of the Swallows and Amazon books since an attempt when I was 10. It might be the right time to try again.
ReplyDeleteMy advice would be not to start at the beginning, maybe start with Winter Holiday.
ReplyDelete