Posted by Guy C. on September 27, 2003 at 15:50:14 from 81.113.177.5 user Astronomer_Guy.
In Reply to: Re: - Disney; wholesale removal posted by Katharine on September 27, 2003 at 09:57:41:
I read them as a child in Michigan, and absolutely one of the charms of the books was hearing, in my head, my childish idea of an "English accent" in everything the characters said. (I'm afraid they probably all sounded like Hayley Mills to me!) The idea of Capt. Flint passing himself off as an American (in ML) felt especially humorous on that account.
The sense of the accents, emphasized by the "odd" spellings, added to the "exotic" feel of the books... And, what with little details like taking candles to bed, even in houses; and eating unfamiliar foods; and buying things with strangely-named coins... they were every bit as fantastic to me as a fairy tale. It was quite a shock, the first time I got to England (as an adult) to come across things I never realized weren't just Randome's inventions.
Ironic, on reflection... books that were a breakthrough for their time in presenting "realistic" children were, within a generation, prized for representing an exotic, nowhere-to-be-found world.
For that same reason, I find the Americanization of the Harry Potter books so irritating. And also for that reason, I have never wanted to replace the S&A in my imagination with someone else's movie version of it. The books were very private, special discoveries. Indeed I wonder if I would have loved them half as much if I hadn't discovered them for myself on a dusty library shelf.
(Well, I would have, I'm sure, but still...)