Posted by Jonathan Labaree on October 20, 2003 at 20:17:35 from 207.5.234.19 user JLabaree.
I was away when Andrew’s thoughtful speculations about the Ds sparked a discussion about the children’s relationship to the settings of the books. I’d like to explore that question a bit more thoroughly and I’m afraid this turned out to be a rather lengthy post.
There is no question that the settings of AR’s books play a central role in his stories. Indeed, it is one of the things that make them so special. The landscape, and the characters’ relation to it, shape each of the books. Robert Dilley wrote about this eloquently not long ago.
Someone (Katherine?) quoted AR: 'We adored the place....Going away from it, we were half drowned in tears....While away from it, as children and as grown-ups, we dreamt about it. No matter where I was, wandering about the world, I used at night to look for the North Star, and, in my mind's eye, could see the beloved skyline of great hills beneath it.....’
That is very moving and describes perfectly how many of us feel toward a place that is special to us. The Lake books add flesh to that quotation and help us understand why he thought of the place as he did. It’s not just that the Lakes are beautiful, it’s that he must have experienced wonderful things while there that makes them so special to him. He also saw that others felt the same way.
If you grow up in a landscape that beckons you to participate in it, that place becomes part of you. It’s almost impossible to describe what such a place means without talking about all the things you do there (which can including doing “nothing”). As for Alex, AR’s books describe an element of my own upbringing – sailing, camping, exploring – not a fantasy world. That’s why I loved them and still do. The experiences I had as a kid, like those of the S and As, especially, molded my relationship with the landscape around me to the extent that today (at 40), I cannot imagine my life without those places. They have literally shaped who I am and what I do. It is tempting to try to write about these places, as AR did, if only as a way to express what remains generally indescribable – the spiritual connections they engender. Perhaps the most eloquent examples of this are Robert McCloskey’s children’s books Time of Wonder and One Morning in Maine. He captures with few words and beautiful illustrations what a place can mean to someone.
Andrew wondered whether AR’s seeing the Altounyans’ relationship with the Lakes might have inspired the first book. That seems very possible, but I can easily see AR’s own love of the Lakes as plenty inspiration enough. Perhaps the Altounyans gave AR the idea that having two sets of children, one new to the place and one intimately familiar with it, would provide the basic plot (tension/resolution/acceptance) that we see in SA. As Andrew pointed out, like most of the books, SA is that it is told from the point of view of the outsiders (“cosmopolitans”), the Swallows, not the insiders (“rooted”), the Amazons. Thus, he emphasizes the sense of discovery rather than the sense of attachment. That’s similar to Kenneth Grahame, who tells The Wind in the Willows (an exquisite sense of place story) primarily from the perspective of Mole, not Ratty.
The theme of exploration that runs throughout the books, especially when the Swallows are present, points to their relationship with these places. They are discovering new territory, not returning to old familiar haunts where they grew up. I agree with whoever said that much of the later books see the Swallows trying to recapture the feelings they had on Wildcat in SA. But I think much of that feeling was the sense of discovery, not the feelings that grow after years in a place – the feeling of “home”.
The Amazons, on the other hand, are eventually welcoming to the Swallows perhaps in part because subconsciously they realize that the Swallows’ new blood represents an opportunity to see their familiar surroundings with fresh eyes. I always thought it was generous of the them, Nancy especially, to accept the Walkers. Only now does it occur to me that the Walkers offered the Blacketts something in return.
This post has gone on far too long, but I did want to make one other point (if you’ve made it this far, you’re probably trying to figure out what my first “point” was). The impetus behind this post came to me when writing the bit about The Riddle of the Sands and why I like to re-read favorite books. It’s a bit like sailing familiar ground. A good book offers a variety of routes through it, thus subsequent reads are never the same as previous ones. Sailing provides a wonderful metaphor for this experience.
When you sail, infinite variations of many forces contrive to make each experience unique. Differences in the speed, direction, and consistency of the wind, currents, tide level, temperature, and distractions (wildlife, scenery, other boats, etc.) all lend an afternoon’s sail its character. Even the constants of the landscape provide variety: you are continually reacting to variations in wind direction and strength as it bends around headlands, comes pouring out of coves, gets twisted by nearby mountains. You do not follow a proscribed path, such as a road or trail, but rather follow your fancy being careful to avoid rocks and reefs. This makes you more able to explore. Somehow the very act of sailing makes you want to explore, poking into harbors, seeking out passageways between islands, or following rivers as far as you can. When sailing in a familiar place, you inevitably discover something new.
Certainly, there is something thrilling that draws us over the horizon, but there is something equally powerful that draws us back home. So many of AR’s books capture elements of each.