Posted by Peter Willis on November 01, 2003 at 20:02:25 from 195.92.168.163 user PeterWillis.
In Reply to: Re: AR and John Walker. posted by Andrew Craig-Bennett on November 01, 2003 at 01:40:01:
Hear Hear
And I was just about to (write that, though probably not so well) after reading John's and before reading Peter C's.
I've always seen John as the Arthur his father would have liked him to be (and as he himself probably wouldn't have minded being) which is why John often seems a bit two-dimensional - certainly in the early stories, much less so in WD.
Dick is AR himself at Rugby, a bit of an outsider thanks to his poor eyesight and, of course, spectacles, but a slightly idealised self, who is forever copming up with the answer and amazing everybody. How satisfying must that have been to write! And no wonder he felt obliged to balance this portrait of himself with Dorothea, and an affectionate send-up of her literary pretensions - which also serves of course to highlight the fact that they are all in a book already, but a much better one than the one she would write. There's a lit crit term for this playing with the fictional state - and I don't mean suspension of disbelief - but I can't recall it. Anybody help me out?