Re: Trek to Tyson's (was Re: Colouring In)


[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ Previous # Next ] [ Start New Thread ] [ TarBoard ]

Posted by Peter H on October 11, 2004 at 15:06:47 from 213.122.0.35 user Peter_H.

In Reply to: Trek to Tyson's (was Re: Colouring In) posted by Andrew Craig-Bennett on October 11, 2004 at 09:25:26:

Andrew Craig-Bennett is not disagreeing with me, on the contrary I agree with him. ‘Trek to Tyson’s’ is an essential part of Ransome’s attention to detail and his slow gentle ratcheting up of the tension in the story. The point I was making was that today’s educationalists, publishers, authors etc would probably regard the ‘Trek’ chapter as extraordinarily boring when compared with the ‘thrill a minute’ plots which seem to be fashionable today. For AR-lovers, no sentence in his books can ever really be boring.

I wondered what Gabriel Woolf had made of it so I checked the tape this morning. Strangely, he includes nearly all of the first section (up to the black dot) where the prospectors are checking and loading stores. The only major bit he leaves out is the putting of the glass beads on the dromedaries. The second section, the Trek itself, which is much more exciting for me, Woolf really chops down. He misses nearly two pages – the puncture, the charcoal burners, and incredibly the whole bit about the shanties – a vital and typically Ransome part of the journey. It is the singing which gets round the problem of indicating the passing of time –
They tried ‘With one man, with two men, we mow the hay together’, but when they had got to ‘90 men and 100 men’ they gave it up and went back to ‘Hanging Johnny’.
That’s half an hour gone, in one sentence – masterly!



Follow Ups:



Post a Followup

Name:
Eel-Mail:

Existing subject (please edit appropriately) :

Comments:

Optional Link URL:
Link Title:
Optional Image URL:

post direct to TarBoard test post first

Before posting it is necessary to be a registered user.


[ Follow Ups ] [ Post Followup ] [ TarBoard ]

Courtesy of Environmental Science, Lancaster

space