Posted by John Richardson on July 22, 1998 at 21:49:40:
In Reply to: Re: Great Northern?-is it real or Peater Duck? posted by Hugh Clifton on July 22, 1998 at 21:18:07:
Even aged 7-9, reading the books for the first time, I think I pretty quickly got the hang of the 'Peter Duck' concept. Reading them in the (more usual) published order of S&A, SD, PD (as opposed to the internal order of S&A, PD, SD etc, I think I was a little confused as to the references to 'making up the story in the wherry' - i.e. Peter Duck - in Swallowdale, and didn't make the link until reading Christina Hardyment's book recently. But I never reagarded PD or Misee Lee as anything other than stories....
But I never though that about GN?, until I read Hardyment. Having done so, I think is makes sense, up to a point. But then I never liked Great Northern? (or at least not in comparison to the other books) and I think that was because I sensed the inconsistency and tension in the characters and the plot.
And to a lesser extent, I never liked PD or ML either. Indeed I have never re-read any of these three books - and would be least likely to re-read GN?. Argue me out of this, someone!.....
What a pity AR didn't finish Coots in the North. P&M (the subject of another post) was good but maybe a bit limited and repetitive. GN, IMHO, a failure by AR's very high standards. Yet Coots in the North, also IMHO, reads as well as anything he wrote....
Before I get howls of complaint, having slightly ciriticised THREE of AR's books, I would like to stress that I am judging them only by the standards of the others. Yet it does seem funny to me that PD and ML got perhaps the highest critical praise of any of the books by their contemporary reviewers - and yet I, even as a child, liked them least.
Am I the only one?