Posted by Fred Boynton on October 29, 2005 at 14:40:18 from 63.21.113.255 user Voyager.
In Reply to: Fairy Tales posted by Pam Adams on October 28, 2005 at 16:15:18:
Pam- These quotes from articles available via the links deal with AR's approach.
From N. Tucker: "Arthur Ransome as a Childrens' Writer." "The actual adventures that happen are always just achievable rather than impossibly heroic. ... To get this positive image across, Ransome always stresses the true nature of the obstacles facing his characters and how exactly these must be overcome. Learning how to make a fire in the wild, skin and cook a rabbit or sail a boat – little is left out by way of all the necessary technical expertise required. Child readers can of course also imagine themselves doing some of the quite unreal things inspired by other favourite fiction, such as flying a magic carpet or turning invisible. But for older child readers, there can be something shame-faced about giving way to such exaggerated fantasies. Ransome's adventures are like those children's games that have some preparatory significance for their adult lives. Winston Churchill playing at soldiers as a boy, or Ransome's character John learning sea-craft are both in a sense anticipating a likely future career. Young readers at one step removed can still enjoy the special atmosphere of self-respect and of generally being taken seriously found in children's fiction that looks forward to adult skills rather than back to infantile fantasies of magical omnipotence."
From W. Trevor: "Ransome's Non-Duffers." "But no one can read a line of Ransome without being aware of the authority of his word: these are not pages, you feel, on which you're likely to encounter lies and bamboozlement. In fact, you're very much aware of being informed that here at last is the real thing, that all suitably intelligent children whose parents have a bit of cash put by can have marvellous adventures with sailing boats or stranded sheep or whatever it is they fancy. And emphasising the atmosphere of reality are the young limbs themselves: Nancy and Peggy Blackett, the four Walker children and the Callum children, all with their feet firmly on the ground, bright as buttons, adventuring away like mad. How absurd they make poor old Bob Cherry of the Remove seem, that silly duffer who got himself pegged to the ground in the middle of the Sahara while vultures circled ever nearer!
"The Swallows and the Amazons would, of course, pretend a situation like that and act it out, as children do. Such normal imaginative play was what fascinated Ransome and became his inspiration. The games you read about in his books are the games of children pretending, but pretending with real weapons. The resultant mixture of illusion and fact is a sophisticated one, very much to the liking of some and not at all to that of others."