Posted by Desperate-to-go TAR on April 13, 1999 at 16:17:24:
In Reply to: latrines posted by David Brooks on April 13, 1999 at 14:41:03:
David
Don't worry, you are certainly not the first to notice this! In fact, it is a bit of an old chestnut among literary TARS. The absence of camp latrines and, more incredibly, the omission of the 'heads' in diagrams of vessels, was discussed one afternoon at the Bowness Lit Weekend in 1991. Nobody really came up with the answer. AR must just have felt that, as you say, it would have got in the way of the story, and might, even in the 1930s, have offended a few readers. Who knows? Me, I think he was right. As a child, I remember noticing this, and then being rather grateful that we could forget it all and get on with the fantasy. I myself can't see how the magic would have stayed around if one or other of the characters had to keep disappearing behind a tree or rock every now and then and we had to be told this. But that's a personal view.