Posted by Andrew Craig-Bennett on November 21, 2007 at 11:36:30 from 81.144.214.226 user ACB.
In Reply to: Re: The motor car in posted by andyb on November 21, 2007 at 10:04:13:
Now that is an interesting, and, to me, an original, point!
I have not been able to put a finger on it exactly, but the first two books do seem to have more of an Edwardian atmosphere about them, and they seem to be written in a lyrical afterglow of nostalgic recollection, which is absent in WH and the later books.
It might be that his characters have developed lives of their own as modern (1930's) children and it might be that he has buckled down to the task of writing a long and sucessful series.
The plot devices used in WH are those of a more professional novelist. Today we would say that he has been to creative writing classes! By way of examples, the shift in perspective caused by changing the viewpoint to that of the D's and the repeated use of the technique (name forgotten, sorry) whereby the reader knows more than the characters, so as to build up a sense of impending crisis, as seen in the return of Captain Flint and in the "flag at Beckfoot" in Dick's pocket book, are not, I think, found in the first two books, but they do recur later.
There is also the little leitmotiv of the "key to the North Pole" running through.
I am reading the book to my younger son at the moment and he is much occupied with imagining what the Pole must be like - which has reminded me that I was thinking the same thing when I read it. At the moment, being five and three quarters, he thinks it is a sort of lighthouse, perhaps made of ice!