Posted by Mike Dennis on February 29, 2008 at 17:54:22 from 81.77.167.56 user MTD.
I have just read through The Missionaries thread and thought it better to start afresh. There is a danger here of 'my best book is...' syndrome but I'll try to add to the discussion without going down that route.
I came to AR with SA, PD and ML - my brother already had them and when I reached that reading level read them too. Having been hooked I then moved on to the others and read them all. Of all of them WH is the one I come back to forty plus years on (and when as a mature student at Essex University I had the chance to meet Hugh Brogan - I was pleased to find it was his favourite too). Why? Winter (with snow) is my favourite season of the year, and the way AR portrays the Ds discovery of the others and eventually join them is brilliantly described.
The books I don't re-read much (or at all) are PM and GN. SW is almost in this group except as I live in the area it is set I have an additional interest. But I agree with others that the reason all these books fail for me is the 'outsiders', none of the 'new' characters seem to work - AR's creative abilities appear to have let him down.
Through the books the characters of the S & Ds seems to mature but remain constant, the As and Nancy in particular lose something - the comment about her in SW is a good one, she goes for pretending rather than the surveying and even being against the Ss; almost a final betrayal of all they have been through.
It occurs to me that the central characters are all based on children he knew, all the 'bit' parts are pure invention and it shows. All of them seem to be very one-dimensional compared to the others.