Posted by Beck on June 23, 1999 at 00:59:28 from 203.61.4.237:
In Reply to: slightly different posted by steve on June 21, 1999 at 09:55:10:
I like the chapter in ML when the S & As and Captain Flint are escaping in the junk Shining Moon down the gorge and fear they can't make it. Right at the end of the chapter Missee Lee herself pops up to take the tiller. Breathtaking! AR often likes to introduce a new scene very dramatically at the end of a chapter like this. Another example is in TPATM when the Great Aunt returns from being missing on the houseboat and she confronts Colonel Jolys on the Beckfoot lawn.
This is right off topic, but having just reread TPATM and having been thinking about Evgenia's loathing of the book, it strikes me that the book functions a little like Herge's Tintin book 'The Castafiore Emerald' (any Tintin fans out there?) Both books rely solely on clever plotting and characterisation for their excitement, rather than the usual adventurous events and occasional exotic locations. It's as though AR challenged himself to write a good book without recourse to the usual winning elements.