Re: The Big Six. Was; AR's 'silly books' ?


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Posted by Andrew Craig-Bennett on March 09, 2009 at 08:28:01 user ACB.

In Reply to: Re: The Big Six. Was; AR's 'silly books' ? posted by Peter Ceresole on March 08, 2009 at 21:51:20:

Well, it's certainly one of the very best of them.

It does have two unusual features - it is a classical detective story, which is not a form taken by any of the other books, and it involves no camping or voyaging.

I think it is a tour de force - AR is quite comfortable in the detective story convention, and writes a good one, whilst at the same time bringing us very convincingly inside the minds of working class children - not something he attempts in the other books and not something that had been much done, if at all, at the time.

The D&G's have quite different preoccupations to the all other children in the series - they are much less secure. Money looms much larger in their lives than it does with the other children, and they are very aware that the way in which they, and their actions, are seen may have serious consequences for their parents. They are frightened of the Police and of their fathers' employers. They must not "get into trouble" and yet that is just what happens to them.

In CC, Port and Starboard jump aboard the wherry without thinking of whether they have the bus fare home, and indeed they contemplate getting the bus without think whether they have the fare. They could have boarded the bus without the fare, because they were known in the village as the daughters of the local solicitor. The D&G's most certainly could not have done so.

On the other hand, the D&Gs have the freedoms of working class chidren - their parents want them out of their (much smaller) houses and encourage them to play out of doors without much concern for where they are so long as they are not "in trouble".

A splendid book, I think.


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