Posted by JB on April 08, 2012 at 14:59:12 user JB.
In Reply to: Peter Duck - some thoughts posted by Mike Dennis on April 08, 2012 at 06:11:14:
We are told that PD was metafictional in Chapter IV of SD. Susan also uses "Peter Duck" as a euphemism for "Titty's overactive imagination" in PP. The circumstances of ML's invention were never disclosed but it's linked to PD by the Wildcat and it's the only other book in the series with the explanatory note "based on information supplied by the Swallows and Amazons".
I read PD before SD and was hugely relieved to learn that it was a kind of extended daydream. After the exciting but realistic adventures of the other books I had grown very fond of the S&As; I wanted to believe that they had existed. Now with PD Ransome seemed to be playing an annoying game like John Fowles in The French Lieutenant's Woman. Those characters I made you care about? They're just made up and to prove it I'm going to put them in a put them a tale that couldn't possibly be true. Only when I was reassured that it was story within a story could I enjoy it as a pastiche of Treasure Island (and Cruise of the Alerte as I discovered much later).