Posted by Duncan on October 20, 2013 at 07:53:07 user Duncan.
In Reply to: Re: Favourites posted by Roger Wardale on October 19, 2013 at 07:03:52:
Winter Holiday has been my favourite since I was small - I love the snow and ice and the frozen lake was so beautifully re-created that I can see every aspect of it.
Funnily enough I've always enjoyed PM and GN even though GN often gets knocked and PM divides opinion! I always loved the idea of living in a hut in the woods, and the Ds and the Amazons are probably my favourite characters so it ticks a lot of boxes for me. And I'm bird mad so Great Northern has always appealed for that reason (along with the Broads books).
WD has grown on me as an adult - I always liked it but I admire it for its craft now.
I think the problem with PP - although I've always loved it because if I read them in order I start missing the Lakes - is that the disappointment (a key element of most of the canon) is just a bit too much. The fact that Captain Flint and Timothy wanted to find copper doesn't really quite make up for it not being gold. It wasn't just the allure of gold - AR rather successfully diminishes the market appeal of precious metals ("silver would hardly be worth it") but the huge effort that was put into creating the ingot, dashed to nothing but dust. The end of the plot doesn't quite make up for that disappointment for me, or it certainly didn't when I was a child.
SW is actually one of my absolute favourites. I find the landscape fascinating, the Eels mysterious. I would say that when I was a child it was my favourite. I don't even agree with the regular criticism that the Lapwings were one dimensional. I like the way AR is able to write very believable, characterful taciturn characters. Mr Dixon, Dee and Dum and to a certain extent Dick fit that description.
Of course if I carry on much longer I'm going to have listed them all as my favourites so I'll stop. (Funnily enough SA is probably the book I re-read the least, perhaps because my mental image has been too greatly shaped by the film, which is perhaps an argument against them all being filmed, much as I'd like to write the screenplays!!!)