Posted by Mike Field on October 23, 2013 at 05:04:06 user mikefield.
In Reply to: Re: Favourites posted by Peter Hyland on October 23, 2013 at 01:47:39:
I've never liked 'Peter Duck' or 'Missee Lee' particularly, and generally skip them when rereading the series. I suppose the reason is that they're clearly not "true" in the way that the other stories are. So in this context, and despite its differences from the remainder of the collection, I've always considered 'Great Northern?' to be "true" too. Hence I agree with you, Peter, that GN is to be considered a "real-life" story, not meta-fiction like PD and ML. I can feel myself being part of the story (and indeed the restoration of the eggs can still bring tears), which does't happen with the other two books. I tend to agree that it would have been better if those two had been shown to be stories made-up in the wherry by the Ss and As during long winter nights, rather than apparently being just 'more of the same'.