Posted by Dick's Camera a.k.a. Sayoko Tasumi on November 17, 1997 at 09:20:06:
In Reply to: Re: Thoughts on "things Ransome" posted by Mary on November 11, 1997 at 08:47:33:
Hello, Mary, just have been enjoying your enthusiastic comments on AR stories recently.
I'd like to join you by scribbling some ideas of mine:
>I noticed that the poor D's always have to start fresh with everyone else in the
>series. That is in both WH and CC we see the D's in a position where they have to
>integrate themselves into a pre-existing group of friends.(S and A's and the CC) I
>don't particularly think that this whole process of gaining the acceptance of the others
>bothered Dick as much as it bothered Dorothea.
You may have started the series from the SA so this is just a personal feeling of mine
As for me, WH was the first one I encountered among the saga. So it was very natural for me to get to know the S & A as old sailors/explorers, that is, looking at them from the distance, then being "strangers no more, " and glad get accepted, but with a slight feeling of awkwardness about themselves, grown up in a city, completely unfamiliar with how to sail and envies towards the old sailors. The same thing can be said about CC, which is set in a new place of Norfolk Broads, and CC members worked somewhat well as local professional skippers to guide the Ds (and the readers) into the Broads.
In addition, as the series progresses Dick seems to me to be less shy and more confident - for example, in CC Dick has less trouble and Dot less self-conscious in getting closer to the CCs as they were in WH, because this time they have much interest in sailing.
I think it is the major reason why I feel closeness to the Ds, though which does not mean I don't feel close to S, A or CC; but I suppose not many AR readers are grown sailors, so through Ds we can really feel the excitement in learning how to sail.
I guess it was partly because the first volume, SA, starts immediately with reference to boats/sailing -- with Roger rushing to the wind - that the series were not very popular (or so it seems to us Ransomites in Japan) compared with other fine Western juvenile literature. The first couple of pages may appear to some readers ''difficult" to get into; but this is another unique element with the saga; AR could have started the saga with the Ds[amateurs] encountering the sailors and put Ds the central figures all way through. However, AR did not and through the twelve volumes AR empathizes equally - almost - with S & D, which makes me glad, while AR himself is apparently reflected in Dick's shyness and Dorothea's fantasy over romances.
I apologize for the length of this message and there may be some incorrectness about the details, because I'm writing this at the office during break. I just finished PP, in the course of re-reading the volumes after several years, and realized AR's skills of storytelling with suspension towards the fire, with Timothy revealed, and the end. --- It is difficult to stop talking about AR even in English! Thanks.