D's the real heroes? - rootless cosmopolitans


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Posted by Andrew Craig-Bennett on October 13, 2003 at 20:51:38 from 195.93.32.7 user ACB.

In Reply to: Re: Are the D's the real heroes? -rootless cosmopolitans posted by Katharine on October 13, 2003 at 19:29:39:

Katherine, I think we may be on to something here!

The opening chapters of Swallowdale, in which the Swallows are expecting to find everything and everyone as they had left them the year before, are very moving, I find. They are seeking the Land of Lost Content.

I think you are absolutely right about the island.

As others, more learned than I, have said, the island remains an immanent presence in the later books; the children are always trying to recapture their first happiness - well, Titty is, even if Roger, Susan and John are more jolly and buttoned up about it.

AR's experience of the Lakes was of the D's kind; he must have noticed that the Altounyans had a different relationship with the landscape and I wonder if this inspired the first book?

The Swallows (come to think of it, note the name!) are "rootless", unlike the D's they never refer to "home".

"Name and address, please," said the policeman.
"My name is John Walker," said John. This is our address."
"Walker, John," said the policeman, writing. He mopped his face again. "Address?"
"Here"
"Where?"
"Here."
"That won't do," said the policeman. "Where do you live?"
"In these tents."

And so, indeed, it is. Wild Cat Island is where the Swallows live, in their minds at least.


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