Posted by Ed Kiser on January 14, 2006 at 11:53:06 from 152.163.100.6 user Kisered.
In Reply to: Re: That Unbelievable Peter Duck posted by Robert Dilley on January 14, 2006 at 03:34:14:
Robert -
Your observation as to the point of view is different for readers not from the UK is quite on target.
Having lived in the southern USA all my life (70 years) I found a large part of the fascination of these Ransome stories was that they were about children in another land, in another time, where the customs were not my own. Their language had its differences which sometimes left me to puzzle as to what is the meaning, but trying to dig out that meaning was a part of the delightful adventure of reading these stories. It was like exploring. The spelling was different. There were words used that I did not know - like Beck, Tarm - or even dialect spelling as in "Girt auld hen 'at wants to be cock o' t' midden." - whatever a "midden" is. (Tarboard explained that...) Strange customs like beginning a statement with "I say" which seemed a bit redundant. Or the strange custom of ruining a perfectly good cup of tea by dumping in some MILK!
So there was a common feeling across all these books that it was an adventure for me to go to these places and be with these people that did exciting things, yet were themselves, a bit strange as well. But that strangeness was a big part of the fascination and pleasure.
I must say here that my daily downloads of photos from the LAKELANDCAM for the past several years has very much helped to give me a sense of PLACE, at least so far as the Lake stories are concerned. At last count, I have over 6000 of these absolutely beautiful photos that show to this foreigner the beauty of that place. It does give me the envy of those who can actually GET TO that place, and enjoy being there personally. I am indeed grateful to Tony Richards of the LAKELANDCAM for his daily efforts and for his skillful eye and his mastery of the art of the camera for capturing for me the fascination of that place.
I have my operating system of this computer set to do a slide show of that collection as a function of its "screen saver" operation. That has been set to the minimum time of one minute, so it is easy to sit back and pause that time, then be thrilled by this succession of fantastic beauty. I hate to say how much time I have spent just staring at this screen saver's slide show and drinking in the delights of that place. It helps when reading Ransome's description of the views, as when upon the mountain top, as those word pictures take on real sense with Tony's photos to fill in the details. It just makes these stories that much more real.
Other than by viewing that slide show, I very likely will never get to personally get to see and enjoy the Lake District nor the Broads, but with fantastic photos of both places, it becomes all the better when sharing these delightful adventures with my childhood playmates.
Sometimes I must wonder, if those people who actually live in that beautiful part of the world actually SEE that beauty, as it is such a common daily presence that it becomes taken for granted. They get so used to it that it becomes ordinary.
Thank you for your insight to understand the point of view of us foreigners.
Missee Lee is still not among my favorites. Maybe it is the Latin jokes. How does one read that story aloud to young folks and try to explain the humor of the Latin - unless one is truly familiar with Latin - and in this day, who is...
But that story does show quite natural reactions to a group that suddenly find themselves in a strange land, where things look different, and the people talk funny, and have strange, and indeed a bit frightening, sets of customs and ways of doing things. Now maybe they are experiencing some of the uncertainties I felt when reading about the Broads or the Lake District stories.
But at least, the Great Aunt was not into "chopping heads."
Ed Kiser, South Florida