Posted by Laurence Monkhouse on January 26, 2006 at 21:57:14 from 80.3.128.6 user Laurence_.
In Reply to: maps vs. text in SA and SD posted by Lyn on January 26, 2006 at 03:47:41:
I don't think there is anything mis... about it - I think you are right.
But I also think that we have to remember that these are stories, and that the Lake stories in particular are set in an imagined world. Most individual bits can be broadly identified, but AR has adapted them to fit the situation. Thus although the harbour at Peel Island is exactly as described, the rest of the island is smaller than Wild Cat, thus the ascent of Kanchenjunga somehow ignores the copper mines. Thus the map of the Lake on the end pages has the shape of Coniston and the details of Windermere, and even the latter are shuffled.
The maps clearly came after the story and AR clearly made no real attempt to correlate details on the maps with the story. But sail on either lake and the feeling that through the books you have been here before still hits you between the eyes. The details just don't matter.
By the time we get to the Broads and the River Orwell/Secret Water then nearly everything is real and people can (and I often do) navigate from the end paper maps. But the Lake books have a bigger helping of imagination - and many people like them just because of this.