Posted by Jeremy Kriewaldt on March 16, 2006 at 23:01:07 from 202.138.212.58 user JeremyKriewaldt.
In Reply to: Re: Beckfoot - a heartfelt plea posted by Robin on March 16, 2006 at 14:13:54:
But this is TARoard. Even though the twelve children's novels are the most famous and accessible part of AR's life and work, they are by no means all of it! As he himself observed (rough recollected quote from, I think, his autobiography) he seemed to have lived parts of several different lives.
As well as the 12 novels when we remember that we are looking at AR's life and works, we have a whole universe of things which we can discuss, and which we shouldn't regard as off-limits because they don't feature particularly in the novels.
For example - boat building - AR did this himself and wrote about it (Racundra) - I think that John's descriptiuon of the process of building Mary Ann is really AR-related.
fishing - yes it is in the books and there is Rod and Line and Mostly Fishing as well as The River comes first and Jeremy Swift's collection of other such matrerial and it meant a great deal to AR, yet we rarely discuss it on Tarboard.
literary theory - read The History of Storytelling, E A Poe or Oscar Wilde and you can get an idea of how much of a sound theoretical grounding AR had.
Russia and the revolution - I suspect that we are still only just scraping the surface of AR's experiences
Journalism - Not only Russia, but his later material on China (which I have read) and Egypt (which I haven't) as well as his other material published in the Guardian
Cruising - If you read Roger Wardale's book Nancy Blackett - At sea with Arthur Ransome, you can get an idea of how important this was to him
Clubs - as well as the Cruising Association, AR belonged to the Garrick - there are all sorts of associations that can come out of this
What am I saying? AR was a man of parts and quite large enough on his own to encompass a very broad church - let's not forget all these other fascinating topics just because it was the children's novels that first brought him to our attention and perhaps still are AR's works of which we are fondest. But equally, if AR's writing sets us (or some of us) off on enquiries into Victorian plumbing, or any other arcane subject, why not let those who get their fun that way get on with it. I for one can't see the harm - although I do see the risk in losing sight of the wood through too close an examination of the bark on one particular tree.