Posted by Fiona on March 26, 2006 at 19:29:29 from 213.78.92.145 user Fiona.
In Reply to: Re: Missee Lee and Peter Duck posted by Jock on March 25, 2006 at 23:22:44:
Bit of bother, this one! The stories-within-stories scenario is what I mean!! We read that stories about PD were made up over the winter holidays. Ok, fine but the other two, ie ML & GN, are not designated as such. I believe it was Christina Hardyment in AR & Capt Flint's trunk who said that she thought all these three were stories-within-stories on the basis that they contained real gunfire. It is only CH's personal view, admittedly in print, and yet it seems to have been accepted as absolute fact by everyone since. Why should they be any more fantastical than any of the other books? I cannot believe for example, that it was the absolute norm for parents to let their children go off, unsupervised, unmonitored for days, weeks on end even in the halcyon days between the wars. The Ds' sledge ride up the frozen lake, the whole plot of WDMTS, the near-drowning in SW - all fantasy, in my personal opinion. I see no problems in the 'reality' of ML & GN. It is all part of AR's world and should be accepted as precisely that. None of the books are actually real, we're not dealing with biography here but when you open a volume you step into the 'reality' that AR created for his readers. Just accept it as such!!