Posted by Peter Willis on April 13, 1999 at 23:48:37:
In Reply to: Great Northern? - A Peter Duck Story? I don't think so posted by Paul on April 05, 1999 at 21:59:49:
Paul, you may like to know that I agree with you - I set out my own reasons for taking issue on this with Christina Hardyment and Peter Hunt, who also seeks to consign GN to the fantasy list, in Mixed Moss 1994.
There are arguments on both sides, but I feel those on the side of "reality" the more persuasive, and the two clinchers for me are that GN fulfills a very importanft function of closure to the series, which would be considerably less satisfactory if it were just a fantasy book, and that as a child, I had attempted to "believe" PD and ML, and suffered terrible confusion as a result, but had no such difficulty with GN.
I remember discussing this with Christina Hardyment in Ullapool (appropriately enough) last year; at the time she seemed persuaded by this argument.