Posted by Peter Ceresole on December 10, 2007 at 18:57:48 from 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.
In Reply to: Re: Swinging the lead (was posted by Andy Clayton on December 10, 2007 at 18:16:51:
I always feel that ML is 'written off' as it's 'made up'. Lets not forget that AR visited China in those pre-revolutionary days and I find the tale is atmospheric and a rattling good yarn. I'm sure the portrayal of the place and people at that time was genericaly accurate.
It seems to me that we're in danger of ignoring that all the books are 'made up'. Even those where the characters are based fairly closely on known people, never actually happened to those people. It's AR's skill as an author that makes them seem 'real'. In fact, what we're talking about here is stories that are more or less probable. When I first read them when I was maybe Roger's age, I preferred 'Peter Duck' and 'Missee Lee' because they had high adventure. At the time I also liked 'Biggles' books. As time passed I liked the 'domestic' books more, perhaps because I was also gaining a life of my own with things happening in it. I loved AR's way of building a superb story, and the wonderful incidental detail like, in WD, Jim Brading's 'ashore' moments in the hospital in Ipswich. In the end- and I mean thirty years on, my firm favourites became, and remain WH and PM. And although I still have a couple of them about, dash it, Algy, but I haven't read a WE Johns book for decades. I have tried, but I bounce back out within the first chapter. A bit what happened when I reattempted ML...
As for 'Great Northern', although I did read it a couple of times, it never carried (for me) the warmth and conviction of the others. I think that maybe it was just a question of a book too far?
But I know that others profoundly disagree. Goody!