Posted by Jock on February 28, 2008 at 09:06:09 from 87.105.81.146 user Jock.
In Reply to: Re: The Missionaries posted by John Lambert on February 28, 2008 at 08:30:41:
SW is my least favourite of the AR canon... I rather get the feeling
that AR was stretching just a little in this one.
John, I've just had a 'Eureka' moment thanks to your post! Thank you.
I have an idea knocking around in the back of my mind - it's not tested
yet - so no references please to 'Jock's Hypothesis'. I have this idea
that one of the factors which govern our enjoyment of the SA series is
the extent to which AR manages to carry our personal 'suspension of
disbelief' throughout the book.
Thus, I never quite got to love PD and ML because they are only 'made
up' by our heroes. I remember that someone said they didn't like PM,
because it was unrealistic, in real life Nancy would have simply told
the GA about the D's (what rot!) and now you have explained that for you
all that map making and eeling is quite a stretch.
In 1961(or was it 1962?) I contrived to persuade my parents that
Walton-on-the-Naze was the ideal holiday destination. I marched them
up and down sea walls with a compass and bamboo poles searching
methodically for signs of Sinbads's creek. (I'll save the rest of my adventures
for a post on If not duffers... as these days posts about our personal
AR adventurers are frowned upon by the Magisterium.) Small wonder
then that for me the goings on in SW are quite normal, in fact, it is
one of my favourite books.
Now CC, there I do have a problem. Pensive pugs, bird loving
boatbuilders' boys. Whatever could AR have been thinking about?