Posted by Mike Dennis on April 08, 2012 at 06:11:14 user MTD.
Due a myriad of circumstances I have started to re-read the S&A canon in order.
So I have just finished PD, the reason I have made it the second is because that is the order I read them in childhood as it was the next volume available to me (my late brother had been given SA, PD, CC, ML & PP at various times before he was killed in 1960 so I read them a few years later almost at random though I do remember starting with SA then PD.)
My re-reading of PD made me realise I have probably not read it since childhood or at least early adulthood, I had forgotten about the taking of the Wild Cat by the crew of the Viper and the violence inflicted on Bill in particular. I suppose what I had really forgotten is the strength of the writing in AR’s descriptions, I’m sure I felt every blow to Bill’s head! As for having a bar of soap forced in to his mouth…
This was surprising to me in another sense, as when Bill is introduced in the book I felt that he was a weak character that only served to make a contrast with the S&As (he is almost condescending of them as only children even though two of them are older than himself!) and a useful device to move the plot along.
PD is, as we all know, regarded as a meta-fiction, even though AR made an abortive start on it before SD (Brogan details this in the biography) though I get the impression from AR’s letters that he would rather have written and published PD before SD.
When I eventually read SD for the first time after PD in childhood I found the references to Peter Duck’s cave and Titty being ‘told off’ for this fiction confusing. Brogan explains that AR wanted the PD story to be taken as one invented by the S&As in the winter months, yet there is no hint or reference to this in the book itself.
Just as in my childhood I found PD to be a convincing S&A story, a telling of what happened to them all the next summer. What I did notice on this reading was that the characters of each of the people we had been introduced to in SA are fleshed out; Susan, Titty, Nancy and Peggy in particular.
Unlike many of the books there are references by the characters to their time on the lake and Wild Cat island the previous summer, particularly John comparing how Swallow handles when sailed on the open sea.
As the whole series is, of course, a fiction drawing upon AR’s own life then why shouldn’t PD (and by extension ML) be considered part of that series rather than the fictional inventions of fictional characters!