Posted by Peter Ceresole on December 07, 2012 at 04:21:10 user PeterC.
In Reply to: Re: Swallows and Amazons: when? posted by Tom Napier on December 06, 2012 at 13:36:09:
I mostly found a certain lack of consistency on Ransome's part.
The poor fellow was a novelist for heaven's sake, and couldn't possibly imagine that his books would be picked apart by friendly nerds in their hundreds, eighty years later.
I can completely imagine the pleasure that you get from working these things out, just as I get a warm feeling from seeing Ipswich as Jim dazedly tries to find his way from the hospital back to the Goblin on that blindingly bright day, or from realising why AR placed the Bawdsey CH radar masts several years too early in WD. The characteristic clarity and suppleness of AR's writing lends itself to being a factual description, a window into the '30s, and the sheer pleasure of participating in the adventures is so great that it's easy to forget that he had to work hard to make it all fit. Beautifully...