Posted by Andy Morley on September 17, 2000 at 10:04:45 from 195.44.242.23:
In Reply to: Re: More about Pauline Marshall, Broadcast and Memoirs... posted by Alan Hakim on September 16, 2000 at 17:48:39:
> What I was trying to do was to introduce a fact into a
> discussion that seems dominated by second-hand
> information. "Is reported" is not a primary source,
> however reliable your informant.
Absolutely Alan - well done..! It's nice to read a bit of sanity amongst all the emotion of TARboard. Pauline is an original source, and we should value her as such. Only a small amount of that relates to Ransome - her wider recollections dwarf the Ransome material. Even so, I would have thought that there would be sufficient of a Ransome-related element to be of interest to people in this forum. Fair comment..?
> I get very depressed by all this identification of "the
> original" of characters and events in books.
It's easy to get depressed about a whole variety of things ranging from murder and mayhem in Bosnia through to people who loudly share their mobile phone converations on the train. I could get depressed about people who broadcast their rather sad preocuppations on the back of my attempts to encourage Pauline in her memoir-writing and to gain some support for her. But then, I daresay that I p!ss other people off by talking here about a person whom they perceive as a pretender to the Altounyan Royal Throne. Not my point of view, not Pauline's and probably not that of the Altounyan family either. However, some people do seem to treat facts that are inconvenient to their cherished theories in the same manner that was once applied to religious heretics.
There are two points here Alan.
1 - I think that we have to try to be grown up about these silly people and their silly concerns because ultimately we're all silly to someone, and I don't think that schoolmasterly despair and hand-wringing is the answer to it. (As an aside, I'm aware that you're an accountant)
2. Let's just ignore the silliness and concentrate on the more interesting bits towards which you've made a most excellent beginning with your opening observation. The factual aspects of this are interesting don't you think..? Why should we bother about the other stuff..? It's just normal human background noise...
> For years I have assumed that an author will take his
> experience and blend it into what is effectively original work.
> A friend of mine has a flat in the same block as Alan Ayckbourn.
> She says she recognises characteristics of her neighbours in
> his plays, but nobody would say the people in the plays were
> directly based on them.
The thing to do with assumptions Alan, is to question them. Always. However, if we take yours as a working assumption, how does it relate to Ransome..? Quite clearly, it makes him an exception to the rule. Coming back to an earlier point I made, you can apply 3 general categories to writers if you find it useful, (and I do).
- Writers who DO write about real figures, supplemented by their imaginations (historical romance and so-forth)
- Writers who are so good at their craft that it's impossible to tease out the source of their material
- Writers like those you describe in the Alan Ayckbourn mould.
Ransome doesn't fit these categories and that is in itself iteresting. Some of this here have already kicked this one around to an extent, but why do YOU think he did it..?
Cheers,
Andy Morley