Posted by Pippa on March 24, 2002 at 21:54:03 from 195.92.194.16:
In Reply to: Missee Lee: location secret? posted by John Wilson on February 17, 2002 at 05:44:34:
I am doing some research on S&A for a university independent study - see above (!) and Peter Duck, Missee Lee and Great Northern are commonly referred to as the fantasy stories, stories made up by the characters as opposed to stories that "really" happened to them. Christina Hardyment (is that her surname - "Arthur Ransome and Cap't Flint's Treasure Trunk"?) uses this as justification for not going to the places where they are set, and distinguishes them because in them the children are shot at with real guns. The dangers are more real.
I have found critics differ widely in their opinions of these 3 books, Peter Hunt in "Approaching Arthur Ransome" - a largely structuralist reading of character and plot - sets them well apart from the other books and dislikes them all (although likes ML best and slates PD and GN). Victor Watson - "Reading Series Fiction from Arthur Ransome to Gene Kelly" -however scarcely distinguishes them from the others and rates PD highly.
I (and had read to me) S&A from the age of about 8, and never distinguished the fantasy novels from the others. Even at 20 and starting to have to read S&A very critically I think you could make a fair argument for them as no more fantastic than the others. Peter Duck is my joint favourite of the series (with WDMTGTS) while I think I have only read ML once, and GN a couple of times - they look distinctly unthumbed!