"Held To Ransome"
I’ve read Arthur Ransome’s Swallows & Amazons books for over 50 years. It shows their quality in that not only do I still read them but I’m interested in their background. The books cover 4 years in the 1930s, set in real places - The Lake District, The Broads, Essex Backwaters and Shotley Peninsular. Part of the appeal of his books is descriptions of how to do things. Most of what I know about many subjects comes from reading Ransome.
Wednesday, 1 August 2018
More New Roads In 'Secret Water' 'Town'
Some new roads leading off 'Arthur Ransome Way' have now been named, as well as 'Nancy Blackett Avenue' there is 'Swallows Way' and 'Secret Waters'.
Monday, 9 July 2018
Reconsidering Lovelock
When Julian Lovelock's Swallows,
Amazons and Coots was first published (2016) I was pleased to see a new
academic analysis of Ransome's canon to join Peter Hunt's Approaching Arthur
Ransome and the various PhD thesis on his novels such as Hazel Sheeky Bird's
Camping and Tramping, Swallows and Amazons: Interwar Children’s Fiction and
the Search for England amongst others. On reading Lovelock's work this
anticipation of pleasure became something of a disappointment as can be seen in
my review on Amazon
UK and the extended version of it that is available on the All Things
Ransome Website (Lovelock
Review.)
Though I admit there was much of
the analysis in Lovelock's book I disagreed with, there were some aspects I did
not. In an attempt, in the academic manner, to give a more considered view I
have read the book again, and this time as I did so I made extensive notes,
both in support and disagreement of his views to clarify my thoughts.
This paper is a further
discussion of Lovelock’s book and my views on the some of the points he raises.
It is not exhaustive, I found the more I read (including comparing some of his
views with those of others) I realised I would probably end up with enough
material for a volume of my own.
-----
There is one particular recurring
aspect of Julian Lovelock’s analysis of the Swallows and Amazons series
of novels by Arthur Ransome that I found very difficult to understand and come
to terms with, this was his insistence that each of the novels has quite
extensive comic elements, some he claims even having 'visual comedy', though
how this is possible in a written work I find, as a concept, difficult to
grasp.
As a regular reader of the
Ransome canon for around fifty-five years, both for pleasure and latterly in
serious consideration, during that time, even as a child, I have yet to encounter
anything I would describe as 'comedy'. Yes, the occasional humorous remark or
incident that brings a slight smile to mind but nothing to evoke a 'laugh out
loud' reaction as Lovelock says it does for him (p. 193.) Peter Hunt in his
book Approaching Arthur Ransome agrees with the analysis of Fred Inglis
in his work The Promise of Happiness – 'Ransome takes life seriously,
unselfconsciously so...' (quoted in Hunt p. 86), and in Hunt’s own discussion
of William, the pug, in Coot Club he states 'This is about the only
occasion in the whole canon where Ransome indulges in his sense of whimsy...'
(Hunt p. 127.)
Throughout the chapters in
Lovelock's book there are fifty or so references to what he considers the comic
or humorous aspects to Ransome's novels, many of those cited are, in my view, a
misrepresentation of what Ransome is writing about and so trying to convey to
his readers.
There is always a difficulty in
discussing humour of any kind, with it being one of those subjects that are
beyond objectivity. It is well known that what appeals to one person’s sense of
humour can do nothing for another's. In my own case this applies to slapstick
comedy and any humour that has the intention to belittle or underhandedly
insult someone, or exploits a weakness in them - these fail as humour for me on
all counts. This does not mean, of course, I don't find things funny, far from
it. I was fortunate, in my view, to have grown up in the tail end of the era of
The Goon Show and Tony Hancock on the radio, then on through the years
of Monty Python and their ilk on television.
I am well aware that many would
be mystified by this, just as I am in why others find the likes of Laurel and
Hardy or Charlie Chaplin in any way amusing.
Additionally, I find some modern examples of humour funny that I realise
are something of a mystery to many people much younger than myself.
Even allowing for the notion that
people have different ideas as to what constitutes 'comic', ‘humorous’ or
'funny' I feel that Lovelock's analysis in this aspect of Ransome’s work is
misplaced; his characters are all children growing up and trying to deal with
the world around them, their difficulties maybe minor compared to those many of
us have had to contend with as children and adults, but they still have to be
dealt with.
Some adults have such lives as
this, whilst others seem to be free of such things. For example, I had a great
aunt on my mother's side of the family who went through life with comparative
ease. In her old age she once said to my mother that she would quite happily
live her life over again without any changes. Whereas my mother, who was
middle-aged when this conversation took place, thus far had a life that was
tinged with tragedy – death of her only sibling in war-time, death of her first
born child when he was only ten years old in a road accident and then widowed
in her early forties. My great aunt clearly could not comprehend why my mother,
through these circumstances, had a different view from herself.
It has never struck me in all my
readings of the canon there was a possibility Ransome wrote with the intention
of being humorous, and when I raised the topic on TarBoard (the long
established Ransome Online forum) some of the comments in response seemed to
suggest I was not alone in this view. For me, in his novels, Ransome actually
wanted to show that there was a great deal of seriousness in the lives of
children, as there had been in his own childhood. Lovelock points out in his
introduction ‘His [Ransome’s] childhood was not a happy one, … at the age of
nine, Ransome was enrolled at a boarding preparatory school, … it was a
disaster, and young Arthur was bullied and lonely.’ (p. 3.) There is another,
and to me unrealistic, view of childhood as being a period of one's life free
of troubles of whatever kind that has been perpetuated from the mid-twentieth
century with the comment that has become something of a cliché - ‘School days
are the happiest days of your life’. Thankfully, there is more recognition that
this is not the case for a significant number of children whom long to escape
to the world of adulthood, they may not be much happier in doing so but at
least they have been able to leave their childhood behind. As Hunt comments in
his discussion of the character's emotional lives '...one might suspect,
Ransome was a shrewd child psychologist.' (Hunt p. 85.)
As a child reader of Ransome, for
me, amongst his books attractions were the lack of detailed descriptions of
time spent at school, no negative heavy-handed interferences by adults, no
'teasing', no harassment and related emotional difficulties that many children
have to suffer, including failing to be taken seriously by adults and being
belittled by other children. This is made clear in Great Northern? by
Roger’s reaction to being mocked by the young McGinty. As Lovelock points out
‘…he leaves the mocking message ‘THE SLEEPING BEAUTY’ that so angers Roger.’
(p.204.)
Ransome's ability to identify
with children and express feelings they may be having rather than writing
directly for them, is one of a number of aspects that makes him stand out as an
author of books that may include children amongst their readers. This aspect of
Ransome's style has clear connections, explored by Lovelock and others, with
his own childhood and the loss of his father. Despite being a child, in the
broadest sense, he learnt from an early age that life is a serious business and
has to be dealt with, and occasionally it just had to be endured.
Even whilst being unaware of
Ransome’s background as a young reader I immersed myself in his books, and was
richly rewarded with an alternative childhood that fulfilled some of my
emotional needs at the time for around a year or so. It also gave me a broad
knowledge of many subjects that still serves me well today, Ransome’s ability
to describe things and explain how they work has influenced many of his
readers, and some of those who are now well known individuals acknowledge this
role he played in
their own childhoods.
A further attraction of Ransome's
books is that the adventures the children have are (with the obvious exceptions
of those in Peter Duck, Missee Lee and possibly Great
Northern?) all rooted in the realms of possibility. Yet in his introduction
Lovelock refers to the characters exploring a 'dressing up box' (p. 13) and
being involved in 'the make-believe of games.' (p. 22.) On reading this I was
reminded of Wittgenstein’s discussion on defining ‘games’ ‘How should we
explain to someone what a game is?’ (Philosophical Investigations p.33)
and he then goes on at some length of the difficulties in doing so.
For me, the characters do not
posses a 'dressing up box' and what happens in the books are not 'games', they
are not pre-planned or engineered by the children themselves or the adults that
assist them in doing so just for enjoyment as games are usually perceived. They
make plans of how to spend their time and sometimes those plans are thwarted by
circumstances (on the few occasions they are hindered by adults it is not with
malicious intent, as an example Great Aunt Maria in Swallowdale and The
Picts and The Martyrs acts out of what she believes to be the 'right' thing
to do in looking after her nieces, albeit quite forcefully.) Lovelock views
this from a different perspective, he describes each of the books beginning
with a disappointment which then is overcome, he sees this as '...one of the
gateways through which the children enter an imaginary world where they leave
the everyday world behind and, to them, their games become real.' (p. 184.) My
reasoning here is, that if you believe they move to an 'imaginary world' then
we have to assume they are still involved in 'games'. In a complete contrast to
Lovelock Hunt describes what they do (their adventures) '… [As] 'real'; they live in a recognizable
world with recognizable laws and values.' (Hunt p. 14.)
Throughout his book Lovelock
seems, as many of us long-standing readers are, occasionally somewhat confused
and troubled by the nature of Nancy as a character. I have explored some
aspects of Nancy’s character myself in a previous paper, and concluded that as
she has no basis in reality, being a pure invention on Ransome’s part, this
makes her different from all the others. It also means that sometimes Ransome
even contradicts himself in how she is portrayed. Early on Lovelock states
‘Captain Nancy is a tomboy…’ (p. 32) and that and that her behaviour can become
marked by ‘…over-familiarity and rudeness…’ (p. 32). The notion of Nancy as merely a ‘tomboy’ I have
also discussed before and I feel that this description is usually
nothing more than an easy ‘get out’ for those that have not read the books in
any depth and tend to lump her in with characters of lesser children’s
literature, such as that of Enid Blyton, where a 'strong' female has to be
explained in some way as they go against what is socially acceptable at the
time the author is writing. Obviously, Lovelock does not fall in to this
category so it is somewhat surprising he uses this term against type.
Nancy is a very complex
character, as Lovelock observes ‘…Nancy is frequently more emotionally aware
and more farsighted than her companions.’ (p. 48.) In Winter Holiday it
is she that is immediately accepting of the Ds joining the polar expedition,
whereas somewhat surprisingly, the Swallows have their doubts – ‘…Dorothea overhears the always
generous Nancy arguing for their inclusion.’ (p.74, my emphasis).
As for Nancy being rude,
certainly she is indeed often direct and outspoken but nearly always because
she knows in her own mind that she is right. She will not be deterred from
making her point or standing her ground when dealing with adults, in
particular, those who tend to dismiss children in such situations without
listening to or considering their point of view. To accuse a child of rudeness
when they show an adult it is they who have been in the wrong, is a far too
easy reaction of some adults both now and more so at the time Ransome was
writing. As Lovelock puts it '...Nancy often proves herself to be the most
considerate and empathetic of the older children.' (p. 109.)
A further aspect of Nancy that
makes her such a complex character is that she is the eldest of the children,
just slightly older than John as far a we can ascertain. By the time of their
adventure recounted in Great Northern? takes place she would be sixteen
years old, about to move from childhood to adulthood, a move that may of course
have already occurred, and a very significant change for any young woman. As
Lovelock observes of the previous novel 'Nancy, now aged fifteen, hovers
uncomfortably between childhood and adulthood...' (p. 186.) Of course, age is
no indicator of maturity or depth of knowledge (my great aunt that I referred
to earlier lived in to her seventies but still behaved as if a rather naïve,
somewhat ignorant teenage girl.)
In his analysis of The Picts
and the Martyrs Lovelock makes two very salient points about Nancy –
‘Throughout the Swallows and Amazons series we have seen glimpses of
Nancy’s sensitivity.’ (p. 194) and ‘Was the Great Aunt also an overbearing
pirate in her youth who has been left unloved and embittered? Is this what will
happen to Nancy in her turn?’ (p. 196). I would argue we have seen more than
just 'glimpses' and I am reasonably confident through my own readings in
stating that Nancy will not end up ‘unloved’, certainly she will always be
loved by her fellows (if we can allow ourselves to extrapolate from their
characters we are provided with by Ransome.) Had Ransome been able to let his
characters grow older in to the early years of adulthood, the life of Nancy
would have been the most interesting and given him the greatest scope as a
novelist, again being a creation entirely of his imagination.
Another skill that Ransome has as
a writer also leads many to make interpretations of his work, to me, often
erroneously. In this manner Lovelock attempts to analyse the books to show how
they reflect colonialism, Empire and the ‘loss’ of the way of life that existed
in England (and again I will use this deliberately despite three of the books being
set elsewhere) at the time he was writing about (the early nineteen-thirties.)
In Swallows and Amazons and Swallowdale the children refer to
themselves as ‘explorers’ and in all the books, other than the meta-fictions,
describe the local people they encounter as ‘natives’. Even Nancy and Peggy
take on this usage to talk of people they have grown up with!
In Swallows and Amazons
the Swallows do regard the island on their arrival as being unexplored and so
available to be, in a sense, ‘taken’ (in more recent readings I have concluded
that prior to Commander Walker giving his permission for the expedition, Mrs
Walker had already made arrangements for them to go camping there and probably
had contact with Mrs Blackett, as the impression is given in later books that
her family ‘own’ the island.) The Swallow children are all familiar with the
plots of Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and Stevenson's Treasure Island
(Titty particularly so), and perceive the island in the lake in the same way as
Stevenson and Defoe did their islands. For the Swallows, perhaps naively, the
island is an 'undiscovered country' (though clearly not in the sense Hamlet
uses the phrase in Act III scene I of Hamlet.) It is a place to be
explored, mapped and named because for them it has not been done before. As far
as they are aware nobody lives there or knows anything about it, and when they
encounter the Amazons it then becomes very clear to them they are not the
first. Though this is something of a disappointment it does not deter them from
mapping and so naming its geographical features, even negotiating with the
Amazons over such matters, and continuing to make it their temporary home. When
the Swallows arrive, not that it was ever their intention, there are no
resources to be plundered, no native peoples to rule over or oppress, the usual
activities of colonisation
The two main geographical
districts of England that Ransome set his novels, the Lake District and the
Norfolk and Suffolk Broads, both have at various times suffered with an over-popularity
by tourists that has led to physical damage to the landscape and disruption of
the way of life of those that are members of families who have lived and worked
there for generations. The Broads in particular, had in the 1930s (the time
Ransome was writing about) seen the introduction of motor cruisers for holiday
hire, which changed the whole nature of the area from the days when it was
purely populated with sailing vessels. It is this change that Ransome was not
happy about, and he drew attention to it through Coot Club and The
Big Six, a problem that would continue in to the 1960s and 1970s. This was
not some view through rose-tinted spectacles hankering for a probably
non-existent golden age; Ransome was concerned about the damage to the area in
many senses but for the natural world in particular. Both books alerted people
to this danger, as Lovelock points out in his analysis of the discussion in The
Big Six between Tom, the Death and Glories and the eel man Harry Bangate
(p. 155-6), Ransome was not reflecting on the loss of Empire etc. despite the
description of the photographs and news cuttings in Bangate’s vessel, but the
preservation of the countryside that was clearly under threat from the increase
of motorised river traffic used by visitors.
When it comes to politics and the
implied references in the novels, as Lovelock quotes Paul Foot’s discussion of
Ransome and to politics in the books ‘The subject simply doesn’t arise.’ (p.
11) yet despite this for Lovelock it does seem to be there in the background
'...the resolutely middle-class writer of what can seem to resolutely
middle-class and imperialist tales.' (p. 10.) Ransome’s political views are
difficult to perceive, in his journalist days he worked for a left-of-centre
newspaper (The Manchester Guardian) and obviously took a great interest
in the Russian Revolution which would enable us to place him roughly in a
position on the political spectrum if we made some broad assumptions. Yet on
his return to the UK with Evgenia it seems from his writings, both public and
his private letters, that politics were a thing of the past in his life. This
makes it very difficult to relate what happens in the novels to his political
views, and perhaps a dangerous path to take. As Lovelock explains referring to
a note in Ransome’s MI5 file that states ‘He has, I think, no special political
views.’ (p. 7.)
Finally, Lovelock devotes a great
deal of his analysis to the role of Dick and Dorothea in the books, and of
Dorothea in particular. Both characters have their basis in aspects of the
person Ransome had strived to become - the knowledgeable, practical expert and
the novelist. It is interesting, to me at least, that Lovelock describes the Ds
as ‘…not children to whom one immediately warms.’ (p. 71.) Hunt's view is very
different 'Dorothea, is one of Ransome's masterstrokes. She … lives a happily
conscious double life, paraphrasing the reality around her into the worst of
clichés of 'ordinary' children's books... Together the D's provide a refreshing
and not always flattering gloss on the Swallows and Amazons...' (Hunt p.
72.) As a child, when I first read Winter
Holiday, I identified with them both straight away and the book still
remains my favourite of the novels. Aspects of the two of them were everything
I was in some ways, outsiders, having a need to be included, but as I mentioned
before, they only started out in that position until Nancy encouraged their
acceptance in to the collective adventures overruling the misgivings of the
others.
Dorothea sees almost everything
through novelist’s eyes and we are told of her written observations, her own
writing is not of great quality (from the snippets we are given) as she has yet
to develop as a writer, but she has a vivid imagination that is triggered by
the smallest events. Ransome does on occasions use her works to show the
shortcomings of other writers, but mainly he uses her as a device to explain to
us the reader what he is seeing as the invisible observer.
One of the biggest surprises with
regard to Dorothea is her role in The Big Six. When all seems lost as
the local members of the Coot Club are under suspicion from nearly all the
adult characters for criminal activity, it is she who believes in their
innocence and organises them all to work to prove it - '...the chief interest
in the novel lies in the way they encounter the injustices and prejudices of
adults rather than in their individual characters.' (p. 151.) Not only does
Dorothea organise the others she has to deal with some opposition from within, as
Lovelock puts it '… [she] takes charge, lightly shouldering Tom into the
background … [T]he Death and Glories may be sceptical, and sometimes resentful,
but they are swept along by her newfound confidence.' (p. 160.) I don't see it
as a 'newfound' confidence on Dorothea's part, it is just that she has at last
an opportunity to show her strengths; as Hunt views it '… the sole girl in the
cast masterminds the operation …' (Hunt p. 133.) In Winter Holiday and Coot
Club she is the newcomer and to a degree both in awe of those she meets and
reluctant to put her abilities in to action.
There is an irony in that
Ransome, who is often wrongly perceived by some as a 'masculine' writer telling
stories of 'male' activities, should have two central characters over the
twelve books that are female – Nancy and Dorothea. To add to this irony the two
of them are the strongest of the children, in the broadest sense, and the most
adult-like. Though Susan takes on the domestic tasks of mother and wife, it is
always clear to the reader that this is just a role she has been assigned, or
has regularly confirmed, by 'real' adults in the way they positively speak to
her or of her.
Nancy is not only in 'command' as
the senior part owner of the Amazon, but in that she controls the activities of
all the books she appears in. Dorothea on the other hand may not always act
like an adult but she views the events around her as if she was one, this is
reflected in her writing. In her observations of the world around, she always
takes what she sees as having the potential as source material for her novels.
We know from Ransome's
autobiography, his collected letters and Brogan's biography that there were
always strong women in his life. The most important ones of course being his
mother and his, in their different ways, two wives, but not always in a
positive way. He also had many female friends, many of whom he proposed to,
again who had their own strengths, which influenced him.
Once again I find myself
concluding that there is still much to be gleaned and written about Ransome’s
canon, and that it is remarkable a series of twelve novels written over eighty
years ago, ostensibly for children, still manages to generate so much interest
and serious analysis. In comparison Malcolm Saville, a near contemporary of
Ransome, wrote twenty-two novels in his Lone Pine series and many others
as well. It is also clear there are still many areas of Ransome's works and
achievement to be explored and for us enthusiasts to disagree over, but never
in ways that will deflect any of us from our long held interest.
Tuesday, 26 June 2018
And When They Grew Up?
I’ve been a reader of the Arthur Ransome Swallows and
Amazons series of books for fifty-five years now, regularly reading them
over that time apart from a period in my thirties, but even during those years
they were still on my bookshelf in a prominent position, a collection of the
hardback editions including those belonging to my late brother from his own
childhood.
When I began to read the books for myself as a child, I was,
for a short period, immersed in them as if I was a participant; they gave me an
alternative childhood. A childhood very different from the one I was
experiencing then; dealing with the earlier death of my brother, medical issues
and an unsettled time at primary school. The books described and gave me the
childhood I really wanted.
In my late forties and early fifties I began to read the
books again, now going beyond the stories in themselves and once again
imagining what the characters were doing when not being observed by Ransome.
One his skills as a writer, not for children as he always declaimed, but of
books children would want to read, was to describe what was happening as if an
invisible observer. Perhaps this was an ability he brought with him from his
journalism days, he reported to us readers what the Walkers, Blacketts and
Callums (and others) were up to.
Part of these imaginings led me in the Internet age to ‘fan
fiction’ Websites, where enthusiastic readers create their own adventures for
their favourite characters. What interested me most in these attempts were the
ones where the adult lives of any of them are speculated upon, what were they
like when they became grown-ups?
Given the original books are set in the nineteen-thirties
with only the occasional reference to actual dates, my curiosity was initially
aroused pondering what they may have all done during the Second World War. We
know that John and Roger have ambitions to follower their father, Commander
Walker, in to the navy, but what of the others?
This is where I have to admit that I eventually succumbed to
the idea of ‘fan-fiction’, written only for my own entertainment as an
exploration of the main characters from the information we have about them all
from Ransome.
So here are my speculations of what happened to them all.
Commander Walker – we know he is already a serving
officer in the Navy, tragically he dies in the early years of World War II when
his ship is torpedoed.
Mary Walker – in her bereavement she becomes
particularly close to Molly Blackett and Jim Turner, she is even more devoted
to her children.
John Walker – joins the navy on leaving school and
over the years rises through the ranks, during which he believes he is the most
senior officer in the family since the death of his father. For a time at the
end of their teenage years he feels that Nancy is the woman for him, until she
gently re-buffs his overtures without a full explanation. It is only then he
begins to realise that it is Peggy that he is really attracted to and loves,
after the war they marry and have children.
Susan Walker – joins the Women’s Royal Navy Service
(WRNS) at the beginning of the war, partly to ‘do’ something and as she can no
longer stand having to be forever running around after the younger members of
the family as if a second mother. She quickly rises through the ranks in
various ‘desk jobs’ in London until by the end of the war she is in a superior
and more influential role in the War than John has achieved at sea.
Unfortunately for her, thanks to the restrictions of the Official Secrets Act,
she is never able to reveal this to any of the others (apart from Dick Callum
many years later.) She never marries or shows any romantic intentions.
Titty Walker – spends the entire war in London living
the life of what is often negatively called a ‘good time girl’. Her
contribution to the war effort is as an official dowser having learnt more
about the skill, this involves her with searching for dead bodies after air
raids. She gets by with the help of well-off casual friends and lovers, but
mostly through Captain Flint, who still shows his gratitude to her for finding
the manuscript of ‘Mixed Moss’. She continues to be a close friend to Dorothea.
After the war she then dowses for a living, finding missing objects and water
sources. In the 1960s through Dorothea she meets up again with Dick, they both
fully realise the love they have for each other that is suggested at the end of
Great Northern? and they subsequently marry.
Roger Walker – joins the Navy once he is old enough
in the early years of the war. Whilst serving in the Far East he is captured
and imprisoned by the Japanese. During this time he is regularly tortured
because the Japanese discover, through the letters he receives, that he has a
connection with Dick Callum. This treatment results in him being seriously
mentally disturbed for the remainder of his life, and is cared for by his
mother, then by Susan, with Titty’s help, after the death of their mother.
Bridget Walker – trains to be a teacher and mainly
works abroad.
Molly Blackett – continues to live at Beckfoot and
does all kinds of voluntary work on the ‘Home Front’ during the war, with her
brother Jim Turner she consoles and supports Mary Walker in her grief. After
the war she still maintains Beckfoot, welcoming any of the children who are to
visit.
Nancy Blackett – Joins the WRNS and trains to be a
driver as she is, disappointingly, unable to go to sea. In this role she serves
on various bases, including some of those involved in the build up to D-Day.
During this time, on one occasion, she serves along side Daisy of the Eels at
one base. Unbeknown to all the others until after the war, the two of them have
continued the close, intimate friendship begun after they met during the
mapping of Secret Water. They remain a devoted couple until the death of Nancy
many years later, the day following her funeral Daisy commits suicide by
drowning in the lake at Beckfoot unable to face life without her.
Peggy Blackett – spends the war at Beckfoot helping
her mother to run the house, doing WVS voluntary work in the local area. She
reveals her love for John towards the end of their childhood adventures, once
it is obvious that he and Nancy will never be romantically linked. After the
war they marry and have two children.
Jim Turner (Captain Flint) – thanks to the money he
earns from the publication of ‘Mixed Moss’ he is able to live a comfortable
life. With Timothy Stedding (‘Squashy Hat’) he pursues various mining projects
around the world. After the war he becomes close to Mary Walker and even proposes
marriage, she turns him down knowing nobody could replace her late husband.
Dick Callum – gains a place at Oxford to study
mathematics, whilst there, because of his exceptional skills in symbolic logic,
he is secretly recruited to work on code breaking at Bletchley Park. Here he
meets Alan Turing and then goes on to work with Tommy Flowers on the first
electronic computers; this experience enables him to work for computer
companies in the USA for many years after the war. Susan, through her position
in the Navy, is aware of his war work, unlike the rest of them who never quite
understand why he does not ever talk of the war years. On his return to the UK
he meets up once more with Titty and their romance is re-ignited and they
marry.
Dorothea Callum – during the war she works for the
Ministry of Information writing leaflets for the general public and propaganda
material. During this time she continues to write novels, after the war she
eventually begins to get them published. In the nineteen-sixties she meets
again Timothy Stedding through his friendship with Captain Flint, despite
Timothy being married they have a passionate love affair for over twenty years
that only ends with his death. Later in life she crosses paths with Tom
Gudgedon, himself recently widowed from Bess Farland, and they begin a
relationship. After her death her novels are reassessed by the literary
establishment, and judged to be a significant contribution to twentieth century
English Literature.
Saturday, 25 February 2017
What Happened Next?
For some of the lifelong and
devoted readers of the twelve Arthur Ransome novels that make up the Swallows
and Amazons series, there has often been much speculation on what happens to
the major characters and the paths their lives take after we leave them in what
is considered to be their final appearance by all of them in the book Great
Northern?.
Though this last novel in the
series was written and published two years after the end of the Second World
War it is set, as are all the others, in the mid to late 1930s. This aspect of
Ransome’s work serves to highlight one of his skills as a writer, the real
world in respect of what is happening nationally and internationally, as
opposed to real life, only encroaches on the books, in terms of plot and
character, when it is essential and so consequently the threatened war as it
would have been in the novel’s timescale is not mentioned or even hinted at.
One of the things that makes Great Northern? different from the other
novels is the contrast it provides with the previous two books in the series We
Didn’t Mean To Go To Sea and Secret Water. From examination of some
aspects of this contrast we able to glean more detail on the development and
maturing of the main characters, and this can assist us with our speculation
about their respective futures.
With the immense amount of
knowledge that the Internet now makes available to us, such speculation about
the characters lives is now widespread - forums, blogs, fan fiction sites and
the publishing of analytical scholarly papers all offer their views on the
matter. For some Ransome devotees this activity has been going on prior to the
emergence of the Internet, for example in an issue of Mixed Moss (the
magazine of The Arthur Ransome Society) from 1994 there is an article
considering the relationship between John and Nancy and it how it may develop
beyond their lives as it is described in the books.
This process of hypothesizing
about fictional characters has been criticised by some literary critics, but is
robustly defended by Margaret and Michael Rustin in their study of children’s
fiction (Narratives of Love and Loss, 1987), they comment ‘…authors have
imagined situations and persons as if they were real.’ (p. 14, ibid,
authors’ emphasis.) Their conclusion for taking such an approach is ‘…that our
procedure is only an extension of ordinary readers’ response to works of
fiction.’ (p. 14, ibid.) and conclude ‘We may in fact know more and not less
about a fictional character than about most real people of our acquaintance.’
(p. 15, ibid.)
One of my main motivations for
considering this aspect of Ransome’s books has its origins in similar
speculation over such matters, this activity highlights another of his skills
as a writer whereby he created characters whose lives, in the way they are
described, give you cause to think about them in some depth after you have
finished reading the novels.
It is clear in the books that
amongst the main characters some particularly strong friendships emerge: John
and Nancy, Susan and Peggy, Titty and Dorothea being the most obvious. These
friendships are not of course limited to or at the exclusion of others, but
they are the main relationships that emerge, that is until the novels Secret
Water and Great Northern?. In the former we see Nancy, along with
the others, meeting and making a particular connection with Daisy of the Eels,
whilst in the latter the intensity and depth of the friendship between Titty
and Dick is revealed in the book’s closing pages. As Peter Hunt observes in his
discussion of the eleventh book in the series The Picts and the Martyrs
by the end of the book ‘…all the characters have grown up to the point at which
a deeper formulation of relationships would be inevitable.’ (p. 82, Approaching Arthur Ransome, 1992.)
Of those two books that were published before Great Northern?
one of them in its plot and the characters involved stands out from the others
in the series, We Didn’t Mean To Go To Sea only involves the Swallows
and, with the exception their mother and Bridget, nobody else from any of the
other books. The novel shows all the Swallows changing or maturing in their own
way. These changes in them all arise from them being placed, in a sense, in to
a ‘real’ dangerous scenario that has to be dealt with without the involvement
of any adults. The four children are forced to confront events and situations
where their decisions and reactions will have a serious effect on themselves
and their siblings, particularly for John and Susan. It is these aspects of the
book that makes it one of the most popular, and even the best, of the series
for many readers.
A lot of the speculation about
all the major child characters arises in Online ‘fan fiction’ sites and amongst
the plethora of Ransome based work posted there seems to be two particular
ideas that regularly occur, and those notions are all commented upon in other
Websites as well. The first of those that John and Nancy will eventually in
adulthood marry is the most prevalent. The second is that at least one of the
female characters will emerge to declare themselves in maturity as a lesbian,
and the most common suggestion for this notion is that it will be Nancy (there
is an irony here that in the 19th and 20th century this
name became a derogatory slang description of male homosexuals, though it has a
much more simple origin as an affectionate ‘shortening’ of the name Ann.)
Though Ransome allows his
characters to mature to a degree, given the relatively short timescale of the
series of novels, he is often accused, critically, of ignoring matters of the
sexuality of, or romance between, the older characters as they enter what we
would now refer to as their teenage years. In Ransome’s defence it has to be
said that he does not actually ignore these subjects, he was writing at a time
when to allow such matters to be included in books aimed at children would be
viewed suspiciously or even with total abhorrence. Of course, this does not
mean such behaviour did not exist between children of such ages as the older characters
who, by the end of the series, would have been fifteen or sixteen years old.
There has been in relatively
recent years much discussion amongst Ransome devotees and experts over the
status of Great Northern? in his canon. It is recognised and accepted by
all Ransome readers that Peter Duck and Missee Lee are
metafictions – stories ‘invented’ by the characters in the other books. This
activity is referred to directly in Swallowdale in the case of Peter
Duck, coming about when the Swallows and Amazons got together with Captain
Flint on a wherry on the Norfolk Broads in the previous winter (the origin of Missee
Lee is not revealed in any of the other books.) Some argue that Great
Northern? too is a metafiction, primarily as it relies heavily for its plot
on an idea, outlined in great detail, that was given to Ransome by his friend
Myles North (whom the novel is dedicated to), and that the timescale of the
book does not fit in with the usual pattern of the events taking place during
school holidays as in the other more straightforward novels of the series.
Despite these differences and the
possibility that Great Northern? is a metafiction, the parts of the book
that reveal and detail aspects of the main characters and their friendships
serves to highlight the development and maturing of all of them by Ransome in
contrast to the books that precede it. Significantly, even though the fragment
of another novel, which was edited for publication by his biographer Hugh
Brogan and entitled by him The Coots in the North, exists it does seem
as if Great Northern? was, albeit originally unintended, a farewell to
us readers by the Swallows, Amazons and Ds.
Ransome, of course, was in some
ways restricted in what he could write of the maturing of his characters by the
period in which he was writing. He was, as he made clear during his lifetime
both publicly and privately, not a children’s writer and that he did not write
for children and expounded on this in some depth in a letter to Helen Ferris in
March 1938 (p. 209, The Best of Childhood, 2004.) He was, of course,
well aware that his audience was children and the books would have been bought,
in the main, by parents and relations who in so doing would have expected them
to conform to the widely accepted moral and social standings of the day. If we
compare his novels to those for children by Malcolm Saville, in general terms,
the latter was able to allow his characters to develop in to older teenagers
and young adults as he continued writing volumes of the Lone Pine series
in to the 1970s. These years followed and continued a lengthy period in the UK
when there was a radical change in culture and society from that of the period
that Ransome was writing in.
In his defence, Ransome clearly does not ignore the maturing of
his characters in other less contentious matters, that of Roger being an
obvious one and also the change of Bridget from a baby in Swallows and
Amazons to being old enough to leave her mother and take part in Secret
Water, though not considered ready to be fully involved in the preceding
book We Didn't Mean To Go To Sea.
It has always been my contention,
as an adult reader of Ransome, that his books are a ‘snapshot’ of England, in
particular, at that time in which they were set. He wrote of what he saw around
him then intertwined aspects of his childhood, and how he would have liked his
childhood to have been. Subsequently the novels reflect middle class life as
observed by a member of that class, thus countering some who criticise him for
his books being so. He is also criticised for in a similar way having a
tendency to reinforce gender stereotypes, but again this is a reflection of the
time he lived and is far less guilty of this charge than other writers of the
period. In addition he is occasionally criticised for the language he uses,
some of which is now quite rightly perceived to be unacceptable for various
reasons. This argument is an important one, but needs to be considered at
another time, perhaps a discussion considering various aspects Ransome’s
language and literary style. Such comments relating to Ransome’s view of class
and gender often seem to stem from those who have actually not read the books
in any depth, and also rely on Ransome’s public image relating to the books
that in many ways he deliberately kept quite limited to ensure his privacy
during his lifetime.
There have also been attempts, though very obliquely, to question
Ransome’s motives in writing such books, with an underlying implication that
there is something ‘odd’ about a middle-aged man writing about children. But
this misinterpretation comes across in a rather heavy-handed way, much as in
the same way it has been attempted to portray him as a traitor while working in
Russia as a journalist during the revolution of the early twentieth century
(double agent he may have been but ‘traitor’ is still a very problematic
conclusion.) More relevant to this discussion here is that Roland Chambers in
his book on Ransome as a spy claims that Ransome was a '...ferocious opponent
of ... the modern obsession with ... sex...' (p. 335, The Last Englishman,
2010) though his source for this observation is not cited. Yet, in the same
book his description of Ransome's relationship with and subsequent marriage to
Evgenia is that it was 'passionate' (p. 8, ibid), though it is not entirely
clear in what sense Chambers uses the word.
One of Ransome’s earliest
successful published works (ignoring his ghost writing of books on sport,
physical education and nature) was about his time living in Bohemian London as
a young man in the nineteen-hundreds (Bohemia in London, 1907.) Through
this we know that he would have come in to contact with and been part of a
sub-culture which embraced the concept of ‘free love’ and where the expression
of sexuality was nothing to be secretive about, similarly the role of women,
the second wave of feminism, was for them to be the equal of men and live their
lives accordingly. It can be concluded that he may have incorporated as much as
possible of these matters as he could in his writing though not specifically
for, or aimed at, children. Of all his characters there is one that reflects
these matters more than for any of the others, and it is also the one that we
have no confirmed or reliable record of a real person that it can be concluded
that they are based upon, and that is Nancy.
Ransome's inspiration for nearly all of his major characters were
drawn from people he knew in his life, and the sources for most of these can be
worked out from his autobiography, there are discussions of the possibilities
in the official Hugh Brogan biography and from the various memoirs of those
that met him and knew him. Despite this, Taqui Altounyan made the point ‘It is
no more possible to sort out which of the characters were based on real people,
than it is to pin down the various places in the books to actual points on the
atlas.’ (‘Sevens – I think that is what this talk is about’ given to
South West Region of TARS in 1994.)
Many of those that have studied
the books in depth reach the conclusion that the characters Dick and Dorothea
are based upon aspects of Ransome himself rather than any individuals that he
knew, whereas the Swallows we know are all based upon the Altouyan children.
But Nancy and Peggy have no such obvious origins.
There have been some claimants over the years as to being the
inspiration for Nancy (and Peggy) by people, some seemingly based on the simple
facts that they were young teenage girls who could sail and wore red knitted
caps in the Lake District. Some in addition claim to have had some minimal
interaction with Ransome. But, as yet, no serious, verifiable contenders have
emerged. Like the lake and all the other geographical elements in the books set
in the Lakes, Nancy seems to be an amalgam of the characteristics of a number
of real women worked in to one person through Ransome’s imagination.
In terms of twentieth
century children’s fiction Nancy is one of the most interesting characters
created. For many such children’s ‘adventure’ books the tradition arose of any
‘strong’ female characters usually being presented with the characteristics of
what has become known as ‘tom-boys’. This is on the basis that to be capable,
decisive and a leader are male traits and so had to be represented as such even
though they are attributed to girls. The one thing that makes Nancy stand out in the books, and in some
ways apart from all the other girls, is that she is a very strong female
character. Such female characters in other works are often dismissed as mere
'tomboys' and are in stark contrast to how Ransome portrays Nancy including her
being physically strong. As Peter Hunt says of Nancy ‘…it is never suggested
that she is emulating boys per se…’ (p. 71, ibid, author’s
emphasis.) In more traditional
children's fiction it seems females, if domesticated and caring in the manner,
for example, of Susan, were and perhaps still are more acceptable to parents
and educators as they do not threaten the status quo as it is perceived to be
by the majority.
There are some obvious examples
in this style of writing whereby ‘strong’ girls are given a ‘male’ identity to
fit in with their abilities, such as George in Enid Blyton’s Famous Five
series and Peter in Malcolm Saville’s Lone Pine series. This aspect of
these two female characters is reinforced by both of them having names that are
‘shortened’ to a male form, from Georgina and Petronella respectively. Ransome
turns this convention around by giving his character Ruth a nickname of the
‘strong’ female name Nancy. So a traditional biblical derived name is replaced,
she is given a relatively modern name with no biblical connections much more
suited to her role in the novels.
Interestingly, two of the other main female characters, Titty and
Dorothea, also show strengths that are not often seen in children's literature
of the period whereas one female, Peggy, is almost stereotypical in her
behaviour - her fear of thunderstorms and speaking openly when it would be
better to stay silent being the main ones. Then with the character of Susan we
are given a female who excels at everything domestic, an ideal sought by many
men, even to the extent of her mother relying upon her in the care of her other
children.
Not only is Nancy physically and emotionally strong, she almost
dominates the plot of every book, even when she is quarantined in her sick bed
in Winter Holiday. She also plays a background part in the books she
does not directly appear, particularly in the Broads books when being referred
to by those that know her to those that don't!
Those that speculate on a female character from the books being a
lesbian in adult life use these aspects of how Nancy is portrayed to support
their view. The main suggestion we have of Nancy's possible sexuality actually
appears in the ninth of the twelve books, Secret Water, and it really is
no more than a veiled hint, you have to make a close reading of Nancy and her
behaviour in this and the other books with this reference in mind to begin to
get a sense of her in this matter. It also
has to be remembered that by the time of Secret Water Nancy would be
fourteen to fifteen years old, and thus she was fast approaching adulthood, if
not reached, especially in female biological terms.
Of course, the origin of the Amazon’s name has to give us cause
for consideration in this discussion, whereas the Swallows take their name from
the boat they are allowed to use in the first novel there is no equivalent
described in the books for Nancy and Peggy. Amazons - the female warriors from
Greek mythology who shunned men in their society and only had annual or
biannual sexual relations to continue the race, where male children were
slaughtered to achieve this end. Was this tribal name chosen for Nancy and
Peggy by Ransome deliberately, or did he just continue the connection with the
idea of using the name of the great South American river? Interestingly, Taqui
Altounyan mentions that in 1924 ‘We also had a native Armenian nurse called
Perouse, an Amazon of a woman.’ (ibid, emphasis mine.)
There is another important aspect to consider in this discussion;
the character of Nancy comes across to us in some passages of the books that
she is a feminist. Not that the term is ever used, but it is clear that Nancy
is just as capable as any of the males in whatever task is before them. Some
devoted readers of the books may dismiss this labelling because the notion of
'feminism' is often perceived to be a product of the nineteen-sixties. Yet it
has to be remembered that Mary Wollstonecraft published The Vindication of
the Rights of Women at the end of the eighteenth century (1792) and the
term 'feminism' is first recorded in print in the 1890s. It is in the more
modern view of feminism (that of the 1930s and 1940s and later) that Nancy
inhabits, rather than that of the 1960s or the view that Ransome probably
observed during his young days in London. Nancy was not a woman fighting for
the right to vote or to be able to play her part in the political life of the
nation, she already regarded herself as a captain and so in charge of others, she
wanted to show she was as capable as many men and more so than a great number!
All through the books she has encounters with adults whereby with her plain
speaking she either gets her way or puts them in their place, not letting them
think they can deal with her easily as she is 'just a girl' and is rightly
offended on the occasions when this happens.
It has to be acknowledged that some have observed Nancy sometimes
comes across in the books as almost being devoid of emotions or any deep
feelings. The major rebuttal to this idea is when she expresses her feelings
most poignantly in Swallowdale over her dealings with the GA in relation
to her mother, and her memories of what she has been told of her late father
when they are all at the summit of Kanchenjunga.
So how does all this peripheral information draw some of us to the
conclusion that when Nancy matures that she will be a lesbian?
To consider this argument and discuss it firstly there has to be
acceptance that human beings gender and sexuality are in the main genetically
part of us, and our upbringing and life experiences can both encourage or
suppress them. Many of those, for example, who have been incorrectly gender
assigned at birth or always ‘felt’ they were of the opposite gender (such as the
travel writer Jan Morris, once James Morris) knew from an early age (in Morris’
case when he was three years old) what they should be. Similarly in matters of
sexuality, many know before they are of a maturity to be sexually active where
their proclivities lay. At the time of writing (Autumn 2016) in the UK and the
USA there are moves to accommodate those with such doubts of their gender at a
much earlier age, this is a far more complex argument beyond the scope of this
discussion. My aim is to speculate on the possible sexuality of an older
teenager and not an attempt to make them something they are not, but to
consider what they may be within the confines of the information given to us in
the texts, and how it effects our interpretation of the novels.
As noted, an easy response to such a difference in a young woman
by some writers is to use the device, now something of a cliché, of a 'tomboy'.
In more recent times the same notion is often achieved by describing such a
character as a loner, an orphan, having divorced parents or some other
negatively perceived social stigma.
In The Arthur Ransome Society magazine Mixed Moss (issue
No.2 of Volume 3 1997) Sarah and Peter Hunt, acknowledged experts in the works
of Ransome, contributed an article ‘Arthur Ransome and the Question of Gender’
discussing how the roles of the male and female characters fit the traditional
stereotypes that usually occur in children's literature. Though they describe
the main characters all tending to follow expected stereotypes, they conclude
'... the one element of AR's success has been precisely that he balances the
genders, the two sides human nature so finely, and in a manner very advanced
for his time.' (p. 38.)
Obviously this is all circumstantial, yet is it not the sign of a
great writer that they can produce characters and plots that lead you to think
of them beyond the confines of the pages of the book? A voracious reader may
consume many novels, but how many works give them cause to think beyond their
pages? To want to re-read them is something of a triumph for an author (for me
those I do re-read are members of a select group given how many books I have
read in my lifetime.)
From my own interest it seems many readers have perceptions of
‘what happens outside the books and what happened next' for Ransome's
characters. Most common is that John and Roger will join the navy, next John
marrying Nancy seems to be regularly proposed as such outcomes are certainly
hinted obliquely at in the books. In an article in a another edition of Mixed
Moss (issue No. 1 of Volume 2 1994) Dave Sewart contributed a piece
entitled ‘Sex on the Quarter Deck’, this examines the relationship between John
and Nancy as the series of books progresses, and the possibility that they will
be together in adulthood - ‘Time and again we catch them looking at each other,
looking into the other’s thoughts…’ (p.35). Other speculations about the
characters abound on fan fiction Websites and Internet forums discussing the
works. It has to be said that Ransome is not alone in being so discussed but it
does seem he is one of only a few from that period of children's literature,
but this is more a reflection of both the quality of his writing and his
observations of children's lives. His equals, in the sense of identification
with by readers, in modern times seems to be the Harry Potter and Twilight
series of books.
When still alive Ransome was able to either indulge in, mislead or
ignore questions regarding his novels from his readers and others, now there
are none to speak for him, his literary executors quite rightly guard his works
in the matters of copyright infringement and misuse so leaving us readers to
speculate on other matters.
Nancy seems to provoke such speculation partly because of her lack
of a 'real' person to connect her with or identify her by. Her character beyond
what Ransome gives us is something of a blank canvas; it is significant that
the conclusion on the nature of her sexuality is a common one. Sewart concludes
his piece with the following thought ‘Did AR omit such relationships, or are
they so subtly entwined in the plot that we do not always spot them?’ (p. 37,
ibid) which to me sums up neatly the position we find ourselves in regarding
Nancy.
There is a feminist argument that this conclusion about her
sexuality has come about because many men, and some women, see a strong (in all
senses) woman as a threat, and by labelling her a lesbian diminishes her
strength, or justifies the perceived threat. In the novels Nancy shows little
interest in domestic matters, otherwise expected from all the females, she
'works' certainly but it is regarded as 'real' work (the equivalent of paid
labour), not housework (unpaid labour.) This is clearly seen in Pigeon Post
where physical labour is involved, Nancy does much of the mining and crushing
with the pestle and mortar while Susan cooks meals for them all and cares for
the younger ones, even though the two of them are of a similar age. Again, such
rejection of unpaid domestic labour by a woman often leads to such conclusions
and labelling. (A similar process is often, unfortunately, applied to men who
are interested in fashion or interior design.)
The crucial marker to help us speculate on the nature of Nancy's
sexuality from the books is her meeting with Daisy (of the Eels) in Secret
Water. In the book the Swallows meet Don of the Eels first, and then until
the arrival of the Amazons none of them have yet to meet Daisy (other than
Bridget) and they do so when 'rescuing' Bridget from her captors (the Eels.) It
is clear from the first exchange between Nancy and Daisy they recognise
something in each other, a shared characteristic. Though Ransome's writing
makes this clear he does not state at all what it is they recognise (there is a
scene where the two go off together), and it would seem probable he had no idea
himself, they were just like-minded, but as Sewart says ‘When two sixteen year
olds wish to be alone together we do not need a blow by blow account to tell us
that they are not playing games.’ (p. 37, ibid). In his longer
discussion of Secret Water Sewart states 'Nancy arrived and (inevitably)
discovered another purpose - plus Daisy, a kindred spirit the like of which
she had never had before.' (p. 36, ibid, emphasis mine.)
Recent research by geneticists has indicated that friendships,
though seemingly random, can be choices made on genetic similarities. In
analysis of people and their close friend's DNA it shows they tend to be as
closely related as if fourth cousins (Nicholas A. Christakis
and James H. Fowler,
Yale University, 2014.) So
such choices of friends and future partners seems to have an element of
recognition of the self in others.
Further on in Secret Water Nancy and Daisy have 'secret'
discussions (a further interpretation of the book's title), though we know this
meeting is with regard to planning the 'human sacrifice' celebration between
the Swallows, Amazons and Eels later in the plot, that it is made clear that
these two have such an immediate rapport is significant. When Ransome splits
the narrative in his books in this way, as he often does, we are usually given
alternate chapters to follow both sides, but of the talks between Nancy and
Daisy we are told nothing. But we are told ‘…’There was a lot to talk about.’
Both of them were smiling. It seemed to John almost as if they had been glad of
the delay.’ (p. 249, Secret Water, Puffin 1969.)
Prior to Nancy and Daisy going off without any of the others all
of them are invited to Daisy's parent's yacht for afternoon tea, Daisy prepares
them all for this, but this is clearly aimed at Nancy in particular. Nancy
understands immediately and surprises the others during the visit by her
behaviour in particular chatting to Daisy’s parents about gardening. (p. 235,
ibid.) The reason for this care during the visit is recounted in the book as so
that none of them should give any clue to Daisy’s parents of her 'other' self
(in the plot this is referred to her as being one of the Eels, but of course
can be interpreted to include other matters such as her sexuality.) That John
and Susan, and the others, go along with this deception is not in itself
surprising, but it seems Nancy understands immediately the importance of this
separation of life in to what is shown and what is not shown to parents and she
comments that Daisy even ‘looks’ different (p. 234, ibid.) This deception of
Daisy’s parents is not because what they do is in any way ‘wrong’ but it is
something they want to keep outside the parent's sphere of influence. It is
also behaviour they have no wish to share with them, but in return they are
happy to behave in a way that will please the adults (Don has previously talked
of doing the same with his own mother (p. 100, ibid)), though Ransome hints
during the episode with Daisy’s parents that they are not entirely convinced by
their daughter’s efforts!
Though writing in the late 1930s and in to the 1940s about the
1930s Ransome may not have directly dealt with the sexuality of his characters,
but he does not shy away from contentious issues. In Coot Club the
Hullabaloos are a social group that behaves in ways that many at the time, and
now, would find unacceptable. To contrast with this there is the behaviour of
some of the locals - George Owdon in Coot Club and The Big Six
being a petty criminal and a general nuisance to everyone, the fathers of the
Death and Glories, working class boat-builders, in The Big Six end up
fighting on the staithe! These are not descriptions of a perfect middle-class
world of perfect older children (the term teenager was not coined until the
1950s) as Ransome is often accused of doing (Chambers in his introduction
rather over emphasises the point and only manages to weaken his argument, (p.
5-6, ibid)) but it is a world where wrongs can be and are nearly always
righted.
The idea of a woman desiring her own sex is not new or unusual
even at the time Ransome was writing, those who do not approve cannot deny its
existence. In literature at the time Radclyffe Hall and Virginia Woolf were the
most well known examples, they too gave their characters masculine names;
Stephen and Orlando respectively (and of course some male writers ventured in
to such areas, D H Lawrence being one of the most obvious.)
In objective terms to speculate
on the possible adult lives of fictional children is in some ways an almost
pointless activity, and even in some senses dangerous, but the difference with
the characters created by Arthur Ransome is that we are given such an insight
in to their inner lives that such speculation is inevitable. Additionally, there
is so much we are not directly told about them but enough to encourage us to
find out more. From my first ever reading I can well remember that they all
felt ‘real’, these were children who, if my life was different in some way, I
could have met, got to know and so shared in their adventures. Yet for the
Swallows, Amazons, Ds and the others they were not just ‘adventures’, these
were just the things that happened in their lives. Yes, parents and school lurk
in the background almost as something that actually interferes, but as Nancy
memorably says to Dick and Dorothea on their first meeting in Winter Holiday
“…but what are you? In real life,
I mean.” (p. 39, Winter Holiday, Puffin, 1968.)
Sunday, 29 January 2017
Review of the 2016 film 'Swallows and Amazons'
So at last the deed has been done.
Chance circumstances meant that I had an evening alone at
home so I watched the new film adaptation of ‘Swallows and Amazons’ on DVD, I
was able to prepare myself for this and so I was not disappointed. Everything I
had gleaned from watching that first minute or so previously was confirmed, the
team behind this production had acquired the rights to the book with the
intention of making the film they really had in mind.
The starting point for the production team seems to have
been to make a film that would appeal to children, in their view to do that it
had to include spies, secret documents, guns and almost impossible chase scenes
to top and tail the production (the one in the opening sequence ripping off
nearly every film version of the ‘Thirty-Nine Steps’ in the process.) All of
these additions to appeal to their notion of ‘modern’ children were in the lazy
style of Enid Blyton’s writing – if the plot is flagging just introduce a
totally improbable incident to grab everyone’s attention and hope they keep
watching. This was made worse by taking elements of Ransome’s novel, changing
them slightly, then slotting them in to the production, often out of narrative
sequence, done so as a merely wasted attempt to try and keep the Ransome
purists happy (the meeting by the Swallows with the charcoal burners being the
worst example, the loss of the Amazon’s pocket knife being one of the most
distorted.)
It was interesting that in the DVD ‘extras’ the writer and
director make comments in interviews claiming, in as many words, that they
wanted to be faithful to Ransome’s original. From the very first scene where an
on-screen caption tells us the year is 1935 we can see that this intention of
faithfulness soon got pushed aside by both of them.
Once the pre-credit sequence is over the actual credits use
a cartoon style map of the lake, which topographically is completely wrong in
comparison to Steven Spurrier’s in the book. It also contradicts the
descriptions Ransome gives of where places are in relation to each other, on
which Spurrier based his maps.
The film looks good, mostly, in terms of the cinematography
of the English countryside but then fails when the Swallows reach the island.
Though we know Wild Cat Island is a product of Ransome’s imagination it has its
origins in Peel Island, and as the children walk around trying to find a
suitable campsite it is just too big (in the original novel John swims around
the island, I think even if he is a strong swimmer he would be hard pushed to
do so with this island. Once the Amazons arrive on the island any illusion is
destroyed. The ‘secret harbour’ is revealed and it is just a woeful inaccurate
reconstruction and we are left wondering why they just didn’t film at the real
place as was done for the 1974 film. The secret harbour does actually exist,
possibly the production team had not been told. Many of the scenes involving
buildings, exterior and interior, suffer from over set dressing based on an
idealised form of what 1930s streets and interiors looked like.
The interpretation of the characters created by Ransome are
let down in the film by the casting, characterisation and some poor acting. One
of Ransome’s strengths as a writer, and to an extent illustrator, was his
ability to give the reader a rounded view of even minor characters with very
few words and through his simple black and white line drawings. The makers of
the film seem to have been determined to change the nature of all of them
completely, so for those of us familiar with the book we are constantly having
our mental image of each one challenged and not in a good way. Mrs Walker’s
detailed Australian roots are abandoned in favour of her being a woman brought
up in the Scottish Highlands. Mrs Blackett, one of the few characters we are
actually told little of in the entire series of novels other than as a widow
with her ability to run her household and deal with her servants, is portrayed
as a disorganised Pre-Raphaelite Bohemian individual living in a house that
seems to be the reverse of Doctor Who’s Tardis (we are shown an exterior shot
of Beckfoot, a large house facing the lake, which then cuts to an interior shot
of a cramped dining room you would expect to see in a terraced house of the
day.)
Four of the six children have no resemblance to the
individuals we know through Ransome’s book; both John and Susan are too old for
how Ransome described them (and the ages he gave them when planning the novel.)
John comes across as pompous, overbearing and on occasions totally indifferent
to his siblings and sometimes he is rude and hurtful towards them. Susan, the
prototype ‘domestic goddess’ beloved of many devotees of the books, is shown to
be a domestic ignoramus. Her only other attribute seems to be that she spends
much of her time on screen moaning to John about how he treats her, behaving as
if she is a put upon wife in a crumbling marriage. Nancy, who looks much
younger than John though we know her to be older, and Peggy both come across as
an almost last minute add-on to the plot, with the actors performing as if they
have been brought in at short notice and have no idea what the film is about or
what they are supposed to be doing. They also spend much time bickering with
each other as if one of them has posted something the other didn’t like on
Facebook. Titty and Roger are a different matter.
Before the film was made production details released to the
media created some controversy in the renaming of ‘Titty’ as ‘Tatty’, something
I commented on my first post here, yet strangely the portrayal of the character
is almost a homage to the way Sophie Neville played Titty in the 1974 film
except, unfortunately, there are scenes where she screams and screams like a
spoilt brat (or more accurately like the infamous Violet Elizabeth Bott in the
Richmal Crompton ‘William’ books.) Roger, considered by many to be the weakest
casting of the children in the 1974 film, is a slight improvement in this
version but in places, again like Titty, some of his scenes are almost a homage
to that earlier version.
When we come to Jim Turner, Captain Flint, Nancy and Peggy’s
uncle. Of all the characters in Ransome’s novels he is one of the few that we
are giving detailed illustrations and descriptions of – memorably that he is
balding and ‘fat’! In the 1974 film Ronald Fraser had his weaknesses in his
portrayal, but he did actually look more like the character Ransome intended.
Similarly, it was the intention of the film makers to make use of the
relatively recent revelation that Ransome was a spy in Russia, but of course by
1935 he had left all this behind him and was making a living through journalism
with the intention one day to write a novel that would appeal to children,
though not specifically for them.
The script on occasions uses lines verbatim from the
original novel, as comforting as this might be for those of us that know the
book they are often put in to the mouths of other people for no obvious reason.
When the Swallows find the Beckfoot boathouse with intention of capturing the
Amazon’s boat only to find it not there, in the book John comments that this is
‘It’s an old pirate trick…’, in the film this is now spoken by Roger who only
moments before been frightened, out of all proportion, by the two dummies left
in another boat by the Amazons (an invented addition to the scene.)
There were parts of the film where, if I pushed aside in my
mind all my knowledge of the original book, it was quite enjoyable but even
then some aspect of the modern day, particularly language or character’s
behaviour, would spring up and remind me I was watching a travesty of an
adaptation of one of the great works of children’s fiction.
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