From Mae Thinks Everything goes so slowly when you’re camping. A few years ago there was a thing called the ‘slow food movement’ – it seems to have quietened down a bit now. While it was (like most food ‘movements’) pretty problematic in terms of guilt trips and unchecked privileged and exoticising other cultures, I…
“…the mate and the able-seaman did some washing up… The captain and the boy took the telescope and found a high place… ‘Supposing Susan and Titty were here alone, while you and I had gone fishing… we should know something was the matter, and come back to help.’” I’m watching you, Ransome…
From Mae Thinks One effect of the multiple layers of reality, the children’s investment in their fictional world, is that it makes these descriptions of eggs and oars and hand-sewn tents seem so realistic by comparison. When I first visited the lake district, at about the age of nine, I saw no reason at all…
If you have ever wondered why you like Arthur Ransome’s books so much, the answer might just be that he is a better writer than even you realised.
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The children in these books believe in their status as explorers in the same way that we believed in Santa Claus. On one level, they know that they are children telling each other stories; but at the same time, they make the stories as coherent and comprehensive as possible, so that they can live fully within them.
So – as far as I can remember, this is about the most dismissive thing that is said about Roger in the whole series. All the children have their own distinct roles, but none are defined by them.
So here we sit, on the shores of an adventure…
And that opening image, of Roger tacking diligently up the field towards his mother, resisting the urge to run straight towards her and the message she holds because it would break the reality he has constructed. These children are doing Real Life, in a big way,..
Arthur Ransome’s tales of boats and adventure – many of which were set in Suffolk – changed the course of children’s literature. But, says Julian Lovelock, who has written a book about Arthur Ransome’s Swallows and Amazons series, the author was a complex character whose novels were inextricably bound up with the times he lived through and the sadnesses of his own life.
As part of their #LoveToRead campaign the BBC visited the Lake District to explore the landscape that has provided inspiration for some of the best-loved children’s authors of all time. Gabrielle Rowley caught up with TV presenter Simon O’Brien to find out more about the Books That Made Britain documentary.