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sophia_sol) wrote2017-10-12 08:39 pm
sophia_sol) wrote2017-10-12 08:39 pm
Peter Duck, by Arthur Ransome
Book #3 in the Swallows & Amazons series, but a significant departure in approach from the previous books: the story that this book tells is a story that the children in the series tell each other about a fictional adventure they have, as opposed to this book being about something that "really" happens in the universe of this series.
There are two books in the series like this, Peter Duck and Missee Lee. I read Missee Lee as a child (and am never going to read it again because even as a fairly-oblivious kid I had a suspicion that maybe there was something a bit uncomfortable about its portrayal of Chinese characters) but I never read Peter Duck.
Now I have, and....I don't love it. I think that partly it's that I don't love the juxtaposition of this more daring-and-dangerous kind of story amongst the kind of story that makes up the rest of the series - it feels out of place. People actually die in this book! (And our heroes feel zero concern or remorse for the dead! I couldn't help comparing the sinking of the Viper in this book to the sinking of the Waakzaamheid from Patrick O'Brian's book Desolation Island, where when an enemy ship sinks the main character is still horrified at the loss of life.)
But also the plot is pretty nonsense. Which like...yeah, fair, a bunch of children writing a book would perhaps not have the most tightly plotted story ever, but it still got in my way of being able to appreciate the book.
So the plot is that the kids and Uncle Jim/Captain Flint and an aging seaman named Peter Duck go off in the Wild Cat to a caribbean island to dig up treasure that Peter Duck saw being buried there decades earlier. But there's an evil pirate named Black Jake who wants that treasure! He knows where the island is but not where on the island the treasure's located. So he and his ship, the Viper, carefully follow the Wild Cat to the island.
Now, the Viper is established to be the faster ship. If Black Jake knows where the island is, and knows that the Wild Cat is definitely heading after the treasure, why doesn't he just sail off ahead and ambush the Wild Cat at the island and make them show him to the treasure?? The Wild Cat's crew only know to be wary of Black Jake because he's being Very Obviously A Threat. If he'd just sailed off, they wouldn't have had any reason to suspect Black Jake was after the treasure, so they would have made their slow and steady way there and he could have ambushed them no problem. Hrmph.
And to make it weirder, the characters keep on seeming to forget that there's anything to worry about with Black Jake. When the Wild Cat arrives at the island with what they know is a couple days' head start, they settle in for digging for treasure for as long as it takes to find it, planning to stay at the digging site for up to a week. The Viper is bound to arrive within that time frame! But do they worry about it? Of course not!
Also the book involves a volcanic eruption, a hurricane, an earthquake, and a waterspout, all within two days, and the first three all the same evening. So like. That's a bit ridiculous too.
And lest you wonder, this book is not free of racism either. It's just not nearly as egregious as Missee Lee.
The book isn't devoid of good qualities though - Ransome is just very good at writing charmingly, and also it's a story about SAILING so there's always that. So I enjoyed my read of it, but I don't think I'll bother keeping my copy around for future rereads.
There are two books in the series like this, Peter Duck and Missee Lee. I read Missee Lee as a child (and am never going to read it again because even as a fairly-oblivious kid I had a suspicion that maybe there was something a bit uncomfortable about its portrayal of Chinese characters) but I never read Peter Duck.
Now I have, and....I don't love it. I think that partly it's that I don't love the juxtaposition of this more daring-and-dangerous kind of story amongst the kind of story that makes up the rest of the series - it feels out of place. People actually die in this book! (And our heroes feel zero concern or remorse for the dead! I couldn't help comparing the sinking of the Viper in this book to the sinking of the Waakzaamheid from Patrick O'Brian's book Desolation Island, where when an enemy ship sinks the main character is still horrified at the loss of life.)
But also the plot is pretty nonsense. Which like...yeah, fair, a bunch of children writing a book would perhaps not have the most tightly plotted story ever, but it still got in my way of being able to appreciate the book.
So the plot is that the kids and Uncle Jim/Captain Flint and an aging seaman named Peter Duck go off in the Wild Cat to a caribbean island to dig up treasure that Peter Duck saw being buried there decades earlier. But there's an evil pirate named Black Jake who wants that treasure! He knows where the island is but not where on the island the treasure's located. So he and his ship, the Viper, carefully follow the Wild Cat to the island.
Now, the Viper is established to be the faster ship. If Black Jake knows where the island is, and knows that the Wild Cat is definitely heading after the treasure, why doesn't he just sail off ahead and ambush the Wild Cat at the island and make them show him to the treasure?? The Wild Cat's crew only know to be wary of Black Jake because he's being Very Obviously A Threat. If he'd just sailed off, they wouldn't have had any reason to suspect Black Jake was after the treasure, so they would have made their slow and steady way there and he could have ambushed them no problem. Hrmph.
And to make it weirder, the characters keep on seeming to forget that there's anything to worry about with Black Jake. When the Wild Cat arrives at the island with what they know is a couple days' head start, they settle in for digging for treasure for as long as it takes to find it, planning to stay at the digging site for up to a week. The Viper is bound to arrive within that time frame! But do they worry about it? Of course not!
Also the book involves a volcanic eruption, a hurricane, an earthquake, and a waterspout, all within two days, and the first three all the same evening. So like. That's a bit ridiculous too.
And lest you wonder, this book is not free of racism either. It's just not nearly as egregious as Missee Lee.
The book isn't devoid of good qualities though - Ransome is just very good at writing charmingly, and also it's a story about SAILING so there's always that. So I enjoyed my read of it, but I don't think I'll bother keeping my copy around for future rereads.