#Arthur Ransome

[billlaotian]

[captainsvscaptains]

Round 1 Part 3 Poll 2

Propaganda

Nancy is the capable and adventurous captain of the dinghy Amazon, which she crews along with her sister and ship's mate Peggy under a pirate flag.

Queen. Kelly accidentally started a religion

[novelmonger]

Book Review: Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome

Recommended by @valiantarcher for the 2024 Book Rec Exchange

Premise: The Walker family (sans Father, who is out to sea) is on holiday at a lake, and the four children have been begging to be allowed to sail to a small island and camp there all on their own. Once they receive permission, the adventures begin! Not only do they get to enjoy sailing the open seas and living on a deserted island, but they also encounter pirates, natives, buried treasure, and shipwrecks, all before they have to go home at the end of the summer.

Thoughts: I had the weirdest sense of deja vu in the first few chapters of this book. I think I must have attempted reading this at some point when I was a kid, but then got bored and never finished. Because this definitely seems like the kind of story I would have done that with when I was the target age ^^' Too many nautical terms, not enough actual pirates or kidnappings or wish-granting turtles. And I hadn't yet established my First Hundred Pages rule, so I can absolutely see myself giving up before things really got interesting. (For me, that would be when the Amazons show up.)

But reading it now as an adult, I thought it was delightful ^_^ The kids all acted just like real children, reminding me of games I'd play with my siblings, though the Walker children were much more sophisticated and had more complex ideas of a good time than we did! (For one thing, I don't think any of us had any ambitions of sailing or camping on our own, ever. And we couldn't have managed it, especially not at their ages!) I loved how seriously the narrative took their imaginations, because that's just how it is when you're playing pretend. The story you're pretending can shift and flex, but you still don't want anything breaking the suspension of disbelief if at all possible. (Thus the way my brother and I would always have our LEGO armies have a lunch-time truce when we were called away in the middle of battle.)

I think my favorite character was the unfortunately named Titty. (I assumed, all the way through reading the book, that this was a nickname for Letitia that, like the name Dick, has taken on an unfortunate meaning in this day and age, but upon further research I discovered that it comes from a children's book called Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse, which was the favorite of the real girl Titty was based on, whose name was Mavis. I hunted up Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse, and...what. even. I know times have changed since 1930, but...really??? Why would any child in their right mind like that story at all? Let alone pick it as their favorite?! x.x) Titty was the one who reminded me most of myself, other than the way Susan mothered her siblings (what is it with Susans and being the mother of the group?). The turns her imagination took her, the desire to have her own private adventures, the way her heart swelled with the drama of things...yes, I could see myself in that. She also kind of reminded me of Katharine from Edward Eager's books, for similar reasons ^_^

All in all, I found this book highly enjoyable, and even inspiring! It makes me want to recapture some of that child-like complete abandonment to the world of make-believe. It even encouraged me on a day I was feeling very overwhelmed by very adulty problems, because reading the book made me want to find ways I could pretend something more interesting and meaningful was going on, to relieve the oppression of Reality. A very enjoyable book, and I'm happy to have read it.

[oidheadh-con-culainn]

arthur ransome is actually so funny though like i grew up reading swallows & amazons but the copies i had as a kid didn't have any biographical info about him really so he was just. that guy who wrote swallows & amazons

so you can imagine my surprise about ten years later:

"what do you mean arthur ransome witnessed the russian revolution. what do you mean he married trotsky's secretary"

[theyre-gay-because-i-say-so]

Today's LGBT+ Headcanon is;

Dorothea Callum from Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome-Bisexual

Requested by @absolutelynotclassicusernam-blog

Status: Alive

[gailyinthedark]

I just found out this is a thing and it's making me so happy

[bookcoversonly]

Title: The Picts & the Martyrs | Author: Arthur Ransome | Publisher: Vintage (2015)

[kvjohansen]

Another reposting from my newsletter: Arthur Ransome

This time, I’m going to introduce you to Arthur Ransome and the Swallows and Amazons, who should really need no introduction but sadly, these days they sometimes do. Swallows and Amazons was the first in a series of great -- and by great I mean not merely good, but classic, undying, influential, read over and over again -- children’s books, which came out in the thirties and through the war, beginning with Swallows and Amazons itself in 1932 and ending with Great Northern? in 1947. Pigeon Post (1936) won the Carnegie Medal. They’re about several families of children sailing, hiking, and exploring, while being explorers and pirates, scientists and prospectors, mostly in the Lake District but, with the D’s, Dick and Dorothea, who become friends with the Walkers and Blacketts (the Swallows and Amazons respectively, named after their boats), expanding their range to the Norfolk Broads. (There was also an unfinished book, Coots in the North, which is about the Death and Glories and the Amazons meeting; it was published in its unfinished form, edited by Hugh Brogan, in 1988.)

These are highly realistic books, if you allow for the children all being very responsible, sensible types, and their assorted grown-ups being the sort to take the famous telegram from Commander Walker to his wife, BETTER DROWNED THAN DUFFERS IF NOT DUFFERS WONT DROWN, as reasonable parenting within the plausibility of the books. These are not Enid Blyton; the Walkers, Blacketts, and Callums, with Tom Dudgeon and the three Death and Glories, the latter boatbuilders’ sons on the Broads, are out there not foiling spies and kidnappers, but being imaginative, active, thoughtful kids, doing real stuff. They cast Nancy and Peggy’s Uncle Jim, a world-wanderer grumpily trying to be left alone to get on with writing his memoirs, as an enemy pirate in order to harass him back to more proper favourite-uncle-like behaviour, they explore and map their own little new worlds, sail dinghies, build a sailing-sledge, find copper while prospecting for gold, protect nesting birds, and, in Dorothea’s case, work away at writing a novel in a manner that leaves you certain she’s going to be one of the notable mystery-thriller writers of the fifties. The children are a mix of girls and boys and, once the Death and Glories come into it, middle and working class. Nobody, ever, says, “You girls stay here where it’s safe.” Ever. If some smug Blyton-boy ever tried that with Nancy, or even Susan, who as first mate of the Swallow is responsible for seeing that cooking and washing up and proper bedtimes for the able-seamen under her happen (because she’s second-eldest among her siblings and therefore first mate and that’s the first mate’s job, looking after crew, not because she’s a girl) . . . well, they just couldn’t. They don’t exist in the same reality. The Swallows and Amazons are real as very few literary characters ever come to be. They could just walk out into the world and be. And they also say something about the reality of gender expectations in the thirties, rather than our presumptions about the past. (Think of how Una in the Edwardian Puck of Pook’s Hill and Rewards and Fairies is climbing trees and shooting at cows with a slingshot, pretending they’re marauding Picts, and that’s just normal, or in the original Nancy Drew of the thirties, Nancy sassing a policeman while competently fixing her broken-down car herself.) Susan, Titty, and Dorothea may do all their adventuring wearing skirts, but it doesn’t slow them down in the least, and Nancy and Peggy wear knickerbockers without it being remarkable, except when the dreaded Great-Aunt shows up and the Blacketts are briefly forced into frocks and hair-ribbons.

The Swallows and Amazons also taught me everything I know about sailing. One of my favourites is We Didn’t Mean To Go To Sea, about the Swallows alone accidentally crossing the North Sea to Holland in a yacht during a storm. That was a big influence on Moth’s voyage west in The Last Road, the fifth and final book of Gods of the Caravan Road.

As a footnote, if you plunge into these, and I hope you will, there are two books in the series that are not “true” within the world of the Swallows and Amazons. These are Peter Duck and Missee Lee, both of which are about voyages with Uncle Jim which end up, in Missee Lee, in an adventure with a Cambridge-educated Chinese woman pirate inspired in part by Soong Ch'ing-ling, whom Ransome had met. Both are stories the children and Uncle Jim make up together, but within that framework, they remain very realistic, though I’ve always felt they’re the weakest books in the series. I think that’s because the “this could really have happened” realism was such an important part of the appeal to me -- realistic stories that, unlike every North American kid-in-school book of the seventies I was ever forced to read, actively included rather than actively excluded the type of kid I was. If I ever met them, I knew that like the D’s, I’d watch them shyly and a bit enviously, and then be invited in. (Ransome, incidentally, is someone worth reading about for his own sake; he was in Russia during the Revolution, played chess with Lenin, and eloped with and later married Trotsky’s secretary, Evgenia Petrovna Shelepina. He was probably involved to some degree in espionage during his Russian adventures, as well.)

[hairtusk]

slowly but surely building up a collection of vintage editions of my childhood favourites, so that one day, i can give them to my future daughter :')

[ifreakingloveroyals]

19 July 2016 | Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall meets cast members of the TV show 'Doc Martin' Ian McNeice, Jessica Ransom and Caroline Catz at Nathan Outlaw's restaurant during a visit to Port Isaac in Port Isaac, England. (c) Arthur Edwards - WPA Pool/Getty Images

[randomowlscreeching]

the fact that Nancy is the only swallows and amazons character to have her own Wikipedia page is honestly so in character

[ravenpuffheadcanons]

Plotting a murder mystery fic is very challenging and very fun all at once. Also, I am getting to reread my incredibly battered childhood copy of The Big Six as “research”, which is a true delight.

[mr-and-mr-pendragon]

Great analysis! Italian chef's kiss level post

I have to add this, as part of Gwen's loyalty to Arthur and generally being lovey dovey with him (which was in the context of this all-or-nothing situation as beautifully laid out above) Gwen also had to care for Uther when Uther was sick! That's the guy who had executed Gwen's father! I find this the worst offence. And not once did Arthur consider how that must feel to Gwen!

This angle is not presented in the show, I think we're just meant to believe that Gwen simply loves Arthur enough (to look past her father's execution? are we meant to forget about it by that episode?), that she's genuinely such a helpful person as to care for Uther.

But all the time I felt that Gwen, as much as she was fond of Arthur, had been cornered into going along with his every whim. Be a secret girlfriend? Ok. Be courted? Ok. Care for sick Uther and pretend that you love doing that? Naturally. Be banished even though you were enchanted? Thank fuck she's at least alive, right? After all that, marry Arthur and pretend to have no residual bitterness about anything? That's what a girl's gotta do in a man's world.

It was interesting to me how in season 5 Gwen did show bitterness and her personality was much hardened compared to her s1 self. It must have been a tremendous pressure to be queen; I don't think people around her forgot her steep status rise from one moment to the other.

And the other side of this love triangle cannot be left unmentioned either. Lancelot just fucks off all the time! He loves her and he loves her a lot which she reciprocates, but he doesn't consider her feelings at all. He doesn't ask Gwen what she wants. He just lets Arthur have her, we're sort of led to believe that he does this out of courtesy, realising that Gwen wants Arthur, not him, so he steps aside but is that true? Based on Gwen's reaction in the morning it's not. It just feels like Gwen is treated as a commodity between these two men and since Lancelot doesn't want to shoulder the commitment he lets the higher ranking man have her. I really wanted to see Gwen's story more from her perspective. Something like the episode where she's captured by Morgana - finally it's addressed that these two women have a really complicated history with each other! I wanted more episodes that delve into how Gwen feels...

On Guinevere and her marriage

This was originally written in response to this post, but turned into a very long rant about why BBC’s Guinevere was as much a victim of contract marriage as the Guinevere of legend is, because BBC Merlin is very, very problematic.

Keep reading

[theyre-gay-because-i-say-so]

Today's LGBT+ Headcanon is;

Tom Dudgeon from Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome-Bisexual

Requested by @absolutelynotclassicusernam-blog

Status: Alive

[visenyaism]

feastdance dashboard simulator

💋queen-cersei-defense-squad Follow

it’s so sick that people keep criticizing queen cersei as if she’s not the first female ruler of westeros??? literally elevating bastards and women to her small council is super fucking progressive as is creating the precedent of dismissing unfit kingsguard??

🪨dragonstoner Follow

aren’t all of her children literally bastards born of incest

💋 queen-cersei-defense-squad Follow

oh so now you’re going to listen to stannis baratheon, known misogynist, kinslayer, fornicator, team green supporter, and homophobe, huh.

🦑pykedyke

okay guys i know there’s no “perfect candidate” but you have to vote in the kingsmoot anyways not voting is how someone like e****n g*****y wins and literally anyone is better than him. suck it up and row to the polls

🦈reaveherihardlyknowher

ohhhh not this “vote your crew no matter who” “blue lips man bad” bullshit again. fuck off idgaf which godless man sits the seastone chair i’m not voting for asha shes literally a neoliberal

🦷 lastoftheegiants

first i had to give up my rights and then i had to give up my gods just to not get killed by fucking wights but i literally cannot believe the nights watch made me give up my strap as part of the treasure ransom. shit was expensive it was IVORY. i hate southerners so much i hope the lord commander dies

🌪️kinslayerr

DO NOT COME TO THE RIVERLANDS

🍓silverspurs Follow

why

🌪️kinslayerr

there’s riverlands here

🧜‍♂️theythemderly

freys

🌾maidencool

my cousin got eaten by rats in harrenhal

🐎brackennation Follow

dumb cunts wearing raven feather cloaks strutting around who think they’re better than you but they’re not better than you

🌟sevenstar

i saw a guy get killed and then just stand back up and start fighting again because his friend kissed him on the mouth down here once

🦌whitehart

giant feral pack of 60 wolves running around

🍓silverspurs Follow

ok understandable have a nice day

🫧bastardwaters

i hate the fucking sparrows can we be normal for five minutes or can we just not have shit in the crownlands

☠️real-stormlands-patriot Follow

ITS LORD COMMANDOVER #RIPBOZO

🐦‍⬛mormonts-raven-bot Follow

CORN! DEATH! CORN!

(CAW! I follow members of the Night's Watch to remind them of their oaths!)

🦷 lastoftheegiants

????

🍋floriansjonquil

Loras Tyrell x Queen of Love and Beauty!Reader Imagines

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🪻maidens-smile Follow

girl this is notttttt the time he literally just fucking died at dragonstone?

💎oathkeeper

should’ve stanned jaime #LORASFELLOFF

💐flowerknight

one kill yourself jaime lannister is an honorless kingslaying turncloak two i heard loras tyrell was literally fine?

👊fleabottomtop

lord davos seaworth, the class traitor from the stannis baratheon administration, is a nasty little thottie and just died from making it clap in white harbor

🌅girlheir

this tower fucking sucks.

🌅girlheir

i’m just like rhaenyra targaryen for real

🌅girlheir

🐀ratcook5000 Follow

people meat tastes good asf when you don’t have a wench in your ear saying it violates guest right

🐺threeeyedwolf

🍒ladylance

need that targ girl in mereen to get those lizards over here and liberate this website by any means necessary cause what the fuck is going on

[gailyinthedark]

Sometimes you ask yourself why you want to do something and the only true and worthy answer is because Titty Walker would