Riddle of the Sands?

[Grehan]

Based on comments in the previous topic
http://www.ybw.com/cgi-bin/forums/showflat.pl?Cat=&Board=ym&Number=269512&page=&view=&sb=&o=&vc=1
I got Riddle of the Sands as an Xmas prezzie. Just finished it.

Thanks for the recommendation Vyv and OldHarry and I'm glad I read it.
The small yacht sailing stuff is excellent, as are the landscape descriptions. Made me want to go sailing, and visit Friesland - has it changed much?

But (and sorry chaps) . . .
Perhaps I should be content with those qualities alone, since they are so good, but the rest of the book - the 'story' - is thin and unconvincing, as are the characters. Reading the book 100 years down the line, the justifications for territorial and colonial aggrandisement through warfare and the highly patronising and dissmissive treatment of the 'female interest' both strike highly uncomfortable notes. Of course, those were indeed the superior white European ruling class attitudes of the time, but thank goodness we've left (or tried to leave) them behind since 1903. Actually, I started to recognise the exact same attitudes (justifiable struggle against the 'foreigner' and belief that 'our might is right') in some contemporary religious groups . . .

A period piece, but for me, not as truly captivating as The Moonstone or Sherlock Holmes.

 

[Gunfleet]

Perhaps one of our Irish posters would like to fill in the amazing story of Childers life. He was shot for 'treason'. A rather more modern (and charming and bonkers) view of sailing round the West Frisians is 'Terschelling Sands' by Frank Mulville.

 

[chas]

Have a look at the film - I think that is better than the book.

 

[brianhumber]

Just accept that it was written circ 100 years ago to the standards of that era not ours.

Make the effort to go and explore, I am going go back one day as I never got as far as the German F Islands, but did have a great time in the Dutch ones. Watch the weather, boy did the seas get up quickly in a wind, unsettling at first to be tacking up a shallow narrow channel with boiling white water close by on both sides.

Brian

 

[Mirelle]

Second that recommendation. "Transcur" has recently been rebuilt, keel to truck, by a highly expert couple well known in ECOGA circles. The rather grand but very nice family in Terschelling who own the salvage company and are helpful (not named in Frank's book) are the Doeksens who are indeed the nicest people in the entire shipping industry - they were friends of the Pyes of Moonraker fame, incidentally - who would have helped the arrangements with the Welgelegen shipyard in Harlingen.

For myself, whilst accepting that Childers was a remarkable man and an admirable one but not a novelist, so that the plot and characters are weak and the 'love interest' is doubtless only there because his publishers required it, this is the first spy novel in the modern sense of the word, and I find the scenes of Carruthers' arrival aboard the Dulcibella quite priceless and very well observed.

 

[claymore]

Hmm
I think it is easy to get into deep water when trying to criticise books which reflect life then with the way it is now.
Appraisal of Arthur Ransome books demonstrates this quite adequately - I was brought up on a health diet of Swallows and Amazons, Winter Holiday, Coot Club etc - as, in turn was my daughter - at least when it was my turn for the bedtime stories - I suspect modern parents would think it a load of old tosh and politically incorrect which is a shame really as they are good bits of escapism and adventure.
Riddle of the Sands has all the "Boys Own" features so popular in the times when the book was written and no doubt in years to come the Harry Potter stories will in turn date. How does Grehan think Jane Austen has stood the test of time - or the Brontes?

regards
Claymore

 

[Mirelle]

I must be an out of date father; my 8 year old has got as far as The Big Six........

I did elide two sentences in "Secret Water" on small black buoys, but conveniently they are no longer black anyway.

 

[Jeremy_W]

I hope he enjoys "Great Northern". It will encourage him to discover some proper sailing waters after all this East Coast rubbish in "We Didn't Mean.." and "Secret Water"!

You're not just out of date, Mirelle, you're a double plus ungood old-thinker and proud of it!

 

[vyv_cox]

Glad you enjoyed it. I have just been sent a second copy by an uncle, so I have a spare to go to a good home. Any recommendations?

Last year we motored the channel along which Carruthers and Davies rowed in the fog but we had a F5 on the nose and reasonable visibility. It was still quite a challenge, we draw 1.4 metres and recorded 0.2 metres beneath us as a least depth with long periods of less than 1 metre. A very interesting area to cruise.

 

[qsiv]

I dont hink it's fair to judge the views of the characters by todays tedious standards of political correctness.

An intriguing sideline is that my great uncle sailed his yacht in and out of those (German) harbours just before the WW II, photographing all sorts of installations through the portholes. He then worked for the Admiralty in Naval Intelligence alongside a man called Ian Fleming. My uncles name - why it was Bond ....

A final twist is the fact that the English translation of the family motto is - The world is not enough.

Lifes full of little coincidences...

 

[ianwright]

>You're not just out of date, Mirelle, you're a double plus ungood old-thinker and proud of it!<

,,,,,,,, and he is not alone, there are more of us than you might think!

IanW



Vertue 203, Patience