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feather_ghyllCoots in the North and other stories: Arthur Ransome (edited by Hugh Brogan) Jonathan Cope, 1988.
This is one for Ransome completists, but it’s also frustrating. It isn’t a collection of short stories, either. The most typical ‘stories’ here of the creator of the Swallows and Amazons are chapters or fragments from uncompleted books, one being the title story, featuring already familiar characters, the other about a brand new boy with a feeling for nature. Then there are short stories, some based on folk tales, the best told in a begrudging seadog’s voice.
It starts with an introduction from Hugh Brogan, editor and compiler of this selection, explaining the volume and setting the pieces in their autobiographical context. He did prepare me for two of the ‘stories’ being unfinished works.
‘The River Comes First’ is one of them, and comes with a lot of scaffolding prose. Ransome planned to write a fictionalised life story. What he did produce is vivid and immediate – and I say that as someone with no interest in fishing. Tom, the same protagonist, appears in ‘’The Cloudburst’, which is told from his POV. It’s equally strong.
‘The Shepherd’s Pipe’ is an interesting take on Russian peasantry and the Bolshevik revolution. ‘Ankou’ is about Breton superstitions about death, and I felt it was a damp squib.
Two Shorts and a Long’ is an enjoyable tale ‘told’ to the narrator by a misogynistic sailor, Hurst. He was getting along swimmingly with Mr Milne, sailing with him for most of the year until A Woman ruins everything, despite his best/worst attempts. I assumed she understood his unsubtle efforts as well as Milne did. The use of sailing metaphors brings a real tang to the telling. The same is true of ‘The Unofficial Side’, which is about an adventure that Hurst had sailing around Communist Russia because of his tendency to side against authority. The story itself didn’t grab me as much as the previous.
If nothing else, ‘Coots in the North’ reminded me to revisit ‘Coot Club’. We have four solid chapters about Jim, Bill and Pete, trying to protect the Death and Glory from holidaymakers on the Norfolk Broads who know nothing about sailing. Pete’s father has been working on a ship set for The Lake the Ds talked about. The reader is ahead of the boys, who eventually become ‘stowaways’ headed north thanks to Jim. We then learn about the problems Ransome had with the plot, but it ends with the Coot Club memorably meeting Captain Nancy, which is fitting, but not as satisfying as a whole story about their adventures would have been.
This is one for Ransome completists, but it’s also frustrating. It isn’t a collection of short stories, either. The most typical ‘stories’ here of the creator of the Swallows and Amazons are chapters or fragments from uncompleted books, one being the title story, featuring already familiar characters, the other about a brand new boy with a feeling for nature. Then there are short stories, some based on folk tales, the best told in a begrudging seadog’s voice.
It starts with an introduction from Hugh Brogan, editor and compiler of this selection, explaining the volume and setting the pieces in their autobiographical context. He did prepare me for two of the ‘stories’ being unfinished works.
‘The River Comes First’ is one of them, and comes with a lot of scaffolding prose. Ransome planned to write a fictionalised life story. What he did produce is vivid and immediate – and I say that as someone with no interest in fishing. Tom, the same protagonist, appears in ‘’The Cloudburst’, which is told from his POV. It’s equally strong.
‘The Shepherd’s Pipe’ is an interesting take on Russian peasantry and the Bolshevik revolution. ‘Ankou’ is about Breton superstitions about death, and I felt it was a damp squib.
Two Shorts and a Long’ is an enjoyable tale ‘told’ to the narrator by a misogynistic sailor, Hurst. He was getting along swimmingly with Mr Milne, sailing with him for most of the year until A Woman ruins everything, despite his best/worst attempts. I assumed she understood his unsubtle efforts as well as Milne did. The use of sailing metaphors brings a real tang to the telling. The same is true of ‘The Unofficial Side’, which is about an adventure that Hurst had sailing around Communist Russia because of his tendency to side against authority. The story itself didn’t grab me as much as the previous.
If nothing else, ‘Coots in the North’ reminded me to revisit ‘Coot Club’. We have four solid chapters about Jim, Bill and Pete, trying to protect the Death and Glory from holidaymakers on the Norfolk Broads who know nothing about sailing. Pete’s father has been working on a ship set for The Lake the Ds talked about. The reader is ahead of the boys, who eventually become ‘stowaways’ headed north thanks to Jim. We then learn about the problems Ransome had with the plot, but it ends with the Coot Club memorably meeting Captain Nancy, which is fitting, but not as satisfying as a whole story about their adventures would have been.
