Penelope wrote:We have a lot of obscure Edwardian books where I work, Carley, I'll look out for that one and let you know.

I've just reread giselle's post and realised I read it wrongly. It must have been the wine at dinner last night. The point he was making was the rip roaring adventures as in Boy's Own Paper stuff.

I read Enid Blyton too, and I think you are right, I was referring to what you might call 'rip roaring' adventure with clear and present danger ... I guess EB touches on this sort of adventure, in a gentle, rather British sort of way! But then they are kids books. I do think that the identity of the main, male characters including Huck and Tom, are interwoven with this sense of adventure, despite risk, actually where risk, even mortal risk, is an essential ingredient in both the story and the character and perhaps it could be argued are the measure of a man.

Yes, but women were given different adventures. None of us went out swashbuckling.

Some of my favourites along these lines of boy's nature adventure were My Side of the Mountain and Hugh Walters solar system travel adventure Chris Godfrey stories sadly now very rare. Also the Willard Price Adventure series.

WildCityWoman wrote:Yes, but women were given different adventures. None of us went out swashbuckling.

Perhaps, but I'm reminded of Star Trek, at least the original version, with some notable female characters and I think you could call this 'swashbuckling adventure' ..

These chapters describe the way in which Huck Finn and Jim come to embark on an adventure, as we have been discussing, but really this is an adventure that is thrust upon them due to their desperate situations, they are both running for their lives. Jim is a fugitive slave and Huck, while not a fugitive from the law, has faked his own death and is running from a violent and abusive father. This is not an adventure just for fun and excitement, although I think Huck takes it this way. Also, I felt Jim's comments about a man's worth, in his case $800, were quite revealing. It must have been very strange and disempowering to feel that a specific market value has been placed on you. I think this would go to the core of one's identity as a human being. But I liked the way he turned this around to wishing that he had that money and then he would need nothing more. Oddly, he does have this money, not in cash, but in the sense that he is his own man (as long as he is free) and so has the equivalent in 'value' at least as measured by the market.

giselle wrote:

WildCityWoman wrote:Yes, but women were given different adventures. None of us went out swashbuckling.

Perhaps, but I'm reminded of Star Trek, at least the original version, with some notable female characters and I think you could call this 'swashbuckling adventure' ..

Depends on what age you are, I'd say . . . I was a child - grade school age - in the 40's and 50's . . . there wasn't any Star Trek then.

So, you see, when I say that there wasn't much around for us girls in the way of adventure stories, that's the timeline I'm referring to.

For those of you who were in grade school age during the 70's and on, you wouldn't have felt this lack.

Penelope wrote:Well, I grew up with Arthur Ransome's - Swallows and Amazons, the girls played quite a major part, and in Enid Blyton's 'Famous Five' books, and also the 'Secret Seven'. Admittedly they are very British...

...But what about Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. What about Anne of Green Gables. What about Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. All heroines, just not so swashbuckling. - (How do you swash your buckle?)

What about 'What Katy Did' 'Little Women'....and Heidi???

Oh, I didn't find what girls did in Little Women as adventurous as what the boys are doing in HF. And Anne of Green Gables - but they sure were good books. I enjoy them to this day.

Well, yeah - maybe there was more adventure for girls in some books - don't remember reading any though.

By the time I was 11 or so, our adventure reading was in the comic books. Didn't get interested in actual books again until the late teens.

I think I was corrupted a bit by William Golding's 'Lord of the Flies' which I first heard as a Radio Play, when I was a little girl.

Then I read, A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes:-

To say A High Wind in Jamaica is a novel about children who are abducted by pirates is to make it seem like a children's book. But that's completely wrong; its theme is actually how heartless children are.

The story begins almost whimsically in Jamaica, with five English children surviving a hurricane. Later on, as the ship is returning to Europe, we enter Treasure Island territory when the vessel is boarded by pirates.

Here's where it gets good, because the pirates and the children begin to switch places. At first the pirates are the brutal ones, drinking heavily and throwing people overboard as pirates will. But the children have such a deformed sense of right and wrong that it's soon the pirates who are frightened of them.

Eventually our heroine, little Emily, murders a man in cold blood — to the pirates' dismay. And when the children are at last rescued to England, our Emily performs one final bit of cruelty as simply as throwing a tea party for her dolls.

I then lost my taste for adventure novels....I became a real girly girl....

The portion with Huck's father and Huck faking his own death became tiresome. However, I enjoyed the story once the primary "Huck and Jim on a raft" narrative began. Sometimes I can't follow the details of raft & canoe manipulation, but otherwise it's a good story.

I was surprised how superstitious Huck and Jim were. That's probably a reflection of the time and place where the story took place.

DWill wrote:Women can tell me if I'm wrong here, but one aspect of this book appeals most deeply to men, or maybe the boys within the men. That's the element of chucking it all to embark on a grand adventure, living off the land or off the water, having no responsibilities and bonding with another male.

I don't see it that way, in part because Jim and Huck face more serious responsibilities that I've ever dealt with. As someone who's never faced any physical danger, haven't raised a family, and never worried about my physical needs, my life has much easier. I'd be totally inept and stressed out in the situations Huck and Jim find themselves in.

Julian wrote:

As someone who's never faced any physical danger, haven't raised a family, and never worried about my physical needs, my life has much easier. I'd be totally inept and stressed out in the situations Huck and Jim find themselves in.

Well, that's what Baden Powell's Boy Scout movement was for I suppose.