Great Northern? by Arthur Ransome

Great Northern?, by Arthur Ransome, is the final book in a long series, none of which I have yet read. I got this last book because it was the only title by this author in my library--I'll catch up with the other books as soon as I get caught up with other reading.

So, I was already supposed to know all the characters and the conventions of the series. These were: (1) children traveling to remote places with minimal adult supervision; (2) a mystery or adventure; (3) an environmental orientation; and (4) lessons woven through the text. Great Northern (I will leave off the question mark from now on) was very much a here and now book. There were mysteries and unknowns, but it was the job of the children to find the actual or "real" source of the unexplained.

Please note that there was no "series cystitis" with this book--I gradually gleaned the conventions of the series--I was not whacked over the head with updates from previous books as is so common with modern mystery series.

This book was quite sweet. Eight children and one adult were on a yachting trip. At least, it seamed like a yacht-sized vessel. It had both sails and an engine--and the children were completely proficient with both technologies from their lifetimes of adventures. The real hero of this book is Dick, one of the younger children who took on the role of ship's naturalist (in the best tradition of Darwin). Dick's obsession was birds. He had a life list and had researched the birds he was likely (and unlikely) to see on this boat trip to the Hebrides off of Scotland. He makes a sighting of a nesting pair of what he thinks (hence the question mark) are great northern divers, which are thought to never nest in the British Isles. The book involves the development of a threat to the birds and the heroic action of the children (and Dick in particular) to save them.

Great Northern started off slow...each of the children was laboriously introduced, as well as the adult chaperon and the boat itself. As the plot unfolded, the book sped up some and although it was still quite a slow read, I found myself engaged in the action and the setting. I felt acutely the threat to the birds and fully appreciated Dick's bravery. Great Northern shows that action need not be destructive to be exciting.

This book is very British, very cheerio and stiff upper lip and noblesse oblige. The children are to be fitted for life through productive activity in an idealized setting. Quaint. The native Scots were pretty well stereotyped as bagpipe playing buffoons.

The success of this book was not in the plotting or the setting or the themes or the characters--it was in the detailed descriptions that led to my feeling that I had been on a vacation too. I have the distinct feeling that I was there, that I rowed to a small island in the dead of night with a camera, that I led the villains on a merry chase away from the birds. I was as sorry as the children in the book when the book ended.

Sidebar: New Resource

The reading list that I have now been working on since late 2009 has gotten a boost from my library's joining with other local libraries to combine their collections electronically if not physically. Now when I search the catalog of my local Herbert Wescoat Memorial Library, I can call up and reserve books from a half dozen or more libraries. So, I have high hopes of actually reading every single book on the Eager Reader's list that I downloaded on June 10, 2009, according to the printout.

Just to review: I work for a youth development organization. We are always challenging the young adults to set lofty goals and then to chip away at them for the long haul. I decided I needed a challenge for myself so I would participate also in this process. I chose the project of reading a 12-page list of books from Eager Readers--their list entitled "The Best of the Best." And most of the books have been great. And I have been greatly enriched. I thought that I might never find some of the books...but now that fear is dissolved. Full speed ahead...

Space Cadet, by Robert A. Heinlein

Acting Ensign Wesley Crusher could never
escape his goody-two-shoes reputation on
Star Trek: NexGen

No, there is no irony in the title of this book--Heinlein wrote his book Space Cadet long before "space cadet" became synonymous with "airhead." And, really, I wonder if this book wasn't the inspiration for the most noteworthy of space cadets--acting Ensign Wesley--Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: Next Generation. The main character Matt Dodson shares only a certain earnestness and respect for authority with Wesley. Unlike Wesley, he is not that great at science and math (but is a natural as a pilot), hangs out with people mainly his own age, and he travels without his mother.

Space Cadet, written in the late 1940s, is the tale of teenager Matt's training for the Space Patrol--a peace-keeping force created to prevent the use of nuclear weapons on Earth and its neighboring planetary bodies. The story follows him from newbie to independent young officer. With his friend Tex, Matt goes through many agonizing tests in a boot-camp setting, during which many applicants are winnowed out. These tests include a ride through the too-many-G-forces/too-little-G-forces gizmo (Matt withstands 7 Gs and passes the test); personality challenges (there's a faked tragedy for the applicants to respond to); academic tests; and even ethical tests.

The 1948 cover--see below
for other covers with
other goals

Matt and Tex pass the tests and move on to a training ship and further study. Eventually, they move out into space as junior officers attached to a working ship. Eventually, they move into increasingly dramatic settings and adventures--especially when they crash land on Venus. On Venus, you see the impact that the training has had on these young men--the resources they have to draw on, the principles they follow. (And, of course, there is a counter-example, a cadet who washed out of the program early and scorns its values.)

But, the charm of this book is not particularly in its plotting. It's in the details. It's in the pace. Once again (see my blog entry on Rocketship Galileo), Heinlein pulls me right into the world of the book. Although nothing dramatic happened for pages on end, Heinlein created enough hooks on Matt for the reader to feel attached, to slide into Matt's spacesuit with him (that sounds kinky), to face the challenges, wonder at the new systems and knowledge, hope for success, fear failure. 

Slide rule--yet another wet dream
of science in the 1950s and 1960s--looks
like a tool for WASPs only

Heinlein is adept at drawing enough details into the picture to make it real without overdrawing or over-explaining. He gives enough for your imagination to complete the environment but does not worry if what I picture is not exactly what he meant. I was amazed, because I was hooked into this obsolete boy's adventure  novel right away. I struggled with moving through weightlessness and with magnetic boots and with trying hard not to need to use the airsick bags. I fretted over "astrogation" and the mathematics it required (and the slide rule!). I worried over my fitness for such an elite corps. (see the video at <iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/MiRlJSttQuc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> for a tutorial on weightlessness, which makes it look embarrassingly easy.)

Young Matt is a great character--fun, but not dangerous; flawed, but not a loser. I was most interested in what happened to him during his Earth-leave, when he visited his home in Des Moines for the first time after entering the Patrol. What he found was a total disconnect. He found that his family could not understand anything he talked about and that it was all too complicated to explain. It was not discussed in the book, but I saw it as a critical moment for Matt--when his life in the Patrol became more real to him than his life on Earth.

This beautiful photo of Venus uses
color to indicate the concentration of
various chemicals in the atmosphere

The Venus part of the book was charming in its antiquated vision of Venus. For now, scientists do not believe that any life can exist on Venus--not only is the atmosphere thick with poisons, but the air pressure is so great that it exerts a dramatic crushing force. The surface is barren. If life might be there, we would have a hard time detecting it--our apparatus would need to be so thick to avoid being crushed that any delicate maneuvering would be difficult.




For more information, go to  http://library.thinkquest.org/18652/venus.html.

Matt and Tex, however, find a tropical dangerland with swamps and creepy critters and alien intelligence. This is their lab for putting into practice all of their training--their training in values and self-control as much as in any particular subject. They find that as a group they have more intelligence that any of them individually.

So, another thumbs-up for Heinlein. I don't think I've been to Venus with Matt, but I do feel like I went to some other world that was mistakenly called that. I have a feeling of movement, of time, of growing up. That's cool. And, that's good, because I have three or four more Heinlein books to read from my Easy Reader children's literature list.

Me and Space: Evolved Lemur

This is the tech-guy cover
from the 1980s or so, I'd
guess

I was a child in the 1960s (I turned 10 the year the moon landing took place in 1969), so maybe it's not a surprise that I have so much interest in space and space travel and the interaction of humans with unearthly conditions (such as weightlessness) and with others unlike themselves (such as Republicans). How do we solve the problems? Are there human characteristics that truly define us as a species? One of the most defining characteristics of humans is the sense of wonder, the tendency to gawk and to explore that which puzzles and amazes us. What lies beyond the horizon? What lies beyond the end point of the solar wind? But does this define just some of us? Is hide-boundedness another trait of humans--the desire for stasis and certainty?

See, these are issues that my submergence in the genre of science fiction have awoken in me. Because I did (and still do) submerge. My inner self resonates with the themes and imagery of sci-fi. It is abiding, and I know that because it has abided. There are episodes of Star Trek I have seen dozens of times, but I am still somehow intrigued. One of these is an episode of NexGen in which the crew started to devolve because the inactive content of their DNA was triggered by a virus. Troi was turning into a fish. Riker became a Neanderthal. Even scarier, Worf turned into a Neanderthal Klingon. But most touching was Captain Picard devolving into a lemur, acutely aware of sounds and sights, ever fearful. Could his humanness reach through the genetic programming to rescue the ship?

This is the soft-focus warm and fuzzy cover, probably
from the 1990s. Makes science fiction safe for kids--
although this is a distinctly adolescent book--not
for children.

I have seen Godzilla in the original. I have seen Hitler's hand creeping across the gangway of a submarine. I have made first contact with species so radically different that communication was nearly impossible (Republicans again!). I've been on so many different planets and spaceships that I cannot count them. What has this done to me? First, I know that it leads me to see humans as a species like any other on Earth, subject to the same survival pressures as any other. We are not divine. We are not the chosen ones. We are not on top. Second, it has increased my likelihood to see events from many points of view, to see that there are as many priorities as there are people. It has led me to attempt to lead with peace, not hostility.

There. That's my space manifesto. I am most touched by the Voyager space probes, which have now reached the endpoint of the solar wind, the outer edge of our solar system. And yet they travel on. They continue to gather information and will even after they can no longer communicate it to us. The Voyager probes mirror the journey we are all on--we are curious and communicating beings and we will keep looking...for what? For whatever comes.

So, weird, dweeb, nerd, geek? I'll accept the title of "evolved lemur," thank you very much.