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kindkitI've been reading some of the early Biggles books, the ones set during the First World War. Due to the challenge of *ahem* acquiring them, I didn't read them in sequence. I started out with Biggles of the Camel Squadron, the third book, where I found Our Hero unbearably hearty and jolly, seeming to experience only quickly-suppressed flashes of recognizable human emotions.
I grew more sympathetic on reading Biggles in France, because I learned that Biggles was still a teenager throughout the war, having lied about his age and joined up when he was barely seventeen (in 1916). The behavior that seemed revoltingly shallow in an adult suddenly made sense, because he's not an adult, he's a boy who's run away from school to a war he can't begin to cope with. No wonder he treats it like a cricket match 99% of the time, and deals with the death of friends by a brief episode of killing rage and then a speedy, deliberate forgetting.
And then I started the first Biggles book, the short story collection The Camels Are Coming, which the internet tells me was written not for boys but for adults. The difference is amazing. Here's Biggles's very first appearance, in "The White Fokker":
It's sad that this version of Biggles, the one in whom we see the shattering effects of war, was apparently considered unsuitable for children and rewritten as an imperturbable hero who laughs it all off and for whom war is, on the whole, a glorious lark. Yes, boys, war is fun! Don't worry, we'll have another one soon and you'll get your chance!
Anyway, I'm surprised that fandom hasn't yet produced the lost Biggles book, Biggles at Craiglockhart War Hospital. Admittedly there's no room in the canon for Biggles to have a breakdown during the war, but since when has that stopped us? Or he could have gone through the worst of it after the war, like Lord Peter Wimsey.
(Special note to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
halotolerant: I've decided that Simon Carter read the first couple of Biggles books as a teenager. He was so taken with the image of the small, delicate, nervy yet heroic Biggles that it was inevitable he would want to become a pilot.)
I grew more sympathetic on reading Biggles in France, because I learned that Biggles was still a teenager throughout the war, having lied about his age and joined up when he was barely seventeen (in 1916). The behavior that seemed revoltingly shallow in an adult suddenly made sense, because he's not an adult, he's a boy who's run away from school to a war he can't begin to cope with. No wonder he treats it like a cricket match 99% of the time, and deals with the death of friends by a brief episode of killing rage and then a speedy, deliberate forgetting.
And then I started the first Biggles book, the short story collection The Camels Are Coming, which the internet tells me was written not for boys but for adults. The difference is amazing. Here's Biggles's very first appearance, in "The White Fokker":
Bigglesworth, popularly known as Biggles, a slight, fair-haired, good-looking lad still in his teens . . . His deep-set hazel eyes were never still and held a glint of yellow fire that somehow seemed out of place in a pale face upon which the strain of war, and sight of sudden death, had already graven little lines. His hands, small and delicate as a girl's, fidgeted continually with the tunic fastening at his throat. He had killed a man not six hours before. He had killed six men during the past month--or was it a year?--he had forgotten. Time had become curiously telescoped lately. What did it matter, anyway? He knew he had to die some time and had long ago ceased to worry about it. His careless attitude suggested complete indifference, but the irritating little falsetto laugh which continually punctuated his tale betrayed the frayed condition of his nerves.He's on the verge of cracking up, and some of the other stories in the collection show him drinking to excess (by a far from puritanical definition of excess: "he drank half a bottle of whisky yesterday morning before daylight"), taking near-suicidal risks, and eventually being forced to either go on leave or be posted permanently back to England. Now of course I like him much better, since almost-broken characters are one of my favorite types.
It's sad that this version of Biggles, the one in whom we see the shattering effects of war, was apparently considered unsuitable for children and rewritten as an imperturbable hero who laughs it all off and for whom war is, on the whole, a glorious lark. Yes, boys, war is fun! Don't worry, we'll have another one soon and you'll get your chance!
Anyway, I'm surprised that fandom hasn't yet produced the lost Biggles book, Biggles at Craiglockhart War Hospital. Admittedly there's no room in the canon for Biggles to have a breakdown during the war, but since when has that stopped us? Or he could have gone through the worst of it after the war, like Lord Peter Wimsey.
(Special note to
halotolerant: I've decided that Simon Carter read the first couple of Biggles books as a teenager. He was so taken with the image of the small, delicate, nervy yet heroic Biggles that it was inevitable he would want to become a pilot.)
no subject
Date: 2012-03-21 12:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-21 04:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-21 09:21 pm (UTC)I will admit to, at 8 or 10 or so, calling my arms wings, my fingers ailerons, my legs undercarriage, and coming in for a perfect three-point landing at the dinner table. I had model fighter planes suspended from my bedroom ceiling and my nickname was Spitfire; it took me years to find out there was another meaning.
Why yes, I've always been a geek.