Reviews of A Thoroughly Mischievous Person: The Other Arthur Ransome
In A Thoroughly Mischievous Person, Alan Kennedy shows how Ransome’s magical Swallows and Amazons novels are far more than stories of holiday adventure. Full of allusion to myth, fairy tale and the difficulties of his own family, and largely ignored by his biographers, they are in fact a hidden autobiography and set out to resolve the psychological tensions in his own conflicted life.
Julian Lovelock, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Buckingham and author of Swallows, Amazons and Coots.
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Alan Kennedy presents a multi-layered psychological analysis of Ransome’s literary genius. Experimental research is combined with psychoanalytic insights to show how individual characters, objects, and events capture the reader because they are pointers to deeper universal experiences. The book also offers a fascinating perspective on Ransome’s complex personality, and on his use of fiction to reach a child that he could not reach in real life.
Albrecht Inhoff, Emeritus Professor of Psychology, Binghamton University
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Sharing lodgings at different times with the nature poet Edward Thomas and the Bolshevik agent Karl Radek, Arthur Ransome moved with apparent ease through many different worlds. Alan Kennedy brings both a lifetime’s admiration and psychological interpretation to bear upon this fascinating and enigmatic character, exploring his life and character in the light of a psychoanalytic reading of his novels that opens up some of the darkest places of the man and the century.
Stan Smith, Emeritus Professor of English, Nottingham Trent University and author of Edward Thomas
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The best piece of writing on Ransome to have come out in years.
Peter Willis, Signals, p38, August 2021
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…a fascinating and very well researched (and referenced) narrative, bringing a new approach to the study of a series of children’s classics.
Northwest News and Features, September 2021
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Who could resist at least glancing at a book with that title. And, for the fans of Swallows and Amazons amongst us, more than just a quick look. But, this isn’t a book about children sailing in the Lake District. As the title indicates, this is about ‘The Other Arthur Ransome’.
How best to describe it? To me it’s the book the adult Dick Callum* would have written – serious and factual – but edited by Dorothea Callum* to add her own (and Ransome’s) brand of imagination, together recording the many strands of his multi faceted life, his many interests and experiences and, above all, demonstrating he was more than just the author of children’s books.
Alan Kennedy delves into and presents a huge amount of detail about what was apparently an extraordinary life of contrasts, from a troubled first marriage, to his later marriage to Trotsky’s secretary, Evgenia, his support for the Russian Revolution and, of course, his writing which included a collection of Russian folklore and even a gothic romance, as well as his work as a journalist and foreign correspondent.
Considering his books (he’d written over twenty by the time Swallows and Amazons was published) on topics as varied as fishing and biographies of Oscar Wilde and Edgar Alan Poe, I’ve often wondered whether, like actor John Laurie, best known for Dad’s Army rather than for his previous career as a Shakespearean actor, Ransome regretted that he was best, or even only, known for his work in later life.
I won’t spoil the book by referring to Alan’s conclusions about Ransome’s personality and experiences and how they contribute to themes he returns to in his books, but I will admit to agreeing with his conclusion about the creation of the character Titty Walker, to me, the best drawn of all the children in his books, and the one most closely modelled on real life. As Alan, suggests perhaps the clues to his enduring stories lie in his own extraordinary life and his wide ranging curiosity.
My copy already looks the worse for wear, the result of turning pages forward and backwards to link areas of Ransome’s life and experiences to assess whether in his case, life reflected art or vice versa. ‘Mixed Moss’ by A Rolling Stone, the title of Captain Flint’s memoirs, would be well suited to Ransome’s own life.
More than just a biography, a fascinating analysis of a complex and intriguing man.
* Dick and Dot are children (a scientist and author respectively) first appearing in Arthur Ransome’’s book ‘Winter Holiday’
Sallie Eden, Roseland Online
Read the full review here.
In A Thoroughly Mischievous Person, Alan Kennedy shows how Ransome’s magical Swallows and Amazons novels are far more than stories of holiday adventure. Full of allusion to myth, fairy tale and the difficulties of his own family, and largely ignored by his biographers, they are in fact a hidden autobiography and set out to resolve the psychological tensions in his own conflicted life.
Julian Lovelock, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Buckingham and author of Swallows, Amazons and Coots.
_____
Alan Kennedy presents a multi-layered psychological analysis of Ransome’s literary genius. Experimental research is combined with psychoanalytic insights to show how individual characters, objects, and events capture the reader because they are pointers to deeper universal experiences. The book also offers a fascinating perspective on Ransome’s complex personality, and on his use of fiction to reach a child that he could not reach in real life.
Albrecht Inhoff, Emeritus Professor of Psychology, Binghamton University
_____
Sharing lodgings at different times with the nature poet Edward Thomas and the Bolshevik agent Karl Radek, Arthur Ransome moved with apparent ease through many different worlds. Alan Kennedy brings both a lifetime’s admiration and psychological interpretation to bear upon this fascinating and enigmatic character, exploring his life and character in the light of a psychoanalytic reading of his novels that opens up some of the darkest places of the man and the century.
Stan Smith, Emeritus Professor of English, Nottingham Trent University and author of Edward Thomas
_____
The best piece of writing on Ransome to have come out in years.
Peter Willis, Signals, p38, August 2021
_____
…a fascinating and very well researched (and referenced) narrative, bringing a new approach to the study of a series of children’s classics.
Northwest News and Features, September 2021
______
Who could resist at least glancing at a book with that title. And, for the fans of Swallows and Amazons amongst us, more than just a quick look. But, this isn’t a book about children sailing in the Lake District. As the title indicates, this is about ‘The Other Arthur Ransome’.
How best to describe it? To me it’s the book the adult Dick Callum* would have written – serious and factual – but edited by Dorothea Callum* to add her own (and Ransome’s) brand of imagination, together recording the many strands of his multi faceted life, his many interests and experiences and, above all, demonstrating he was more than just the author of children’s books.
Alan Kennedy delves into and presents a huge amount of detail about what was apparently an extraordinary life of contrasts, from a troubled first marriage, to his later marriage to Trotsky’s secretary, Evgenia, his support for the Russian Revolution and, of course, his writing which included a collection of Russian folklore and even a gothic romance, as well as his work as a journalist and foreign correspondent.
Considering his books (he’d written over twenty by the time Swallows and Amazons was published) on topics as varied as fishing and biographies of Oscar Wilde and Edgar Alan Poe, I’ve often wondered whether, like actor John Laurie, best known for Dad’s Army rather than for his previous career as a Shakespearean actor, Ransome regretted that he was best, or even only, known for his work in later life.
I won’t spoil the book by referring to Alan’s conclusions about Ransome’s personality and experiences and how they contribute to themes he returns to in his books, but I will admit to agreeing with his conclusion about the creation of the character Titty Walker, to me, the best drawn of all the children in his books, and the one most closely modelled on real life. As Alan, suggests perhaps the clues to his enduring stories lie in his own extraordinary life and his wide ranging curiosity.
My copy already looks the worse for wear, the result of turning pages forward and backwards to link areas of Ransome’s life and experiences to assess whether in his case, life reflected art or vice versa. ‘Mixed Moss’ by A Rolling Stone, the title of Captain Flint’s memoirs, would be well suited to Ransome’s own life.
More than just a biography, a fascinating analysis of a complex and intriguing man.
* Dick and Dot are children (a scientist and author respectively) first appearing in Arthur Ransome’’s book ‘Winter Holiday’
Sallie Eden, Roseland Online
Read the full review here.