Lyrical, and practical too - a real classic
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Don't be fooled by the twee cover! This is an excellent book, and while it dates back to 1882, that is quite in its favour. The class structure may grate a bit, but what the book really is about is mucking about as a kid, in a timeless way. Well, not quite timeless... you have to cope with one of the main characters calling his father 'the jolly Old Moke', but apart from that the language is quite modern. But for fun the lads play bezique, and when they build their own gun, they build a matchlock! Otherwise this is very much in the Swallows and Amazons vein, except that the few girls play a very minor role. But the descriptions... they can be wonderfully poetic, lyrical, dreamy... when poling the raft over a misty lake, or gazing up at the stars at night... Jefferies is a very good writer. And the practical bits? Well, if you wanted to build a matchlock, or a good raft, or if you wanted to learn how to heft a shotgun, this is it; hidden among the mucking about there is good advice. And among all the boys' own stuff it is also made clear that the lower classes (to which our two heroes, Bevis and Mark, emphatically do not belong) can have seriously tough lives.
I love this book. There is a version illustrated by E.H. Shepard (of Pooh fame) and that one comes very highly recommended. At almost 500 pages (mind you, the original version came out in three volumes!) this is a solid piece of work, and I think the author didn't want to end it; the last 30 pages are, for me, a bit of a fizz-out. For me those boys, who are part of me now, and in who part of me is, are still exploring New Formosa and Serendib, in the time when you could see the Aurora Borealis from southern England. Great stuff!
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Bevis- unashamed escapism
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I first read this book while a pre- teen at a heavenly prep school in rural Sussex in the early seventies. I ranked it with Brendon Chase, The Islanders and the Arthur Ransome books as my favourites at the time. It is refreshing to see nephews, nieces and God- children, now the age I was then, reading these wonderful books about this country's unique and spell- binding countryside.
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