John Masefield

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who wrote 'the Box of Delights', which I'm reading cuz Alan Garner mentioned it as being one of three books from this century he'd most liked to have written in this interview - http://www.elimae.com/interviews/garner.html - "The end, as Masefield wrote it, has the inevitable and positive resolution of a symphony. Then there is tacked on a clumsy paragraph, where the main child protagonist wakes up in the railway carriage where the story begins, and it has all been a dream. Oh no it has not."

I'm liking it but not as much as I figured I would. My mother told me she thought I wouldn't like it, which later transpired not to have been based upon having read the book herself but upon the fact that as a kid I had not wanted to watch the BBC adaptation: I am not sure how this works, as I would have been minus one years of age at the time

Favourite moment so far: an ancient punch-and-judy man tells a priest "I have played a christmas play on that night since pagan times, so to speak."

I know nothing about Masefield, so uh: C/D, S&D, RFI, usw.

― thom west (thom w), Saturday, 25 January 2003 21:10 (twenty-three years ago)

I remember a poem of his called something like Ships used in school to illustrate different rhythms. One stanza starts "Quinquereme from Nineveh", another "Dirty little coaster with a coke-caked smokestack, butting through the channel in the mad March waves" or some such (from memory so undoubtedly wrong), which certainly demonstrated the technique. From what little else I've read, a skilled but fundamentally second rate poet.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 25 January 2003 21:19 (twenty-three years ago)

I've watched that 1980s BBC version of 'Box of Delights' many a time with my son. I find it very comforting.

― David (David), Saturday, 25 January 2003 23:17 (twenty-three years ago)

i preferred "the midnight people" to "the box of delights" thom

masefield was poet laureate, rather implausibly with hindsight. this wz my godfather's favourite poem, so i quite like it too, as my godfather wz a nice man who i miss

Sea-Fever

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a gray mist on the sea's face, and a gray dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 26 January 2003 01:39 (twenty-three years ago)

The poem Sea Fever was adapted as a song by the Australian singer Kavisha Mazzella on her first album 'Mermaids in the Well'.

― Amarga (Amarga), Sunday, 26 January 2003 10:57 (twenty-three years ago)

My mother told me she thought I wouldn't like it, which later transpired not to have been based upon having read the book herself but upon the fact that as a kid I had not wanted to watch the BBC adaptation: I am not sure how this works, as I would have been minus one years of age at the time

The BBC adaptation was shown twice, the second time two years after it was made.

― caitlin (caitlin), Sunday, 26 January 2003 16:23 (twenty-three years ago)

martin, here's that poem (can't remember the title - learned it years ago in school, amazed i still remember it!):

Quinquereme of Nineveh from distant Ophir
Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine
With a cargo of ivory, apes and peacocks
Sandalwood, cedarwood and sweet white wine

Stately Spanish galleon [something something] isthmus
Dipping ?through the tropics by the palm-green shores
With a cargo of diamonds, emeralds, amethysts
Topazes, cinnamon and gold moidores

Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smokestack
Butting through the Channel in the mad March days
With a cargo of Tyne coal, road rail, pig-lead
Firewood, ironware and cheap tin trays.

― rener (rener), Monday, 27 January 2003 11:42 (twenty-three years ago)

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
I left my vest and socks there, I wonder if they're dry?

― Alan (Alan), Monday, 27 January 2003 11:44 (twenty-three years ago)

Garner seems to be suggesting that the it-was-a-dream ending was put on by someone other than Masefield - is this true? If not why on earth did he do it?

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 27 January 2003 11:54 (twenty-three years ago)

The BBC adaption was the first British children's programme to have a million pound budget and I seem to remember a letter to Points of View (or the Radio Times possibly) complaining that so much had been spent on it.

Having heard all the hype abt the expense (£1m sounds like next to nothing now) I remember being disappointed by some of the scenes. For example, the transformation scene when Hern the Hunter becomes a stag was very well done, but the Wild Wood that he & Kay go walking in has a "cardboard cut-out" look to it (see also the contemporary & largely forgotten "Captain Zep Space Detective").

― MarkH (MarkH), Monday, 27 January 2003 12:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Masefield (to self): "Full stop the end. Marvellous."
*Reads back over some of it*
Masefield: "Oh no!! Some of this plot of scientifically implausible!! Oh no!!"
*Adds in final sentence hurriedly*

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 27 January 2003 12:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I remember the BBC adaptation as being absolutely magical. I'd like to see it again - I think I'll wait until I have a child though.

I like books with shadowy and ill-defined evil forces menacing English children - "the Wolves" in BoD predict "the Dark" in Susan Cooper; badness that is organised but ultimately motiveless, which makes it scarier.

― Tom (Groke), Monday, 27 January 2003 12:03 (twenty-three years ago)

There is somethiong nice about the "It was all a dream - or was it" endings which the TV version of BoD had (ie they wake up, and then see the kindly old gentleman/magician wink at them).

I was big Masefield liker as a kid and view Harry Potter as very derivative in a much less subversive way. Masefield was very scary in places.

― Pete (Pete), Monday, 27 January 2003 12:06 (twenty-three years ago)

isn't there a pirate who casually changes sex in the midnight folk?

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 27 January 2003 12:36 (twenty-three years ago)

sir twiney pricker?

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 27 January 2003 12:37 (twenty-three years ago)

I'd completely forgotten about that - but now it all comes rushing back. (Midnight FolXor very spooky).

― Pete (Pete), Monday, 27 January 2003 13:01 (twenty-three years ago)

Having heard all the hype abt the expense (£1m sounds like next to nothing now) I remember being disappointed by some of the scenes.

The scene where Kay meets the box's maker, stranded in the Quiberoons, had incredibly rub effects (to my prepubescent eyes).

― caitlin (caitlin), Monday, 27 January 2003 15:15 (twenty-three years ago)

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