Biggles - The Cruise of the Condor

[calliope85]

Since I've been rediscovering the joy of the way Algy actually has a character in the early books, I thought I'd put the second published Biggles book next on my reading list. I suspect that since it's set in central Brazil, it is sadly unlikely that there will be many squid attacks. (Though who am I to judge? Johnsiverse squid could probably drag

Comments

[potatofiend]

I swear he calls him 'Biggles' somewhere! *flails* Unless I'm confusing him with Biggles' Kent-dwelling inventor godfather, who definitely calls him 'Biggles'.

At any rate: hee. I absolutely love this book, especially for the Biggles/Algy and how incredibly young and playful they both seem, particularly Biggles' overemphasised inability to remember the correct names of anything. And the ant wars! I'd forgotten the ant wars! I also seem to remember a bit where Biggles is dangling over a chasm on 'a bit of string' and being very irritable in a way most unwise, given that the person he's being irritable at could release the rope at any second. Oh, Biggles.

[calliope85]

I didn't keep my eyes peeled all the way though, so it's very possible that I missed one. Certainly Dickpa never addresses him as James, and since he's referred to as Biggles as usual by everyone else, you don't really imagine Dickpa would call him anything different; Johns certainly isn't trying to make the point that Biggles' family would address him differently from his friends (which is kinda weird, because, duh, family). I just didn't notice Dickpa addressing Biggles by name at all.

(Proof aside - Dickpa *so* addresses Biggles as 'Biggles'. Because the alternative is unthinkable.)

And yes, Biggles dangling from the end of a bit of string over a bottomless abyss was a classic moment. And nearly taking poor Algy with him. And then he gets hauled back in, and they just sit and snark at each other for about five minutes. *Yay*.

[potatofiend]

Incidentally, we discover (in a footnote!) in Biggles Goes to School that Biggles' older brother, Charles, was killed in the war, in 1918, I think. He was about five years older than Biggles, and had also been called Biggles at school. So it's probably a good job he died, because There's Only One Biggles. Obviously.

[calliope85]

Oooh, good info, thanks. girl_from_l6 has told me such dreadful tales of The Boy Biggles and Biggles Goes to School that I haven't been able to face them yet :S I *really* hope they were called Biggles Major and Biggles Minor at school. That would make me obscurely joyful. (Also, Bigglesworth Minor sounds like the sort of village where country house murder mysteries take place. Heh.)

(Also: two sons, named Charles and James. Now in my head Biggles' father is a secret Jacobite conspirator. *sighs*.)

I am partly bemused, partly horrified by the way the main characters' families are skated over :S I know it's because W.E. Johns was interested in the adventures and the friendships to the exclusion of, say, the families and the domestic situations, and that's fair enough. But...not even mentioning that Biggles lost the whole of his immediate family in the war? Biggles and Algy seemingly kidnapping Ginger and carrying him off to their batchelor pad? What gives, Captain J.?

[potatofiend]

We-ell, in fact, the Biggles boys were never at school together at any point - Charles had already left by the time Biggles started, presumably because Johns' horror of talking about people's families is too great for him to have contemplated actually giving Charles any air-time. You're so right about his complete obliteration of people's families. In Flies Again, you get that tiny insight from Algy about how his 'guv'nor' feels about publicity when he has the little panic about himself and Biggles ending up in the papers, and what his father would think. And that's...about the last we hear. And Ginger's father just disappears after Black Peril; not that he seems to give a damn' about Ginger, but it is a very odd sort of set of values WEJ is putting forward, here. Ignore Your Parents, Kids! Run Away And Live With Married Airmen In London!

I secretly love Biggles Goes To School, actually. Biggles is Unlikely, Short and Plucky all through it.