This is commonly held up as a favorite of the series by readers, which I find very interesting, considering that nothing really happens. There is no real threat or antagonist, the Great Aunt is far removed and more of a plot device than a character, and unlike Captain Flint in Swallows and Amazons, the GA is never a direct threat to the Swallows, who are the main focus of the narration. The loss of Swallow (spoiler alert!) is more of a preface than part of the story.
It's really a meandering journey through a slow, relaxed holiday in which the children are forced to accept that not everything can be idyllic and the world of the natives will sometimes intrude in the most inconvenient way. For all that, they make the best of it and it really is a wonderful slice of life. To me, a hallmark of literary classics is that often very little really happens, in contrast to modern works where there must be twists, climactic situations, danger, excitement, and in general I find myself wondering how the characters of modern novels don't all collapse in a psychological break from stress and trauma. Consider the 2016 remake of the movie of Swallows and Amazons, rife with excitement and danger and kids dealing with situations that would be considered dangerous even by adults. Spies, guns, secret agents; I can't identify with that. Swallowdale is a breath of fresh air in terms of realism. I find reading it very relaxing.
It's in my top five as well (I begin to fear that I will have more than five "top fives" because we still have quite a few to go that I very much like).
I bought a crossbow when I was a teenager, largely because of this book. I never understood why we didn't see more of Nancy's crossbow in later books, perhaps because, in my experience, there are few activities involving a crossbow that aren't recipes for trouble. I also crossed a highway by crawling through a storm culvert when I was in university, like Titty and Roger with their bridge, because simply running across the road was far too 'native'. It's probably a good thing the Swallows never robbed a bank, or I'd likely be in jail now. I built a 'wigwam' style hut from poles, like that of the charcoal burners. It takes an incredible number of small trees to do it and the end result is still too small for anything but sitting crosslegged in the middle. I took to sleeping outside without a tent (when the mosquitoes aren't bad, at least) because if the Swallows can do it on the side of Kangchenjunga then so can I. I found, as did John, that it's much nicer than being under a roof which blocks out the stars, and a tent is just an illusion of security anyway.
This story occurs in the summer holiday following Swallows and Amazons, that of 1931 as per the revised canonical chronology. This time around, the adventure gets going early in the holiday and by my count we have a full 19 days of story, with more undocumented adventures after returning to Wild Cat Island left to the reader's imagination.
It must be recognized, through some hints such as "in the story they had made up during those winter evenings in the cabin of the wherry with Nancy and Peggy and Captain Flint." on page 55 (Red Fox edition) and "about all sorts of things that had been happening since Christmas." (page 44) that the Swallows and Amazons had come together since the previous August, and it's clear that the story they collaboratively wrote is in fact Peter Duck, the third published work. This confused the heck out of me as a kid, as I have previously mentioned, especially since Peter Duck was published -after- Swallowdale.
So we step out of chronology a bit here, to review and discuss in order of publication rather than in order of occurrence, if Peter Duck can be said to have 'occurred'. Analyzing that meta-story will be difficult, as it's one in which the characters are offering perspective on themselves, i.e. we can't take the narrator as impartial, as the narrator is a composite of the characters themselves, if that makes any sense. I can feel my high school English teacher shudder, wherever she is.
Anyway, to continue with Swallowdale.
John here exhibits a rare (well, maybe not, what with the sailing at night) lack of judgement in his sailing, whereby he takes a very un-Swallowlike risk more in line with Nancy's style on his approach to Horseshoe Cove, and sinks Swallow. Interesting that we see again in the race at the end John taking a risk with a brand-new Swallow no less (grounding hard on the sandbar could easily pitch the mast out of her, I don't believe it has stays), while Nancy plays it safe - and Nancy does not consider raising her centerboard to cross the shallows, and takes the slow route through Rio, both of which are signs that she is very much not a Mary Sue character. That being said, even I, who hasn't really sailed for decades, would not have chosen to go around Wild Cat Island such that the return against the wind was in the narrow protected passage. It's hard to believe John would make such a decision. I think it speaks to his desire to not follow Nancy. It has to be a tough position, to be male in the 1930s and feel superseded as natural leader by a female in many cases.
Nancy and John both display why they are captains for more reason than just age, as both have calm reactions with quick thinking as the Swallow goes down. Despondence turns into opportunity with the shipwreck, and we meet the lovely Mary Swainson, who clearly has a bit of adventurer spirit in her still. All in all, the natives who are not the Great Aunt are held up as very much in support of the children in this book, which is wonderful to see.
With Benn Gunn's cave and Mary's recollections, and the cache on top of Kanchenjunga, we begin to peer into the past and we, as well as the Swallows and Amazons, perhaps realize that their adventures are not so different from those of their elders. Nancy, on reading the note left by her parents, clearly has a thought to the future, with her "You put it back, and then perhaps in another thirty years..." (page 377). This makes me misty-eyed even now. It doesn't take much to imagine that she is wondering if any of -their- children will climb this very peak in 30 years, and perhaps wondering which of them might have raised those children. Nancy is a romantic, in the classic sense, and that is one of the reasons I love her.
This book provides some background sketching for The Picts and the Martyrs, with the introduction of Jacky, and of Pigeon Post with the headwaters of the Amazon River and Ling Scar and the Topps. We still haven't spent much time in or around Beckfoot, but we grow a little closer. We learn (to our horror and also perhaps amusement) that Ruth knows how to wear a frock, and are relieved to know that she is not opposed to firing a crossbow while wearing one. Have I mentioned that I like her?
I still do not have a clear understanding of how the A.B. and ship's boy got turned around in the fog. Did the compass break? Did they simply move laterally while trying to follow a bearing without a destination set, and then curve while following a brook? How did they curve so much without noticing? I've been lost in swamps where you keep trying to go around an obstruction and don't realize how much you have veered, but I also never bothered to use a compass in those cases.
One thing I'd like to mention is the wax figure incident. I know from experience how Titty felt. I once was pretending to be a wizard, and throwing around chemicals from a home chemistry set, when one of the neighborhood girls got some in her mouth. Copper (II) chloride, I believe it was, with nice blue crystals, perfect for magical lightning bolts. I could hardly sleep that night, wondering if I had killed her through poisoning. At the same time, I didn't want to run to tell anyone because, well, she hadn't done so (and I may have downplayed the toxicity), and why offer oneself up for punishment if there really was nothing wrong? How dangerous could a home chemistry set be, really? Agonizing mental convolutions for a young kid. I was so happy to see her alive and well on the school bus the next day.
Unless otherwise noted, Amazon Pirates are understood to be sleeping at Beckfoot.
| Day | Major events | Night spent at |
| 1 | Arrive by train
Prep for camping |
Holly Howe |
| 2 | Move to Wild Cat Island | Wild Cat Island |
| 3 | Lunch at Horseshoe Cove with Amazons | Wild Cat Island |
| 4 | Shipwreck | Horseshoe Cove |
| 5 | Scouting Swallowdale | Horseshoe Cove |
| 6 | Move camp to Swallowdale | Swallowdale |
| 7 | Fishing with Captain Flint | Swallowdale |
| 8 | Mother visits | Swallowdale |
| 9 | Waiting for attack
Holiday tasks |
Swallowdale |
| 10 | Amazons attack
Hound trail, voodoo |
Swallowdale |
| 11 | Idle and rain | Swallowdale |
| 12 | Mother visits | Swallowdale |
| 13 | Idle | Swallowdale |
| 14 | Crossbow post | Swallowdale |
| 15 | Overland to Amazon River
Amazons to halfway camp & return |
Halfway Camp |
| 16 | Climbing Kanchenjunga
Lost in the fog |
Swallowdale S&A; Roger @wigwam |
| 17 | Stretcher bearers
Mother visits |
Swallowdale (all) |
| 18 | Race | Wild Cat Island (all) |
| 19 | Island life beings | Wild Cat Island (all) |
We have thus made it to about the 20th of August, with at least a week to go of summer holidays, given that the Walkers departed on or about the end of August in Swallows and Amazons. This is a week spent by the Swallows and the Amazons, living together on Wild Cat Island. What do they do for that week? We have no idea. Perhaps as we read farther in the series there will be some hints, if not, perhaps we can fill it in with our imagination. I would like to see an expedition to the South Pole, which they otherwise never visit, although perhaps that's because there is nothing much there? Maybe a river that drains High Greenland? I think the train station is close by. Maybe there could be a short story involving the trains?
Closing thoughts.
Swallowdale was even more 'real' than Swallows and Amazons. We've established that the Swallows can camp without an adult, and they are a year older now, so the idea of being on their own for the holidays is less fantastical. The Amazons fall afoul of very realistic native troubles, and we are reminded that these are kids and they do still have to make their adventures conform to real life. Nancy, Peggy, Susan and John all want to spend the first day back together talking, as teenagers (term not yet invented at the time) would do, then as now. There are school holiday tasks to do. Roger begins to take on a proper identity of his own, singing with Mr Swainson and spending a night with Young Billy. Mrs Blackett comes more to life, and in general both the mothers are very well done. We are left to wonder why the fathers are both absent, and if it has anything to do with Ransome losing his father at a young age, or perhaps just not liking him very much (conjecture!).
Next up is Peter Duck. I'm not sure how to analyze that, since none of it 'really happened'.