I enjoy writing Biggles fanfics, landing Algy in trouble and getting him all worried that someone's going to kill his best friends if he doesn't do something about it (despite the fact that he's crashed his plane, been shot, just got into an accident etc etc. *evil grin*)
I know there are several people who read this blog who are also avid fanfic writers themselves (and seriously, people, how can you scream and shout at what I do to the boys when you do the same, if not worse??)
Today's fanfic discussion, however, is concerned more with the original (canon) authors rather than the writing of fanfic. What would WE Johns have thought about all this fanfic? Would he have approved of Biggles getting married to an American and kicking his friends out of the house? (We know that WE Johns was not a fan of adding the female character to the Australian Biggles radio show, so i'm guessing that he would be no fan of Jane's!)
I'd also love to know how you would feel if someone took characters out of an original story you wrote and wrote a bunch of fanfics about them. i personally don't mind the idea of people writing fanfics, as long as they aren't just using a bunch of characters to act out twisted fantasies (You would NOT believe the things some people have had Harry Potter or Frodo Baggins do. Seriously. You wouldn't.)
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I think WEJ would have approved of all the fan fics where his characters were used in the way he intended. As for 'Biggles Married I, II and III', I think he would have taken it in the spirit it was meant and would have thought it as hilarious as we did.
ReplyDeleteI also think that had he been allowed, he WOULD have had some female interest - it was the children writing to him and complaining about things like Biggles getting soft that stopped him (was that 'Fails to Return', I wonder?)
He would also have had some decent swearing - he once wrote how his editor had made him tone something down - to things like 'gosh'. They were fighter pilots in the war, and he thought it pretty ridiculous not to be allowed any proper swearing!
WEJ was a great storyteller. I think he'd have liked the good stories and would have been pleased to see his characters living on...
If I were a writer and somebody thought enough of my characters to write about them in fan fics, I'd be flattered!!!
I'm surprised that even in the air police books WEJ wasn't allowed more leeway. He'd been writing for quite a while then and he was fairly popular, so surely he could have done what he liked pretty much (in terms of swearing, for example)
ReplyDeleteAh, but we are talking about the 1950s and 1960s, Soppy. Children were still children in those days; many families didn't have television (we didn't) and there were no home computers, no internet.
ReplyDeleteIt was very very different from today's world when children are so much more sophisticated. Not to say that all children were protected and innocent of course - but if the book-buying child was mainly middle-class, their parents wouldn't have approved of swearing.
And it wasn't just the parents buying the books. A lot of Biggles books would have been given as school or church prizes. If there had been any swearing or more adult content that market would have been gone. John's publishers knew what they were doing in that respect.
ReplyDeleteI would think that the average middle-class daddy (if not the mummy too) would know plenty of choice words (and probably had no problem with uttering said words at regular intervals)
ReplyDeleteCuriously, WEJ had his characters doing things like running away from home, taking treasure that they couldn't really be sure belonged to whom, shooting people down etc etc. I'm surprised no one told WEJ that his books were too violent or were teaching little boys all the wrong ideas!
Not in the 50s and 60s, Soppy. It may be hard for you to imagine in the free easy atmosphere of 2013, but just after the war, wholly different - believe me - I was there!
ReplyDeleteNobody took children's story-book adventure-type things seriously, like finding treasure or running away from home. That was part of the adventure and the story would be expected to have a happy ending with the heroes winning over the villains. Shooting would also be allowed as long as the heroes played fair and only the villains got killed. But no swearing or drunkenness on the part of the heroes on the way.
And, by the way, teaching little boys wrong ideas? Girls loved Biggles books too, you know...
* speaking as one who did from the age of about 11*
Sorry--I didn't mean that little girls didn't read the books too, I just meant that mos adults/churches/schools etc would be more likely to buy Biggles books for little boys rather than girls. (I too was one of those little girls who read Biggles books)
ReplyDeleteBut surely all this reading of treasure hunting and whatnot would lead kids to want to go "adventuring" themselves? Wouldn't parents be worried about that the same way parents today worry that video games make kids violent?
I did find it slightly callous of Biggles that he would say something like, "Well, I won't be weeping into my pillow that so-and-so is dead" after shooting some crook. I mean, I would have expected the sensitive Biggles to show some sort of discomfort at having taken a human life!
Parents wouldn't worry because they would have read the same sort of thing themselves when they were young!
ReplyDeleteAs to Biggles saying he won't shed any tears/lose any sleep over this, that or the other evil criminal, you have a point, but he only says that when they are very very evil...
In fact, I think it is something he says more in the later Air Police books rather than the earlier books. Is that so, do you think?
Maybe Biggles became hardened by exposure to some forms of criminality over the years of police work. He was for example, passionately anti-drugs and anybody pedalling drugs. Maybe WEJ was as well as he had a tendency to express some of his views on society/politics through Biggles.
Also, in the 1960s, drugs were 'new' news, and the middle-aged middle-classes (like WEJ) were very anti. In 'Combined Operation' which I read recently, Biggles makes a fairly disparaging remark about'youth', in connection with the ease with which criminals might introduce them to drugs. A very middle-class, middle-aged reaction to the long-haired hippy types of the 1960s, you might say.
The irony was that Biggles was equally a drug addict - as Algy points out in 'Deep Blue Sea'.
Biggles sensitive?
ReplyDeleteHave I missed something?
I seem to recall him slapping Ginger down because he expressed concern about the state of the horse pulling a carriage they had just hired,and saying something about Bertie knowing the risks (or something similar) when told he'd been killed.
In Biggles' defence, didn't he only stop Ginger making a fuss about the horse because at that moment, had they drawn the slightest attention to themselves, they would all have been captured and shot as escaping enemy spies?
ReplyDeleteI'm sure under different circumstances Biggles would have been the first one up there - objecting to the driver....
Even in one of his mad shoot-everything-up WW1 rages he stopped shooting (mid-rage) in order to spare some cavalry horses. And in 'Sees it through', even though in a deseperate hurry, he took the time to unharness the pony from the sleigh and made sure it had enough hay to keep it going before leaving. So I think he did care for the well-being of horses at least.
On the other hand, can't think of a single excuse for him for his cold remark about poor Bertie. It shocked me at the time when I first read it....it seemed a far cry from his emotional reactions in the past when he thought he had lost a friend....
Maybe he and Bertie really didn't get along....?
Re the comment about Bertie, which book was it in, I can't remember....
ReplyDeleteI think it was in 'Hunts Big Game'.
ReplyDeleteI've always thought that the "Bertie knew the risks" comment was more of a stiff-upper-lip-ism rather than a sign of Biggles' not caring. (Although in Flies East when he thinks he has shot Algy down he is quick to blame himself for bringing Algy to the Middle East--but then, he was much younger then)
ReplyDeleteWas it really in "Hunts Big Game?" I don't think Bertie took any outrageous risks in that, beyond fallin g in line with Ginger's suggestion that he 'play dead'. I'm racking my brains on this one so if anyone can put me right I think I'd save myself some serious injury.
ReplyDeleteI have a feeling now it was 'Plane that Disappeared', which I have yet to read. Bertie'd infiltrated a gang so was in a very dodgy situation so there was a fair possibility of it happening, hence the comment. (Possibly with a hint of 'well he was asking for it')
ReplyDeleteThis is beginning to bug me. I can't find the reference in 'Plane that Disappeared' either. Biggles blamed himself in part for that. But no doubt it will pop up when I least expect it. However, I doubt that Biggles would have made the remark in a cold, dispassionate way. It would all have depended on what he had on his mind at the time. But I'll hold judgement until I can actually find the reference.
ReplyDeleteGood idea. I've seen it mentioned a couple of times, maybe its a myth. Just tried to look back to find the source of it, and the sites gone..!
ReplyDeleteIt is NOT a myth I remember reading it well! Unfortunately I once misguidedly sold about half of my Biggles' collection a few years ago (a decision I have since regreted) and as most of those titles were of the Air Police era I am now unable to check it up. Dash it!
ReplyDeleteI am still pretty sure it was from 'Hunts Big Game' though - but I could be wrong.
Wasn't it after the bit where Bertie gets covered in animal blood and plays dead to fool the villains? Biggles receives a report that Bertie has been killed and gives his somewhat phlegmatic response.
What Biggles said in "Hunts Big Game" when he hears that Bertie is dead is something along the lines of "If Bertie's gone topsides there's nothing we can do about it" he said quietly. "I'm worried about Ginger. He's down there on his own ..."etc.
ReplyDeleteDoesn't mean he doesn't care about Bertie. He has no reason to doubt Tug but as a commander in the field he immediately thinks of the men he CAN help instead of wasting effort and resources on someone who is beyond help. And, in this instance, it must be remembered that Biggles sentBertie and Ginger in under cover so he would be feeling it, if not then, certainly later.
Yup. Grief on hold while you deal with the immediate issues, that's the way of it.
ReplyDeleteI always thought that (grief on hold while you deal with the issues) about In the Terai.
ReplyDeleteThere's Algy, Biggles' best friend, cousin, companion over some 40 years, missing and assumed to be dead, and Biggles hardly seems to register any shock, anxiety, distress... Of course he might have been so shocked he went into auto-pilot mode. It isn't until he actually finds out that Algy is alive that we see any demonstration of his inner feelings.
I'm surprised that you say that SA, as to my mind Biggles did seem to be fairly worried about Algy in Terai (or is that just my imagination working overtime?) He did at once grab a plane and get out there, although strangely he leaves Ginger behind rather than take the whole team (is that intended to show that the disappearance and possible death of Algy was not an important issue?????)
ReplyDeleteI do remember feeling very charitable towards Bertie when his first reaction to hearing about Algy is obvious shock and dismay.
Sometmes when a person feels really deeply they find it almost impossible to show their feelings. Biggles I think, was like that. It wasn't until he had Algy actually safe that the reaction set in. Perhaps he was subconsciously holding his emotions in check so they wouldn't get in the way of the job in hand. i.e. finding Algy. Once he found him he was able to let go.
ReplyDeleteYes - that is how it seems to me FB.
ReplyDeleteWhat I meant, Soppy, was that he didn't show any distress. Certainly he was worried, and certainly he lost no time in getting out there to look, but his reactions were not so different from previous occasions when either Bertie or Ginger was missing. The only emotional response was at the end when he found out that Algy was still alive. So I think FB was right - he wnt straight into practical find-Algy mode, setting his personal feelings to one side. We see the same practical approach in 'Delivers the Goods' when Algy is in the hands of the Japanese.
As to why he took Bertie, in fact he often took Bertie in the later books. Ginger was left to mind the office several times. Possibly, Bertie would take a more balanced view than Ginger, who having spent so many of his formative years with Biggles and Algy, might have thought of Algy as an elder brother and been too emotionally involved.
One thing is clear, the possible death of Algy was definitely an important issue! And Ginger wanted to go, but Biggles said no, and that there was to be no argument about it. He was taking Bertie.
I would think that Algy very much had the same sort of stunned "let's get moving" reaction in Fails to Return. Also, in Algy's case, he'd just been "given" 666, so to go AWOL after Biggles would probably have gotten him in pretty big trouble (not that Algy ever cared about getting into trouble anyway, but...)
ReplyDeleteAlgy may not have bothered about getting into trouble but I imagine he thought that if he DID, he wouldn't be in a position to help Biggles. He was in a much better position as CO of 666 to put his case across than if he'd been court-maritalled and demoted in rank.
ReplyDeleteEven if Algy had been put in prison he would somehow find a way to break out and find Biggles.
ReplyDeleteAnd vice versa of course.
Wonder what would happen if all four all in prison.
ReplyDeleteErich would have a field day.
Suppose Eric was in prison too?
ReplyDeleteYou mean in the same prison as all of them, or in his own little prison?
ReplyDeleteHate to think what he'd do to Biggles or what Algy would do to him if they were in the same cell...
Well there's a subject for your next outrageous fic [evil grin].
ReplyDeleteHaving been AWOL from this Blog for a while myself, I'm enjoying catching up and reading all these comments. In defence of Biggles' apparent lack of concern over Bertie's demise, I tend to the view that he would have been in "we've got a job to do and we have to get on with it, no matter the cost". Grief would definitely have been put on hold until he was in a position to deal with it.
ReplyDeleteIn "Delivers the Goods" when Algy is reported missing, wej provides real insight into Biggles when Biggles reflects on what the loss of Algy and Ginger would mean to him - the war would go on, but it would not be the same for him (Biggles); he also give excellent insight into Biggles' inner feelings as a commander who has to keep sending his men out to what could be certain death - day after day after day.
I know that in discussions with my mother and father-in-law (both served in the RAAF in the last war), they have repeatedly said, "You just had to get on with it. We had a job to do and we had to do it."
I think today's society is quite different in its outlook and the way we interact with one another.
Anyway, I've waffled on long enough. Just adding my tuppence worth. This was a great discussion - thanks everyone.