I can understand how you feel, but, for us at least, it wasn't like that. The house was smaller than I had imagined, but the garden even larger - it seemed endless! And, along with another rabid fan, my sister and I were going through exclaiming things like "Oh, look! the Witch ball!" and (about one of the cherubs) "He looks exactly like his illustration; those drawings are so accurate" and (about another large painting by Peter Boston) "I haven't seen that before. Was it ever in one of the books?" Diana Boston really seemed to enjoy our responses, and it was fascinating to see how her mother-in-law's reconstruction of the house and garden influenced her fiction - and vice versa. We got to see a part of the manuscript (fourth draft!) of The Children of Green Knowe!
And two more things. Diana Boston is a mother and grandmother herself. When we got to the children's room at the top of the house, she let the younger of the two young boys on the tour pick up the sword that was in the toychest there. "Is that a real sword, do you think, or is it plastic?" she asked. "It's real!" the little boy exclaimed, his eyes shining. "Yes. Well, don't do what Tolly did with it, and stab the pillows," she said. She also told us that she has begun reading the books to her own grandchildren, who grew up running in and out of the house and never took much notice of it. Now, she said, they are seeing their family home with new eyes.
All of this is just to say that, even if the house didn't quite match your imagination, I don't think it would be a disappointment. It certainly wasn't to us!
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Date: 2009-08-27 04:01 pm (UTC)And two more things. Diana Boston is a mother and grandmother herself. When we got to the children's room at the top of the house, she let the younger of the two young boys on the tour pick up the sword that was in the toychest there. "Is that a real sword, do you think, or is it plastic?" she asked. "It's real!" the little boy exclaimed, his eyes shining. "Yes. Well, don't do what Tolly did with it, and stab the pillows," she said. She also told us that she has begun reading the books to her own grandchildren, who grew up running in and out of the house and never took much notice of it. Now, she said, they are seeing their family home with new eyes.
All of this is just to say that, even if the house didn't quite match your imagination, I don't think it would be a disappointment. It certainly wasn't to us!