Oct 15, 2009 19:40
14 yrs ago
English term

Boy's Adventure stories

English Art/Literary Poetry & Literature
Now other, louder, voices, tell him the opposite, as he nearly lets go of the rope, just inches away from the bright rubber wall. Color illustrations from old forgotten Boy's Adventure stories whirr to life behind his eyes – of sailors picked clean by barracuda, whalers bobbing in the too-blue water next to their de-masted black ship, sinister images of drowned pirates underwater, bodies puffy and white, sharks circling for a clean angle of attack.

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do you think there's a reason for the capital letters in Boy's Adventure? i checked with google — doesn't seem to be a series of books or anything of the sort

Responses

+4
33 mins
Selected

Not necessarily

I'm not sure it refers to that particular series - which just seems to be a bunch of books thrown together by The Observer and would not necessarily be what he'd have in mind. I think it's capitalised to draw attention to the fact that it is a genre - the person could be thinking of their boyhood reading material, as sort of an undifferentiated whole.
Peer comment(s):

agree B D Finch : Absolutely! The protagonist of the source text is thinking back to his boyhood. As I noted above, I read at least 8 or these books as a girl. Unfortunately only one of these books,"She", stars a female lead. The heros were generally men, not boys.
49 mins
ty - I read a lot of them too, but they were definitely considered boys' reading material.
agree Yasutomo Kanazawa : With B D.
3 hrs
thanks Yasutomo
agree Samantha Payn
13 hrs
agree Christina Bergmann : That's also my guess.
14 hrs
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4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "thank you very much, everyone! i, too, have the feeling that 'boys' adventure stories' is generic because there's really no good reason for the author to be so specific about a certain series of books unless it were super popular and immediately recognizable, which i think it's not"
+2
6 mins

tales of young men in action

Yes, I think it's capitalized on purpose.

The twelve classic adventure stories that make up the Boys' Adventure stories set are timeless tales of young men of action risking their lives against dark deeds and impossible odds.

http://www.penguin.co.uk/static/cs/uk/0/penguin_sets/classic...
Peer comment(s):

neutral B D Finch : Two objections: 1) your quotation is about a recent series by Penguin comprising books that were never previously a set; 2) as a child I read at least 8 of those books and I was definitely a girl!
1 hr
agree Veronika McLaren : as well as a genre incl. some classic stories
2 hrs
agree Henry Schroeder : Yes: should be Boys'...
12 hrs
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8 mins

try:Boys' Adventure stories

and google will show the penguin set of boys' stories.

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Note added at 10 mins (2009-10-15 19:50:05 GMT)
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I guess Kim beat me to the answer, the key being in the spelling of Boys'.
Peer comment(s):

neutral B D Finch : Not "old forgotten though, the publication date appears to be 1995!
1 hr
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Reference comments

18 mins
Reference:

Boy's Own (Adventure Stories)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy's_Own_Paper

This is what came to my mind - "sounds like something out of Boy's Own" is a way people of a certain generation/culture might refer to a vivid sounding adventure involing ropes, cliffs etc.
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