Plot
Graham Merrill (Bill Travers) passes a pet shop on his daily walks about London and takes an interest in an otter (specifically, a male river otter) in the window, eventually buying and naming the animal Mij. The otter wreaks havoc in his small apartment and together they leave London for a rustic cottage overlooking the sea on the west coast of Scotland. There they live as beachcombers and make the acquaintance of Dr. Mary (Virginia McKenna) from the nearby village, and her dog Charlie. Mij and Charlie play in the water and bound across the fields together.
Mij's inquisitive and adventurous nature leads him some distance from the cottage to a female otter with whom he spends the day. Ignorant of danger, he is caught in a net and nearly killed. The humans find him and help him recover. Graham spends lots of time drawing Mij but realises that to show the true agility of the otter he must draw it underwater. He builds a large tank out of old windows so that he can do this.
Not long after, Merrill goes to London to look after some affairs and leaves Mary in charge of Mij. While being exercised afield, Mij is killed by a ditchdigger, who didn't realize he was a pet. Merrill returns and is crushed to discover the death of his beloved otter. Some time later, Merrill and Dr. Mary are surprised by a trio of otter youngsters, accompanied by their mother otter, approaching the cottage. He happily realizes they are Mij's female mate, and their children who have come to play in their father's swimming pool.
Read more about this topic: Ring Of Bright Water
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“Morality for the novelist is expressed not so much in the choice of subject matter as in the plot of the narrative, which is perhaps why in our morally bewildered time novelists have often been timid about plot.”
—Jane Rule (b. 1931)
“The plot was most interesting. It belonged to no particular age, people, or country, and was perhaps the more delightful on that account, as nobody’s previous information could afford the remotest glimmering of what would ever come of it.”
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“James’s great gift, of course, was his ability to tell a plot in shimmering detail with such delicacy of treatment and such fine aloofness—that is, reluctance to engage in any direct grappling with what, in the play or story, had actually “taken place”Mthat his listeners often did not, in the end, know what had, to put it in another way, “gone on.””
—James Thurber (1894–1961)