Articles About Dorset

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Moonraker
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Re: Articles in Dorset

Post by Moonraker »

number 6 wrote:A one woman crusade to promote Blyton.
Viv was a true expert in promoting Viv and Dorset! This is in no way meant as a criticism, more an accolade. I hope one day she can return to a Blyton outlet. Ginger Pop was a great asset to Corfe Castle village.
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Re: Articles in Dorset

Post by Eddie Muir »

Moonraker wrote: Ginger Pop was a great asset to Corfe Castle village.
Hear! Hear! The shop is sorely missed. :cry:
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Re: Articles in Dorset

Post by Rob Houghton »

Courtenay wrote:I've just got a confirmation email for mine too. :D Hopefully it'll be waiting for me when I get back home on Wednesday.
They were probably astonished that so many people were ordering it!! Maybe they had to print some more, loL! ;-)
'Oh voice of Spring of Youth
hearts mad delight,
Sing on, sing on, and when the sun is gone
I'll warm me with your echoes
through the night.'

(E. Blyton, Sunday Times, 1951)



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Post by Chrissie777 »

I bet they do!!! :wink:
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Re: Articles in Dorset

Post by Courtenay »

Well if so, they've just seen for themselves the amazing and enduring marketing power of Enid Blyton's name and/or characters!! 8)
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Re: Articles in Dorset

Post by Moonraker »

I'm not sure they will feel that four extra orders are a landslide! :lol:
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Post by Courtenay »

But how do you know we were the only ones? :wink:
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Post by IceMaiden »

My copy arrived this morning, I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but it looks good. I would have preferred them to use the original dustwrapper pictures for the images of the books where they've put them, but the ones they have used are at least the same illustrations on the new paperbacks when it could have been much worse, those awful out of proportion cartoons for instance, so I'm not complaining too much! :P
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Re: Articles in Dorset

Post by Rob Houghton »

Mine also arrived today. I have flicked through and I' pleased to see a few articles about Enid Blyton and the Famous Five - even if some only mention them.

:D
'Oh voice of Spring of Youth
hearts mad delight,
Sing on, sing on, and when the sun is gone
I'll warm me with your echoes
through the night.'

(E. Blyton, Sunday Times, 1951)



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Re: Articles in Dorset

Post by Courtenay »

Mine arrived today too. I haven't read the article in detail and won't have much time to post here till tomorrow afternoon anyway, but just at a quick skim-through, I've seen several things that make me cringe — some very negative comments about Enid (how well warranted, I'm not sure, but they seem to have leaned heavily on Imogen's autobiography and that famous biopic Enid), the standard accusations of sexism and racism (including a mention of golliwogs, as if simply featuring them in her books made her a racist when just about every child in England had one... :roll: ) and a shockingly inaccurate claim about Sooty Lenoir from Five Go to Smuggler's Top.

I will post my thoughts properly when I've read the article more thoroughly and had more time, but so far, I'm not at all impressed... :x
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Re: Articles in Dorset

Post by Rob Houghton »

yes - those negative comments jumped out on me as I flicked through. I'll read it later and see what I think, but I was disappointed to see those. It sort of smacks of blaming us in 2017 for the slave trade of the 1700's! Its time we moved on from these criticisms and saw things in context. :-(
'Oh voice of Spring of Youth
hearts mad delight,
Sing on, sing on, and when the sun is gone
I'll warm me with your echoes
through the night.'

(E. Blyton, Sunday Times, 1951)



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Re: Articles in Dorset

Post by Chrissie777 »

Moonraker wrote:I'm not sure they will feel that four extra orders are a landslide! :lol:
Nigel, I love your subtle humour. :wink:
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Re: Articles in Dorset

Post by Moonraker »

Thank you, Chrissie. :D
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Re: Articles in Dorset

Post by Courtenay »

I've now had time to read the main article on Enid in Dorset magazine — "Blyton's Ripping Yarns" by Adam Lee-Potter (and I'm sure "ripping yarns" is yet another supposed-to-be-Blytonesque cliche that Enid herself never used) — and I'm still deeply unimpressed.

The author does make some attempt to be balanced, not only writing extensively about the ugly and sometimes outright cruel side of Enid's personality, but going into the possible reason why she was like that — "Blyton was — but then, aren't we all? — forged by her own childhood." He goes on to describe how she was shattered when her father left their family when she was 12 and this stunted her emotional and even physical development, leading to her apparent inability to be a good wife (at least to Hugh) and mother but also enabling her to create these marvellous fantasy worlds as her way of escaping from all that she couldn't cope with. I'm familiar with that analysis and I'm sure there's something in it, but the article doesn't really go into much depth and the overriding impression it leaves of Enid is very negative.

This isn't helped by the fact that the writer of this article leans heavily on the biopic Enid, with input from the producer and director as well as Helena Bonham Carter; I haven't seen that film, but I know from others' comments here that a lot of people feel it was a very unfair portrayal. There's also a quote from Imogen's "scathing autobiography" A Childhood at Green Hedges, but nothing to indicate that Enid's older daughter, Gillian, took a more forgiving view of their mother. Enid was obviously a very complex character — and I don't know nearly as much about her personal life as many people here do, as I haven't read any biographies of her at all — but I'm afraid this article could more or less be summed up as saying: "Gosh, she was a monster, but hey, she was brilliant at self-marketing and she wrote all these books that are still selling like hot cakes despite the fact that they're more than a little non-PC." :roll:

The bit that made me wince most, though — and this shows how carefully Mr Lee-Potter has read Blyton (or not, rather) — is this claim near the beginning, that Enid "has often been accused of racist and xenophobic views because of her references to golliwogs and unlikeable black characters such as the appallingly-named Sooty Lenoir, a French schoolboy in Five Go to Smuggler's Top." :evil:

I actually yelped out loud when I first read that line — Sooty Lenoir an "unlikeable black character"?! For starters, it's clear from the story that he's NOT black in the ethnic sense, simply very dark in his hair and eyes; I never got the impression Enid meant that his skin was black (she would have said so if it was). Sooty is the nickname his friends at school have given him and he seems to accept it happily, not viewing it as a racial taunt of any kind. And "unlikeable"?! I haven't read Smuggler's Top since I was about 8 years old and I still remember Sooty as one of the most fun, interesting and thoroughly likeable of Enid's "supporting" characters in the Famous Five books. Superficial and stupid misreadings of Enid like that verdict above just go to show how many of her critics haven't read her books properly — they're just looking through the narrow lens of their own assumptions and prejudices and finding what they expect to find, even if it isn't actually there. :roll:

In conclusion, not an article I want to either keep for myself or share with my family after all! :x
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Re: Articles in Dorset

Post by Rob Houghton »

Courtenay wrote: The bit that made me wince most, though — and this shows how carefully Mr Lee-Potter has read Blyton (or not, rather) — is this claim near the beginning, that Enid "has often been accused of racist and xenophobic views because of her references to golliwogs and unlikeable black characters such as the appallingly-named Sooty Lenoir, a French schoolboy in Five Go to Smuggler's Top." :evil:

I actually yelped out loud when I first read that line — Sooty Lenoir an "unlikeable black character"?! For starters, it's clear from the story that he's NOT black in the ethnic sense, simply very dark in his hair and eyes; I never got the impression Enid meant that his skin was black (she would have said so if it was). Sooty is the nickname his friends at school have given him and he seems to accept it happily, not viewing it as a racial taunt of any kind. And "unlikeable"?! I haven't read Smuggler's Top since I was about 8 years old and I still remember Sooty as one of the most fun, interesting and thoroughly likeable of Enid's "supporting" characters in the Famous Five books. Superficial and stupid misreadings of Enid like that verdict above just go to show how many of her critics haven't read her books properly — they're just looking through the narrow lens of their own assumptions and prejudices and finding what they expect to find, even if it isn't actually there. :roll:

In conclusion, not an article I want to either keep for myself or share with my family after all! :x
I'm afraid I felt the same about that article. The illustrations and pictures throughout the magazine were great - but the article was certainly ill-informed and shoddily written.

The mention by the article writer of Sooty Lenoir is totally ridiculous, as you say...and I feel sure he's got (gotten?!!) this from some other article, as I seem to remember the accusations previously. He seems to have just lifted this half-baked (or actually not even baked at all) accusation from another ill-informed article writer. I wish I could remember where I read something similar about Sooty Lenoir before.
'Oh voice of Spring of Youth
hearts mad delight,
Sing on, sing on, and when the sun is gone
I'll warm me with your echoes
through the night.'

(E. Blyton, Sunday Times, 1951)



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