Viv of Ginger Pop wrote:Could someone enlighten me what is meant by "two dimensional". It is a charge often levelled at Blyton, and either the rest of the world know what the phrase means, or the critics are just copying a cliched phrase. If some characters do fall into this class, what books by other authors aimed at a similar age group do not?
I agree, Viv, that "two-dimensional" is a cliched phrase and that critics who use it often fail to explain exactly
why they feel an author's characters lack depth. If Philip Pullman means that the characters in long-running adventure series like the Famous Five don't develop a great deal, then he ought to be well aware (as an author himself) that that's simply the way such series work. There is a degree of development - for example, George Kirrin is initially an isolated figure who gradually learns how to give and accept friendship and, as the series progresses, she continues to be a unique individual with quickly-changing moods. However, although the adventures involve experiencing unimaginable fear, drama, danger, imprisonment and even death threats, the children don't appear to be affected in any significant or lasting way. If you're going to have a group of children fall headlong into one adventure after another, you can't really explore the psychology of each character in depth. Besides, each individual has to remain strong, and the group has to continue as a solid unit, to make future adventures possible. The characters have to bounce back and be as eager as ever to carry on making discoveries and doing their bit. A certain "sameness" from book to book is also helpful in creating the right atmosphere and making a set of twenty-one books feel like a series. Part of what makes readers warm to the characters is that they're unchanging in the essentials - they're always positive, brave and determined, whatever happens - and that's reassuring for child readers, as well as for nostalgic adults revisiting that golden world! As we said earlier, Enid Blyton never lost sight of her child audience whereas Philip Pullman (in my opinion) sometimes does.
In a number of her books, such as the school stories and the "family, home and society" novels (
The Family at Red-Roofs,
The Six Bad Boys,
House-at-the-Corner, etc) there is a greater complexity of characterisation and some tough topics are tackled (very skilfully when we consider that Enid Blyton realised that novels she intended for older readers might well be read by younger ones too, since she wrote for such a wide age range.)
One of the few Blyton stories which I would definitely say
does contain two-dimensional characters is "The Little Paper-Folk" (
Chimney Corner Stories.) That's because some of the characters are cut out of magazines and newspapers by Susan and Jimmy, and magically brought to life!
Anita
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