Could Enid have been a better writer?

[Moonraker]

However, from the empirical observation of her typing capabilities,... that could be understood, by even children whose lingua franca was not originally English,

Heck, I must find a dictionary...

[Belly]

As a complete aside I once worked in a recruitment agency. We used to time candidates at data entry (for those that couldn't touch type). I noticed that those who had the highest IQ also seemed to the faster typists. I had a maths genius in once and his keystrokes per minute were so much higher than most.

Maybe it has something to do with memory? Enid, I would have thought, could have effectively taught herself to touch type. With her photographic memory she wouldn't need to look at a keyboard.

[Anita Bensoussane]

As for language, it is great that she wrote in simplistic prose that could be understood, by even children whose lingua franca was not originally English, which in part explains her eternal popularity worldwide.

Yes, I think that's a valid point. Some children's authors who were writing at around the same time as Enid Blyton used a rather stilted, formal style as well as slightly more advanced vocabulary. I'm thinking of authors like Gwendoline Courtney, who wrote some good family and mystery stories but whose writing simply doesn't flow in the way that Enid's does. Enid's sentences are fairly simply constructed on the whole and her characters' dialogue sounds very natural. That makes her books immensely readable and accessible even for many readers who speak English as a second or third language, as Enikyoga pointed out.

I thought I'd read somewhere that Enid only typed with two fingers on her portable typewriter, but could type just as fast this way as any touch typist.

Yes, I've read that too. It's surprising, but Enid Blyton really did type all those novels, plays, short stories, articles and poems using just two fingers (and her thumb for the space key, I recall reading somewhere.)

Anita

[Rob Houghton]

I can type pretty fast (when I did a computer course a few years back I was one of the fastest typists!) But I too only use two fingers (quite often only one!) and my thumb for the space bar.

[Belly]

Does that mean you are super intelligent, Robert, as per my observations?

I have a feeling I read somewhere Enid went on a typing course - mid way in her career, last years with Hugh? which meant she could type faster? Not sure where I read it? A Childhood at Greenhedges? Could well be mistaken though.

[Anita Bensoussane]

I have a feeling I read somewhere Enid went on a typing course - mid way in her career, last years with Hugh? which meant she could type faster?

It's possible. I don't recall hearing about that but we all remember different bits and pieces from what we've read. Hugh was the one who encouraged Enid to start using a typewriter. In her early days as a writer she had submitted her work to publishers in longhand.

Anita

[Enikyoga]

However, from the empirical observation of her typing capabilities,... that could be understood, by even children whose lingua franca was not originally English,

Heck, I must find a dictionary...

Moonraker,
The word lingua franca means a common language used over a wide geographical area as a means of communication, oftentimes used for convenience by people who speak different first languages.

[Philip Mannering]

I am a pretty slow typist - but that is made up by accuracy, which means that I don't make many mistakes! I'm not a touch-typist, I type while looking at the keyboard and not at the monitor. I use only two fingers - the point one on both hands, and sometimes the big one of the right hand - but I can't use my thumb!

Sorry to be off-topic!

Getting back at it, I don't know if Enid was a great one to type; but I feel that she couldn't touch-type (am I right?). Anyway, her typing speed was great, we know that because she completed a book in four days.

[Rob Houghton]

Does that mean you are super intelligent, Robert, as per my observations?

DEFINITELY

...NOT!

[Tony Summerfield]

I thought that a quote from an article I have just read from Lucy Mangan in The Guardian (okay so I am a bit slow off the mark!) fitted very nicely into this thread title:-

'A more general and longstanding concern is Blyton's deathless prose. Her characters have but two adjectives - "queer!" and "rather queer!" The plots make the Beano read like Tolstoy. It ranks as one of the greatest disappointments of my adult life that my beloved Blytons are now unreadable.'

And this comes from someone who claims to like Enid Blyton's books!

[Anita Bensoussane]

Funny that critics invariably resort to wild exaggeration when putting down Enid Blyton. I just can't take them seriously when they do that. If they feel they have genuine points to make then why don't they make them properly, in a reasonable manner, backing up their arguments with evidence from the books? Or perhaps they have trouble finding any evidence to support their claims!!

Anita

[Rob Houghton]

That's very true.

I can't really take critics seriously when they say things like that. They might just as well say something like:

'Enid Blyton, who wrote The Famous Five, all about Noddy and Big Ears attending a boarding school that was only accessible via a flight on a wishing chair, was a failed secondary-school teacher. She turned to writing in order to support her out-of-work surgeon husband during the early 1980's and became moderately successful. She only used words like 'grand' and 'smashing' and every one of her books was exactly 3,501 words in length...'

Any old rubbish seems to be acceptable if it's about Enid Blyton

[Anita Bensoussane]

I wasn't quite sure what Lucy Mangan meant when she described Enid Blyton's prose as "deathless" so I looked up the word in an online dictionary. It gave two definitions:

a) Not subject to termination or death; immortal,

b) everlasting because of fine qualities.

Perhaps Lucy Mangan wasn't aware of the positive connotations of the word!

Anita

[Tony Summerfield]

She is doing a series in the Guardian on Children's books, and I was actually reading her review of Eve Garnett's 'The Family from One End Street' in which she made a reference to EB. This was No. 8 in a series, and when I looked at the rest of the series EB was No. 2 - written back in October but I missed it then. Sounds as if she chose the wrong word with 'deathless'!

[mish]

My 2 cents worth:

I wanted to echo the thoughts of those people (sorry you were page 1 and I can't see your comments!) who mentioned that Enid Blyton was a story teller rather than a novelist. I have always though of her this way - but didn't have a label for it, story teller is the perfect description of Enid.

The thread question: Could Enid have been a better writer?

My thoughts - no. If she did some of the things suggested, researched more, wrote what others of her period were writing, revised more - we wouldn't have the stories we have today. She would not have not have been better, but rather different (ie possibly like the other childrens authors of the same period).

I have seen her 2 dimensional characters mentioned before on this forum. Many critic's use this as a bad point. I feel it is the opposite (though sometimes I really would like to know a little more about certain characters!) it is a good point of Enids writings. As a 2 dimensional character it is much easier as a child to find a character to relate to. And I feel this is a key part in what makes Enids stories magical. I personally have learned many life lessons through reading Enid Blytons books, and I am sure I am not the only one.

Enid Blyton was unique, different for her time and bears the brunt of much criticism and who can forget the PC brigade? I feel this is largely due to "grown ups" and other "successful" authors bewilded at why an author from the 40's (hope thats right!) who wrote in a simple manner, didn't find the need to use huge words, wrote imaginatively continues to have a place in the heart of many old and young who read her timeless tales.

Enid Blyton is a fantastic author.