The Ban on Enid Blyton.

[Fiona1986]

Not quite in the same vein but I read a comment on Facebook the other day about someone who had tried to read some Enid Blyton books (much loved in their childhood) to their children and she and her husband were in hysterics at the language and had to give up. She ended with "oh how the way we talk has changed!" or words to that effect.

It made me wonder if she falls about laughing upon reading Jane Eyre or anything else written pre 2020 as surely every era has its own slang that dates it?

On the plus side I've seen dozens and dozens of posts asking for reading recommendations for various ages of children who are bored during lockdown and without fail Enid Blyton comes up.

[Katharine]

Anita, thanks for all the Churchill references. Now if one of Enid's books had contained that poem about Winston Churchill I could perhaps understand someone not wanting to pass it on to a younger audience, but to put a blanket ban on all of her books just because of a couple of sentences seems rather extreme.

Fiona, I enjoyed your post. Although apart from the odd reference to things like galoshes etc, I can't say I've noticed that big a difference in the way the characters speak. If that lady thinks Enid's writing is funny, she ought to try the Chalet School books. Often when the girls in those stories are reprimanded for speaking 'slang', I can't see anything wrong with what they have said.

[Courtenay]

Not quite in the same vein but I read a comment on Facebook the other day about someone who had tried to read some Enid Blyton books (much loved in their childhood) to their children and she and her husband were in hysterics at the language and had to give up. She ended with "oh how the way we talk has changed!" or words to that effect.

Possibly all the references to everything being "gay" or "queer", I'm guessing. Whatever it was, though, at least it sounds like she recognised it as the way people genuinely did talk back then, which is something. When I was little, I loved reading Enid Blyton and other "classic" children's books and wasn't at all perturbed if they had language in them that we wouldn't use these days — I just took it as part of the atmosphere and certainly didn't go repeating words and phrases from them that I knew were old-fashioned or else not what people my age would say at school. Sometimes Enid's language is a little quaint, but that's just part of the fun — her stories are still incredibly good!

[Fiona1986]

There are the odd lines I can imagine having a laugh at, especially given that language changes over time and words have new meaning, but to be so hysterical you can't carry on? I don't know how true her story was but why would you exaggerate something that makes you look so daft?

[Courtenay]

I agree, it IS pretty daft. I came back to reading Enid Blyton books after an interval of probably over 15 years — I stopped reading them when I was 11 or 12 and don't think I picked one up to read again, other than maybe a very occasional leaf-through, until I was about 30 — and I also haven't found anything in them at all that would make me give up because I'm laughing too hard at how twee it all sounds. If anything, I've been reminded over and over how enjoyable and evocative Enid's writing is and how truly gripping her best plots are! Maybe it's just that Blyton-bashing is still in fashion and that person on Facebook thought she was making herself look smart and sophisticated. If so, it didn't work.

[Lucky Star]

that person on Facebook thought she was making herself look smart and sophisticated. If so, it didn't work.

I imagine this probably sums it up both for the Facebook person and Katharine's BBC article writer. It's highly fashionable at the moment to put down and condemn anything which smacks even vaguely of tradition and the bandwagon jumpers are out in force. The proof of the pudding is that Enid's books are still selling more than fifty years after her death and eighty years after their initial publication.

[Katharine]

...... The proof of the pudding is that Enid's books are still selling more than fifty years after her death and eighty years after their initial publication.

I've just read George Greenfield's biography about Enid Blyton, and he makes a very interesting comment about how most popular authors quickly disappear within a few years of the writer's death, whereas Enid's books are still selling strongly.

Some of this may be through clever marketing etc, but somehow I can't believe it is just because they change the covers from time to time.

[Lucky Star]

No it's because the stories have been loved and passed down for several generations now and they are timeless in their appeal. They are also, as we know, nothing like the simplistic, middle class narratives that they are so often portrayed as. There is real meaty stuff, believable characters and gripping plot lines in those books and children today enjoy those things just as much as children ever did. It's only pretentious adults with their heads in the clouds who can find cause to laugh at what they are reading.

[John Pickup]

That just about sums it up, John. Excellent post.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Well said, John (Lucky Star)!

[Jack400]

I couldn't put the last several posts better myself.
Special credit to Fiona's post:
There are the odd lines I can imagine having a laugh at, especially given that language changes over time and words have new meaning, but to be so hysterical you can't carry on? I don't know how true her story was but why would you exaggerate something that makes you look so daft?

[Barnard]

I do not believe that the text in any books should be altered or amended because attitudes have changed. When a book is reprinted, print what he or she wrote, not what you think should have been written.

[tix]

In the Forties Enid Blyton was attaining popularity with her exciting 'Kirrin' and 'Adventure' books.

Unfortunately, when children were found to be reading EB's works almost exclusively, the schoolmarms were somewhat concerned. Pupils must not peruse stories that reflect their own attitudes to life; a tale needs to contain words the reader might not understand, and any associated plots need to be reasonably sophisticated or slightly difficult to follow. You know what I mean .... they have to be 'challenging' and 'bereft of everyday language such as that used by the hoi polloi.'

'Alma was hauled up for eating sweets.'

We think it should be expressed as such:

'Alma was reprimanded for consuming confectionery.'

A kind of resentment had sprung up against the author and I can remember descending into the basement of a library some years ago to discover several shelves of EB books that had been removed from the general collection. You could still buy them of course .... and we did. The 'forbidden' manuscripts were avidly read at one's home or at friends' places. Comics were also frowned upon, so that many Supermans and Batmans taken unwittingly into the classroom were confiscated - and often burnt. Personally I look upon confiscation as plain stealing - 'Misappropriation of someone else's property' should cover the definition.

Certain EB's were considered as particularly unacceptable. One criticism was of the fact that children seemed to be 'running their own lives' which tended to place a question mark beside the Find-Outers with all their freedoms - and attitude towards the village policeman. Same for the Kirrin clan and also the Kings and Queens of adventure - Jack, Dinah, Lucy-Ann & Philip with their feathered friend and various pets ..... gallivanting off to exotic locations and fending for themselves. For Shame, For Shame? They even robbed a supply shed when stranded in some godforsaken Austrian valley. Actually, in that particular circumstance one might feel this was justified, seeing the pilfered food presumably originated from illegal acts in the first place (and of course the kids had to survive).

Golliwog tales were fiddled round with of course, and a narrative that gained some notoriety was entitled 'The Little Black Doll.' This is about Sambo who experiences a fairly unsatisfactory period with Matty his owner. She doesn't like him, and what follows is a typical Blytonian answer to the doll's predicament. Yes, The-Powers-That-Be spent time poring over various Blyton novels and then declaring that other mortals must not be afforded the same privilege because they, The-Powers-That-Be, considered such material as 'unacceptable.'

Unacceptable to whom?

The fact was being missed that many of us occasionally like to go back a few decades and discover or relive the attitudes of earlier days ...... viewing them through a 'wayback' machine as it were. Furthermore, it's surprising how many works of literature can become acceptable again - despite the efforts of those who have adopted the mantle of 'censor.' Banning novels, or anything for that matter, doesn't work because it simply creates a morbid desire to see the article in question.

As far as early criticism of Enid Blyton is considered, we can hearken back once more to the item penned in the Fifties by Colin Welch and entitled "Dear Little Noddy." Sure enough, it contains one of the standard beefs -

(Noddy books) ".... fail to stretch the imagination!"

I think most of us have heard that sentiment somewhere before.

[Lenoir]

Noddy books are very imaginative. Just one example: The one in which the kite is tied to the milk churn and the strong wind makes it lift off and it rains milk. (Noddy and Tessie Bear).

[Anita Bensoussane]

Children's horizons are not limited by old-fashioned authors. They're limited by modern editors who take books from former periods and edit them to bring them into line with current trends and attitudes, thereby denying children the chance to experience a taste of the past and reflect on how things have altered!

Those of us who have read a wide range of her books know that Enid Blyton herself believed in stretching children's imaginations and that she encouraged boys and girls to exercise their curiosity, learn about the world around them, make discoveries, join in with things and do their bit.