Susan Hill on Enid Blyton

[Belly]

From Hill's 'Howard's End is on the Landing':

Enid Blyton's books did for my generation, and several generations since, what J.K. Rowling's have done recently - broke that invisible barrier between children who are natural-born readers and children who are not. Unless they have been adversely influenced by an adult, no child has ever felt ashamed of being seen with a Harry Potter, though they might never admit to reading any other book. Adults may say what they like - parents, teachers and other know-alls. Enid Blyton excited us, took us into worlds of mystery, magic, adventure and fun. Yes her prose is bland, yes, the vocabulary is not particularly stretching. But Blyton had the secret, the knack. I missed out on the Noddy books though not on the Magic Faraway Tree, but my real Blytons were the stories of the Famous Five, the Secret Seven, the Mystery of...series and the boarding school world of Malory Towers. I lived with those boys and girl, who were around my own age but lived far more interesting lives, with nicer houses,...greater freedom to gallop around the countryside on horses, take out boats and bikes, and go hiking and mountain climbing. There were villains, there was danger, they got into scrapes, yet their world was essentially safe and serene for the duration of the story...I went to the Mountain of Adventure, I was in the Fifth at Malory Towers. We all were. Blyton taught me what books could do, where the imagination could take me, how I could be transported to other places...learn about how the world of friendship and sibling relationships worked too - a vital lesson for an only child. I still don't understand why Blyton has been frowned upon by adults for so many years. What is there to disapprove of, what is harmful? Limited, yes, but what book does not have its limits? My mother preached against Blyton while reading a light-romantic author called Naomi Jacob, for heaven's sake.

Most of my Blyton's were library books so I do not have any on my shelves now - except one, the book I received for Christmas when I was five and a half. It has a bright-green cloth binding with the lettering, Enid Blyton's Treasury, in gold, the spine is weak from being opened too many times. There are just two books which have the power to catapult me back sixty years into childhood - Alice in Wonderland and this. When I open it I am transported, by the titles and the stories and the illustrations, in the most extraordinary way..The Mystery of Melling Cottage, A Night on Thunder Rock, and, perhaps the evocative of all, The Wild West Kids, in which some children join a circus for a day. Circuses were Circuses then, with real lions and tigers and the roar and smell of danger. Bertram Mills Circus visited Scarborough every year, arriving with a parade through the town, just like the one in my book. Real life and fiction merged. For two pins I would have run away to join the circus. I still might.

Hill also talks about Charles Causley - much more than just a children's poet - whom she knew, with great insight and affection. I love Charles Causley and was also thrilled by this part of her book. Hill says she didn't encounter his poetry until she was grown up 'but he is a poet whose verses stick like burrs to the inside of the mind.' Hill quotes from his poem 'Convoy': 'Draw the blanket of ocean, Over his frozen face. He lies, his eyes quarried by glittering fish, Staring through the green freezing sea-glass at the Northern Lights.' & goes on to explain that Causley saw this boy, the subject of the poem's mother every day in Launceston High St post war and had to avoid her as he felt like he'd turn to stone otherwise.

[Timmylover]

From Hill's 'Howard's End is on the Landing':

... There were villains, there was danger, they got into scrapes, yet their world was essentially safe and serene for the duration of the story...

I feel that this is a very important element in Enid's writing. I remember reading, for example, Five Get into Trouble, Five Fall into Adventure and The Island of Adventure and feeling truly terrified but also reassured that everything would turn out well. The latter feeling, however, never detracted from the excitement and fear I experienced, along with the protagonists, whilst the events were taking place.

Another gift that Enid had, which children always appreciate, is humour. Parts of the Five Find-Outers books have me in stitches. I never experienced any criticism of Blyton's writings when I was a child (1940s/50s), I think that nonsense started at a later time.

I'm really looking forward to the arrival of my copy of Susan Hill's book. I don't know the works of Charles Causley and no doubt I will learn of other authors with whom I'm not familiar.

[Belly]

Yes, I don't think I actually said what the book was about, sorry .

It's about Susan Hill spending a year going through her old collection of books and re-visiting them. She mentions with great enthusiasm many writers I've never heard of, Bruce Chatwin, Rev Francis Kilvert and the diarist Roy Strong to name but a few.

[Timmylover]

Yes, I don't think I actually said what the book was about, sorry .

Absolutely no need to say sorry, Belly. You have lead at least three of us towards reading Susan Hill's book, and I did read the summary on the Amazon site.

So I say "Thank you"!

[Anita Bensoussane]

From Hill's 'Howard's End is on the Landing':

For two pins I would have run away to join the circus. I still might.

I felt/feel like that too!

Thanks again for telling us about the book, Belly - I'm impatient for it to arrive.

[Moonraker]

I would still like to join a circus! Maybe Anita and I could form a double-act! Did anyone see Maaterchef recently which featured cooking for circus performers? Galliano Grill sounds incredible! My love for the circus is certainly due to Enid's writings.

Moonraker's Incredible Gay Circus

featuring the wizard acrobat

Amorous Anita (No Strings Attached!)

with

Jubilant Julie and her Amazing Flying Dogs
(Umbrellas Provided)

Watch Terrific Tony Escape from the Secret Cave

Coming soon to a field near you!

[Anita Bensoussane]

See human cannon-ball Mighty Moonraker zoom to the moon!

[Moonraker]

Watch Merciless Ming - the Asian Beauty - Walk the Tightrope

AKA Tantalising Tasnuva

[Julie2owlsdene]

Words fail!!

[Ming]

Words fail!!

Indeed!

[Tony Summerfield]

If I am supposed to escape from the Cave, I'm afraid that I have failed!

[Anita Bensoussane]

Over the last few days I've read Howards End is on the Landing and found it to be a beguiling wander through rooms of books, including libraries and living-rooms from the author's past, and sprinkled with enlightening encounters with literary personalities. I've only ever read three of Susan Hill's novels - The Woman in Black, I'm the King of the Castle and The Mist in the Mirror - and they were beautifully written and full of atmosphere but disappointingly predictable in plot. In this work of non-fiction I was able to lose myself in Hill's writing and let her take me where she would, with no storyline to worry about. The book contains many observations on reading, book-collecting and writing, causing me to stop and ponder. Here are just a few of them:

"...whatever the font, it must have a serif or I cannot read much of it."

That's something I hadn't really thought about before, but on reflection I have to say I feel the same - about material printed on paper. Funnily enough, when I'm reading from a computer screen it doesn't seem to matter.

On titles: "A good title beckons, attracts, seduces, remains. I have plenty of favourite titles, though oddly enough they are not necessarily attached to favourite books. A good title makes a pattern, has a rhythm and can be rolled very satisfactorily round in the mouth, even recited like a verse to cheer up dull moments."

Reading those words made me draw up a mental list of (children's) books whose titles I find particularly appealing:

The Phoenix and the Carpet
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
The Magic Faraway Tree
The Tree that Sat Down
The Swish of the Curtain
Tom's Midnight Garden
The Box of Delights
Over Sea, Under Stone
We Didn't Mean to go to Sea
Stig of the Dump
Not Scarlet but Gold
By the Shores of Silver Lake
No Ponies for Miss Pobjoy
Journey to the River Sea
The Diamond of Drury Lane

I'm sure I could think of plenty more, but those sprang to mind first. As a child, I kept hearing about a book which sounded very promising from the title - We Couldn't Leave Dinah, by Mary Treadgold. I didn't come across a copy until I was an adult and was sorry to discover that, as far as I was concerned, the title was the only interesting thing about the book, the story and characters being dull.

In the chapter 'Things that Fall out of Books', Hill says: "The Order of Service for the funeral of a dear, good friend is in my best copy of T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets. I know why that is there - this friend knew the Quartets by heart and understood them as well as anyone I ever met so I slipped the funeral sheet in a place he would have liked it to be."

I was moved by that. Howards End is on the Landing is littered with brief personal anecdotes and I enjoy the glimpses of Susan Hill's life and of other writers she has met.

We have discussed Hill's remarks on Charles Dickens in another thread, and she also writes interestingly about Roald Dahl. The first time she met him she considered him to be a grump and a bully, but was later to revise her opinion of him when she saw him in a more genial and generous mood. Of his books she writes, "Child anarchy is a dominant theme in his stories but children did not realise this consciously. They adored Dahl because he talked about snot and bums and made adults smell, but along the way, children recognised him as one of their own, and knew that he told riotously good, highly original, madly inventive stories in which magic invaded the ordinary world and extraordinary things happened casually, as they do in all the best fairy stories. That is what Dahl wrote, and he is in the greatest tradition. He is not afraid of frightening children, he knows they can take it, he is happy to point the finger at the duplicity and selfishness, and sometimes downright wickedness, of adults, going behind the masked smiles and cooing voices to reveal the real nastiness...Dahl liked to disturb and provoke."

In a chapter devoted to children's books, Susan Hill comments that "fiction for young readers has become more and more issue-led. Divorce, step-parents, drugs, alcohol, early sex, knife-crime, foster-care, child abuse, unemployment, gang warfare, AIDS, terminal illness... you name it, there is a novel for children about it. But all children are anxious, adult life contains much that is ugly and unhappy, unpleasant or downright bad. Why introduce them to that too early, through books, which can be such a force for enjoyment, imaginative enrichment, fun, excitement, adventure, magic? Realism comes home soon enough and many children have too much anguish to cope with in their everyday lives as it is. Their books can be one corner of life that remains untainted by the troubles brought on their heads by unthinking, unloving adults. I am glad mine remained ignorant of much that is polluted, cruel, ugly, hurtful, wrong as long as possible (which is not, after all, very long, in the scheme of things) and that their books were wholesome, enriching, enlivening, enjoyable, lovable and, for the most part, were about worlds into which they could happily, innocently escape."

That's something we've talked about on the forums before. Jacqueline Wilson's books revolve around such issues, and even adventure books like Anthony Horowitz's "Alex Rider" series and fantasy books like J. K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" series or Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" have issues, heavy romances and emotional trauma running alongside the action. They're much darker than anything that was being published for children in my day (though Judy Blume was starting to creep in in the early 1980s)and I sometimes wonder whether it's all a bit much. Having said that, my daughter and son have read those books and similar and don't appear to have become morose or anxious as a result! We talk about our reading, though, and I too have read all those 'modern' authors as well as others, so my children have been able to air any concerns and not just brood on them inwardly. They have also read Enid Blyton, E. Nesbit, Philippa Pearce, Noel Streatfeild, Richmal Crompton, etc, so I consider they've had a good balance overall. Exposing children to the bleaker elements of life through fiction isn't a bad thing, I think, unless the overall message is a bleak one. What I do feel is important is for authors to show their main characters coping (ultimately)and surviving, and being left with at least a glimmer of hope for the future.

Thanks for recommending Howards End on the Landing, Belly - I enjoyed reading it. At the end of the book Susan Hill tries to imagine what it would be like if, for the rest of her life, she were restricted to reading only forty books. She compiles a list of the forty titles she would choose. I've started compiling my own list just for fun - it's quite a challenge!

[Belly]

Glad you've enjoyed it Anita & I agree. I've found earlier children's fiction to be generally much better written, there isn't the same depth and richness in the language these days I've found. People who can write as well as Hill here are generally thinner on the ground I feel.

This said I've just read Lauren St John's White Giraffe and Dead Man's Cove which were excellent. Even so there is an inferior quality of language that underpins things when I compare it to children's fiction published in the seventies for example.

Anita, I'd love to see your list.

[Anita Bensoussane]

A book like Howards End is on the Landing is bound to have its idiosyncrasies, being such a personal meander through the world of books. There is little or no mention of E. Nesbit, Daniel Defoe, Oscar Wilde or D. H. Lawrence, all of whom are important to me. On the other hand, I've come away with list of books I'm eager to try - P.G. Wodehouse's "Jeeves and Wooster" stories, Virginia Woolf's A Writer's Diary, Penelope Fitzgerald's The Blue Flower, John Wain's The Smaller Sky, W. G. Sebald's The Rings of Saturn and V. S. Naipaul's A House for Mr. Biswas.

I've just read Lauren St John's White Giraffe and Dead Man's Cove which were excellent. Even so there is an inferior quality of language that underpins things when I compare it to children's fiction published in the seventies for example.

A few people have mentioned Dead Man's Cove in other threads. Just the other day I found a nice hardcover edition of The White Giraffe on my bookshelf. I haven't read it as I'd forgotten I had it, but I remember now that I bought it from a charity shop about three years ago because I liked the colourful cover (yes, I know about not judging a book by its cover , but sometimes that's the very thing that attracts or repels in the first instance).

Like you, I've been reading some modern children's literature recently and have been particularly impressed with Julia Golding's "Cat Royal" series. It's a marvellous and wide-ranging piece of historical fiction with a feisty heroine and a whole cast of intriguing characters. The books are written in a sophisticated but accessible style - they're children's books but I'd say more suitable for the older reader, perhaps 11+. Although they cover some meaty topics - slavery, gang violence, child labour - they are written with sparkling wit and chirpiness (supposedly by Catherine Royal - Cat - herself), which prevents them feeling depressingly dark. M. G. Harris's "Joshua Files" are also gripping but extremely tense and emotional in places. The style is pacey and snappy and suits the stories. Personally I've found the vocabulary of modern authors to be rich, though the style of writing sometimes lacks the natural fluency and apparent effortlessness of (for example) Enid Blyton's writing. What strikes me about current children's literature is the complexity of many of the plots, and the amount of research that authors have obviously done. Even at my age, I've learnt a lot about history and different cultures from modern children's books. I wonder whether the advent of the internet has anything to do with the tendency of authors these days to immerse themselves in a topic and include numerous factual details in their work? Information is easily accessed now, and one strand of research no doubt leads to another, which surely must result in an enrichment and embellishment of the original idea.

Anita, I'd love to see your list.

I'll start a new thread - "40 Books to Last a Lifetime"!

[Belly]

I forgot to add that Lauren St John uses the same 'cinema screen' technique as Enid Blyton and that might be why her books flow so well for me. I read an interesting interview with Lauren where she said how she couldn't possibly write or dream up anything much if she gave it conscious though.

The book/s you mention by Julia Golding in particular sound good. Will get them.

Recently read I, Coriander - author can't recall off the top of my head, which seemed to combine rich language with an engaging plot and was very skillfully crafted.

You may be right Anita, that might be it about modern writers for children. For me the most powerful children's books were always those where I could actually imagine myself to be there in the story with the characters. I still return to Shiva's Pearls by Harriet Graham, it's probably one of my favourite children's books. I am re-reading it to my daughter and for some reason when I tell the story I am there in nineteenth century Amsterdam and Scarborough, I can see, feel and taste the snow described. I am not sure what skill of the authors this is exactly? I's a feeling I get very rarely. This book is woefully little known. I still remember it from it's serialisation on Jackanory in the late seventies and again in the early eighties I think. Few others seem to recall it.

I saw a boy of about eight years old reading the River of Adventure today, he looked absolutely riveted, that's another book where I feel part of the action. I am always thrilled when I see Enid Blyton being enjoyed so much.

Will look forward to Anita's list thread!