Chronology in the Mystery series (Five Find-Outers and Dog)

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fatty_fan
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Chronology in the Mystery series (Five Find-Outers and Dog)

Post by fatty_fan »

I've just been reading this series with my daughter (it was my favourite when I was a child) and we're now up to Book 13 and I've noticed some glaring inconsistencies that I would be appreciative if anyone could explain.

1. Jenks is promoted to Chief Inspector in Book 9 (Vanished Prince), and Superintendent in Book 11 (Holly Lane), but in Book 13 (Missing Man) he appears again as a mere Chief Inspector. In 14 (Strange Messages) he is again a Superintendent and in 15 (Banshee Towers) he's back to being a Chief Inspector! This changing of rank is a real mystery to me! :P

2. The children's ages are mentioned specifically only in the first 3 books, so I inferred their ages by tabulating which holiday (Christmas, Easter or Summer) each story takes place in, to come up with some sort of chronology and ages for them. By my reckoning, Fatty should be 19 by the last book, Larry 20 and Bets 14, but nothing in any of the last few books (if you go by the publisher's serial number the last book is 15, Banshee Towers, or if you go by when Jenks is a Super, the last book has to be either Tally Ho Cottage or Strange Messages). I'm not sure how to put a table on here or I'd show you the one I created to display how I infer this from the books.

3. At the end of Book 10 (Strange Bundle) Mr Goon is supposedly feeling very friendly towards Fatty, but at the start of Book 11 (Holly Lane) he actually tries to get Buster shot! Inexplicable about face in terms of how he feels towards Fatty.

Ok, that's it for now. Hopefully someone can shed some light on this!
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Keith Robinson
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Re: Chronology in the Mystery series (Five Find Outers and Dog)

Post by Keith Robinson »

Hi, fatty_fan! I too went through this puzzling chronology a while back, and put together a page about it on my site; see Bothersome Timelines. Also see the last few of my Mystery reviews for comments about Jenks.

There's a similar problem with the Famous Five, explored to some degree in my page Blow those timelines! In a way, the Five are worse because there are mentions of them steadily aging beyond the first few books; Julian is 12 in Five On a Treasure Island, but is said to be 16 in Five Get Into Trouble. Even at the end of the series, Tinker is 9 in Five Go To Demon's Rocks and 11 in Five Are Together Again, so if two years can pass for a secondary character in such a short space of time, you can't avoid the fact that the Five are two years older as well. By this reckoning Julian should have been around 23 by the series end -- and yet there are plenty of contradictions to this that indicate the Five are still children. (Not to mention the fact that apparently none of them have girlfriends or boyfriends even though they're in their early 20s by Book 21...)

Coming back to the Five Find-Outers, the chronology is just as bad but I never get the feeling the children are anything but children even though by Banshee Towers Fatty must be 18 and Larry a year older at 19. But in any event there's certainly no excuse or reasoning behind the apparent demotion of Jenks. That's just plain sloppiness on Blyton's part. In Banshee Towers the author doesn't even seem to know what rank he is from one page to another. Bets says, "What about telling the Chief Inspector? You know, Inspector Jenks..." and after that it's a mixture of the two throughout.

And don't get me started on Ern's siblings. He started off with two brothers, Sid and Perce, earlier in the series, but in Banshee Towers he apparently had two sisters!

In both cases (Jenks' rise and fall in the ranks, and Ern's siblings) I've heard many arguments of "reason" -- for instance, someone said that perhaps Ern had two brothers and two sisters, but never bothered to mention the sisters until the last book -- but I don't buy it. A far simpler explanation is that Blyton just lost her way. This is understandable in the final book of the series, which I gather she wrote while in poor health, but it's a shame the Jenks error crept in as early as book 13. The ONLY plausible and excusable theory I can think of is that Blyton wrote the books in a different order to that which they were published -- but I find that highly doubtful too.
fatty_fan
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Re: Chronology in the Mystery series (Five Find Outers and Dog)

Post by fatty_fan »

Looks like I've worked out the exact same holidays for when the different mysteries occurred as you've done! In fact all your observations are exactly the same as mine. Thanks for stating everything so succinctly :)

How do I find/access your Mystery reviews?
fatty_fan
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Re: Chronology in the Mystery series (Five Find Outers and Dog)

Post by fatty_fan »

Oh sorry... found them! :oops:

Thanks!
dsr
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Re: Chronology in the Mystery series (Five Find Outers and Dog)

Post by dsr »

I think we just have to assume there is no chronology. The Find-Outers live in their own special world, it's clear - hence the plentiful macaroons when everyone else was suffering rationing - so perhaps, like Narnia, their world has its own time? :)

EB's characters aren't the only ones where time passes strangely. James Bond and Jennings, for example, never get older.
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Re: Chronology in the Mystery series (Five Find Outers and Dog)

Post by Keith Robinson »

dsr wrote:I think we just have to assume there is no chronology. The Find-Outers live in their own special world, it's clear - hence the plentiful macaroons when everyone else was suffering rationing - so perhaps, like Narnia, their world has its own time? :)
That's true, of course -- but while timeless chronology doesn't bother me, poor continuity does. Like Jenks' rank, and Ern's ever-growing family, and the fact that the Famous Five had an entire adventure about Wreckers in one book and then knew nothing about them in a later one. Never mind how much treasure they found over the years, with not a mention of ever-increasing wealth!
dsr wrote:James Bond and Jennings, for example, never get older.
Heh -- James Bond and Jennings in the same sentence. Love it! :D
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Re: Chronology in the Mystery series (Five Find Outers and Dog)

Post by dsr »

Some authors spend a lot more time on continuity than others, of course. I think Elinor Brent-Dyer had a reputation for fairly trivial errors re. ages of children etc., though I've never read them closely enough to find out. I don't think EB can have had time to keep extensive records of who's what and where and when, and I've never heard that she had a secretary whose job was to do it for her - so it's not surprising the odd memory lapse crept in.

As for the famous five's treasure, apart from the first batch belonging to the Kirren ancestor, didn't most of it belong to third parties, and have to be returned to the rightful owner? Mind you, the "INGOTS" in the first book must have been worth a bob or two. One gold bar goes a long way. Maybe it all went on the refurbishments after the tree fell on the cottage, and Uncle Quentin had forgotten to pay the insurance.
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Re: Chronology in the Mystery series (Five Find-Outers and D

Post by pete9012S »

Lenoir wrote:There's probably quite a few little slips if one looks hard for them.
Jenks gets promoted to Chief Inspector in Vanished Prince, and to Superintendent in Holly Lane and Tally Ho. He goes back to Chief inspector in Missing Man.
He is Superintendent again in Strange Messages and then back to Chief in Banshee Towers.

No wonder Bets just likes to call him a "very high-up policeman”!
I just love Lenoir's concise little resume of Jenks' upwards (and downwards) career path!
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dsjlp
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Re: Chronology in the Mystery series (Five Find-Outers and D

Post by dsjlp »

I think that it is the same for most authors when they write series. I once read a study of Agatha Christie's handling of Hercule Poirot which pointed out that if you took the timelines literally, then Poirot would have been around 123 in the last book!
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