The Enid Blyton Society

I'd forgotten the man's name too, but I looked him up online and he's called Mr. Grimnasty (or "the Old Man of the Wood").

Thanks Anita - he does look rather grim and nasty!!

Talking about the complicated set-ups http://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/foru ... 75#p292344, I think that "Sea of adventure" falls into the same category. Each flight brought three parcels dropped by parachutes. The operation lasted much more than one year so there are more than 1000 parcels in the lagoon. Keeping the plane in good shape must have cost a fortune (if it was always the same one). I also think it's odd that nobody became suspicious of those many flights. And then they will remove all the guns with one seaplane? Oe do they have several ones? How much do they have toinvest to keep the flying?

I always assumed that the villains must be making enough profit for the scheme to be viable. Maybe they were using Uncle Quentin's cheap fuel!

I just loved and enjoyed the story. I never saw the need to analyse the costings of the operation.

I too just read these great stories by Enid and didn't even think of any wider picture!

Moonraker wrote:I just loved and enjoyed the story. I never saw the need to analyse the costings of the operation.

I think that reading these as a child you tend not to notice these things. After all, the adult world around you is complex and you don't always understand the reason for everything. You just accept it as the way things are. So if criminals are using that nefarious plot, that's the way things are. You are just thrilled and intrigued when you start getting glimpses of the plot and feel the danger and excitement.

Reading as an adult I notice these things more, but I don't really give them too much importance. These books are for my inner child to enjoy

I have to smile a bit when people say 'I just enjoy the story' (sorry Nigel and Julie!) - because obviously, we all enjoy the story - but there wouldn't be much to write about or analyse if none of us noticed these anomalies or made these interesting observations. I'm always happy to hear people's views, although I admit I'd never given the dropping of guns into the lagoon any serious thought - to me it was an out of the way place, as good as any.

Reading The Rat-A-Tat Mystery last week, it did strike me that Enid seemed keen on hiding guns under water...

I think its great fun to find inconsistencies and plot holes and to discuss them - it makes Enid far more important as a writer when her books are dissected. If no one was interested in her writing techniques and the faults or otherwise in her plots, then she would be reduced to just another writer, in my view. I don't pull the plots of many other authors apart, because I'm not really interested in them as writers as I am with Enid, and I don't rate them as highly.

You don't have to be sorry, Robert, Enid never took any notice of criticism from anyone over twelve anyway.

I'm sure she would have taken notice of all our adoration, despite our ages, lol!!

Yes - Enid was writing for children and she valued their responses most of all but she must have glowed with pride at the praise of adults like magistrate Basil Henriques, who was very impressed with The Six Bad Boys and described it as "a most remarkable and enthrallingly interesting book."

Regarding The Sea of Adventure, I know next to nothing about the cost of maintaining and flying planes or about how much warring groups/countries are prepared to pay for extra supplies of guns - or about how closely flights of small planes are monitored. However, it's interesting to read Wolfgang's thoughts. Judging by what Bill says, people involved in such schemes make a great deal of money:

"... when we clean up these scoundrels," said Bill. "They're the men who make fortunes when one country goes to war with another, or when civil war is fought - because they get the guns and sell them to each side."

Rob Houghton wrote:I'm sure she would have taken notice of all our adoration, despite our ages, lol!!

Adoration, definitely, Rob.

I love the Sea Of Adventure but the only thing that occurred to me when reading the book as an adult was wouldn't there have been an awful smell from the puffin colony when the children walked through it. The cost of the gun-running operation never bothered me at all.

I agree - and as I've often mentioned previously, the children also drink 'pure clean water' out of a natural 'bowl' in the cliff...with puffins flying over it, dropping dead fish into it, maybe washing/swimming in it, not to mention their droppings!

I've now got this image of puffins queuing up at the natural bowl in the cliff with facecloths and towels.