Julian Kirrin is coming across quite well so far in this book - at least according to Aunt Sally, sorry Aunt Fanny:
Aunt Fanny smiled to herself. Julian always knew the best thing to say and do. Now he would take Berta in hand and see that she didn’t upset the household too much. She was glad. It wasn’t easy to run a big family like this, with a scientist husband to cope with, unless everyone pulled together!
" A kind heart always brings its own reward," said Mrs. Lee.
- The Christmas Tree Aeroplane - Society Member
Reading back on the thread, yes, it would have been a good storyline if Anne had been kidnapped instead. She could have offered to take Sally for a walk (she was quite taken with her), perhaps George go with her, but refuse to wait for "that silly little dog"...
It would have also been interesting to see her brothers' reactions-I think they'd have felt that they failed in protecting her. It could have been a good moment for EB to show Anne's braver side and have her acting on her own which she rarely does.
But thinking about it, in the stories where the FF are caught, it's almost always Dick or George. Perhaps the FF wouldn't manage to cope if their leader wasn't in charge? Julian and Anne seem both to be kept out of the real on their own scuffles. George takes most of them, and Dick in gets into Trouble.
Berta's a good character. She's a bit spoilt at first, but quite keen to be accepted, so develops quite well. I wish that EB hadn't gone for the silly storyline of George being jealous of her (and Henry in Mystery Moore-although funnily enough she doesn't do it with the two Harries) Especially the point where she calls "Leslie" "Berta". She knows full well why they're doing it, and Berta doesn't want to do it, and even if she's jealous I don't think she'd deliberately put her in danger.
On the subject of George being mistaken for a boy, but then Julian saying she doesn't really look like one, I have a simple explanation:
In those days girls didn't wear boys' clothes, and tended to have long hair. So people wouldn't look further than that before deciding she was a boy.
I did that when one of my children was starting school. I was talking to another mum who I didn't know and saw her child, dressed in shorts and a school jumper, with short hair and asked what her little boy was called-yes, it was a little girl. Thing was that although some girls wore trousers, none wore shorts and all the girls' trousers were girlie ones, and all wore cardigans rather than jumpers. So I had made an assumption based entirely on clothes. (For anyone interested she was a bit of a "George" in a lot of ways. One of my favourite memories was a sports' day when she asked if she could run in the race with her friends-who were boys-and won. However she grew out of it about aged 9 or 10 and last time I saw her was wearing a skirt and long hair-and still very sporty!)
Five Have Plenty Of Fun is always an interesting FF book to discuss. The book marks the final appearance of Jo, one of EB's great support characters, like Ern Goon. Without Jo, Plenty Of Fun would have been a fairly mediocre book, in my opinion. As she does not enter the scene, until fairly late in the proceedings, I always wondered whether Enid originally intended to include her in the book, or whether she was added, as an afterthought, to help pad out the plot. Plenty Of Fun was the final book, that was set mostly in Kirrin, and for me, marked the end of the golden period of FF books.
Maggie Knows wrote: ↑14 Jan 2014, 18:53
Despite the rehash of so many previously deployed plot devices it still makes for an enjoyable enough yarn, but its worth pointing out that (for me at least) this is the start of an overall dip in quality that isn’t really recovered until Five Get into A Fix some three books later...
I disagree, I find "Five on a Secret Trail" so much more suspenseful than "Five get into a Fix" which I think is always over-estimated.
Chrissie
Society Member
"For me, the cinema is not a slice of life, but a piece of cake."
Alfred Hitchcock
I like Plenty of Fun and never considered any of the "plot holes" or the similarities between other books. The only two things I questioned were why did George dislike Sally so much? Berta I can understand but George loves dogs so why would she resent Sally, especially when Timmy likes her and isn't put out by her being there? Is it because she's Berta's dog and therefore unwelcome due to her owner? Or does George 'love dogs' but only if it's her own?
The other thing I questioned was why on earth would Berta have been allowed to bring Sally with her in the first place? Such a distinctive dog would bound to attract attention especially if it just appeared at the same time as a new face in the village! Berta might just as well have had a sign around her neck with an arrow pointing at herself walking about with Sally! Pity when Berta had her hair cut short Julian didn't think of disguising Sally the same way
Society Member
I'm just an old fashioned girl with an old fashioned mind
Not sophisticated, I'm the sweet and simple kind
I want an old fashioned house, with an old fashioned fence
And A̶n̶ ̶o̶l̶d̶ ̶f̶a̶s̶h̶i̶o̶n̶e̶d̶ ̶m̶i̶l̶l̶i̶o̶n̶a̶i̶r̶e̶
Katharine wrote: ↑28 Apr 2022, 21:46
I too had the impression that George only really loved Timmy, and was at best fairly indifferent to other dogs.
Yes she shows little interest in any other dogs throughout the series. Worse than that she actually seems to dislike other dogs being around in case they hurt Timmy. This happened in Fix where a fight between Timmy and some of the farm dogs was the cause of the Five moving up to the mountain hut. I'm sure she's wary of the gypsy dogs in some of the books as well. Timmy was her devoted companion from back before she met her cousins and Enid maintains that bond all through the series.
"What a lot of trouble one avoids if one refuses to have anything to do with the common herd. To have no job, to devote ones life to literature, is the most wonderful thing in the world. - Cicero
Although I enjoyed this Famous Five adventure it seems almost like a poor carbon copy of Five Fall Into Adventure. I found Berta somewhat irritating and George infantile in her jealousy of both Sally the dog and of Berta. As in the other 2 books that Jo makes an appearance she ends up saving the day. Jo should be an honorary member, like Ern Goon, who also saves the day in Secret Messages and Hidden House.
You'll never wear your own brains out, Mr. Goon - you don't use them enough !
I quite liked Berta who's realistically not at ease with the Five (at first) and clearly isn't keen on adventures and kidnap threats - and despite her being American Enid doesn't indulge in any of the common cliches about brash, show-off American kids that were common to the era 's books and appear to some extent with Zerelda at MT and Junior in Finniston Farm. (Berta can be cited when critics start complaining about Enid using cliches about 'foreigners'). It's also amusing to have Jo showing Julian and Dick how to get into Gringo's house - has she been into houses through coal-holes before as a burglar 'a la Oliver Twist' for her dodgy father Simmy? It shows that even Julian needs a 'nudge' at times in such matters, from a more practical / experienced person. And the police show a Mr Goon-style complacency about the danger of kidnap and the urgency of getting Berta away to safety and getting George back afterwards - helping the story, and possibly influenced by Enid's reading Sherlock Holmes and Poirot stories where the Private Investigator has to step in and hurry up the investigation as the police won't?
George's reaction to Berta, I agree, is the weakest part of the plot - though the book may have been written at speed and Enid had to cover up some potential holes in a possibly hastily-constructed plot, eg how the boys can locate George via the route used by Gringo's caravan as someone is conveniently available to remember seeing it en route to its destination. The detail of the staff member at a hotel at the nearby town of 'Graysfield', as on p. 155, who was at a nearby shop when he saw the car and its caravan stop near him and heard where it was going may have come to Enid from the Black Bear or Red Lion hotels in Wareham (next town to Swanage on her regular road to and from Purbeck). They are both in the town's main street and have small shops next to them with plenty of parking outside, so E could log this as an idea to use. In the book, Kirrin garage hand Jim's friend answers his query on behalf of J and D about passing cars with saying that he heard the man in the car, answering Gringo's description, telling his driver where to turn off the main road - in the next place on the road, 'Twining' (a joke by Enid about Twining's tea?), where he is to turn up a hill. In Purbeck, the next place to Wareham is Corfe - with a turning up a hill and isolated houses like Gringo's at the top.
Gringo is an intriguing name - the Latin American term for an Englishman or American, ie an English-speaker not a Spanish-speaker. So was he an Englishman (or a American ? on p. 151 of the first edition it says he has an American car) showman who had worked in Latin America and/or had LA on his fairground staff, who had given him this nickname?
Lucky Star wrote: ↑30 Apr 2022, 11:47
Yes she shows little interest in any other dogs throughout the series. Worse than that she actually seems to dislike other dogs being around in case they hurt Timmy. This happened in Fix where a fight between Timmy and some of the farm dogs was the cause of the Five moving up to the mountain hut. I'm sure she's wary of the gypsy dogs in some of the books as well. Timmy was her devoted companion from back before she met her cousins and Enid maintains that bond all through the series.
That's a good point, she always seems to be terribly afraid Timmy will get hurt by other dogs even though Tim sounds like he's bigger than most dogs and given the way he can fly at villains to to protect the five, he is likely quite cable of taking care of himself! Thinking back though George does like Jock's dog in Camp, Toby's in Billycock Hill, Nobby's in Circus and in Trouble is quite put out that Richard gave one of his dogs a silly name, so it really is a mystery why she disliked Sally so much. Perhaps it's because she's a tiny black poodle, but she has no problem with Snippet a tiny black poodle in Finniston Farm, nor the two Harries, despite severely disliking Henrietta and Berta (though I don't blame her on the former). Perhaps the simplest explanation is that George's likes and dislikes of both people and dogs changed to meet the plot of each book .
Society Member
I'm just an old fashioned girl with an old fashioned mind
Not sophisticated, I'm the sweet and simple kind
I want an old fashioned house, with an old fashioned fence
And A̶n̶ ̶o̶l̶d̶ ̶f̶a̶s̶h̶i̶o̶n̶e̶d̶ ̶m̶i̶l̶l̶i̶o̶n̶a̶i̶r̶e̶
Five go to Mystery Moor is the last of the very good Famous Five books. Five have Plenty of Fun onwards goes downhill terribly (In my opinion). In fact I didn't like the much lauded Five Get Into a Fix. I think the pressure of finding enough good plots for such a long series starts to show by then. A lot of people don't like Five go to Mystery Moor but I find it very good. Sorry I am straying from the subject here though. I would say Five have Plenty of Fun is mediocre and the subsequent books are quite poor in comparison to the heady heights of Five go to Smuggler's Top, Five go on a Hike. This is similar to the Carry on films - in the first few -they are finding their feet, then there is a golden age, and then (after Sid James's untimely and sudden death) very mediocre and poor films, an ignominious ending to a great series. Now I am really straying from the subject so I will stop here.
You'll never wear your own brains out, Mr. Goon - you don't use them enough !
I agree and also count Five go to Mystery Moor among my favourite FF books, along with "Smuggler's Top" and (help, I'm having a senior moment here and cannot recall the name of the book where the five encounter the Sticks. Is it...) "Five on Kirrin Island Again"(??? )
StephenC wrote: ↑27 Apr 2022, 15:47
Plenty Of Fun was the final book, that was set mostly in Kirrin, and for me, marked the end of the golden period of FF books.
Actually "Five on a Secret Trail" is starting out at Kirrin Cottage, then continues at Kirrin Common. So that's the final book set at Kirrin.
Chrissie
Society Member
"For me, the cinema is not a slice of life, but a piece of cake."
Alfred Hitchcock
.
