Mystery of the Secret Room...why is it rather unpopular?

[Chrissie777]

Another mystery solved by the Friendly Forumites.

[katrina10]

The Secret Room was the second book I read in that series and I quite liked it. I haven't heard anything negative about it but then again I only just joined the forum

[Nicko]

I couldn't find this mentioned anywhere else on the forum (although it probably has been) so thought I would ask here.

In the 1980s editions of this book that I read as a child Pip asks on the first page, 'When are the things coming?' 'Things' meaning Larry, Daisy and Fatty.

The modern edition that I looked at today has been revised/corrected to, 'When are the others coming?'

Does anyone know if in the original Methuen edition it is 'things' and that this was an EB error? Or was it a mistake the publishers made in the 1980s?

[Moonraker]

"Others" in my Methuen first edition.

[Nicko]

Thanks. Rather slack of the publishers to have made that mistake in the 80s...

[Lenoir]

I always remember that slip. I used to find it very funny at the age I was at the time.
It is in my 1966 Dragon second reprint, not sure if it means it was later than 66 then, maybe 70.
Anyway, it seems it survived for a while, but the old versions are correct as I found out much later when I obtained a hardback.

[Fiona1986]

It's still "others" in the 1954 8th reprint.

[Nicko]

Another query about a possible revision in this book...

My memory is that in the original edition when Fatty is caught he is punched on the ear so that he sees stars?

However, in the current edition is states:

'Quite suddenly, without any warning, the thin-lipped man put his hands round Fatty's neck. Fatty gasped. The hands clenched him tightly, and almost choked him.'

Is my memory playing tricks or is this a new revision?

It seems a strange one as half-choking someone doesn't seem much less violent than punching someone on the ear.

[Daisy]

You are right Nicko. Fatty receives a blow on his right ear as you say and after another on his left ear, he does see stars. No mention of hands round the throat.

[Lucky Star]

Personally I would have said that choking someone is far more violent and far less acceptable than boxing their ears. I never will get the hang of these revisions.

[Chrissie777]

Boxing ears can perforate the ear drums.

[Daisy]

I suppose someone pointed out that hitting someone on the head can cause serious injury - as Chrissie says. Choking I presume is relatively safe!

[Lucky Star]

Personally I would have said that choking someone is far more violent and far less acceptable than boxing their ears. I never will get the hang of these revisions.

Boxing ears can perforate the ear drums.

Choking can KILL!

[MJE]

     Boxing the ears is probably worse in usual circumstances, because the damage may occur instantly, without warning. Death by choking is probably not going to happen without some warning in the form of distressing signs, and if the man didn't really intend to kill Fatty by choking him (intending it merely as intimidation), he would stop choking well before distressing signs started.
     But the whole revisionist thing is silly anyway, regardless of whether you consider ear-boxing or choking to be worse: it is based on the false premise that anything characters do in a work of fiction is somehow being endorsed or at least tolerated by the author - which is clear nonsense. Just because a character in an Enid Blyton story boxes someone on the ear (or starts choking them), it doesn't mean that she is approving of this behaviour. It would be almost impossible to write most works of fiction if authors could never depict behaviour that they, or society generally, don't approve of.
     If editors understood this simple truth (I can only presume that they don't), then surely it would not be seen as necessary to "revise" the books at all. I regard political correctness as a mortal enemy of effective fiction-writing.

Regards, Michael.

[Katharine]

I like your comments Michael. I've just been reading The Enchanted Wood, and there's a bit in there about the children going off with the Saucepan Man. Their mother thinks he's a little unusual, but lets them go. Reading it to my 7 year old I suddenly realised that if taken as a true story rather than just a work of fiction that it was totally inappropriate. What right thinking mother would let her children go off with a total stranger? Yet the mother in these books doesn't bat an eyelid when the three of them (all presumably about junior school age?) go off for hours on end to meet up with people she either doesn't even know, or thinks are a little strange.

If children were only allowed to read books that were completely in keeping with real life, I feel the world of literature would be very boring.