The Enid Blyton Society

Rob Houghton wrote:Spot on! I think this is one of the main reasons I also don't enjoy Banshee Towers very much. It has less to do with the plot than with the setting. Banshee Towers itself doesn't seem to belong in Peterswood (or even near it!) and the familiar landscape of the village, built up carefully over the series, suddenly becomes an alien place in this last book - as do the characters!

Good point, although that reminds me of the way I felt about the "hidden house" in, well, Hidden House. That, too — a huge, mysterious, forbidding kind of mansion in an almost-secret location in the woods, well out of town, with Strange Goings-On underneath (don't want to give too many spoilers for those who may not have read it!) — didn't quite seem to me to belong to Peterswood's villagey setting. Mind you, it didn't spoil the story for me too much; it was a good enough read, just not one of the strongest plots in the series in my estimation. But that is pretty much how I feel about Banshee Towers as well. I've never found it an utterly awful book, just not brilliant by comparison with most of the rest of the series.

I agree about Hidden House, too - its one of my least favourite Find Outer books, partly due to the location, but also because the plot is more suited to a Famous Five book than a Find Outer book. I don't really like my Find Outer stories to have secret passages etc - they seem out of place.

Hidden House is one of my favourites. As a child I was enthralled (second time I've used that word today) by the large house hidden in the woods, and the machinery that took cars below ground.

As for Peterswood, a visit to Bourne End killed off any familiar landscape that I might have imagined. It was only seeing Daisy's Bench which brought me back to fantasy.

Moonraker wrote: As for Peterswood, a visit to Bourne End killed off any familiar landscape that I might have imagined. It was only seeing Daisy's Bench which brought me back to fantasy.

I'm not quite sure I understand this, lol...but I know we have different views on Bourne End! I've been told off a few times on here for calling Well End Bourne End...but to me Well End is Peterswood, with the railway, and the river where the side shows were in Missing Necklace and the 'long river path' which Eunice walks along. I felt like I was in Peterswood when I visited Well End and Bourne End, but then I never imagine things quite as others do, I find - to me Peterswood is half imagination and half real...

Has anyone wondered how, when Fatty brings the prince to the room where the others are, he manages to go into the room yet also lock it from the outside?

I presume it was locked because otherwise when the men came back there would have been a kerfuffle while they tried to unlock the door and were surprised to find that it was unlocked. And we know that the key was on the outside because that is specified a page or so later when Fatty takes it out and locks the door from the inside.

I thought perhaps the door had a special latch, so that when you pulled it to from the inside it locked automatically - but Fatty had to turn the key to lock it from the inside.

When I first read this book it was my first experience of discovering how a detective in disguise 'pumped' people for information, leading them on into boasting and letting out important details by accident. We see Fatty do this to the man at the fair who he lures into talking about the Talleys (ie the 'gypsy' family involved in the 'Prince's vanishing act) and then to Rollo, and it struck me then as masterly.Reading it again as an adult, you can see similarities with various Sherlock Holmes stories where SH in disguise lures suspects or their friends into showing off and boasting; I wonder if that's where Enid got the idea and the method from.
There's a similarity of the mystery of the Prince's pyjama-buttons turning up on an outfit a washing-line with 'The Mystery of the Blue Carbuncle' , where again a vital clue turns up in a seemingly inexplicable context - the missing jewel (ie the 'carbuncle') turns up stuffed inside in the neck of a Christmas goose!

Mind you, as so often Fatty has incredible luck - ie that 'Old Man' Talley was away and he could safely turn up at his family's caravan pretending to be an acquaintance and 'pump' the boastful Rollo. Either Talley or the men who had hired him (presumably coming over from Tetarua, wherever that is meant to be, as when they find the children snooping around Enid says one of them was talking in a foreign language) must have had a reasonably large amount of money available to rent the old farm on the marshes to hide the Prince at, and in the 1950s hiring a helicopter for private use would have been expensive. Or was the latter one from the Tetarua air force, in the UK on some excuse and supplied by the Prince's dodgy relatives?

Also, when the 'Princess' speaks in a strange language why does Ern, and later Goon, turn to Fatty and ask for a translation, assuming that he is proficient in the langauage?

I do think that the books would have benefited from an editor pointing out certain anomalies which could have been changed quite easily.

Obviously it could be argued that it doesn't matter because these books are only for children who don't mind about such things. Who cares if Fatty enters a room and then locks it from the outside? But it is interesting that in 'Invisible Thief' much is made of how the thief could not have climbed out of a window and then fastened it from the inside, which is exactly the same principle.

Splodj wrote:Has anyone wondered how, when Fatty brings the prince to the room where the others are, he manages to go into the room yet also lock it from the outside?

I presume it was locked because otherwise when the men came back there would have been a kerfuffle while they tried to unlock the door and were surprised to find that it was unlocked. And we know that the key was on the outside because that is specified a page or so later when Fatty takes it out and locks the door from the inside.

I thought perhaps the door had a special latch, so that when you pulled it to from the inside it locked automatically - but Fatty had to turn the key to lock it from the inside.

I would simply imagine that the men turned the key a little and didn't notice that the turn hadn't actually done anything in terms of unlocking the door. They were quite agitated at the time, so they would have done it in rather a hurry I should think, so probably didn't think twice about how easily the key was turning.

Splodj wrote:Also, when the 'Princess' speaks in a strange language why does Ern, and later Goon, turn to Fatty and ask for a translation, assuming that he is proficient in the langauage?

I guess Ern and Goon would assume that: as the princess and the other foriegn visiters were staying with Fatty as guests, he must have been able to understand their language, or else he wouldn't have been so closely associated with them.

If they really had been foreign, no doubt Fatty would have been able to converse with them!

Splodj wrote:Has anyone wondered how, when Fatty brings the prince to the room where the others are, he manages to go into the room yet also lock it from the outside?

I presume it was locked because otherwise when the men came back there would have been a kerfuffle while they tried to unlock the door and were surprised to find that it was unlocked. And we know that the key was on the outside because that is specified a page or so later when Fatty takes it out and locks the door from the inside.

I thought perhaps the door had a special latch, so that when you pulled it to from the inside it locked automatically - but Fatty had to turn the key to lock it from the inside.

When Fatty brings the prince back he is in a hurry. The key is on the outside as that is where he put it after letting himself out and although when he dashed in with the prince he would have to leave it unlocked, the men burst in in a real panic looking for the prince and probably would not notice the key was already turned to the unlocked position.

Banshee Towers is.the last book of the Find Outers-- so it carries with it a sense of loss and loneliness-- at least thats whst it did to me.I read that book.very rarely compared to the other books which.I never ever tire of reading --- In the Vanished Prince, Bets.and the others were dressed up.as people from the East-- so tjey spoke in.a nonsense language.I feel it adds more to the humour , so characteristic of Enid Blyton
-- No one can write as well as she.--truly.phenomenal
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I think the newest edition of the book omits the nonsense language... not politically correct??? I think they don't call Bets 'Bongawee' either.

Better not to go for the newest editions of Blyton books.The entire charm will be stolen.-- Blyton's books should be read in their original form and not tje duplucated ones-- it will be really not worth it -- It doesn't matter a bit if Bets is called Princess Bongawee-- what's in a name???

I was listening to the audio of the new edition online, and for some reason they keep 'Bongawah' but omit 'Bongawee'. But they (accidentally I think) have Mr Goon saying Princess Bongawee to the Inspector, so it's as if they forgot to take that bit out, because there is no other mention that Bets was called Bongawee - not even in Fatty's poem, and that ruins the swing of the poem.