Hi Matthew, the old couple in "Valley" was a big surprise for me when I read the book for the very first time as a child living in Braunschweig near Hannover.Matthew Roberts wrote:I don’t think Enid Blyton mentions the WWII much in her work, does she? The only other title I can think of, off the top of my head, is The Adventurous Four. Another great book. I wonder how such books translate to the German market?
By the way, Chrissie, I was actually born in Germany, in Hannover.I can’t speak much German myself, though, sadly! I was only there for six months or so. (My father was in the British Army.) I did do a little German in school, and I have always wanted to visit one day.
Incidentally, Enid breaks the “rule” about twins in The Mystery of the Pantomine Cat as well. That commandment I can get behind because it is rather lazy, but most of Knox’s “rules” I dismiss, along with the very notion of “rules”. I don’t think you can write good fiction of any kind with a list of rules to follow, and the reason Agatha Christie’s books are so brilliant is that she broke the rules, flouted convention, found new ways to deceive and distract the reader—and of course dreamt up pretty much every single ingenious plot, twist and sting-in-the-tail before anyone else did.
When were you born in Hannover if I may ask?
I was born in Munich in 1955. Was 9 years old when we moved to the north to Braunschweig and I visited Hannover from 1978 on quite often, because my first former husband's parents and friends lived in Hannover. The first flea market in Germany started in Hannover at the Leine river next to the old Beginen tower.
Even though I am reading EB's suspenseful book series since 1965, I did not read "The Adventurous Four" before 2008. I had read the German translation (Die Arnoldkinder) when I was much younger, but it didn't appeal as much to me as the FF, Barney series or Adventure series.
Thanks to the Enid Blyton Yahoo Group which André, my husband, discovered in Google in the summer of 2008 and which I joined years before I joined EBS I was made aware of "The Adventurous Four" and read them for the first time in English plus the sequel and the novella/short story.
And this time I was thrilled. Read it several times since 2008.
I didn't realize that they were actually inspiring the later "Sea of Adventure".
I remember that I enjoyed reading "The Pantomime Cat", but forgot that twins were a part of the story...time to reread it!
Matthew, Hannover was very much destroyed during WW II, but has been renovated and become a nice city. Not as beautiful as Hamburg or Munich though. I spent the past 15 years of my life in Germany in Hamburg working for a movie magazine, before I immigrated to the US in March 2002. Hamburg has lovely parks and big lakes in the center of the city plus an incredible river walk along the Elbe river next to old sailor's and captain's cottages (unfortunately most tourists who come to Hamburg don't know about the beautiful river walk leading from Oevelgoenne to Blankenese and they only explore the downtown area).
