Journal 34

[Anita Bensoussane]

Hurrah - just got in to be greeted by the Journal lying on the mat, so you'll be spared any further portry! Can't wait to read it!

Anita

[Petermax]

Behold! My Journal 34 has arrived but I will resist the temptation to read it until my next day off, such things must be savoured properly and preferably with a suitable beverage.

[Julie2owlsdene]

What a lovely sight to see,
The journal come through the door for me,
Puppy Morgan dashed over to have a look,
But I wasn't letting him get his teeth into this BOOK!!

[Lucky Star]

What a great read. I particularly enjoyed John Lesters article and also those by Robert, Anita and David Cook. I'm re-reading the Secret Seven books at the moment so I'm very interested in Dennis T. Worley's series on the SS and Susie. The journal is also packed with beautiful illustrations and covers, the "Holiday Books" series in the centre are gorgeous.

Speaking of illustrations on the back cover there is a lovely series of card pictures from an Enid Blyton Card game. It is depicting the Find-Outers and I just noticed that the card showing Inspector Jenks is labelled Inspector Jennings!!! An error by the game manufacturor, I'm surprised nobody noticed at the time. Its very small print so you'll probably need a magnifying glass to see it.

Anyway thanks again to Tony and all the contributors for another wonderful journal to add to the growing collection. Heres hoping there are many more to come.

[jen]

Its a good job I didn't have anything much planned for the weekend because Journal 34 arrived this morning. I was just going to have a quick flick through but I appear to have read most of it without realising it!

I liked Part 2 of Anita's article - the comparision between the Tramping Preacher and EB was really good and I agree with you Anita, I think the Tramping Preacher is a bit creepy too!

In David Cook's FFO's article it says (on the bottom of p49 of the Journal) that there is a picture "shown with the start of this article" of the inside of the bus to Sheepsale. I presume that means the picture accompanied Part 1 of the article? My Journals are in a box which has been buried underneath my Christmas tree so it will be December (when the tree comes out of its box and gets put up!) before I can look for myself!

One teeny tiny grumble - did anyone else find it hard to read the print on the centre pages? I don't know whether it was the green colour or the style of the text but I really struggled to read it.

Another superb Journal which I will read in much more detail before the weekend is out.

Jen

[Susie]

It came on Friday!
I've read nearly all of it, it was really a good read! I loved the circus story, by John Lester.

[Lenoir]

I'm re-reading the Secret Seven books at the moment so I'm very interested in Dennis T. Worley's series on the SS and Susie.

I’m pleased to hear that!
Looking forward to receiving my copy – should be arriving in the week ahead I hope.

I just noticed that the card showing Inspector Jenks is labelled Inspector Jennings!!! An error by the game manufacturor, I'm surprised nobody noticed at the time. Its very small print so you'll probably need a magnifying glass to see it.

Well spotted. I've recently started to use glasses, just for reading, and they have made a big difference, so it will be a good test for them!

[manzanita]

Another good edition of the Journal! My favourite article was bJohn Lester's and I'm definitely going to read "Come To The Circus" as a result. It sounds a very deep piece of work from the issues he explores.

I also enjoyed "Living Enid" by Terry Gustafson and where he compares Enid to the Tramping Preacher, and I agree with him that I found the Tramping Preacher creepy when I read "The Put-Em-Rights" and I can definitely see shades of Enid in this character particularly as I've now read Barbara Stoney's biography of Enid, particularly that both have the skill for being able to tap into children's minds, gaint heir whole attention and motivate them to do good.

David Cook's Five Find Outers was also good. I almost feel like I've read the books after reading his writing! I'd forgotten "Secret Room" and I certainly did try the orange juice writing trick when younger! It didn't have the success I hoped though!

Manzy

[Kate Mary]

I am really enjoying Journal 34, it is nice to see the Pepys card game on the back cover. I remember having one of these; a Famous Five card game, it was based on, I think, 'Five get into trouble', perhaps it will feature in a future journal, sadly, I no longer have it.
The article by John Lester was fascinating and I have decided to dig out my copy of "Come to the Circus!"it is years since I have read it.

Kate

[Anita Bensoussane]

Another first-class Journal! Like others, I loved John Lester's article on Come to the Circus! As a child I found the story all very melancholy and it didn't appeal to me as much as the more lively Galliano's Circus books, but as an adult I'm moved by the whole "ghost of Carol" element. John Lester comments that Carol "can almost be regarded as a character in the story and, indeed, Sunny Stories did provide a picture of her." That illustration wasn't included with the article but I'd like to have seen it. The Valley of Adventure (March 1947) was published at about the same time as Come to the Circus! began to be serialised in Sunny Stories (February 1947) and that also contains a reference to a red-haired girl who died - Elsa's grandchild. It makes me wonder whether Enid Blyton might have known or heard of a real-life red-haired girl who died young. There are several strongly-drawn adult characters in Come to the Circus! which makes me think that it could possibly have been in this book, rather than any of her other circus books, that Enid Blyton chose to recycle some of the material used originally in her unpublished adult novel, The Caravan Goes On (if indeed she ever did recycle anything from it, which we can't know for certain as the manuscript is lost.)

Dennis T. Worley's article on the Secret Seven was very enjoyable and I chuckled heartily at his suggestion that the rogue who took the Famous Five books in Secret Seven Win Through might have joined the Enid Blyton Society if he had lived now!

Robert Houghton gave a wonderfully thorough analysis of The Four Cousins, a book which I've only read once and which did not make much of an impression on me. I found the storyline unconvincing and agree that Enid Blyton confused neglect with poverty and didn't really offer any long-term hope for Billy and Betty. Besides, as we know from the Book Listing, Billy and Betty had already been away to the seaside in 1944!

Terry Gustafson's musings interested me. I too believed that Jack really had spotted a Great Auk and, when nothing came of it in The Island of Adventure, I clung to the hope that he might find one in a later title in the series! And I'm pretty sure that I also imagined a Great Auk to be some kind of large gull which could fly!

David Chambers' article was packed with information. That introduction to oral stories in Modern Teaching, together with bibliography, sounds interesting and I'll have to try to get hold of a copy and take a look at it at some point.

Like David Cook, I'm intrigued by the "glimpse of life below stairs" in The Mystery of the Spiteful Letters and I see what he means about the Joseph Abbey illustrations. Talking of illustrations, Joyce Johnson's picture on the cover of the Journal seems a bit odd to me. Fenella is beautifully-drawn and I find the subdued reds and blues used for the Sunny Stories covers attractive, but there's something strange about that gate. Is that diagonal wooden post a cross-bar on the gate, or a low rail running at right angles to the gate? For some reason it's hard to tell. The suitcase is oddly positioned, almost as if it's eating into the bottom bar of the gate, and where is the bottom of the Big Top? (Perhaps it can't be seen because the ground slopes downwards, but if so then it's clumsily done.) Having said all that, I do like Joyce Johnson's internal illustrations, especially the one of Fenella at the stream.

Another excellent Journal, Tony! Thanks for all your hard work!

PS. Manzy, I was the one who was guilty of comparing Enid Blyton to the Tramping Preacher, not Terry!

Anita

[Julie2owlsdene]

I too enjoyed the article regarding Come to the Circus by John Lester. I've never read any of the circus books, but am intrigued now to read this particular one.

I also enjoyed Anita's part 2. I enjoy reading Anita's writing, and have read many of the book listing reviews by Anita. Really well written. Well Done Anita.

Another good journal Tony, many thanks.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Cheers, Julie!

[Petermax]

Well, I have finally got to read my copy of Journal 34 and what an education it was. Many of the articles covered books and characters that I had never heard of during my childhood Blyton reading years. Come to the Circus for example, the Five Find-Outers and Dog and the Family books. Out of Enid Blytons estimated output of 700 books I must have only read a mere 70!

Dennis Worley's and Anita Bensoussane's continued articles about the Secret Seven and The Children at Green Hedges awaken long dormant memories of books that I last read well over 30 years ago. The temptation to go back and re-read them is enormous but there are so many present day demands at work and home that have priority for my time.

Now I wonder if someone could write an in depth thesis about Mr Twiddle?

[manzanita]

Robert Houghton gave a wonderfully thorough analysis of The Four Cousins, a book which I've only read once and which did not make much of an impression on me. I found the storyline unconvincing and agree that Enid Blyton confused neglect with poverty and didn't really offer any long-term hope for Billy and Betty. Besides, as we know from the Book Listing, Billy and Betty had already been away to the seaside in 1944!

*cut*

PS. Manzy, I was the one who was guilty of comparing Enid Blyton to the Tramping Preacher, not Terry!
Anita

Whoops, my apologies and credit to you Anita Certainly no reason to feel guilty as I think the contrasts you made were very good and I really can't disagree with you.

Yes, "The Four Cousins" review is interesting and I think shows a shift in how we do "charity work". For example, Oxfam place emphasis on giving the community basic skills to do for themselves long term, rather than quick fixes and being done for, which is what the holiday is and in all honesty, a fat lot of good for Billy and Betty in the long term even if they did enjoy themselves. A food parcel or hand-me-downs would have been more useful! If anything, it seems rather cruel to give these children a taste of comparative paradise, only to plump them back into the real world at the end. But maybe, it was the break the family needed so probably served some purpose. I've not read the book, so I don't know.

I don't doubt the children (and Enid via writing) were intending to be benevolent and assist the family, but living in a different world to the children, I wonder how much understanding either had of poverty issues, which Anita touches on in the quote.

As far as the Barbara Stoney biography goes, it's clear that Enid was active in charity work for many causes, but how many times did she actually get her hands mucky and physically help? It's great she motivated children to raise all that money of course, but it's rather clean and detached from the real issues. She may have briefly visited the children in the Home, but how often was the situation artificially improved because she was coming around?

Again, I think there's an element of her being closeted from reality and as a result, her solution to the family's predicament is rather childlike and "pretty" IYKWIM and without any deep thought or any understanding of living in poverty. I don't think anyone who hasn't lived in poverty can really understand it, so I don't blame Blyton at all. You can mimic poverty for a week or so if you like, but you always have the end date in sight, but if you're in a poverty cycle, you have no end date. It's your life and not a game.

Like so many things, you have to walk a mile in a wo/man's shoes to understand him.

Manzy

[Tony Summerfield]

There are several strongly-drawn adult characters in Come to the Circus! which makes me think that it could possibly have been in this book, rather than any of her other circus books, that Enid Blyton chose to recycle some of the material used originally in her unpublished adult novel, The Caravan Goes On (if indeed she ever did recycle anything from it, which we can't know for certain as the manuscript is lost.)

Anita

I am going to commit blasphemy here and disagree with Anita - shocking, I know! You probably remember that I wrote an article on this a while back. I am personally convinced that The Caravan Goes On was recycled as the Boys' and Girls' Circus Book published by the News Chronicle in 1939. My main reason for this theory is that everything else that the News Chronicle published was old material that had previously been published by Newnes. At this time Enid was bang in the middle of the Galliano's Circus Series for Newnes and therefore the book about Philipino's Circus was almost certainly something that Enid had written earlier as she was unlikely to be writing about two different circuses at the same time.

I'm sure that like all the other News Chronicle material, Newnes owned the rights of the book (they later republished it themselves anyway) and even the strange title was used so as not to detract from the Galliano books, with a title like that many people would not have realised that it was a novel - it sounds like a non-fiction book about circuses. This title clearly put off publishers at a later stage as this is the only lengthy Enid Blyton novel never to appear in paperback. I guess we will never know the answer to this, but I feel fairly confident in my theory!