Journal 73 has proved to be yet another excellent entry to this wonderful series we are so lucky to subscribe to. As I said a few days ago I was delighted to read in Tony's editorial that membership has increased for once; hopefully this trend will continue.
Anyway I began with John Lester's excellent dissection of
Five Go to Mystery Moor. I have always regarded this book as something of a dark horse in the series. It has never been one of my favourites yet I recognise that it is well written, suspenseful and probably the last "great" FF book until
Fix. It just doesn't appeal to me for some reason. But I will re-read it now after John's article which delved deeply into the plot and included interesting sidesteps on the characters' names and even the art of novel writing itself via Joseph Conrad, another of my favourite authors. I was a little surprised to see that John rates
Five on a Hike Together as "one of the weakest" books in the series. I think it won the accolade of Most Popular FF Book in our series of polls here last year and I believe I'm correct that most of the membership here love it. Strange how books strike different people in different ways.
I thoroughly enjoyed John Henstock's article on the
Secret series. This is one of my own all time favourite series' and I did agree with John throughout. He advanced an interesting hypothesis on the children's Aunt and Uncle in
The Secret Island. Yes they were nasty but on the other hand the training the kids received on that farm undoubtedly helped them on the island even though Jack plainly was the expert. And at last I find someone who agrees with me that Baronia (and the later Tauri-Hessia) are set in the Balkans. That's always been my impression and I was delighted to read that I am not alone.
Angela Canning reliably turned in an other fascinating article on the
Secret Seven short stories. bearing in mind I haven't actually read most of these I still found it a great piece of writing especially that intriguing revelation from Gillian Baverstock which opened the piece. I love the early
Secret Seven novels and really must read the short stories. Angela gives a great insight into how the gang came about.
Julie Heginbotham's article on
The Mystery of the Strange Ruby and
The Mystery of the Secret Necklace were also enthralling. Again I haven't read either novel but I will look out for them. Many of Enid's stand alone books passed me by as a child, it is only as an adult I am discovering them so its good to get recommendations and analyses like this to help choose.
Tim Venning gives us the next installment of his excellent series on the Famous Five 1978 TV series locations. I have all of these saved up and plotted for a trip to the area; alas current conditions leave me wondering when that trip will ever happen but when it does I shall be carting along Tim's articles as my guide book. Fascinating detective work as always and illustrated with great pictures too.
More
Secret Seven on offer from John Pickup with an enjoyable and well written read about the final SS book. This one is frankly so poor that I can never even call the plot to mind but as I read John's article it came back. One thing I had not realised was just how little the other five feature in this book. I think John is correct that it should have been a stand alone novel and not an SS series entry. I suppose Enid always had a problem fitting in enough parts for seven children plus dog plus Susie in such short books but still; more than half the gang absent for more than half the book is head scratching.
Anita is always entertaining with her articles and this time she switched her attention to the first
Malory Towers book. I remember reading this one as a child feeling rather guilty and embarrassed as it was a "girls book" and I did not encounter it again until adulthood when |I read the entire series. Anita is always excellent at getting under the skin of the various characters and their motivations and this article is no exception. It left me in the frame of mind to re-read the book and I have dug it out and placed it on my "To Read" pile. The list of quotations which Anita uses to illustrate that Enid's work was not just lightweight stuff was very thought provoking. Like others here I have always felt that many of Enid's critics have never actually bothered to read more than a handful of her most popular books. I wish I could place this article in the hands of some of those critics.
David Martins gives us "an appreciation" of one of Enid's best and most exciting books
The Island of Adventure. There is so much to love about this book which introduces us to Blyton's finest series and best characters. I have always loved it and enjoyed David's article immensely. It was amply backed up by those wild and wonderful coastal illustrations from the great Stuart Tresilian. he made a good point though about the improbable fact of Craggy Tops having no electricity but a working phone! In all my readings of the book I don't think that one ever registered with me. It just shows there is always something new in The Journal.
Judith Crabb gave us a lovely article on
Bimbo the Little Kitten and his French counterpart and Neville Barlow a very interesting psychological look at Enid and her work.
Together with more wonderful pieces from the lady herself it all added up to yet another superb edition of the EBS Journal. Hearty thanks as always go to all the contributors and especially to the man who holds the whole thing together, Tony Summerfield. Roll on number 74.
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