I have a box of books under my bed. It's hidden behind the boxes of old textbooks and chicklit I am too embarrassed to put on my bookshelf, and it's my deepest, darkest, most guilty secret. It's the box of books that I turn to in my hours of trial to give me a little glow of happiness.
It's a box of Enid Blyton books.
They can be read in an hour, they have as much emotional depth as a teaspoon, and you always reach the end feeling morally superior because you would never be that politcally incorrect ... all in all, they are the perfect antidote to a shitty week at work!
I'm not sure that I will ever outgrow that desire to become an inmate of Malory Towers, but coming back to them a decade later, I'm pulled back in not by the wholesome jolly school children who manage to have so many unlikely adventures, but by all the other things that you can read into those stories, the twisted aspects of Blyton's mind that find their way onto paper.
Well, that and the food - the woman's obsession with food is legendary - I swear that she is the only writer who has ever made me feel like eating pickles.
Anyway, over the course of this blog, I plan to share with you the sick genius of Madame Blyton, and any other childhood favourites that come to mind ...
Watch this space ...
Just went through every single of your Malory Towers posts and was cracking up the whole way through. I often stalk forums trying to find analyses of the boarding school series from an older perspective, but I've never found anything as good as this. You are hilarious. Please marry me. I especially loved the "Who is Violet? Violet did not exist...' comment (SHE WAS SO INSIGNIFICANT. DID ENID JUST PUT HER THERE BECAUSE TEN SOUNDS LIKE A BETTER NUMBER THAN NINE?!) and the potential Mavis/Mr Young, Miss Winter/Mrs Lacey affair. As much as I love these books and still read them repeatedly even at my age (and as a guy... but... y'know) there are so many innate flaws that I could have rambled on about for thousands of words, but clearly you beat me to it by about two years. Would love to see some posts about the St Clare's series! (Seriously, every character in them just screams to be bitched about, esp Pat and Isabel) This is honestly one of the most fulfilling blogs I have ever read!
ReplyDeleteI'll get to St clares eventually, but I'm trying to break up the boarding school stories a bit ...
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