Well, these six books seemed to take a great deal longer to review than I expected them to. I have, however, been paroled from Malory Towers Correctional Facility and am now free to explore other areas of Blytonia.
I just wanted to write briefly a word of warning to the unwary who wish to seek out the treasures that are MT. It seems as though the publishers are not content with leaving well enough alone. They’ve committed a travesty against the work of Blyton - by writing sequels.
Yes, children, Hodder got Pamela Cox (a serial Blyton sequel offender) to write a set of books following June and Felicity through their MT careers. The stories follow similar themes as Blyton's, which is disturbing as they were written in 2009. you know the type of thing: girl is ashamed of her working class relatives/circus performer grandmother/trained chimp brother. Enid could (just) get away with that rubbish; Pamela Cox – no.
On a more disturbing note, the German translation has twelve sequels, which follow Darrell into her adult life. She comes back to the school as a teacher, marries her old German teacher (alarm bells should be going off right about now) becomes the matron then later the Headmistress (when La Grayling gets hit by a car – Hooray!). I’ve only read the Wikipedia summaries and I feel a shudder going through me at the very thought of these books. It’s like reading the sequels to Heidi (I don’t suggest you do that unless you have a sugar deficiency). GAH!
Anyway, after that Public Service announcement, I shall move on to other counties in Enid’s Blytonia. The ever-wonderful Amelia Jane is the next series that I will tackle, amongst my packing and moving (who moves over Christmas? If I had my way, not ME), but first I shall take a break from Enid and we will have a quick romp through the wonderful/irritating Anne of Green Gables …
Those sequels sound utterly horrible.
ReplyDeleteHuzzah for new things! I'm really looking forward to reading the pieces you have planned for the future. :)
Me too - I love Anne of Green Gables and Amelia Jane is one of my favourite non-human Blyton characters.
ReplyDelete"Shan't!" said Amelia Jane, rudely.
Gold.
Wait - wasn't her former German teacher the guy who sat in the invisible chalk and walked around all day with a ring on his butt? So much wrong here . . . .
ReplyDeleteNo, that was the singing master. I get the feeling that the German version took liberties with the genders of the characters ... it sounds like Miss Potts or something like that is this German teacher ... so so wrong.
ReplyDeleteHello from Germany! Love your MT blog ;-). I found it a couple of months ago when I re-read all my German MT books, which I loved as kid and now hate with a vengeance (for bullying reasons and all the reasons you've mentioned on these pages). I just thought I'd drop you a quick note to let you know that Darrell's 'old German' teacher is NOT Miss Potts. It's a guy called Klaus (i.e. a newly invented person). Until I read this blog, I didn't even know that the sequels I read as kid weren't written by Blyton herself! All my books say 'Enid Blyton' on the cover. Anyway, please 'blog on' .... :-)
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI came across your blog completely by accident and subsequently spend a good hour or so weeping with laughter over my keyboard.
ReplyDeleteYou've articulated everything I'd ever idly thought about Malory Towers (the glaring plot devices, the rampant casual bigotry, the heavy handed life lessons) and everythng I never thought but now feel slightly stupid for not having noticed (the manipulative cultishness, the importance of loyalty to 'the Regime', the frankly appalling treatment of poor Gwen!).
I must admit I don't feel totally deprogrammed yet.. There were definitely points in my reading where I'd laugh at something (like my sudden realisation that actually yes, Darrell is THE single most boring protagonist in the history of English literature) and then feel terribly guilty. It's a bit like finding out that a doddery, aging relative has been lying to you for decades. You want to be annoyed, but they look so helpless and they were always so nice to you as a child, so you keep pretending to believe their claims to have arm-wrestled Winston Churchil or supped tea with the Queen mother.
Also, I found those 90s covers fascinating and bizarre. I had editions from the early 80s, which had pretty accurate depictions of MT (http://tiny.cc/uws1a). Including, of course, the fetching brown and orange uniform. The idea that anyone would revamp the covers for the 90s and try to make these books seem cool (or in any way relevant to people not living in the 50s) is pretty hilarious..
Anyway, I realise this is an exceptionally long and rambling comment but the basic gist is I'm hopelessly inculcated but very much enjoyed your hilarious deprogramming efforts. Roll on Amelia Jane!
The German teacher (no, he's not a transgendered Miss Potts!) doesn't show up until the sequels, the first of which take place in some sort of junior college that is affiliated with MT. That's where Klaus (or whatever his name is) teaches.
ReplyDeleteMe, arriving 9 years late with coffee gone cold: Hi! I read the German books and let me tell you, you're missing OUT on the sequels.
ReplyDeleteThey're amazing. Like there's some "exotic asian princess" going to MT for a year, because her country is going through some political upheaval and she might get assassinated.
There's also a secret agent at school to protect her, under the disguse of a classmate - though no one knows about her? not even the girl she's supposed to protect or the teachers? and she's apparently an adult but doesn't look like it. She sleeps in the same dorm as the rest of the girls!
And guess how the princess is introduced - by one of the students yelling about how good her german is but that she can't say the letter "r" right. Asians, amirite?
There's also some drama with French exchange students, a movie being shot at the school and I'm pretty sure there's a Gwendoline 2.0 (or as we say in German - Evelyn) but I can't remember much about her.
ANYWAYS on the topic of Gwen! They have a class reunion where all the old cast shows up and they all talk about how happy and married they are. This includes Gwen, who lies about her husband for her status.
She claims he's rich, yet he is poor!
I wonder why she'd ever do anything like that.
Darrell feels pity for them both, because he looks like a nice guy and Gwen is obviously a monster who never learns.
The teacher is some new guy she met at a weird... college thing? where she and Sally go after school, to learn how to crack an egg correctly.
Darrell sees him talking to a girl once and decides to make him horribly jealous for it without speaking to him once.
The girl's his sister.
And there is a lot of teacher drama that I can't completly recount, but it involves Ellen, her secret husband and some other teacher who hates Darrel because she's just too nice.
Oh and Darrel has a daughter.
After that horrible mess I vomited all over your comment section, I should say something nice:
I just read all of your posts about MT, and they were great, thank you!! I love your opinion on Gwen, she really deserved better.
Something funny I noticed: The American Girl is called Diana in the german books. Which is such a british name to me? I bet E. would hate that.
Reading this blog was like therapy – it unearthed some very old skeletons indeed.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a kid back in the 70s in Germany, there was a this notion that Enid Blyton was THE BEST author. It was a word-of-mouth thing among children; I don’t remember her books ever being promoted by adults, though they were widely available in shops and libraries. Being an avid reader, Blyton was only ever a drop in an ocean of stories, but still I begrudge now the time (and money) I spent on her books.
I don’t know what other children are like, but I was very naïve and it would have never occurred to me to question the author. If it was written in a book, it was gospel. Nevertheless, though I read all the MT books repeatedly (and so did most girls in my age group), they don’t seem to have influenced my way of thinking. It was more like watching a fascinating species in a terrarium – entertaining to read about, but very obviously not the way WE lived. Perhaps if all the original English names had been retained, I would have believed it was an accurate portrayal of an English school, but since it all sounded German, while very clearly not being German (for a start, the German sea coasts are flat and sandy), it seemed more like a fantasy world floating in an undefined space and time.
I reread them all once, in my twenties, and felt really disturbed that as a child I hadn’t noticed all the cringeworthiness you so brilliantly pointed out. How had I ever thought that being at that school would be great fun, given just how unpleasant most of the characters were (and how useless the teachers)? And I think it was simple – the narrator said so, therefore I believed it. Thank goodness for the solid education in critical thinking that I received later on in secondary school!
Anyway, it is reassuring to see that so many other were similarly drawn on, and later disillusioned. Maybe I can lay my cringe to rest now. Thank you.