This Filling Certainly Looks like Nutella ...

I think I'm getting better at this "Promptness" malarkey. (I wrote this line two weeks ago, in grand hopes that it would prompt me to get this out within a week of the last post. Stop laughing.)

Well, I promised choc chips in this turd of chapter (and Facebook keeps emailing me to berate me for not posting more frequently, because you miss me?), so I present to you:

Part Two of the Extrantaganza: Things I Actually like in this chapter.

What is this? There is something to like in anything Enid put down on paper? This will not be absolutely negative about her work? NEVER! I came for the clutching of pearls! I came for mockery of outdated stereotypes! I CAME FOR BLOOD!

Sorry to disappoint, but I thought that, in fairness, I should present some positives in this story. I don't know exactly whether my opinion is that these qualities are true qualities, or whether I have just been lulled into lowering my standards so that I accept "house trained" as a cardinal virtue. But I'm going to follow this stream and hope I don't get stuck along the way without a paddle.

So what do I like?

Well, to start, I have begun to like Elizabeth, you know, under all the tepid rebellion and Ye Olde Englishe right-sorted-ness. The realisation that this book is Malory Towers with Gwen as the heroine has worked powerfully upon me. Really softened me up.

Or perhaps it was this:

"'You know, Elizabeth, it is strange that no one would go with you,' said Rita. 'Doesn't anybody at all like you?'

'No,' said Elizabeth. 'Don't you remember,  Rita, that I told you I was going to be as horrid as could be so that I could go home? Well, everybody thinks I am very horrid, so nobody wants to talk to me or walk with me.'

'And are you really horrid?' asked Rita.

Elizabeth looked up. She was surprised that Rita should talk to her kindly, after having found her out in disobedience.  But Rita did not look angry, only very understanding and wise.

Elizabeth thought for a moment. Was she really horrid? She remembered all the governesses she had had. She remembered that Miss Scott wouldn't stay with her. Perhaps she really a truly was a horrid girl. 

'I don't know, ' she said at last. 'I believe I am horrid really, Rita. I make myself horrider than I truly am - but all the same, I believe I can't be very nice.'

'Poor little Elizabeth!' said Rita. 'I wonder what has made you grow so horrid?'"

Now, what's to like in this? I know you are reading this thinking "But this is appalling!" And trust me, the last part of my rant revisits this very passage.  And I did say that my bar was pretty low by now. But there are a couple of highlights.

Firstly, I just love how few illusions Elizabeth has about herself. She doesn't talk about how she knows how to behave really, and is just pretending;  she doesn't talk about how she would like to be good but doesn't know how; and she doesn't venture into the realm of self pity. No. When asked whether she really is horrid (which is worse than naughty, as it includes an implication that there is something about her personality that is lacking) she thinks about it and says "yeah ... I probably am." I thoroughly enjoy the lack of ego in that moment. It's just a piece of unflinching honesty, if not to say an epiphany of self-insight.

Added to that, I like how un-Enid this seems. It distinctly lacks any Rah Rah stiff upper lip-ness (lip-ity? lip-nacity?) This is almost freudian for Enid, this self-intropection. Never fear, I stopped the quote just before Enid drifted back into Enidness, and it backslides straight to "you look like such a nice girl" after this extract (so those of you who read Enid for her utter superficiality can breathe a sigh of relief). But for a moment, just one shining moment, someone is asking Elizabeth "what's going on with you?" rather than telling her "you need to do this". Low bar or not, it is a little moment of beauty.

And that's the thing. This moment, it's  the first time anyone has tried to get to know Elizabeth at all. And I don't mean the usual Enid snobbery of getting to know a person (i.e. who mummy and daddy are and are they the right sort of people - because we can't associate with the nouveau riche ...). The focus on Elizabeth's naughtiness and how she doesn't fit in, this masks the utter lack of social conscience on the part of all the oiks she shares a class with. You know, the ones so set on perpetuating the system that they forget to be human. They forget even why the system is supposed to exist, yet cling to the facade that it has created to protect itself from intruders. The problem is, there IS NO INSIDE to Enid's system. It's just a bunch of children clinging to the outside like barnacles and pretending they are on the inside ... or believing that they are.

Rita asks why. Why don't the others like you? Why are you acting like this? Is this the real you? Why is not a question asked enough in Enid-topia. System blindness is mandatory - no questioning of the way things are is allowed. I'll admit that I am reading WAY too much into this, but I'm pulling this string as far as it will take me!

I'll also give Rita credit for good intentions for her stratagem in throwing Joan and Elizabeth together. See my previous for my dislike of the actual stratagem, but the intention to foster kindness is praiseworthy (she does lose points for assuming Elizabeth is nice because she looks nice, though ...). And it must be remembered that Rita is not only a product of this system (the flaws of which I am still to get to), she is also only old in Elizabeth's eyes. And Elizabeth is ten years old. We're dealing with a teenager trying to develop a sense of kindness in an unsympathetic environment. So kudos to her.

Aaaaaaaand that's it. All I got on what I like. Let me know: am I being brainwashed by Enid into lowering my standards? Are you lowering yours? Actually, I really do want to know that - does the Enid effect work second-hand??? Iiiiiiiiiintresting ...

Next time on the final part of the extrarantaganza, we venture into the next chapter. And look more at these poor children clinging to the facade of the system.

Well, Look who Finally Decided to Grace the Internet with Her Presence

... Far too many of my posts start with an apology of this nature.

Anyway. Good Intentions time! As a sign of good faith - AN ACTUAL POST

Book recaps coming back soon. Promise. Cross my heart and hope to die. 

So here it is:

I have been pondering lately the wisdom of reading the latest line of Famous five books, those new novels revisiting our favourite celebrity quartet and dog as adults as they battle grown up issues – like gluten intolerance and alcohol dependence. On the face of it, this is something that would be right up my alley: it’s a mix of Enid and snark that I certainly appreciate, and it harks back to the comic strip production “Five Go Mad in Dorset”, which my sisters and I still quote at one another.

Huzzah! I thought when I saw them. More reading material for me!

Then I thought about it some more.

Part of the joy of rereading Enid as an adult comes from the fact that Enid is the straight man in the joke. One laughs and rages at Enid BECAUSE what she says and the opinions she espouses are honestly held and earnestly stated. She’s not in on the joke with the snarky reader. You can like or dislike the characters because Enid’s Earnestness separates the characters from the author. The joy of Enid is that you can enter into her sympathies to whatever extent you want. The power is in your hands. Enid writes children’s books for children, so adults can take away different things than was intended.

So when it comes to a snarky modernisation, I run into the issue of a change of perspective. Writing a children’s book for adults, you have to walk a fine line. Anne of Green Gables does it – the perspective of the narrator is clearly an adult voice, and the view taken of the child characters is fondly derisive.

Having not read any of them (I should point this out), the idea of the books that comes to me is that I’m being expected to enter into the views of the writer. I am expected to be complicit with the mocking of characters who have been re-rendered to be universally unpleasant. The characters and the opinion of the author are so intertwined that the reader cannot separate the story or the characters from the snark.

But I’ll admit that I might be a bit biased.

I’ve been burned by such literary retellings before – Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was (to me) a crushing disappointment (both the book and the film). Other than the seminal “Lizzie Bennet Diaries”, vlog classics retellings have rarely lived up to their initial promise. Stephenie Meyer tied sparkly vampires to romantic and gothic classics because … well, you gotta borrow storylines from somewhere.

Yeah, I may have had some bad experiences with non-canon material.

Even within the realm of Enid has this modern take on a classic burned me. Being a young naïve reader in the late 90s and early 2000s, I was overjoyed to learn that Enid had written 10 Naughtiest Girl books. Now, that number in and of itself was not a matter of suspicion to me at the time – the prolific typewriter basher Enid went more for bulk than nuance in her work. However, once I moved beyond “Here’s the Naughtiest Girl”, there was a change. The writing … improved. It was still mawkish and sentimental, and it carried something of the same cadence and vocabulary, but it was better. I felt betrayed.

THEN, I noticed:

•         that the stories had become more toothless, while the dramatic  stakes apparently became apparently higher.
•        Conventional and cohesive storytelling arcs were used.
•        “Modern” issues like bullying, the environment, and dealing with underlying psychological issues sensitively became more apparent.
•         Teachers became figures of overt authority in Whyteleafe school, which had previously flaunted its Lord of the Flies ambience as being the main selling point of the school’s non-traditional system.

I’d been “Sweet Valley’d” (you know, where one name is used to sell the work of a ghost writer – VC Andrews is another example).

Having realised the error in my understanding of the authorship, I was left feeling betrayed. How Dared they replace Enid with a competent alternative? How DARED they replace school fetish drivel with actual stories?

NO. I won’t have it. And although the grown up famous five might be funny and clever and much better than I expect, I’m not having anything to do with them either.

I’ve got enough to get through with the original …

How the socially undesirable gain acceptance in Blytonia

Yep, I managed to disappear again. Well done me. I’m full of those damn good intentions, in that I prop my copy of Blyton on my desk (where it will shame me for not writing up the next chapter) and SWEAR that I will write it TONIGHT … then decide at 10pm that I really couldn’t do the chapter justice and I really should watch the next episode of the latest K-Drama I’m hooked on. Life is tough when there’s K-Drama about …

So anyway, I left you on something of a cliff hanger last time, what with the dreaded school meeting coming up and everything. This meeting IS the entire chapter. And I can tell you – I would never send my precious spawn (should they one day exist) within ten miles of this hell-hole.

So, it’s a school run by children – and what do they do? Adopt the trappings of their lost grown ups (three teachers sit up the back during this thrilling chapter, but “did not seem to be taking a great deal of notice of what was going on.” Of course not – why do the job you’re paid to do if you can get minions to do it for free?). Two judges (merry-eyed William and grave-looking Rita – William sounds like a bit of a smarmy git, just from that description), a bunch of monitors (we’ve met them before), and a gavel (because you can’t be an official without a wooden hammer – I like to think it’s a meat tenderizer nicked from the kitchen …). To be honest, it’s one conch shell away from a desert island.

 And they have RULES! You HAVE to obey the monitors (with no explanation as to the limits of their power and what they can order you to do), and all bad behaviour is reported and dealt with at these meetings – trial by mob. OH! But wait – reporting any person is encouraged with these words:

“Please be sure you understand the difference between a real complaint and telling tales, because telling tales is also punished”

I’m not sure I understand the difference. Given the casual acceptance of institutionalised bullying and violence, how do you suppose a whistle blower would fare in that environment? This place sends shivers down my spine – SHIVERS I tell you!

On another note – Elizabeth is an ovine-minded moron. The girl doesn’t talk, she bleats! Take this little gem, for instance: there’s a sign up for the meeting which says “Bring all the money you have” (I’ll get to this little rort in a moment), and Elizabeth does! She tells herself that she won’t hand it over, of course, but then why take it at all? The girl is just plain dumb. Seriously, you take your money somewhere where you know it’s going to be taken? Good grief, I want to send the idiot an email telling her that I‘m a Nigerian prince. Although, she might not go for that particular line … all foreigners being evil and all.

As for the rort – well here’s where we get to the fun bit – and the title

of this post. It turns out that this place is not a school, it’s an

extortion racket. All the kids are forced to put all their money into a box and it gets doled back out to them in set pocket money. A tad commie for comrade Enid there, but it’s ostensibly and egalitarian idea. Until you learn that no-one seems to be responsible for the accounting of this slush … er trust account. I bet merry-eyed William gets his grubby little paws all over the dosh and gets his ciggies and gin on these proceeds of extortion.

And you remember fat Ruth – of course you do, her main character trait is that she’s fat (remember, this is Blyton – and in this book we also have Nora, who is Irish). Anyway, it struck me as odd that Blyton would allow such an obviously undesirable person to be part of the right minded majority – Enid being supremely superficial and all. In this chapter I figured it out. She volunteers to do the dirty work. Who volunteers to prod Elizabeth when she doesn’t stand up and sit down with the other lemmings? Ruth. When someone has to shake Elizabeth down for her money, guess who jumps at the chance to do the shaking down? You guessed it. “Nice” people don’t stop to scuffling over a few shillings – it’s undignified and vulgar – they just leave it to the eager underling who yearns for nothing so much as acceptance … AND they’d have to have some horrific physical deformity such as Ruth’s to be qualified to do the job. Ruth’s overwhelming subservience to the regime is what marks her as acceptable – she knows her place and doesn’t presume to aspire to the big table … but everyone needs a flunkey …

Anyway, Elizabeth refuses to hand over her cash (until Ruth forks her purse and dumps it by the box), and states that she thinks the idea is silly and will not be complying. Well, you can almost hear the chant of “kill the pig” starting up in the mob. Elizabeth also announces that she’s going to run away home, at which point her money is placed firmly beyond her reach into the slush fund – and she’s denied pocket money for the week. With, of course, the threat of further punishment to come. Because it can always get worse in Blytonia.

So now our heroine is trapped like Jonathon Harker in Dracula’s castle (guess what I’m reading right now) and is doomed to spend at least another chapter being stood over by the Boarding school Gestapo.

To be honest, I have to say I’m glad she stands her ground in public. It’s the first actual rebellion you see from the girl, and if she could just keep it up, I’d love her forever. Alas, I feel social conditioning coming on ...

First Day Disappointment

All of a sudden it’s been 6 odd months. Good work me. Seriously, I have been looking at this book on my bedside table for the past six months (no matter where I have been – I took it to Europe and the middle-east with me in January) thinking “I’ve got to do some work on that ... I’ll do it tomorrow”. But of course I never do. Such is my life.

 I'm not promising much with this chapter - it's a bit blah (filler before we get to the next chapter), but I'm back online, so one miracle at a time is all you can expect right now!

 Anyway, to recap the story thus far: Elizabeth is a pretty normal child (by which I mean self-centred and rather bratty – and don’t get up in arms over that, you know I’m right) who has been accustomed to accepting that she is some sort of devil spawn. She has become a burden to her hard-living parents who want to go on a cruise. They ingeniously decide that it’s time to indoctrinate the poor girl in the time-honoured fashion of packing her off to school and having someone else do the actual work of raising her. So she goes to school. Said school turns out to have reverted to some sort of Lord of the Flies meets 1984-esque scenario in which Elizabeth is deemed persona non grata on the first day. We left our intrepid heroine on the cusp of sleep, vowing vengeance and declaring that she’ll be home by half-term.

 We open the scene with some bell indicating that it’s time to get up. Nora the enforcer tells everyone, rather unnecessarily that it’s time to get up; Elizabeth “cheekily” decides to stay in bed (she is such a rebel!). Of course Irish Nora doesn’t like this, so she and Fat Ruth (I’m not making this up – she’s called “plump Ruth”) pick up E’s mattress and tip Elizabeth onto the floor – because that’s not at all an overreaction. When Elizabeth objects, Nora threatens to do an unnamed form of violence on the girl because “Monitors do that sometimes, you know”. I love how Whyteleafe rolls: do what we say or we’ll kneecap you! I can just picture Nora waiting in the dorm with knuckle dusters.

 Elizabeth, of course, decides that as open rebellion is not feasible, guerrilla tactics are advisable. So she decides to wear socks instead of stockings down to breakfast. Ooo-er. (just on a side note – I’m not even two pages into this chapter and already they have set times to get up, eat breakfast, rules as to appropriate footwear – what sort of child perpetuates this arrant nonsense? Seriously – you can’t wear socks???). But just when you think Elizabeth has finally given one to the man (or child), she is shamed into the stockings. Sigh.

 School-wide roll-call comes up after breakfast. In this strange event, boys and girls are segregated (why bother with a co-ed school if you're just going to split them up?) and formed up into rows before the roll is called, then the children march out to music. Yes, MARCH. I bet it's not even normal marching - I bet they have to goose step out of the hall. The school strikes me as that sort of place. I wonder whether they have to salute their glorious leader while they're at it?

 This school really gives me the heebie-jeebies: violent monitors, children doling out punishment to one another, lives lived according to a series of bells, no socks allowed, and a vaguely militaristic assembly? THIS is a progressive school? I’d hate to see what Enid thought was old-fashioned. The more I read about this school, the more I’m in E’s corner, willing her to some drastic feat of naughtiness that will release from this hell-hole!

 And it seems we may finally get the chance see such a feat, as class finally begins (and Elizabeth gets a seat in the back row, which she likes because you can be naughty there. How she knows this, having never gone to school before, puzzles me a little). At first we are disappointed, Elizabeth being high on the fresh paint fumes in the classroom to such an extent that she gets a “VERY GOOD” on her dictation. She soon comes to her senses, however, and embarks on her first deed of the mischievous variety: flicking paper at various people in the room.

 *headdesk*

 Really, I despair of the idiot. Go hard or go home, Elizabeth; if you want people to take you seriously as a delinquent, hike up your skirt and do some serious damage. Throw a child through the classroom window, get into a proper fight, trash the teachers’ lounge. Don’t flick freaking PAPER!

 I suppose, in her defence, she does talk back to the teacher, but as the chapter ends with E knuckling under AGAIN (and promising to behave), you can’t really give the girl too much credit. Another disappointing episode in Elizabeth’s school career.

 One thing to note: we learn that Elizabeth likes music in this chapter. It should be noted, as it comes up later in the book, as there is nothing the regime won’t do to ensure the loyalty of their adherents.

 This chapter feels a bit like a filler chapter, and I suppose it is. But the next chapter ... school meeting time! I shall be updating you on that little gem anon (less than 6 months this time – I promise!)

The iron fist in the velvet glove

I can hardly believe that chapter five is reached and Elizabeth STILL hasn't got past her first day.

I could rant about the mixed philosophy of the school yet again, but I think it would be better just to let the principals of the school tell you themselves (for some reason there are two - I don't know why, they don't seem to actually do anything except lollop about in their drawing room). Elizabeth goes to see them this chapter (can I say that I NEVER went to see a principal when I started a new school - and I started at new schools four times in high school). Here's what they have to say to Elizabeth (after laughing delightedly when she said that she was going to be naughty):

"We never punish anyone, Elizabeth," said Miss Best, suddenly looking stern again. "Didn't you know that?"
"No I didn't," said Elizabeth in astonishment. "What do you do when people are naughty, then?"
"Oh, we leave any naughty person to the rest of the children to deal with," said Miss Best. "Every week the school holds a meeting, you know, and the children themselves decide what is to be done with boys and girls who don't behave themselves. It won't bother us if you are naughty - but you may perhaps find that you make the children angry."

A cold shiver ran down my spine when I read that passage. I pictured them sitting there with sneaky hip flasks getting quite squiffy during their conversations with the new brats (it's what I'd do). And that is all I'm going to say about it (there must be something terribly wrong with me today if I'm not running at that red flag).

This chapter "Elizabeth is naughty" exposes Elizabeth to the true brutality that Whyteleaf School authorities (by that I mean the students) are capable of.

Basic plot: Following that not very encouraging meeting with the principals, Elizabeth goes to supper where she is still in food coventry, makes a joke (Enid never did have a very good sense of humour, so I won't try to repeat the joke), then finds out that she has an assigned bed-time.

Elizabeth, predictably, objects to going to bed at 8 p.m.

Irish Nora's response?

"No wonder you're such a cross-patch! my mother says that late hours make children stupid, bad-tempered, and slow."


I rather love that response: it's supremely arrogant (in that Nora has known Elizabeth for less than half a day) and slavishly apes an absentee parent all in one. Nora, however, is a true daughter of Enid: she doesn't stop her parent aping there. No, she takes it to its logical conclusion and decides become an absentee supervisor herself, expecting Elizabeth to do as she's told while she buggers off back to the playroom.

In a massive piece of perversity, Elizabeth doesn't go to bed (gasp). She instead goes to play on the swings (honestly, playroom, swings? If you're going to be naughty, steal some cigarettes and go sit behind the bike shed!). Honestly, this girl is made to be a rebel. I mean, we all know the dangerous effects of swing sets, don't we? It's a slippery slope to slides (I tried not to make the pun, really I did), then merry-go-rounds before she's a full-on jungle gym junkie. Tsk tsk ...

Fortunately for Irish Nora, back-up is at hand to save Elizabeth from this slippery slope. A boy comes along and orders her to go to bed or he'll dob her in to the other kids (fittingly, we're not told which boy - and neither is she - what she doesn't know, she can't dob. Gotta love corrupt government).

"Pooh!" said Elizabeth, and she swung herself very had indeed, put out her foot and kicked the boy so vigorously that he fell right over. Elizabeth squealed with laughter - but not for long! The boy jumped up, ran to the swing and shook Elizabeth off. He caught hold of her dark curls and pulled them so hard that the little girl yelled with pain.
The boy grinned at her and said "serve you right!"

That fight scene started so promisingly. Finally, I thought, Elizabeth is going to actually do something worth her title. Then it was matched and bettered by the other kid and my hopes were dashed.

It would have been so much better if he had hit his head or done some actual injury that would REALLY get Elizabeth in to trouble. All that happened was that Elizabeth came out second best in a fight, and we got a glimpse of the iron fist inside the velvet glove. How is Elizabeth supposed to be naughty when the corrupt system in which she is operating allows right-minded individuals to commit violence with impunity while punishing the minority for the same infractions? This is so unfair to we readers ...

Because of course Elizabeth is going to be dobbed in to the authorites by this unknown boy. And did I mention that he's a monitor?

Here ends Elizabeth's first day in Blytonia. The score? Elizaeth 0, Blytonia 4 (perhaps 5). We'll see how day 2 goes next time.

Shrimp paste and bullying

Blast Enid – she’s gone and annoyed me again.

You may well be thinking well there’s a news flash, but you have to understand that even though I may rail at the old girl, even though I am fully aware that I am not going to agree with a thing she says, even though I read the books with an eye to ripping their guts out, I still open one of her books hoping that this book will not disappoint me. I’m all grown up and I still want to believe Enid when she tells me that if you do this and this and this you will be pretty and successful and everyone will like you ...

So then, when I open a book and read something as stupid as I read in this chapter, I just get annoyed.

Chapter 4 is called “Elizabeth gets in to trouble”. And it annoys me because it’s so very very stupid. The basic outline of the chapter is Elizabeth trying to break every rule that happens to come her way, or to make herself obnoxious, and coming up against the Irish bouncer Nora each time (mixed in is the obligatory oohing and ahhhing over classrooms, but classroom decor porn is more Enid’s thing than mine – seriously, only food is described in more detail). She does things like put too many items on her dressing table (apparently punishable by drawing and quartering) not sharing her food (which sends a person to food Coventry), and having messy hair. I mean, the scope of this girl’s villainy is beyond compare.

Of course, she doesn’t like doing any of these things, and she’s quite upset when she gets punished for them. When bouncer Nora takes her stuff, she instantly wants to redeem it, and she belatedly tries to share her food (but being in food Coventry, she’s turned down ...) and she’s horrified that her hair is messy. You really get the impression that she’s really not trying too hard (and, being a Blyton character, she is smitten with the classrooms – what is it with Enid and big square rooms with desks in it? They aren’t really that exciting ...), which of course gives you the SUBTLE hint that perhaps Elizabeth will stay ...

Seriously, the girl is trying to get expelled and she’s making a fuss over food sharing? If it were me, I’d be sneaking around trying to find what I could burn down. Or perhaps I would look at a fake bomb threat, or taking a classroom full of students hostage. I’d be home again in a day or two – a week, tops (you know, once the police got through with me). Problem solved.

Of course, Elizabeth's problem with disobedience may have something to do with the entirely unexpected form of discipline. I think I mentioned in an earlier post about the bullying aspect of this school. Nora the Irish does like to ‘shove’ her way past a recalcitrant student in her charge, but more insidious is the fact that the students go straight to ridicule the moment someone steps out of their pre-conceived notion of good behaviour. They mock Elizabeth over EVERYTHING she does. And remember, Elizabeth has been at the school for perhaps two hours at this point. She’s tired, her parents shipped her off to school with no notice and no proper goodbye, and ridicule is the most appropriate way to deal with her? Welcome to Blytonia people: this is where sanity comes to die.

I got to the end of the chapter thinking that there was very little that a box of matches wouldn’t solve at that school ...

I forgot to mention the food, which is the only redeeming feature of the chapter. It appears that first day is the day all the students eat the ENTIRE swag of food sent on by their parents. There is an orgy of chocolate cake, jam, shrimp paste, currant cake and other assorted fish pastes. I kept imagining that the fish pastes were contaminated with some sort of salmonella – that would have made the story soooo much more interesting.

The greatest disappointment

I went shopping today.

I was going clothes shopping, but as invariably happens I got sidetracked by all the pretty books in the bookshop. And then I remembered that there is a new Jasper Fforde book out this month and the clothes were forgotten ...

Anyway, I came across the most wonderful sight whilst I was browsing: A large picture-book hardback version of the Magic Faraway Tree.

I was instantly besotted. It took me right back to a similar version I had growing up (I think that they just changed the cover and re-released the version I had as a child). I grabbed the book, all ready to buy it and put it aside for the grandchildren (perhaps not my own grandchildren, just some poor benighted souls who may not be exposed to the glorious wrongness of Enid) when I had the foresight to open it.

I was instantly confused. The story was about Joe, Beth, Frannie, and their cousin Rick. For a moment I thought that this was a new story or one about characters I had not come across before - I mean, Enid DID write well over 800 books, I may well have forgotten one or two. But then I realised what the abomination really was: it was a re-worked version.

Joe, Beth, Frannie, and their cousin Rick were the updated versions of Jo, Bessie, Fanny and Dick. Dame Slap became Dame Snap and no longer hits people (thus losing all of her menace).

It was terrible. My beautiful picture book had been vilely defaced. I'd heard about such a travesty occurring, but to see it was worse than heart-breaking. I departed that place, the burning gall of disappointment threatening to choke me as I went ...

Let me know if you have had similar disappointments with the works of the great lady.

Venus Fly trap

So we come to chapter three: Elizabeth makes a bad beginning.

We left our abandoned puppy spurning the affections of a teacher (that sounds sooooo dodgy) as she stared up at the kennel she was to call home. I assume it had kennel-like aspects to it, as Enid never bothers to describe the place (not like the castle of Malory towers, where you were subjected to a minute description every time Enid ran out of storyline).

Predictably, the first thing they do is eat. This is an Enid Blyton story, after all. And I have it on good authority (Enid's) that not liking rice pudding makes you a bad person:


“There was hot soup first, then beef, carrots, dumplings, onions and potatoes, then rice pudding and golden syrup. Elizabeth was so hungry that she ate everything, though at home she certainly would have pushed away the rice pudding.”

That kinda makes me wish that I didn’t throw away the rice pudding I bought the other week when I was shopping (although in my defence, it was artificially sweetened and tasted like crap – I’m not bad, honest I’m not).

So all the kids sit around eating and discussing the inappropriate and irresponsible presents that their parents gave them at Easter (what kind of moron gives a child a PUPPY, when the child lives at boarding school and can’t take the pet with them? Call the RSPCA!). Elizabeth, eating rice pudding (which makes you good) remembers that she wants to be thought of as bad, so takes the opportunity to compare a teacher to a guinea pig.

Whoa – living life on the edge, aren’t we?

Anyway, all the other kids get all pissy about that, then the fun comes. Elizabeth gets shown to her dorm. We’re given, of course, a lengthy description of polished floor boards and blue rugs and trunks that the menials have lugged up the stairs for these little brats.

And we meet Nora.

Do you want to know what Nora is like? She’s Irish. Seriously, that’s Enid’s most used adjective with Nora O’Sullivan (Irish name – check). I am not kidding. The first time there is any description of her, it’s a description of her “blue Irish eyes”. Because all blue eyes are automatically Irish, of course. Of course this sly little adjective colours the way you see Nora (later on, she’s described as “the angry Irish girl” and another time Elizabeth is frightened of her because she’s “big and strong” – so I see a rugby forward with anger management issues). She is, however, heart and mind part of the establishment.

It’s Nora who tells the new girls what form the establishment takes. The school’s co-ed, which is a rarity, Enid liking her children segregated and all.
Anyway, we learn rules like:
- Only 6 things are allowed on your dressing table
- No matter how much money your parents give you, you have to put it in a box and the school shares it out by way of set pocket money
- The sharing of extra funds is determined at school meetings,
- Bad children are fined at school meetings
- School meetings are run by students (teacher participation is sporadic and rare – they’re probably off on holidays with Elizabeth’s parents ...)

You know, I thought the indoctrination by students was bad at Malory Towers where you had strict teachers doling out punishment. But trial by (Blyton) students? No ... just, no.

The school is a progressive school, based on an actual independent school in the UK called Summerhill. Summerhill is a democratic community, governed by school meetings run by the students, and where all classes are optional. The ethos of that school is “freedom, not licence”. The whole idea is that the child is meant to know best what how to learn. Incidentally, the school still runs.

I can see how Enid would be attracted to such an idea - kids governing themselves without pesky parents. I can also see where Enid struggled with it. She is a traditionalist at heart, with her school having compulsory uniforms, compulsory classes, and a militaristic feel from the student body that is slightly alarming. It’s as though the students are inches away from starting a cult or something, there’s just this menacing feel that I can’t quite like, as though all they need is one student to come along and promise more pocket money, harsher penalties for offenders and the extermination of the Jews or something ...

You know what it is? It’s the shadow of Lord of the Flies. There is this bullying feel to the whole place that dresses up as school spirit. The children feel obliged to teach each other lessons all the time, so they’re ALWAYS on other student’s backs to conform conform conform. And then there’s public humiliation – because ALL punishment and trials take place in front of the WHOLE school, which of course is the best way to deal with adolescents ...

In real life, Summerhill School apparently runs quite well, but we are in Blytonia, where, at the end of the day, children DON’T know best unless they are parroting what their absentee parents tell them (in an effort to win their love). And Blytonia, don’t forget, has the angry Irish girl working as an enforcer. The whole thing is just an endorsement of Enid’s idea of (lazy) parenting really – it’s taken it beyond mere absenteeism to actually having the children do all the work. Quite frankly, it’s Enid’s own personal wet dream.

Anyway, we end the chapter with Elizabeth saying to the others that she isn’t going to share her food. DUN DUN DUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNN .....

who do you blame when your kid is a brat?

OK, this has been shamefully late in coming, but I have an excuse – I have been busy bettering society. Really, I have. I have a new job, and it involves dispensing JUSTICE!!! (at least, that’s what I put on my census form, I couldn’t figure out a better description of my job. It gave me this awesome feeling of power just writing it). What with all my making the streets safe to walk again, Amelia Jane got dumped in a box in my room and forgotten. So it's time for a new story.

Anyway, I was going to do a Famous Five thing, but I ran into a problem: I don’t have the first book in the series. It’s a grave oversight, one which I intend to remedy at the earliest possible moment. In the meantime, I’ll give you the gems to be found in another of Enid’s school time classics:

The naughtiest girl in school.

Chapter 1

Enid has this fault of blaming all of the behavioural traits of a child on its disposition. The title ‘the naughtiest girl in school’ conjures up images of untold horror, a right little cantankerous ... sandwich, who is attacking the other children with her lacrosse stick and trashing books in the library because she feels like it. The reality, as you will soon see, is not so grave. Remember kiddies, we're dealing with Enid-esque naughtiness here: this is upper-class naughtiness ...

So here’s the set up. Elizabeth is a spoilt little rich kid, who has had a number of governesses to look after her. What her mother has been doing, no one knows (because of course she wouldn’t be working, that’s only for nasty common mothers) but she obviously needed help to look after her one child. Anyway, governess number six is going to go, and mummy’s at her wits’ end to know what to do, because, you see, mummy and daddy are going away on a holiday, and mummy can’t possibly be expected to look after the little brat while they’re away.

The solution? Pack her off to boarding school. Not just that, don’t tell her until you’ve organised the enrolment, got all her uniforms, given the staff notice and booked your non-refundable holiday tickets ... you only tell her when there’s less than a week before term starts. Then goad her when she, quite understandably, says she doesn’t want to leave the one place she has ever lived. That will show her how much you care.

I mean seriously, her parents are abandoning her to go gallivanting off ... somewhere. (They never say where they’re going, and as they’re grown-ups, Enid doesn’t much care. That’s not important: JK Rowling may kill her parental figures off, Blyton just packs them on a boat and hopes that they drown.) AND, they’re only going for a few weeks (they’re going to be back before half-term). How do you jump from “I need someone to look after my child while I’m away for a few weeks” to “let’s send our pre-pubescent child, who has had little to no contact with other children, to boarding school”. My own theory is that the parents attacked this issue while they were looking for accommodation for the family pets: the horse gets stabled, the dog is sent to a boarding kennel, the child goes to school where she’ll be fed and watered (presumably) and the parents can pick her up if and when it suits them ...
Wow, and we wonder why the kid is messed up?

Things to note:

Elizabeth is pretty, which means she’s set for Enidificaication (or indoctrination), because Enid cannot bear to have an ugly good person. People’s characters are determined by their looks.

The things Elizabeth will miss at home: Her dog, her canary, her pony. Some people have it tough. Show some sympathy for the poor dear.

Mummy: completely helpless. Looks to others to raise her child. Primary emotion is despair: when Elizabeth shows how naughty she can be by pinning stockings to the governess’ skirt, mummy despairs – “what are we going to do with her?”.

Daddy: mentioned, but completely absent – obviously he doesn’t want to deal with the brat either. Like most of Enid’s father figures, he wouldn’t dream of getting involved in a family cat fight.

The Slap

Sometimes I really don’t get the way Enid’s mind worked. After reading this story, I have to conclude that she had some very odd notions of discipline (I already knew that, but Enid is the one person whose odd notions never fail to exasperate me – it’s like trying to teach my grandmother how to use a mobile phone: surely she’ll get it one day …). Her un-ironic grasp of the Orwellian concept of "Might is Right" seems to completely miss the point he was trying to make.

In this second story, we get an idea of how discipline works in the nursery. Amelia is playing pranks on everyone. She throws water at the other toys, then chases them around a bit, threatening to poke them with a pin. The toys decide to punish her by waxing her shoes so that she slips and falls while wearing them. This "harsh but fair" treatment apparently does the trick: Amelia suddenly realises the error of her ways after the toys effectively dance around her yelling "nyer nyer, we got you!" and promises to be good.

That’s it in a nutshell.

Let me repeat: Amelia pulls a prank, the toys pull a prank back, Amelia realises the error of her ways. Huh.

I know we’re not meant to have any sympathy for old AJ, but this stretches the credulity just a little. I fail to see the difference in behaviour of the two sides. Pulling a prank to punish a prank just isn’t really all that smart. If you think about it, someone pulling a prank on you is more likely to cause you to pull a prank on them, which in turn will make them pull a prank … you get it.

Maybe I’m a little slow, but I fail to see the moral in this story. It sounds like it’s meant to be "be nice to others or they’ll be mean to you" or something along those lines, but I’m just not feeling it. What this story is really about is peer pressure. This is not a story about the evils of prank pulling. No. In Enid’s world, pranks are the measure of a person’s intelligence (unless of course, Enid doesn’t like the person, then it’s just a matter of them being wicked). This is a cautionary tale about upsetting the moral majority.

Let’s look at the two sides:

Amelia Jane:

Amelia Jane is doing what she always does – she plays. It might be not to everyone’s taste, but nonetheless it is what she was made to do. She’s pretty open about it; it’s not her fault that the other toys aren’t fast enough to dodge the flying water or avoid the big toy with the pin. AJ just doesn’t really know her own strength – that comes with having no physical brain …

The Toys:

The toys, on the other hand, connive, sneak into a dark cupboard to carry out their dastardly deed, and then congratulate themselves on their cleverness. It annoys me because it is so smug and self righteous and I just can’t stand the smug way in which the toys carry out their social cleansing. They give no justification for their actions other than the fact that they don’t like AJ – but is that a good reason?

You know what it’s like? It’s like killing Osama bin Laden (look at me, bringing current events into Enid!). Organising a hit on a wanted criminal is not "bringing someone to justice", no matter how many times the President says so. No matter how much he might deserve to be brought to justice, execution in that manner is an abuse of the Rule of Law. I did not hear a word that indicated that the US was trying to apprehend him and he died in the fire fight – this was a hit. Even Nazi leaders got a fair trial and due process. (Sorry – but this is something irks me – how can you fight for a system of governance by breaking one of its fundamental rules?)

Similarly, playing a prank to "teach someone a lesson" does not allow for due process for the accused. It was simply the self-righteous and extra-judicial actions of the Teddy Bear and his cronies. I don’t trust that Teddy Bear: he seems to me like a sinister sort of figure. He’d push you off the toy shelf to get the prime spot, I just know it.

There is no point where they say "See AJ – this is what it feels like to have a prank played on you". I’m fine with the idea of an object lesson if it is explained – you know, you hurt our feelings when you throw water on us kind of shtick. Cloying, but instructive. Humiliating for humiliation’s sake? That’s just bullying.

So I don’t really like this story very much.

By they way, one small point: the toys are afraid of being pricked with a pin? They’re TOYS. They don’t have nerves, they can’t feel anything. Amelia Jane is a hand-sewn toy herself – so presumably needles went into her construction. Was there a point in time when needles went from being part of her creation to an anathema to her? It doesn’t add up. I'd go into it more, but I have a whole post saved up just on how toys are not really people ...

The question of appeasement in the nursery

Amelia Jane was published from 1937 (first book in 1939), on the cusp of WWII. Enid was famous for never EVER referring to the war, but re-reading the first AJ story, I couldn’t help wondering whether AJ sprang from the idea of an anarchic outsider threatening “Our Way of Life”. Though unschooled in the ways of polite society and a nuisance to “Our” day-to-day life, AJ (the outsider) mayn’t be all bad in enid’s eyes ...

The Plot of the story: Amelia Jane is running around the toy room with a pair of scissors, cutting holes in everything she finds, including bunny’s tale. The toys get angry and get the brownies to lock her in the toy cupboard until the toys feel like letting her out. After a while though, the brownies get attacked by goblins and only Amelia Jane can fly the toy plane to attack the goblins and save the brownies. When she does so, she promises not to be naughty again …

Where’s the politics? Well, I found it on Wikipedia. What’s happening in Europe when Enid writes her first story of the naughty doll? It’s 1937, and Europe is gearing up for WWII: Hitler is building up the German Army in the Rhineland, Spain is degenerating into civil war, and Ideology is the governing principle of the day.

I will note that the Anschluss and the occupation of Czechoslovakia did not happen until after this story was written, but the remilitarisation of the Rhineland had (an event in 1936 that pretty much did what it said on the box. Germany armed itself; Europe debated it but eventually stood back, lacking funds and/or will to demilitarise them again).

Enid could not have failed to hear about the debate. In the UK, the Rhineland topic was much debated (understandable, given recent history). Further, Enid’s first husband, a WWI veteran, was working on a book with Churchill and becoming increasingly depressed by the prospect of a new war (he began drinking as a consequence, which was part of the reason the marriage ended), so it would have been a topic that interested him, particularly in light of another crucial event taking place ...

In a nasty foreign country that Enid never visited, there was a civil war going on. Now, children, we all know that the Spanish are fiery people who are sometimes very badly behaved (Carlotta in St Clares anyone?), but some of them were almost good enough to be considered English (or at least they would be if they weren’t so Spanish). The bad Spanish people won an election, so the good Spanish people under a man called Franco decided to take over the country and make sure all the people were part of the right-thinking element. Well, the bad people didn’t like that at all and so they started a war in Spain. Nasty, unwashed people from all over the world went to help the good Spanish and the bad Spanish, and there were lots of newsmen covering the story too. Even that strange little artist Picasso painted a picture with a foreign name about the people dropping bombs in the war (the Guernica was displayed in 1937).

That charming German fellow, Mr Hitler (the Germans are so very orderly and clean and white, aren’t they?) sent the good Spanish people help: he sent planes to bomb the bad Spanish people. And that was after everyone got so annoyed at him building up his army the year before … wasn’t it silly of them to worry?

I think you have an idea bout where I’m going with this. Look at the significance of the imagery in the story: AJ, the perennially naughty doll, has armed herself and is playing with her new weapon = Germany arming itself. The toys and magic brownies (side note: magic brownies sound like something from Amsterdam) disarm her and lock her up: one option for the international community (alternately, these two elements symbolise WWI and the consequences for Germany. Brownies attacked by goblins? Well all good international people think like Enid, and bad ones are … communist (communism was fearfully on the nose). Amelia Jane rearmed and sent in to help … do I need to spell the whole damn thing out for you? This is not a children’s story, this is as close as Enid could get to joining in the grown-ups’ discussion.

What do I draw from this? Well, it’s not a big leap to say that Enid had fascist tendencies. Xenophobia, Uniforms and Discipline (or at least, marching)? Totally up her alley. Aryan race over foreign looking people? Give her a black shirt and introduce her to Oswald Mosely. If Hitler had made her books required reading, she would have led the army across Europe.

Enid was famous for not ever mentioning the war in her stories. She drew a lot from her own life, however, and so it isn’t surprising that there may be hints of the world around her in the stories she writes. After all, you can’t divorce yourself entirely from the era in which you live.

Or I might just be reading too much into this. I really do like the idea of Amelia Jane as Hitler …

When the revolution comes, the teddy-bear will be the first against the wall

I’ll admit that I’ve been lazy, but that ends now. I have a shelf of Enids to get through (and more coming in every week, not to mention the possibility of more lost Enids to play with), and a big red-dressed doll breathing down my neck.
So

Amelia Jane.

The text is double sized, there is an over-abundance of exclamation marks, and brownies are name checked in very the first paragraph. Enid has told you in 50 words that you are 5 years old and will be ready to swallow any pap that she deigns to tell you.This is a book for younger readers, dressed up to look like a novel (my version is a hard back thing of about 180 pages with about 100 words per page and an illustration every 3-4 pages).

This series of short stories was first published in Sunny Stories, EB’s magazine, then bundled up into a book in 1939 (there are three sequels, and a wanna-be sequel written by someone else). Europe was plunging once more into war and our Lady Enid was starting to work on securing enough printing paper as she could from as many publishers. So she cobbled together some stories about a big red doll in a nursery.

Who is Amelia Jane?

“This was Amelia Jane, a big, long-legged doll with an ugly face, a bright red frock, and black curls. She hadn’t come from a shop, like the others, but had been made at home. Shop-toys nearly always have good manners, and know how to behave themselves – but Amelia Jane, not being a shop-toy, had no manners at all, and didn’t care what she said or did!” (page 1)

Oh dear, boys and girls. AJ does have some problems. She’s a working class doll stuck in an upper-class world! She lives in the nursery of the house, and with all the references to the nanny, the nurse and the maids - well, it’s no wonder she’s an agent of anarchy. Disbarred from being either feminine or clever in one fell swoop, AJ is relegated to a grotesque caricature, the charity toy with delusions above her station.

Three things to look out for in this passage:

- Enid’s trick of making appearance indicative of character
- Enid’s insistence that institutionalisation is the only path to social success
- Enid's insistence on the maintenance of social class system, even in War-time England

So why is AJ so very naughty? Good question, I say. And there’s a simple, very Blyton answer: because she did not come from a store. You see, store bought toys all know how to behave, but Amelia Jane was made. Enid’s love of institutionalisation runneth over, subtly indoctrinating those impressionable minds as to the joys of hair brush spankings and behaviour modification. I've spoken before about Enid and brainwashing children - she's just getting in early with AJ.

Further, Enid’s indoctrination has a hidden motive. Note that it’s the store bought toys that are acceptable. Enid is instilling a sense of consumerism in her young audience, which is self serving – particularly as she had a living to make from selling things to children. There was her books, the newsletters, magazines, two fan clubs ... so she had to get the little darlings to go all Aldous Huxley - you know, ‘spend don’t mend’ and all that. I think it’s a reasonable argument to make that all the evils of advertising to children can be laid at our lady Enid’s door. She raised, in effect, a generation of institutionalised spenders.

Amelia Jane is stuck in the middle of all this fascist web of ideology and indoctrination. She feels the effects of the regime, bowing to its harsh dictates from time to time, feeling the heat of its wrath (being sent to Coventry is a severe blow to anyone...). And yet! Time after time she manages to fight her way through the mire of the moral majority and return to her true calling of exposing the hypocrisy of the nursery by reducing it to anarchy ...

What I do like about this story is that, to the invisible children who own the toys in the nursery, Amelia seems to be a prime favourite. She gets played with a lot, is taken on holidays, and generally is shown favour. I love this, as it shows good taste on their part. They are unswayed by appearance or any idea of consumerism. This does seem to not fit with the story, as in a true Enid story, AJ would have been a present from your working class grandmother (whom your social climbing mother takes good care not to associate with) made by her own work-roughened hands.

I also adore Amelia Jane. She sees the self-righteous toys of the nursery and lifts two seamed fingers firmly in their direction. If there were to be a revolution in Blytonia, Amelia Jane would be the Che of that land. Truly she would. And then ... there would be blood ...

Mr Tumpy and his Caravan

Who else but Enid could come up with such an ... Enid title? (I confess, you could substitute the word stupid in there and it wouldn't go amiss)

Anyway, the Guardian has been reporting that a new Enid story has been discovered in a bundle of old papers. It's ever so exciting. Any new Enid is exciting - with over 850 books to her name, there just isn't enough of her work for we fans to read!

What I particularly like about the story is the comment made by the group that found the manuscript. Did they talk about the plot? or the characters? No - what they thought we all needed to know was that the manuscript had "no spelling mistakes".

Gold star for Enid!

On Marilla ...

So I hinted mysteriously (well I hope it was, it felt kind of crass, in a ‘stay tuned, we’ll be right back after these messages’ sort of way) about the fact that I didn’t think a certain ranga heroine was the real protagonist of Anne of Green Gables. Then I promptly disappeared for a month. Sorry.

I’m ready to back my claim.

BTW, for those who have privately expressed consternation as to my maligning of Anne’s character, never fear. I am not going to trample your dreams too much (mostly because I don’t think that it’s necessary).

My claim:

Anne is Not the True Heroine of Anne of Green Gables

Pish, you say, not to mention poppycock. We all know the story is about Anne. It’s right there in the title! Well, yes, I suppose, there is a name in the title – in fact there’s two – but it’s the latter of these that holds the clue. You see this is not a story about how Green Gables changes Anne; as I wrote rather incoherently in the post, Anne doesn’t change – she just ignores any past issues in her life. This is a story about how Anne’s presence changes those around her.

The real heroine of this story? Marilla. She is hands down the best character in the book. Matthew is sweet, Anne is a funny idiot, but this is Marilla’s story. Anne is just a bit player with delusions of Grandeur.

Look at the way the story is structured. The first chapter is all about Marilla explaining to Rachel what she and her brother had decided to do and Rachel tsking something chronic over it. Anne is not chosen in person; in fact it is never explained how Anne was chosen from an entire orphanage of children. What does that tell you? Who she is is not that important. That she is what she is is merely details. This story is about Marilla learning some humanity by caring for another human being.

Anne herself doesn’t come into the story until the half-way through the second chapter, and even then she is seen through Matthew’s eyes. Indeed, the vast majority of the stories about Anne in the book are told from Marilla’s point of view: she watches Anne and we watch along. We see what happens to Anne, but we also see Marilla’s reaction to the events of the story.

Failing Marilla, there is always a sense that we are watching the action of the story as a bystander, or as though someone is recounting the anecdote to us at a later date. Anne is never the absolute centre of any story – she may be the subject, but she is not its purpose. We never see very far into Anne’s head – never more than could be surmised by just guessing – so we are never given leave to really embrace Anne as a true heroine, just a character involved in the action.

In the course of the story, Anne goes off to school, a period interspersed by letters home (as read by Marilla) and Anne worrying about making Matthew and Marilla proud (so they are still front and centre of the story). Anne gets the fairy tale ending – scholarship to university, class honours. But the camera is on Matthew and Marilla as Anne gets them, and this one event shows brings about the primary example of why Anne is not the heroine of this piece.

The scholarship surrounds the main climax of the story. If this book were really about Anne, she would take that scholarship and run, cheered on by her ailing but supportive Marilla. After all, we all know that the fantasy ending always goes to the Heroine, after much sacrifice and trouble. This does not happen. Instead, Anne’s glory is undercut by a series of calamities for Marilla. She loses her brother, her saving and is in danger of losing her house and her eyesight. Anyone who reads the book forgets about Anne’s achievements the moment Matthew dies. She’s like the BFF who gets the token moment in the sun (hence Diana’s relegation to bit player) before the real action takes place.

So Anne (as a character) doesn’t gain or lose any status in her decision to not take the scholarship she’s offered. She’s just submitting to her role as supporting actress – and then things fall into place so that Marilla gets her dream ending. Hooray! I actually rather love watching that particular character slap-down. There’s something so heartwarming about seeing Anne get one ...

Anne is, dare I say it, the Mary Sue of Green Gables, the ideal that LM wishes she had been growing up with her grandparents on PEI. Anne, for all her flaws, manages to charm those around her into what she imagines life should be. Reality would make short work of a real Anne. Marilla is the real author behind the Mary Sue, well aware that the little girl is her fantasy and laughing at herself for indulging in said fantasy.

I love Marilla much more now than I did as a child. She is so dry, so deadpan, that you don’t realise that she is laughing at first until you go back and read carefully. She goes right over the heads of the children reading the story, so dazzled are they by the red hair and big words. A return visit to Avonlea as an adult ...

I’m going to have a few more posts on Anne – but I really want to start Amelia Jane, so I’m going to intersperse them a bit (and try to make them shorter ... Look at me, under 1000 words!)

Next stop – the Nursery, where we get to meet the one of Enid’s greatest creations ... Amelia Jane!

Why Anne is not my Favourite Character in the World

I lost my copy of Anne of Green Gables. Actually, I lost most of my set of the AoGG series. This tends to happen a lot with me; I lend out books left right and centre and never keep track of them. Then the lendee moves to another state and loses all of her (my) books in a monsoon flood or some such tragedy and I find myself stuck with an incomplete set of LM Montgomerys. I picked me up an old yellow hardcover with a wallpaper-like cover (complete with coffee mug stains) in order to scribble in should the mood take me

I mention this because the AoGG covers are the ones that I would say truly affect my enjoyment of a book. The late 90s versions that had Anne with fluoro red hair made my eyes bleed; later versions are dull and uninspired. Give me the kitsch and quaint cover of the 80s (pictured) – it’s the only one that doesn’t look like a damn romance novel or look so gloomy that no child would ever wish to read it. There’s something about the cover that feels homespun – it feels fun.

To me the cover is important. I need the cover to sway me in this book, because I have a love/hate relationship with the garrulous heroine of the piece. There are times when I truly do hate Anne, and I’m going to favour you with a (long) explanation as to why.

(Sigh: a re-cap for anyone who has not read this classic: an elderly brother and sister wish to adopt a boy to help on their farm, but are sent a girl who has a big mouth and a knack of getting into scrapes. Hilarity and drama ensue.)

I’ve always had a curious disconnection with Anne. I don’t get why Gilbert likes her (but then he always seemed a bit sappy to me), I don’t get why everyone puts up with her stories (which owe a lot to Mrs Radcliffe and those of her persuasion). I really just don’t get Anne these days. Perhaps I’m getting old.

Yet I still love the book. LM Montgomery is a masterful raconteur. Anne sparkles throughout, but only because the retelling buffs her up from a tiresome over-sentimental child with a superiority complex to a truly unique gem of a girl. My problem is that all Anne is is sparkle. There’s no substance behind it.

Seriously, read the second chapter. It’s our introduction to Anne as a character. In it, Anne barely draws breath for seven pages. We’re treated to a monologue of all her thoughts and feelings about everything. In a modern book, you’d call this lazy characterisation: we get told everything we need to know about the character in their first chapter and judge them from thereon in based on that information.
Here’s what she says:

She imagines stuff
She likes trees
She likes belonging to someone (Orphanages are bad)
She likes reading stories
She doesn’t like being skinny
She wants to be rich
She imagines more stuff
She likes trees
Do I talk too much?
More about trees
Her hair is red – her no likey
Imagines more stuff
Trees are pretty (renames tree lined avenue)
Ponds are pretty (renames pond)
Imagines even more stuff
Hooray! A new home!

Right there is pretty much everything you need to know about Anne – you accept everything she does after that because, well, she told you she right at the beginning! The only impression one gets of her is that she talks a lot. That in and of itself does not a character make. She’s a cardboard cut out – merely the means of propelling the real action of the book – but I’ll talk about that in the next post.

My opinion of Anne is a recent thing. I did worship her when I first read the book (at about eight years old – I saw the 80s TV version and was hooked). I think that this is a brilliant example of a story being told on two levels. As a child, I loved the make-believe stuff she went on about; now the thought of the ‘lake of shining waters’ is more than faintly ridiculous. Then I got Anne’s need for a different name and identity to go with it; now … well I still get the whole identity thing – I just don’t bother with the names. Then I thought Marilla was boring and skipped her parts; now I realise that the moments when Marilla is laughing at Anne are the best moments in the whole story. Now I find Anne just a bit tiresome, and as she grows up and becomes ‘normal’, she loses even the charm of childhood.

Anne is the favourite of all Montgomery’s heroines, but she is not her best. Montgomery is at her best when she writes about downtrodden heroines growing a pair and overcoming the strict and/or cruel guardians – usually through passive aggression, sneakiness or outright rebellion.
Anne doesn’t fit the type. You know she’s had a hard upbringing – it’s outlined for you – but it’s like it happened to another person. Anne is keen on melodrama, so her anguish over not being able to stay at Green Gables is ridiculous rather than affecting; you don’t even stop to think that she had no family and no home – even when she is telling you that. Then after that first incident, her past is treated as though it never happened.
No one is that well adjusted. Not after being subject to an abusive alcoholic, borderline slavery, neglect, institutionalisation and lack of education. You don’t just spring back and say ‘oh well, that’s done. I don’t have to think about that ever again’. Anne does, and it makes her feel, I don't know, a bit ... two dimensional. Perhaps I’m asking too much of Montgomery, but surely an acknowledgement of her past
The only moment any such acknowledgment is given is in chapter 6, when there is the possibility of Anne going to the nasty sounding Mrs Blewett. Marilla looks over to see Anne upset

“the misery of a helpless little creature who finds itself once more in the trap from which it had escaped”.

That’s it. That’s the only bit of the past that comes back to haunt Anne. After that she never feels a moment’s worry about her entitlement to stay a GG. Which is why I’m firmly of the opinion that this book is not about Anne. And I’ll write about that next time ...

Reading this back, I’m beginning to realise that Brideshead Revisited is taking its toll on me. You know, underlying tensions and family issues causing psychological damage and all that Freudian stuff. All I need now is to determine which of Anne’s cronies is Aloysius and spank them with a hairbrush. How very Enid ...

disjointed ramblings of the nouveau riche and schoolgirls

Right. Attack of the nouveau riche. Go.

One of the side stories in this book has to do with second former Jo. I warn you, this is a cautionary tale of letting the wrong sort associate with you … prepare to be horrified.

Jo is obviously of the lower orders. Her name is abbreviated as befits a servant (but what about sally …?), and she is far too conscious of her money (well bred girls don’t worry about it – there will always be a parent or husband around to give them an allowance …) which indicates that her wealth is not of the old variety.

Big red flags have been planted around Jo – she’s fat, not very intelligent and doesn’t even like sport! Oh no! As she’s been around for a term already, the indoctrinated know that she is not to be befriended, and we the audience are thrust into the story just accepting that Jo is what they say she is.

But it’s her father that really shows what she is.

At the beginning of the book, Jo’s father nearly runs Darrell’s car off the road, which leads to a confrontation in which Darrel’s dad coldly tells off Jo’s in front of a crowd. It’s one of those moments where the breeding and dignity of Mr Rivers is supposed to shine through and show Jo’s dad for the low brow cretin for what he really is. In reality, a well placed ‘piss off’ would do wonders for the scene. Really.

And we know Jo’s dad is low brow. He drops his haitches, dresses inappropriately and is far too familiar with strangers. In fact, he’s quite a friendly guy, but stuck in Enid’s ice sculpture garden, he just wilts.

Basically, if it were an Australian contemporary story, Jo’s dad would be a bogan in a souped up torana who thinks those Angus burgers at McDonalds really are ‘just a little bit fancy’. Miss Grayling indicates that she regrets allowing such an uncouth interloper into her fine establishment, just after an encounter in which he tries to charm her. So we are forewarned that Jo is in danger.

Enid’s girls begin their usual round of bullying and victimisation to try and coerce her into being at least acceptable regime material. But Jo is defiant, making friends with an impressionable girl from the first form (note: this girl is you or your child – good, but helpless against the incursions of the classless). She fights back, but you know how it is – she’s never going to make it work.

The crisis comes when Jo loses five pounds. Just why she was carrying it around at school where there is nowhere to spend it is a mystery, but she is low class like that. Anyway, she loses it and matron finds it and deduces that it is Jo’s. But instead of just calling Jo in and giving her a bollocking for having too much money at school (girls are only allowed a few shillings a week, kept locked up in the matron’s office), matron puts up a notice asking for the girl to turn herself in.

Jo’s in a pickle. She needs to get the money back, but doesn’t want to get caught by the regime … so she picks her moment and steals the money out of the safe – along with four more pounds. Then she goes to town and spends the lot at the local shop, buying food for a birthday feast (what I love about this part is the fact that the shop, no doubt well aware of the allowance of the students, nonetheless let her spend the money then contact the school). By the time she gets back, news has got out that the money is missing. The entire form gets in trouble because Jo won’t own up and one just does not tattle.

Of course, the girls dole out the worst possible punishment – COVENTRY. Jo, beginning to feel guilty, ostracised by her peers and just plain fed up with the raw deal she’s been getting, decides that the ideal solution is to run away. But she can’t do it alone – remember that first former friend? Bingo! Off they go!

… and aren’t missed until bed-time.

Blah blah blah, they get found the next day, the first-former gets off (aren’t you happy? She claims the Nuremberg defence – which gets her off! WTF?), but Jo is expelled. No second chance, no redeeming character trait that would soften the icy chambers of Miss Grayling’s heart. Grayling does happy dance in her head during the interview with Jo and her dad. The Nouveau Riche threat is neutralised!

To be fair to Jo – she does learn something, she writes a letter to prove it. She apologises to the girls, puts on a brave face about her current school-less situation, and goes forth into the night. Just why she couldn’t do that at MT, I don’t know. Jo’s not very smart, a fact that La Grayling pounces on to justify her decision to vote her off the island.

…. And we all learn our lesson. Class will tell. It’s impossible to think that the right thinking element will not prevail. Absolutely impossible!

Meanwhile, June, suitably chastened by the near expulsion last book, has now come under fire from Amanda, the new sixth former. Amanda is a big, sporty type who is going in for the Olympics. When goaded by the other girls, she claims she can make June into an all-round sports champion. Amanda bullies June, June has a tantrum and quits (I think she even throws her racquet). Then drama strikes.

Amanda, being Enid’s choice of victim for her ‘pride comes before a fall’ 4x2, decides that she wants to swim in the ocean. Which has currents she is unfamiliar with. And sharp pointy rocks. Smart. Anyway, she sneaks off early one morning, gets half way to … wherever she was going (America perhaps), and gets caught in the current. Rather than swimming across it like any Australian knows to do, she fights it, tires out and gets dragged to the big pointy rocks. In a marvellous coincidence, June happens to come down, happens to see, and happens to know how to break into the hitherto unmentioned boathouse belonging to the school. Amanda lives, but may never be a great athlete, thus learning her lesson – and serves her right, wouldn’t you say? June also starts training again so that Amanda can live vicariously through her triumph … that’s an arrangement that will definitely end happily.

That’s really all of interest in the book. There’s a brief cameo of a copy of Claudine from St Clares, but Enid doesn’t quite know what to do with her. There’s also an improbable trick involving magnets and teachers’ hair pins that was funnier in Enid’s head than on paper.

And so we leave Malory towers (FINALLY – it took me long enough). The girls go off to wherever their parents deem the most likely place to meet their future husbands, Enid leaves you with that insidious feeling that you want more, and her publishers helpfully point out that they commissioned writers to write sequels so that you can get even more Malory Goodness. Don’t expect me to read them, though. Enid is only fun when it’s Enid doing the writing.

Don’t say Peculiar, that’s just strange: The Obfuscation of Enid

This is the essay about editing Enid that I alluded to a few posts ago:

A couple of months ago, the dedicated rose up. Cardigans fuzzed and tweeds burred. Battle lines were drawn in ink. It was an outrage, they cried, it was a travesty. Forums het up until they became incandescent as the dedicated protested that it would never be done to Dickens or Shakespeare.

The unthinkable was happening. Enid was being tampered with.

Again.

Hodder Childrens Books had announced that they were re-editing Enid Blyton’s Famous Five books to remove all traces of mid-century slang and render the text ‘timeless’ for generations to come. The announcement was one of those ‘moving forward’ type of actions so loved for their pretence of progress; it was meant to show that Blyton would be well placed for the new millennium.

The devoted said Shucks to that.

This, of course, is not the first time that the first lady of children’s literature has been violated. Of all the classic writers of the English tongue, Enid Blyton is the one author against whom the blue pencil continues to be wielded. Classic English literature is generally considered sacrosanct, each work a product of its time and thus part of shared cultural history. But Enid? Enid is the anomaly, belonging to none and every generation simultaneously.
It has been half a century since the last of Enid Blyton’s books were published, and in that time Her books have rallied a legion of followers. This latest renovation of Blyton’s works has opened up that particular can of worms in a way that none of her previous revisions have done. The battle over who truly ‘owns’ Enid and how that ownership is to be displayed has developed into an increasingly heated conflict as the various generations of her readers mass and take sides. With several decades of copyright left to run, this partisanship will only escalate in the coming years.

On one side, we have the devoted Enid-ites, epitomised by the aging and be-cardiganed man who teeters just this side of creepy (and possesses more information about girls’ boarding schools than is seemly). Joining him is the middle-aged and ostentatiously artistic lady, and the pseudo-retro and over-opinionated gen-yer and their ranks of clones. Arrayed against them is the mindless, soulless publishing machine, whose single aim is to world domination and the compete obfuscation of Our Lady Enid.

And then there is the battlefield: Enid Blyton’s body of work. The terrain is rocky, as there is no author with such an ability to engender adoration and embarrassment in equal measure. She drew all manner of un-PC matter under her wing and nurtured it, leaving her followers unsure as to how to deal with her. She’s that great aunt who regales your friends with stories of her bowel movements but who gives you the best Christmas presents.

Enid’s writing really taps into the whole idea of how each generation thinks they should raise the next. Because she remains so amazingly popular (Hodder states that they still sell half a million copies of her Famous Five books every year), her work is constantly adapted to suit whatever the current child rearing trend happens to be. You can see the progress of ideas from generation to generation through the various stages of assault on her body of work.

The first campaign Enid withstood was an attempt to silence her. In a two decade stand off, the BBC maintained an unofficial ban on her works, dismissing her as a “competent and tenacious second-rater” (the BBC’s archive has a page devoted to their letters from, to and about Enid – the reviews are quite brilliant, for example “There is rather a lot of the Pinky-winky-Doodle-doodle Dum-dumm”). By the fifties, however, Enid had become such a leviathan of children’s literature (churning out 12 books per year at her zenith) that even the behemoth of the BBC was forced to capitulate and consent be dragged along in her wake. The first Blyton story was read on the Beeb in 1954. Round one the lady.

The next assault was, most would concur, a sensible one; it was certainly the most successful. It was felt that if Enid could not be stopped, she had to be censored: the racism had to go. Blyton was famous, even in the fifties, for her parochialism and her rampant racism. French people were selfish, Spanish bad tempered, Americans were crass and “Gollywogs” … well, they don’t even print those books anymore so I’m not sure what they were supposed to have done. Only proper English people were capable of true goodness in Enid’s mind; society didn’t agree and she was overruled (to an extent … French bashing is apparently still in vogue). This victory levelled the score, although it was a bit of a one-sided battle: Enid had succumbed to Alzheimer’s and opposition to PC-ing her unfeasible in the face of such reforming zeal.

It was the nineties that saw the next sharpening of the blue pencils. We were all looking to the future, so Blyton’s works were accordingly modernised: girls drank coke, not tea, had central heating rather than fires and were called Zoe instead of Betty. Decimal currency was in, so all those old duodecimal references were out. It was all very new millennium and forward looking, but it dated quickly. Tea turned out to be healthier than coke and sitting around the central heating really held no appeal. As for Zoe, well, the next generation of girls was called Mackenzie, so the name dated awfully quickly.

The response to these last changes was not so favourable as previously. Blyton societies had begun to gain traction; the internet emerged as powerful rallying point for the knights of Enid. Objections to alteration ‘for alteration’s sake’ began floating around along with the idea that enough time had passed that Enid could be classified as a set historical entity. These new changes ended in a draw: new ‘classic’ editions of the books were put out to placate the growing number of the followers of the True Enid. But the schism between the true and false Enid had begun.

Flash forward to today, and we have the latest stoush in the long-running war.
Hodder’s press release flashed across the world, bouncing off satellite and burrowing through cable, planting itself firmly in news sites and discussion forums. The hounds of Enid bayed, blogged and commented, crying for today’s children and the rich cultural experience that they would be losing. This was change for change’s sake and as such we were called to revile it and hold faith with the true Enid.

So what were the changes? On the face of it, it sounds innocuous enough. Hodder announced that the times were a-changing and that Enid’s language had to change with them. If it were just a matter of replacing a few nouns or adjectives there might not have been much of an issue, but even in the small excerpt Hachette Australia provided above, you’ll notice that there is more going on. Judgement calls are being made as to content. The edited version removes reference to ‘the boys’ in relation to climbing and swimming. The female empowerment of this omission is certainly very PC, but misses the point of the passage – that Anne’s major companions are ‘the boys’ and they are part of all she does. It is gendered whitewashing, ensuring that no parent could possibly be upset by anything Enid may have to say.

Which brings me to a question that I’ve not seen answered, or even addressed, in all this: what do children think of this development? Who knows? And really, who actually cares? Certainly not anyone involved in this discussion. This latest bout of fisticuffs in the battle for Enid is between publishers and the readers of news reports and press releases. Parents weigh in, literature critics have something to say. The actual readers of the books are silent over which version they would prefer; the battle rages over their heads. Enid is the domain of the grown-ups. There is almost a belief that Her stories cannot truly be enjoyed until one is an adult, childrens’ tiny heads being incapable of recognising Her genius. She is the ultimate nostalgia: brimming with wholesome, innocent adventure that allows us to point back and say with a sad, smug smile that yes, life was better when we were young.

So what scarring would there be to little Johnny who doesn’t understand what a swotter is (or why it’s awful)? And how would children really react when faced with something beyond their ken? We fear failure for the next generation, so the latest changes attempt to make things easier for them. These efforts, however, intended to render the books age appropriate, have resulted in a solution that appears quite ridiculous. Enid’s stories involve technologies, institutions and ideas straight from post-war Britain. How is it that this aspect can remain relevant to readers yet the vocabulary used is not? She either is relevant or she isn’t. Her stories of upper-middle class children at boarding school solving cold war crime are not precisely tapping into the current affair issues of eight-to-ten-year-olds – so why must the language do so?

Enid is a product of her times and no amount of editing is going to make her more relevant or more readable to her audience.

Don't say peculiar, that's just strange

People can be so stupid!

This is a link to the ABC's report of Hodder's latest brainwave.

They are going to re-edit Blyton.

Again.

This time, rather than get rid of the offensive racism (gone) or the offensive names (also gone) or even the outdated technology (gone in places), they're going for the REAL problem.

The vocabulary.

OK, I get why 'dirty tinker' needs to go, but 'swotter'? Altering 'mother and father' to 'mum and dad' seems pointless, and changing 'peculiar' to 'strange' is just stupid (in fact, I'd say that's counter-productive in the struggle to expand children's vocabulary). Hodder claim that it is being "sensitively and carefully" revised and that Blyton would approve as she wrote because there were no 'modern' books around when she was a girl. They say the aim is to make Enid's work 'timeless', so as to appeal to future generations.

Many people (as you will see in the discussion below the story) are annoyed, nay - outraged, at the stupidity of this action. They put forth the observation that it is only Enid who undergoes this constant revision; they argue that reading these old words will help children expand their knowledge and vocabulary; they claim that Blyton's vocab was indicative of the time and should stay as a testament to the period (and that generations continue to find our E appealing despite the old slang).

All of this I agree with. My problem with this action is, in addition the above, that despite the insidious nature of Blyton, she has a distinctive narrative voice, and her characters also speak in a particular way, that will be lost somewhat in the de-identification. Besides, the first thing that sprang to mind when I read this was Orwell's 'newspeak' in 1984.

And say what you will, saying George was 'jolly lonely' sounds a great deal more interesting than saying she was 'very lonely'. Those two phrases don't even mean the same thing! The latter adjective lends the phrase an element of self pity that the former does not; 'jolly' has quite a stiff upper lip feel to it. Lose the slang and you lose more than you bargained for ...

I hate to admit I was watching this (in my defense, it was after Masterchef and I couldn't be bothered getting up), but Jamie Oliver's US school show contained an element very similar to the idea behind this re-edit. When talking to the cooks about the lunch menu, he finds out that the children are never given a knife and fork to eat with because it is 'beyond their abilities', so between the ages of 4-11, they were not taught basic table manners and ate with a spoon and their fingers.

This re-edit is like that. This is a publisher deciding not to push children to grow and learn, but to drop back and make it easy for them. The loss of peculiar really irks me - I mean ... really? If a child doesn't know the word, they can LOOK IT UP! I remember writing word lists when I was young - I'd write down words I didn't know and find them in the dictionary. And I learned things that way.

GAH! You know what the result will be? Bland, dateless, over-edited books, devoid of narrative voice, lacking in decent dialogue, without the one major virtue of the distinct vocabulary. Seriously, if you want a modern children's book, there are so many writers out there you could keep your spawn reading until middle-age.

Just Leave Enid Alone!!

Book 4 Again ... I know and I'm sorry, but this is the very last you'll hear about it!

Before I start, I just want to hand out a special commendation to Lol, who valiantly tried to remove the Blyton coloured glasses from an eight-year-old immersed in the Malory Towers chronicles. In the face of (what I understand to be) fanatic Blytonism, she laboured to suggest that Gwendoline wasn’t quite as bad as previously thought. The Blyton, unfortunately, was strong in that one … but I heartily endorse her de-programming efforts.

So, on to the book …

This is the last post on book 4. I promise. I didn’t mean to write so much on this book. It’s just that there is SO much packed into one little book that I just couldn’t let an issue pass.

And this is an issue that really pisses me off about our lady of Blyton. It really does. It’s lazy, unnecessary and manipulative and irks me no end.

It’s the introduction of the ‘next generation’.

That’s right. As well as the merry-go-round of new students in the dormy (ever wonder what happens to some of them? There is only space for ten or so in the one room. Scotch stereotype Jean and nervous wreck Ellen are too smart for the form, so have been moved up; American brainwash-ee Zerelda has gone back to the states to indoctrinate the continent of ignorant savages there into the ways of Our Enid; others from earlier books just disappear as they become superfluous. I actually think Enid drugs their tea at night and lobs them over the nearby cliffs, before returning to school and convincing the girls that “Violet doesn’t exist. There never was a Violet. Violet was just a dream …”. If she can get children to swallow some of the other crap she feeds them, why not this?), Enid also decided to go back basics and introduce two new first form characters.

There are two new ciphers in this book. Felicity, Darrell’s sister, and June, Alicia’s cousin, begin their school school career this term (with much copy-and-pasting from book one: train ride to school, wise words about school going quickly blah blah blah). Felicity is a cross between Darrell and Mary-Lou (all puppy dog eyes and strong sense of self-righteousness), while June is Alicia on steroids, exacerbated by a dash of Gwendoline stubbornness and all-round Blyton spitefulness. We watch their initial settling in issues, remember fondly reading about our own first term with Darrell (I’m not joking, there’s this indulgent and nostalgic ‘yes I’ve already done that’ sort of feel to the whole thing) and sagely agree that Felicity really shouldn’t be friends with June. It’s horridly smug and self indulgent – Felicity is such a dishrag there’s nothing to hate and June has not one redeeming feature in her make-up. I find it nauseating, which is interesting, as in previous reads I never really cared about the younger girls one way or the other. It’s just when you really look at these characters you see that they are so badly written as to be infuriating.

(Side note: E’s daughter Imogen is apparently the model for Felicity, but she was more like June in reality – the story goes that she, feeling neglected for being shipped off to school at an early age, she was rather a rebel and was almost expelled from one school – more about that in the next book.)

I really dislike this because there are already too many new characters to keep track of in each book. The narrative is divided up between two separate stories (rather than between characters in the one story), and in these later books, Darrell seems to take a back seat as the drama and comic set pieces are given to the younger, less ‘trained’ characters (to show the young readers the difference between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour – because we will all benefit from a revision of the rules of the regime).

June in particular is set up to be re-programmed quite heavily, being a cross between Alicia and Gwedoline. Brilliant but stubborn, she is Enid’s vehicle for increasing the drama in the story. Darrell hates her, given her demonstrable resistance to the regime, and that, along with study stress, is a catalyst for her simmering Harry Potter-esque anger running throughout the book

In this case, June gets all bitter about being bullied by the older forms. Having some crazy idea that hierarchy shouldn’t matter, but also possessed of a very high opinion of herself, June gets bitter at the thought that she is henpecked by older girls. So when she finds out about (and joins in) the fourth form’s illegal midnight feast, she decides to turn herself in to look good to the teacher and ‘get back’ at the fourth form. It is about this time that Darrell finds out, leading to the smackdown scene that covers Darrell in shame for the rest of term (mentioned in the first post for this book).

Felicity, on the other hand, is all shy new girl throughout the book. She’s BFF’s with June until June’s smackdown, at which point she realigns herself with a more regime friendly, Darrell approved BFF (who is never actually seen, just spoken of, giving you an indication of the interestingness of her character). She doesn’t actually do anything, just add the ‘ooh, aah’ filler of a newbie at the school – Oh, and learn a valuable lesson for us all to take in and apply in our own lives. Today’s lesson is charismatic ‘bad boy’ types do not make good friends – stick with the regime friendly alternatives instead.

(Side note: If Bella from Twilight had read Blyton, that book could have ended sooooooo differently … she’d probably end up with Mike or something like that (since apparently she HAS to end up with someone). To be honest, it probably would have made the story more interesting …)

I truly loathe this introduction of the next generation. Not only does it take away from Darrell’s character development (which is something Enid would not want as she can’t do ‘growing up feelings’), the two new characters are just amalgamations and rehashes of extant characters. It’s done to reinforce this whole idea of ‘growing up’, in that the older characters are supposed to act in a more dignified manner, as befitting their advanced age (I believe they are all of 15 in this book). Once indoctrinated into the system, acting contrary to it is frowned upon – so we’ll never have the older characters acting out so badly as the younger girls: they’re meant to ‘know better’.

Also, in Enid-land, all adults are stupid (except her because she’s a super-cool freak with a photographic memory). A story about adults (even young ones) would be boring because they are all lacking in intelligence and overflowing in nuanced emotions that were beyond the literary grasp of our great lady. She doesn’t like writing about them. In her opinion, all your growing up is done by 18 and the rest of your life is just … nostalgia for those halcyon school days. The end of school is the end of life in E’s opinion, so it’s important to learn all the lessons you can before that dreadful day … and if you think that that is fatuous tripe, just wait and see what our Enid has in store for you later …

Right, so I’m done with book four (or as done as I can be in 3000 odd words – I could go on forever about why I wish Felicity could be killed off). Seriously, I’m actually going to move on … shocking I know. Given that I started reviewing this book before I went on holidays, it’s rather terrible that I’ve drawn the story out for over 4 weeks. My apologies for that.

Obviously, the next book is book 5, but the next post will be an examination of the regime in MT. All students are equal, but some are more equal than others …