Enid Blyton

[Nearly Sane]

No, quite difficult to deal with a bias without knowing it is present.

It is reasonable to point out an unconscious bias if it helps in dealing with a relevant issue, without starting a distracting, diversionary, argument.

So what do you think I did wrong?

[Nearly Sane]

Trouble is, an unconscious bias is difficult to impossible to prove or disprove, and is thus used by people with a political agenda to damn their opponents - see Israel's defenders' ad bloody nauseam accusations of subconscious antisemitism, when they run out of real arguments, which is often.

So no one who cannot prove a bias should ever suggest it?

[Nearly Sane]

Oh, fuck Hitchens, the pretentious twat.

so no argument then.

[Udayana]

So what do you think I did wrong?

Roses clearly stated she did not support any kind of homophobia and apologised for her poor wording - but you kept pursuing it as if it was the main topic? My suggestion anyway.

[Nearly Sane]

Roses clearly stated she did not support any kind of homophobia and apologised for her poor wording - but you kept pursuing it as if it was the main topic? My suggestion anyway.

Which she wouldn't have done if I had not challenged it.

[jeremyp]

Why do you think you worded it that way?

Sometimes you should just let it go.

[Roses]

When NS gets a bee in his bonnet he goes on and on about even when he has been corrected!!!

I AM NOT HOMOPHOBIC.

[SteveH]

When NS gets a bee in his bonnet he goes on and on about even when he has been corrected!!!

He certainly does!

[Roses]

I have said all I wish to say on this topic.

[SteveH]

So, getting back to Enid...
In her last few years, in the late 60s, she suffered increasingly from Alzheimers. According to a drama-doc about her that i saw a few years ago, on one occasion she got up in the middle of the night and wandered off in her nightdress. A passing lorry driver saw her, and stopped and persuaded her to get into the cab, with the intention of dropping her off at the nearest police station. As they drove along, he asked her her name. "Enid Blyton", she replied. The lorry driver laughed and said "and I'm the king of Siam!".

[Nearly Sane]

Hi everyone,

A nice article about Enid Blyton.....written by a friend's daughter btw.

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20220809-enid-blyton-the-british-author-loved-in-india

It is very true that we were very much influenced by Enid Blyton and the magic she created with her characters and description of the small town life styles and places. I was addicted to Enid Blyton.

It is a different matter that when I actually met some British people and worked with them in later years, I was shocked at the deeply political and divisive mind set of the people I worked with. Most people I knew were all the time complaining and scheming against the bosses and against everyone else in the company. Never a good word about anyone....though always very polite externally! 

Anyway, had a pleasant childhood thanks in part to Enid Blyton.

Cheers.

Sriram

Removing both my bonnet and its bee, Sriram, I'd like to say the article is fascinating and very well written.

[ProfessorDavey]

I never really liked Enid Blyton as a kid - only read a few and somehow even as a kid in the early 70s they seemed really dated to me. I'd always assumed they were largely written in the 20s and 30s, so I has rather surprised to see that most were post-war.

There were other authors and book series that I enjoyed far more, including some written earlier that didn't seem as dated. For example.

The Swallows and Amazon books
Narnia books
Br-er Rabbit - not the Blyton versions I think
Bill Badger books
The Adventure series - about two brothers who captured animals for zoos
Tolkien

My wife loves Blyton books - e.g. Famous Five, Mallory Towers and tried to get our kids to read them. Needless to say they didn't take to them at all.

[Nearly Sane]

Why 'Needless to say'?

[ProfessorDavey]

Why 'Needless to say'?

It's a turn of phrase NS.

But speaks to a general view that gen Z kids (mine were born between 98 and 07) can't see the attraction in Blyton's books. My kids certainly bear out that view.

[Nearly Sane]

It's a turn of phrase NS.

But speaks to a general view that gen Z kids (mine were born between 98 and 07) can't see the attraction in Blyton's books. My kids certainly bear out that view.

Anmazingly enough, I knew it was a figure of speech, but since you hadn't put forward your opinion on gen Z kids, it made no sense in the context. Let's assume that your anecdotal evidence is correct, why do you think that that doesn't seem to apply in India, as per the article in the OP?

[ProfessorDavey]

Anmazingly enough, I knew it was a figure of speech, but since you hadn't put forward your opinion on gen Z kids, it made no sense in the context. Let's assume that your anecdotal evidence is correct, why do you think that that doesn't seem to apply in India, as per the article in the OP?

We are three pages into the discussion which has moved on from a narrow discussion of the popularity or otherwise of Blyton in India to a more general discussion of Blyton as a person and whether individual posters thought her books had and continue to have merit (beyond your bizarre derail attach on Roses).

So my comment is absolutely bang on topic.

My error not to indicate the ages of my kids, but you could probably have worked that out from my indicating that I was a kid in the early 70s.

So back into your box NS, and perhaps others might like to comment on whether their kids from the 90s onwards enjoy her books.

[Nearly Sane]

We are three pages into the discussion which has moved on from a narrow discussion of the popularity or otherwise of Blyton in India to a more general discussion of Blyton as a person and whether individual posters thought her books had and continue to have merit (beyond your bizarre derail attach on Roses).

So my comment is absolutely bang on topic.

My error not to indicate the ages of my kids, but you could probably have worked that out from my indicating that I was a kid in the early 70s.

So back into your box NS, and perhaps others might like to comment on whether their kids from the 90s onwards enjoy her books.

I didn't say your post wasn't on topic, just the lack of coherence in your post. And then when I helped you to make that clear, I connected to the OP. You need not to get fefensive when you post something that isn't clear. We all do that.

[ProfessorDavey]

I didn't say your post wasn't on topic, just the lack of coherence in your post. And then when I helped you to make that clear, I connected to the OP. You need not to get fefensive when you post something that isn't clear. We all do that.

Well I thought my post was perfectly clear, beyond not specifying the ages of my kids - but as I said you can likely work that out near enough from my comment about being a kids in the early 70s.

But you do like to nit-pick don't you NS, implying meaning when none is intended (as indicated already with Roses) and lack of clarity when there is clarity (my post, which was perfectly clear in my opinion). So I'll leave it to others, who do not have this tendency to not pick, to indicate whether they thought my post was clear or not.

[Nearly Sane]

Well I thought my post was perfectly clear, beyond not specifying the ages of my kids - but as I said you can likely work that out near enough from my comment about being a kids in the early 70s.

But you do like to nit-pick don't you NS, implying meaning when none is intended (as indicated already with Roses) and lack of clarity when there is clarity (my post, which was perfectly clear in my opinion). So I'll leave it to others, who do not have this tendency to not pick, to indicate whether they thought my post was clear or not.

You hadn't made clear that you thought children of a particular age would not appreciate Blyton. I asked you to clarify your use of the phrase 'needlees to say' because without you providing any belief that didn't make sense. I'm happy to point that out. That you think you were clear isn't really of much use.

You need to chill out a bit when it comes to stuff like this. We can all make assumptions about our posts being clear. Getting upset when asked for a clarification is just a bit odd.


Anyway, I would be interested if anyone has opinions on the difference between Prof D's idea about kids of his kids ages in the UK and India as covered in the OP.


I also wonder if anyone knows what sort of success Blyton ever had in the US. My instinct would be that the books for older children wouldn't have been as successful buy that the Noddy stuff, and The Magic Faraway Tree might have.

Anyway, I'm off for lashings and lashings of ginger beer.

[ProfessorDavey]

Anyway, I would be interested if anyone has opinions on the difference between Prof D's idea about kids of his kids ages in the UK and India as covered in the OP.

Actually the article tells us very little about whether present day kids in India like Blyton more than those in the UK. Most of the article is a bit of a nostalgia-fest - older people describing their love for Blyton's books and projecting their love of Blyton onto kids. And it include pretty major dopol of salt stuff, such as the managing director of the company worldwide rights to distribute Blyton's books, including in India, telling us how much children love them. Hmm, like he's netural.

Also there is a bold claim that Blyton is the 3rd best selling children's author in India (with no indication what this claim is based on). Yet a quick glance at amazon.in children and young person best sellers reveals that not a single Blyton book is in the top 100.

https://www.amazon.in/gp/bestsellers/books/1318073031/ref=zg_bs_nav_books_1

Kind of hard to see how an author that doesn't have a single book in the top 100 best-sellers can be the 3rd best selling author overall.

So nice article, full of nostalgic whismy, but doesn't help us to know whether today's young children in India are big fans of Blyton.

[Robbie]

She was undoubtedly racist, sexist and snobbish, in a mild sort of way, but no more so than was normal in her day.

Yes and often her use of the English language was appalling. I never got into Blyton when I was a child. 

I didn't know she had many affairs but she did kick out her first husband, father of her children, for another man with whom she was happy.

[Dicky Underpants]

Anyway, I'm off for lashings and lashings of ginger beer.

Apparently this never appeared in anything written by Blyton. It comes from the TV comedy spoof "Five go mad in Dorset".

[Nearly Sane]

Apparently this never appeared in anything written by Blyton. It comes from the TV comedy spoof "Five go mad in Dorset".

Yep, I remember watching it on the launch night of Channel 4. It's a very clever piece of parody in that it feels believable as a phrase.

[ProfessorDavey]

Yes and often her use of the English language was appalling. I never got into Blyton when I was a child.

Yup - I agree. I always found her writing really stilted, which is why I was surprised to realise that she was writing in the 50s and even into the 60s. I'd always assumed she was writing much earlier than that as her writing seemed so dated and stalked to me, when I read some of her books as a child in the 70s.

To me the Swallows and Amazon books, although written perhaps 20 years earlier seemed much more up to date in their style of prose, even if some of the topic material is 'of a time'!

[SteveH]

Yup - I agree. I always found her writing really stalked...

"Stalked"? I've never come across this word in this sense before, and neither has google! Is it an auto-correct mistake for "stilted"?