Novelists Ideals

[Moonraker]

Yesterday's Sunday Telegraph carried an article that "explored the chasm between characters writers create and the way they conduct their own lives". Enid came in for some comment. You can read the complete article (at least, I hope you can without a subscription!). If you can't, say so and I will copy and paste it.

Sunday Telegraph

[pete9012S]

Thank you Nigel. Very interesting.
I was surprised that The Telegraph printed the info below as if all of it was a proven fact:

[Daisy]

That's an interesting article, Nigel. Good to see you posting here too!
I think most authors put into their characters - well their heroes anyway - the admirable traits they themselves would like to have. As well as those mentioned in the article I immediately thought of Elinor Brent-Dyer who, in the Chalet school series, wrote of a girl who grew to be an acclaimed authoress, a mother of eleven children for whom she was a wise parent as well as the person the school turned to when problems arose. Then she also had a very wise headmistress who became possibly her ideal. Elinor herself ran a small boarding school in Hereford, but her school was not the success the Chalet school turned out to be! I met a lady who had been a pupil there when a group of us went to Hereford for a weekend in the 1990s, which included the unveiling of a plaque on the wall of the house where her school had been.
I have no doubt Enid aspired to be the kind of parent she so often portrayed as ideal, but whether she was aware of her own shortcomings or not is a moot point. Her output was such that I can quite believe she spent more time in her own imagined land than in the real world.

[Moonraker]

Thank you, Daisy. I am never far away, even if you don't see me! I really should look in more often, but I spend enough time in front of a screen as it is. My love of Blyton and the Society remains, even if I don't post so much any more.

Her daughter Imogen took another view (hotly disputed by her elder sister Gillian), accusing her mother of being “­arrogant, insecure, pretentious, very skilled at putting difficult or unpleasant things out of her mind and without a trace of maternal instinct.

“­I found her very cold and saw little of her. Most of my mother’s visits to the nursery were hasty, angry ones, rather than benevolent. The nursery was a lonely place. The nannies lingered in the warm kitchen and I had no friends to play with.”

I wonder why Gillian "hotly disputed" Imogen's view.

I can't really see that an author can only portray her own ideals. Read Stephen King - most of his characters are pretty awful, which doesn't mean King himself is! The author of Game of Thrones must be a pretty awful person, as well. In any event, it is still encouraging to see that Enid Blyton remains to this day to be under the journalists' spotlights.

In any case, having 'ideals' doesn't meant that you fail to live up to them. We can all be easily led astray.

I also query the use of the term, "extramarital affairs of both sexes" - is gender relevant in today's world? Is it necessary to put in "of both sexes"?

[Daisy]

I wonder why Gillian "hotly disputed" Imogen's view.

I can't really see that an author can only portray her own ideals. Read Stephen King - most of his characters are pretty awful, which doesn't mean King himself is! The author of Game of Thrones must be a pretty awful person, as well. In any event, it is still encouraging to see that Enid Blyton remains to this day to be under the journalists' spotlights.

In any case, having 'ideals' doesn't meant that you fail to live up to them. We can all be easily led astray.

I also query the use of the term, "extramarital affairs of both sexes" - is gender relevant in today's world? Is it necessary to put in "of both sexes"?

I'm not sure how 'hotly' Gillian disputed Imogen's views, but of course the sisters were very different people with a different view of their mother too. Gillian was the very much wanted first baby and as such would have been no doubt doted upon by her parents, but Imogen was the disappointingly second girl instead of the boy her parents had longed for. I can imagine that there was less interest taken in her, and living in the 1930s when children often had nannies and nurseries, I guess Enid could easily forget her maternal duties!

I've no doubt Enid had ideals, many of which came out in her books, sadly it seems more often than in her actual day to day living!
I suppose mentioning the "of both sexes" is because today such relationships are not frowned upon as they were in Enid's day. Whether that was true of her or not is not really known.
As you say, Nigel, it's good she is still in journalists' radar even though quite often we don't agree with their views!

[Moonraker]

Good points, Daisy.

[Courtenay]

Thanks for sharing that, Nigel — I agree, at least Enid Blyton still comes up in the news, even if not always in positive ways!

Meanwhile, I just stumbled upon something relevant — Gyles Brandreth's account of interviews he had with both Gillian and Imogen: The truth about Enid Blyton

Some of you may have read it before, but I hadn't. It does show how very different the two daughters' views of their mother were, without taking sides on who was right or wrong. Well worth reading.

[Daisy]

That's a very interesting article by Gyles Brandreth and I see the writer of the Telegraph had obviously read it as he quotes directly from it! The view of their mother by both girls was coloured by their different experiences of her. I would not suggest that either was wrong.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Thanks for the link, Nigel. It's great to see you posting!

The article talks of Enid Blyton "endlessly churning out stories about cheerful adventurous bunches of well-adjusted children in unproblematic relationships with their parents". Actually, there are quite a few problematic parent-child relationships in Blyton books - Quentin and George, Mr. Curton and Martin, Mrs. Kent and Bob, Rose Longfield and her three children, Mr. and Mrs. Townsend and Joan, etc.

[Tony Summerfield]

I am a bit surprised that Gyles Brandreth made no mention at all of Barbara Stoney as quite a bit of that information comes straight from her book. Enid was very guarded about her past and neither daughter knew anything about her life before they came on the scene. They also learnt everything about their mother's early life from Barbara's book including the small detail that they had a grandmother who only died in 1949 when Gillian was 18, but she only discovered this in the early 1970s when Barbara's book was published.

One thing I will add is that Imogen told Gyles Brandreth that she would only agree to an interview if he agreed to come and speak at an Enid Blyton Day - which he did!

[timv]

I suppose it's inevitable in the world of prurient, headline-grabbing competitive media, but it seems a bit sad that (lazy or pressed for time?) journalists focus in on speculation rather than proof again, in the assumption that Enid had 'affairs with people of both sexes'. The word used is heavy with hints of full-on relationships, but as far as I can make out from checking the sources of these stories the assumption may be a bit dubious and the persons who provided the details to earlier enquiries may not have been all that friendly to Enid.

In my own sphere of work, ie historical and biographical research, you have to check on how reliable a source for a story is, and if the latter has an ulterior motive or is 'spicing things up' or remembering details a long time afterwards. As with the 'nude tennis shock horror' story, doesn't some of the initial stories about Enid and her close female companion come from former staff at Enid's house, and the more sensational the resulting report sounded the more copies the resulting magazine article/ book would sell? And can a close friendship with and an emotional reliance on a 'companion', in this case of the same sex, be called an 'affair' if there is no proof of that?? Emotional dependence , perhaps, but highly strung and imaginative people are surely entitled to have a few quirks or a 'safety valve'? Ditto constructing a 'fantasy facade' of a perfect family to bolster their self-assurance that they are a good and successful parent. The reference to Elinor Brent-Dyer and her fantasy construction of the hugely successful girls' story author, mother of eleven, and wise counsellor to the Chalet School Jo Bettany/ Maynard is a good one; there is a clear parallel. EBD never married, and her school in Hereford (I've been to the location too) was not that large (until the rush of wartime additions) or successful; by the end of its lifetime she was too busy writing to do much teaching and reportedly left much of the latter to her mother to the girls' parents' concern.

And the story about 'Enid didn't see her mother for decades' is lazily assumed to be a reproach to her or a case of her being a 'cold fish' who kept her family at bay, similarly. But this is far too simplistic. in some cases a relationship can get so dififcult that the stress of it is emotionally damaging and the person in question finds it easier to, or has to for their own emotional well-being, 'cut out' dealing with the other person to keep the stress level down. The same problem surfaced in my own family, the same lazy interpretation was made by some outsiders, and I have studied its psychological reasoning; I can say that blaming Enid for being 'emotionally cold' over this may be the reverse of the truth; cutting out difficult relationships (as with the cold-shouldering of Hugh after the divorce) can often be a 'safety mechanism'. Mind you, it's fascinating to speculate how much of Enid's own private ideals or her secret fears about failed family relationships surfaced in her books, especially the family ones; as well as Rose Longfield, there's the seemingly happy and integrated , financially comfortable Farrell family in House At The Corner who behind the facade are at odds and full of frustration and marginalisation (of Lizzie and the twins) with spoilt Tony and Pam not reined in and a complacent mother who is useless in a crisis! Time for a new edition of this book to show the other side of the Blyton 'only wrote about happy families' image?