New book on the Famous Five

[pete9012S]

Great news!
I have found my electronic copy of the book Liam kindly offered to us when the book was launched.

Admittedly,I may be a bit of a geek/anorak were Enid Blyton is concerned,but I find the book very interesting and informative.
Liam has obviously gone to a lot of trouble and hard work to put this book together.

I found myself looking under the heading of 'Cottage' in the book.Did you know that only two cottages are actually named in the whole of The Famous Five Series?

Only two specifically named cottages are found in the series – Kirrin Cottage (not exactly a cottage but a rather large house), and ???? Cottage near ?????????? ??????

But there are a host of other cottages. The Coastguard's cottage in Kirrin 06Kir6:19/pg63, and two other cottages next to it 06Kir6:20/pg64, one of which Martin Curton and his father rented one spring 06Kir6:27/pg64-65. Not far from Kirrin Cottage there was a row of cottages – a shanty-town of sorts – where Jake had forcibly taken Jo while she was on the way to Ravens Wood with Julian, Dick and Anne 09Fal14:4/pg131-132. Joanna's cousin lived in a cottage, in a different village from Kirrin, where Ragamuffin Jo went to stay with her, and briefly, Berta 14Fun14:53/pg157-158 & 14Fun16:9/pg173. The Butterfly Men in Billycock lived in a cottage 16Bil6:35/pg63-64.....

(Courtesy: Liam Martin. Dissecting the Magic of Enid Blyton's Famous Five Books)

Can you name the other cottage and its location without cheating or using Liam's book?

[pete9012S]

I've just been re-reading parts of Liam's most interesting book published back in 2014.
Particularly the sections discussing the subplots in the Famous Five books.

See what you think. They make good further discussion points:

Dissecting the Magic of Enid Blyton's Famous Five Books
Subplot 01: The most "perfect" family |

This is Julian, Dick and
Anne's. George and her parents – Uncle Quentin and Aunt Fanny
– have the "dysfunction" in the beginning of the series of being
poor; Uncle Quentin is also quite aloof and inflexible. So in the
first book, George's family is the one that is "encountered" by
priveleged visitors who set things right.

This is the pattern for the
rest of the series. George's turbulent relationship with her father
Uncle Quentin is the model for many families the Five encounter:
Edgar and his father Mr. Stick, Sooty and his stepfather Mr.
Lenoir, Nobby and his guardian Tiger Dan, Martin and his
guardian Mr. Curton, Jock and his stepfather Mr. Andrews,
Richard Kent and his millionaire father, Ragamuffin Jo and her
father Simmy, Yan and his great-grandfather, Sniffer and his
traveller father, Berta and her father Elbur Wright, Tinker and his
father Professor Hayling, Wilfrid and his grandmother Mrs.
Layman. The Famous Five are a privileged family that visit
dysfunctional families and solve their problems. This is the age-old
structure of myth.

A divine being leaves a heavenly home and
comes to earth to save someone in trouble. They sacrifice their
divine condition and take on human form and so experience all
the pain and suffering of humans. Thus in the Famous Five, the
scene of adventure is in the depths of the earth (tunnels and
dungeons), the depths of darkness and despair. Rather like a
mythic saviour coming to earth to suffer as a human and to die
and be interred in the earth and then to be resurrected, it is in
the darkness of tunnels and dungeons that the Five find treasure
and rescue unfortunate souls.

[Jomo]

Interesting. I was wondering which theories of myth interpretation is Liam partial to?

Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung, two of the most prominent theorists on myth, found striking similarities across many cultures of stories the ‘hero’s journey’, and felt these themes and symbols arose from the collective unconscious. Jung’s archetypes are interesting when we look at basic stereotypes in fiction and they role they play in any given set of stories.

I am very interested in the archetypal ‘wild child’ in Enid Blyton’s work - the ragamuffin Jo, the almost feral Aily, the child with a special connection with animals and the whole natural world, like Wilfred, and to a certain extent the very independent young heroes like George and like Andy in The Adventurous Four who have been allowed to develop more freely than the very conventional personas of the families they become part of.

Wilfred in Five Have a Mystery to Solve is one personification of the ‘wild child’ - the unspoilt child of nature has special, mysterious, natural gifts:

“The boy sat down too, and drew something out of his pocket. What was it? George tried to see, but it was half-hidden in his right hand.
He put it to his mouth, and began to whistle. It was a soft, weird whistle that grew loud and then died away again. There was no tune, no melody, just a kind of beautiful dirge that pulled at the heart. Sad, thought Anne, such a sad little tune—if you could call it a tune!
Something stirred a little way down the hill—and then, to everyone’s astonishment, an animal appeared—a hare! Its great ears stood upright, its big eyes stared straight at the boy with the curious little pipe. Then the hare lollopped right up to Wilfrid—and began to dance! Soon another came, but this one only watched. The first one then seemed to go mad, and leapt about wildly, utterly unafraid.
The tune changed a little—and a rabbit appeared! Then another and another. One came to Wilfrid’s feet and sniffed at them, its whiskers quivering. Then it lay down against the boy’s foot.
A bird flew down—a beautiful magpie! It stood nearby, watching the hare, fascinated. It took no notice of the children at all. They all held their breath, amazed and delighted.”