The Ban on Enid Blyton.

[Katharine]

Sounds like a backhanded compliment.

[Moonraker]

It does, indeed!

I'm with timv regarding Dickens for the reasons he stated. However, I love his short/shorter stories such as The Signalman and A Christmas Carol. Reading Nicholas Nickleby was a total chore.

[Rob Houghton]

Yes - I've only read two books by Dickens - A Christmas Carol - which I've enjoyed several times - and The Old Curiosity Shop - which I've read one page of because I found it 'a total chore' as you say.

my overall favourite was 'The Horse and His Boy' which is often marginalised in the series. We once did a dramatisation of 'Silver Chair' at school.

But I think Enid was able to create a believable 'parallel world' narrative, albeit for younger readers, when she mixed up real children and other, imaginary beings - influenced by pre-1914 'fairy world' creations (George Macdonald, Arthur Rackham, Arthur Mee?).

I quite enjoy The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe - maybe because when I first read it, at a fairly young age, I didn't realise or take note of the religious symbolism, so I always enjoy it on quite a basic level even today. I didn't even see the religious symbolism in The Magician's Nephew - which is probably more obviously religious - and so this is also one of my favourites - but The Horse and His Boy is probably my overall favourite Narnia book - is a brilliant tale of an exciting desert journey and I can remember loving it as a child - though strangely enough I don't think I've ever read it since!

Talking of Enid's influences, I think its easy to see the likes of George Macdonald, Arthur Rackham and Arthur Mee in her stories - but one writer who I always consider must have been a big influence was E Nesbit. You can see similarities in many of Enid's books - the 'real children and magical characters' thing was used a lot by E Nesbit to very great effect - especially in The Phoenix and the Carpet etc - and The Railway Children certainly (to me anyway) seems to have inspired some of Enid's 'family' stories, with the father being taken away etc.

We tend to forget that E Nesbit would have been a very relevant and up-to-date author when Enid was a child - the J K Rowling of Enid's day! Many of her books, such as Five Children and It, The Railway Children, The Phoenix and the Carpet, The Treasure Seekers and The Enchanted Castle, were published before Enid was 10 years old - so I'm sure she would have read some of them, and been influenced by them. You can align many of E Nesbits books up with an Enid Blyton book - such as The Family At Red Roofs with The Railway Children, The Treasure HUnters with The Treasure Seekers, The Phoenix and the Carpet with The Wishing Chair etc.

[Anita Bensoussane]

I too think Enid Blyton is highly likely to have read E. Nesbit at some point. I once wrote an article about Enid Blyton and E. Nesbit for Green Hedges Magazine.

C. S. Lewis was certainly a fan of E. Nesbit and there are several nods in her direction in his work. In The Magician's Nephew there's a reference to the Bastables (from The Story of the Treasure Seekers) digging for treasure, while Jadis resembles the Queen of Babylon from The Story of the Amulet. Characters pass through magic arches in some of the Narnia books, rather like the children in The Story of the Amulet, and in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Mr. Tumnus talks of the city of War Drobe in the land of Spare Oom, reminding me of Nesbit's short story 'The Aunt and Amabel' which features a railway station called Bigwardrobeinspareroom. Like Nesbit (and George MacDonald and Enid Blyton), Lewis also occasionally breaks off from his narrative to address the reader directly.

[Rob Houghton]

It was that breaking off to talk to her readers that I particularly liked in E Nesbit - and also in the Winnie the Pooh books too. I never liked it so much in Enid's books for some reason - although it depends where she used the technique. In fantasy books, or books written in a more chatty style, like Milne's and Nesbit's, it works really well, especially as comedy is usually employed along with those author interventions but it doesn't workt so well in some of Enid's adventure and mystery stories, in my opinion. However, I have mixed feelings, as I used to love some of her interventions as a child, such as when she hinted a mystery would start up - 'but that was just where George was wrong!' etc

But some of Nesbit's interventions are really amusing, and add greatly to the overall narrative - especially in The Enchanted Castle and the Railway Children.

[Anita Bensoussane]

I generally like the "breakings off" unless they're overdone, as in Enid Blyton's The Mystery That Never Was where there are simply too many and they become intrusive.

I meant to say before that C. S. Lewis was a great admirer of George MacDonald - and MacDonald is known to have had an influence on E. Nesbit too. As for Enid Blyton, she says in The Story of My Life that her favourite childhood book was George MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin.

[KEVP]

I really liked the theology in C.S.Lewis' "The Last Battle". I think I was about 10 when I read it. I had some questions about religion, so I was really glad that a grownup took the time to explain things to children in a way we could understand.

[Rob Houghton]

All I took from The Last Battle is that Susan wouldn't be allowed into Heaven because she liked makeup too much, lol!

[Courtenay]

I've always loved the Narnia books as well and do even more as an adult, but that's just me. Incidentally, Lewis is often misread this way as if there's a really sexist message in The Last Battle — Susan being excluded from heaven because she liked makeup etc. too much — but that's not what really happens. The point is that she was trying hard to be all snobbishly "grown up" and had convinced herself that all their adventures in Narnia were just silly games they used to play as children, which was why she wasn't with her brothers and sister and the other remaining "Friends of Narnia" when they died in a railway accident. So the reason she didn't go to heaven like the others was simply that she hadn't died yet.

We're not told what happened to her in this world after that (one does wonder, after the tragedy of losing her entire family), but Lewis himself stated in letters to his readers that that was deliberately left open, with the hope that she would find her own way to "Aslan's country" in the end and rejoin her loved ones there. It's a dicey subject for a children's book, but I guess because Lewis by this stage had set himself to write a whole series introducing basic Christian ideas to young readers, it was logical to finish it with life after death. I've always found his concept of heaven very comforting and I do like to think that Susan must have got there eventually too. Once a King or Queen in Narnia...

Now I'm wondering how we got into Narnia via the Ban on Enid Blyton!!

[KEVP]

Neil Gaiman wrote a short story about Susan. I feel as though Gaiman's story is a bit ambiguous about whether she went to heaven. But it does contain the line "Who do you think identified the bodies?"

As for "The Last Battle", I was very struck by the fact that the foreign prince, who worshipped Tash instead of Aslan, still went to heaven, because (at least as I understood it as a child) he was nevertheless a "good" person. And the Dwarfs who end up in Hell, but that is merely a prison in their own minds, which they are unable to see. This book really shaped my own religious beliefs.

[Katharine]

I wasn't quite sure where to put this, but I suspect there may be another anti Enid Blyton revival soon.

An article on the BBC today is about Winston Churchill. Unfortunately the author links Winston with Enid Blyton because they first came across the name in one of her books. It then goes on to say about how they felt the British Government treated Indian in the past.

Sadly the article ends with the author saying that they won't be passing their childhood books to their children, despite the happy memories they have of the stories, as they deserve to read books set in a 'more equal world'.

I find it so sad that someone has tarred all Enid's works with the same brush, just because of a mention of a certain figure. I don't recall the FF or SS mentioning any political figures, and I'm pretty certain that the Faraway Tree etc don't make reference to any real people either.

[Lucky Star]

Virtue signalling at it's worst. The only reference to Churchill is in The Mystery of the Missing Necklace where Enid states that Bets has a great admiration for him. I'm struggling to think of any other reference to a real life political figure in an y of her books. Even the wartime ones don't mention Hitler or Churchill by name. It sounds like another "woke" freelance writer earning some cash by writing something that's pretty much guaranteed to be published.

Unfortunately the world is full of such people at the moment. If she doesn't pass on her books to her kids it will be their loss ultimately as thew well loved stories have provided millions of people with an excellent and fair moral compass for their lives regardless of a handful of old fashioned, non PC phrases or attitudes being present.

[Katharine]

Well said.

I've just had another look at the article. The author's problem with Churchill is the way the British Government reacted to a famine in India in 1943 when it was still part of the Empire, which I can understand people being upset about.

'Missing Necklace' was written in 1947 - I wonder if Enid Blyton was even aware of the situation in India? I suspect it unlikely that the papers mentioned it much. I would imagine that Churchill at that time was generally portrayed as someone who had steered the country through the dark days of WWII.

If Indian readers really find the mention of Churchill that upsetting, then surely a small edit to the books would be sufficient?

I think it unfair of the writer to even drag Enid Blyton's name into the article - after all, unless there's a side to her we've yet to discover, I'm not aware that she was involved in politics in anyway. I'm sure she didn't campaign to stop aid going abroad etc!

I wonder how many of the Classics, such as DIckens, Shakespeare etc have used words, phrases and stereotypes that would be considered unacceptable these day?

[Courtenay]

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that modern editions of Missing Necklace no longer include the passing reference to Churchill and Bets' admiration of him. (I have a 1970s paperback and it is in there.) Regardless, though — yes, I'm afraid that is just virtue signalling. I grew up on a steady diet of uncensored Enid Blyton in the 1980s and there was absolutely nothing in there that taught me to be racist, sexist, classist or anything else-ist!! And where there were some old-fashioned ideas portrayed — girls being expected to do the cooking and cleaning and not participate in the really dangerous parts of the adventure, for example — well, that started conversations with my parents about how that was genuinely how most people thought about boys' and girls' roles back then, and got me realising how lucky I was to be growing up in a world where I DIDN'T have expectations like that placed on me as a girl. I wouldn't have appreciated that anywhere near as much if books from the past had been censored on my behalf.

[Anita Bensoussane]

...I suspect there may be another anti Enid Blyton revival soon.

An article on the BBC today is about Winston Churchill. Unfortunately the author links Winston with Enid Blyton because they first came across the name in one of her books. It then goes on to say about how they felt the British Government treated Indian in the past.

Sadly the article ends with the author saying that they won't be passing their childhood books to their children, despite the happy memories they have of the stories, as they deserve to read books set in a 'more equal world'.

I find it so sad that someone has tarred all Enid's works with the same brush, just because of a mention of a certain figure. I don't recall the FF or SS mentioning any political figures, and I'm pretty certain that the Faraway Tree etc don't make reference to any real people either.

Most people probably wouldn't let the occasional negative article affect their opinion of an author. Quite a lot of positive articles about Enid Blyton have been published in recent years, some being pieces of reasonable substance examining characters, plots and language, so let's hope readers of websites and paper publications aren't swayed by just one viewpoint.

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that modern editions of Missing Necklace no longer include the passing reference to Churchill and Bets' admiration of him.

The waxwork of Winston Churchill is still present in modern editions of The Mystery of the Missing Necklace but the part about Bets admiring him and having a photo of him on her mantelpiece has indeed been removed.

The only reference to Churchill is in The Mystery of the Missing Necklace where Enid states that Bets has a great admiration for him. I'm struggling to think of any other reference to a real life political figure in an y of her books..

Enid Blyton mentions waxworks of other political figures in The Mystery of the Missing Necklace but they're from further back in history, of course. Bets may admire Churchill but she despises Napoleon, saying to Fatty, "Do you want to look like Napoleon? I don't think he looks very nice, really. And I don't like those men that go about thinking they want to conquer the whole world." (Did Enid intend that last sentence to prompt readers to draw comparisons with Hitler, I wonder?)

There's a brief reference to Churchill in First Term at Malory Towers when we're told that Alicia "could always give an opinion immediately about anyone or anything, from Winston Churchill down to the little boy belonging to the Tower House cook." However, we don't get to hear Alicia's views!

I also recall that some of the St. Clare's girls go to the cinema to watch the film Clive of India in Summer Term at St. Clare's.

In Enid Blyton - the Biography, Barbara Stoney says that Enid's first husband, Hugh Pollock, admired Churchill for his "forthright views." He visited Churchill on several occasions during the 1930s because Newnes, the publishing company for which Hugh Pollock worked, published some of Churchill's books and Hugh had to discuss certain details with him, e.g. illustrations and proposed changes to the text.

Enid Blyton herself wrote a poem about Winston Churchill for the 16th March 1947 edition of Sunday Graphic:

A Lion Once We Had

A lion once we had that roared for England,
That spoke with every English heart and voice,
Ranging behind him every man and woman,
At one with him and his unfaltering choice.

He was the voice of England - when he spoke
Our thoughts were uttered, and his burning phrase
Stung us to tears and made us proud and stubborn,
Unconquerable in those tremendous days.

If ever a man was England, this was he,
Old Lion-Heart, whose heart was England's own,
Leader of men, a Marlborough grown in stature,
He stood for us when England stood alone.

And now, when all our glory's dimmed and shadowed,
What would we give to hear a dauntless roar,
To range ourselves behind a trusted leader,
One for all and all for one once more!