Alicia's back etc (Class, by Jane Beaton)

[Belly]

Just finished reading Class by Jane Beaton the 'boarding school book for grown ups'. Perhaps should have posted on misc Blyton but lots applies to books so put here but not sure.

It's a good read but she borrows heavily from St Clares and Malory Towers. Alice is the sharp trickster who isn't the kindest hearted. We also have Simone the 'fat' scholarship girl who it seems is stealing things and a dramatic interlude outside in extreme weather conditions (ringing any bells)?

The school is in the west country: 'The school most resembled a castle, perched by the sea. It had four towers - four houses.'

One of the main characters is the sparky Fliss (Felicity) who has an elder sister who is a goodie goodie and prefect at school. She initially gets led astray by Alice.

The next book is introduced, it will feature Zelda her parents clearly have great ambitions; 'we'll get Zelda out of that crowd she's been runnin' with..turn her into quite the English lady'

I could go on....To be fair to Jane Beaton she says she loved Enid's school stories but doesn't admit quite how much she's borrowed from them! I felt I knew the plot in more than a few places because of this.

I enjoyed it, great to hear about the private lives of the teachers. Can you imagine Mam'zelle Dupont having an affair with a married master? Or Miss Grayling/Theobold hiding a dark sexual secret??

I can think of several here who could have written something similar and better and wish I'd had the idea also!

Be interested to hear what others think of it...

Ps. Anita haven't forgotten 1911 census promise to write up pupils will do later this week when I get a moment

[Ming]

Is it me or does it seem like plagiarism?

[Anita Bensoussane]

I hadn't heard of Class but it does sound as if there are a number of Blytonian borrowings. From what you've said I'd be interested to read the book but will try to get it from the library or buy second-hand.

Can you imagine Mam'zelle Dupont having an affair with a married master?

Perhaps, if he plied her with wine and buttered her up by raving about "la belle France."

Or Miss Grayling/Theobold hiding a dark sexual secret??

Not really. But they say that still waters run deep!

Ps. Anita haven't forgotten 1911 census promise to write up pupils will do later this week when I get a moment

Thanks, Julia! No hurry but it would be interesting.

Anita

[Philip Mannering]

No offense to Jane Beaton, but surely, what she is doing must be plagiarism! I'm sure that the author does quite have her own plots well in hand, but Class sounds just like one of the Malory Tower stories.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Just found an online review:

http://www.trashionista.com/2008/09/boo ... w-cla.html" target="_blank

Apparently, Class is the first title in a planned series of six books!

Anita

[Timmy-the-dog]

I've just read "Class" and I guess I enjoyed it. Yes it does borrow from Malory Towers to some extent although I'd say there was a fair bit of originality too.
It might be easy for us as Blyton maniacs to immediately accuse others of "borrowing "her ideas whilst forgetting how much she "borrowed from the likes of Angela Brazil
cheers
Timmy

[Anita Bensoussane]

You have a point there, Timmy. I remember reading Angela Brazil's A Fourth Form Friendship and thinking that Enid Blyton might possibly have been influenced by that book when writing the early St. Clare's titles.

Anita

[Belly]

I really enjoyed the book and agree there was orginality there too. I liked Maggie's character and enjoyed the interludes with the school inspectors and the details about her love life. The book is laugh out loud funny in places too. Simone's character was well drawn and some of the small descriptive bits used to describe her brilliantly perceptive.

What I didn't like was the borrowing of whole 'scenes' from Blyton most that read the books won't realise this. The whole 'there is a thief' in the dorm bit where everyone jumps to the conclusion the fat unfortunate swot is the culprit particularly got my goat, especially when she runs away etc, perhaps it doesn't matter? It's interesting to see how Darrell, Felicity, June etc might be in the Facebook and Bebo generation.

I imagine there are Chalet School borrowings also and similar from What Katy Did (I haven't read these so wouldn't know. I plan to soon).

I also thought JK Rowling borrowed quite a bit from a tiny detail in Milly Molly Mandy (where I think a phone box goes through the ground to another world) to larger chunks frin the 'witch' genre I'd read as a child but Beaton borrows far more.

[Belly]

Thanks for posting the review, Anita. Interesting to see the reviewer thought the same thing, to my mind most will only be vaguely familiar with the original scenes in the EB books so will credit Jane Beaton with thinking up brilliant stuff. The fact that it will then subconciously chime with what her readership read in their childhoods means she's got a best selling series on her hands, very clever. As the reviewer says:

I just have one quibble and that is that so many of the plotlines involving the students seemed incredibly familiar. I kept thinking that extremely similar things had happened in either Malory Towers or the St Clare's series and so I spent a lot of time trying to remember if that was the case and second guess the outcome of each "adventure". It could, of course, simply be that Beaton has created such a credible boarding school book that the adventures just *seemed* familiar, but it still pulled me out of the story on more than one occasion.

[lizarfau]

I really want to read this book, but so far haven't found it in the bookshops here in Australia.