The Adventure Series!

[Chrissie777]

No worries about reviving old threads, Chrissie - very enjoyable - but I was just amazed how many pages back you'd quoted from, as we had been discussing stuff more recently! It keeps us on our toes!

Rob, hope this might help: I started reading "The Adventure Series!" thread at page 8 this morning (I've read the first 7 pages a few days ago).
This thread and also "The Landscape of Kirrin" thread were (and still are) such a delight for me to read.

[Chrissie777]

We watched "Highly Dangerous" (1950) with Margaret Lockwood and Dane Clark the other night

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042553/reference" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

which supposedly takes place in some Balkan country with an invented languge just like in "The Circus of Adventure". So maybe that was a common thing way back then, not just something EB came up with?
Any opinion?

[Rob Houghton]

I think it was indeed a fairly common thing, both in movies and books of the day. This is why, when discussing books like Circus, and River and also The Secret Mountain etc, I never think of Enid as being stereotypical or racist. Viewed through modern eyes, maybe she is being those things, but back in the 1940's and 50's it was just the way British people viewed 'foreigners' and 'exotic lands'. Their idea of such people and places was very limited, and seems to have been very much based on folklore, the Bible, Arabian Nights type tales and opera/operetta stories, etc. The characters and lands depicted weren't really meant to represent a certain race or country, just 'abroad'.

[Darrell71]

I too, don't see it as particularly racist, just interesting and amusing to read. I would have loved to know how Enid imagined India, but I don't think it's been mentioned in any of the books. Strange, considering it was one of England's largest colonies at the time. I do remember there being mentions of the parents of Hilary from ST. C being in India, but that may've been from the sequels.

[Courtenay]

Adventure of the Strange Ruby does have a few Indian elements, or attempts at the same. The ruby of the title comes from India and is said to have been one of the eyes of a great idol. During the story, the children hide out on an island that has a sort of Indian-style temple on it (despite being in Dorset!), with statues in it that sound like they resemble Hindu gods and goddesses. Mind you, the turrets on the temple are described as looking as though they "might be minarets", which are a feature of Muslim architecture, and they certainly wouldn't have Hindu-style idols in a mosque. To crown it all off (literally), one of the baddies in the story wears a turban, which would almost certainly make him a Sikh. I guess Enid was trying to give the mystery a genuine Indian flavour, but she might have done her research on specific cultures a bit better...


Further discussion of Adventure of the Strange Ruby has been moved to the following thread:

http://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/foru ... 4&start=60" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Boatbuilder]

I wonder if Jack was the buyer of this.

Giant extinct great auk replica sells for £25,000

[Fiona1986]

I feel like this is a fan fiction waiting to be written "Jack finally finds his great auk".

[Courtenay]

I have vague dreams of writing a fan fic set in Australia where Philip finds a Thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger)... I'd have Jack find a Paradise Parrot (also considered extinct) as well, but unfortunately those two critters come from very different (and far-apart) regions of Australia and I can't bring myself to bend the geography of my own country that far!!!

[Lucky Star]

Maybe the parrot was blown off course in a gale and ended up in the Tiger's habitat. Jack and Philip rescue the bird as the tigers are about to eat it and then they discover that the tiger's cave has a secret passage at the back of it. They follow the passage and discover that the last Great Auk in the world is being held prisoner inside the mountain by the mad king from The Mountain of Adventure whose new plan is to use Great Auk wings to make men fly.

[Courtenay]

Maybe the parrot was blown off course in a gale and ended up in the Tiger's habitat.

Blown off course a mere 1,500 miles or so (from southern Queensland to Tasmania)... nah, I really don't think even my most Blytonesque imaginative powers could stretch to that, sorry. Besides, everyone in Australia would just laugh at me.

Jack and Philip rescue the bird as the tigers are about to eat it and then they discover that the tiger's cave has a secret passage at the back of it. They follow the passage and discover that the last Great Auk in the world is being held prisoner inside the mountain by the mad king from The Mountain of Adventure whose new plan is to use Great Auk wings to make men fly.

Fantastic, except Great Auks were never found in the southern hemisphere at all. We have penguins instead!

[Lucky Star]

Well many Blyton books stretch credibility so why not the Fan Fic too.

[Courtenay]

I know, but as an Australian myself, I couldn't bear to be so geographically and ornithologically inaccurate... as I said, everyone back home would laugh at me!!

[Daisy]

Maybe the parrot was blown off course in a gale and ended up in the Tiger's habitat. Jack and Philip rescue the bird as the tigers are about to eat it and then they discover that the tiger's cave has a secret passage at the back of it. They follow the passage and discover that the last Great Auk in the world is being held prisoner inside the mountain by the mad king from The Mountain of Adventure whose new plan is to use Great Auk wings to make men fly.

Brilliant John. A great plot idea...

[Wolfgang]

So you think it's improbable that a (human) family bred these birds in secret for generations, and one bird managed to escape?

[GloomyGraham]

I would have loved to know how Enid imagined India, but I don't think it's been mentioned in any of the books. Strange, considering it was one of England's largest colonies at the time.

Was just re-reading the Castle of Adventure and in it Bill Smugs mentioned he had been to India. That was no further description though.