The Circus of Adventure

The books! Over seven hundred of them and still counting...
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Chrissie777
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Re: The Circus of Adventure

Post by Chrissie777 »

zaidi wrote:I hope I didn't repeat a thread as i am sure that i searched about it but no topic was named this way.
I recently read it and finished it today. It was a thrilling book unlike all others...
Hi Zaidi,

I'm delighted to discover a thread on "The Circus of Adventure". This was my first Adventure series book that I read (my old copy from 1966 is still in pretty good shape :)) and I still enjoy reading it after so many years.
Brings back many memories...
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Chrissie777
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Re: The Circus of Adventure

Post by Chrissie777 »

Belly wrote:Of all the Adventure books this was the only one that left me cold. I re-read recently and couldn't get into it at all. Has anyone else felt this way? It didn't flow for me and seemed false and difficult to believe - not sure why the others are more realistic :).
What's more realistic about "River" or "Mountain"?
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Chrissie777
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Re: The Circus of Adventure

Post by Chrissie777 »

Belly wrote:I half wondered if Enid didn't use her 'cinema screen' technique with this one. It falters/doesn't flow for me in a way which her non 'cinema screen' books do - thinking of one of the St Clare's (?) from memory.
Hi Belly,

I never heard about Blyton using a cinema screen technique. Is there a book or an article where I could find out more?
Or has it been discussed at EBS? I just joined a few weeks ago and still am in the process of checking out all Readathons and threads. So please forgive me if that term is new to me.
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Re: The Circus of Adventure

Post by Chrissie777 »

Katharine wrote:Never having ventured abroad as a child my geography was pretty lousy, but I think I probably assumed it was somewhere around Czechoslovakia.
For me it was close to Hungary where lots of gypsies used to live.
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Re: The Circus of Adventure

Post by Chrissie777 »

Stephen wrote: Almost as if to say Kiki's not going to be around for ever, and we've reached the end of our childhood. We'll soon be adults and these adventures will be coming to an end.
Even when I did accept that River came last, it felt like such an anticlimax compared with Circus!

Well, to be honest: that thought never entered my mind when I read the books the first time. I was under the impression that many parrots live up to 100 years, so Kiki would most likely survive the four kids.
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Re: The Circus of Adventure

Post by Chrissie777 »

Moonraker wrote:I would rather have a fictional location than a real one. Imagine if Kirrin was based on a real English village, imagine visiting it today to find out that it has been totally commercialised and ruined. The Kirrin (other locations too) in our minds will never change.
I agree with Francis on Corfe Castle Village. I watched the film in 1962 and read the book not before the fall or winter of 1965/1966, so the village used in the film was always Kirrin for me.
Don't exactly remember how old I was when I finally found out where "Five on a Treasure Island" has been filmed, but it must have been before 1981 when I visited Corfe first. Probably Barbara Stoney must have mentioned it in her book on Blyton?

Now to Nigel's post.
I was delighted when I re-visited Corfe Castle Village again in 2008 and nothing was changed. Everything still looked the same to me as it did in 1981 and the 1981 Corfe Castle Village that I experienced seemed exactly like the 1957 Corfe Castle Village from the movie.
For me Corfe Castle Village never has been commercialized and ruined. It still looks and feels like some idyllic British village in the country.
Any opinions?
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Re: The Circus of Adventure

Post by Chrissie777 »

Fiona1986 wrote:
dsr wrote:
As for English speaking, it wasn't all that common in Eastern Europe in 1952. (Don't know about Burma or Thailand, but I'm sure it was less common than it is now.) Until World War 2 (1939-1945) the second language in many eastern European countries, and also Scandinavia, was German; after the war, Scandinavia switched to English but Eastern Europe were made to learn Russian.


I've always understood it that the circus (or indeed surky) folk only spoke [broken] English as they were a well travelled bunch of people from all different places originally. I'm not sure if any of them were actually Tauri-Hessian. I always assumed Pedro and his mother were Spanish, though they could also speak some French. Madame Tatiosa etc spoke English too, though as they have visited England at least once, and are wealthy well educated individuals that's not too surprising.

I grew up believing that lots of gypsies worked at the circus, so Hungary always came to my mind. But looking at the hats that some of the Tauri-Hessian men wear in "Circus", it looks a bit like Turkey (way back then).

It was not just Scandinavian countries that switched to English at high schools after WW II, Germany and France as well.
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Re: The Circus of Adventure

Post by Chrissie777 »

Fatty wrote:When we talk about flying time, the type of aircraft is quite significant. In the WW-II era a twin-engined plane capable of carrying six passengers would have had an effective cruising speed of maybe 160 mph. Modern jetliners routinely do five times that speed, so it's quite likely that a 1940s Avro Anson could have taken all night to fly from Britain to Austria. It's quite impossible for one of these to fly to southeast Asia without one or more refuelling halts. Even eastern Europe is a stretch. Baronian turboprops are of course another matter. :)

Very fascinating facts, Fatty!
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Re: The Circus of Adventure

Post by Chrissie777 »

Katharine wrote:Well I must admit I'm a bit of an ostrich type person and like to escape from the harsh realities of life whenever possible. I try never to watch the news just before I go to bed.
Hi Katharine,

same here, I avoid watching the news (and over here in the US it's more local news - crime - than world news and that's not all that interesting).
Another "harsh reality" that I'm dealing with whenever I turn on my computer and go to amazon: for many months all they have on their home page is Kindle. This is really annoying. Can't they re-decorate their home page and introduce some new books for a change? To me it seems as if no more books are available...only Kindle, well, they still publish paperbacks, yes, but less and less hardcover which is hard to accept for someone who always loved hardcover books.
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Re: The Circus of Adventure

Post by Chrissie777 »

70s-child wrote:
There are other things too - names like Madame Tatiosa, are very European names, and Madame as a prefix is certainly European. Asian cultures don't use Madame as a prefix.
How about "Madame Butterfly :)?
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Re: The Circus of Adventure

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Fatty wrote: Harder to do the same with Tauri-Hessia -- the first part of the name could be Slavic but the second half sounds like a German province.
I agree, that's exactly what I thought when I read "Circus" the first time.
But in German it's actually spelled "Hessen" whereas English speaking countries turn it into "Hessia".
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Re: The Circus of Adventure

Post by Chrissie777 »

poddys wrote:60 is pretty amazing!

I think mine is 43, but that includes Wales, Scotland (drove a mile inside the border just north of Berwick on Tweed), Holland (5 hours in transit in Schipol airport).

I still haven't been to most of Europe, and unfortunately 15 years in the USA really only counts as 1 country, plus Canada, and there I only count because I went to a wedding in Windsor, which is across the river from Detroit.
I think I might come close. I've been to 20 different states in the US, 5 of the Canadian provinces, Austria, Switzerland, does Germany count when I'm from Germany?, many long trips to France, 4 times to the UK (but never to Scotland, however, I crossed the Severn Bridge and visited the first castle in Wales and returned back to England that same day), Italy, Yugoslavia, Greece, Turkey, Spain, Portugal, Luxembourg, Andorra, Poland (2 weeks during 1973 fall holidays), Denmark, Holland, Monaco, Corsica twice (o.k., that belongs to France), and many visits to East Germany as a child to visit my grandparents and believe me it felt like a totally different country!
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Re: The Circus of Adventure

Post by Enikyoga »

Fatty wrote:Never stepped out of my home country. Don't even have a valid passport now. How much more insular can one get? ;)
:|
Mmm, that is surprising because from the way you describe places such as Caeser's Palace in Las Vegas in some other threads, one would have got(ten) the impression you had been there. Surely, though within in a "'stone's throw" proximity, I have never been to Las Vegas!!!
Stephen I.
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Chrissie777
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Re: The Circus of Adventure

Post by Chrissie777 »

Julie2owlsdene wrote:
Moonraker wrote:
I've never been abroad either, unless you class Wales and Scotland as abroad! I've ventured to Jersey, Sark and the Isles of Scilly. But I have to say I'm happy staying on home ground. :D

8)

I forgot to mention the Isles of Scilly, I did fly via helicopter from Penzanze/Cornwall to Tresco and St. Mary's (sp?). This was in May 1987...my first flying experience and I loved it!
Tresco was one of the most beautiful islands I've ever been to.
The Channel Islands (especially Alderney) are on top of my travel wish list...
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Chrissie777
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Re: The Circus of Adventure

Post by Chrissie777 »

Katharine wrote:Martial law, riots, explosions. Now I know why I prefer to holiday 'at home'!

Although I would like to see the next Passion Play which is 8 years away, so will need to sort my passport out by then.
Passion play in Oberammergau?
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"For me, the cinema is not a slice of life, but a piece of cake."
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