The Circus of Adventure

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70s-child
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Re: The Circus of Adventure

Post by 70s-child »

dsr wrote: I tended to assume the country was much more Eastern, perhaps Burma/Thailand type of country. Though that's no doubt based on my then lack of knowledge of those countries. Certainly I never had any impression it was European - too close.
This is an interesting discussion. Just to clarify, are you saying Tauri Hessia was farther away than Eastern Europe because it took them a whole night to fly into that country? Agatha Christie wrote They Came to Baghdad at about the same time, and in that book, it takes the protagonist a couple of days to fly from London to Baghdad, and she also had a stop-over in Cairo. This is a reliable account because Christie wrote from experience. Today it wouldn't take more than a few hours to cover that same distance. So given that the adventurers flew only overnight to Tauri Hessia, I would imagine the country was somewhere fairly close in Europe.

I never thought the country was in SE Asia (Burma/Thailand). I have been in that part of the world, and the culture described in Circus, though of course purely fictitious, doesn't resemble the culture of SE Asia in any way. How would you feel about Central Asia - Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan etc.? Though again, I am pretty sure they are farther than Baghdad, and would likely take at least that amount of time to fly in.

I don't know how many Tintin fans are there on this forum, but the description of Tauri Hessia always reminded me of the country in King Ottakar's Sceptre, and that was definitely meant to be Eastern Europe.
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.
In Thailand, even today, English is not spoken much. So yes, in the 1950s, it would have been very uncommon. But again, as I said, the culture described doesn't sound to me like SE Asia at all.
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Re: The Circus of Adventure

Post by dsr »

I think the reason I had Asia in my mind - bearing in miond that I was only 10 or so - was that Europe didn't seem far enough away and it didn't seem like Europe as I knew it. I knew a bit about Europe, and it wasn't exotic enough for Tauri-Hessia, ergo T-H must be further afield. I don't think I was right about Asia, but I think with the Eastern Europe theory it's the time that's wrong - I think is that T-H is much more set in the time of Ruritania in the Prisoner of Zenda, rather than (say) Belsornia in the Chalet School.
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Re: The Circus of Adventure

Post by Catbury »

If I remember correctly, it also took quite while to fly to Austria in the Valley of Adventure, didn't it? Much longer anyways than a flight from England to Austria would take nowadays.
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Re: The Circus of Adventure

Post by Fatty »

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. :)
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Re: The Circus of Adventure

Post by Fiona1986 »

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've always pictured Tauri-Hessia as European. The War rarely factored into Blyton's stories - with a few exceptions like the Adventurous Four and the Children of Kidillin. Sure there were plenty if spies and Smugglers in other books but they weren't clearly war related - and there was no rationing, fathers off fighting, bomb shelters, air raids or blackouts. That's what she did - wrote about current times as if the war wasn't/ hadn't happened at all.
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Re: The Circus of Adventure

Post by pete9012S »

Fiona1986 wrote:
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.
Yes,me too.That's exactly how I imagined it.
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Re: The Circus of Adventure

Post by Lucky Star »

Fiona1986 wrote:That's what she did - wrote about current times as if the war wasn't/ hadn't happened at all.
I have often wondered if she did that in order to provide children with an escape route from the rigours of real life in wartime or if she was just canny enough to realise that wartime stories would date very quickly when the war ended. They would forever be known as "wartime stories". If you watch any of the old films made during those years they are instantly recognisable for what they are; morale bosting films more notable for their stirring patriotism than their plotlines. And if Germany had won then the author of stories praising the allied war effort might not have been regarded with much favour.

As regards aircraft ranges it was common for passenger planes just after the war to refuel in France before heading on any further I believe. It certainly would have taken many hours to fly to Austria and if I'm right that Tauri-Hessia is somewhere in the balkans then that would have been even longer.
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Re: The Circus of Adventure

Post by Katharine »

I think it's more likely that Enid didn't include the war as a means of escapism rather than envisaging the long term appeal of her books.

Thankfully I've never lived through any kind of conflict close at hand, but I would imagine that if I was living under such traumatic conditions that the last thing I'd want to read about would be more of the same.
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Re: The Circus of Adventure

Post by pete9012S »

Was the imaginary world that Enid had created for herself so strong by the time of the War that she was still able to function and imagine her stories normally without the intrusion,reality and horror of a world conflict breaking into her world and influencing them too much?
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Re: The Circus of Adventure

Post by Katharine »

From what I've interpreted from various books written about Enid, I would say that she didn't let the war interfere with her life any more than it had to. I think through her magazine letters she mentioned it and sympathised from time to time, as that was more along the lines of a current affairs topic.

Possibly to her things like sheltering in an air-raid shelter and rationing were everyday inconveniences and were ignored in her books along with needing toilet facilities and the fact that the teenage girls in the school books were always able to go swimming, no one ever had to miss it because they had a 'tummy ache'.

I've also noticed that WWI seems to have passed her by without comment. My grandmother who was only about 5 years younger than Enid remembered being hungry during that period, and also had vivid memories of her father being called up. Does anyone know if Enid's father fought during the first war, if so she must have missed him dreadfully, although as she was studying in Ipswich during part of that time, maybe she wouldn't have seen him quite so often anyway.
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Re: The Circus of Adventure

Post by Lucky Star »

Katharine wrote:Thankfully I've never lived through any kind of conflict close at hand, but I would imagine that if I was living under such traumatic conditions that the last thing I'd want to read about would be more of the same.
You would imagine so wouldn't you. But the plethora of war films, books, comics etc which were around especially from the 50's till the 80's would seem to suggest otherwise.
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Re: The Circus of Adventure

Post by Katharine »

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.
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Re: The Circus of Adventure

Post by 70s-child »

Just to expand on what I said on culture: one giveaway for me, that Tauri Hessia was meant to be European, is that Gussy has been taught to greet women by kissing their hand. This is a very European tradition. Asian cultures tend to be remarkably non-touchy-feely when it comes to greeting people, especially strangers. So greetings in Asia take the form of a bow, folded hands, or a salute. Hugging is allowed only if the other person is a good friend. Shaking hands, though fairly universal now, is really more of a Western, especially Anglo-Saxon, import. I am always surprised at how some Europeans, especially the French and the Italians, are very comfortable with kissing each other when they meet. Even men do this to other men. Never mind Asia, in America too that would be a total no-no. Anyway, to me, Gussy's actions, right from the time he comes into the story, establish him as European.

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.
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Re: The Circus of Adventure

Post by Katharine »

I'm probably showing my ignorance here, but when I first read the book I wasn't really aware of the existence of the world outside Europe. Yes, I knew there were areas called Africa, Asia etc., but they seemed far to far away and too removed from anything way of life that I knew. A huge generalisation I know, but to me the idea of Tauri Hessia being in Europe, albeit in the Eastern part made it far enough away to be different from Western Europe, but not too far away as to be a totally different culture.

As 70s-child says, the idea of kissing hands seems more European, by vague impression of the world in a wider context would have expected something along the idea of rubbing noses or bowing with hands pressed together. Probably very stereotypical images I'd picked up from TV.
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Re: The Circus of Adventure

Post by Tony Summerfield »

I had always thought that Tauri Hessia was meant to be in Eastern Europe and when I read the book as an adult after my European travelling days were over, I felt that Romania ticked all the boxes.
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