Listen-Through/Discussion of Famous Five Audio Books

[John Pickup]

I know I'm in a minority who actually rates this better than Five Fall Into Adventure. I find it a lot more enjoyable and the story seems to hold together better - at least in my view.

You're in a minority of at least two. I completely agree.

[sixret]

There are only two titles in FF series that I did not enjoy. Trail and Together Again. I enjoyed reading others in varying degrees.

[Rob Houghton]

I know I'm in a minority who actually rates this better than Five Fall Into Adventure. I find it a lot more enjoyable and the story seems to hold together better - at least in my view.

You're in a minority of at least two. I completely agree.

John - I was thinking maybe you thought the same way from what we've said in the past. Our tastes in Blyton books are very similar!

Sixret - I agree - Secret Trail and Together Again (and for me Mystery to Solve) are my bottom three FF books!

[db105]

I know I'm in a minority who actually rates this better than Five Fall Into Adventure. I find it a lot more enjoyable and the story seems to hold together better - at least in my view.

In terms of enjoyment I would place them at a similar level. Both have some very enjoyable elements. They are (too) similar in some ways, and Fall Into Adventure looks better in terms of originality simply because it came first. I would criticize that the plot of Plenty of Fun depends on the police's incompetence and on one incredibly lucky coincidence (of the very few people that were asked, once had happened to see the kidnapper's car, and it had happened to stop beside him and the kidnappers had happened to discuss where they were going and he had happened to listen to it). I'm not too much concerned about that: coincidences are part of these books and they do not really affect my enjoyment of them, but taking everything into account I would not place Plenty of Fun above Fall Into Adventure, although my enjoyment of them was rather similar.

One thing I liked more in Plenty of Fun is that we got more George, and she has some nice moments with her always entertaining tantrums. Then again, in Fall Into Adventure we got the introduction of Jo. Jo plays a big role in Plenty of Fun too, but in Adventure it was a more central role, and it was her introduction.

Let's just say I liked both.

Then again, the quality of the books so far is consistent, in my opinion. Some happen to have elements that I particularly enjoy (I really like when they have character-based drama), but I have enjoyed all of them so far.

I'm listening now to Five on a Secret Trail, which seems to be one of the less-favorite here, so I'll cross my fingers. So far I'm enjoying it.

[Rob Houghton]

I like lots of elements in 'Five On A Secret Trail' - especially the storm etc, which is very well written. I even like all the stuff about the twins, which many people cite as being one of the dafter parts. My only reason for placing it fairly low down is that to me it feels like a short story that Enid has lengthened into a full sized book!

[Anita Bensoussane]

Secret Trail and Together Again (and for me Mystery to Solve) are my bottom three FF books!

They're my bottom three too.

... so the American scientist arrives, is impressed with the Five, and finally sends his beloved daughter there so that she'll be safe from kidnappers. The police has warned him about that possibility, but asking the police for protection would be ridiculous. Also, as we all know, there's no safer place on Earth than Kirrin Cottage.

I know the Five are officially Famous by now, but perhaps their fame hasn't spread to America!

I enjoyed Plenty of Fun when I first read it as a child - mainly because of the funny scenes with Uncle Quentin, the transformation of Berta and the reappearance of Jo. Back then I didn't read the books in any particular order and I think I came to this title fairly early on. Reading the books in order of publication it seems incredible to have yet another girl passing herself off as a boy - even though it's for a completely different reason this time.

Despite having read the book at least half a dozen times, the only scenes that have stuck in my mind are the ones mentioned above. For some reason, I can barely remember the adventure part at all!

Uncle Quentin and Aunt Fanny return at the same time. They hadn't returned when they heard about George being kidnapped because surprisingly Quentin had a collapse when he heard the news. This is the same guy who was saying a few days ago that if George was kidnapped he certainly would not give away any of his scientific secrets to get her back.

Being so temperamental and wrapped up in his work, I'm sure Quentin says lots of things he doesn't really mean. His feelings for his family rarely show but they come through in a crisis, as we saw in Five Run Away Together when he dropped everything to devote himself to his wife during her serious illness.

[db105]

** spoiler alert ** Five On a Secret Trail

Brief Summary by Poppy Hutchinson (from http://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;): Camping out, alone, in the moorland, near Kirrin Cottage – George and Anne see a series of strange flashing lights, one night from a derelict cottage, nearby. They also become acquainted with a strange young boy, who is involved in a local archaeological dig and when they are reunited with Julian and Dick, who have just returned from France – there is plenty to talk about! The Five gradually become aware of the fact that someone is trying to scare them away from this desolate spot on the Common – but the question is: who and why?


Random thoughts:

So we start with George at Kirrin Cottage still waiting for her cousins. Timmy gets injured and has to wear a cardboard collar so that he can't scratch his ear and reopen the wound. He looks funny and people laugh at him, which makes George mad. So she decides to "run away" with Timmy and camp in the commons near Kirrin Cottage while she waits for the others. I say run away because she doesn't ask permission and just leaves a note, although Aunt Fanny is OK with it. Which is a good thing, because otherwise where was she going to get supplies? Anyway, I liked the beginning. It rang true to George's character, being protective of Timmy and getting upset at his having to wear the collar and people laughing at him... much more upset than Timmy himself. Also, the fact that the children are not together for a good part of the book adds variety.

Anne is the next one to arrive and she joins George, and soon the two girls are camping together. They have a nearby spring to get water and an old cottage in ruins which provides shelter in case of very bad weather. They don't know if the boys will join them. Julian and Dick are in some kind of school trip in France. Don't the girls get to do things like that? Anyway, the trip sounds like fun, but the boys won't be having adventures over there. That magic only works when the Five are together.

The girls meet a funny boy. He is something of a joker and he is working on an archeological Roman dig nearby, but he doesn't want the girls going there and pestering him. I thought he had seemed more friendly than that. The girls agree not to go where they are not wanted, and he agrees not to go by their camp either. However, they encounter him again a bit later and he remembers nothing of this, and even accuses the girls of being crazy, while the girls think that he is the crazy one, or trying to play a weird joke.

We know the girls aren't crazy, so it's clear the boy is the crazy one... either that or he has a twin. And, of course, it will be later discovered that he has a twin.

The twins had had a fight and were pointedly ignoring each other, so that's why they were never together, but it was not very realistic that they would take it as far as accusing the girls of being crazy when they must have realized the source of the confusion. In spite of that, I have to confess that I rather enjoyed the whole farce. I guess I'm easy to please that way.

Meanwhile the adventure is being set: Anne sees lights and hears noises near the ruins of the cottage. George thinks she must have been dreaming. But later, during a storm, the girls take refuge in the cottage and they see someone peering in through a window at them.

The girls are scared and decide to return home next day. It's a bit uncharacteristic of George to run away. I have to admit that at this point of the series George is depicted as a bit less formidable than she was in the beginning, but still, running away... Well, she was doing it because of Anne, but she didn't even try to convince her to stay and investigate...

Fortunately, as they are about to leave, Julian and Dick arrive unexpectedly. With the two boys the group is complete and there's no way they'll run away now.

The adventure starts in earnest from there. I thought the children had a great idea, pretending to leave and then hiding to watch and see what the bad guys were so eager to do in the old cottage.

I hate it when George is excluded from dangerous activities, though. She wants Timmy to remain with Anne while she goes with the boys, but she accepts the excuse that if too many people go it will be more difficult to hide. Once that's accepted, there's no question that the ones to go are Julian and Dick. It bothers me that the boys never get to accept that George is as good as any boy, even though they should know better. The conventional "girls need to be protected" values of their time are too strong. Even George seems to accept them.

The boys successfully spy on the bad guys, who have a contrived conversation where they tell each other what they already know as a way for the boys to get all the information the plot requires them to have.

The plan of the bad guys is deliciously convoluted and inept. So, one of them has stolen valuable blueprints, and has the brilliant idea to hide them in an underground passage in the middle of nowhere. Casually it happens to be close to Kirrin Cottage, where the only other copy of the blueprints is (more on that later). Then he falls ill, but he draws some kind of map and gives instructions to his accomplices to retrieve the blueprints. However, the instructions are absurdly vague, and his accomplices are left looking all over the countryside in search of a stone slab. Basically they have little idea of where it is.

Apart from that, the adventure is pretty standard Famous Five stuff. Mysterious lights in an old ruin, secret passages, hidden stolen goods, one kidnapped child...

By the way, do check the Eileen Soper illustration of the woman who pretends to be a farmer to get information from the children. She looks so incredibly suspicious and spooky in that picture!

Finally, they recover the stolen goods and the kidnapped twin and they get to Kirrin Cottage and summon the police there. None of them knows what the blueprint is and whether it's valuable. George seems to think that since her dad is a scientist he will be able to identify every single blueprint in existence in the world. And sure enough, not only he is able to identify it, but he casually happens to be working on it. In fact it's a very important secret and Uncle Quentin has one of the only two copies, and the other one is the one that has been stolen. The bad guys, who had been locked in the secret passage, get picked up by the police.

OK, so that's it. This book is regarded by many fans as one of the weakest in the series. My impression is that it was not so bad. It had many of the things that make me enjoy these books. The stuff about Timmy and her collar was good. I liked the stuff with the twins, even if it's corny and even though it's just weird that one of the twins didn't explain the situation sooner. I enjoyed the children camping. The adventure stuff was not that bad, even though at this point, having listened to so many books in the series one after the other, secret passages and mysterious lights are not as exciting unless Blyton does something special with them. And here she doesn't, it's all a bit routine and by the numbers. To tell the truth, there are coincidences and plot holes in many of the books but perhaps this one has more than its fair share. It also lacks the descriptions we are used to when the children explore a new location. The setting here was near Kirrin Cottage and, aside from the ruins and the Roman dig nearby, had nothing to give it any particular personality.

All in all, certainly not among the best of the series, but it did not give me the impression that it was not worthy of being part of the series. I still enjoyed it.


Next up: Five Go to Billycock Hill

[Anita Bensoussane]

An enjoyable review, Db105. I think you've hit on all the things that make Secret Trail a somewhat tedious read for me - the lack of a distinctive location, the "twins" plot being too obvious (and therefore annoyingly dragged out), the crooks' implausible situation and George being a shadow of her former self when it comes to tackling mysterious goings-on.

Five on a Secret Trail was the first Famous Five book I ever read as a child. The opening chapters with just Anne, George and Timmy would be delightful and refreshing for anyone who had already met the Five, but I couldn't fully appreciate them as I knew nothing of the girls' history or the two boys they talked about. Even key words like "Kirrin" didn't have any associations for me. Starting the series with Five on a Treasure Island would be ideal, of course, but failing that I'd have preferred to begin with a book where the Five are together from the first chapter so I could immerse myself in their world and quickly grasp the group dynamics.

[Rob Houghton]

It really did strike me when reading it last year that the whole plot would have worked better as a short story - it is the only book I feel like that about. The best bit is the storm and the strange goings on - the man standing in the middle of the storm being highlighted by the lightening is quite scary - but for me the rest of it doesn't match up. Its a very slender story, and only takes place over a couple of days, which makes it seem less 'important' compared to the other books in the series. The children also never really seem in any real danger, as Kirrin Cottage is only a short distance away.

[db105]

An enjoyable review, Db105. I think you've hit on all the things that make Secret Trail a somewhat tedious read for me - the lack of a distinctive location, the "twins" plot being too obvious (and therefore annoyingly dragged out), the crooks' implausible situation and George being a shadow of her former self when it comes to tackling mysterious goings-on.

Maybe it's the accumulation, because many of those elements are present in other books of the series.

Five on a Secret Trail was the first Famous Five book I ever read as a child. The opening chapters with just Anne, George and Timmy would be delightful and refreshing for anyone who had already met the Five, but I couldn't fully appreciate them as I knew nothing of the girls' history or the two boys they talked about. Even key words like "Kirrin" didn't have any associations for me. Starting the series with Five on a Treasure Island would be ideal, of course, but failing that I'd have preferred to begin with a book where the Five are together from the first chapter so I could immerse myself in their world and quickly grasp the group dynamics.

Yes, I can understand that. It's not the best place to start. When I read these as a child, I also didn't pay much attention to the order. The books seemed episodic and self-contained, and they are, although reading them in order now allows me to appreciate a few things that I would otherwise miss. It's only On a Treasure Island that is clearly different, since it starts with the characters meeting for the first time.

It really did strike me when reading it last year that the whole plot would have worked better as a short story - it is the only book I feel like that about. The best bit is the storm and the strange goings on - the man standing in the middle of the storm being highlighted by the lightening is quite scary - but for me the rest of it doesn't match up. Its a very slender story, and only takes place over a couple of days, which makes it seem less 'important' compared to the other books in the series. The children also never really seem in any real danger, as Kirrin Cottage is only a short distance away.

It's not the only slender story in the series (Go Adventuring Again comes to mind), but Go Adventuring compensated by having a particularly interesting character drama, with George and the tutor.

[John Pickup]

I've said it before, I think this book would have been a perfect vehicle for George and Anne to feature in without the boys. Especially as the twins played a large part although they quickly got on my nerves.

[db105]

That's an interesting idea, although I think some readers would have felt cheated if some of the Five had been missing from a Famous Five adventure.

It would have had to be labelled differently. I understand there were some continuation books by a different writer that were just George and Timmy.

[Anita Bensoussane]

One thing I like about Secret Trail is that Anne and George play The Alphabet Game, naming (in turn) animals beginning with A, then B, and so on. My sister and I often played that game as children, especially on long car journeys, and it was fun to think of Enid Blyton characters playing it too. For the same reason, I like the mentions of Monopoly in Five on Kirrin Island Again and Happy Families and Snap in Five Fall Into Adventure. It's always exciting to read about the children having adventures, befriending colourful characters and spending time on George's own island, but it's also enjoyable to read about them playing ordinary games that were still in vogue when I was growing up - and are still played today. Little things like that can help the reader bond with the characters.

[Francis]

Is that the same as
'The Captains name was Ahab'
next player
' and his ship was called ark'
next player
'carrying a cargo of apples'
next player
'sailing from Aden'
next player
'to Ascension'

followed by all the letters of the alphabet with the players having to provide captain's name, ship name etc beginning with the appropriate letter.

[Rob Houghton]

I'm not sure I can remember the game in Secret Trail...but I'm guessing its not quite so complicated as your version, Francis (though I like the sound of yours very much!). I think its just a case of naming animals where one person says 'Aligator and person two might say 'Bear' and person three 'cat' and so on...?