The Enid Blyton Society

Lenoir wrote:The index has been updated up to the latest journal and can be downloaded:
Index56

Thanks very much indeed, Lenoir. I've saved it to my computer. I find your Journal Index very helpful and I often use it.

Many thanks, Lenoir. I've also saved the update to my computer.

Thank you, Lenoir!

An article that I really enjoyed was John Henstock's Enid in Swallowdale and Elsewhere. Indeed, I enjoyed t so much that not being familiar with Swallowdale, or any of the books by Arthur Ransome for that matter, that I purchased a copy of Swallows and Amazons and Swallowdale from a charity shop in Louth (quite a bargin - £1 each ). I'm pretty much at the end of Swallows and Amazons and whilst I am enjoying the read it doesn't really seem to be about anything! Am I missing something?

Nick wrote: I'm pretty much at the end of Swallows and Amazons and whilst I am enjoying the read it doesn't really seem to be about anything

I thought the same whilst reading Swallows and Amazons for the first time, actually: it strikes me more as a tale of survival and friendship than an exciting adventure story. Nevertheless, I did really enjoy it because it was a very relaxing and interesting read. Some of the other books in the Swallows and Amazons series have more of a story to them such as Swallowdale (2nd book of the series) and Winter Holiday (4th book in the series).

I've read about eight of the "Swallows and Amazons" books and they're pretty tame on the whole compared to Enid Blyton, but then Arthur Ransome is writing about a different kind of adventure - to do with exploring, living in the wild and playing imaginative games rather than solving mysteries and catching crooks. The children are plucky and spirited and face real danger, for example in We Didn't Mean to Go to Sea and Pigeon Post, but the stories are slower-paced. To read them is to experience an old-fashioned (and privileged) childhood of freedom, responsibility, make-believe and countryside ways.

I've only read Swallows and Amazons, and that was quite some years ago, but I remember I very much enjoyed it. I agree it's not nearly as fast-paced as Enid Blyton, but it's a lovely, gentle, beautifully described, humour-filled story that does have its own kind of adventurousness and excitement about it. My mum is a huge fan and has nearly all the Arthur Ransome books, so I ought to read more of them one day. In fact, I think the only thing that put me off pursuing the series further was that we didn't have Swallowdale - the second book - at the time, and I prefer to read a series in order as much as possible! (I think I intended to look it up at the library, but I had too much else going on with school and forgot about it.)

The thing I most appreciated about Arthur Ransome, now I think about it, is that his girl characters are as much involved in the story as the boy characters and he makes a big point of the fact that Nancy and Peggy are better at sailing than the boys. Well ahead of Enid Blyton in the gender equality stakes, and he started writing about a decade earlier!

Poppy wrote:

Nick wrote: I'm pretty much at the end of Swallows and Amazons and whilst I am enjoying the read it doesn't really seem to be about anything

I thought the same whilst reading Swallows and Amazons for the first time, actually: it strikes me more as a tale of survival and friendship than an exciting adventure story. Nevertheless, I did really enjoy it because it was a very relaxing and interesting read. Some of the other books in the Swallows and Amazons series have more of a story to them such as Swallowdale (2nd book of the series) and Winter Holiday (4th book in the series).

Years ago I once tried it, but I gave up on "Winter Holiday". Guess I set my expectations too high after having read so many EB books first.
"Swallows and Amazons" doesn't seem to have much of a plot. That's what I thought, too. But I like the TV series which I have on DVD.
For me Norman Dale comes closer to EB's style than Arthur Ransome. Of course I still have not read Malcolm Saville, but received "Ambermere Treasure" a few weeks ago.

I have Swallows and Amazons but after reading a few pages I couldn't really get into it. I found it difficult to take a character called Titty seriously.

No more could I. Just a lot of meandering paint drying.

Moonraker wrote:No more could I. Just a lot of meandering paint drying.

Nigel, I always enjoy your comparisons!

Robert Houghton wrote:I found it difficult to take a character called Titty seriously.

And yet none of us Blyton fans bat an eyelid at Dick and Fanny??

Lol! True - but Titty is also such a baby name, and as far as I know, isn't even a real name like Dick and Fanny were??

According to Christina Hardyment in her book "Arthur Ransome and Captain Flint's Trunk"' Ransome liked to know more about his characters than his readers did. The character Titty"s 'real' name was Mavis which doesn't appear in any of the books ( in real life she was Mavis Altounyan and the boat Amazon was the Mavis too). The unfortunate pet name comes from the (very weird!) English fairy tale 'The Tale of Titty Mouse and Tatty Mouse'.

Well, I'm glad it's not just me. I was starting to think that I was a literacy heathen!

As mentioned in the original post, I'm enjoying the read and what it has made me appreciate is, what a master story teller Enid was. I've always felt the real strength in Enid's work were those early chapters in which she paints wonderful scenes of long summer holidays, idyllic locations and lazy journeys in Caravans. She always leaves the reader wanting more. Swallows & Amazons seems to be a whole book of Enid's chapters 3 and 4 and as a result I find descriptions of locations such Wild Cat Island quite tiresome by the time if reached chapter 20. Enid knew exactly when the story needed to be advanced.

I'll certainly be reading Swallows dale and Winter Holiday, despite the comments above, appeals with it's snowy setting. I wonder how it will compare to Kirrin in five Go Adventuring Again.