Friday, February 01, 2008

Hot scones and boarding schools and fairies and adventures

Enid Blyton. I pretty much grew up on what she wrote. My fantasy world was peopled with aunts who baked the yummiest cakes, moms who packed the best picnic lunches of sandwiches and lemonade, sumptuous meals of homemade bread and strawberries and cream, dogs that obeyed when you said “heel”, beautiful boarding schools, holidays at Welsh villages and quiet beaches, adventures, secret passages, ruins of castles, caravans, camp fires.

I didn’t grow out of those for a long, long time. Who would want to? The British countryside and all the lovely food would have anyone hooked. But then, one discovered Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys.

Anyway, why I am rambling about all this today is because after several years, I picked up an Enid Blyton. A mystery story with two boys and a girl. I was enjoying it till I read this:

“Pam, you may only be a girl but you have some great ideas.”

Whoa!! What? Did I just read that? And it went on – the girl was very pleased at the compliment. The book was full of such remarks and instances.

And then one sat down and recalled all the characters one could. It was appalling. It was always the girls who brought the lemonade, Anne loved to “keep home” for the rest of the Famous Five while George(iana) had to have the excuse that she wanted to be a boy in order to wear trousers and keep her hair short and generally do everything the boys did, the aunts did nothing better than bake. Did I really grow up on such stuff??

I am just so slow in realising these things… A quick internet threw up a lot of information on controversies and revisions, on how her writing promoted negative stereotypes regarding gender and even race. But will this stop me from reading her books? I certainly was disgusted with this one instance, but I still love Malory Towers and all those farms and the magic Faraway Tree.

8 comments:

Whizkid said...

Ahhhh! political correctness may ruin us all one day. i grew up on the same books, and still get excited about Amelia Jane, and Wishing Chair, and The Naughtiest Girl in School. :-)
i buy them to give away to my neices, but end up reading and reliving them myself. i did wonder about the stereotypes and staggering gender statements once, but then i decided i had not turned out to be so bad reading them! hopefully new (and young)readers too might gloss over it, and just enjoy Blyton's writings for its sake.

sajana.

Sav said...

Sajana, true, we turned out alright ;)

Sandhya Menon said...

I do think we must remember that she lived and wrote for a different generation. I am sure she didn't mean to seem sexist. Although I am not the biggest fan of Enid Blyton (I see serious paedophile overtones, among others, in her work) I think she was just writing what she knew. Like a lot of us.

And I also believe that while you and I turned out alright for the most bit, I do wonder how on a more subtle level tht kind of writing has affected us.

Did you even know what scones were till you were about ten?? :) I didn't!!

Sav said...

Quill, yes, that is the only excuse I have found for her -- the times she wrote in. But I know one subtle way in which it affected me -- I thought the worst had happened when my parents bought me the book "Stories For Boys" :) Now, the fact that there was such a book itself is topic for another discussion.

Unknown said...

Blyton's work had sexist, (even) racist and colour undertones...but savi, really, having met loads of ppl who grew up on enid blyton, i think she publicised food more than anything else....everyone seems to remember the picnic baskets.
Nancy Drew - now that i still love. the basketball playing Ned Nickerson, even better :-)

Unknown said...

Whoa! It's as if you've suddenly burst my bubble. Like you and countless others, I grew on Enid Blyton too...that is, until Sweet Valley invaded in 7th grade. Anyway, I do remember certain stereotypical things...like showing silly American girls or brazen French ones but I'd totally missed the sexist nature of the books until I read this post. Damn, it was so in-the-face and yet...I guess I've turned out fine. Maybe they don't affect that much, or maybe since we're exposed to diversity and tolerance, we don't let it affect our mindsets...who knows?
*trots off to read St. Clare's, having typed her senseless philosophy here*.

Sav said...

Shivani: I think Blyton packed the best picnic baskets! :)
Drenched: That's what surprised me the most -- that it was so in-your-face but one still missed it.

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