I agree with you Sandhya, the famous Five (and secret seven and nancy drew, and hardy boys) didn't need the brown angle to keep me interested. For me, Blyton's books had pretty diverse characters I could relate to (the tomboy - i mean I haven't read the book in over 20 years, and I still remember that when George got caught in the first book she alerted her cousins to it by signing off her note as Georgina), so their colour was unimportant to me :)

Do you think it matters to kids these day more than it did with us? or is it an adult PC-ness creeping into the kids domain?

ohhh and what? the British Chavs weren't good enough for George? She had to outsourse her marriage to India? Why couldn't she find a nice British-Asian boy, hmmm?

OMG!!! You brought back all my school memories.
We used to have a big waiting list in our school lib for "Famous Five" and "Secret Seven" books :)

I think I would like my daughter (who is 9 yrs old) to read the original series with expressions like "gosh" and "golly". She already reads a lot of books that have characters taking help from GPS to track down the bad guys. Heck, even Diego has a video watch.
The original "Famous Five " series has that old time charm which can't be replaced.

A couple of brown male friends claim that brown girls never smile. I must share this link with them.

I'm thrilled that you note Kahani in your post. It's the result of many years of work on the part of many, many people. Children's books with SA characters and themes likewise took years of writers like Mitali Perkins and Pooja Makhijani (and me--all of us, BTW, proud to have had a hand in the development of Kahani) and others who have kept at it and refused to quit.

I was initially distraught at this news. However, I'm finding myself less upset about the new characters (after all, this happens all the time, and I think the original reasoning behind it was/is in the right place) than I am about the new technology and new language. I suppose it's necessary for an updated version, but it makes me wonder how interesting other kids will find it.

Like you said, Sandhya, what I loved about the FF (and Secret Seven, too!) was what was different, unknown (exactly all the things you mentioned, like ginger beer). I wonder if we/they are trying to too hard to be accessible to kids...

You can safely forget about “gay” times

I might be a bleeding heart liberal, but the hijacking of this word sticks in my craw as much as as Tinky Winky irked Falwell. That's why I loved this bit from Arthur C. Clarke's NYT obit:

Mr. Clarke’s standard answer when journalists asked him outright if he was gay was, “No, merely mildly cheerful.”

I think I would like my daughter (who is 9 yrs old) to read the original series with expressions like "gosh" and "golly".

If the new Enid Blytons don't cut it, I think you can raise her on a diet of more contemporary absurdist fantasy, although it has a darker tone. It is called the Donald Rumsfeld Speech Collection.

That’s right, the team leader is the daughter of George (the tomboy and the original gang’s leader), Jo, short for Jyoti.

I refuse to condone dynastic succession just because the recipient is biracial.

Pfftt. What really annoys me about this...

- Fans won't by that Georgina/George had a daughter. Remember that she frequently dressed up as a boy--to the extent that some strangers had no idea she was a girl.

- Sandhya, as you know there are SO many new, very well-written adventure series being published for young readers, both in the US and the UK. I wonder the need for recycling this one. There is a wonderfully snarky piece about this here (Guardian Unlimited blogs).

Do you think it matters to kids these day more than it did with us? or is it an adult PC-ness creeping into the kids domain?

An example of a crappy and tokenistic "multiculturalization," in my opinion, was a book I saw in the kid's section last weekend about two pandas, one of whom speaks only in haiku (breaking all the formal rules/themes of haiku and focusing only on syllable counts). I wish I could remember the title.

And Kahani is fantastic. My (writer) great-aunt has her grandson on a steady diet of their stories right now :)

Fans won't by that Georgina/George had a daughter. Remember that she frequently dressed up as a boy--to the extent that some strangers had no idea she was a girl.

So what? Surely, there's enough David Crosby to go around?

Only Timmy the dog gets to keep his original name.

That's ok, as long as Jyoti is vegetarian and feeds him only curd rice.

P.S. On the same tip, there's going to be a new 90210. The horror!

I guess what goes around comes around.

I guess what goes around comes around.

But do two wrongs make a right?

Now that George has a daughter, all speculation that she grew up to be a lesbian can be safely put to rest.

I can't stand Blyton's books for the most part - their quaintness and datedness is their downfall. The whole message was basically that tomboys need to 'settle down' and there are multiple references to girls not being allowed from participating in 'rough' activities. Not to mention the view towards non-whites. I wouldn't let my nephews/nieces or kids read all of that. More importantly though, the rest of the writing is formulaic in my opinion, the character one-dimensional and the storylines are repetitive. Who says kids don't want to be challenged in literature? I don't know about anyone else, but I outgrew those books at age 8. There is plenty of other quality contemporary fiction for kids. Btw, did you know that Darrell Rivers was named after Ms. Blyton's married lover? There is a side to her after all that is less than wholesome.

dude, i read ALL those enid blyton books as a kid. seriously, all of them.

treacle tart with ginger-beer at a midnight birthday celebration in some random private school like St. Clare's or Mallory Towers? Anyone???

Famous Five were my favorite though-- I'm psyched there is a South Asian character

hopefully all of this will quell the racism and classism and gender discrimination that ooze out of every blyton book--

Meena are you referring to this, which I found on that trusty source Wikipedia:

"By 1939 [Enid Blyton's] marriage to Pollock was in difficulties, and in 1941 she met Kenneth Fraser Darrell Waters (1892 – 1967), a London surgeon, with whom she began a friendship which quickly developed into something deeper. After each had divorced, they married at the City of Westminster register office on 20 October 1943, and she subsequently changed the surname of her two daughters to Darrell Waters. Pollock remarried and had little contact with his daughters thereafter. Blyton's second marriage was very happy and, as far as her public was concerned, she moved smoothly into her role as a devoted doctor's wife, living with him and her two daughters at Green Hedges."

i'm not sure why that is unwholesome exactly...seems like everyone might have been happier in the end.

Not that I'm qualified to say anything since I haven't read these books, but if she was supposed to be a token character, would they have made her the lead?

17 · ylrsings said

treacle tart with ginger-beer at a midnight birthday celebration in some random private school like St. Clare's or Mallory Towers? Anyone???

As child growing up my parents would take my siblings and I back to India at least once every year. During these trips, my mother introduced me to Enid Blyton and I was immediately hooked to both St. Clares and Mallory Towers. What I loved about Blyton's books the most was how I could make s a the characters experiences my own. I believe Mallory Towers was re-released in 2006?

you know one of the big reasons I fell so hard for Harry Potter books is that it fell right in with my childhood resdings of Mallory Towers and all the other boarding school books...it brought back memories :)

YES kenyandesi!! exactly how i felt about harry potter.

and harry potter was all about the diversity and gender-positivity, so those aspects were a welcome progressive change...

I never remembered reading the Famous Five. When I was little and went to visit my grandparents, they still had books from Enid Blyton on the bookshelf. I do remember Noddy though. Those books scared me, and were totally racist.

Meena and Shakti:

I agree that Enid Blyton's books had their share of sexism and racism, so I'm certainly not saying that any attempt to remedy that is not worthy. What I am criticizing, however, is the desire of publishers to take classic stories and literature and strip them of the very qualities that rendered them charming, the very attributes that pulled readers (kids especially) into alternate universes and different cultures and exposed them to language that is not part of their daily vocabulary. Imagine reading "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" in 21st century slang ... Or Mary Poppins be about a nanny who instead of flying with her umbrella is able to fly with a remote control ... It's not a great example, but hopefully my point is coming through ...

I work as an editor in educational publishing, and I can say with certainty that the constant struggle here is to walk the fine line between exposing kids to classic literature (which is often riddled with problems) and giving them what they know and like best -- stories set in their worlds, featuring settings they know best.

camille:

I think this is just an attempt to update the cast of these stories to reflect the diversity of modern England.

You're probably right. But along with that, they've changed so much of the story that an old-fashioned map probably won't fit in. I have to say that even though it was pretty cheesy, I did enjoy the remake of Nancy Drew which came out last year because even though it moved into present time, it retained some of that old-fashioned charm ... [my review].

An example of a crappy and tokenistic "multiculturalization," in my opinion, was a book I saw in the kid's section last weekend about two pandas, one of whom speaks only in haiku (breaking all the formal rules/themes of haiku and focusing only on syllable counts). I wish I could remember the title.

The book you're thinking about is "Zen Ties."

Sandhya:

I agree that Enid Blyton's books had their share of sexism and racism, so I'm certainly not saying that any attempt to remedy that is not worthy. What I am criticizing, however, is the desire of publishers to take classic stories and literature and strip them of the very qualities that rendered them charming, the very attributes that pulled readers (kids especially) into alternate universes and different cultures and exposed them to language that is not part of their daily vocabulary. Imagine reading "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" in 21st century slang ... Or Mary Poppins be about a nanny who instead of flying with her umbrella is able to fly with a remote control ... It's not a great example, but hopefully my point is coming through ...
Yeah, my comments are more a general criticism of Enid Blyton. Actually I find the whole idea of this animated serial to be a little weird. Personally I liked the boarding school series a lot better than the adventure stories. What I found irksome personally when I was young was the agelessness of the kids. That's what's nice about Harry Potter - the children grow into adolescence together with (most of) the readers.

I remember noticing that in the St. Clare books, Carlotta (girl from Spain, I think) and Claudine (from France) were always given these "exotic" qualities-like they were hot-tempered because they were from foreign lands, and their English was always differently phrased.
Claudine also did not understand the "English sense of honour". Those English characters were rather preachy. Her books obviously made a deep impression-look how much I remember 25 years later!

I did like the Faraway Tree books and the Five Find-Outers.

fine line between exposing kids to classic literature (which is often riddled with problems) and giving them what they know and like best -- stories set in their worlds, featuring settings they know best.

but I think that the point of these stories (for me at least) is that they were SO far removed from anything I could even remotely relate too...they took me out of my dreary world into another...so did/does Harry Potter. Do kids really want something that they can relate to or something out of a fantasy?

Five Find-Outers.

I don't think this is about adult PC-ness, I think it's about creating stories that mirror the diverse reality of children's lives.

6 · tamasha said

Like you said, Sandhya, what I loved about the FF (and Secret Seven, too!) was what was different, unknown (exactly all the things you mentioned, like ginger beer).

With me it went further. I had so completely interalized it as a concept that I persistently pestered my parents for 'ginger beer' - in 1970s India. Dennis the Menace (my father's favorite nickname for me as a kid) had already primed me for 'root beer'. My parents finally gave in and bought a crate of something they told me was root beer, and I remember how bad it tasted. I ascribed this to it being 'Indian root beer'. So when I came to America, one of the first things I did was walk up to a soda machine and buy some 'real root beer'. Years after arriving in America, the 'root beer test' worked well for me to tell how 'American' another desi had become - whether the other desi had grown to like root beer or not. Oh, how petty it sounds now, how juvenile, how silly, how totally sell-out-ish. But true. (I also thought, when I arrived in the US at age 22, that the black population was under 1% - one percent - of the total, about the same as the amount of coverage black figures were getting in mainstream media like Time, which we subscribed to at home in India - but that's for a separate, confessional blogpost).

So these things have deep effects, let's not minimize their subtle and not-so-subtle impacts. Fantasy presented often can be confused with reality, and 'normated', especially by the young.

my favourite Blyton series especially the one about the fat kid.

If you liked those you may remember the Billy Bunter books as well, that were standard fare in English medium Indian school libraries.

Here, it says that "Enid Blyton may have borrowed the term "Famous Five" for her own series of adventure stories. Her Frederick Trotteville, aka Fatty, character from the Five Find-Outers series also shows some similarities to Bunter."

I identified strongly with Frederick Algernon Trotteville of the FF, because he, like me as a kid, was thought to be 'fat' but was also really really smart (like I thought I was). Later, I transferred my identification-allegiance to Jupiter Jones of the Three Investigators, who, likewise, was stocky and extremely smart, but slightly older (as I was by then).

Bunter was pictured as almost obese, and as a liar, as a shirker, as a miser, as a cheat etc - and so much the target of abuse from other kids - that I couldn't possibly identify with him! I feel that all these dishonorable attributes were more easily ascribed to him because he was fat to begin with. The abuse he lived with daily, is, however, an unfortunately all-too-real aspect of life for most 'fat kids' today, whether in India or in the US.

Though my memory fades wrt to the exact titles and characters, I do remember reading a lot of those Enid Blytons during childhood and not to mention all those detective novels - Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys including the Famous Five which were my favourites.

If you liked those you may remember the Billy Bunter books as well, that were standard fare in English medium Indian school libraries

My favourite food in the novels was scones - even today it brings back memories of the five find outers. Tried to get scones in indian bakeries only to be met with a blank look.

32 · melbourne desi said

I loved the Three Investigators. Spent several weeks poring through the atlas trying to identify Bavaria - the homeland of one of the characters.

Bavaria, where Hans and Konrad, where the two workers in the Jone Salvage Yard were from, is very much a real place!

On the other hand, Brungaria, where some characters from the Tom Swift series were from (always the bad guys) - and who Cosmo Kincaid was sometimes in league with, was a fictional planet. :)

Bavaria, where Hans and Konrad, where the two workers in the Jone Salvage Yard were from, is very much a real place!

From an article that I am currently writing on Enid Blyton:

can't believe you posted about Enid Blyton because I am actually currently writing an article about children's books with desi diasporic influences for those who have young children at home and (if you know me this is unsurprising) it opens with an stringent critique of Blyton, one of the primary authors that has been foisted upon young Indian audiences for generations.

I grew up reading Blyton because my mom used to idolize her stories as a child and thought to introduce me to the books to share her memories with me. Alas, perhaps one of the largest rows I have had with my mother as an adult has to do with her unthinking acceptance of this racist drivel. My local paper recently eulogized Blyton as "a part of our heritage" and "continuing valuable family traditions". It was saddening to me to see this level of acceptance for someone who has indoctrinated so many children into a lack of understanding for other cultures and has contributed toward many colonized groups' self hatred. She ought not be a part of Indian people's traditions any longer, and the following is why.

Time and time again, Blyton reinforces racism against gypsies- the only people of colour ever to be featured in those books of hers that are set in England. The gypsy girl Josephine in the Famous Five series needs to be "civilized" (and that exact word is used) by the Five and taught how to sleep in beds, how to stay clean, and most importantly, how not to steal, because that's what "tinkers"- (the pejorative that Blyton and many of her era employ to refer to Jo's people)- do. Josephine is taken in by a kindly Englishwoman that rescues Jo from her abusive father, who used his daughter in manifold schemes to cheat and swindle others. He is developed into quite the villian- the Five and Jo eventually get him imprisoned as a result of their efforts. Jo yearns to be "British"- like "you all" and it is frequently emphasized that she can't help the community that she was raised in and the negative habits that she acquired as a result. She is "learning to be a good girl" instead of how she used to be when she lived with the gypsies, which she and the others describe as "bad, bad, bad". The gypsy characters are terrible, shiftless individuals who have disgusting hygiene, can't take care of their children and who indulge in petty (and on occasion high stakes) crime. In one book, before the Five meet Jo, there is a storyline built around Five's parents' temporary domestic help, and these British workers have a dog, named, incredibly, "Tinker". Georgina of the Famous Five rechristens him "Stinker" and the label sticks throughout the rest of the novel.

When I was in India a few years ago, I came upon a Blyton book called "The River of Adventure". It was a part of my great-aunt's personal library; she is very proud of the English books that she and her family read. I was browsing through it and inadvertently packed it into my case, so that I read it as we travelled through India. It was heartbreaking and infuriating to think that people in my family were cherishing these narratives. The story was about some children that travel to Egypt on one of Blyton's typical adventure/ detective stories. While in this foreign land, they meet a local boy called "Oola" who is being abused by his uncle, who beats him. The children rescue him from being hurt in showdown where a British boy bests a fullgrown Middle Eastern male and Oola declares in halting English that he is now their lifelong slave. When berated and told that the British don't keep slaves, Oola refuses to see reason and constantly follows the children about doing things for them while they accept the situation and occasionally deign to "educate" him as to his suddenly elevated rights- a concept unknown to "these people". Bob, the English children's guardian, hires some Egyptian staff to help them in their chores and travel plans- the "good" and obedient Egyptians- and fights with those who are relatively indifferent to them or are surly- those who are "up to no good". Oola goes into monologues about how brave and kind the British children are and is impressed with their clothing and technology; the story is peppered with other references to the Egyptians "backward" culture. Similar to Jo's father, the Egyptian uncle gets his just desserts and is punished at the behest of the British. The basic calculus is that the Egyptians are from a semi- savage society and treat their own as "worse than dogs".

Vinay Rai, who recently wrote a book called "Think India", was featured in India Abroad and described the state of the educational system on the subcontinent as "a British legacy meant for slaves". If the preponderance of Blyton's books on Indian shelves are anything to go by, he couldn't have been more correct.

Interestingly Ayaan Hirsi Ali in Infidel recalls with some nostalgia the Enid Blyton volumes that she used to read and discusses how they opened her eyes to a better world- one in which people are treated equally and with greater respect. This was one of my many problems with her when I read her book. I have no idea what she was smoking when she came up with this thesis, because even the relations between boys and girls are terribly circumscribed and the boys are always telling the girls what they can and can't do. When there is a particularly exciting adventure afoot, the boys "forbid" the girls to take part if they feel it is going to be dangerous. Julian of the Famous Five is given extra respect as the oldest boy (the situation is similar with Peter, official head of the Secret Seven) and his word is final in debates around decision making. The Famous Five's Georgina rebels against this in the weirdest way- rather than becoming a feminist, she completely repudiates her gender, cuts her hair short and declares that she is a boy, a move that led people in later years to speculate that Blyton was a very closeted lesbian, albeit a sexist one.

If you read wikipedia, you can find other examples of Blyton's racism and objections to it in the notes therein. However, it doesn't begin to touch on what I've mentioned here; I haven't seen this critique made anywhere else before- which is pretty shocking!

I have also heard that there some Indian teli serial titled "Ek Do Teen Char" which was the desi remake of Famous Five ?

The holy trinity of growing-up-literary in India: Enid Blyton, P G Wodehouse & Agatha Christie. I loved & read them all in my teens, when much of the subtext whizzed past (except for Noddy's Gollywog references). I agree with sk (# 25) about the characterization of the 'foreigners'. I have recently while driving to work I been listening to audio books of some of the Christie novels, & some of the comments (about Poirot's or some of the other characters' foreign-ness, or working women) are cringe-worthy. And these are not even 'exotic' foreigners from the colonies, but white Europeans or South Africans. Oops.

sk, Alan Moore refers to the Magic Faraway Tree series in V For Vendetta.

ylrsings (# 17), the frequent references to food used to bug me because they all sounded delicious but I didn't know where to get them, except for a some at Nahoum's at Calcutta's New Market (Flury's was still closed, unfortunately, due to labour unrest).

My favorite books are the Adventure series.

William & Billy Bunter, the closest to Blyton, never much appealed to me, because a lot of the humour was lost on me. But from whatever I remember of them now, they might have been the better ones, story & writing-wise. Didn't one of them (Bunter?) have an Indian prince as a friend?

this is definitely a ******* (star)production!

you don't know how hard it is for South Asian comic book writers/artists
to get anyone from the young adult (twenty something) set

meaning: South Asian characters drawn by South Asian artists -
there would be a difference in let say, how I would portray a fellow
South Asian - we're not all - we are all - whatever ... aborigines

If you read wikipedia, you can find other examples of Blyton's racism and objections to it in the notes therein. However, it doesn't begin to touch on what I've mentioned here; I haven't seen this critique made anywhere else before- which is pretty shocking!

40 · melbourne desi said

I have never understood the desire to criticize past behaviour based on current day morals. When Enid wrote the novels, she adhered to the norm. Yes it is not acceptable today but to say that it is cringe worthy is to expose the readers ignorance.

"That was then...this is now!" doesn't count as an informed argument either.

Sigh. I love that even with the new, updated and supposedly PC version they still have managed to cling to all the old stereotypes. Girly girl shown playing with her hair and cellphone? One adventurous character (male), one geek (male, at least in Scooby Doo Velma was female and awesome) and so on.

Sandhya - I'd agree with you that part of the charm of reading Famous Five books as an Indian child was the exoticness of them. But I'm pretty sure that the intended audience for the original books was not brown children who didn't know what kippers were (honestly, from the books I'm not sure if Blyton realised brown people existed), and they weren't necessarily meant to seem exotic. It's merely that contemporary England is more familiar to us than England of the first half of the 20th century. Which is hardly surprising, really.

Melbourne Desi - It is possible to look at a work in historical context and still criticise its politics. It is also possible to enjoy a book while condemning those aspects of its politics. One of my favourite Georgette Heyer books (The Grand Sophy) has a repulsive anti-semetic interlude, for example. And Blyton continued writing well into the 1960s - are you honestly trying to say that all the debates on race and gender and identity at the time just passed her by? I mean, sure, cut her some slack because of her context, but don't infantalise the poor woman completely.

Five Find-Outers.

my favourite Blyton series especially the one about the fat kid. His ventriloquism and his invisible writing was amazing. I learnt English using the Blyton books so it carries fond memories. I dont subscribe to rewriting books with the adult PC view and will be buying only the original. I have never understood the fascination with whitewashing classic literature especially with the adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. Political correctness gone mad..

Aww I told myself commenting was a timesuck but now I feel foolish and repent from my state of lurker-ness...I never thought I'd find other fans of the Five Find-Outers who'd dare to put it above the always-hallowed Famous Five. To be honest the *other* FF always seemed to have a touch of the Disneyfied Hollywood-ness about it and the Scooby Doo-esque animation merely confirms my suspicions...

I have to say that the FFO was infinitely better not only because of the fat know-it all kid and the weird sister-brother pairings of the other four or the stupid simplicity of Mr Goon and his pop-eyed glare, but because the plotlines were more realistic and made non-mysteries seem mysterious...hell even the group's lame name of 'find-outers' with its Rob Schneider creativity-level title beats the smugness of self-proclaimed the 'Famous' Five.

And yes, I am aware that it doesn't really matter which Enid Blyton series I loved as a small wide-eyed brown child because some Postcolonial Studies major will come crawling out of the woodwork to remind me that either way I was being viciously colonised and subliminally rejected by the very books I knew and loved :(

And to that I say pah! tosh! golly gosh! I don't have the faintest clue what you're taking about, old chap. Toodles ;D

Memories, memories, memories! Love the Faraway Tree books - infact, bought them recently.

Tash, I agree with you wholeheartedly - perhaps we were all being "viciously colonised" but I cannot imagine my childhood without those books and the fantasy world they created. St Clare's, Mallory Towers, Jupe Jones...Perhaps I wasn't a very deep reader but I truly don't remember coming away with the fact that all foreigners were up to no good - I just remember feeling totally caught up in a world of adventure and excitement, midnight feasts and boarding schools. These were so far removed from my life that I threw myself into it with enthusiasm. I particularly adored George because she articulated my feelings (I grew up in a fairly traditional Muslim household and saw the inequity of treatment between boys and girls).

By the way, how about the Jennings series (Anthony Buckeridge) - totally hysterical!

EB was part of an era and those of who grew up in that time remember it fondly. I have tried to get my 7 year old to read FF and some others but just the language and context is so alien to him that he is unable to get engaged. So, this new fangled version may be the answer after all...

The first book I ever read was The Secret Room featuring The Five Find-outers and a Dog. I can still recall my eight-year-old heart ferociously thudding against my scrawny rib-cage as Fatty and gang weaved their way in and out of grave danger. At times I would take a break and munch on my Cadbury's Five Star before summoning enough courage to turn the page over. That summer, I spent many hours in my granddad's library and many more scouring our town for mysteries that I could solve; unfortunately, even the most evil looking guys in our place were just ordinary people going about their ordinary lives without any sense of mystery. Undoubtedly, he was my favourite author, and I was extremely disappointed a while later when I learned that Enid Blyton was a woman; a dead woman at that. Also, sat behind the anonymity of the internet, I will even admit to having read Claudine at St. Clare's more times than my sister.

I never heard of Enid Blyton or these books. Did anyone in the US read them? Anyway...I just looked her up on Wikipedia. Apparently a lot of people are uncomfortable with the racism and sexism in her stories. My question is, how do we deal with stuff like this? There used to be a show called 'The Little Rascals' (also called 'Our Gang'). I think it was originally filmed in the 1930's. When I was a kid in the 80s, reruns of that show could still be seen on television, and most of us loved it. You will never see that show on TV today...partly because it might have no appeal to today's kids, but mostly because it's just too sexist and racist by today's standards. But I think it's a shame that those shows, which in my view are real classics, are now gathering dust and will just fade away (although they're available on DVD). There has to be a better way of dealing with un-PC cultural product from the past. Otherwise in our zeal to not offend anyone, we'll lose a lot of great stuff. For that matter a lot of classic old cartoons are not shown anymore for the same reason.

Amitabh, The Little Rascals (& the similar Our Gang series) would be quite a chore for today's kids. I think that is the primary reason you don't see them much anymore. They do of course have some retro charm, as long as you are OK with the level of (kiddie) violence in them. Regarding the classic old cartoons, here is a list of Disney's most racist characters, of which many are quite new. The one which got caught in wwhat seems to be a contemprary PC bind is the 1946 Song Of The South. I would love to see it for myself & decide how offensive it is (if at all).

Melbourne Desi, as you grow older lot of things look & feel different. And some of them do make you cringe when you see them today, if you are the cringe-able type. I have enjoyed my Agatha Christies, but I will be wary referring some of her books to someone who hasn't read them. Dorothy Sayers, Ngaio Marsh & Marghery Allingham, her contemporaries, are safer bets (& stronger writers).

35 · Somechick said

Vinay Rai, who recently wrote a book called "Think India", was featured in India Abroad and described the state of the educational system on the subcontinent as "a British legacy meant for slaves".

Ouch. Bit harsh there.
I don't regret reading them. No harm done.
In the school library we had three choices, really.
Enid Blyton, Enid Blyton or Enid Blyton!

41 · Nayagan said

40 · melbourne desi said

I have never understood the desire to criticize past behaviour based on current day morals. When Enid wrote the novels, she adhered to the norm. Yes it is not acceptable today but to say that it is cringe worthy is to expose the readers ignorance.

"That was then...this is now!" doesn't count as an informed argument either.

Well but really people should let the resentment go, because if you keep insisting on viewing everything in that manner, it will become very hard to lead a calm life.

some Postcolonial Studies major will come crawling out of the woodwork to remind me that either way I was being viciously colonised and subliminally rejected by the very books I knew and loved :(

That was then...this is now!" doesn't count as an informed argument either.

45 · UberMetroMallu said

The first book I ever read was The Secret Room featuring Undoubtedly, he was my favourite author, and I was extremely disappointed a while later when I learned that Enid Blyton was a woman; a dead woman at that.

Somebody please begin bashing this guy for assuming that authors who can write gripping stories can only be men.

i was born and brought up in California and read all the Enid Blyton books

i LOVED them as a child and later in life i realized how racist and sexist they were.

i recognize the books for what they are-- children's stories from a colonial mindset.

do i regret reading them? No-- i'm just happy i didn't adopt the mentality about other cultures that Blyton put in every story.

that being said i want ginger beer at a midnight party and some treacle tart and biscuits. ANYONE??

I find it fascinating how what so many of us took away from the Blyton books was a fondness for midnight parties with treacle tarts, biscuits, kippers (did any of us ever really know what they were?!). I should probably go back and read some of my old Enid Blyton books - they're all in a cupboard at my grandmother's house in Pune and I've forbidden my aunt from giving them away because, ahem, I'm saving them for my kids (who may not even want to read them!). I know that a close rereading of them from my adult mindset would show me the colonial mindset, the racism, the sexism (thanks somechick for sharing part of your paper) ... and yet, it's one of those childhood memories seeped in idealism and nostalgia that I haven't wanted to let go of.

A couple of years ago I heard a very good documentary on BBC 4 -- Blyton in Bombay --

Shebana Coelho sets out for the city of her own childhood, Bombay, to investigate the effects of a steady and persistent diet of Blyton on generations of Bombay-ites in this fascinating programme. Generations of Indians have been raised with the books of Enid Blyton. But just because Blyton’s universally known, it doesn’t mean that she’s universally loved. Her books have been accused of being racist, sexist and culturally imperialist.

In Blyton in Bombay, Shebana criss-crosses the city, investigating how ultra-English children's author continues to linger in its streets and in the minds of its residents. She finds evidence of Blyton’s presence all over Bombay – from pavement bookstalls in central Bombay, with their piles of second-hand Blytons to fancier bookstores where Blyton outsells adult authors. It soon becomes clear that to talk about Enid Blyton in India is, in fact, a way to talk about so many other things – political, social and personal.

I tried finding the audio archive of this program, but couldn't. But the conversations started here did remind me of the time back in '97 when I spent the summer as a reporter at the Times of India in Bombay -- I had written a feature for the Sunday Times -- over the course of many interviews, one thing I had come to realize was that sales of Enid Blyton books (to the disconcernment of booksellers) had been dropping. My favorite moment while reporting the piece had been a scene at a Crossword bookstore where an 11-year old girl was shopping for books that were going to be her birthday present. She was running through the shelves muttering "Fear Street, Fear Street," in search of R. L. Stine's Goosebumps series, glossing over the Enid Blyton, Hardy Boys, and Nancy Drew books (which to my surprise were still the staple of the children's book section). Her mother, would make suggestions like, "Why don't you think a Ruskin Bond? He writes nice stories about India," which her daughter ignored, moving on to pick up a Sweet Valley High and a Roald Dahl novel.

I think things have changed since '97 - there are many more Indian publishers bringing out books by local authors. On my last trip to India, I did notice some particularly YA books set in India, such as THE YEAR I TURNED SIXTEEN, by Deeptha Khanna and Anuradha Majumdar's ISLAND OF INFINITY, which seemed similar to some of the Blyton adventures I used to enjoy.

These kids don't even know their own mother-tongues yet their parents encourage them to read Ruskin Bond! Amazing. People don't even question the mental universe they live in, the biases and value judgements that have been foisted on them by the prevailing elite culture.

Somebody please begin bashing this guy for assuming that authors who can write gripping stories can only be men.

What can I say, I was a woman hater; once I even slapped my mom, a woman, when I was three. So, if anyone wants to bash me, fair play to them. However, let he who has read Claudine at St. Clare's more times than I, cast the first bash.

97 when I spent the summer as a reporter at the Times of India in Bombay

Amitabh,

How can any of us be sure that "these" kids don't know their mother tongue, I think for a lot of people in India English is their first language, English is also on the list of official languages in India. Anecdotally, I travel to India every year, all of the people in my immediate circle are fluent in their mother tongue I think it largely speaks to the kind of people in our immediate circles who have chosen to or not to know their mother tongue.

Here's a blurb on the back of the book for 'Claudine at St. Clare's'

Suddenly Claudine gave a piercing shriek and fell headlong into the swimming pool. She made a terrific splash, and the water soaked Angela's elegant mother from head to foot. Bobby and Mirabel helped her out.

'Claudine!' exclaimed Bobby. 'You are an idiot!' But Claudine was looking at Angela's mother, drenched and bedraggled, and there was a light of satisfaction in her eyes. Was it an accident....or revenge?

Very innocuous, n'est ce pas?

Umber Desi, this might be a philosophical difference, or one of operational definitions...if I see a Punjabi kid in Delhi who doesn't know Punjabi, or a Gujarati kid in Mumbai who doesn't know Gujarati, then I personally feel that they don't know their mothertongues. Even stronger examples would be Punjabi children in Amritsar or Gujarati children in Ahmedabad (of which incredibly, some are poor in their respective languages - and their numbers are growing). However if in your view English is now their mothertongue, then obviously by that definition they know their mothertongue (English). Which is very circular logic. I'm not disputing that English has become many peoples' first language...I'm decrying it. And Enid Blyton and her ilk are part of the much larger context in which this took place and is taking place. You can't blame Enid...you can blame some of her fans.

I absolutely understand where you are coming from, talking of Ruskin Bond, he is Indian and the wikipedia link on him has some good information. I am not arguing that English is the mother tongue for all but there are definitely many people in India with English as their first language. I think I will stop here and I must say that I am fascinated by your passion and may be we will get a chance to discuss all this on another forum.

So will this new bunch solve their crimes over afternoon rendezvous fueled by chai, samosas, and chicken tikka masala?

Sandhya, if you ever find the Blyton in Bombay radio documentary PLEASE PLEASE post a link here! Would love to listen to it (having grown up both on Enid Blyton and in Bombay).

Maybe reading stories with sharply different moraes than what we're used to nowadays, yet with characters we can identify with, is more interesting than most of what's out nowadays, just by virtue of forcing us to interact with the story so to speak. We can gaily, or mildly cheerfully, accept what we want, spit out what we don't. Have spirited arguments with author's ghost. It's good for what muscles we use while reading.

Thanks for drawing attention to this rather drab take on a cherished bit of 'our' heritage. I guess, as some have said, India is changing, but for me Enid Blyton (original), Archie comics, Beano comics, Agatha Christie, etc, are quintessentially 'thirdie', or at least ex-British colony. You grow up with the classics, and you entertain yourselves with the books on the shelves that once diverted your parents. These books are probably more fun for thirdies anyway -- to us, they are fantasies on par with Arabian nights and the like. What about the Brits, did they ever read them? I know lots of Indians, Africans who gush about the stuff, but never really heard the same from a Brit.

As for the racism, you don't combat this by pretending it doesn't exist, or substituting poor quality multi-cult stuff. I read the EB stuff about gypsies (not sure if I knew that Tinkers were gypsies), but I also had a gorgeous book called Gypsy Folk Tales, with lots of brown-skinned folk with names like Kalo Dant (black tooth). Ultimately, the notion of these Indianish peoplewandering the world and speaking a somewhat recognizable language intrigued me so much that I read more about them as I got older, visited some in the Balkans and was fascinated to learn of their own profound and caste-derived disdain for the hygiene and mores of non-gypsies. But EB and ilk obviously also stuck with me, and indirectly propelled me to read, and adore, Thesiger's decidedly orientalist, boy's own but also admirable take on the bedouin in Arabian Sands (wherein strapping Brit adventurer ventures out to 'discover' the Arabian Empty Quarter with cohort of brave, loyal and rather handsome Arabs).

"(wherein strapping Brit adventurer ventures out to 'discover' the Arabian Empty Quarter with cohort of brave, loyal and rather handsome Arabs)."
yes, and a common traits of Thesiger, T.E. Lawrence, and probably some others of less fame, was an attraction to the men and boyds of the tribes only. Neither of these two (I think Thesiger, very old, is still alive) ever married.

Personally, I'm very happy about the change - so far. It all depends on how the character develops (that being said, it is one of my big issues with Blyton as a whole, that her characters are never more than types). I grew up in Europe and pretty much none of the books I read (apart from the occasionaly Amar Chitra Katha, Twinkle or Chandamama carefully wrapped and posted by my grandparents) ever featured "people who look like me". I didn't think much of it then, but it was a great shock when, years later, I went to the UK and saw an "Asian" family on Eastenders. It was thrilling, it was great; it put me 'on the map' so to speak.
Now unfortunately that family was a bust (the producers didn't seem to realise that just getting a bunch of actors in various shades of brown does not a realistic tv-family make), and were given ridiculous story-lines and ultimately axed.
I only hope the same fate doesn't await little Jyoti; I hope they characterise her realistically and sensitively. I know a lot of kids - British Asians especially - will be rooting for her. Additionally, I hope that because she is George's daughter (all talk of determinism aside) she'll be an adventurous and independent girl, which would be a nice change from all the submissive Indian 'victim' women we usually see on tv here.