i see london, i see france...
Nov. 16th, 2009 03:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
intertribalFew things make me cringe/laugh more than British pop-literati upholding Enid Blyton as some kind of patron saint.
Let me tell you, I was given EB books as a gift when I was about eight (and they were actually in my dream last night, latest in a series of nightmares!) and I pretty much immediately figured out that they were the most horrible books I had ever read. They're awfully written, for one. Bad dialogue. Poorly paced. Totally uninteresting plots. Her stories can pretty much be summarized by Golly Gee and Goody Goody Gumdrops. You compare the Famous Five and Secret Seven to other British children's literature - like Wonderland and Peter Pan and Wind in the Willows and any and all Kipling and, my God, even Narnia - and it's remarkable how bad they are, just as plain ol' books.
And then there's the whole "social issues" thing. The first thing I noticed was the sexism, the whole "girls stay behind and boys go off to adventure" attitude, done totally straight-faced. Conform to your gender roles, George! But don't be too flirty or you're gonna end up raped like Jo. Then there was the hilariously over the top anti-American British nationalism (if I read that one farmhouse book where the evil Americans are stomping out cigarettes with their feet, I literally become more patriotic - you have to see it to believe it, really). I did learn some things from the books: learned about macaroons and kitchen middens and stilts, for instance. Also learned that British people are noble, and gypsies and "carnies" can't be trusted. I'm okay with some racism and sexism in books written when such views were the norm, but only when there's some kind of redeeming factor. I grew up on British lit, after all. But EB is formulaic claptrap. There is just no reason to put her in any kind of literary canon.
So I rack my brain wondering why, oh why the British defend her so. Whenever anybody talks about removing Blyton from a library (something that hasn't actually happened, but upstanding British newspapers like to feed the rumor-and-fear mill!), it's interpreted as some kind of national insult, as if Blyton represents all that is good and fair about Mother Britain. On the surface this is ridiculous, because why on Earth make Enid Blyton, of all people, your national torchbearer. But that is what EB was all about when it comes down to it - British imperialism, distilled through a very gullible and low-capacity brain. Same kind of pathetic yearning for old non-existent glory that turns Wimbledon into an annual clusterfuck. It can be hard to give up on imperial fantasies, sure. God knows America has not even acknowledged that it ever had them, let alone still does. OTOH, we don't have children's books reveling in our stomping all over the Philippines either. OTOH, we have a long, long ways to go before we move children's books' portrayals of Native Americans beyond "cowboys and Indians."
Like this commenter says: "The world of her characters was just an idyllic landscape where fun things seemed to happen."
Yes - like how the world used to be our playground before those nasty natives decided they wanted to be "independent."
Does Britain have no postcolonial awareness? I'm just asking.
But you know, I guess if The Guardian's readers look back fondly on the days of Pax Britannica and its social mores, that's fine for them. Let the old folks have their Battleship and Bingo while the rest of the world moves on. At least they're not putting people from their former colonies in ghettos (or are they?). What's really sick and sad is that EB is still widely-read in former British colonies, where it was no doubt aggressively pushed - the reason kids in those countries grow up giving their own characters ye olde British names. Makes me thankful that the Dutch didn't install Dutch as Indonesia's national language. I think the Dutch in general need the least therapy as far as colonizer countries go, and the British and French need the most.
I'm not going to encourage my kids to read EB. If they come home with it from the library, I'd let them read it, but quite frankly, I'd want a talk. Just like I would if they brought home the original Rin Tin Tin. Should EB be banned? No - I'm not a supporter of book banning. I think Germany banning Nazi-related anything was a bad idea. I have less of a problem with the U.S. banning The Turner Diaries because it's so instructional, but I still don't think anything should be banned. I think people should be made aware of what all is out there. But I'm not going to weep because BBC didn't give her any exposure. That's not book-banning and it's hardly book-burning. She still sold millions of books to unsuspecting children worldwide. It's just ignoring her. Note that BBC did this because they didn't think EB's books had any literary value - and on this the BBC was absolutely right.
Let me tell you, I was given EB books as a gift when I was about eight (and they were actually in my dream last night, latest in a series of nightmares!) and I pretty much immediately figured out that they were the most horrible books I had ever read. They're awfully written, for one. Bad dialogue. Poorly paced. Totally uninteresting plots. Her stories can pretty much be summarized by Golly Gee and Goody Goody Gumdrops. You compare the Famous Five and Secret Seven to other British children's literature - like Wonderland and Peter Pan and Wind in the Willows and any and all Kipling and, my God, even Narnia - and it's remarkable how bad they are, just as plain ol' books.
And then there's the whole "social issues" thing. The first thing I noticed was the sexism, the whole "girls stay behind and boys go off to adventure" attitude, done totally straight-faced. Conform to your gender roles, George! But don't be too flirty or you're gonna end up raped like Jo. Then there was the hilariously over the top anti-American British nationalism (if I read that one farmhouse book where the evil Americans are stomping out cigarettes with their feet, I literally become more patriotic - you have to see it to believe it, really). I did learn some things from the books: learned about macaroons and kitchen middens and stilts, for instance. Also learned that British people are noble, and gypsies and "carnies" can't be trusted. I'm okay with some racism and sexism in books written when such views were the norm, but only when there's some kind of redeeming factor. I grew up on British lit, after all. But EB is formulaic claptrap. There is just no reason to put her in any kind of literary canon.
So I rack my brain wondering why, oh why the British defend her so. Whenever anybody talks about removing Blyton from a library (something that hasn't actually happened, but upstanding British newspapers like to feed the rumor-and-fear mill!), it's interpreted as some kind of national insult, as if Blyton represents all that is good and fair about Mother Britain. On the surface this is ridiculous, because why on Earth make Enid Blyton, of all people, your national torchbearer. But that is what EB was all about when it comes down to it - British imperialism, distilled through a very gullible and low-capacity brain. Same kind of pathetic yearning for old non-existent glory that turns Wimbledon into an annual clusterfuck. It can be hard to give up on imperial fantasies, sure. God knows America has not even acknowledged that it ever had them, let alone still does. OTOH, we don't have children's books reveling in our stomping all over the Philippines either. OTOH, we have a long, long ways to go before we move children's books' portrayals of Native Americans beyond "cowboys and Indians."
Like this commenter says: "The world of her characters was just an idyllic landscape where fun things seemed to happen."
Yes - like how the world used to be our playground before those nasty natives decided they wanted to be "independent."
Does Britain have no postcolonial awareness? I'm just asking.
But you know, I guess if The Guardian's readers look back fondly on the days of Pax Britannica and its social mores, that's fine for them. Let the old folks have their Battleship and Bingo while the rest of the world moves on. At least they're not putting people from their former colonies in ghettos (or are they?). What's really sick and sad is that EB is still widely-read in former British colonies, where it was no doubt aggressively pushed - the reason kids in those countries grow up giving their own characters ye olde British names. Makes me thankful that the Dutch didn't install Dutch as Indonesia's national language. I think the Dutch in general need the least therapy as far as colonizer countries go, and the British and French need the most.
I'm not going to encourage my kids to read EB. If they come home with it from the library, I'd let them read it, but quite frankly, I'd want a talk. Just like I would if they brought home the original Rin Tin Tin. Should EB be banned? No - I'm not a supporter of book banning. I think Germany banning Nazi-related anything was a bad idea. I have less of a problem with the U.S. banning The Turner Diaries because it's so instructional, but I still don't think anything should be banned. I think people should be made aware of what all is out there. But I'm not going to weep because BBC didn't give her any exposure. That's not book-banning and it's hardly book-burning. She still sold millions of books to unsuspecting children worldwide. It's just ignoring her. Note that BBC did this because they didn't think EB's books had any literary value - and on this the BBC was absolutely right.
