The first novel I ever read, at age 8, was book three of the Famous Five series: Five Run Away Together. I am one of the millions of kids who subsisted on a steady diet of Enid Blyton books all through childhood. The characters from the Naughtiest Girl, the Five Find-Outers, Mallory Towers, St Clare’s, Secret Seven peopled my childhood years and gave me years of joy. Now as an adult living in 2021 her books do appear problematic: sexist, classist, racist and more. But is this a reason to banish Enid Blyton? What’s with this Cancel Culture?
Her stories were interesting, the locales lovely, the characters interesting and generally made great reading for kids. I read entire series of her books: buying some, but mostly borrowing from friends, lending libraries and school libraries.
The girls cooked and the boys went in search of firewood. The classes and races were clearly segregated. Some of what she wrote is unthinkable today.
Now in hindsight her books are problematic – there were clear and unsurmountable class and racial divisions and gender roles were fairly rigid too. There were plenty of ‘foreign’ stereotypes which now appear xenophobic. But is that adequate reason to banish Enid Blyton?
Enid Blyton as born in 1897 and wrote her most popular books during the 40s and 50s. She and her books reflect the sensibility of the time. If her books were racist and classist, so were the times they were written in.
It may well be that people cry out to ‘cancel’ the writer of the Harry Potter books and other currently popular content? The point is that movies, books etc. have a context within which they were produced. View them within that framework rather than cancelling them.
I agree. Blyton’s descriptions of ‘tea’ with scones, eclairs and ice cakes sounded marvellous; as did her picnics with hams, cheeses and hunks of freshly baked bread. She was clearly putting a positive spin on stodgy English cuisine. We know better now - it is evidenced by how the terminally boring island food has been enlivened with Chicken Tikka Masala.
Delicate matters were never mentioned. While those kids enjoyed caravan holidays, camped out in the woods and deserted islands, enjoying fresh produce from a nearby farm, bathroom arrangements were not deemed important.
The books were problematic in hindsight. But they also told kids stories about honesty, loyalty, decency and fair play - timeless values all kids should imbibe.
Blyton's books inculcated the habit of reading among countless young people and fired their imaginations with the adventures she wrote about – me included. Kids these days have other fish to fry – few of them read Enid Blyton. Those that do will undeniably recognise the disconnect with our sensibilities today and the fact that those were more ignorant times.
Rudyard Kipling’s colonial mindset and racial biases are clear in his writing. Mark Twain would undoubtedly be called racist today. However, this doesn’t mean we cancel everything they wrote.
It isn't just Enid Blyton. People are digging up old social media posts – even screenshots of posts that were deleted – and presenting those as proof of someone’s sexism, casteism, racism and so on. The fact is that people can evolve and grow – as can our collective understanding of these issues.
Those calling for Enid Blyton's books to be changed or sanitised or to be taken off libraries and out of print are wrong. Reading these books doesn't mean celebrating anything problematic that they contain - in fact, the opposite may be true. Kids these days are intelligent and evolved. It’s not as if they will turn into racist xenophobes by reading these books. They will either not read them because they aren't relevant to them, or they will read them, and marvel at how ignorant and rigid people were in those times. As for the rest of us who grew up loving Enid Blyton books, I believe it is OK to love even flawed creations.
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