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<i>Enid Blyton and the Mystery of Children's Literature</i> (review)

2000; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 25; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/chq.0.1617

1553-1201

Peter Hunt,

Themes in Literature Analysis

Reviewed by: Enid Blyton and the Mystery of Children's Literature Peter Hunt (bio) Enid Blyton and the Mystery of Children's Literature David Rudd New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000 Now that the world's most prolific and biggest-selling children's author has finally cracked the American market ("'Noddy' is now more popular in the USA than 'Sesame Street'" [41]), David Rudd's pioneering study might get the wide distribution that it deserves (if Macmillan has the sense to issue it in paperback)—especially as the two parts of its title are equally important. Not only is it a spectacularly knowledgeable study of Blyton, but it is also an excellent handbook on some of the most knotty issues of children's literature criticism. Enid Blyton, who wrote (single-handedly) over 700 books and 4,000 short stories, as well as poetry, magazines, and educational materials, and whose books sell something like 8 million copies a year, is a formidable figure. Rudd's survey of her current success (bearing in mind that she died in 1968) makes dizzying reading—everything seems to be counted in millions and tens of millions—merchandising pounds and dollars, production costs of new series, TV ratings in Germany. Like children's literature as a whole, her cultural influence (like it or not) is immeasurable, and she has been culturally and critically marginalized. In examining, and challenging her cultural position—she is an obvious test-case for criticism—Rudd also challenges the position of children's literature: to do so, he has to examine a matrix of ideas on popular culture, sociology, language, literature, reception, and critical and cultural theory. It is a large task, and he emerges from it with great credit. It is also a recurrent task. Rudd is potentially in an important position here: many lay readers will come to this book because of the notoriety of Blyton; they may well come expecting the customary journalistic approach; they will probably be unaware of literary theory and/or literary theory as applied to children's literature. Rudd uses gently ironic lures to catch those in pursuit of easy answers—the chapters entitled "The Mystery Explained" and "Is Blyton Bad for You?"—while actually providing both a summary of past literary, child-centered and reader-response approaches, and an innovative "discourse" approach, rooted in Foucault and based on "discursive threads." Rudd's strategy in providing for both beginners and experienced critics is to constantly prove his credentials, as so many of us involved in children's books have to do. Thus, there is a thoroughly informed engagement with theorists from Vološinov to Kristeva, Vygotskii, Freud, and Lacan, balanced with—and how refreshing this is—tough-minded analyses of the views of very often tough-minded children. Providing either one of these approaches rapidly diminishes the readership: to provide both potentially validates both. AU of this is made readable and accessible by luminous examples. Rudd's child-interviewees take exception to modern editors applying politically correct revisions (demeaningly) to Blyton on their behalf. There are sharply analyzed illustrations, such as "the withholding of a child-minder's licence because she had a golliwog in her antique toy collection" (141). And there are many oddities. "Blytonesque" and "Noddy-language" have become by-words for trash writing, and such is the influence/myth/ cult of Blyton that the second edition of the "Noddy" books simplified their language in accordance with the way in which Blyton was assumed to write: Blyton, Rudd wryly observes, "must conform to her own stereotype" (73). The position that Rudd takes, of constantly challenging received wisdom on both Blyton and general issues, has two notable effects. One is that his encyclopedic knowledge of Blyton acts as a corrective to sloppy (or non-existent) research (or prejudice)—there are, for example, far more unpleasant bears than unpleasant golliwogs in her books (whatever that implies). He is no apologist for Blyton, but he checks his facts and draws fresh conclusions from what he finds: for example, that the "Famous Five" series, much vilified for alleged sexism, was "particularly effective in dramatizing power relationships between the sexes" (112). The second effect is that Rudd...