Good book about a fascinating figure
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I grew up on a (literary) diet of Enid Blyton's books: first the Faraway Tree and later the Famous Five. I loved them all and it wasn't until i reached my teens that i became aware she was a controversial figure, accused of being a reactionary who dumbed down children's vocabularies.
This biography shows what a remarkable individual Enid Blyton actually was: a self-made woman in an age when women were still expected to just marry and procreate, a vivid and compulsive - yet also repetitive - writer, a keen educator of children who was however distant to her own, a universal mother figure who in many ways remained a perpetual child. Finally we reach the final pages of the book and her harrowing descent into dementia ending in her death.
Curiously, my overall feeling after finishing the biography was vindication: because as flawed and limited as Enid Blyton may have been, she was also a true original in her own way.
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Somehow I wanted more
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I have always found Enid Blyton a facinating character, but somehow this book failed to give me the insight that I expected. The book is a good read but, like Enid you never get under the skin. Perhaps I am being unfair as I wanted to understand her inspiration, this is touched on but never fully explored, also documentary evidence, ex-pupils, ex-employees, publishers and family do not seem to have been interviewed. I know Enid Blyton was a very private person and this book just confirmed that to me.
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United States | 
United Kingdom | 
Canada