Philosophical Musings of a Book Nerd

Sometimes I feel a little silly sitting on a train or in a bar reading an Enid Blyton book. In a way it makes me feel as if I am not capable of reading anything more solid and thought provoking, such as Plato, but when I see all of the commentaries on Goodreads by other readers who have returned to the Enid Blyton books in their adult years it makes me realise that I am not the only person picking up the books of my childhood and rereading them. In any case, when I was I child I simply loved the Famous Five, and really wanted to actually do some justice to them when adding them to my list. In a way there are a lot of other books that I have read that simply don't receive the same special treatment.

This one starts off a little differently to the other books in that it begins with George at home with a cold and the other three off somewhere in some caravans that had been leant to them by some friends at school. However, it is not long before George's bags are packed and she is sent off to spend the holidays with her cousins. However things seem to turn a bit sour when they first hear of some famous scientists going missing, and then have some carnies turn up in the paddock and kick them out.

Blyton was really clever with this because I immediately suspected that the adventure was going to involve the carnies, but it soon becomes apparent that they are not actually the villains of the piece but rather simply a group of people that do not seem to be able to relate to many others. I guess that is the nature of the travelling players, they are mistrusted by society because they are different. Due to this they become quite insular, which only serves to increase the animosity with the wider society, so when the Five try to make friends with them they are rudely sent away.

However, when Ragamuffin Jo makes an appearance, it quickly becomes obvious that the carnies aren't the villains, but rather misunderstood people, and they soon begin to warm with each other. While Julian has decided that the Five will move on, a mysterious face that looks like one of the scientists appears in the window of a nearby castle, which catches their curiosity and the Five decide to try to get to the bottom of another mystery, and this time with the carnie's help.

One thing that I wondered about in this book is the python named Beauty. When they are playing with her Blyton tells us that they should hold the python's tail at arms length so that it does not wrap itself around you, and we even see a picture of Jo doing such a thing. Hopefully children who read this book won't decide to play with pythons (or other snakes for that matter) because while they may not be poisonous, they are still incredibly strong, and no doubt could crush us without a second though.

Still, it is quite amusing to see that the python decides to upstage Timothy in this book, namely because he wants to have an adventure as well, and while a dog can be silenced with a gun, when a python comes at you out of the darkness all hell is likely to break loose. It must have been very difficult to actually film this book when they made the TV series as I doubt a python would have been anywhere as easy to train as a dog. One thing they say in the film industry though is never work with children or animals, because they are the most difficult actors to actually get to do what you want them to do (however I will leave my thoughts on ADHD for another time).