I haven't done any research for this article because I honestly couldn't bear it. The Famous Five was a series of twenty books by that incredible author, Enid Blyton, who was also responsible for such literary atrocities as Noddy. And while that alone is enough to condemn her in the eyes of the entire world (except, apparently, my mother), the creation of the Famous Five really took the biscuit.
The Famous Five is a crime-busting group of four children and a dog. The eldest child is Julian, at 13 years old; Dick, Julian's brother, is 11, as is George (whose real name is Georgina), who is their cousin. Anne, Julian and Dick's sister, is 10, and Timmy, George's dog, is probably about 2; I think it does say in one of the books, but I really can't be bothered to go and look it up, which I'm sure you'll agree is very sensible. The funny thing about this is that the children never get any older (except Julian, who is 12 years old in the first couple of books). As each of the twenty one adventures takes place in the school holidays, they should by rights occur over a period of at least seven years (although probably longer, because the books never seemed to be set in the Easter holidays), which means Julian at least - possibly Dick and George as well - should have gone off to university by the last book, while Anne should be half way through her A-levels, and it's entirely plausible that Timmy would be dead. But no, they are still merrily waltzing off to boarding school and going to Kirrin Cottage for their holidays - and are even referred to in the text as being still the same age! Duh! This is the type of literary inconsistency that really gets me cross! And to add fuel to the fire, there is a second series of these books, by Claude Voiler, and in this they are still the same age! As this series takes place over six years, they should all be in their twenties! Rrrrr! I mean, how plausible are these books if people stay the same age for at least thirteen years? Honestly! How do they expect us to swallow such tripe?
And, of course, the plot lines aren't exactly convincing. They are almost all the same - the Five meet a grown up who they don't particularly like, or, indeed, is downright nasty, and then meet a nice person of their own age. Amazingly, the nice person goes missing and the Five set about trying to find them. Invariably (or almost invariably), it turns out that the nasty grown up is a criminal and is up to something involving acquiring large sums of cash. The Five then do something frightfully intelligent (eg. call the police, who tend to come along, take the kids' word for it that these grown ups are jolly unpleasant types, and arrest them) to remedy the situation. There are of course occasional twists (eg. in 'Five Go Down To The Sea' and 'Five Get Into A Fix'), it turns out that the nasty grown up is actually a goody, just not a very communicative one. However, this obviously results in the blame being pinned on somebody even more implausible. Enid Blyton also seemed to have something against gypsies and travelling fairs and the like, as in no less than (as far as I can remember) five of her twenty one books (almost 25 percent!) the baddies are of this description. Foreigners also receive fairly short shrift, especially in 'Five Go To Smugglers' Top', where Julian and Dick actually admit to racist comments about a boy at their school - Peter Lenoir, affectionately called Sooty, and whose surname in French means 'the black'. How clever Enid Blyton is! To be fair, Uncle Quentin does point out that this isn't entirely appropriate, but even so, it wouldn't get into print nowadays. For all I know, it may be actually cut from current editions of the books. I did notice some slight editing in older copies I got out from my local library and the new ones I later bought. I wouldn't be at all surprised if such conversations as the one mentioned above are entirely missing nowadays.
However, the thing I really take Enid Blyton to task about is the lack of character development in the Famous Five. The fact that the characters never get older is merely a symptom of a greater problem, although I can't believe I'm actually discussing the Famous Five as if they were some intelligent piece of literature. Anyway, the Five never change. George starts off as an unfriendly person of short temper, but by the end of the first book, she has been converted into a friendly person of fairly even temper. It's amazing the influence nice people like Julian, Dick and Anne can have on unfriendly people. George's desire to be a boy rather than a girl also smacks of wanton sexism, but I don't really think you want this article to be made longer by me talking about that. No, the subject of this paragraph is that the Five never change. Wouldn't it be great if in one of the books the criminal managed to convert one of the Five to do their evil bidding? If we saw Julian being actually unpleasant for a change? Wow. That would be incredible. But the closest we get to this is the terribly witty dialogue between Julian and various members of the criminal underworld. I quote, from memory, from 'Five Get Into Trouble':
"Yah!" said Hunchy, again.
"And yah to you!" said Julian, pleasantly, which made the others laugh, and Hunchy scowl till his eyebrows disappeared!
And another incident in the same book:
"You're so sharp you'll cut yourself one day," muttered Hunchy.
"So my mother told me when I was two years old," Julian replied.
WUH HUH HUH!
I always used to think that the caustic exchanges in 'Five Run Away Together' were the funniest, but I don't have a copy to hand and I haven't committed any of it to memory, mores the pity.
I think it's quite possibly time to bring this article to an end. At some point when I do have a copy of one of the books nearby, I may scan the cover in so you can peruse it at your leisure. In fact, the intelligent among the readership of this article may well have noticed that I have now done this. Anyway, bye for now.