Monday 7 March 2011
Thursday 3 March 2011
Books
It has recently come to my attention that someone has written sequels to Enid Blyton's Mallory Towers. I remember reading, and loving those six stories about Darrell Rivers and her class and the books end as she and her friends go off to university. (St. Andrews. Oh the implicit money...) So what were the six new books? Turns out they follow Felicity, her sister and their class. I can't help but think that there is something wrong there, that the next generation of children will be thinking of the 12 books in the Mallory Towers series.
I genuinly don't think that books like Enid Blyton's, or Elinor M Brent Dyer's should be changed just because it is seen as politically incorrect or it is too hard for children today to understand the grammar and language of sixty/seventy years ago. It is too hard for children today to understand the grammar of sixty or seventy years ago because they aren't given the chance to try.
I know that some of the books I read and loved as a child were changed, even then from how they were originally written and that saddens me too. There is always something that rings a little bit false, that jars with the spirit of the text. There is always some sub-text, some shadow of meaning that is lost in these attempts to make the book current, and nothing makes me want to stop reading the books more than that. So I have decided that I want any children I may have in the future to be able to read the books as the author wanted them to be read, not as some interfering busy-body twenty years down the line thinks they should be read. To this aim, I have decided to start collecting the old stories I used to read, as close to the original script as possible. I am fully aware that this is probably going to be a monumentally hard undertaking, because in most cases the original scripts are going to be out of print.
I have already made a start with, yes, Enid Blyton's Mallory Towers and Famous Five, as well as Elinor M Brent Dyer's The Chalet School (all 60 odd of them... horrors!) because if I leave it until I do have children (being at university now, it is far to early) it will be far to late.
Eventually I shall move onto the books by people like Tamora Pierce, Diana Wynne Jones and Diane Duane, all authors I loved, and to be honest still do. I am quite happy to curl up on a rainy afternoon with a cup of tea and a stack of the books I used to read ten years ago.
Some people comfort eat. I comfort read and I don't want my food to be contaminated. So I will collect the books I love and keep them safe so others can read them in the spirit they were written.
I genuinly don't think that books like Enid Blyton's, or Elinor M Brent Dyer's should be changed just because it is seen as politically incorrect or it is too hard for children today to understand the grammar and language of sixty/seventy years ago. It is too hard for children today to understand the grammar of sixty or seventy years ago because they aren't given the chance to try.
I know that some of the books I read and loved as a child were changed, even then from how they were originally written and that saddens me too. There is always something that rings a little bit false, that jars with the spirit of the text. There is always some sub-text, some shadow of meaning that is lost in these attempts to make the book current, and nothing makes me want to stop reading the books more than that. So I have decided that I want any children I may have in the future to be able to read the books as the author wanted them to be read, not as some interfering busy-body twenty years down the line thinks they should be read. To this aim, I have decided to start collecting the old stories I used to read, as close to the original script as possible. I am fully aware that this is probably going to be a monumentally hard undertaking, because in most cases the original scripts are going to be out of print.
I have already made a start with, yes, Enid Blyton's Mallory Towers and Famous Five, as well as Elinor M Brent Dyer's The Chalet School (all 60 odd of them... horrors!) because if I leave it until I do have children (being at university now, it is far to early) it will be far to late.
Eventually I shall move onto the books by people like Tamora Pierce, Diana Wynne Jones and Diane Duane, all authors I loved, and to be honest still do. I am quite happy to curl up on a rainy afternoon with a cup of tea and a stack of the books I used to read ten years ago.
Some people comfort eat. I comfort read and I don't want my food to be contaminated. So I will collect the books I love and keep them safe so others can read them in the spirit they were written.
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