[News] Enid Blyton, classed as xenophobic.

[GT49er]

I imagine most people don't care but a fair few will be apoplectic.

What about people who do care, but aren't apoplectic? Do they not exist in your binary world?

 

[Pint of Ale and a Burger]

OK then, to be specific, the Harry Potter books. Excellently written, one of the first things we noticed when The Philosopher's Stone came out. Haven't read any of her other output - irrational maybe, but fear it would be a let down. Like reading The Hobbit and LOTR and then heading for The Silmarillion and other Tolkien stuff ................ that didn't go well!


OK, 9 years old ............... yes I know they were popular, but I never went looking for them - I read a couple or so, but only when there wasn't much else available (our library didn't have a great number of books, and fiction was strictly rationed at the time!) They never thrilled or inspired me; some other books did.
The casual underlying racism and xenophobia can be recognised and categorised as 'of their time', but the literary merit level is still pretty sh*t!

JRR Tolkiens Hobbit and LotR are fantastic as is the other inkling C.S Lewis whose Narnia books are also fantastic.
I agree silmarillion and other Tolkien stuff is not on the same level as Hobbit and LotR but I think it's because his grandson Christopher put those together rather than J.R.R himself.

 

[ewe2]

An author of my time……fantastic!

 

[GT49er]

JRR Tolkiens Hobbit and LotR are fantastic as is the other inkling C.S Lewis whose Narnia books are also fantastic.
I agree silmarillion and other Tolkien stuff is not on the same level as Hobbit and LotR but I think it's because his grandson Christopher put those together rather than J.R.R himself.

True - I don't think I'd ever have been falling over myself to read any of Lewis' other output, other than the excellent Narnia series.

Tolkien - Christopher may have 'put it together' - but I think Tolkien still wrote it. Fine, if you really want to learn to speak High Elvish (and some people actually do!) but not for me. I'll just go for a good story!

 

[clapham_gull]

Really scraping the barrel, but a predictable one that comes back every few years usually followed by stories of a looney left London Council banning Christmas.

Whenever I read a story like that, I instantly hear the sound of a 1980s Kelvin MacKenzie cackling over the stupid mugs who have increased his pension.

Anyone with half an education would know Enid Blyton has been a controversial figure going all the way back to the times she was writing prolifically,

To the OP, that argument has been lost. Pick a new one.

0/10

 

[GT49er]

Really scraping the barrel, but a predictable one that comes back every few years usually followed by stories of a looney left London Council banning Christmas.

Whenever I read a story like that, I instantly hear the sound of a 1980s Kelvin MacKenzie cackling over the stupid mugs who have increased his pension.

Anyone with half an education would know Enid Blyton has been a controversial figure going all the way back to the times she was writing prolifically,

To the OP, that argument has been lost. Pick a new one.

0/10

The OP was starting a discussion on an article by Sky News. Pick on them instead, perhaps? They are, after all, the real target for any outrage, if any outrage is required.

 

[Diablo]

It’s political correctness gone mad. You can’t even say you’re English these days


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Indeed my kids are European...I`m over 60 so English !!

 

[Motogull]

Enid Blyton, classed as shite.

By me.

 

[clapham_gull]

The OP was starting a discussion on an article by Sky News. Pick on them instead, perhaps? They are, after all, the real target for any outrage, if any outrage is required.

And finished it with "get a life" and an emoji of somebody putting a gun in their mouth.

Sky reported the news, the poster attempted to start a divisive discussion. I know on who to pick on thanks.

 

[BadFish]

Another PC gone mad thread, where it turns out it was fairly reasonable all along.

I am starting to spot a pattern here.

Sent from my Redmi Note 7 using Tapatalk

 

[dsr-burnley]

There is no problem with being honest - and Kipling, though often a great writer was of his time and of course also very much a friend of Sussex. The point is not whether we mention their views, because we clearly should - but whether we should bin them entirely for having typical views of the time, which we should not.

Giving people information is fine, though. Things that are obvious to us will not be so obvious to future generations. These sort of issues are because people who are younger, mostly, are finding out things that we have known for ages but thought less important. /QUOTE]

As I was the person mentioning Kipling, I must declare that I agree with the above even though I have reservations about many of his political views.

Perhaps I should have posted the link to his poem about our County yesterday. Let's call it Sussex Day +1.

https://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/sussex.html

Also remember that before he moved to Burwash he lived at 2 addresses in Rottingdean (but not at the same time).

Although Kipling was (by modern standards) racist in believing that the Indians; different upbringing, background, education system, and certain bad habits like absolute monarchy and suttee, made them very much different from us and less civilised - he also believed, far more than virtually everyone else of his time, that a man was a man and trhe colour of his skin did not make him any more or any less of a man.

It was widely assumed at that time that to be an Englishman was the peak of ambition. And especially, if you had white skin, you were better than a person with black skin. Almost universal attitude in England.

And yet two of Kipling's most quoted "racist" poems are the absolute opposite of that. One, the Ballad of East and West, has the tall, handsom son of a colonel put up against a border thief who has stolen the colonel;s horse, and has decided that "there is neither east nor west, border nor breed nor birth" and that the two men are neither better than the other.

And "Gunga Din" concludes with the english soldier, a white man born and brought up to think white men are better than any other, concluding "You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din".

I'm sure Kipling had his faults. I bet he was opposed to votes for women at some point in his life as well. But he's far more complex than "Kipling = racist" even by today's hindsight views.

 

[Bakero]

What about people who do care, but aren't apoplectic? Do they not exist in your binary world?

What part of my post suggested there were just two possible reactions? You seem to leaning towards mouth-frothing apoplexy though.

 

[Bakero]

Is that really what it's all about ?

Tantamount to being airbrushed from history, apparently.

 

[Tony Towner's Fridge]

Not even really worth commenting on, but I will! The Enchanted Forest , still one of the greatest, imaginative and wonderful kids books ever written.

True great, that she was indeed!

TNBA

TTF

 

[Tony Towner's Fridge]

Although Kipling was (by modern standards) racist in believing that the Indians; different upbringing, background, education system, and certain bad habits like absolute monarchy and suttee, made them very much different from us and less civilised - he also believed, far more than virtually everyone else of his time, that a man was a man and trhe colour of his skin did not make him any more or any less of a man.

It was widely assumed at that time that to be an Englishman was the peak of ambition. And especially, if you had white skin, you were better than a person with black skin. Almost universal attitude in England.

And yet two of Kipling's most quoted "racist" poems are the absolute opposite of that. One, the Ballad of East and West, has the tall, handsom son of a colonel put up against a border thief who has stolen the colonel;s horse, and has decided that "there is neither east nor west, border nor breed nor birth" and that the two men are neither better than the other.

And "Gunga Din" concludes with the english soldier, a white man born and brought up to think white men are better than any other, concluding "You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din".

I'm sure Kipling had his faults. I bet he was opposed to votes for women at some point in his life as well. But he's far more complex than "Kipling = racist" even by today's hindsight views.

Q: Do you like Kipling?

A: Don't know I've never Kippled!

A Muppets classic.

I drove past Kippling's house in Rottingdean on Tuesday morning at the same time Radio Sussex were broadcasting about it being Sussex Day. Kipling, Copper and Belloc, great men of Sussex we should all be very proud of.


TNBA

TTF

 

[nickjhs]

Personally I see nothing wrong with adding a footnote about her writings. The only way we can learn from the past is to look at it with honesty. Tearing down statues, removing works of art, deleting books and movie scenes is not the way to learn, but adding footnotes to plaques, statutes, artworks etc seems to me to be a rational way to start dialogue about what we now see as unacceptable. I only wish they would do this with war memorials and especially on remembrance day.

 

[Baldseagull]

As long this broadly reflects the make up of our society; and always reflects the best person for a job, that's fine by me. I don't think niche comes into it.

Unlikely that you will ever get the job for Tampax, but plenty of white middle aged men in the TV ads, they do reflect the make up of our society, maybe you just live in a White middle class ghetto, so you don't realise, but we have black people living here too now, not just in the colonies, and some women even go to work full time these days.

 

[Baldseagull]

How how do you explain using a male actor from an ethnic group that traditionally doesn't shave, to advertise shaving products? Hardly a policy that would boost sales I would have thought. Thanks for the free lecture by the way

Are you talking about Raheem Stirling as the Gillette Man?

 

[marlowe]

At least this thread hasn't been consigned to the bear pit...yet.

[MENTION=1200]Harry Wilson's tackle[/MENTION] nearly had it consigned to the Rupert bear pit.

 

[Iggle Piggle]

She lived through 2 world wars and intense xenophobic propaganda campaigns. It would be more of a surprise if she didn't have those attitudes. We weren't supposed to like foreigners especially Germans back then.

Given that she sold millions of books and was born before the Suffragette movement started I can't imagine that success came to those who were sweetness and light either.

Who knows if she was born today if she'd have been a wokey? We are all products of our environment.