Looking for Enid by Duncan McLaren

Enid Blyton gave us the Famous Five and Fatty’s Find-Outers, the Enchanted Wood and the Wishing Chair. Some of us, encouraged by austere critics, have pretended no longer to want what Enid gave. We have pretended that we were not once upon a time enthralled by her stories. We have chosen to forget how much we loved the time we spent in their company. And we have feigned disdain. Now, Duncan McLaren offers lapsed devotees the possibility of honest redemption. If you’re willing to acknowledge that Enid Blyton once mattered to you, you are warmly invited to accompany Duncan on an adventure that will investigate what made Enid Enid and endeavour to reach the source of her torrent of stories, those that came when she was ‘letting her mind go free’.

The Mysterious and Inventive Life of Enid Blyton, indeed. Enid Blyton is one of my favourite authors of all time and extremely prolific, a conservative estimate puts her total works at more than 800. This book is not a conventional biography, though a number of those do exist. This is also not one of those books who presumes that because the books are written for children, they are somehow simplistic, or tried to lever these books into the modern day.

What the books are, however, is a reflection of the mind and the life of the writer. This book seeks to explore the reasons for Enid Blyton's incredible production [she could write an entire book in less than a week] and the impact that the men in her life had on it. The conclusions are both fascinating and, in some cases, rather bizarre. By looking at both what is known about her life [a biography by Stoney, an autobiography, letters, diaries, etc] and the information that snuck out into her writing, the author manages to discover a number of things that might seem obvious and to draw a number of interesting conclusions as to why certain themes recur [tunnels and caves, for example].

He also includes some fictional sections, as the Five Find-Outers attempt to unravel the mystery of Enid Blyton [these are quite amusing]. If you ever enjoyed Enid Blyton, this is a fun and fascinating read.

Buy this book online at Amazon UK or Kalahari