Aspies For Freedom

Wikipedia Wrote:

An oblique critique of a Blyton work is found in Jasper Fforde's novel The Well of Lost Plots (2003). The heroine, Thursday Next, should change the ending of Shadow the Sheepdog by entering the novel's world. Thursday is surprised at the one-dimensionality of the characters. They have limited vocabulary, intelligence and emotional scope, and are confined to designated paths. Even stranger is that the characters attack Thursday simply because they are hungry for feeling and emotion. She finally escapes after showing the characters how to feel guilt, enmity, hate, anger and so on, missing from Blyton's world according to Fforde.

This is not jus Fforde's opinion. it is a common opinion.
So - "one-dimensionality of the characters", "limited vocabulary, intelligence and emotional scope, and are confined to designated paths" isn't that a common description of the autistic spectrum?
Is it possible that Blyton, unknowingly, based her characters upon autistic children???

And "She finally escapes after showing the characters how to feel guilt, enmity, hate, anger and so on" Did Thursday perform ABA therapy on them? Did she take autistic children and stole their autism from them?

No.

Children's character's were always written in one dimension to keep them simple for young minds. Nothing more.

And we need to go back to that as well - and ignore the politcally correct weasels who stick their noses in where it's not needed (as Poor Enid's books have been mercilessly attacked along these lines).

wasn't she racist though? Or was that the damn media lying like usual...

Bah, everyone was a bit racist in those days ;p

Ken G. Wrote:

Wikipedia Wrote:

An oblique critique of a Blyton work is found in Jasper Fforde's novel The Well of Lost Plots (2003). The heroine, Thursday Next, should change the ending of Shadow the Sheepdog by entering the novel's world. Thursday is surprised at the one-dimensionality of the characters. They have limited vocabulary, intelligence and emotional scope, and are confined to designated paths. Even stranger is that the characters attack Thursday simply because they are hungry for feeling and emotion. She finally escapes after showing the characters how to feel guilt, enmity, hate, anger and so on, missing from Blyton's world according to Fforde.

This is not jus Fforde's opinion. it is a common opinion.
So - "one-dimensionality of the characters", "limited vocabulary, intelligence and emotional scope, and are confined to designated paths" isn't that a common description of the autistic spectrum?
Is it possible that Blyton, unknowingly, based her characters upon autistic children???

I haven't spotted any obviously autistic children in what Blyton books I've read. Case in point - IMHO her boarding-school stories promote a very neurotypicalist view of the world. When do you ever read about a character who is introverted, unassuming and rubbish at school sports, and who triumphs in the end by being herself, rather than by "bucking up" and/or following the crowd? Not in St Clare's or The Naughtiest Girl in the School at any rate...

(a point I made earlier in the thread "Marie Curie, Nikola Tesla and other solitary people" in the General forum)

How has anyone ever won by not doing anything? ;p

LoftyD Wrote:

wasn't she racist though? Or was that the damn media lying like usual...

Ian's right - the media was lying because they deliberately misinterpreted the one dimensional characters in their own three dimensional manner, and ran with that.

Let children's authors BE children's authors - for goodness sake!

So - "one-dimensionality of the characters", "limited vocabulary, intelligence and emotional scope, and are confined to designated paths" isn't that a common description of the autistic spectrum?

No these are some traits which some autistics have and I would not thought this as a description of autism would be either common or accurate.

Ian Wrote:

Bah, everyone was a bit racist in those days ;p

and a bit sexist and a bit Jingoistic.

...and not the world's best mother, either. (At least, not according to her daughter)

There was something a bit suspicious about how her baby boy died.

I used to be in Enid Blytons "Busy Bee" club, collecting milk bottle tops for the P.D.S.A. and it never did me any harm.

Gets me the way they demonise all the childrens and adult entertainmnet of the 50 and 60s, yet what do they replace them with?
Seems like mindless violence is the only thing thats Politically Correct these days!

Ian Wrote:

How has anyone ever won by not doing anything? ;p

Well, if it means they avoided getting into trouble, maybe they won in a kind of a way. Still, nothing ventured nothing gained also holds true in most situations.

Aeolienne Wrote:

Ken G. Wrote:

Wikipedia Wrote:

An oblique critique of a Blyton work is found in Jasper Fforde's novel The Well of Lost Plots (2003). The heroine, Thursday Next, should change the ending of Shadow the Sheepdog by entering the novel's world. Thursday is surprised at the one-dimensionality of the characters. They have limited vocabulary, intelligence and emotional scope, and are confined to designated paths. Even stranger is that the characters attack Thursday simply because they are hungry for feeling and emotion. She finally escapes after showing the characters how to feel guilt, enmity, hate, anger and so on, missing from Blyton's world according to Fforde.

This is not jus Fforde's opinion. it is a common opinion.
So - "one-dimensionality of the characters", "limited vocabulary, intelligence and emotional scope, and are confined to designated paths" isn't that a common description of the autistic spectrum?
Is it possible that Blyton, unknowingly, based her characters upon autistic children???

I haven't spotted any obviously autistic children in what Blyton books I've read. Case in point - IMHO her boarding-school stories promote a very neurotypicalist view of the world. When do you ever read about a character who is introverted, unassuming and rubbish at school sports, and who triumphs in the end by being herself, rather than by "bucking up" and/or following the crowd? Not in St Clare's or The Naughtiest Girl in the School at any rate...

(a point I made earlier in the thread "Marie Curie, Nikola Tesla and other solitary people" in the General forum)

The books were written years ago, when ppl thought differently. I liked to read them for escapism.

Timelord Wrote:

LoftyD Wrote:

wasn't she racist though? Or was that the damn media lying like usual...

Ian's right - the media was lying because they deliberately misinterpreted the one dimensional characters in their own three dimensional manner, and ran with that.

There were passages in The Island of Adventure and The Valley of Adventure that I thought were racist. Does that make me the lying media?

And Nambo, there have been plenty of children's writers since the 50s/60s who don't deal only with "mindless violence". I suggest you have a look at the Oxford Companion to Children's Literature (ed. Humphrey Carpenter & Mari Pritchard).

Ken G.

Timelord

LoftyD

Ian

Aeolienne

Ian

Timelord

rossco

tenaciouscj

nyanchan

tenaciouscj

nambo

tenaciouscj

Lace Neil Singer

Aeolienne