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Post by Demdike on Sept 2, 2019 18:48:55 GMT
Not to be on a fifty pee because she is racist and sexist? She wasn’t the only one at that time. Do we just ignore everyone earlier than about 2010?
Not that I like her or anything but it was her proliferation as a children’s author that would be commemorated, not her characterisation. Was *she* herself actually racist and sexist? Did she personally abuse other races? Or did she just have a character called little black sambo that we frown on now because other idiots have used golliwogs to abuse black people?
We didn’t have to think about her as a person on fifty pee to know any of that. Could this be a Brexit distraction? We are probably on the brink of a GE, let’s push an inflammatory story to the front and hope the electorate vote for the nice conservatives who aren’t racist or sexist.
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Post by Mermaid on Sept 2, 2019 18:56:37 GMT
I heard that. (More interesting than the preceding programme.)
I read a lot of her books as a child. Books in the early 50s were much more limited than they are now. Far fewer published. EB was a prolific writer so she got read. I've still got my set of The Adventure series and still read them. Didn't like the Secret Seven - they were too babyish, I thought, when I was 6 or 7. Faraway Tree, anyone? I'd have loved to go down the slide. And the Wishing Chair. I also learned a lot about nature from her books, magazine etc..
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Post by Demdike on Sept 2, 2019 19:13:05 GMT
Apparently it was blocked in 2016, so not new news at all. I read a pungent article in the independent where someone was proper ripping into her for racism, homophobia and all sorts. Apparently Ronald Dahl is anti Semitic too. I don’t like his stories either.
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Post by Mermaid on Sept 2, 2019 20:32:17 GMT
I enjoyed the film the BFG. Not read much of his work, though.
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2ndwitch
Escaped through the hedge
Posts: 154
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Post by 2ndwitch on Sept 3, 2019 11:46:11 GMT
You poor, poor souls! There are a few topics about which I can wax lyrical and harmonic with amazing ease - and children's literature is one of them, especially what is loosely termed 'girl's own' stuff.
EB was of her time. Her understanding of other races etc was not inherently racist, she had been taught to view coloured people as lesser beings, taught to sideline girls into the domestic sphere, taught to demonise being fat or being ugly, taught to place the 'serfs' as inferior (all those farmer's wives who cooked and were 'comfortable' and patronised). If she was writing now it would be different. We should not be condemning her writing to oblivion but using it as a tool to fill in our heritage and to make sure that understanding today is better and more complete. She achieved much in getting so many children to enjoy reading. Those of academic persuasion need to give their heads a wee wobble and accept that there is value in all sorts of literature - the men who define the canon are wrong!!
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Post by Mermaid on Sept 3, 2019 11:51:12 GMT
Well said.
I was listening to that discussion on the radio about certain (old) books being banned because of the attitude to black people et..
What about Uncle Tom's Cabin - there's a lot in there about treatment of slaves. OK, it's against slavery, but the attitudes of the time are portrayed.
Rather than update books, they should be used as historical material. I hate hunting but I don't expect books written ages ago to be changed to drag hunting or a paper chase.
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Post by denisewasbabs on Sept 3, 2019 19:36:20 GMT
I still read EB's books and love them - the only niggle I have is where they've been updated to reflect modern currency, and some names have been changed (the Faraway Tree books for starters). Leave them alone. They are of their time, we shouldn't try to rewrite history, otherwise how do we learn from the past?
I haven't read Uncle Tom's Cabin but Gone With The Wind gave me an insight into treatment of slaves before and after the Civil War, some good, some bad.
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Post by Mermaid on Sept 3, 2019 20:39:29 GMT
Still favourites with me - Alice in Wonderland, Wind in the Willows - given to my by my Aunt on my 6th birthday. And of course, Winnie the Pooh - the proper one, not the 'orrible Disney one.
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Post by welshteddy on Sept 3, 2019 21:42:50 GMT
I used to buy a Mallory Towers book with my birthday money each year and loved them! My very favourite childhood books were Adventures of the little wooden horse - Ursula Moray Williams, and Gobbolino the witches cat - by the same author.
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Post by denisewasbabs on Sept 4, 2019 5:43:39 GMT
Oh, the little wooden horse! That made me so sad when I read it at school. I read it again a few years ago and enjoyed it much more.
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Post by Mermaid on Sept 4, 2019 7:09:48 GMT
We had a copy of that and I remember I hated it. Can't remember the details now.
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Post by denisewasbabs on Sept 4, 2019 7:48:39 GMT
He gets separated from the toymaker and goes on all kinds of adventures - I'm sure one of them involved going down a mine.
You sent me a copy of Wind in the Willows some years back, Merms. A couple of years ago we went to Killerton House where they had decorated the whole place in WITW things - train, car, river. The scene with the Piper at the gates of Dawn was breathtaking. All done by vols too.
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Post by Honeysuckle Woodbine on Sept 4, 2019 10:13:28 GMT
I've always been a bookworm, I'd even read the telephone directory if there was nothing else around.
I had a very, very old copy of Robinson Crusoe, it had references to double glassed windows, a window and a second window together, to keep out the cold and two doors at the entrance , go in/out but close the first door before opening the other and thick furs hanging across the inner door to keep out the cold.
I was surprised when I saw the date that book had been published, 1800 something. I wanted to keep it but the smell of damp paper was too overpowering , I put it in a box in the edit to add Daniel Defoe wrote it in 1719 garage but the booklice multiplied, so reluctantly it had to go. Double glazing isn't such a new idea after all.
edit to add Daniel Defoe wrote it in 1719 l.
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Post by welshteddy on Sept 4, 2019 13:38:31 GMT
Yes DWB he did go down a mine. I was always heartbroken at the bit where, after working hard and collecting money in his hollow body, he is finally getting somewhere when his leg breaks off and all the pennies drop out as he goes along the road without him noticing. I can still see that illustration in my head today 😢
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Post by denisewasbabs on Sept 4, 2019 16:23:04 GMT
For me, the reward at the end of being reunited with his maker didn't atone for the utter miseries he endured. Feel like crying again now!! Was there some sort of metaphor going on with this book, or am I just overthinking it? (think I need to buy it again; no idea where my previous copy went  ) |
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