Looking for Enid: The Mysterious and Inventive Life of Enid Blyton [Paperback]

I'm not a Blyton enthusiast but I'd read the Stoney biography so I thought LOOKING FOR ENID would be of interest. It's an unusual mix of biography, a personal quest and an analysis of Blyton's fiction and what it reveals or suggests about Enid's private life.
Author McLaren adopts a chatty style, often making uninhibited remarks about Enid's sexuality and even his own relationship with his partner Kate. They often eat fish and chips. He tells us at one point that she's 55 and he's 48 and we're not spared any details as the pair tour the various places in England frequented by Enid. For example he records the bus journey from the railway station to their boarding house in Swanage, what the landlady said and what they were served for breakfast. No doubt the prudish and upright Enid would be astonished, disgusted and highly critical if she could see some of his comments.
I was rather disappointed with the book's illustrations. It needs real photographs of some of the places mentioned and for those like me who are unfamiliar with Blyton characters the book would be enhanced by a few of the pictures from her books.
In short this is mainly a book for Blyton fans - not for a general reader.

Blyton's own "Noddy" books have more to do with the real world than this rubbish.

I can't understand the repeated references in some of these reviews that Duncan McLaren's "Looking for Enid" is one really for Blyton fans/enthusiasts, it most certainly is not. Blyton fans are interested in Blyton, this is not about Blyton at all but much nmore about the author. It is rambling and self-indulgent with bizarre and groundless ideas, and so desperate for material is Mr. McLaren by the end of his book that he bores us all to death with accounts of his sexual activity one night in a Swanage B&B. (YAAAAAAAAWNNN!)

Blyton's life story is a fascinating one and one which could and maybe should be spawning a number of well-researched and interesting works and although Barbara Stoney's biography is the definitive book there is plenty of scope for further investigation into the world of this brilliant but enormously complex woman.

As one who is very interested in the life and times of Enid Blyton I received Mr. McLaren's book (as a birthday gift) with great enthusiasm wondering what new material he was going to cite for his factual investigations into Enid Blyton's life and work.

What he gives us is awful. He shamelessly copies out quite outrageously extensive blocks of text from Barbara Stoney's work to pad out his book. In the bits that are from his own pen Mr. McLaren gives us half-baked theories and ideas about Blyton that range from the highly unlikely to the laughably ridiculous. This book reads like a particularly poor English first degree thesis - and one that would have "FAIL" stamped on the top as it reads like the author has just scribbled down a few amateurish and wildly speculative ideas rather than really looking into his subject.

The book starts weakly and goes steadily downhill all the way, finishing up with cheap, "Ooo-er missus" accounts of McLaren's sexual activities in his Swanage B&B - and this in a book which claims it is about Enid Blyton.

Mr. McLaren obviously thinks at this point that he is very funny and seems highly titillated by himself. Sorry Mr. McLaren but I'm really not interested in how loud yours and Kate's sexual grunts are; I bought your book on the pretence that it was about Enid Blyton and how loud your bonking is really has no relevance.

Don't waste your money on this half-hearted, groundless and self-centred tripe but buy Barbara Stoney's biography of Blyton instead.

And if anyone would like a free copy of "Looking for Enid" by Duncan McLaren, help yourself to mine - it's in the bin.

"What a pity, what a pity ! " said Kiki the parrot.

In looking for Enid, has middle aged Duncan McLaren found himself? And can we be bothered? So the mystery of this book begins. There's much to deride and applaud in equal measure.

For starters, Looking for Enid is really, really only going to appeal to adult Blyton fans. If you're not, this could possibly be an ultimately pointless read. You'll have to find an emotional connection or at least be prepared to have your long gone Blyton days reawakened or indeed relish your continuing passion being justified.

Those of us who grew up spending pocket money on her books and wishing our summer holidays could promise such adventure and escapism will be compelled to buy and read on. And McLaren can rest assured that there are still many that share his passion in sober middle age. Picking up that battered paperback in a charity shop now surely transports us back to a time when we first saw that cover illustration and couldn't wait to dive in. Mclaren's accounts of his shopping adventures and memory trips are all here and fun well told.

The first half fairly zings by. McLaren's erudite comments and assessment of how Enid Blyton's childhood and two marriages translated into her work, read like a true expose. Who was the real Goon, Fatty and find-outers and the whys and wherefores of the Famous Five? Fascinating insight and food for thought. McLaren knows his stuff and we understand the link between the times and life she wrote in and stories that came from it. Such is the dearth of critique or biography on Blyton, (save for Barbara Stoney's measured 1974 biography and the daughters' accounts), it all adds to the mystique and with that an easy ride for McLaren. The generous borrowing from Stoney's book though does verge on over reliance.

But what makes Looking for Enid so ultimately galling and trudging are two central conceits.

First, a third of the book is given to a fatuous saga of the Mystery characters , Fatty and all, living in Blyton's real world and the Mystery of the (her) Missing Books. It's just pointless trying to be clever and plain irritating. You can easily skip these passages and not lose any essence.

Then, the acknowledgements recognise that an early proof reader stated that it was not about McLaren's early childhood he wanted to read but about Blyton's. It suggests that McLaren was after all on a passion trip that needed to be checked yet still this final version errs on a personal road trip that is often trite, totally irrelevant and out of context and place to the real history he attempts to juxtapose.

Many rightly suggest this is as much as Looking for Duncan as an Enid research and as often the balance works it often doesn't, hence the emotional connection needed to make this wholly readable. Where it definitely doesn't are his descriptions of the intimate moments with Kate, his companion on the journey, and the conjecture of Enid and her husband's quiet moments on holiday. All linked to the innuendos he ascribes to scenes from the books: cheap, shallow, and a million miles away from the innocence of the day they were written.

This reviewer once looked through the gates of Old Thatch (Blyton's brief home in Bourne End) twenty five years ago with a sense of wonderment that Blyton once lived there. McLaren brings that time she did, alive. So for us on a nostalgic bent and a genuine interest with no axe to grind , there is much to savour in Looking for Enid.

Sadly it doesn't quite live up to all those expectations unless you're prepared to marry Blyton with McLaren and be just as interested in both. McLaren that may just be you alone. It leaves the rest of us to sift the nuggets of an interesting Blyton critique from the author's personal distractions.