Charles Synyard (@CharlesSynyard)

Finished reading The Second Form at Malory Towers (1947), by Enid Blyton. Another fine school story with surprise, excitement, and character building, though my favorite new arrival did not turn out to be what she seemed at first. First though, one peculiarity, then two uncanny moments of pithy honesty in Blyton’s writing. Not far in, I was supremely shocked to see these dainty boarding school girls, in a book from the 1940s, using jocular language that’d be considered foul even today. First Darrell, and then Alicia, uses the expression sucks. “Sucks for Daphne! Serves her jolly well right!”, Alicia says when a nature walk she had laboriously gotten exempted from is cancelled, and the girls stay in the gymnasium eating snacks (56). I remember reading a popular slang dictionary once that gave the impression sucks wasn’t used in that way until the 60s. Guess it was wrong. Would you believe it, the rewritten versions in print today soften it to “Tough for Daphne!” Modern publisher protecting children from the unladylike usages of the 1940s? To use another expression, “Now I’ve seen everything.” Two moments of frankness that would seem out of place today. When Daphne tells Gwendoline she’s only using Mary-Lou for help with French: ”It was a good thing that Mary-Lou did not hear these remarks, for she would have been shocked and hurt. She was very glad to feel that Daphne really did like her. She often lay in bed thinking of the girl’s beautiful hair and lovely smile. She wished she was as charming as that. But she wasn’t, and never would be.” (58) Physical beauty. Some will pine after it, but will never have it, and had better accept that. Then, when Daphne spends half-term with Gwendoline, and begins yapping with Gwendoline’s mother and governess: “But Daphne was far too busy charming poor Miss Winter. She played up to Gwendoline very well too, remarking on her friend’s brilliance, her clever comments in class, and what a favourite she was with the teachers. ”Mrs. Lacey listened with pride and pleasure. ‘Well, you never told me these things in your letters, Gwen darling,’ she said, fondly. ‘You’re too modest!’ “Gwendoline felt a little embarrassed and began to hope that Daphne wouldn’t lay it on too thickly—if she did, her mother would expect a wonderful report, and Gwendoline knew perfectly well there was no hope of that.” (61) Lack of brains, you can’t do too much about that, either! At first Daphne, a real beauty who claims rich parents who had never sent her to a school before, had always been educated by governesses, becomes a close friend to Gwendoline, and was a fast favorite with me, too. Yet, somehow she doesn’t shine like Angela, my favorite from the St. Clare’s books—and eventually it becomes clear why. There is a series of thefts in the second form, and suspicion falls on Ellen, seen snooping around, waiting for times when instructors are absent from their rooms—Ellen is in fact hoping to cheat on exams, because she had been falling behind. But by now, the reader will have noticed that supposedly rich Daphne never has any money on her. She is at first eager to pounce when suspicion falls on Ellen, then increasingly alarmed as rumors swirl that Ellen will be, or already is expelled. First illustration is Ellen getting caught, with the test questions on her person, the night before exams. But when Daphne plans to send away the stolen purses, etc. in a parcel to a bogus address, Mary-Lou goes to bring it to post during a raging storm, and when she doesn’t come back, Daphne goes after her, saves the petite girl’s life after she got blown over the coast road, and when all wraps up inspiringly, has thereby merited her a second chance to make it at Malory Towers. #EnidBlyton #TheSecondFormAtMaloryTowers #MaloryTowers #sucks #slang #censorship #honesty #frankness #theft #heroism #childrensliterature #childrensbooks #literature #books