An Eight-year old's encounter with Enid Blyton and Brer Rabbit

Stories have been a part of my childhood from a very young age. From the prescribed rhymes and short stories that were part of the syllabus, my reading list expanded through the regular visits to the neighbourhood library. My memories of the library were not only the books I read,

but the journey itself. Walking through the quiet neighbourhood lined with giant trees on both sides that formed a canopy and the faint chirping of the sparrows and mynahs was the best part of the experience. The library nestled amidst the trees and the long spiral staircase that gave me the chills every time I had to climb it. But I didn’t mind it in the least. The end result -the vast array of books that lie in wait for me was more than enough to encourage me. I never had the chance to listen to the stories of my grandparents. But my mother made sure that I got a generous dose of books to read. It was these visits to the library where I would meet my 

very first friends – Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl, Richmal Crompton and Judy Blume. The stories they wrote belonged to a different time period. They belonged to a different cultural landscape. Enid Blyton’s stories take place in an English countryside where children solved mysteries and went on adventures, or in an elite British boarding school where girls played lacrosse and learnt horse-riding.

In the Faraway Tree series, the Enchanted Woods stories takes the reader to a fairy tale world of pixies and goblins, talking trees and animals. The protagonists, Jo Beth and Fannie discover a tree called the Magic Faraway Tree which takes them to strange, exciting 
places. They travel to the land of goblins, and wizards, the land of birthdays and in one instance they meet Goldilocks and the three Bears. In Enid Blyton’s version, Goldilocks lives with the bears in the same cottage which she first entered. Another important aspect of all Enid Blyton stories is the vivid imagery of food. In all the books I have read, I have not seen any author who described food the way she did. In most of her stories, food is an important prop for the plotline. Whether the characters are setting out to solve a mystery or having a midnight party, delicious food was in plenty:

  “She brought out a tin of Pop Cakes, which were lovely. As soon as you bit into them, they went pop! and you suddenly found your mouth filled with new honey from the middle of the   little cakes.”  

 

      In her stories, she not only describes pastries which every child would love, she vividly          depicts the food children would have for a picnic. This was not the usual sandwiches and      chips which one would expect but healthy food items such as radishes, lettuce, baked beans and hard-boiled eggs. I did not realize that lettuce was equivalent to cabbage or hard-boiled

eggs were just the normal eggs I had for breakfast. I learnt new words like larder, treacle pudding and ginger beer. Food was never a forgettable aspect in Enid Blyton. It played an equal role to the characters in her stories. Folk tales, songs and stories told by your grandparents are in the oral form. I did not get to listen to stories where I could sit in rapt attention and listen to a story where every sound, every word rises and falls with the expression and the intonations given by the storyteller. This is where I turned to folktale collections. Although it cannot replace the awe and excitement one feels while listening to a story, it was the one thing I had. It was through these books that I was introduced to Tenali Raman and Birbal;

Jataka Tales and the Panchatantra; Anansi the spider and Brer Rabbit. They described human follies and dilemmas in a way a child understands. Every character portrays human traits of greed, envy, stupidity, contempt, pride and kindness, contentment, happiness, wisdom, wit and intelligence. Folktales act as a mirror to the society where people see themselves being portrayed. It was through numerous folktale collections that I became aware of other cultures also. This

would not have been

possible in the oral form. Oral traditions would be concentrated on transmitting a part of one’s own culture or something that was part of ones’ culture but became obsolete over the years. The print expanded the reach of folk tales to a larger audience. As Ramanujan mentions, it led to the democratisation of literature. Along with this, translation helped bridge barriers of language and dialects in folk literature. We have folk tales from different communities, states and countries today. I would not have read the stories of Anansi the spider or Brer Rabbit, the two famed tricksters in folk literature if it wasn’t for this advancement in technology. Both of these were the most memorable characters I have read in the folk traditions. Anansi is a predominant character in Caribbean folk tales. The protagonist is a trouble-maker but is also clever and knows to put his wits to good use. This mythical hero appears in the form of a spider and tricks people. He is also known as the King of Stories. In one of the stories, Anansi asks his father Nyame, (Sky) to open the box of stories he kept with him. His father agrees to it only if Anansi performs certain tasks. Through his wits and ingenious problem-solving skills, Anansi completes the tasks and Nyame agrees to release the stories to the world:

“The people had no stories to tell because his father Nyame was hoarding them in a box. Anansi set about a plan to take them from his father…. Nyame told his son that if he could bring four creatures to him, he would trade Anansi the stories for them.”

Brer Rabbit stories has its origins in African-American folk tales. However, the protagonist is less empowered than Anansi. Oral traditions and children’s literature are a record of people’s past, a reflection on our present follies and acts as a reminder to rectify our mistakes in the future.