Underground Rivers - University of New Mexico

Chapter 23 -- Girls, Too!
In Five Get Into A Fix (1958), the Famous Five are ill during
the Holidays and are sent to recover at the Welsh farm of
Mrs. Jones and her giant-like son, Morgan. Morgan's
suspicious behavior leads the five to a cave and then to an
underground river, via which magnetic metal deposits are
being shipped.
Blyton's stories are about secret passages -- passages
between castle walls, caves, routes to and from the sea,
railway tunnels, the list goes on.
We're awed by the tally of those passages that contain
underground rivers, but don't propose that we've found them
all.
Again from the postings of the Enid Blyton Society, this time from the member, Sayantani,
Has it occurred to all you folks that Enid was quite obsessive about underground streams and
rivers? She writes with such intense knowledge about these!
I for one am absolutely riveted by these descriptions of hers, especially, I found the climactic
scenes in Rockingdown, Castle of Adventure, River of Adventure and Five Go Off on a Caravan
fascinating; though Castle does strain the lines of credulity! Rockingdown's denouement of the
stream under the house, accessed by a rocky tunnel through a trapdoor from the kitchen gives
me goose bumps, as does the stuff in River.
Where exactly did she draw inspiration for such topography from?
The house Enid lived in at as a young woman had an ancient gallery and secret passages, but
her fictional settings are clearly more than childhood recollections. A master of engagement, she
propels us into flooding caverns that cause us concern, but reliably pop back to light by the final
chapter.
Although her works have been criticized for racism, sexism and snobbery, they continue to find
new readers. "She was a child, she thought as a child and she wrote as a child," psychologist
Michael Woods summarized the secret of her writing.
We differ with Woods, however, about writing like a child. What kid can write 10,000 words/day?
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