Blyton to Naipaul: A Million Noddys Now

Many knew about Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul who died on Saturday aged 85, though not always through his books. The opposite could be said about Enid Blyton, whose 121st birth anniversary was also this Saturday.

She remains largely known through her books, over 600 million copies of which have sold to date, including 200 million of the Noddy series. Of course, Naipaul pitched his oeuvre at a rather different, if as discerning, an audience, and stature cannot be gauged by sales alone.

But few realise the striking similarities between these two writers, now bracketed together by the date August 11. Blyton’s description of herself as “a sightseer, a reporter, an interpreter” could just as well apply to Naipaul. They both eloquently evoked faraway lands and a diversity of characters albeit in markedly different ways.


They also stood accused of racism, sexism, snobbery and colonial bias during their lifetimes, but that did not dent their popularity because their respective readers were either too young to care or old enough to appreciate a contrarian mind. He was combative and unsparing, she was not. But a major aspect on which they were just as emphatically on the same page was their penchant for short, succinct sentences. Unfortunately, very few of their fans and fellow authors emulate this worthy principle of great writing.