The Twins at St Clare's

[donnaimmaculata]

There's been some discussions on Enid Blyton on my flist lately, and then shocolate linked to this article, on which I wanted to comment, but then the comment kinda expanded...

So, I'm bringing you a post instead. Here are some titbits which you Blyton readers from English-speaking countries may not be aware of:

The St Clare's series is wildly popular in Germany. In fact, it has been almost entirely germanised, with the twins being renamed "Hanni" and "Nanni" (I've no idea which one's supposed to be Pat and which Isabel) and going to a school named "Lindenhof". The other characters' names have been changed, too. There's a Heidi, if I'm not mistaken, and Alison's been turned into "Ellie".

Also, I've only just learned that the St Clare's series originally included only six books. The German series has, like, two hundred, most of which were written in the 1970s/1980s by German authors employed by the publishing house. Seriously, there seems to be an endless supply of "Hanni und Nanni" books, with all sorts of adventures in a castle haunted by ghosts (IIRC), a stay in a school hostel in the country, Pat (or Isabel) being kidnapped in a Philippine princess's stead, and many more. St Clare's fanfiction, if you will - albeit very, very gen. I supposed none of the ghostwriters dared tread the femmeslash path. At least one of the books has horses.

At their midnight parties they have cake, sausages and lemonade; I understand that the food selection is much more multi-varied and out-there in the original?

Instead lacrosse, they play handball. And even though it's never explicitly stated, I think the new books are contemporary - i.e. set in the 1970s/80s. It's definitely heavily implied in the illustrations: I re-read one of the books only last week, and it's got very 70s illustrations, including a poster of a long-haired, bearded rock singer on the common room wall.

There's a film being currently made: Hanni & Nanni, scheduled for release in 2009. And did you know there's a Japanese series?

Just a thought, but: if the German publisher actually employed people to continue writing books for a popular British boarding school series - why not do the same with Harry Potter? Maybe I should put the idea forward and see what they think.

ETA: Um, is the embedding working? I can see the embedded video in the preview and on my LJ, but it doesn't show up in my f-list view.

ETA 2: Nevermind, it does now.

ETA 3: From the Wikipedia entry on Malory Towers:

"The German translation of the series adds twelve books occurring after the sixth, with Darrell (in the German version: Dolly Rieder) returning to a college associated with Malory Towers ("Burg Möwenfels"), the "Möwennest" (Malory Nest). As the story develops she returns to Malory Towers, first as educator, then she becomes matron of the famous 'North Tower' where she resided as a child. She marries her former "Möwennest" teacher in German and Literature, has a baby girl (Katharina) and finally becomes headmistress of Malory Towers, after Miss Grayling (Frau Greiling) had been seriously injured in a traffic accident, and is unable to work any longer." (emphasis mine)

Reads somewhat like a Harry/Snape fanfic, doesn't it?

Comments

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

It is bizarre! It's a completely different series.

I also used to read her Famous Five and Five Find-Outers series. My cousing and I admired Fatty's ("Dickie" in German) mad disguise skillz, and we would dress up in odd clothes, pait wrinkles on our faces with eyeliners and walk around the neighbourhood - preferably at dusk - convinced that we looked like old woman. Because hey - it worked for Fatty!

[coeursaignant.livejournal.com]

I LOVED "Geheimnis um..." !!!!!!!!

I had (still have them somewhere!) ALL the books and just loooooooooooooooooooooooooooved them. And yeah, Dickie was great!!! AHHHH! MEMORIES!!!!

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

I didn't even remember what they were called in German! But I've read them all - and I admired Dickie and his clever detecting and disguising skills. I know he was able to escape from a locked room once by pushing the key out of the lock so that it fell on a piece of paper and pulling it to him under the door. Even then, it seemed odd to imagine how huge the gap under the door must have been, but the idea was great nevertheless.

[coeursaignant.livejournal.com]

- I'm pretty sure that happened in this one!!!!

I loved that trick, tried it out myself and even managed to open a door that way (once). ;) Also, I loved when he dressed up as.. beggar or something? Landstreicher (Stadtstreicher?) wohl, in German. Painted a tooth black to make it look like it was missing, I think. And there was turpentine involved in another story.. And he put stuff in his mouth once to make his cheecks look chubbier.

Didn't the books also feature a policeman who was always pretty anti-Dickie and the rest of the children?

[coeursaignant.livejournal.com]

cheeks, whoops

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

It probably did! I need to reread them.

I loved the dressing-up as well. My cousin and I used to dress up like that, too, and paint wrinkles on our faces, and we firmly believed that people would think we are old beggar women!

The policeman used to write "Poesie", which he called "Pösie". He always tried to catch them out doing something wrong and was outsmarted every single time.

[missingkeys.livejournal.com]

LOL! My sister and I thought we could put blush on our faces, sand on our knees, and instantly look like beggar children! It was our mad plan to knock on the door and pretend we were terribly hungry (round children that we were...) and have our uncle (who was staying with us) not recognise us yet feel so sorry he'd give us money. Which we'd promptly spend on candy, or something.

We ended up fighting too much and then our parents came home and we had to run to the yard and pretend we were actually in the sand pit (with blush all over our faces we got a lecture about being in the sun for too long) and the wet sand I'd used ended up staining my favourite trousers. We were nowhere near as cool as the famous five. :)

[donnaimmaculata.livejournal.com]

Did you knock on any doors? That's so great!

That actually sounds rather like Astrid Lindgren's The Six Bullerby Children. I'm sure there's one episode where they dress up as grown-ups and come knocking at their parents' doors.

[missingkeys.livejournal.com]

No, we were still fighting when my mum pulled up so we didn't go knocking. I'm so glad we didn't--it would have been sooo embarrassing.