by Lucy Edington

Created on: June 02, 2009

I have decided that as I am a frustrated author (mostly frustrated by my own laziness) I should really read more books about how other people manage to get their work out of their heads and onto the page. To this end, I found myself browsing the biography section at my local library, and came across Looking for Enid by Duncan McLaren. I rescued it from the shelf and smiled at the instantly-recognisable Eileen Soper illustration on the front, depicting the fabulous Famous Five on one of their escapades. I was further cheered by the inside blurb proclaiming "...you are warmly invited to accompany Duncan on an adventure that will investigate what made Enid Enid and endeavour to reach the source of her torrent of stories". 'Oooo' thought I 'this'll do for starters'.

Like many of us, I read Enid Blyton's books with gusto and most of my early poems and stories are heavily influenced by what she wrote. When my peers were turning more towards Agatha Christie and Jane Austen, I clung to my copies of Malory Towers and St Claire's with a vice-like grip. Blyton's, to me, was a world in which justice was always done and people appreciated good manners and intentions. I always felt happy after escaping into one of her character's exploits (even although I blame her somewhat for fuelling my arachnophobia after reading a certain spider ate elves when they were naughty).

The thing that is great about McLaren's book, then, is that he genuinely seems to love her writing too, and is absolutely caught up in the energy and productivity of his chosen subject. What is refreshing is that the book becomes a labour of love and one which McLaren is very open to the possibility of not selling too well. He is under no illusions that his work will be particularly popular, he just wants to explore the reasons and circumstances that enabled Blyton to be such a phenomenon. McLaren's angle is to look at the three main men in Blyton's life and then to see if through her relationships with them he can get a handle on her success. In this endeavour, he enlists the help of his girlfriend Kate Clayton and, although there are sometimes gratuitous references to their nightly relations, she seems to help him with the intellectual process of writing the book and piecing together what Blyton's influences were.

McLaren may put off a few readers through his foray into fantasy exchanges between some of Blyton's better known characters. He has the Five Finder-Outers gambolling around

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