Five Go Down To Sea was no great shakes from the adventure-mystery point of view… A strange light flashing in a ruined tower -late night wanderings -suspicious characters -getting locked up -escaping - AND -ultimately tying up all the loose ends.
I primarily liked this book for three characters:
Mrs.Penruthlan : the bustling, jolly l’il house-wife whose main aim in life was to cook and feed everyone who came under her motherly wings. So Blyton indulged her love for the good ol’English food to the hilt. There were glistening hams, tureens of new potatoes gleaming with melted butter, drop-scones, cherry tarts, lashings of hard-boiled eggs, pickles, sauces, trifles, jars of cold creamy milk and what have you!! One of my earliest memories of a comfort-phrase was “a larder crammed with food”!! *s-igh*
Mr.Penruthlan: The tall, magnificent farmer.....dark as a sunburnt Spaniard. Larger than life, he was an intimidating figure. His unique quirk was his inclination to speak in weird mono-syllables like Ah…Ock, thanks to his tendency to go without his set of false teeth! The Five couldn’t figure till the end if he was one of the bad guys or not.
Yan’s granddad: I liked the way Blyton gave a description of the old shepherd. It went: “He wasn’t very big, and he seemed shriveled up, like an apple stored too long. But there was still a sweetness in him, and the children liked him at once. His face had a thousand wrinkles that creased and ran into one another when he smiled. His shaggy eyebrows, curly beard and hair were all grey, as grey as the wooly coats of the sheep he had lived with all his life”.
And then ofcourse there was Clopper, the comical stage-horse who seemed to have a life of it’s own...the surly Guv’nor and the gay and happy bunch of performers…who all belonged to the almost-vaudevillian group called “The Barnies”.
I primarily liked this book for three characters:
Mrs.Penruthlan : the bustling, jolly l’il house-wife whose main aim in life was to cook and feed everyone who came under her motherly wings. So Blyton indulged her love for the good ol’English food to the hilt. There were glistening hams, tureens of new potatoes gleaming with melted butter, drop-scones, cherry tarts, lashings of hard-boiled eggs, pickles, sauces, trifles, jars of cold creamy milk and what have you!! One of my earliest memories of a comfort-phrase was “a larder crammed with food”!! *s-igh*
Mr.Penruthlan: The tall, magnificent farmer.....dark as a sunburnt Spaniard. Larger than life, he was an intimidating figure. His unique quirk was his inclination to speak in weird mono-syllables like Ah…Ock, thanks to his tendency to go without his set of false teeth! The Five couldn’t figure till the end if he was one of the bad guys or not.
Yan’s granddad: I liked the way Blyton gave a description of the old shepherd. It went: “He wasn’t very big, and he seemed shriveled up, like an apple stored too long. But there was still a sweetness in him, and the children liked him at once. His face had a thousand wrinkles that creased and ran into one another when he smiled. His shaggy eyebrows, curly beard and hair were all grey, as grey as the wooly coats of the sheep he had lived with all his life”.
And then ofcourse there was Clopper, the comical stage-horse who seemed to have a life of it’s own...the surly Guv’nor and the gay and happy bunch of performers…who all belonged to the almost-vaudevillian group called “The Barnies”.
Simple plot….interesting characters…and tables groaning under an assortment of delicious eats! Blyton at her predictable-best.
