I'm going to tear this book a new orifice. My tongue will be in my cheek - this book just seems to be a particularly fine example of Blyton's worst habits. Bear with me. Apologies to Enid Blyton but I've read 30+ of her books and she's been dead 47 years, so I doubt it will worry her.I've read a lot of Enid Blyton, most of it when I was 10. Recently I've been reading the books to my daughter, Celyn. This is one of the ones we have on audiobook. It's set in Wales and not helped by the fact that none of the voice actors even come close to the Welsh accents they're attempting. Many sound Pakistani. To be fair this book was probably written in a couple of weeks. Enid Blyton is the author of 762 books!Also note that the stories are a product of their time, racist and sexist in equal measure. Dick famously says to Georgina "it's really time you gave up thinking you're as good as a boy" and that does seem to sum up the ethos of the books.Our intrepid children are at Julian's parents' house over Christmas and develop nasty coughs ... so of course the parents send them off to a remote Welsh farmhouse ... where they ... go skiing. Because when your children (who seem to range in age from perhaps 10 to 13 years of age) are sick at Christmas you naturally send them off into the wilds by themselves.Some of the Famous Five series have a marginal degree of realism. By book 17 Blyton appears to be struggling for ideas. This book is far closer to a Scooby Doo episode than the earlier volumes in terms of how it hangs together.This book centres around the illicit mining of "a strange metal". This phrase is repeated over and over. "A strange metal". It's never named.Here are some things to bear in mind about the "strange metal".i) It is worth 100 times its weight in gold. So at today's prices that's about $3,500,000 a kilo. A handful of it, weighing the same as a decent sized bag of sugar, is worth millions of dollars / pounds.ii) It is ridiculously magnetic. Having some far below a hill means that cars and bicycles are pulled towards the ground with such force that they become hard to drive/cycle.iii) It causes mysterious fogs and lights.Now, perhaps it's just me, but I think that people would have a keen interest in a metal that's worth millions of dollars per handful. I further think that such a metal would have a name. And moreover, if its presence was betrayed by subtle signs like EXTREME MAGNETISM, STRANGE LIGHTS and FOG, then people might put two and two together and start digging long before they construct a frikken house on top of the deposit then walk away and leave the house for decades...Anyway, nobody does. It's left to our strange cast of illiterate Welsh/Pakistani peasant girls and gruff shepherds to aid the fabulous five in unravelling this profound mystery.I particularly like how the cunning thieves are using an underground river to float away the "strange metal" they have mined. The stuff is worth millions per handful and they are making off with regular barge-loads of it. We're starting to talk sums here that dwarf the gross national product!Fortunately it's all sorted out in the end thanks to a Welshman's ability to shout very loudly and the power of a small pack of dogs to overpower / intimidate a middle-sized pack of organised criminals engaged in incredibly lucrative illegal activity. Yay! Go goodies!In short then, this is the lowest point in the series so far, remarkable only for the fact that no gypsies were maligned within its pages. Edit: I should give a shout out for the ridiculous cover on this edition. The Famous Five look like James Bonds skiing down the Alps with machine-gun toting baddies on their trail... these are four posh pre-teens on a Welsh hill in the 1940s/50s... and the book spends all of two pages talking about skiing.
The Famous Five get in the way23 April 2014tWell, I did not find this particular story as exciting as some of the other Famous Five stories, and it had nothing to do with the complaints that this particular reviewer made, though I am not going to criticise her review, or her opinion of the book, because she is perfectly entitled to her opinion. Further it would make me a hypocrite considering my commentary on Mister Dog.tAnyway, first of all I found that a couple of the covers, such as this one:which makes the Famous Five look like a bunch of professional skiers, or this one:which is the cover of the edition that I read, and I kept on looking at it and thinking 'WTF!, what on Earth does this cover have anything to do with this book, and why does it look so incredibly lame, with Dick, Julian, and George all wearing matching track suit tops, and if they are wearing matching track suit tops, why isn't Anne -or Timothy for that matter, considering that he is a part of the Famous Five?'. Oh, and the other thing that didn't work about this cover was that throughout the entire book it was snow, and on the cover there was absolutely no sign of any snow whatsoever.tIn the end, as for covers, I think this one was probably the best:tAnyway, enough about the covers, despite the fact that I had to comment on them, and onto the book itself. As for the story, well, all I can say was that it was strange. In fact there were two things that seemed to make this particular adventure stand out from all of the other Famous Five adventures. The first, and main, one is that this, out of all of the stories that I have read so far (including the stories that are similar to the Famous Five but do not involve the Famous Five), is the only one in which our child heroes do not actually solve the mystery. In fact do absolutely nothing to assist in solving the mystery. Not once can anybody say 'if it wasn't for those rotten kids' because, in the end, the only thing they ended up doing was getting in the way.tThe other strange thing about this book is that you never find out what was happening. We are told that there were strange noises and shimmering colours, but we never find out what actually causes them (though I would suspect that it would be some mining equipment, but I don't know of any mining equipment that would cause shimmering light like that). Then there is the metal, some strange magnetic metal that can be used to make bombs, and has such a strong magnetic pull that from deep below ground the metal can affect that which is on the surface. The only place that I know where that apparently happens is on a stretch of road near a small town in South Australia call Orroroo, and that is because on that stretch of road a car, if the brake is not applied properly, will roll up the hill (as opposed to down). As it turns out it is all an optical illusion. In reality the car is rolling down the hill, it is just, for some reason, appears to be rolling up the hill.tAnyway, there is not much else I can say about this book, or really want to say about this book, so I guess I will leave it there and hope the remaining four Famous Five books are a little better.
Do You like book Five Get Into A Fix (2015)?
Fem-gänget åker iväg till en bondgård i Wales de sista dagarna på sitt jullov för att återhämta sig från influensan. Väl där märker de att mystiska saker händer i och under den Gamla Borgen på berget jämte. Det mullrar och skakar i marken och ett konstigt sken syns stiga upp från berget för att sedan försvinna. Givetvis kan de inte låta bli att undersöka detta.Det här är en riktig barndomsklassiker för mig och det var en av de första bokserierna som jag verkligen slukade en bok efter en annan. Jag tycker faktiskt att språket och handlingen håller sig riktigt bra även idag, trots att originalet är från 1958.
—Mari
only read this cuz I was really bored and it seemed to be the shortest book on my shelf...it does bring back memories of when i was in primary school though lol
—Amasha Peiris
This is the 17 book of the Famous Five series and as all the other books written before, it is equally interesting. Filled with mystery and adventure, it is yet another adventure of the Five. The Famous Five are skiing and having a brilliant time! But there's always a mystery to solve: such as who is living in the mysterious house near their chalet? The caretaker says the house is empty.... but the Five have seen a terrified face at the window....One things for sure - they have to get to the truth!
—Annanya Pandey
