Getting along famously!

LITERATURE
by hollieastman

Before Harry, Herminie, and Ron were the coolest kids in literary town the Famous Five were the only children everyone wanted to invite round for fish fingers. The Famous Five series, written by Enid Blyton, totalled twenty-one stories, a big achievement considering the Harry Potter series didn’t achieve even half as many.

Today we live in an age filled with toddlers with Facebook pages and tweenagers with I-phones it is often question whether or not the innocence traditionally associated with childhood still exists. The Famous Five go to Treasure Island was first released in nineteen forty-two, sure society has changed a great deal in the past sixty odd years. Nevertheless, the tales of youthful adventures are as enjoyable today as ever.

Every school holiday siblings Julian, Dick, and Anne were shipped off to moody, tomboy cousin George’s house on the coast, and throughout the next two-hundred pages a plethora of adventures who ensue. Golly, spiffing, and absolutely wizard, the books have been described as only appealing to those seeking a middle class dream. But they are more than that. No matter the trouble, all the drama was easily dealt with using common sense, raw pluck, and of course lashings of ginger beer.

Recently the stories topped the poll of most loved children’s book by adults, beating both Harry Potter and the Chronicles of Narnia to the number one spot; in spite of being rendered hopelessly out of date and out of touch by the majority of the literary world in the nineteen seventies.

Critics have accused the characters of being trapped in a pre-pubescent time warp of seemingly endless summers. Blyton has frequently been charged of sexism in her writings. The character of Anne is continually subservient to her elder brothers. George the other female character, dons boys clothing and a brutish stubborn attitude to match is portrayed as being on a level par with the two boys. Surely by displaying a polarity of female characters Blyton was illuminating the different roles the genders could adopt.

Today the stories have to be read with a different mindset. The language and values held by society have changed. The character of Aunt Fanny, unfortunately having cruel enough parents to name her after female genitalia, definitely lacks the street credentials to make it in today’s literary world.

Perhaps as testament to the stories timeless appeal the Famous Five has recently been bastardised for the modern age into a cartoon series. The smugglers and the afternoons spent scoffing Chelsea buns are gone, in their place tracking DVD bootleggers and jamming on their I-pods. By lifting the stories into the twenty-second century are the creators responding to a demand or merely adding to the younger generation becoming increasingly imaginatively vacant.

Nevertheless my childhood was spent with the four children; and of course Timmy the dog. I went with them to Mystery Moor, and fought smugglers with them at Kirren Cove. Many evenings I argued with my mum to let me sleep on the tiny patch of heather in our front garden, suburban Andover may have been a world, and several decades, away from theirs, but I embraced it all the same.
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Alessi's Ark - Over the Hill

MUSIC



The video for Over the Hill sees Alessi hosting a tea party for an invisible friend and I think it captures her whimsical style wonderfully.

For more information about her upcoming live shows and album you can visit her Myspace page.

Read my review of her support slot for Mumford and Sons at the ICA after the jump.

Alessi’s Ark, acts as a vessel for like-minded souls to share their talents alongside singer-songwriter Alessi Laurent-Marke, whose unique intonation and resonant voice adds depth to her imaginative tales of kite-flying, robots and moonlight.

While Alessi’s previous live performances as a solo artist have been hushed and gentle, the full band which now accompanies her on her ark ensured greater complexity to the songs, while never overwhelming the charming observations of her lyrics. The tinkling keyboards turned the chorus of new single Over the Hill, comprised of those three simple words ‘I love you’, into a complex confession, while the male vocals accompanying The Horse ensured that the song told a much more intriguing story than if it were sung by a lone voice. However, for Woman all of the added extras were stripped away, the poignant song requiring nothing more than the harmonics of Alessi’s guitar and voice, which were in perfect and simple accord, as they were on the heart-felt new song Dancing Feet, which proves her sophistication as a songwriter.

Alessi is always playful with her voice, using it to create new sounds and inflections which ensure each performance of every song is unique. Freed from the pressure that inevitably comes from being entirely alone on stage, there was a sense that the band’s layers of instrumentation provided her with even more freedom to experiment, which is a refreshing thing to see in a fledgling musician whose creativity, like her imagination, is limitless.
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