I had an hour free on a Sunday morning, and decided to read something ultra-light and frivolous. A young friend has recently been reading her way through my extensive Enid Blyton collection, and I had been thinking for a while that I could discuss them more intelligently with her if I re-read some of them myself. One of my childhood favourites was ‘Mr Galliano’s Circus’, so that’s the one I chose. I hadn’t remembered that I last read it as recently as 2005.
Jimmy is the main character in this book; a boy who I suppose must be about ten or eleven although I don’t think it’s ever stated. He could well be younger - it doesn’t matter. He’s an ordinary boy, in a somewhat impoverished family. His father has been out of work for a year and his mother works hard taking in laundry and cleaning houses to earn enough to keep them. The book was first published in 1938, although my edition is a paperback from the 1950s.
Unusually for Blyton’s books, the adults play an important role, and are mostly likeable, three-dimensional people. Naturally, given the era, their roles are somewhat typecast, but I very much liked Jimmy’s mother, and some of the circus people whom he gets to know. Mr Galliano is large, with a strong Italian accent, and exaggerated emotions, but he’s also kind and usually fair. He cares deeply about animals and won’t allow anyone to treat their animals badly.
Jimmy’s father is offered a week’s work as an odd job man at the circus, and does so well that he’s taken on long term. So he and his wife and son pack up their house - it’s not clear how they manage to give notice so quickly, assuming it’s a rental house, but it doesn’t much matter - and embark on life in a caravan, following the circus. Jimmy starts learning a few unusual skills such as riding horses bareback, and tightrope walking, but as he keeps being told, he’s too old to get really good at these things.
However Jimmy’s passion is working with animals, and he has a special rapport with all of them. This enables him to do some important jobs, earning him the respect and liking of the circus folk. Not that they’re all kind, honest people - but the few ‘bad’ guys are dealt with relatively lightly.
Enid Blyton gets a bad rap for many reasons, one of them her sexist and racist attitudes, although given the era in which she was writing, they seem relatively mild to me. There’s an expectation that women cook and clean, but many of them have important roles in the circus. Mr Galliano might be a caricatured figure, but he’s the boss - and he has contented, caring folk around him. I was slightly shocked at the name of one of the dogs, a word which wasn’t pleasant in the 1930s and is considered an extremely racist one nowadays; but it’s one of ten or twelve dogs, many of whom are named based on their fur colour, not with any negative connotation as such.
Some of the writing is a bit trite, and some of the conversation a little stilted, and (unsurprisingly) old-fashioned - but there’s something about Blyton’s books that make them very readable despite the flaws.
On the whole I found myself enjoying this book considerably more than I had expected. There are a couple of quite poignant scenes where my eyes filled briefly - something that seems to happen more when I read children’s books than with adult ones. And it’s a good story. Caricatured, undoubtedly, idealised in many ways - but, of its era, a good story. My young friend enjoyed it (and read the two sequels) although she said she wasn’t really interested in circuses in general.
Recommended for children of about eight and upwards who like a good, character-based story - I assume that modern versions have changed the unpleasantly racist-sounding name of one of the dogs.
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