River of Adventure

This week has been hell or so, been hit with the mother of all flu that left me no choice but to call in sick for the first time in ages.

On the plus side I have finished my entire book log and have finally read through The River of Adventure by Enid Blyton.  This is the last of the series of Adventure stories for older boys and girls and of course old gits who like to poke fun out of things.  This is no exception. 

Remember how they would say the Famous Five stories were problematic and that they were racist, sexist and contained the word queer far too much.  This is basically them but with everything turned up to 11, as it were.  Contains 4 kids and a parrot, rather than the usual 4 kids and a dog also with a bit more parental guidance than usual.  This time it's secret agent man Bill, his Mrs. Allie and Kids Phil, Jack, Dinah and Lucy Anne.  The Parrots name is Kiki and is some sort of Cockatoo.   

Tasked with keeping an eye out on shifty Arab Raya Uma, and with his kids recovering from a bad case of flu, he has them accompany him on a case down the Abencha River on a trip to recuperate, while keeping an eye out on wily foreign, Mr. Uma.   They have a native guide called Tala who pilots the boat and has comedy broken English.  And following a stop at Cine Town a makeshift settlement created out of an old film set, they pick up the snake charmers nephew Oola who basically becomes Phil's slave for most of the trip.

You are here for problematic stuff and lets face it most of the time its them filthy smelly A rabs and Oola in particular who seems to get beaten and slapped around, when he's not Phil's slave.  He's also noted as being unclean and in need of a wash.  Something only the gypsies were in Classic Famous Five.  The other thing is that the word queer is liberally sprinkled throughout the text, if you are a sensitive prick and can't tell when that word is used for something genuinely strange, then it may trigger you.  My suggestion is to go fuck yourself, and get over it.

Worst thing is far into the book where events have happened and its just the kids and Tala sailing down the river trapped in the current, they overrule him to go down some dangerous path, true  they do end up in a lost temple in the dark, but this is an experienced boat man they just pull rank (dare I even say privilege) on and set down that path.  It just stuck in my craw, that a bunch of white kids would know best instead of the boat master.

Also this is modern day Syria they are sailing through or some such analogue of, no one is Muslim, There is talk of the bible, with names and such, and they also spell Sargon of Akkad as King Saigon, you know that Vietnamese king of the Akkadians.   Some of the places also seem rather close to Arabic,  places such as Ala Ou Iya (Al Laouiyah ot more like a corruption of Hallelujah) and Ullabaid (Allahbaid) I don't know if Enid Blyton ever left the UK or just consulted an atlas or local library. 

Finally Phil gets a snake courtesy of Oola.  Its a defanged poisonous reptile and spends most of its time in his shirt.  Some times his head pokes out, please do not confuse this with his penis which plays no part in the story.