Blyton The Landscape

A recent poll has discovered that Britain's best-loved writer is Enid Blyton - ahead of Rowling, Christie, Austen, and Shakespeare - let alone Dickens, Orwell, or Rushdie. I am not sure this says as much about Britain, readers, or books, as it first appears - maybe more about polls.

It does tend to suggest that the books, and authors, people love, are not the ones that our teachers, or critics, would want us to. Surely, for all her evident charms and pleasures, Blyton is not a major literary figure of our times - or is she? Then again, maybe this poll confirms what Eyewear has long-feared - that British reading habits are in decline. Fewer read poets, of course - but also, it seems, if this poll is to be believed, fewer read "the greats".

Why do most people read, most of the time? What do we talk about, when we talk about loving writers? Do we love their style, their content - or their ability to transport us, amusingly, via the imagination, to other realms we'd prefer to inhabit (albeit ones fraught with danger or adventure). The plot is one-eyed king of this blind world. When reading becomes simply another form of entertainment, or worse, a mere way to pass the time, we are almost doomed to idiocy, as a culture. Reading should be, among other things, a challenge.

If it diverts, the diversion may lead upwards, into darker regions, that offer complex footing; some may stumble, or be lost in the mist. Curling up with Blyton on a rainy day is great. But crack open Empson, too.

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IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart? A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional. Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were. For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ? Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets. But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ? How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular. John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se....

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"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and Silence of the Lambs . I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".

E Y E W E A R, THE BLOG - FREEDOM MEANS BEING UNAFRAID TO WRITE WHAT YOU THINK

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