David Bowie, Enid Blyton and the sun machine

by Nicholas Royle

In this one-of-a-kind book, novelist and academic Nicholas Royle brings together two remarkably different creative Enid Blyton and David Bowie. His exploration of their lives and work delves deeply into questions about the value of art, music and literature, as well as the role of universities in society.

Blending elements of memoir and cultural commentary, Royle creates a tender and often hilarious portrait of family life during the pandemic, weaving it together with musings on dreams, second-hand bookshops and unpublished photos of Bowie taken by Stephen Finer. He also shares previously unrecorded details about Blyton’s personal life, notably her love affair with Royle’s grandmother.

David Bowie, Enid Blyton and the sun machine offers a singular perspective on the cultural significance of two iconic figures. In doing so, it makes a compelling case for the power of storytelling and music to shape our lives.

Genres: Nonfiction

256 pages, Paperback

Published November 28, 2023

About the author

Nicholas Royle is an English writer. He is the author of seven novels, two novellas and a short story collection. He has edited sixteen anthologies of short stories. A senior lecturer in creative writing at the Manchester Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University, he also runs Nightjar Press, publishing original short stories as signed, limited-edition chapbooks. He works as a fiction reviewer for The Independent and the Warwick Review and as an editor for Salt Publishing.

Reviews

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

A horrifying account of a man brought to the brink by Derrida and pushed over the edge by lockdown.

[Gary Duckworth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent unique book. But what was this I’ve just read? Eight lectures, a coda, a picture break courtesy of Stephen Finer. A little more. A very useful notes section. It’s not a book detailing or analysing the works of literature Bowie read or used in his brilliant, timeless lyrics.

It’s whimsical, meandering, dreamy. I’d read a lot of Blyton as a young boy. I’d forgotten most of it, other than gold ingots buried on an island. The childhood book that has stayed with me the most is Tom’s Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce. And so, for me, I’ve thought about that book a bit, through reading this. And I’d recently read two Mishima’s..not that that helped...but I did find that useful. Oh, and Katherine Mansfield- Who isn’t mentioned, but who is outstanding; and The Years by VW, who is mentioned. E M Forster’s The Machine Stops, is a short, genius pre 1984/Brave New World work, I read between two of the lectures.

This book is very very clear, light, and easy to read, whilst at the same being a quite British, academic, English language, literature work of reflections. There are interesting plays on words.

I’ve thought of Memory of a Free Festival a fair bit too; Satori in Paris, and also read The Burrow by Franz Kafka because of this. I’ve enjoyed the lightness of the writing, the ‘memories’ of Lola Onslow. The passing of time and space - in all directions known & unknown, in interacting with this work. Beckenham is at the centre of it all. Followed by Croydon. Obviously.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book defies genre classification. It reminded me of both Douglas Coupland and Brett Morgen's Moonage Daydream. The latter, on first viewing, pulls bits of the Bowie archive at random and strings then together to present an seemingly arbitrary and imagined biography. With subsequent viewings it started to really resonate. Both Royale and Morden have deeply absorbed Bowie into their "undermind". They both make links that somehow resonate with my 50 years of listening to his music. It's uncanny. It's like the genius of Cezanne where his painting touches something in your own aesthetics you didn't know was there. Royle has a similar deep, intuitive appreciation of Blyton. Sadly I was protected from her by my mother, a primary school teacher, who had imbibed the stuffy notion that it wasn't very good English :-)

[Annabel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nicholas Royle's new non-fiction book (NB: He's the one who is/was a professor at Sussex University, not the Manchester one who'll come up if you click on his name above) has an eclectic variety of forms within its pages. A series of essays, lectures, ‘memoirish’ narrative non-fiction, and family biography conceived as a valedictory speech after being offered voluntary severance from his university during lockdown, 'David Bowie, Enid Blyton and the sun machine' is full of thought-provoking juxtapositions, literary and cultural intertextual references, and family experiences. As Royle obsessively listened to Bowie during lockdown, and read Blyton to his sons, he discovered fascinating ways to link the two, and he re-explored a long-forgotten family connection to Blyton that will make you gasp! It’s an idiosyncratic book that’s complex, that has a strong sense of place, yet it is playful and full of music from Bowie to Bach (he includes a playlist).

If you read his previous books, the novel, 'An English Guide to Birdwatching' (in that book’s second half in particular) or 'Mother: A Memoir', you’ll already have a feel for his style. If you enjoyed cult non-fiction book 'All the Devils are Here' by David Seabrook which does for Margate what Royle does for Croydon in this book, you’d enjoy Royle’s latest. If, like me, you miss David Bowie still, and grew up reading Blyton, it’s also a book for you.