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Table of Contents ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????Interview with Joanne Harris
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Reviews
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Feature Articles
Enid Blyton's Magic Faraway Tree
Harcourt Children's Books - Special Supplement
Elizabeth Chayne's Reading Room
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Stories and Serials
Phyllis Owen: A Soft White Cloud Chapter Three
Paul Norman: Heraklion ~ Outcast
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Dark Tower Comics Covers Gallery
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This month's fantasy book of the month comes from an unexpected source, Joanne Harris, probably best known for Chocolat. In the interview she throws some interesting light on Gormenghast and why it's viewed with suspicion by some readers - and she endorses my belief that ERB was a true pioneer of fantasy and science fiction
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Hi there,
Here are my answers to your questions. Hope this helps. If there's anything else you need to ask, please feel free to contact me. I'll do my best to oblige.
Best, J
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Hi Joanne - welcome to the world of Fantasy! I notice your all-time favourite novel is the Gormenghast trilogy. What you say about it is absolutely correct, yet for many, it remains unapproachable, a fact that was borne out recently by the reception of the TV series (which I enjoyed, being a Gormenghast fan). Why do you think that is? It is, after all, highly original, but no more so than a whole host of other fantasies that have reached wider audiences.
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JH: I think some people find Gormenghast unapproachable partly because they are trying to approach it from a linear, conventional storytelling point of view. Linear it isn't; and although the setting may be reminiscent in some ways of more mainstream fantasy (the castle, the adversary, the rebellious hero, etc), Peake breaks far more rules than he keeps. This doesn't always make for easy reading; and the density and richness of Peake's language may well seem daunting to some readers. More importantly, many of the usual trappings of mainstream fantasy are absent in Peake's world - there is no magic in Gormenghast; there are no other races, no elves or dwarves or any of the other supernatural elements which have become familiar to us through the work of, for instance, Tolkien or C. S. Lewis. The result is a kind of uneasy hyper-reality, a surrealism more akin to Kafka than to anyone else, with a plot that goes through as many twists and turns as the labyrinthine castle itself. Peake will never be an easy read, and the questions he raises are rarely straightforward. But the beauty of Gormenghast is in the challenge that it presents; it's one of those rare works that evolves with time, offering more on each re-reading, forcing the reader to confront ideas which may not always be comfortable, but which somehow ring uncannily true.
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PN: I'm pleased to hear you say you identify with your characters - most of the authors I've interviewed in the last few years deny this strenuously, for some reason, yet I can't help thinking that there is something of the writer in their main characters. Do you agree?
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JH: I think so, yes. I find that I can't write convincing characters unless there is some element in which I can identify - even when I'm writing a villainous or unpleasant character. Most of it is fiction, of course; but it's important for a writer to remain as emotionally honest as possible; like a method actor accessing real feelings to create a believable role.
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PN: Will you be writing more fantasy? Do you have a taste for it now or have you always had one? I see you wrote RUNEMARKS several years ago. Do you think it was accepted now because of your current status as a top-flight author?
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JH: I've always liked writing fantasy. A lot of my books and short stories have contained elements of fantasy, and it's an area in which I feel very comfortable. It's likely that I'll continue to write in this genre, although it may be some time before I'm able to publish the next book. It took me five years to finish RUNEMARKS (in between several other projects), and it was only when the book was almost finished that I decided to submit it for publication. I think my publishers were surprised - they weren't expecting a fantasy novel - but no-one agrees to publish on an author's reputation alone. I guess they must have liked it - otherwise it wouldn't be here.
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PN: Any plans to see if you can get WITCHLIGHT published on the back of RUNEMARKS, or is it confined to the Harris archives for good? Stephen King keeps finding old manuscripts to keep his "constant reader" supplied, of course, and SALEM'S LOT was recently republished in a vastly-amplified version, as was THE STAND in the 1990s. Are there any manuscripts in your closet you wish you could get to see the light of day now you're an established author?
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JH: I'm not interested in going back. I have far too many new ideas, and I find that dead projects rarely, if ever, come back to life.
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PN: David Wyatt did a marvellous job on your Nine Worlds - he is, of course, a well-known fantasy illustrator. Did you approach him or was it the publisher?
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JH: My publisher approached him; he did a terrific job of re-drawing my preliminary sketches and maps.
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PN: Other than Gormenghast, which for me lies on the periphery of fantasy as personified by Tolkien and his followers (along with HP Lovecraft and Robert E Howard) do you have an interest in reading fantasy? I believe there was a small Tolkienesque influence in RUNEMARKS, and not a little Enid Blyton (who introduced me to goblins before I was old enough for the adult varieties).
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JH: I read all kinds of fantasy, but I think my greatest influence for RUNEMARKS was the myths and legends of the Icelandic and Scandinavian people (which also greatly influenced Tolkien, who brought them to a wider audience). Our own folklore is, of course, filled with similar influences - and I owe a great debt to the painter Richard Dadd, as well as to Brian and Wendy Froud for helping me with my goblins.
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PN: In your list of "admired writers" you mention Edgar Rice Burroughs - anything in particular, out of interest?
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JH: I was brought up on his Tarzan books, as well as on his Martian adventures. My first attempts at writing stories were all pastiches of Rice Burroughs and Rider Haggard; jungle epics filled with giant apes and warring tribes of savages.
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PN: You don't mention Enid Blyton as an admired writer - maybe you don't admire her - but what books do you remember reading as a child? And which particular authors can you remember as being strong influences on your own writing before you found your own voice? You say you began by copying the writers you most admired - who were they?
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JH: I read a lot of Enid Blyton - we all did in those days - but I was never as enthralled by her books as by those of other childrens' authors. Her world seemed so middle-class and ordinary - I wanted exotic landscapes and sinister native tribesmen, not stories about girls' boarding-schools. I think I was a bit of a tomboy. I was raised on TARZAN and THE JUNGLE BOOK; I liked escape novels, like Eric Williams' books THE TUNNEL and THE WOODEN HORSE; and I was a great fan of Willard Price's ADVENTURE series, about two boys who travelled around the world catching wild animals for their father's zoo. I read MOBY DICK at an early age and learnt great passages of it by heart; and I devoured anything I could find by Ray Bradbury.
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PN: How long was it before your first novel was accepted for publication?
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JH: It took me a year to find an agent for THE EVIL SEED, and another year for me to find a publisher.
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PN: I won't ask you what you advise aspiring writers to do, it's self-evident, and you've answered it on your website FAQs. But was there ever a time when you thought of giving up and calling it a day?
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JH: Never. I enjoy it too much. Even If I'd never been published, I would still have written for fun.
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PN: What sort of music do you listen to? Do you have music playing when you
are writing?
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JH: I listen to all kinds of music, although not usually when I'm actually writing. My i-Pod is a weird hotchpotch of random stuff - some is Anouchka's and some is mine. She has my progressive rock - Genesis, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Jethro Tull and Al Stewart - and I get all her emo music, like Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance -
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PN: The list of influences for RUNEMARKS has some famous and some surprising names - no mention of Tolkien, though, whose goblins have to be the ones most people nowadays would remember most easily (apart from Blyton's goblins, of course!)
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JH: Well, of course, Tolkien's goblins were very much inspired by the Norse and Anglo-Saxon writings of which he was a learned scholar. I have used those influences too, but European fairytales - from Grimm to Perrault and Andersen - are filled with goblins of one sort or another, and there is a long tradition of them in our folkloric heritage. I have been variously influenced by: Christina Rossetti's GOBLIN MARKET; the paintings of Dadd and Fuseli; Ibsen's PEER GYNT; Kevin Crossley-Holland's lovely translation of the Norse myths; some Russian and Croatian fairy stories and a hundred movies from TIME BANDITS to LABYRINTH.
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PN: It's great to see you cite "all of Edgar Rice Burroughs" - for a long time I've been nagging people to recognise him as a classic writer and the real grandfather of "sword and sorcery" (John Carter of Mars has a great deal) - but sadly he's remembered chiefly for some very bad Tarzan films! And it's rare to find an author who admits to having been influenced by him.
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JH: I think the fantasy genre owes much to pioneers such as Edgar Rice Burroughs -and, though rather dated now, his books are still surprisingly fresh; well-written and readable.
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PN: Now the inevitable stock question: can you name your top ten favourite books? You can qualify your list with the phrase "subject to change", of course.
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JH: Hm. Yes. Well, subject to change and in no particular order: Anthony Burgess - A CLOCKWORK ORANGE; Ray Bradbury - SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES; Vladimir Nabokov - LOLITA; Mervyn Peake - GORMENGHAST (can a trilogy count as one choice?); Neil Gaiman's SANDMAN graphic novels (if I can have a trilogy, then why not a whole series?); Stephen King's DARK TOWER books; Daniel Keyes' FLOWERS FOR ALGERNON; Cormac McCarthy's BLOOD MERIDIAN; Iain Banks' THE WASP FACTORY. Oh, and Geoffrey Willans' MOLESWORTH books, illustrated by Ronald Searle - which contain all anyone ever needs to know about fantasy and the young mind.
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PN: Thanks for finding the time to write for Gateway - I hope you can find the time to write some more great fantasy - and all your other work in progress too!
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