Reading: Reflections
Sep. 22nd, 2019 11:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
white_hartReflections is a posthumously-published collection of essays, reviews and transcripts of talks by Diana Wynne Jones, largely focused on the process of writing, either her own or other writers'. I have had my (hardback) copy since shortly after publication; it's been living in the pile beside my bed and I'd dipped in and read some of the pieces, but hadn't sat down and read the whole book from cover to cover until last week.
I think, in fact, that I had read almost all of the pieces before, although it's a little hard to tell as their origin as standalone essays and talks means that, collected together, there is a lot of repetition of the same anecdotes from Jones's life, and also of some of the comments about how she came to write particular books. That minor cavil aside, though, I very much enjoyed this; Jones is just as entertaining and insightful talking about writing as she is in her novels, and I'm sorry I never got to hear her speak. (I was supposed to, once, at an event for children from the local area who had produced pieces of English coursework that were considered good enough to put together in a book and their parents, but unfortunately she was ill and another children's writer, who I'd never heard of, took her place.) Although I found her exposition of the narrative structure of The Lord of the Rings fascinating, and loved the pieces where she discusses the ossification of the genre conventions of fantasy with reference to The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, my favourites were the ones where she talks about her own writing process and her views on children's books; she is wonderfully dismissive of the "issue" books which were so prevalent in the 60s, 70s and 80s, and I found myself nodding in delighted recognition when she talked about her belief that children would learn far more about how to deal with their problems by learning how to exercise imagination in solving fantasy problems and building up a mental map of right and wrong than by reading things that simply mirror their own situations. (As an unhappy, bullied child I don't think I ever found a book that really mirrored my own situation, and I was sure that vague similarities weren't enough for me to trust them as a blueprint for How To Live, but I learnt a great deal which has actually turned out to be incredibly applicable to life, and in particular the bits of it that involve interacting with other people, from the fantasy books I read, not least Jones's.) One thing I hadn't read before was the interview at the end of the book, which ties together several of the themes of the essays and adds a little more background information. I was less convinced about the inclusion of pieces from two of Jones's sons, in particular the transcript of a rather negative Radio 3 talk by her son Colin, in which he cast doubts on her version of her childhood and sounded still rather put out, more than twenty years on, to have been the model for Sebastian Leroy in Fire and Hemlock; it seemed like a rather negative way to end a book which otherwise felt like a celebration of Jones's craft, humour and intelligence.
I think, in fact, that I had read almost all of the pieces before, although it's a little hard to tell as their origin as standalone essays and talks means that, collected together, there is a lot of repetition of the same anecdotes from Jones's life, and also of some of the comments about how she came to write particular books. That minor cavil aside, though, I very much enjoyed this; Jones is just as entertaining and insightful talking about writing as she is in her novels, and I'm sorry I never got to hear her speak. (I was supposed to, once, at an event for children from the local area who had produced pieces of English coursework that were considered good enough to put together in a book and their parents, but unfortunately she was ill and another children's writer, who I'd never heard of, took her place.) Although I found her exposition of the narrative structure of The Lord of the Rings fascinating, and loved the pieces where she discusses the ossification of the genre conventions of fantasy with reference to The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, my favourites were the ones where she talks about her own writing process and her views on children's books; she is wonderfully dismissive of the "issue" books which were so prevalent in the 60s, 70s and 80s, and I found myself nodding in delighted recognition when she talked about her belief that children would learn far more about how to deal with their problems by learning how to exercise imagination in solving fantasy problems and building up a mental map of right and wrong than by reading things that simply mirror their own situations. (As an unhappy, bullied child I don't think I ever found a book that really mirrored my own situation, and I was sure that vague similarities weren't enough for me to trust them as a blueprint for How To Live, but I learnt a great deal which has actually turned out to be incredibly applicable to life, and in particular the bits of it that involve interacting with other people, from the fantasy books I read, not least Jones's.) One thing I hadn't read before was the interview at the end of the book, which ties together several of the themes of the essays and adds a little more background information. I was less convinced about the inclusion of pieces from two of Jones's sons, in particular the transcript of a rather negative Radio 3 talk by her son Colin, in which he cast doubts on her version of her childhood and sounded still rather put out, more than twenty years on, to have been the model for Sebastian Leroy in Fire and Hemlock; it seemed like a rather negative way to end a book which otherwise felt like a celebration of Jones's craft, humour and intelligence.
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Date: 2019-09-22 01:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-09-22 05:51 pm (UTC)