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Notes
Reflecting on Reflections
1. Virginia Woolf, A Writer’s Diary (The Hogarth Press, 1953), p. 65.
The Shape of the Narrative in The Lord of the Rings
1. In 1925 Tolkien took up the Rawlinson and Bosworth Professorship of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford University, but in 1945 he became the Merton Professor of English Language and Literature at the same university. He retained this position until his retirement in 1959.
2. The page references are to the second edition in three volumes (The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King) (Allen & Unwin, 1966).
3. D. S. Brewer, “The Lord of the Rings as Romance,” in J. R. R. Tolkien, Scholar and Storyteller: Essays in Memoriam, edited by Mary Salu and Robert T. Farrell (Cornell University Press, 1979), pp. 249–64.
Two Kinds of Writing?
1. Diana’s first published novel, Changeover, was for adults but was not fantasy. Here she is referring to her first adult fantasy/science fiction novel, A Sudden Wild Magic, which was published in 1992.
Reading C.S. Lewis’s Narnia
1. Prince Caspian, published in 1951, was the second Narnia novel to be published.
2. Diana’s son Michael points out that he actually preferred Prince Caspian and The Silver Chair.
Creating the Experience
1. When Johnny discovers how to use his magical chemistry set to become invisible, but as a side effect becomes a “sort of angry ghost.”
2. In the 1988 US edition of Eight Days of Luke, published by Greenwillow, Diana provided an afterword explaining the Norse legends and gods she drew upon for the story. The god Loki, one of the major figures of Norse mythology, was associated with fire as well as with tricks and mischief.
3. This character is based on Tew (also Tiu or Tyr), the Norse god of strife and war. He gave his name to Tuesday.
Fantasy Books for Children
1. Diana’s afterword explains that Brunhilde (also Brunhilda or Brynhild) was one of the warrior women, the Valkyrie, and a daughter of Woden or Odin, the chief of the gods. When she disobeyed Woden, he sentenced her to sleep inside a ring of flames. The hero Siegfried (Sigurd) rescued her by braving the fire and waking her with a kiss, but when he betrayed her by marrying Gudrun (whose mother put him under a spell to forget Brunhilde), Brunhilde returned to her circle of fire. According to some legends, she killed Siegfried first, but in other stories she wreaked her revenge on him in a way that will eventually bring about Ragnarok, or the final battle of the gods.
Writing for Children: A Matter of Responsibility
1. In ancient British mythology the gods and heroes owned thirteen Treasures varying from an invisibility cloak to a chariot that magically transported its passengers anywhere they wished to go. The Treasures included a forerunner of a thermos flask in the shape of a horn that provided any drink that was desired. According to the legend, the magician Merlin took the Treasures with him into seclusion in a cave until such time as they are needed again.
2. After 2005, the Whitbread Book Awards were renamed the Costa Book Awards when Costa Coffee took over sponsorship.
The Heroic Ideal: A Personal Odyssey
1. In Greek legend, the priestess Hero lived in a tower on the one side of the strait of Dardanelles (formerly called the Hellespont) in what is now Turkey. Every night she would light a lamp in her tower room to guide her love, Leander, as he swam across from the other side of the strait. This worked well in the summer, but in a winter storm Hero’s lamp blew out and Leander was blown off course. Leander drowned, and Hero threw herself from the tower to her death.
2. Originating in the Scottish Borders, the ballad of “Tam Lin” tells of the maiden Janet, who rescues her lover, Tam Lin, from the fairies by holding fast on to him although the fairies transform him into several dangerous animals.
3. The Goon is as big and dangerous as a gorilla, and he is also supposedly a debt collector sent by the mysterious Archer, who “farms” or controls part of the town.
4. T. S. Eliot, “Burnt Norton,” Four Quartets (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1936), 13.
5. T. S. Eliot, “The Dry Salvages,” Four Quartets (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1936), 35, 37, 38.
6. T. S. Eliot, “Burnt Norton,” Four Quartets (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1936), 14.
7. T. S. Eliot, “East Coker,” Four Quartets (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1936), 29.
8. T. S. Eliot, “Little Gidding,” Four Quartets (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1936), 58.
A Talk About Rules
1. Chris Bell was a close friend of Diana’s who lived near Diana in Bristol. She is involved in British science fiction fandom.
2. John Clute and John Grant, The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (Orbit Books/St. Martin’s Press, 1997). This award-winning book was compiled by several contributors, including Diana Wynne Jones and her friend Chris Bell.
3. In Eight Days of Luke, David can summon his friend Luke, who is really the Norse fire god Loki, by striking a match.
4. In Charles Dickens’s Hard Times, Thomas Gradgrind is the founder of a practical, utilitarian educational system.
Answers to Some Questions
1. Twyford is a longstanding British manufacturer of bathroom equipment.
2. As her father was dying, a group of drunken male students besieged Diana and her sisters in the house by beating on the front door and roaring for women.
3. A common element in European folktales, seven-league boots transport the wearer seven leagues (twenty-one miles or nearly thirty-five kilometers) with each step. In Howl’s Moving Castle, Sophie attempts to use one boot and ends up “zipping” all over the countryside when she keeps accidentally putting her foot down.
A Whirlwind Tour of Australia
1. The words “agony” and “action” are believed to have a common Proto-Indo-European linguistic root ag, meaning “to drive, draw out, draw forth, move.” Agony developed from Greek, through agein, “to lead,” through agon, “contest” to agonia, “a struggle for victory.” Action developed from Latin, from agree, “to do” through actionem, “a putting in motion, a doing.”
2. Fanny Cradock was a British restaurant critic, author of best-selling cookbooks, and a celebrity cook who presented a long-running television show from the mid-1950s through to the mid-1970s.
3. This book is unpublished.
Some Truths About Writing
1. The British newspaper the Guardian, founded in 1821 as the Manchester Guardian, is famous for its misprints. Because of this, it is often called the Grauniad.
2. See “The Heroic Ideal.”
3. Libby was Elizabeth Shub, an editor at Greenwillow Books.
4. The “hero” of Fire and Hemlock is called Thomas Lynn, while one of the names of the villains is Leroy—“king.”
5. See “Answers to Some Questions.”
Freedom to Write
1. Spindle’s End.
2. This is the sixth book in Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth series (New York: Tor Books, 2000).
3. By James Barclay.
4. Diana’s fantasy/science fiction books for adults are A Sudden Wild Magic (1992) and Deep Secret (1997). The Dark Lord of Derkholm (1998) and Year of the Griffin (2000) were published as adult novels in the UK and young adult novels in the US. The cluster around the turn of the millennium implies that this is the period she is referring to.
Our Hidden Gifts
1. Diana gave out the certificates first but was very nervous and forgot to shake the pupils’ hands!
Something About the Author
1. Its real name is Peel Island.
2. Since this article appeared, Diana has published other adult novels.
The Origins of Changeover
1. In the “Something About the Author” autobiographical article, Diana says it was in 1966.
2.
UDI, or Unilateral Declaration of Independence, was the proclamation made in 1965 by the white government of the British colony of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) that the country was cutting its links with the United Kingdom. The central issue was the refusal by the Rhodesian government, led by Ian Smith, to acknowledge the political rights of the African majority population of the country.
A Conversation with Diana Wynne Jones
1. St. Frideswide is the patron saint of Oxford. The priory she is thought to have founded in the late seventh or early eighth century was on the site of Christ Church, and the anniversary of her death is still commemorated every year on October 19.
2. See endnote 2 in “The Origins of Changeover” chapter.
3. The 2004 animated film directed by Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli, Tokyo, Japan. The Japanese title is Hauru no Ugoku Shiro, and it was nominated for an Oscar in the best animated feature film category in 2006.
4. Garth Nix, Introduction to “The Hill,” in Across the Wall (HarperCollins, 2007), p. 167.
Two Family Views of Diana and Her Work
1. See Neil Gaiman’s blog: http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2011/03/being-alive.html
Credits
Cover design by Sylvie Le Floc’h
Copyright
Reflections was first published by David Fickling Books (UK) and edited by Charlie Butler.
Several titles mentioned in this collection were published under alternate titles in the US: Black Maria was published as Aunt Maria and Wilkins’ Tooth was published as Witch’s Business. In addition, Dark Lord of Derkholm and its sequel The Year of the Griffin were published in the UK as adult titles but in the US were young adult books.
Reflections: On the Magic of Writing. Text copyright © 2012 by The Estate of Diana Wynne Jones.
Foreword copyright © 2012 by Neil Gaiman. Introduction copyright © 2012 by Charles Butler.
Excerpts from “Burnt Norton” “East Coker” “The Dry Salvages” and “Little Gidding” from FOUR QUARTETS by T. S. Eliot. Copyright 1936 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company; Copyright © renewed 1964 by T. S. Eliot. Copyright 1940, 1941, 1942 by T. S. Eliot; Copyright © renewed 1968, 1969, 1970 by Esme Valerie Eliot. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Reprinted in e-book format by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd. All rights reserved.
“Something About the Author” © 1988 by Gale. Reproduced by permission of Gale.
“The Origins of Changeover” copyright © 2004 by Diana Wynne Jones. Reproduced courtesy of Moondust Books.
“Fantasy Books for Children” reproduced of The Good Book Guide. “Answers to Some Questions” reproduced courtesy of Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction. “Review of Boy in Darkness” reproduced courtesy of Books for Keeps.
Photographs reproduced with kind permission from the Estate of Diana Wynne Jones.
First published in 2012 by David Fickling Books, a division of Random House Children’s Books, a Random house Group Company. First published in 2012 in the United States by Greenwillow Books. The right of Diana Wynne Jones to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Jones, Diana Wynne, author. Reflections : on the magic of writing / by Diana Wynne Jones. pages cm
Summary: “This collection of more than twenty-five critical essays, speeches, and biographical pieces written and/or chosen by Diana Wynne Jones will be required reading for the author’s many fans and for students and teachers of the genre. Reflections includes insightful literary criticism alongside autobiographical anecdotes about reading tours (including an account of the author’s famous travel jinx), revelations about the origins of the author’s books, and thoughts in general about the life of an author and the value of writing. The longest autobiographical piece, “Something About the Author,” details Diana’s extraordinary childhood and is illustrated with family photographs. Reflections is essential reading for anyone interested in Diana Wynne Jones’s work, fantasy, or creative writing. With a foreword by Neil Gaiman, introduction and interview by Charlie Butler, bibliography, and index.” “Various threads run through this collection, but by far the strongest is that of the need for fantasy in all its many facets and its value for children and adults alike. It is my hope that some of these items will be of use to people.”—Diana Wynne Jones. “Her writings assembled in one place tell us how she thought about literature and the reasons for literature, about the place of children’s fiction in the world, about the circumstances that shaped her and her own understanding and vision of who she was and what she did. It is ferociously intelligent, astonishingly readable, and as with so much that Diana Wynne Jones did, she makes each thing she writes, each explanation for why the world is as it is, look so easy.”—Neil Gaiman”—Provided by publisher. Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-06-221989-3 (hardback) 1. Jones, Diana Wynne—Authorship. 2. Children’s stories—Authorship. 3. Fantasy fiction—Authorship. I. Title. PR6060.O497Z46 2012 823’.914—dc23 [B] 2012018080
EPub Edition © AUGUST 2012 ISBN: 9780062219909
12 13 14 15 16 CG/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FIRST EDITION
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Diana Wynne Jones, Reflections: On the Magic of Writing
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