1 00:00:00,580 --> 00:00:05,590 Hello, my name is Gabriel Schenk, and this is a short introductory lecture to the fantasy 2 00:00:05,590 --> 00:00:10,880 writer, Diana Wynne Jones. Diana 3 00:00:10,880 --> 00:00:16,070 Wynne Jones was born in 1934 and she died in 2000 and 11. 4 00:00:16,070 --> 00:00:21,590 She was a prolific writer of more than 40 fantasy novels, translated into over 20 5 00:00:21,590 --> 00:00:27,020 languages and primarily wrote for children and young adults. 6 00:00:27,020 --> 00:00:32,990 If I were forced to summarise Jones's work in just three words, I would say magical, 7 00:00:32,990 --> 00:00:38,240 inventive and joyful. And the of the focus of this 8 00:00:38,240 --> 00:00:43,400 mini lecture is Jones's ability to combine different types 9 00:00:43,400 --> 00:00:49,130 of story and different stories sources in order to create an inventive, 10 00:00:49,130 --> 00:00:54,170 magical and joyful mixture of all of these and and in 11 00:00:54,170 --> 00:00:59,240 order to create something new as well. So let's begin with a brief 12 00:00:59,240 --> 00:01:04,250 look at Jones's early life. She was born in London, but was 13 00:01:04,250 --> 00:01:09,530 of Welsh heritage. And in an autobiographical essay published 14 00:01:09,530 --> 00:01:14,660 in 1993. Jones wrote, I think I write the kinds of books I do because the world 15 00:01:14,660 --> 00:01:19,670 suddenly went mad when I was five years old. And she is referring to the outbreak 16 00:01:19,670 --> 00:01:24,690 of the Second World War, which meant that she had to be evacuated from London and live 17 00:01:24,690 --> 00:01:31,490 in the countryside, which she moved to in 1939. 18 00:01:31,490 --> 00:01:37,130 She moved around a lot in this period and in the summer of 1940, 19 00:01:37,130 --> 00:01:42,500 she ended up at Lakehead in Cumbria, and this is in the north of England. 20 00:01:42,500 --> 00:01:47,690 It's a very beautiful area, as you can see in that photograph, just how stunning it is. It looks 21 00:01:47,690 --> 00:01:52,820 like a kind of fantasy world itself. And this is kind of what what Diana and Jones 22 00:01:52,820 --> 00:01:58,250 meant when she said, this is why I write the kinds of books I do, is because 23 00:01:58,250 --> 00:02:03,320 she was moving around so much in this area. And fantasy was starting to merge 24 00:02:03,320 --> 00:02:08,510 with reality. She writes, Here were real mountains, lakes, brooks 25 00:02:08,510 --> 00:02:13,550 racing through indescribable greenness. I was amazed, intoxicated with the beauty of 26 00:02:13,550 --> 00:02:18,560 it. And if you look in that photograph, you can see a lake in the 27 00:02:18,560 --> 00:02:23,660 background. And Dangerman Jones sailed on this lake as a child in a boat that 28 00:02:23,660 --> 00:02:28,730 was part of the inspiration for Arthur Ransome's children's story. Swallows and 29 00:02:28,730 --> 00:02:33,890 Amazons and the previous occupants of the house that Diana winchman stayed 30 00:02:33,890 --> 00:02:39,080 in were the inspiration for the children in that story. And then later 31 00:02:39,080 --> 00:02:44,090 she studied at Oxford University, where she was taught by Jay are 32 00:02:44,090 --> 00:02:49,250 Talking and C.S. Lewis fantasy writers themselves. And she 33 00:02:49,250 --> 00:02:54,380 later reflected, looking back, I see both of them had enormous influence 34 00:02:54,380 --> 00:02:59,600 on me. So we get the sense of fantasy and reality merging 35 00:02:59,600 --> 00:03:05,360 together, different sources, different influences. And this is, I think, why 36 00:03:05,360 --> 00:03:10,460 she she ended up writing these these incredible fantasy works that combine 37 00:03:10,460 --> 00:03:15,470 different ideas and cross boundaries. So to 38 00:03:15,470 --> 00:03:20,660 talk more about that and the idea of crossing genres, let's look at this quotation from 39 00:03:20,660 --> 00:03:25,730 Diana. When Jones and her essay Writing for Children, she says, It doesn't 40 00:03:25,730 --> 00:03:30,890 seem to me that genres are, per say, necessary. There's no reason why you shouldn't 41 00:03:30,890 --> 00:03:37,220 mix them up a bit and change them around and make something new. This is what I like to do 42 00:03:37,220 --> 00:03:42,350 and this is what she does in her series. The Cresta Munsie books is 43 00:03:42,350 --> 00:03:47,600 a seven books, and they're all about magic. And you might be thinking, oh, this sounds like 44 00:03:47,600 --> 00:03:52,760 Harry Potter, but it actually isn't anything like Harry Potter because the Harry Potter 45 00:03:52,760 --> 00:03:58,070 series is set in the same place and has the same characters and moves through 46 00:03:58,070 --> 00:04:03,220 year on year. The crest amongst these series is a bit more like C.S. Lewis 47 00:04:03,220 --> 00:04:08,310 as The Chronicles of Narnia in which every book is different. And although some characters cross 48 00:04:08,310 --> 00:04:13,640 over, most of the books are have their own sets of characters. And the early recurring 49 00:04:13,640 --> 00:04:18,800 character is the figure of Aslan. Chris Months is a bit 50 00:04:18,800 --> 00:04:23,870 like that in that the figure of Cresta Munsie is in each 51 00:04:23,870 --> 00:04:28,880 book. But Cresta Munsie isn't just one person. Cresta Mansi actually refers 52 00:04:28,880 --> 00:04:34,880 to a job title. Someone in the government in a parallel world 53 00:04:34,880 --> 00:04:40,070 where magic exists. And Chris Muncie's job is to supervise magic 54 00:04:40,070 --> 00:04:45,110 in that world as well as in other worlds like our own, such as our 55 00:04:45,110 --> 00:04:50,240 own is our own is one example and 56 00:04:50,240 --> 00:04:55,250 a location that is vested in this series and make sure that 57 00:04:55,250 --> 00:05:00,380 magic is under control and the places where it should be and isn't leaking out into other worlds where it shouldn't 58 00:05:00,380 --> 00:05:05,570 exist. The focus of 59 00:05:05,570 --> 00:05:10,840 these books changes quite a lot. So are in the first book published in. 1977 60 00:05:10,840 --> 00:05:16,690 Charmed Life. You see Cresta Mansi as an adult. 61 00:05:16,690 --> 00:05:22,050 He is Christopher Chant and the young boy Eric 62 00:05:22,050 --> 00:05:27,370 Cat Chant sort of sees him as a as a bit of a villain to begin with. And then 63 00:05:27,370 --> 00:05:32,710 as the book progresses, we we get a different perspective on that character 64 00:05:32,710 --> 00:05:38,770 in the book, The Lives of Christopher Chance. We see that character as a young boy himself, 65 00:05:38,770 --> 00:05:43,840 and he's interacting with the. At the time, the current post 66 00:05:43,840 --> 00:05:49,450 holder of the crest dormancy position, who is another character entirely. 67 00:05:49,450 --> 00:05:54,700 So both these books are very much focussed on the crest of Mansi, 68 00:05:54,700 --> 00:06:00,280 but different people occupy that position. 69 00:06:00,280 --> 00:06:05,350 There are other books, such as The Magicians of Proner, which is a sort of 70 00:06:05,350 --> 00:06:10,450 almost a retelling of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. It's about these feuding families 71 00:06:10,450 --> 00:06:16,390 or her novel, which week, which is set in a world where magic has been banned. 72 00:06:16,390 --> 00:06:21,490 And in a boarding school where some of the students are developing 73 00:06:21,490 --> 00:06:26,800 magical abilities to have to hide them. These two novels, Cresta 74 00:06:26,800 --> 00:06:32,270 Mansi, comes in at the end as a secondary character in order to tidy things up. 75 00:06:32,270 --> 00:06:37,600 So, you know, sometimes Cresta Munsie is the focus, sometimes his side 76 00:06:37,600 --> 00:06:42,880 character. Sometimes one person is in the role of Cresta man seen. Sometimes another person 77 00:06:42,880 --> 00:06:47,890 is in the role of Crest Mansi. So you can see what Jones was saying when she said, 78 00:06:47,890 --> 00:06:52,960 you know, we don't need fixed genres. We can just mix stuff up, we 79 00:06:52,960 --> 00:06:58,060 can be inventive, we can be we can have fun with us. And this is what she 80 00:06:58,060 --> 00:07:03,340 does in all her books. So if you think about her novel, Fire and Hemlock, 81 00:07:03,340 --> 00:07:08,500 she's drawing on Scottish folk tales, but she's sort of doing 82 00:07:08,500 --> 00:07:13,840 different things with them, new things with them, creating something new. In eight days of Luke, she's 83 00:07:13,840 --> 00:07:18,880 drawing on Norse mythology in Hex Wood. She's drawing on the legends 84 00:07:18,880 --> 00:07:25,390 of King Arthur. And in Castle, in the air, she's drawing on the Arabian Nights. 85 00:07:25,390 --> 00:07:30,550 But even in these stories, she's not just using all stories 86 00:07:30,550 --> 00:07:35,740 in a new way, she's also combining other stories together. So Castle in the Air 87 00:07:35,740 --> 00:07:41,020 has elements of Grimm's fairy tale, the 12 dancing princesses, 88 00:07:41,020 --> 00:07:46,030 as well as the wonderful Wizard of Oz. The fantasy scholar Farrah 89 00:07:46,030 --> 00:07:51,340 Mendelsohn describes this as a kind of remixing that 90 00:07:51,340 --> 00:07:56,410 Jones does doesn't just repeats other elements of stories, but she 91 00:07:56,410 --> 00:08:01,750 kind of brings them together. She she changes that elements of it to create something new. And 92 00:08:01,750 --> 00:08:06,890 the scholar Susan Ang talks about how Jones 93 00:08:06,890 --> 00:08:12,250 reenergizes old tropes from mythology to renew them 94 00:08:12,250 --> 00:08:18,160 and give them new energy. So I'm going to give an example of this 95 00:08:18,160 --> 00:08:23,320 as as my kind of ending point of this little introduction. And this 96 00:08:23,320 --> 00:08:29,650 is a quotation from her novel, Howl's Moving Castle, one of my favourite books. 97 00:08:29,650 --> 00:08:34,660 And this book contains the idea of a seven 98 00:08:34,660 --> 00:08:39,790 league boots and a seven lead boot is something that's featured in European mythology 99 00:08:39,790 --> 00:08:44,830 and folklore. And usually you put on two boots and every stride you 100 00:08:44,830 --> 00:08:50,110 take, you go forward seven leagues, which is quite a far distance in Jones's 101 00:08:50,110 --> 00:08:55,240 version. They only have one boots and they have two characters. So they both have to share the boots. They both 102 00:08:55,240 --> 00:09:02,080 put their feet in one of the boots and they take a step forward. And this is what happens. 103 00:09:02,080 --> 00:09:07,090 Point yourself towards upper folding before you boot. Put the boot down. Michael warned her 104 00:09:07,090 --> 00:09:12,190 not tread Zipp. The landscape instantly rushed past them so fast 105 00:09:12,190 --> 00:09:17,380 it was only a blur. A grey green blur for the land in a blue grey blur. The sky, 106 00:09:17,380 --> 00:09:22,570 the wind of that going tore at Sophie's hair dragged every wrinkle in her face backward until she thought 107 00:09:22,570 --> 00:09:28,060 she would arrive with half a face behind each air. The rushing stopped as suddenly 108 00:09:28,060 --> 00:09:33,070 as it had begun. Everything was calm and sunny. They were knee deep 109 00:09:33,070 --> 00:09:38,920 in buttercups in the middle of upper folding village. Common cow nearby stared at them. 110 00:09:38,920 --> 00:09:44,110 Beyond it, thatched cottages drowned under trees. Unfortunately, 111 00:09:44,110 --> 00:09:49,780 the bucket late boot was so heavy that Sophie staggered as she landed. 112 00:09:49,780 --> 00:09:54,940 Don't put that foot down, Michael yelled to lakes. There was another zipping blow and more rushing 113 00:09:54,940 --> 00:09:59,950 wind when it stopped. Sophie found herself down the folding valley almost into marsh folding. 114 00:09:59,950 --> 00:10:05,470 Oh, drat! She said, and hopped carefully around on her shoe and tried again. 115 00:10:05,470 --> 00:10:10,540 Zip blur. And she was back on up a folding green again, staggering forward under the weight 116 00:10:10,540 --> 00:10:15,580 of the boot. She had a glimpse of Michael diving to catch a zip blur. 117 00:10:15,580 --> 00:10:20,830 Oh, bother. Well, Sophie. So 118 00:10:20,830 --> 00:10:26,140 that's an example of her of Jones taking an element from folklore. Doing something 119 00:10:26,140 --> 00:10:32,200 new with it. Doing something inventive. Something joy for. And most of all. Something magical. 120 00:10:32,200 --> 00:10:38,010 So I hope I've inspired you to read to Diana Wynne Jones. If you haven't done so already. 121 00:10:38,010 --> 00:10:42,218 And thank you very much for listening.