The Call

I insisted on reading the Narnia books to my kids before letting them watch the movies, and I've been doling out the movies for Very Special Occasions, which means they only just saw Prince Caspian for the first time during the week after Christmas. (Of course, Mommy saw Prince Caspian a lot sooner, because she's selfish that way.)

The song playing as the Pevensie children leave Narnia, and the movie comes to an end is The Call, by Regina Spektor, and it grabbed my attention. I was still reading Juliet Marillier's Daughter of the Forest and it struck me as yet another song that worked well as a theme for Sorcha.

If you haven't read my previous post, Daughter of the Forest is a (sort of) retelling of The Six Swans. I say "sort of" because I think Marillier does an excellent job of rethinking the story. While I enjoy fairy tale retellings, a lot of them never go beyond the original story, but Daughter of the Forest does an excellent job of making the story Marillier's own, not just a retelling.

The Call is maybe not an obvious fit for this book. (It would definitely be a more obvious choice to use it as a song for something talking about, say, King Arthur's return!) It's the way it starts, though - the description of the slow growth from feeling to battle cry - that makes me think of how Sorcha's determination to save her brothers never falters, no matter how difficult her situation, how that determination even grows stronger as the horrors she goes through pile up around her.

From early on in her task:

"They were dark times, and in the depths of them I would hear an inner voice that said, this task is impossible. Why not give up now? Look, your hands are swollen and ruined, you weep day in and day out, and what have you to show for it? A little spool of ill-spun thread, lumpy and fragile, scarce enough to hem a jacket for a butterfly, let alone a shirt for a man. Surely this task cannot be completed. Besides, how can you be sure the Lady of the Forest did not lie to you? Perhaps this is all some cruel trick, and your labors are for nothing."

- to the end, when she faces death rather than break her silence

"One night, I thought, my heart pounding. Only one night, and then my fate would be decided. I had to be strong, I must keep my mind away from fire, and from death. ... I did not sleep at all that night. There must be time to finish. There had to be. Did the Fair Folk set a task, and then make its completion impossible? I could not believe that it would be taken from me, so close to the end. I must finish. I would finish."

Sorcha never gives up, clinging to the shirts she has made even as she is tied to the bonfire, searching the skies for her brothers so that she can save them before her work burns with her.

Pick a star on the dark horizon
And follow the light
You'll come back when it's over
No need to say goodbye

You'll come back
When they call you
No need to say goodbye



Books: Daughter of the Forest, Juliet Marillier
            The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis
Music: The Call, Regina Spektor

Friday Wish-List

I know, from sad experience, that not every book I try to get my kids to read is going to be a hit with them. In fact, they are even going to go so far as to enjoy books that I hate. Can you imagine?! My daughter had the nerve to come home from school two weeks in a row with Judy Blume books - Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and Double Fudge. (Judy Blume was one of the writers that teachers kept trying to get me to read when I was a teenager. "She understands your age group!" they'd cry, trying to shove Blubber or Deenie into my hand. I spent my time working my way through the Oz books and re-reading Lord of the Rings, instead.)

I'm striking back though! They can hand her Judy Blume at the school library, but I've been quietly indoctrinating her into Narnia here at home, reading a chapter each night for the kids' bedtime story. We're three books in so far, and are taking a break with a copy of The Littles that I picked up at a yard sale before going on to Prince Caspian.

Once we're through with Narnia I'm planning to introduce them to Lucy M. Boston's Green Knowe books. I've been desperately wanting my own copies, and this is the perfect excuse to get the complete set. My junior high school library had them all (Mrs. Braithwaite, are you out there? Thank you, thank you, a million times thank you!) and I couldn't read them fast enough.

And then, when the girls are a little older, we'll start on Patricia Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles. Oh yes. Disney princesses have ruled long enough in this house. It's time for a palace revolution! *rubs hands together* *evil chuckle*

"[The dragon] has not enchanted me, and I do not want to be rescued by anybody," Cimorene said, alarmed by the knight's sudden enthusiasm. "This place suits me very well. I like polishing swords and cooking cherries jubilee and reading Latin scrolls. If you don't believe me, ask anyone in Linderwall. They've been complaining about my un-princesslike behavior for years."

"I did hear something about fencing lessons," the knight said doubtfully, "but knights aren't supposed to pay attention to that kind of thing. We're supposed to be above rumors and gossip."

"The fencing lessons were just the beginning," Cimorene assured him."

That's my kind of princess.

Books: Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, Judy Blume
            Double Fudge, Judy Blume
            Blubber, Judy Blume
            Deenie, Judy Blume
            Oz series, L. Frank Baum
            The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien  
            Chronicles of Narnia, C. S. Lewis
            The Littles, John Peterson
            Green Knowe, Lucy M. Boston
            Enchanted Forest Chronicles, Patricia Wrede

Author Interview: Jeanne DuPrau

When Ms. DuPrau agreed to do my little interview I was very excited. What an opportunity!

I told Jennifer, my husband, my daughter who's read 'The City of Ember.' Everyone I could think of that would... you know... act excited for me. Then I sat down and tried to come up with questions to ask her. That's where it got tough. Jeanne has done a lot of online interviews and has been asked a lot of the same types of questions: 

What books do you like? Which character are you most like? What are you working on now?

I didn't want to do that to her... or to you, the blog reader.

I wanted something really good. So I slept on it and mulled it over for a while before I came up with, what I considered to be adequate questions.

The funny thing is that in trying to find the perfect questions I asked her next to nothing about her books.

::head-desk::

Luckily I had added a 'safety' question at the end... which you'll see here in a minute.

So, without further ado, here is some of the interview with Jeanne DuPrau. Author of the 'Ember Series,' the first of which, The City of Ember, has been made into a major motion picture (why do they call it major do you think?).

Also, remember to read the full interview over at our interviews page.

Jeanne:

Q. What is the earliest novel you remember falling in love with?

It's hard to choose just one. I loved The Moffats, by Eleanor Estes; I loved The Four-Story Mistake, by Elizabeth Enright; I loved The Secret Garden, and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and Tom Sawyer, and so many more... I can't put one above the rest.

Q. I noticed in some other interviews you've done that you have been reading and writing since your earliest years. So have I, but for me it was always a way of escaping the stress at home... this grew into a massive love for the capacity of 26 little letters and as an adult I find that I am drawn (in an almost sacred manner) to the artistic aspects of writing.

So what is it about the written word that draws you?

I love being taken into other worlds, even when my own is perfectly satisfactory (and also of course when it's not). That's certainly what drew me to reading in the first place. As for writing--I did it for fun from an early age. I wrote stories, plays, newspaper articles, character sketches, poems, all kinds of things. I just wanted to put words together. In junior high, I had a teacher who taught me grammar (including diagramming sentences). I loved it. My mother scrutinized everything I wrote for clarity, spelling, punctuation, and proper organization. It was annoying at the time, but extremely helpful. I learned to put my writing skills together with my thoughts, my imagination, and my feelings and come up with an effective and sometimes even a powerful piece of writing. That was a wonderful thing. Still is.

Q. What types of music do you prefer?

Classical music--all eras except the discordantly modern; lots in the vast archives of folk, rock, and (to a lesser degree) pop; opera (but only the gorgeous arias, not so much the parts in between). I'm learning to like some kinds of jazz.

Q. Do you listen to music as you write?

Almost never. It's too distracting--I can't hear the rhythm of my own words if I'm listening to music. Very occasionally, I'll put music on when I actually don't want to pay attention to what I'm writing, when I want to just spill out words and make it impossible for my inner editor to do its job. 

Q. How do you think music affects your style?

I don't know that it does. My style tends toward the spare and direct rather than the lush and complex, and my taste in music is sort of like that, too. I like solo piano and chamber music, for instance, better than symphonies.

Q.The flip-side of that question is, do you find that listening to music can create characters in your mind? Or has created characters?

Yes, but not while I'm writing. Once I saw a very striking dance performed by two people on a blue-lit stage, and it stirred up a feeling in me that turned into a story. But I haven't had this experience very often.

Q. The classic question everyone seems to ask you about your books is who are you more like Lina or Doon. You've said you're like both of them, but what I'm curious about is whether there has ever been a time when you were annoyed with either of them? Do you ever get to the point when writing a scene when you just want to tell the character to shut-up!? 

This hasn't happened to me. The opposite is more likely to happen--that my characters aren't doing enough, they're sitting around and thinking and worrying too much. I want to tell them to DO something!

Q. What's on your reading wish list?

I want to read Ian McEwan's new book, Solar; also Margaret Atwood's The Year of the Flood, and Jane Smiley's Private Life; and I'm always looking for really good books about dogs.

And the big thing I forgot to ask and she caught!?

Music is important in The City of Ember. There's a night when the people of Ember all come together and sing the three songs that celebrate their city. For one of those songs, I had a particular tune in mind, a dark and gorgeous hymn called "Once to Every Man and Nation." When the movie of the book was made, I told the movie makers about that hymn, but they made up a completely different (and to my mind, completely inappropriate) song. So disappointing! It could have been a powerful scene.

Wow, I can't believe I missed that one... after all it's like the whole reason we have this blog. Gah!

Here are some YouTube's of "Once to Every Man and Nation"



(No political agenda in this one... it's just the best one I found)



Books: Ember Series by Jeanne DuPrau
            The Moffats by Eleanor Estes
            The Four-Story Mistake by Elizabeth Enright
            The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett
            The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
            Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
            Solar by Ian McEwan
            The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood
            Private Life by Jane Smiley
Music: Once to Every Man and Nation by James R. Lowell