
I'll be honest, many years later, I'm still the same as that nine year old. Though, maybe minus the sword. I don't think I could get away with that. But that's what my fantasy novels are for. And that's why Robin McKinley is still my all-time favourite author. That's also why I was a little intimidated in asking her if she'd do this interview. Me? Talk to Robin McKinley? Crazy talk! But I'm glad I did, because she graciously agreed to speak with me about her new novel, Pegasus, and her previous works.
SBR: Thank you very much for talking with us at Speculative Book Review. For me, it is an honour to be able to speak with an author who was an integral part of my childhood. So again, thank you very much.Robin McKinley: I had my first grandmother write me recently saying that she’d read me as a child and was looking forward to reading her new granddaughter Beauty in a few years. I find it hard to believe that I’ve got this old. (I’m 57 as I write this. And Beauty came out when I was 25.) I asked my husband, Peter Dickinson (who is even older than I am), if he ever finds it astonishing that he’s got so old. 'No,' he said. 'It seems to me a rather inevitable process.' Sane, rational man, my husband. There’s a lot I like about getting old—especially having somehow been awarded a life as a professional author, with a husband who gets this, perhaps because he’s one too—but the way the years of your memory irresistibly mount up is disconcerting. As is grandmothers writing to tell you they read your books when they were children.

RM: I’m afraid most of my answers are going to be some variation on a theme of ‘I haven’t the slightest idea’. I don’t know why fairy tales call me so strongly, I only know that they do. It seems to me that a good fairy tale goes clearly and directly to the heart of what it means to be human without wasting time over frivolous bugbears like reality. Beauty and the Beast is about recognising the truth, whatever hairy skin it may be wrapped up in. It’s also about taking responsibility for your own actions, which was a revelation to me as a child in the 50s, when girls stayed at home and did the vacuuming, and the fairy-tale anthologies most readily available featured princesses who wept and wrung their hands and waited to be rescued by princes. Beauty and the Beast rescued me.
Spindle’s End is a bit different. Sleeping Beauty has been a pet peeve all my life—as wet, useless princesses go, they don’t come much wetter or more useless than Briar Rose. My agent one day said to me, you hate it so much, you should rewrite it. Story-triggers come in a variety of sharp, burning sensations. In this case I blinked a few times, rubbed the sore place, and said, you’re right. I should.

Dragonhaven is a little different. I knew the story was out there, and I also knew it was about a teenage boy. I was worried about telling an entire novel from the point of view of a teenage boy. As soon as Jake showed up in first person I relaxed and knew I was going to be able to do it after all. Somehow being inside his skin like that made it possible—you’d think it would be the opposite, wouldn’t you? But first person was critical. That, and that he’s a worry freak. We bonded over worry freakery.
SBR: While The Blue Sword (1982) was slightly rooted in our world, you never used modern day until Sunshine (2003) and then again in Dragonhaven (2007). Chalice (2008) brought you back into more of a fantasy setting. What are the differences in writing a novel set in an alternate modern day and writing a story in a mythical landscape?
SBR: The anthology Imaginary Lands (1986) had you wearing both the writer and editor hats. What is that kind of experience like?
RM: I loved it. I’d actually love to do it again, except for one or two little points. Like that I am in the top ten of Most Disorganised Intelligent Life Forms in the Universe. What if I edited an anthology that actually made money? I’d have to do the maths and send everyone royalties. Eeep. Second, to my total horror, I found myself turning down a story by one of my favourite writers, Diana Wynne Jones, because it seemed to me not to adhere to the anthology’s rationale (a fantasy story with a strong sense of location). It’s okay, you don’t have to hate me, she published it elsewhere later. But I do not want to have to turn down stories from writers I admire ever again. I suppose I could do a Haphazard Anthology, about anything anyone felt like writing a story about, and which comprehensive haphazardness would include that if it made money it might take a while for anyone to see their royalties.
SBR: Your protagonists are generally female. In fact, Dragonhaven (2007) and the Outlaws of Sherwood (1988) are the only novels where you follow a male around, and there's almost a twenty year gap between them. What made you decide to revisit the male psyche? How does writing from the male perspective differ from writing in the female?
RM: Dragonhaven is really the only novel. Outlaws has two very important women who tell some of the story at different stages. But don’t forget Twelve Dancing Princesses in The Door in the Hedge, which is a novella, and Door was only my second published book—or Buttercups in A Knot in the Grain, and First Flight in Fire Elementals, which is another novella. It’s true that my writing is overwhelmingly from the female perspective—and first and foremost that is because those are the stories that come. And I have a female perspective, which means when I’m writing from a female character’s angle I probably spend less time either second-guessing myself or wondering if I should be second-guessing myself. But I think the Story Council does allow some tailoring for the preoccupations of the individual author to whom they send the stories, and I am preoccupied with seeing more stories about women who get out there and do stuff. Thirty years ago I thought my generation of writers (women and men) would correct the imbalance between the wussy girls and the active boys, but that’s not what’s happened. There are a lot more stories now with not merely active but competent heroines than there were then but to my eye still not enough. Therefore I’d just as rather the Story Council kept sending me stories with a chiefly female perspective.
SBR: Deerskin (1993), based on the fairy tale Donkeyskin, was your first adult novel. I remember reading it when it was released. I was eleven, and had read everything you had published up until that point. I remember being surprised at the change, but delighted as well. It was the first adult novel I ever read. Lissar’s experiences, while at times horrible, had a very dream-like quality to them, but they also felt very real. Deerskin is a very emotional story. What made you tackle that tale? What made you want to depart from YA, or was it even a conscious decision?
RM: As above, I’m afraid: it’s the story that came. The only specific thing I can tell you is that I have always disliked Perrault’s Donkeyskin as emotionally dishonest; it’s not surprising that that dislike took root and bloomed, but I didn’t plan it that way. And I don’t write for YA; never have—no, not even Beauty. I write the stories that come, and teenagers read me, but so do grown ups. The rest is marketing, and I think all my books now come out in at least two editions, YA and adult. Some come out in three—children’s, YA and adult. I did want Deerskin published as adult, because of the harrowingness of the story, but teenagers still read it, and that’s fine—although I would rather keep it away from the preteens, however precocious their reading skills. There are ways to tell harrowing stories to younger readers, but I don’t think Deerskin does that.
SBR: I hear there is another reissue of Sunshine, this time specifically for young adult readers, coming out this month. Is it the same book? Why now?
RM: Yes, it’s the same book. Most of my backlist has been slowly done over into double or triple editions, as I said, but Sunshine, which was originally also published as adult, was deemed to be a special case because of all the older teens who have started voraciously reading vampire fiction in the years since Sunshine was first published—post Twilight, in other words. It made sense to let these people know there is another book they might like. But the business of bookselling being what it is, stores tend to group these books in places where teens can find lots of them together and that meant they needed a new edition for this purpose. I’m very pleased to say it has its own look however – for one thing, it’s a lovely gold colour. We’re hoping lots of people who don’t read high fantasy and have never heard of me, but liked Twilight, will pick it up and give it a try.
SBR: What's it like collaborating with your husband, Peter Dickinson, in your Tales of Elemental Spirits (2009) anthologies? How did those come about?
RM: Well, they’re not precisely collaborations since we write our stories individually—but that’s how two wildly dissimilar writers go about collaborating without ruining their marriage! Poor Peter has written all but one of his stories for all four volumes of Elementals—and wrote them years ago. The rest has been waiting for me—and waiting, and waiting, and waiting and waiting. It’s not like I haven’t tried—since Water came out, Sunshine, Dragonhaven and Chalice all started as Fire stories. (Very slightly in my defense Peter’s novel Tears of the Salamander also started life as a Fire story.) And I still almost lost my grip on First Flight . . .
SBR: Out of sheer selfish interest, will we ever see a retelling of Rapunzel from you?
RM: To a certain extent, you already have: Touk’s House, originally Faery!, and reprinted in Knot in the Grain. In the second place, on the understanding that the princess will cut off her own hair and climb down it to freedom, yes, very likely.
SBR: What can we expect from your new novel, Pegasus, which is to be released in November of this year?

SBR: If given the opportunity to say anything you wished about Pegasus, what would you say?
RM: Please buy multiple copies!
____________________________________________________
Interested in learning more about Robin McKinley? Visit her blog.
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar