"You know, I grew up in Wales, and when I became a writer and could choose to live wherever I wanted, I ended up going back… to Wales. I think we spend a lot of our adult lives trying to go back to where we were happiest as children."

Of all the insightful, delightful, and refreshingly honest things Jasper Fforde said this evening, in a quiet, little intimate talk hosted by the Lewis Carroll Society, this was probably the one thing above all that hit home for me. For obvious reasons, I guess.

I said when I blogged about Terry Pratchett that he was like an uncle (an old one), and Neil was like a rockstar, as he has so often been called. Jasper Fforde? Is very… dadlike. I don’t have any uncles like Terry (and I certainly don’t know any rockstars personally so can’t compare to Neil), but Jasper Fforde was so uncannily like my dad, in his offbeat sense of humour and devoted geekery towards a subject. If you’d replaced the games with books, the stacks of Magic: The Gathering cards and multi-sided dice collection with the huge plywood painting of the Cheshire Cat that hangs, grinning, over Jasper Fforde’s desk at home as he writes (he painted it himself, he told us with a gleeful childlike glint in his eyes), the likeness would have been even more remarkable.

And what an absolute treat and privilege it is to listen to one of your favourite living authors talk about one of your favourite dead authors – and talk about his work with an assurance that showed he knew his stuff while at the same time always staying accessible. I didn’t agree with every single thing he said about Alice (e.g. he thinks Alice is bland and almost a secondary character, while I think Alice is the most important character because she represents the reader wading through Wonderland), but much of what he said had me, and many others, nodding fervently: the wondrous meta-naming White Knight scene in Through the Looking Glass, how brilliant it is that the illustrations of Alice going through and coming out of the glass are on the same pageleaf, how important absurdity and nonsense is not only to comedy writing but to the whole of English culture, how, when he came to the books at five, re-read them at 13, and re-read them again at 31, they were completely different experiences, how he had hoped to layer and texture his own books so that his readers could re-read them and pick out different things each time – and much much more than I can write about.

"I was in Oxford filming Quills and decided to make a pilgrimage to the museum there to see the dodo that Tenniel and Carroll would have looked at themselves, as the models for Tenniel’s illustration. So I stood there, in front of the dodo, standing by the case and looking at it like you do on a pilgrimage – you know, you think to yourself ah, they would have stood here, and you (shifts position) kind of stand there yourself… anyway, so I wondered, what if you had a Dodo Home Cloning Kit? And I walked over to the shop, and asked if they sold Dodo Home Cloning Kits. And because this was Oxford, and the lady there probably had 18 PhDs or DPhils or whatever they call them, she calmly said to me: ‘Come back in 20 years.’"

And voila, the dodos in the Nextian world were born.

Interesting info from other questions that were asked:

• Melanie Bradshaw wasn’t inspired by anything in particular, he just liked the idea of an inter-species love story
• His favourite Nextian invention is the translating carbon paper (he also likes the rice and lentils Entroposcope)
• It was deliberate that the libraries in Shades of Grey are all empty, as a counterpoint to the Bookworld Library which has every book in the world, he thought it fitting that his new series had libraries with no books at all
• In the original drafts Acheron Hades’ hideout was in a high-tech zeppelin floating in the middle of nowhere; his (also Welsh) wife complained that this was too sci-fi and geeky, and Fforde’s response was something along the lines of "oh, all right, let’s make his hideout in some remote cottage in Wales then, you… you… Welsh socialist!" – which is, apparently, the true story of why Wales is a Socialist Republic in the books
• The reason Jane Eyre was picked for the first novel was because, starting out, and wanting to be very accessible, it was the only novel he could think of that he was sure everyone would know something about, even if this knowledge was limited to "it’s a musty old Victorian book"

And finally – an unexpected bonus!

Jasper signed my book, and threw in a couple of extras as well :)

Only 2000 of them postcards in the world! Though, I must say, I wish I had got the Spoon Ishihara one.

Host: It is my great pleasure to introduce Terry Pratchett, who, in case you didn’t know, is the unbelievably best-selling author of the Discworld series –
Terry (in exaggerated, loud whisper): I think they know that.

Terry Pratchett is awesome.

In point form, because I’m all fluey and keep making typoes and can’t make coherent paragraphs:

• I think the only other author I’ve met before is Neil Gaiman. Terry had a very different sort of feeling from Neil – while Neil is like a rockstar, Terry’s like your uncle. He was very warm and fuzzy. Interestingly, I think this also sums up the difference between their writing.
• When asked about the translation of Nation from novel to play, his pithy answer was that it was of course incomparable because "a playwright has a whole orchestra of people and things to play with – including an actual orchestra (gestures vaguely to orchestral pit) – and all I have is one lousy alphabet!"
• It was heartwarmingly evident how much he loves Nation. He speaks about it with a great deal of affection. And during the Q&A, when people kept asking Discworld questions, he said at one point that it would be nice to have a Nation one (only for the very next question to begin "In the Discworld books…")
• My absolute favourite part was when someone asked him why he chose to set Nation in a parallel universe instead of our world, and his first response was exactly what had popped into my fledgling-writer mind immediately: "Because it’s a get-out-of-jail-free card!" (elaboration: "If I had set it in our world, someone somewhere would have triangulated the location of the cannibal island and it would have been inconvenient if it had turned out to be, oh, New Zealand or something")
• He did go on to give a much more detailed and thought-provoking answer about how parallel worlds, more so than purely made-up worlds, have the power to invoke elements of our own while allowing you to change things enough to turn it upside down – which is what G. K. Chesterton defined fantasy as: looking at our world in a different way. It reminded me of my dissertation work on fantasy and made me a bit wistful for academia…
• His favourite Discworld character is Tiffany Aching (which elicited some cheers from a Tiffany Aching contingent in the circle), because he is writing her right now, and, says Terry, he tends to get under the skin of whoever he’s writing right now – but second after Tiffany is, of course, Vimes (which elicited significant cheers from all over the theatre).
• Response to "which Discworld character is most like you in personality?": "Oh, god, my wife is in the audience, I can’t answer that. Ermmmm. Commander Vimes on a good day."

There’s something to be said for sitting in a theatre with one of your favourite authors and a horde of his fans :) the book geek in me is thoroughly happyfied. And just this afternoon I found out by email that I’d managed to score a ticket for a Jasper Fforde talk hosted by the Lewis Carroll Society, about Carroll’s influence on his work! Could that combination possibly get any more jaw-droppingly amazing? No, I thought not.

Ah I missed a week… in my defense, this post has been sitting in my drafts, 3/4 completed, for over a week! Horrors. I have been working on it for four days, believe it or not. And it is a good long one too, containing more information about my book-reading habits than you could possibly ever want to know.

I also wanted to write about the surreality that was the tube strike, but that is a post for another day.

There was this awesome 15-book meme making the rounds on Facebook, and after reading a number of my friends’ responses I feel like I have a lot more to ponder on the topic of books that have been important to me in my life, so rather than edit my note (who would read it?) or write a new one (too annoying) I thought I would make a gloriously long post of booknerdery. And long here really means… long. Like, close on 3,000 words. I am putting most of it under the jump for my poor index page but if you are reading this in Google Reader or somesuch, be warned. I still haven’t figured out how to snip posts in RSS feeds. Anyone? Any idea?

The Original 15

Name 15 (or so) books that have been important to you in your life. Don’t take too long to think about it.

It may be remarked in passing that success is an ugly thing. Men are deceived by its false resemblances to merit. To the crowd, success wears almost the features of true mastery [...] Prosperity presupposes ability. Win a lottery-prize and you are a clever man. Winners are adulated. To be born with a caul is everything; luck is what matters. Be fortunate and you will be thought great. With a handful of tremendous exceptions which constitute the glory of a century, the popular esteem is singularly short-sighted. Gilt is as good as gold. No harm in being a chance arrival provided you arrive. The populace is an aged Narcissus which worships itself and applauds the commonplace.

- Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

Sixty-four pages into Les Misérables, which I really ought to have read ages ago and which is probably going to be my major read of the year (as I have grown impossibly lazy in my choice of literature), I came across this gem of a passage and knew I was going to like the novel. 440 pages later, nearly halfway through, I love it and don’t want it to end. I think the wonderful thing about classics – especially Victorian ones, though I freely admit to a bias – is that regardless of how archaic the setting is, how obtuse the language gets, how many longwinded descriptions of villages and stately mansions they contain, there is always some splendid illuminating truth to be found within. To be reminded unexpectedly of the great gulf between success and merit, at a time when I often find myself at a low ebb of self-esteem due to a singular lack of conventional success after months of trying, was like a bolt to the heart. I felt shaken, heartened, chastised, encouraged all at once.

I guess at the end of the day my greatest regret will be if I give up. Even if things don’t go according to plan, I still have precious time to spend here, and the worst thing of all will be if I waste it all in bitter frustration over not getting what I want. I’m still fumbling in the dark sometimes… but there’s no losing, as long as I keep trying.

Anyways, the past week in a nutshell has been a much-needed break from internet overuse, kicking the job application engine into gear again, reading Les Misérables, practising Japanese. I think I am, at heart, still rather a loner; much as I can’t live without friends and family I can’t live without these periods of shutting out everything either. Getting myself back up to properly recharged over this weekend, and heading out to face the world again next week. Game face on!

The days vary a lot, now. Sometimes I feel I’m fighting a steep, steep uphill battle on all fronts; I have to remind myself every second not to lose heart, that it’s not personal, that there are many reasons why, that all I can do is keep plugging on. I don’t really want to carry doom and gloom around constantly though, so I’m glad that there are those other times when I am grateful for what I have (like, I don’t know, leave to remain? terribly important that) and for the support and encouragement that I have got.

I’ve been catching up with old correspondence – where “catching up” means “making a tiny, tiny dent in a massive backlog” – sending out whatever job applications I can, making plans to meet people, prepping for my blogathon, doing loads, or what feels like loads, of housework… it’s amazing how quickly chores build up, especially when you live alone and there isn’t a handy housemate (or two, or many) to help clean stuff. I’ve also been attempting to wrangle a new microwave out of my landlord for a few weeks now, watching copious amounts of GTO (anime and live-action) and rediscovering the joy of being able to take time in cooking now that I haven’t got to rush to work. I do still have a bit of a lingering “I’m an office drone” mindset sometimes, except my office is home and my work is, well, finding work.

With my strange, newfound freedom I also found time to finally plow through a few of my library books (which have been renewed 4 times and still aren’t finished) as well as read Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book, which recently won the Newbery :) what can I say about it that hasn’t already been said? It’s Neil Gaiman, and it’s one of his best. I have to admit that much as I enjoy Neil’s work, it can be a little hit and miss sometimes. Not everything sticks with me and makes me feel like I’ve just experienced something special – Sandman did, Neverwhere did, Anansi Boys and Stardust were good fun but not quite so impactful. The Graveyard Book, however, is that rare thing which is enjoyable, thought-provoking, AND feel-good without being cheesy in the least, the last factor being increasingly rare these days when it comes in combination with the first two. I loved it to bits, so go read it if you haven’t!