DWJ Conference - Saturday
I know it's well over a week since the conference, but I seem to have been busy(and not just with TW) so it's taken me a while to write up the main day of the conference.
With a little perspective now, and a bit more time, I can write about the intellectual content and not just the fun - which it was..
Details and Literary Musings below the cut.>
One flat pillow wasn’t enough, so I woke with neck discomfort, but early enough to make it to breakfast. Enough food to sink a battleship there, but the coffee was a bit institutional - fortunately, mainlining orange juice seems to work almost as well.
There were two rooms active with simultaneous papers - excellent to have so many, but really tough to make the choices. Some of the titles of papers I missed were tremendously intriguing - “Mum’s a silly fusspot: the queering of the family in Diana Wynne Jones.”, for example. However, choices had to be made and I found the papers I did attend thoroughly interesting and stimulating.
The first three were loosely linked by concepts of power. DWJ’s books are very concerned with use and abuse of power, both magical and mundane. Susan Ang talked about renewal - the destruction and reconstruction of power systems in her books, looking particularly at
Hexwood. Margaret Huber followed this up with a discussion of the separation of power and authority, drawing on her knowledge and experience as an anthropologist - the distinction between religious power and royal authority, for example. This was one of the papers that really brought home the “Britishness” of DWJ’s underlying assumptions - gradualism, renewal of traditional structures, assumption of a constitutional monarchy with “checks and balances” - all of these are in such books as Hexwood, Deep Secret/The Merlin Conspiracy and more. The last of the trio of papers, by Martha Hixon, continued many of the same themes, with some interesting discussion of the short novel
The Game - which, incidentally garnered a surprising amount of attention considering its shortness and relatively recent publication.
This was a three-paper session, the first of which was about an LJ comm, dianawynnejones. This was given by Ying Yi Fong and seems to have been based on her librarianship studies. It was fascinating in that she is clearly a relative newcomer to the world of LJ, and I didn’t even realise she was describing a comm. I’ve been a member of for years until partway through, as she seemed to feel it was a place of considerable discussion, operated by a mod in the role of Chrestomanci. She really doesn’t know just how intense fandom can be! She also appeared to think the comm. was in itself a “fandom”, which was interesting; she also didn’t know of the DWJ Listserv email list, which in my experience is always far busier. She made some interesting points, though her assumption seemed to be that features of this comm. were somehow special to it, instead of being fairly normal - the general self-regulation of fans posting and commenting, for example.
Jameela Lares then talked about the rhetorical concepts of
docere (teach) and
delectare(delight) and the way they have often been seen as opposites in children’s literature (not at all sure I agree there, apart from
Eric, or Little by Little*g*). She brought in the concept of
movere, which is about virtuous action, and linked this to Philip Sidney’s dictum that the justification of poetry (andd thus, by extension, of literature) lies in its power to inspire to virtuous action.
Hexwood, Tale of Time City and
Lives of Christopher Chant. As far as I could see,
movere was presented as showing, not telling with a vengeance. The use of classical rhetoric did rather presuppose a division into three forms and intentions, and I’ve always had a bit of a problem with aspects of classical rhetoric when applied to literature in English since Shakespeare, but she made some interesting points.
Then came one of the highlights for me: a paper by the lovely and brilliant owlfish on “Stew” in history and DWJ, with special reference to the hilarious
Tough Guide to Fantasyland. It was a wide-ranging consideration of the various forms stew has taken in history and literature, thus neatly synthesising a paper from her gourmet expertise as well as her historical knowledge, and arrived at the conclusion that even more ubiquitous than stew is the ultimate fantasy staple, bread. There was some very lively discussion following this paper, and considerable amusement when we went to lunch to find that two of the three options could count as stew and the third, a lasagne, took only a slight stretch of the imagination to count as “layers of stew interleaved with bread”!
I’d somewhat rashly volunteered to moderate a session - almost as if I was a proper academic! In the end we appeared to have three people thinking they were moderating two sessions, but I still ended up doing one after lunch. I'd craftily chosen to go for a two-paper session. In the first Helgard Fischer, a microbiologist, discussed the theory of magic and academic/intellectual orthodoxy - she was particularly interested in
The Year of the Griffin and the presented conflict between magic (as a metaphor for science) as a technique to be learned and as a means of intellectual discovery. Her different perspectives provided much food for thought.
Then my wonderful LJ friend, intertext gave a paper on the power of The Word in magic and in particular in
Howl’s Moving Castle, where words are Sophie’s form of applying magic, even without her knowledge. She used some hard words (“postmodern ontological and metafictional preoccupations”) but made some excellent points about the transformative power of language. Here, as in many of the papers, I found myself wanting to explore more, discuss more. I know I spoke up a lot in post-paper discussions, because I am constitutionally incapable of keeping my big mouth shut!
After coffee was another set of papers linked by a theme, in this case metafiction, which is always interesting, René Fleischbein talked about the books and the use of metafiction in
Fire and Hemlock, something I’ve long been interested in because I always use some of that approach to explore the importance of reading when I “do” the book with a Year 9 class. René (female, despite the missing extra “e”) talked about how Polly creates her own identity, not one limited to roles created by society, but, as a true feminist, she awakens herself through language, creating her own story and shaping her own identity. Much to ponder there. Then two papers on
The Game; in the first Gabriela Steinke talked about the books Hayley reads, and the way in which they are all about forward progression and development. Not a way I’d have thought of linking
Fanny Hill and
The Rainbow before! Then a talk on intertextuality in a different way, but still in
The Game - an intriguing consideration of the use of intertextuality to manipulate the reader’s response, inviting him/her to provide allusions and construct their own book.
Then we had the Guest of Honour. Not, sadly, DWJ herself, as she’s not at all well, but her American publisher, Sharyn November, who knows her well. We were treated to a videotape of Diana, sending her good wishes and reading the opening few pages of her new book, due out next year, and one I am going to have to buy the instant it hits the shelves, I can tell. Sharyn talked about her experiences with Diana and her imprint, Firebird and also showed us the American, revised, edition of the
Tough Guide to Fantasyland, which I think I am going to have to buy - the whole thing is formatted in the style of a standard guide book, like the Rough Guides, with all sorts of icons, maps etc - I know the original edition had some, but this is super-cool and has a “Dark Lord approved” stamp on the front!
Then there were drinks, provided by Harper Collins, and the “banquet”, not really different from the other meals, but a friendly, relaxed occasion. This was a weekend in which people slipped naturally into conversation all the time, in many and varied groups.
After the meal we returned to the lecture room to watch the second half of the 80s TV version of
Archer’s Goon. I actually own that DVD, but it was great fun watching it with a large group of DWJ fans, who all knew the book and laughed at the same bits.
There were more drinks involved later, and more chat, and then back to the flat, where there still wasn’t any internet (we never did get a connection.) And so, to coin a phrase, to bed.
With a little perspective now, and a bit more time, I can write about the intellectual content and not just the fun - which it was..
Details and Literary Musings below the cut.>
One flat pillow wasn’t enough, so I woke with neck discomfort, but early enough to make it to breakfast. Enough food to sink a battleship there, but the coffee was a bit institutional - fortunately, mainlining orange juice seems to work almost as well.
There were two rooms active with simultaneous papers - excellent to have so many, but really tough to make the choices. Some of the titles of papers I missed were tremendously intriguing - “Mum’s a silly fusspot: the queering of the family in Diana Wynne Jones.”, for example. However, choices had to be made and I found the papers I did attend thoroughly interesting and stimulating.
The first three were loosely linked by concepts of power. DWJ’s books are very concerned with use and abuse of power, both magical and mundane. Susan Ang talked about renewal - the destruction and reconstruction of power systems in her books, looking particularly at
Hexwood. Margaret Huber followed this up with a discussion of the separation of power and authority, drawing on her knowledge and experience as an anthropologist - the distinction between religious power and royal authority, for example. This was one of the papers that really brought home the “Britishness” of DWJ’s underlying assumptions - gradualism, renewal of traditional structures, assumption of a constitutional monarchy with “checks and balances” - all of these are in such books as Hexwood, Deep Secret/The Merlin Conspiracy and more. The last of the trio of papers, by Martha Hixon, continued many of the same themes, with some interesting discussion of the short novel
The Game - which, incidentally garnered a surprising amount of attention considering its shortness and relatively recent publication.
This was a three-paper session, the first of which was about an LJ comm, dianawynnejones. This was given by Ying Yi Fong and seems to have been based on her librarianship studies. It was fascinating in that she is clearly a relative newcomer to the world of LJ, and I didn’t even realise she was describing a comm. I’ve been a member of for years until partway through, as she seemed to feel it was a place of considerable discussion, operated by a mod in the role of Chrestomanci. She really doesn’t know just how intense fandom can be! She also appeared to think the comm. was in itself a “fandom”, which was interesting; she also didn’t know of the DWJ Listserv email list, which in my experience is always far busier. She made some interesting points, though her assumption seemed to be that features of this comm. were somehow special to it, instead of being fairly normal - the general self-regulation of fans posting and commenting, for example.
Jameela Lares then talked about the rhetorical concepts of
docere (teach) and
delectare(delight) and the way they have often been seen as opposites in children’s literature (not at all sure I agree there, apart from
Eric, or Little by Little*g*). She brought in the concept of
movere, which is about virtuous action, and linked this to Philip Sidney’s dictum that the justification of poetry (andd thus, by extension, of literature) lies in its power to inspire to virtuous action.
Hexwood, Tale of Time City and
Lives of Christopher Chant. As far as I could see,
movere was presented as showing, not telling with a vengeance. The use of classical rhetoric did rather presuppose a division into three forms and intentions, and I’ve always had a bit of a problem with aspects of classical rhetoric when applied to literature in English since Shakespeare, but she made some interesting points.
Then came one of the highlights for me: a paper by the lovely and brilliant owlfish on “Stew” in history and DWJ, with special reference to the hilarious
Tough Guide to Fantasyland. It was a wide-ranging consideration of the various forms stew has taken in history and literature, thus neatly synthesising a paper from her gourmet expertise as well as her historical knowledge, and arrived at the conclusion that even more ubiquitous than stew is the ultimate fantasy staple, bread. There was some very lively discussion following this paper, and considerable amusement when we went to lunch to find that two of the three options could count as stew and the third, a lasagne, took only a slight stretch of the imagination to count as “layers of stew interleaved with bread”!
I’d somewhat rashly volunteered to moderate a session - almost as if I was a proper academic! In the end we appeared to have three people thinking they were moderating two sessions, but I still ended up doing one after lunch. I'd craftily chosen to go for a two-paper session. In the first Helgard Fischer, a microbiologist, discussed the theory of magic and academic/intellectual orthodoxy - she was particularly interested in
The Year of the Griffin and the presented conflict between magic (as a metaphor for science) as a technique to be learned and as a means of intellectual discovery. Her different perspectives provided much food for thought.
Then my wonderful LJ friend, intertext gave a paper on the power of The Word in magic and in particular in
Howl’s Moving Castle, where words are Sophie’s form of applying magic, even without her knowledge. She used some hard words (“postmodern ontological and metafictional preoccupations”) but made some excellent points about the transformative power of language. Here, as in many of the papers, I found myself wanting to explore more, discuss more. I know I spoke up a lot in post-paper discussions, because I am constitutionally incapable of keeping my big mouth shut!
After coffee was another set of papers linked by a theme, in this case metafiction, which is always interesting, René Fleischbein talked about the books and the use of metafiction in
Fire and Hemlock, something I’ve long been interested in because I always use some of that approach to explore the importance of reading when I “do” the book with a Year 9 class. René (female, despite the missing extra “e”) talked about how Polly creates her own identity, not one limited to roles created by society, but, as a true feminist, she awakens herself through language, creating her own story and shaping her own identity. Much to ponder there. Then two papers on
The Game; in the first Gabriela Steinke talked about the books Hayley reads, and the way in which they are all about forward progression and development. Not a way I’d have thought of linking
Fanny Hill and
The Rainbow before! Then a talk on intertextuality in a different way, but still in
The Game - an intriguing consideration of the use of intertextuality to manipulate the reader’s response, inviting him/her to provide allusions and construct their own book.
Then we had the Guest of Honour. Not, sadly, DWJ herself, as she’s not at all well, but her American publisher, Sharyn November, who knows her well. We were treated to a videotape of Diana, sending her good wishes and reading the opening few pages of her new book, due out next year, and one I am going to have to buy the instant it hits the shelves, I can tell. Sharyn talked about her experiences with Diana and her imprint, Firebird and also showed us the American, revised, edition of the
Tough Guide to Fantasyland, which I think I am going to have to buy - the whole thing is formatted in the style of a standard guide book, like the Rough Guides, with all sorts of icons, maps etc - I know the original edition had some, but this is super-cool and has a “Dark Lord approved” stamp on the front!
Then there were drinks, provided by Harper Collins, and the “banquet”, not really different from the other meals, but a friendly, relaxed occasion. This was a weekend in which people slipped naturally into conversation all the time, in many and varied groups.
After the meal we returned to the lecture room to watch the second half of the 80s TV version of
Archer’s Goon. I actually own that DVD, but it was great fun watching it with a large group of DWJ fans, who all knew the book and laughed at the same bits.
There were more drinks involved later, and more chat, and then back to the flat, where there still wasn’t any internet (we never did get a connection.) And so, to coin a phrase, to bed.