Prague Castle is considered the largest castle in the world, or to be more precise, it is listed in the Guinness book of records as the largest ancient castle in the world. It is also the place that the crown of St Wenceslaus is kept, and the legend says that Good King Wenceslaus (from the Christmas song) has a sleeping army in the mountain of Blanik and his own statue sitting upon a horse that will both awaken should they be needed to defend Prague from danger. With this fantastical mythology behind the city it seems appropriate that Australian author Isobelle Carmody well known for her fantasy writing should be a resident of this magical city.
Isobelle was in Tasmania earlier this year for a school visit and to launch her new book, primarily for adults, ‘Metro Winds’. This collection of short stories is certain to garner Isobelle a new group of adult fans. The stories contained are ones of fantasy, twilight zone-sque stories and original twists and turns on familiar fairy tales. Isobelle has written many fantasy novels for young adults and has even had a dramatisation of one of her short stories ‘Phoenix’ produced and performed at Yale University.
I had the pleasure and honour of spending a morning (and having a hot chocolate) with this amazing lady as she took in a book talk at my old school, St Marys College (SMC) in Hobart, where Isobelle was welcomed like a rock star. I think Isobelle was definitely impressed by the girl’s genuine enthusiasm and the fact that the school has the only creative writing course in Australia for students at HSC level. Listeners were amused and delighted by Isobelle’s exceptional story telling skills as she related how she came to be a writer. The young Isobelle was put in charge of a large band of (seven) younger siblings when her mum worked at nights. Isobelle ever the creative young lady decided games were the thing to entertain the unruly brood and so it was that Isobelle played a monster hide and seek game with them.
Isobelle would get the children to hide and then come after them in the guise of a monster. To give her game added intensity she would turn out the lights and have the children scurrying every which way to escape her growl. Isobelle ponders the fear factor in young children that sees them plead with their parents before they turn off the lights, to check the wardrobe in case there is a monster lurking there and also under the bed (for parents who have been insensitive enough to buy a bed with a space underneath!). Isobelle also ponders what it is in children’s logic that make them think moving from their bed without touching the floor will prevent them from being grabbed by the monster under the bed and how turning on the lights can protect them and in her slightly wicked sense of humour suggests wouldn’t turning on the lights make you more visible and therefore easier to catch by the monster?
Perhaps the point of children’s logic is that in it everything has a place. A monster under the bed stays under the bed and if the lights are on would not venture out. In a children’s world people and monsters play by rules and if they don’t it can be quite disconcerting. Perhaps its a bit like that for adults too and if something does go awry it is threatening to us hence the shock factor in scary tales and fairy tales where things do not always play by the rules.
But back to Isobelle and what she was getting at in her horror stories talk. Horror stories have always been a great tool for reflecting on real life. Everyone has an experience of fear and author’s like Isobelle address that fear. Isobelle began writing at 14 which corresponded to the loss of her father in an accident. It was time when she felt bothered by things going on in the world such as the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Stories can help us work through things when things happen that aren’t logical. Isaoelle believes writing is a cathartic experience and helps us try to find answers to the ills of human kind.
Isobelle went on her journey to find answers and now 30 books later she still adores one of her original heroines because she is deep and still interesting and, just as a long term friend never gets boring, neither do her characters that have continued to evolve with her in the special friendship between author and character.
Isobelle is asked how does she write her evil characters being that they are such a far cry from her own personality. Isobelle explains she bases it on something from her own life such as a lie she told and then stretches it and magnifies it many times more or she imagines a person who mistreats animals and what their motive could possible be but acknowledges it is difficult to put oneself into that kind of mindset.
Isobelle stresses to the students that you can’t deliberately set out to write for someone else, writing is an interior experience and so an author must write about what they feel comfortable with and the most important thing is your own relationship with writing. The outside world of writing includes editors, publishers and critics, people that must be adhered to when you are a writer but first you must write for yourself.
When Isobelle was growing up she didn’t realise authors could be living people and that like the lucky girls of SMC you could actually meet an author! I asked Isobelle what she thinks if students attempt to interpret her books in a different way than she intended. Isobelle says she does not correct them believing the author and reader’s relationship is an alchemy from which magic can arise even if it was not the originally intended magic.
Isobelle credits her journalistic training in helping her become a good writer, and not just for the discipline and accuracy it installed in her, but for the opportunity it gave her one night when she was manning the machines which printed out the incoming news and being somewhat bored with lack of activity she decided to do some writing of her own. She found herself in the editors room typing on the archaic typewriter, a story which she happened to leave there overnight the next morning she fronted up to work thinking she would get into trouble but instead her editor encouraged her to publish the piece. When Isobelle did decide to publish she wrote to the publishers of all the books she herself had enjoyed. and Isobelle didn’t have to worry about a rejection slip as Penguin accepted her straight away.
Writing to Isobelle is something that will strike the chord of memory in the reader and it is about communication, a communication that must be enhanced by language because the body language we use in normal communication is not available to us in the solitary pursuit of writing. Writing whether it be fantasy or realism is there to tell a story and connect with the reader.
Even though her chosen genre is fantasy Isobelle wants to dispel the myth that fantasy is all about characters attired in capes with swords and slaying dragons. She is also keen to stress that characters must be taken seriously and writing for children, her daughter is a wonderful help in devising stories with her mum.
Isobelle relates the following story to the students.
Prague has had some thousand year floods which means every thousand years a flood will demolish a level of the city and you can literally watch boats floating by and the usual cobbled street can resemble a huge malformation or the earth cracks allowing a view to the multitude of levels below. It was on one such occasion that Isobelle encountered one of these scenerios when she was sightseeing with her daughter and a co-written story was born.
Looking down one of the chasms at water Isobelle’s daughter asked her who lived there and of course Isobelle could not pass up the opportunity to create a story so she told her it was trolls and with some of that remaining scare factor from the days babysitting her brothers and sisters she decided to take it one step further and say the trolls ate cats, her daughters favourite animals.
Her daughter asked Isobelle if there were any good trolls and of course Isobelle who is always trying to address the balance of good and evil, said yes there was one a good troll called Little Fur troll, of course the little girl said she wanted to see this troll so Isobelle had to think quickly and explain why her daughter couldn’t see the troll. The explanation was that the troll could not be seen because she lived in a forest that had been cruelly destroyed by humans and the elf folk did not allow contact with humans because of this.
But Isobelle’s daughter, ever the diplomat, said maybe they could write a letter explaining the situation and the fact that they did not have any part in the forest destruction.
What transpired was a correspondence written on leaves and left in the nooks and crannies of trees over Prague from Isobelle’s daughter to Little Fur ,who was half elf and half troll. Isobelle liked some of these letters so much she framed them but began to worry as her daughter grew older she would lose interest in the plight of Little Fur so she decided to write the stories down and illustrate them herself because if she let others to it it would be their vision not hers. This series, the story of Little Fur became a collaboration between she and her daughter.
Isobelle has also been noted as a telepath to some degree, as once she was a speaker at a boys school of about 900 boys and picked one face in the crowd saying ‘if this boy was Michael’ …. which he was!
We may all dream of having wings to fly but Isobelle’s fiction gives us that opportunity to visit worlds where that is possible, where logic doesn’t necessarily work and problems are worked through in a different set of circumstances than here and now,and for Isobelle, well she is still dressed and ready to go to Narnia! in he meantime she will continue to explore those new worlds seeking answers on the problems of humankind so we can live in peace with each other.
Isobelle’s book ‘Metro Winds’ is out now.
Paula Xiberras
