Paula Xibberas
Wheeling along his travel suitcase, warmly attired for the coldish Tassie day and equally warm in personality, I am greeted by the wonderful Mr Morris Gleitzman as he arrives at a Hobart café for our chat.
It’s been two years since Morris Gleitzman has been in Tassie and I am lucky enough to meet with him on a fleeting book promo visit where he took in some press and a chat at a Hobart school. Morris hopes to visit Tassie again in September but this time he says as a ‘civilian’ and hopes to explore Tassie’s great new attraction MONA among other pursuits.
MONA with its ability to confront, proves a perfect segue and connection to Morris new novel ‘After’, the next instalment in the series of stories about young Felix and his growing up with a world at war.
Morris says even young people need to be confronted sometimes, just as Felix is in this novel.
What Felix is confronted with, some would argue no young boy should have to deal with. Even though Felix lives in far from perfect times and very uncertain times Morris believes that although there is not physical security there is emotional security from good friends. This is indestructible and cannot be taken away from them. The novel explores the strength of friendship in an unfriendly time and just as the characters in this novel never forget their great loves Morris believes true friends and true love go on forever.
Even with its theme the novels are aimed at readers eight years and up and Morris says often a reader that first connects with the novel at that age will revisit it as they mature into young people of Felix’s age and will find much more in the novel than the first time around.
I ask Morris how he and other writers that focus on writing for children or young adults are able to appeal so well to that age group and he explains that there is a part of him that is not wholly grown up and has ‘refused to put away childish things’ and so is able to still observe things from the perspective of childlike innocence.
I also ask Morris how he feels about readers interpreting his novels such as I do when I mention the character Gabriek and that name indicates to me that this character has angelic or protective qualities. Morris is agreeable and says that the name does lend itself to my interpretation and that was his ‘intention’, in fact Morris loves to have the readers input, to have a collaboration with the reader, and it’s from that connection that ’emotion and power’ come. He calls them the’ magic spaces’ where these connections are made.
The symbol of the compass is used in the novel and indeed the novel is a metaphorical examination of Felix finding his own bearings in as Morris says a time of transition.
One of the quirky things about the set out of this novel and indeed the series is that the first word of every chapter begins with the title of the novel, so in this novel each new chapter starts with ‘after’. Once’ came first, and was named in homage to the well-known opening of fairy tales, next came ‘Then’ and ‘Now’ which takes Felix’s story up to the present and into his old age and just to confuse us ‘After’ is the book that fills in time between ‘Then’ and ‘Now’.
Morris’s next book will be about the soccer football industries nursery teams and Morris hopes to do some research in his former home and the home of football, or at least the soccer kind, in England when he visits in October.
Morris Gleitzman latest book ‘After’ is available now.
