Microsoft Word final-current Developments at the Intersection of British Children-online-version doc
Download 1.22 Mb. Pdf ko'rish
|
FINAL Current Developments at the Intersection of British Children ONLINE VERSION
- Bu sahifa navigatsiya:
- Philippa Pearce’s
Mary Norton’s
(1903-1992) contribution to the modern classics of children’s fantasy is her series about The Borrowers. With her novels about tiny people living secretly alongside humans, Norton alludes to the fairy tale tradition of the undetected presence of house elves in human dwellings. The size of the minuscule Borrowers reminds us vaguely of Swift’s Lilliputians, allowing them to live behind grandfather clocks or under floorboards. Their euphemistic 56 name derives from their one-sided “symbiosis” with people. Daily needs are satisfied by taking lost or discarded things from humans. Taking it very seriously that their existence remains a secret to the unsuspecting hosts, the Borrowers craftily secure their supplies: Things of manageable size, which have a nasty habit of disappearing. Pins, buttons or pens for example 57 are easily misplaced and lost for good. Norton playfully suggests an explanation for this daily “magic”: The Borrowers are behind it all. Years later, Rowling picks up on this suggestion in her Harry Potter series, but substitutes the little people by magic. The appeal and popularity of The Borrowers (1952) was Norton’s incentive to elaborate her idea in further volumes: The Borrowers Afield (1955), The Borrowers Afloat (1959), The Borrowers Aloft (1961) and Poor Stainless: A New Story about the Borrowers (1971). Together with Lewis’s and Norton’s works Philippa Pearce’s (*1920) time fantasy Tom’s Midnight Garden (1958) had formative influence on the development of British children’s fantasy in the 1950s. Carpenter characterises Pearce’s mature work as “one of the few post-1945 books that can measure up to the best Victorian and Edwardian writing in its 55 Lewis’ following statement is highly topical even today: “I am almost inclined to set it up as a canon that a children’s story which is enjoyed only by children is a bad children’s story.” C.S. Lewis. “Three Ways On Writing For Children”. In: Egoff; Stubbs; Ashley (Eds.) Only Connect, p. 210. 56 Compare Kümmerling-Meibauer, Klassiker der Kinder- und Jugendliteratur, p. 792. 57 Ibd., p. 793. 60 emotive power and the strength of its images.” 58 Pearce created a fantastic, moving story with the help of simple ingredients. An old, unreliable grandfather clock opens a connection between present and past events, the house and the garden and the children Tom and Hatty. Just as the thirteenth hour stands outside time itself, Tom’s presence in the garden is not subject to time as we know it. Cleverly, Pearce never states clearly whether Tom dreams his nightly escapades or whether the garden really appears during the magic hour. Time, space and the children’s magical friendship resemble a dewdrop, always in the unsteady balance between existence and vaporisation. As Tom can only access the garden when Hatty needs him or dreams of him, 59 there are gaps in time. Whilst Hatty grows up, the boy remains unchanged. Over time, Tom’s appearance becomes fainter to Hatty, until he completely fades away from her life and cannot re-enter the garden any more. Pearce surprises the reader with a very unusual ending. We learn that Hatty is the younger version of old Mrs. Bartholomew, the owner of the house. The author leaves us with the mystery of how Tom could possibly have been part of Hatty’s youth so many years ago. Not many other novels can claim to touch their readers so deeply and to stimulate their imagination in such a way. According to Carpenter and Prichard, Alan Garner (*1934) is “the most widely discussed British children’s writer of the 1960s and the 1970s”. 60 In the 1960s, when Garner started writing and publishing fantasy novels for children, siblings as protagonists were the literary fashion of the genre. 61 Consequently, his first two novels, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen (1960) and its sequel, The Moon of Gomrath (1963), feature brother and sister as “heroes”: The characters are flat and cliché-laden, without any personality. Set in rural Cheshire, the fast-paced works are partially based on Celtic mythology and folklore. Both evolve around a quest, during which magic intrudes upon the lives of children. Strongly alluding to Merlin, Garner introduces the wizard Cadellin, the children’s guide during their struggle against evil. The children are no more than bit players in a power-struggle between good and evil beyond their control or influence. In their walk-on parts, the siblings are only steered through the novel because – as protagonists – they must win. 58 Carpenter, Secret Gardens, p. 218. 59 Kümmerling-Meibauer, Klassiker der Kinder- und Jugendliteratur, p. 836. 60 Carpenter; Prichard, The Oxford Companion, p. 198. 61 Ibd., p. 199. 61 Whereas in Garner’s “apprentice works” 62 The Weirdstone of Brisingamen and The Moon of Gomrath other-world magic breaks into reality, the children never actually leave the real world. Garner’s third novel Elidor (1965) works on the same principle of intrusion of myth and magic into reality. Here, Garner shows himself far more concerned with the realistic rendering of characters and a challenging magic quest. The four siblings become guardians of magic treasures from the wasteland realm of Elidor, which they hide from the enemies in their own world. In Garner’s third novel, the domestic life at Manchester is thrown off balance when the other side tries to retrieve the treasures, causing mayhem in the procedure. Garner clearly matures over time from his debut work to The Owl Service (1967), an elaborate fantasy based on the Welsh Mabinogion. With The Owl Service, the author produced a demanding novel. The complexity of the work makes it a challenge for readers of all ages. Garner focuses on adolescence, a difficult phase of transition between childhood and adulthood. 63 The three teenage protagonists of The Owl Service are in the middle of this critical period of time. It reveals itself to be an explosive cocktail of youthful uncertainty, emotional instability, waking sexuality and raging hormones, resulting in irregular, unpredictable violent eruptions. Caught up in a conflict-laden constellation of a love-triangle, fate and mythology the three protagonists struggle to find their own way. Several factors work towards the complexity of Garner’s novel. Intentional gaps in the narration, a distant narrator and various unassigned dialogues complicate the understanding of an intricate plot of three interwoven levels: Firstly a mythical story from the Welsh Abinogion, secondly the same constellation a generation earlier, and thirdly the present-day conflict. The interconnection of all three levels evokes the impression of a literary puzzle. 64 Over time, from The Weirdstone of Brisingamen to Red Shift (1973), Garner detaches the narrator more and more from the story, giving less and less clues and guidance. An overall, deliberate indeterminateness climaxes in ambiguous and controversial endings. 65 With his mature works, Garner thus introduces structures and techniques otherwise reserved to adult literature into children’s fantasy. Garner’s approach of writing about a certain geographic area, its historical and mythical heritage combined with the influence of magic 62 Ibd. 63 Compare Kümmerling-Meibauer, Klassiker der Kinder- und Jugendliteratur, p. 378. 64 Ibd. 65 Compare Watson, The Cambridge Guide, p. 537. 62 affecting a group of children or teenagers, favourably siblings, has for example inspired Susan Cooper’s successful The Dark is Rising sequence. Download 1.22 Mb. Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
Ma'lumotlar bazasi mualliflik huquqi bilan himoyalangan ©fayllar.org 2024
ma'muriyatiga murojaat qiling
ma'muriyatiga murojaat qiling