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[CCBC-Net] Welcome Sylvia Engdahl
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From: Sylvia Engdahl <sle>
Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 15:13:53 -0800
Hello, everyone -- I'm here, and I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have.
I will also catch up with responses to several issues that have been raised in previous messages.
Merri Lindgren wrote:
Actually, _Enchantress_ is the only one of my books that I wouldn't change in any way, other than minor wording improvements. One of these, which I felt was a necessary clarification, was made in the new edition. I have been disturbed by a reaction I often heard to the book, which showed that to my surprise, some readers were interpreting it as an allegory about relationships between different cultures of our own species -- which is not valid because we on Earth are all members of the same human race, at the same level of evolution. None of us are more advanced, in an evolutionary sense, than others! Though of course I did mean the story to advocate respect for all cultures, I never meant to imply that we should not give technological aid to undeveloped nations. I therefore modified a few words in the discussion between Elana and her father to make plain that the Service's policy concerns different _species_ with a long evolutionary distance between them. Today's young people believe that the universe contains other civilizations (whether or not this is actually the case) and some, even some adult astronomers, hope that contact with such civilizations would help us solve our problems, or worse, that advanced species would consider us innately inferior--neither of which I think is a constructive attitude. The story is about our potential relationships with extraterrestrials, not with each other.
Not indicating which of the three cultures is Earth is the central feature of the story, the idea I started with. This is why I was so careful not to include detailed physical descriptions of the characters (and why I was unhappy with the art in some of the earlier paperback editions and textbook excerpts that showed the main characters as racially indentical despite the story's statements that they are not).
My intent was to show that all stages of evolution are "natural" ones that all worlds go through, though of course I don't believe the details of extraterrestrial cultures are as much like ours as they are portrayed in the book.
I'd like to comment on another thing Ron said, "... it's the flatness of the background characters that seems old?shioned. It seems somewhat appropriate for the more formal/folktale style of the medieval culture, but ... I kept wondering what the poor young doctor ... with all his feeling was doing stuck in a ship of one-dimensional space-suits." This was another common reaction that surprised me -- many readers didn't recognize that the invaders were deliberately portrayed in a stylized, mythological form for the same reason the fairy-tale characters were! Real interstellar explorers wouldn't be comic-book style spacemen with ray guns any more than real medieval woodcutters went around slaying dragons, but that is how our mythology has envisioned them. Of course it is an "old?shioned" portrayal, in the same sense that fairy tales are old?shioned; it was an intentional stylistic device.
But because the myth was a current one -- even more current 30 years ago than now
-- many readers assumed it was meant to be realism. (For more on this, and on its relation to the portrayal of Elana's culture, see my Phoenix Award acceptance speech at my website. The main change in my perception of the book in the 30 years since its publication has been my growing realization that my portrayal of Federation was also a reflection of contemporary mythology.)
Naturally I am absolutely delighted with the new edition's design and the wonderful art by the Dillons. In addition to being far happier with it personally than with any of the previous editions, I feel it will bring it into the hands of the teenagers for whom the book was intended. When I wrote the book, I didn't expect it to be given to pre-teens; this happened only because it became a Newbery Honor book, and while that's fine in the case of the advanced readers mature enough to enjoy it, its reputation as a "children's book" often turned teen readers away. The new jacket will, I think, be attractive to them.
Sylvia
_____________________________________________________________________
Sylvia Engdahl - sle at sylviaengdahl.com
Author of CHILDREN OF THE STAR and ENCHANTRESS FROM THE STARS
Visit my Web site, http://www.sylviaengdahl.com
_____________________________________________________________________
Received on Mon 12 Nov 2001 05:13:53 PM CST
Date: Mon, 12 Nov 2001 15:13:53 -0800
Hello, everyone -- I'm here, and I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have.
I will also catch up with responses to several issues that have been raised in previous messages.
Merri Lindgren wrote:
Actually, _Enchantress_ is the only one of my books that I wouldn't change in any way, other than minor wording improvements. One of these, which I felt was a necessary clarification, was made in the new edition. I have been disturbed by a reaction I often heard to the book, which showed that to my surprise, some readers were interpreting it as an allegory about relationships between different cultures of our own species -- which is not valid because we on Earth are all members of the same human race, at the same level of evolution. None of us are more advanced, in an evolutionary sense, than others! Though of course I did mean the story to advocate respect for all cultures, I never meant to imply that we should not give technological aid to undeveloped nations. I therefore modified a few words in the discussion between Elana and her father to make plain that the Service's policy concerns different _species_ with a long evolutionary distance between them. Today's young people believe that the universe contains other civilizations (whether or not this is actually the case) and some, even some adult astronomers, hope that contact with such civilizations would help us solve our problems, or worse, that advanced species would consider us innately inferior--neither of which I think is a constructive attitude. The story is about our potential relationships with extraterrestrials, not with each other.
Not indicating which of the three cultures is Earth is the central feature of the story, the idea I started with. This is why I was so careful not to include detailed physical descriptions of the characters (and why I was unhappy with the art in some of the earlier paperback editions and textbook excerpts that showed the main characters as racially indentical despite the story's statements that they are not).
My intent was to show that all stages of evolution are "natural" ones that all worlds go through, though of course I don't believe the details of extraterrestrial cultures are as much like ours as they are portrayed in the book.
I'd like to comment on another thing Ron said, "... it's the flatness of the background characters that seems old?shioned. It seems somewhat appropriate for the more formal/folktale style of the medieval culture, but ... I kept wondering what the poor young doctor ... with all his feeling was doing stuck in a ship of one-dimensional space-suits." This was another common reaction that surprised me -- many readers didn't recognize that the invaders were deliberately portrayed in a stylized, mythological form for the same reason the fairy-tale characters were! Real interstellar explorers wouldn't be comic-book style spacemen with ray guns any more than real medieval woodcutters went around slaying dragons, but that is how our mythology has envisioned them. Of course it is an "old?shioned" portrayal, in the same sense that fairy tales are old?shioned; it was an intentional stylistic device.
But because the myth was a current one -- even more current 30 years ago than now
-- many readers assumed it was meant to be realism. (For more on this, and on its relation to the portrayal of Elana's culture, see my Phoenix Award acceptance speech at my website. The main change in my perception of the book in the 30 years since its publication has been my growing realization that my portrayal of Federation was also a reflection of contemporary mythology.)
Naturally I am absolutely delighted with the new edition's design and the wonderful art by the Dillons. In addition to being far happier with it personally than with any of the previous editions, I feel it will bring it into the hands of the teenagers for whom the book was intended. When I wrote the book, I didn't expect it to be given to pre-teens; this happened only because it became a Newbery Honor book, and while that's fine in the case of the advanced readers mature enough to enjoy it, its reputation as a "children's book" often turned teen readers away. The new jacket will, I think, be attractive to them.
Sylvia
_____________________________________________________________________
Sylvia Engdahl - sle at sylviaengdahl.com
Author of CHILDREN OF THE STAR and ENCHANTRESS FROM THE STARS
Visit my Web site, http://www.sylviaengdahl.com
_____________________________________________________________________
Received on Mon 12 Nov 2001 05:13:53 PM CST
