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An interview with Malcolm Walker author of ‘The Stone Crown’ |
"The Stone Crown ... is a thoroughly engaging young adult fantasy." The Adelaide Review. |
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The Stone Crown is a new Arthurian novel for young adults by author Malcolm Walker. It combines historical fantasy with a variety of contemporary themes. It is already available to buy in Australia and is set for release in the UK in November 2009. Plot The novel follows two teenagers, Emlyn and Maxine, who unwittingly steal an ancient artefact from a site known as Sleeper’s Spinney. The wood is magically protected and their unwitting theft of the figure unleashes the Dark Ages King Arthur and his men, who’ve been kept in check by the McCrossan family, an ancient line of ‘keepers’ charged with containing the power that is trapped behind the spinney’s dry-stone wall. Caught between the ‘keepers’ and an ancient curse that has dogged both of their lives, Emlyn and Max find themselves plunged into a parallel world of myth, magic and the supernatural. 1. What genre do you think the novel falls into? “Although it’s aimed at the young adult market, it’s a book that crosses over easily into the adult market. It’s been marketed as historical fantasy. A good number of adult readers have said it’s a page turner, while two local authors, one of them Sean Williams, who’s been on The New York Times best-seller list, both stayed up until 2 am to finish it.” (Williams is a bestselling Australian science fiction and fantasy author who wrote Saturn Returns and Earth Ascendant, The Changeling, which is part of the ‘Broken land’ Trilogy, the quartet ‘The Books of the Cataclysm’, as well as Star Wars: The Force Unleashed). “The Stone Crown is, in part, a contemporary reworking of the Arthurian legend. While the novel includes the stock figures of Merlin, Arthur, Mordred and Vivienne, they are presented more as flawed characters caught up in the power struggles of the time rather than heroic figures, thus anchoring the historical and fantasy elements within the story of two young people trying to deal with their respective pasts. The novel explores a variety of young-adult themes, including guilt, madness, teenage ostracism and loneliness, absentee parents, migrants and child-soldiery.” - How do you feel the Arthurian characters in your book differ from more traditional versions of the legends? “I didn’t want the Arthur of courtly knights and Camelot, the Romance versions that came from Geoffrey of Monmouth’s propaganda campaign for the Plantagenets, the newly arrived Norman ruling elite who wanted a convenient mythological figure from whom they glean an air of legitimacy to their claims to the throne of England. Rather, I wanted a Dark Ages Arthur – not a king but a warlord – a dark, brutal version of the Once and Future King, a version that spoke back to the legend that he slew 900 men single-handedly at the Battle of Badon Hill.” “In terms of Merlin, I liked the idea that the pagan world was still alive in AD 500 and the Christian church was trying to suppress these old beliefs, which were never completely eradicated from the Celtic fringes, plus I wanted to explore the notion of Merlin as a flawed powerbroker, a father trickster figure – but tricked by Vivienne – someone in whom we see power and its corrupting influence. I was particularly interested in what happens when an adult selects a child for a particular destiny, something we see in sport today – the ugly pushy parent – and so I ramped this up by making Merlin a shaman, who puts the forest gods in the boy Arthur and then finds he cant control what he’s made.” 2. What is the setting for novel? “The novel is set in the Borders of Scotland where a growing number of historians and commentators suggest the historical Arthur was located and where he held back the tide of Angles and Saxons for fifty years.” “…I was heavily influenced by Alistair Moffat’s non-fiction book Arthur and the Lost Kingdoms which I used heavily as part of my research. I lived on the Welsh marches for a good many years and the Borders is very similar country. The landscape of both places speaks to me in a way that cries out for a troop of Romano-British horsemen, Arthurian cavalry, to come streaming out of the mists. There’s a scene late in the novel which depicts just such a landscape. I knew that the Dark Ages Arthur was associated with Wales, Cornwall and Scotland – I believe there are over six hundred sites associated with King Arthur in the British Isles alone, let alone Europe – and as I started reading around the subject I stumbled across another reference book, Arthur the Dragon King, by Howard Reid, which also placed the legendary hero in the Borders around the end of the 5th and the beginning of the 6th century AD. Welsh, an old form of it, was spoken throughout Britain and, as I have some Welsh blood and I find the rugged landscapes of Wales and Scotland inspiring, I had found the setting for my novel. Once I had the mental landscape, I simply had to find the characters to populate it. The novel is written, in part at least, out of my love of landscape and nature.”
3. What were your inspirations for becoming a
writer and previous background? “My background is English, although I left the UK in my early twenties to travel the world. I was born near Dartford, outside London, in 1948. We moved a fair bit when I was a child, something which made it difficult to make friends. I learnt to rely on my imagination, books, and an insatiable curiosity about my surroundings. When I was four, my brother, who is fourteen years older than me, was conscripted into the army and sent to Kenya for two years and then shortly after he came back they called him up again and he was sent to Cyprus. His stories, which I must have picked up sitting around listening to the adults, fed my interest in new places, exploration and what was to become an abiding interest in maps and geography. In terms of work, my background is pretty varied. At sixteen I entered the work force, moving around from job to job – boy-soldier, clerk, door-to-door salesman, bricklayer, handyman – but always in the background was a profound desire to travel. And in 1973 I set off across Europe and Asia with an old school friend on what was called the Hippy Trail. I was heading for Australia. Not because I was fascinated by the country itself – I knew remarkably little about it – but because it was, apart from New Zealand, the most distant point on the map where they spoke English. I was away from Britain for nearly five years. I had various adventures in Central and South America, where I taught English in Peru and Brazil, before a deep longing to see my family catapulted me back to Europe. I re-entered England in style, having hitched a ride in a Rolls Royce with the bodyguard of an Arab prince.” 4. Who are your favourite Historical/Arthurian/Fantasy writers or novels in general? “I’ll start with children’s books because I think they’re such a huge influence on us. I don’t particularly like the rather artificial divide that is often set up between adult and children’s fiction as I think some of the best fiction that’s ever been written has been for children and young adults. All-in-all, I’m a pretty catholic reader and so I’ve a lot of favourites. I think, even though it’s written for young adults, Alan Garner’s The Owl Service stands out as a great novel, one that can be read by adults and kids alike. It operates on so many levels and the dialogue crackles. It’s an extraordinarily clever and subtle book and, while it doesn’t directly reference Arthur, it does great service to one of the myths out of the Mabinogion. On the Arthurian front, Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising quintet is brilliant, as to is Earthfasts by William Mayne. As you can see Arthur has been something of a reading theme for me. No surprise that my first novel should deal with the Matter of Britain.” thependragon.co.uk takes no responsibility for the content of external websites although if you have any concerns about copyright infringement please contact us at thependragon@yahoo.co.uk. |
“I guess I'd have to speak about those books which have influenced me the most and which somehow still live in my memory. The Wind in the Willows because it speaks of a certain Englishness that has all but vanished, and which might never have existed except in my own mind. Winnie-the-Pooh for the gorgeous illustrations by E. H. Shepard and for the sheer simplicity of Milne's story, a simplicity which belies its depth. More contemporary tales are Tim Bowler's River Boy and Philip Pullman's ‘His Dark Materials’ trilogy. More or less all of David Almond's novels, but in particular Skellig and Heaven Eyes. Going back a few decades there's Tolkien's Lord of the Rings and, of course, the Narnia series by C. S. Lewis. Usula Le Guinn’s Wizard of Earthsea and Rosemary Sutcliffe’s historical novels all held me spellbound … and I read those as an adult.” “In adult novels? Very difficult to answer. As I said, I read fairly eclectically. The classics. I still go back to Dickens or Austen because they are like time portals into a vanished world. A lot of contemporary Australian, English and American stuff. Russell Hoban is one of my favourite authors. Riddley Walker is possibly my all-time front runner. One Hundred Years of Solitude by the Colombian magic realist Gabrielle Garcia Marquez. I read a fair bit of non-fiction too, often as part of my research for a new project.” 5. Many successful novels end up being adapted for the big screen, how would you feel if your book was ever turned into a film? “It’s interesting that you’ve asked this question because my agent in London has already had an expression of interest from a filmmaker in Sydney, Australia. I think whoever made the film would have to come from the northern hemisphere because of the books themes, landscapes and mythology. We’ll probably hold out until we get someone in the UK or the US wanting to option it. Of course, we're talking wildest dreams here, but wildest dreams are important, they're what keep us going. I'd like to think that it was good enough to put on celluloid, but who knows. I try and stay pretty Zen about it, try and hold a middle ground. In the one hand are all those fantastic possibilities, in the other failure and darkness, and in between is this strange state of holding what one wants, but at a distance. It's important not to lose perspective, so I try and not get too caught up in the glamour of it ... all those possibilities. But I do know one thing, I don’t want some Hollywood hunk playing Arthur. He’s got to be chunky and grounded and menacing. 6. Will there be a sequel and are you working on another book at the moment? “The Stone Crown was written as a stand alone novel and I have no plans to write a sequel, although the ending is ambiguous enough for something else to follow on – quite what that would be I’m not sure. The book feels complete in my own mind. That’s not to say if a large cheque was waved in front of me I mightn’t rethink my position but in truth I don’t really want to revisit the story. Currently I’m working on a trilogy: trilogies are great to read – if they’re written well, but a bugger to write. It's a work in progress and if there's one thing I've learnt it's the probability of anything I say becoming a lie by next Friday. That's the nature of writing. You make things up. Novels under construction aren't like buildings; you don't necessarily work from the bottom up. For example, with The Stone Crown I wrote the first seven chapters and then the ending. That's when it got difficult: tortuous in fact. I had to build a bridge for my characters to get from the beginning to the end. But then that's half the fun. Sorry, I've digressed. The new book's called ‘The City of Thieves’. My agent asked me if I think I can turn it into a trilogy: as Max would say, "Mebbe ... mebbe not." Loosely, it's another story about two contemporary teenagers, a girl and a boy, who find themselves in a parallel world, a city that mirrors their own in some ways but is entirely different and strange in others. The mirror city is run on an economy of theft. Everyone steals from everybody else. I'm playing around with the structure, trying to find a form that will tell the story best. I can't really say much more because as I said ... by next Friday ...” 7. We have a lot of contact through our society with people who are trying to write historical and Arthurian literature. Have you any tips or advice for aspiring writers? “A couple of things, although I hesitate in handing out writing tips because everyone has different working methods. Read ... read ... read! Research as well; immerse yourself in your subject and allow the unconscious to do its work. You can't write if you don't read widely. Writing can be hard work, or yakka as we call it in Australia, so you've got to enjoy what you're creating and putting down on the page. For me, perhaps the most important element is to let the story run its course, because it's in this exploratory phase when you're doing the first draft that all sorts of wonderful things can happen. Once you got a complete draft down then you can go back; you'll see the mistakes, where it doesn't work, where characters aren't real, where the plot unravels. Thirdly, always show your drafts to someone else to comment on; that's when you need a big heart and an open mind, because it's often the criticism that we don't want to listen to but which we need to hear. Be positive and keep writing.” 8. Anything else that you would like to add? “I guess only to reinforce the fact that this is a cross-over novel that’s suitable for adults as well as children. It’s multi-layered enough to be read by any age group. In fact a PhD student at the University of Adelaide delivered a paper on the book that dealt with returned veterans and war trauma. The paper was very interesting to me because it showed that children’s literature can be taken seriously.” Malcolm Walker answered questions from the site editor, Alan Campbell. The Stone Crown is published in November 2009 by Walker Books.
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