Zoe Brooks's Blog, page 12
October 21, 2012
Desert Island Books - Jane Eyre
Orphaned Jane Eyre grows up in the home of her heartless aunt, where she endures loneliness and cruelty, and at a charity school with a harsh regime. This troubled childhood strengthens Jane's natural independence and spirit - which prove necessary when she finds a position as governess at Thornfield Hall. But when she finds love with her sardonic employer, Rochester, the discovery of his terrible secret forces her to make a choice. Should she stay with him and live with the consequences, or follow her convictions, even if it means leaving the man she loves?Amazon Description
Jane Eyre was the first "grown-up" book I read. I must have been about eleven, when I discovered I could read adult books. I loved the book and reread it regularly through my teens and still read it occasionally. I think Jane Eyre is an ideal book for teenage girls. I identified with the heroine, as did Charlotte Bronte. Like Jane I felt unattractive and awkward in society. I admired her resilience and spirit and I was delighted when Rochester expressed his love for her. My love of the book was reenforced by an excellent BBC TV series starring Sorcha Cusack in the title role and Michael Jayston as Rochester. It was shown in the early evening on Sundays, and I was always worried that I would not get back from rehearsals at the Arts Centre, but I didn't miss any of it. It was only later that I discovered that Elizabeth Webster, the director, was also a fan and so stopped rehearsals with time to spare. Michael Jayston was the ideal Rochester, not particularly handsome but with the sexiest voice! He was my first crush.
Now that I am mature woman I find new depths in the book. The psychology of the book is spot-on. What is it that attracts a rich man of the world like Rochester to the plain inexperienced Jane? He has been surrounded by women who flatter him because he is rich, Jane is totally unlike them, she speaks the truth. He does not know what to make of her and wants to know more. But there is more than unfamiliarity - on the surface Jane is reserved, but underneath she is capable of passion. In the second scene between them Rochester examines Jane's weird paintings in which her imagination takes her to the northern seas. How like the book's writer: her imagination escaping the restrictions of her life?
The Jane Eyre plot is a classic Cinderella/ugly duckling story. There are only so many plots and this is one of the most common. It is a plot that I have used in my trilogy The Healer's Shadow trilogy. Some people say that Jane Eyre is a Cinderella meets Bluebeard plot, but they are wrong. Bluebeard is a psychopath that destroys the female, Rochester may have a first wife in a tower, but she is alive, as Jane discovers to her cost.
October 19, 2012
Friday Poem - The Demon
The Demon
My demon is in the garden.Nonchalant in the noon-day sunhe bites burs from his furand snaps at fleas.Not quite a foxhe grins at me in the window.All the time by the fencethe cat watches, waits,pretends not to care.My demon came out of the bramblesby the skeleton of the bomb shelter;under the ash treeshe waits for me.The autumn sun slopesover the roof tops;the light collects in pools.Over the compost heapthrough the fliesmy demon goes,without a backwards look.He knows I must follow his trailseverywhere.
October 17, 2012
Photo Inspiration - Forest
I took this photo in the Forest of Dean last Sunday. I love the forest. When I was a little girl I stayed with my grandmother in Berryhill, not far from Symonds Yat. My house in the Czech Republic is only fifteen minutes walk from the forest. When I can't write, I take a basket and wander through the trees looking for mushrooms.
October 15, 2012
October 14, 2012
Desert Island Books - Earthsea books
A superb four-part fantasy, comparable with the work of Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, the "Earthsea" books follow the fortunes of the wizard Ged from his childhood to an age where magic is giving way to evil. As a young dragonlord, Ged, whose use-name is Sparrowhawk, is sent to the island of Roke to learn the true way of magic. A natural magician, Ged becomes an Archmage and helps the High Priestess Tenar escape from the labyrinth of darkness. But as the years pass, true magic and ancient ways are forced to submit to the powers of evil and death.Goodreads description
I managed to not read Ursula Le Guin's books as a child and a teenager. It was not until my student son read The Wizard of Earthsea and told me that I would love it, that at last I settled down with the book. He was right, I loved it and all the other Earthsea books. Why, oh why did I wait so long? Maybe because I wrongly thought of them as children's books. They can be read by children, but an adult reader will get so much more from Le Guin's writings.
What makes Le Guin so special?
Le Guin has a genius for world creation - Earthsea feels like somewhere I know and will know. Sometimes, as with my own fictional worlds, I come upon a place in this world which is Earthsea. Of course every reader will have a different Earthsea; Le Guin is brilliant at giving enough but not too much description so that we each can see our own vision. The same is true of the descriptions of her characters. I have an image of each, but what I remember tends not to be their physical appearance, but their thoughts, motives, loves and fears. For all Le Guin's genius in world-making, she writes about humanity.
I love the way she is able to create fantastic worlds which allow her to explore big issues. In the Wizard of Earthsea, the first Earthsea book, the young hero makes an error of judgement and must face the consequences. In Jungian psychology all that we dislike and repress about ourselves is called our shadow. In order to be fully mature we must turn, face it and name it, something most of us fail to do. This happens quite literally in the Wizard of Earthsea. There are other similarly important themes in her other books. I had been a poet, playing with symbols and metaphors. Le Guin showed me that this was possible in a novel too and that it was possible to do this whilst telling a good story.
Ursula Le Guin inspired me to start writing novels. And she even provided the best book I know on writing - Steering the Craft.
This morning my new book Love of Shadows had its first review on Amazon and Goodreads. In it the reviewer says that she thought the series "similar to Ursula Le Guin's books set in the fictional country of Orsinia". I could not be more honoured by a comparison.
October 12, 2012
My latest book is published today
At long last Love of Shadows the second book in my trilogy (the follow-up to Girl in the Glass) is out on Amazon.
Description
I had always felt most alive, when I was healing. Without healing I was a tin top spinning out of kilter soon to catch the ground. It took all my energy to hold myself from skidding into chaos.
But in the city of Pharsis traditional women healers are banned from practising and the penalty for breaking the law is death by hanging. After being arrested and interrogated twice Judith is careful to avoid suspicion, but then scarlet fever breaks over the city like a poisonous wave, leaving in its wake the small corpses of children. What will the young healer do?
Love of Shadows is the second novel in The Healer's Shadow trilogy, which began with Girl in the Glass, and follows the lives of Judith and her Shadow, Sarah. It is a study in grief, love and defiance.
It is available on amazon.com on
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009PCG602
and on amazon.co.uk on
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B009PCG602.
Until the official launch the book is offered at a really cheap price 99 cents and 77 pence, so grab a copy now.
October 8, 2012
Photo Inspiration - Olsina
This is a photo of Lake Olsina in Southern Bohemia. I can walk here from my Czech home. It's a very special place for me. It is set in a natural bowl formed by the surrounding hills. One of its attractions is that it is undisturbed. Much of the surrounding forests are in a military zone, which means that it is accessible only at weekends and that building is restricted in the locality.
The lake is man-made - a renaissance fishpond, which is still farmed today. Every other Autumn (in October or November) the sluices are opened and the lake drained. The carp are herded into the nets of the waiting fishermen. My friend Hannah had an old cottage next to the lake and I stayed with her one year, waking at 6 to watch the harvest. Crowds gathered to watch and buy fresh fish. When everyone had gone, it was the turn of the water birds to arrive - gulls of course, but also herons and white egrets.
At other times I have watched the mating dance of crested grebes rising and bowing on the still surface of the lake. In the summer Hannah and I would go swimming in the lake's now warm waters, with the carp blowing bubbles around us or we would wander into the forest to collect wild mushrooms.
On the day of Hannah's funeral I came to Olsina and launched a little paper boat on the waters in remembrance of her. In the boat's prow I set a picture she had painted of a man waving. The boat bobbed in the current before disappearing round a small headland. My farewell said, I returned to my car and drove home. Later when I looked closer at the picture I saw that it was titled "Crossing Lethe."
October 7, 2012
Desert Island Books - Weirdstone of Brisingamen
A tale of Alderley
When Colin and Susan are pursued by eerie creatures across Alderley Edge, they are saved by the Wizard. He takes them into the caves of Fundindelve, where he watches over the enchanted sleep of one hundred and forty knights.
But the heart of the magic that binds them – Firefrost, also known as the Weirdstone of Brisingamen – has been lost. The Wizard has been searching for the stone for more than 100 years, but the forces of evil are closing in, determined to possess and destroy its special power.
Colin and Susan realise at last that they are the key to the Weirdstone’s return. But how can two children defeat the Morrigan and her deadly brood?
Amazon description
This (and Moon of Gomrath, the second book in the Alderley trilogy) has to be my all-time favourite book from my childhood. I remember arguing with my teacher Elizabeth Webster that Alan Garner's stories were better than Tolkien's.
What makes this so great is the authenticity of the stories - they are based on real localities (Alderley Edge) and local myths. They are fantasy, but their roots are in the hills of Cheshire and British mythology. Garner arguably gave me my first introduction to magic realism, the genre in which I write. I could have chosen other books by this writer - The Owl Service, Elidor and of course the great Red Shift, but Weirdstone was how I first experienced Garner's work and so it holds a special place in my heart.
Whether the book had such a strong hold on me (which it retains) because it chimed with my vision of the world - history and myth woven in to the present - or because it informed my view is impossible to say now. But I read this book over and over again throughout my childhood, delighting in Garner's wonderful descriptions - the account of Colin and Susan's journey through the disused mineworkings of the Edge beats the journey through the Mines of Moria into a cocked hat.
After many years Garner has just published the sequel - a book for adults called Bonelands. It's on the list of what I want for Christmas. That's if I can wait that long.
October 5, 2012
Coming Up
Visit between the 24th and 31st of this month to find out what I will be giving away.
Friday Poem - Whisper
WHISPER
There are generations whispering in the walls,layer upon layer of proud farmers' wives.You can peel one off and find another there.Here the whitewash is brown and abstractand here a butterfly blinks on a flower. Ten ages of busy women and I the latest.I take my brush and turn the wall white.
In the morning I get the answerthe wall is brown again.They are reaching through my whitewash."Listen," they say...
A poem about decorating my Czech farmhouse.
