The two Jonathans
Two months into 2011, and not a word from me on this blog. So here is a little update on what's been going on.
I've spent most of the year so far writing for children. This is a new venture for me. Last year when I was in Torino, the Scuola Holden asked me to take part in a series called Save the Story, which is the creation of Alessandro Baricco, in collaoraton with L'Espresso Gruppo Editoriale. The idea – a brilliantly simple one – is that authors from around the world should be invited to retell one of their favourite stories from the literary canon, in a version which is suitable for reading aloud to young children. The series was launched last year and so far Baricco himself has retold Don Giovanni, Stefano Benni has done Cyrano de Bergerac, and Umberto Eco has done I promessi sposi.
My own choice of book for re-telling was Gulliver's Travels. In many ways this presented a double challenge: Jonathan Swift's story has, after all, already been adapted for children many times. Usually, though, these versions only include the first two sections (Lilliput and Brobdingnag) and leave out the more savage or unsettling passages. I decided that I wanted to cover the whole thing – including Books III and IV – and not spare the reader any of the radicalism with which Swift uses his narrative to ask questions about human nature. Quite difficult, when you only have 9,000 words to play with, and your target audience consists of eight-year-old children who will mostly be listening to your version as a bedtime story!
I delivered the text to the Scuola Holden last week, and hope that it will be translated and published in a few months' time. The text will be illustrated by Riki Blanco. At the moment, so far as I know, this book will only appear in Italian. I hope that children like it. Whatever their reaction, it has been a huge pleasure and excitement to immerse myself in Swift's text again for the first time in thirty years (since I was a student, in fact) and remind myself of the qualities of anger, precision and clear-sightedness which make it such a great masterpiece.
