IN CONVERSATION: Kate Forsyth & Sophie Masson talk Fairy Tales (Part 1)
Kate Forsyth and Sophie Masson are both award-winning and internationally published Australian authors whose novels are often inspired by fairytales. Although Kate and Sophie live six hours drive away from each other, they often meet at literary festivals and conferences, or, when their paths cross, for lunch or dinner. They share a love of fairy tales, gardens, cooking, reading, writing, and living the big life.
Today they get together to talk about Kate's novel Bitter Greens, a retelling of the Rapunzel fairytale, interwoven with the dramatic life story of the woman who first told the tale, the 17th century French writer, Charlotte-Rose de la Force. Sophie’s novel, Moonlight and Ashes, was inspired by Aschenputtel, the Grimm’s version of the well-known Cinderella tale. (This conversation was first published with the wondrous fairy tale e-magazine ENCHANTED CONVERSATIONS)
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Kate: Sophie, I’m so excited about your novel, Moonlight and Ashes? What first inspired you to write it?
Sophie: Moonlight and Ashes was inspired firstly by Aschenputtel, the Grimm version of Cinderella. It always fascinated me that the Cinderella figure in that story was much more active than Cinderella normally is; and it also was striking how there was no fairy godmother, but that it was her dead mother appearing to Aschenputtel in a dream and telling her to plant the hazel twig which made the magic happen.
At once, that not only makes Aschenputtel part of her own story, and not just a helpless girl to whom things happen--she actually wants to change things, she's not completely browbeaten. But it also reminds you of her loss--of her grief at losing her mother, and how that's transformed her life for the worse. And also that her mother can't rest in peace knowing what's happened to her daughter, and that her father is a coward who shuts his eyes to his daughter's situation.
And then, thinking about it further, I wondered about the mother and the hazel twig: surely she must herself have had some kind of magical background. From thinking about these things, I had this growing picture of an angry, defiant but vulnerable young girl who is trapped in a terrible situation but who still has the spirit to want to change things: and who harbours a dark secret that she dare not reveal to a living soul: the secret of her mother's ancestry. That's how Selena, my heroine, was born.
There's another inspiration, and that's Prague. We visited it in 2010 and I loved it and was fascinated by its history. We also had the great privilege of being shown around Prague by another writer and good friend, the fantastic Isobelle Carmody, who lives there with her family. Ashberg in my book is very much an alternative-world version of Prague, while the Faustine Empire which controls it is based on the late 19th century Austro-Hungarian Empire, in fairy tale version: but still with trains and telegraphs and magazines and all!
Kate: Oh, I love the sound of this, Sophie! I’ve always wanted to go to Prague, and I love the sound of an Aschenputtel story told with trains and telegraphs and so on. I’ll be so looking forward to reading this one!
Sophie: Kate, Bitter Greens is such a wonderful book, so rich and exciting and deep and sad. Now I want to ask you: what drew you to Rapunzel as an inspiration for the book?
Kate: The inspiration reaches far back into my own childhood, back to the time when I was first beginning to walk and talk. I was savagely attacked by a dog and spent weeks in hospital, suffering terrible wounds to my head and face. One of the dog’s fangs penetrated straight through my tear duct, located between the eye and the nose. I was lucky not to lose my eye!
As a result, I spent many years in and out of hospital with chronic eye infections. I’d be feverish, in pain, half-blind. My only consolation was stories – the ones I read and the ones I made up in my imagination. Anyone who came to visit me knew they had to bring me a pile of books. One day someone brought me a collection of fairy tales. One of the stories was Rapunzel.
I felt a great affinity with that other young girl, locked away alone in a tower as I was confined alone in my hospital ward. I loved the fact that her tears had the power to heal the prince’s blindness and wished that my own tears, weeping constantly from the damaged tear duct, would heal mine.
I was as haunted by the story as the prince was by Rapunzel’s singing, but I was puzzled too. Why did the witch lock Rapunzel away? Why didn’t the prince fetch some rope? What happened to the witch? Did Rapunzel ever find her true parents?
Don’t you find that it is often these little niggling questions about something that is the grit in the oyster that causes a pearl to grow?
Sophie: Oh, absolutely! And I was so very touched by your recounting of that frightening and painful childhood experience—and how because of it the story of Rapunzel spoke so directly to you. I think that's so very much the power of fairytales.
Today they get together to talk about Kate's novel Bitter Greens, a retelling of the Rapunzel fairytale, interwoven with the dramatic life story of the woman who first told the tale, the 17th century French writer, Charlotte-Rose de la Force. Sophie’s novel, Moonlight and Ashes, was inspired by Aschenputtel, the Grimm’s version of the well-known Cinderella tale. (This conversation was first published with the wondrous fairy tale e-magazine ENCHANTED CONVERSATIONS)
[image error] [image error]
Kate: Sophie, I’m so excited about your novel, Moonlight and Ashes? What first inspired you to write it?
Sophie: Moonlight and Ashes was inspired firstly by Aschenputtel, the Grimm version of Cinderella. It always fascinated me that the Cinderella figure in that story was much more active than Cinderella normally is; and it also was striking how there was no fairy godmother, but that it was her dead mother appearing to Aschenputtel in a dream and telling her to plant the hazel twig which made the magic happen.
At once, that not only makes Aschenputtel part of her own story, and not just a helpless girl to whom things happen--she actually wants to change things, she's not completely browbeaten. But it also reminds you of her loss--of her grief at losing her mother, and how that's transformed her life for the worse. And also that her mother can't rest in peace knowing what's happened to her daughter, and that her father is a coward who shuts his eyes to his daughter's situation.
And then, thinking about it further, I wondered about the mother and the hazel twig: surely she must herself have had some kind of magical background. From thinking about these things, I had this growing picture of an angry, defiant but vulnerable young girl who is trapped in a terrible situation but who still has the spirit to want to change things: and who harbours a dark secret that she dare not reveal to a living soul: the secret of her mother's ancestry. That's how Selena, my heroine, was born.
There's another inspiration, and that's Prague. We visited it in 2010 and I loved it and was fascinated by its history. We also had the great privilege of being shown around Prague by another writer and good friend, the fantastic Isobelle Carmody, who lives there with her family. Ashberg in my book is very much an alternative-world version of Prague, while the Faustine Empire which controls it is based on the late 19th century Austro-Hungarian Empire, in fairy tale version: but still with trains and telegraphs and magazines and all!
Kate: Oh, I love the sound of this, Sophie! I’ve always wanted to go to Prague, and I love the sound of an Aschenputtel story told with trains and telegraphs and so on. I’ll be so looking forward to reading this one!
Sophie: Kate, Bitter Greens is such a wonderful book, so rich and exciting and deep and sad. Now I want to ask you: what drew you to Rapunzel as an inspiration for the book?
Kate: The inspiration reaches far back into my own childhood, back to the time when I was first beginning to walk and talk. I was savagely attacked by a dog and spent weeks in hospital, suffering terrible wounds to my head and face. One of the dog’s fangs penetrated straight through my tear duct, located between the eye and the nose. I was lucky not to lose my eye!
As a result, I spent many years in and out of hospital with chronic eye infections. I’d be feverish, in pain, half-blind. My only consolation was stories – the ones I read and the ones I made up in my imagination. Anyone who came to visit me knew they had to bring me a pile of books. One day someone brought me a collection of fairy tales. One of the stories was Rapunzel.
I felt a great affinity with that other young girl, locked away alone in a tower as I was confined alone in my hospital ward. I loved the fact that her tears had the power to heal the prince’s blindness and wished that my own tears, weeping constantly from the damaged tear duct, would heal mine.
I was as haunted by the story as the prince was by Rapunzel’s singing, but I was puzzled too. Why did the witch lock Rapunzel away? Why didn’t the prince fetch some rope? What happened to the witch? Did Rapunzel ever find her true parents?
Don’t you find that it is often these little niggling questions about something that is the grit in the oyster that causes a pearl to grow?
Sophie: Oh, absolutely! And I was so very touched by your recounting of that frightening and painful childhood experience—and how because of it the story of Rapunzel spoke so directly to you. I think that's so very much the power of fairytales.
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