<p>I used to read a lot of YA fantasy - I still try to keep up with Tamara Pierce, Peter Dickinson and Garth Nix. I think Patricia McKillip and Robin McKinley are pretty much writing adult fantasy now. Most recently I read the Hunger Game books and Patrick Ness’s Chaos Walking trilogy.</p>
<p>Claire sounds great, Mary13. I haven’t heard of it before so I’m looking forward to reading it.</p>
<p>Ignatius, what do you think of Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter? We read it for my book group in Alaska.</p>
<p>Yep, it was me who was guilty of disparaging the Hedgehog.</p>
<p>Sorry about that goof, Lipsha!</p>
<p>Tiredofsnow: I should ask, “What did your book group think of Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter?” My book club meets Monday night to discuss it. I’m not through with it yet, but so far the word I would use to describe it is atmospheric. It’s not at all the straight-forward mystery I expected. </p>
<p>It was nominated for a heck of a lot of awards:</p>
<p>Barry Award Nominee for Best Novel (2011)
Anthony Award Nominee for Best Novel (2011)
The Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger (2011)
Hammett Prize Nominee (2010)
Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award (RT Award) for Best Contemporary Mystery (2010)
Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller (2010)
Edgar Award Nominee for Best Novel (2011) </p>
<p>*Claire of the Sea Light is one of NPR’s Best Books of 2013. You can find it under Book Club Ideas 
- among other categories (look to the left): <a href=“Best Books of 2013 : NPR”>Best Books of 2013 : NPR;
<p>Thanks for the great link, ignatius - I have only read three of those so far (The Circle, The Cuckoo’s Calling, and The Goldfinch).</p>
<p>It’s been a few years and many miles since we discussed Crooked Letter. I liked it a lot. “Atmospheric” is a good word, because it did evoke a very strong sense of place, one that doesn’t get written about that often. I did care about the characters, too, which I find doesn’t happen with every book.</p>
<p>^^^ I care about the characters in Crooked Letter also, so the ending better not go the wrong way. Funny, by now, I know the “who” did it - everyone just needs to move along in the right direction. I can add “a story of redemption” to atmospheric. (At least, it looks to be. I’m not quite finished with it.)</p>
<p>Re the NPR Best Books 2013 link - under Book Club Ideas - I’ve also read three: Americanah, The Cuckoo’s Calling, Night Film. I like to apply two or three of the filters and watch the books rearrange themselves. See if I can find a “Rather Short” “NPR Pick” or maybe I’d prefer a “Rather Long” “Young Adult.” Hey, my daughter has and loves one of those - Scarlet, which follows Cinder which my daughter also owns. (Time to stop playing with the link. 8-| )</p>
<p>I want a filter for “Character driven fiction about people I like”.</p>
<p>^ I need a filter like that for real life, except the non-fiction version.</p>
<p>As promised, reporting back from the Eleanor Catton interview at the Perth Writers’ Festival. I’m so glad I got to go. EC is very impressive - so YOUNG (26??) - but very thoughtful and interesting. There was a moderator asking her questions, and then she took a few from the audience. My friend took notes on her iPhone, which was great because I was trying desperately to remember everything she said. So here are the things I think you might find interesting:</p>
<p>She got the idea for the Luminaries when she was reading (simultaneously) Murder on the Orient Express and The Brothers Karamazov. She calls it an “astrological murder mystery” and said she has a friend who called it “the inconvenient book” because of the framework she used to write it.</p>
<p>She wanted to write a mystery with no detective, hence the various points of view. She also thinks it’s important that fiction be THEME driven, not character driven.</p>
<p>It took her five years to write The Luminaries, 2 years of germination and 3 years of writing. Her publishers were pressuring her to finish after she’d been writing for 2 years, and she later realized that the pressure to finish came because they wanted to submit it for the Booker Prize.</p>
<p>She is the daughter of an (American) philosopher dad and a children’s librarian mom. She doesn’t remember a time when she didn’t read and write.</p>
<p>She says the story has two hemispheres, “like the human brain”. The first being the story, the second being the astrological framework.</p>
<p>When asked if she believes in astrology, she said she more “respects” that it is a framework to try to make order out of the world. </p>
<p>I think I’ll post this and then post again.</p>
<p>Part 2, Eleanor Catton interview. (I’m going to stop trying to write complete sentences and just give you sound bites!)</p>
<p>Gold Rush - double meaning of “fortune” in the book, fortune in a monetary sense and also fortune as in fate</p>
<p>The architecture of astrology, which she sees more as artifact than belief, more historical.</p>
<p>Similar structure as ego/id/superego with the characters in the book, a lot about Jung archetypes</p>
<p>She started with the 12 zodiac signs and created their traits and professions according to their sign.</p>
<p>The seven planets move through each of the signs. These are in pairs - Mars/Venus (Lydia and Carver), and she mentioned that Moody is Mercury, who is unpaired. </p>
<p>Anna is the moon, because historically the moon has been feminine. She feels that Anna is the hardest character to get to know because she is “borrowed light and reflected darkness” - each of the other characters projects their personalities onto her.</p>
<p>The moon revolves through each sign of the zodiac every year and every month (?) so Anna’s character has a relationship with all of the other characters.</p>
<p>The sun is the outer self, the moon the inner self. </p>
<p>Part 3, Eleanor Catton interview</p>
<p>EC influenced by “Godel, Escher, Bach - An Eternal Golden Braid” and “I am a Strange Loop” - the idea of the golden ratio. She said she and her friends had quite a discussion about whether the golden ratio can be done in literature as it is in music and architecture. </p>
<p>The strange loop - she used Bach’s fugues and preludes as an example, also Escher’s drawing of a hand drawing a hand. (She kind of lost me here!!!)</p>
<p>She gave the example that the shape of the book is the golden ratio - I am to you as you are to both of us - she built The Luminaries around this idea. Seeing the “thou” in others - “I and thou” book of theology was very meaningful to her. It is impossible to distill individual out of relationship.</p>
<p>She feels fiction is the rare, perhaps even only, art form where one can view both a person’s inner self (motivations, character) at the same time the outer person is being observed (physical attributes, actions). </p>
<p>All the things we can’t know are as interesting as the things we can.</p>
<p>She feels that New Zealand is beginning to develop its own historical fiction for the first time as writers are starting to evaluate their own history. Someone asked her about Rose Tremaine’s The Colour (about the NZ gold rush) and she said it wasn’t very well-received in NZ - they didn’t appreciate a British person coming and writing their history. She tried hard not to be derogatory but one of the things she mentioned is that she didn’t like the way RT made the Chinese in the book “mystical characters”.</p>
<p>For my flash of brilliance, I think her feeling about this is reflected in the way Lydia dressed up the Chinese to enhance her seance, to add a mystical flavor to the happenings. </p>
<p>She had to do a chronology of the book for the producers of the upcoming miniseries, and it was the first time she had approached the book that way.</p>
<p>And FINALLY - my friend asked if there was anything she’d learned in her creative writing courses that had really influenced her writing (EC mentioned she finished her first novel, The Rehearsal, while working on her masters, and also that she is currently teaching creative writing) and she said that the thing that stuck with her most is that fiction must intensify. In other words, if you start off funny, you have to get funnier, if you start off sad, you have to get sadder, etc.</p>
<p>I am so glad I got to see her - I think she is a very smart cookie. She seemed very down to earth but I think she’s on a different plane of intellect than I am!!</p>
<p>If you’ve read all this, thanks for indulging me!!</p>
<p>Oh, one more thing, the whole book is about the struggle between fate and will (what are we born with, what can we change, what can we influence). She feels that it is a very modern development that we bristle when we are told what our character traits should be according to our astrological signs. </p>
<p>Wonderful, TiredofSnow. So interesting! Wow, Jungian archetypes…I’d love to hear further insights on that!</p>
<p>Huh, I haven’t met Jungian archetypes in a novel since I was wolfing down Robertson Davies. Not having read Jung himself, I’m a bit shaky on what he’s all about except second hand. And I and Though is Martin Buber isn’t it? Also haven’t read, but had an assistent headmistress who was a big fan and she often read us selections. Her mother being a children’s librarian, explains why she always talks about which children’s books influenced her. I imagine there was a lot of book talk around the dining room table when she was growing up. Finally, I’m just fascinated by the notion that you could cram the Golden Ratio into a book - as an architect, and math-nerd, I’m very familiar with the concept, but it would never, ever, ever have occurred to me that you might construct a book around such a framework!</p>
<p>Tiredofsnow, thank you so much! That was a fascinating report. I found this especially interesting:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I hadn’t really thought about fiction like that before, but when I reflect back on my favorite books (and plays), it’s so true. </p>
<p>The following article is not particularly academic, but it answered a few Jung questions for me: <a href=“http://www.chartplanet.com/html/carl_jung.html”>http://www.chartplanet.com/html/carl_jung.html</a></p>
<p>Here’s an excerpt that made me see how he could have influenced Eleanor Catton, who was very well-versed in Jung’s work when she started The Luminaries:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>mathmom:</p>
<p>
</a></p>
<p>Yes, that sounds vaguely familiar. I can’t believe I typed “I and though”! They don’t even sound the same!</p>
<p>Thanks, ladies - take away is that EC is very very smart and very very well-read. I’m not sure I could even understand the books she mentioned as influencing her writing The Luminaries!! Mary13, thanks for those quotes, as they expand on the brief notes we managed to take! </p>
<p>Also wanted to add that I am glad for our discussion here and for seeing EC before my book group meets tomorrow night - but I sure have worked hard on this one! I hope the others have actually read/finished it. Actually 5 of the 6 of us were there yesterday, and the 6th may have been there and I didn’t see her, so that will help the discussion, I’m sure.</p>
<p>Let us know how things go with your book group, TiredofSnow.</p>
<p>Thanks, NJTheatreMom, I will if it’s anything worth reporting - we usually get sidetracked and I listen while they discuss Australian politics. My friend who started the group is moving back to the States next week and I am doing some soul-searching to see if I want to continue in the group. Right now we have three Americans and three Australians, and only three serious readers (when my friend leaves, we’ll be down to two serious readers). </p>