I haven't seen anything in
the papers, but Alan Garner turns eighty today.
I read some of his books
two lives back, in Moscow when every book in English was a treasure
and every children's book in English was worth its weight in gold. I
was writing my first academic paper on children's literature, and
Garner's books were central in it. And it so happened that the Soviet
Writers' Union was holding an international children's literature
event at which I was engaged as an interpreter for a Swedish visitor,
and among the many distinguished guests was the great Alan Garner. I
was just an errand girl, not a participant, so approaching a famous
writer to introduce myself was embarrassing. I was among the very few
interpreters who were actually interested in children's literature –
they could have been engaged for a conference on chemistry or
economics. But because I showed interest in and at least some
knowledge of British children's literature, including Garner's
novels, the conversation shaped nicely, and I even did something I
had never done before: gave him my address and phone number. I could
have lost my job for this.
Sadly, the promised
postcards with pretty views of Cheshire never came, and I did another
unheard-of thing: wrote a letter care of Garner's publisher and asked my father who was going
abroad to post it for me. When he came back, he returned the letter
saying that he hadn't dared to take it with him. He could have lost
his job.
Some months later, I was
once again engaged for an international event at the Writers' Union
and met Alan's interpreter who gave me his regards. I asked her to
send him mine and explain that his pretty postcards had never reached
me so I wasn't being rude. Alan started sending postcards in
envelopes, and although I had no idea how many were sent and not
delivered, some did come through. One of them contained an unusual
proposal. An obscure journal was doing a special issue on Alan Garner
– would I consider contributing to it? At this point of my life I
knew that I was moving to Sweden in the near future, otherwise I
would have burned this letter and stopped the correspondence
altogether. As it was, I wrote an article - from my today's vantage
point, it was horrendous – and Staffan smuggled it out of Russia
and got it safely to the editor who seemed to be satisfied, as was
the subject of the study himself. The editor wrote me a polite letter
saying that he had been told it was pointless to send me an
honorarium, but he was sending me a box of chocolates. Interestingly,
it came through, although I had to pay substantial import tax.
During the first summer
after I had moved to Sweden, Staffan and I went to the UK by car. The
reason was a bicycle fair in Harrogate, but we took a detour via
Edinburgh and Inverness, and while Staffan was at the fair, I went to
Cheshire. Alan had given me minute instructions, with exact timetable
for the three trains I was supposed to change. I was scared to death, travelling on my own in this strange foreign country. I have pictures
from this visit: me heavily pregnant, and Alan showing me some of the
Important Artefacts featured in his books.
I visited several times;
more or less every time I happened to be in the UK. Once Sergej and I
had the privilege of staying for almost a week and being taken to all
Important Places: the underground tunnels, the Edge, the Wizhard's
well, Mow Cop, the Hall of the Green Knight. At one time, Alan asked
me to collect and send to him initial and final formulas of Russian
folktales: “Beyond thrice three mountains, in the thrice third
kingdom...” As far as I know, this collection was never completed.
Once we concurred in
Moscow, at yet another international event hosted by the Writers'
Union, but this time I was an eminent international guest.
Another time, I was going
to a conference of the Children's Literature Association, and
changing planes at Heathrow saw piles of the newly published
Strandloper which I bought and read on the place. I was presumably the
only one at the conference who had read the novel. The author was
there to receive the Phoenix Award.
I moved around the world,
to California, back to Sweden and eventually to Cambridge. The
correspondence became limited to birthday and Christmas greetings and
finally stopped. It is just the way it is.
Happy birthday, Alan!
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