A veteran's memories

I have just learned that my colleague and blog chum, the autodidact Philip Nel is replacing Jack Zipes as the editor of the Routledge series in children's literature. I am sorry that Jack is leaving, but I do understand him. I am happy Philip has been offered the job and taken it - hope he knows what he is doing. This is a big event in the international children's literature community, and it brings back memories since I was involved with the series from start, once upon a time, before the dawn of time. 

I had just finished a draft for a book in Swedish, the first big work after my PhD, summing up all my post-doc endeavours. I offered the ms to the series published by the Swedish Institute for Children's Books, because it was the obvious place to offer it to, and they had also published my thesis as a book. They do not publish on their own, but in collaboration with different Swedish publishers, but most children's lit scholarship appears in this series. So I sent the draft to the editor, and I also presented it at an open research seminar in my department. The seminar participants didn't say much, and neither did the editor, but from the notes on the draft I got back it was clear that my research was utter rubbish and wasn't even remotedly publishable. It was quite discouraging, especially since some bits of it had already been published as articles. I tried to offer the ms to some Swedish publishers without including it in the series, and they all said they couldn't, because it was only by being part of the series that a book had a chance to be adopted as a course textbook. (Which was nonsense; academic books are very seldom adopted as textbooks, and my proposed book was not meant to be a textbook).

Anyway, I saw an announcement in Children's Literature Association Quarterly that Jack Zipes was starting a series on children's literature at Garland. Jack Zipes was a Famous Scholar, and I was an anonymous postdoc from an obscure country, but I wrote to him immediately (you see, it was in Stone Age, when you actually wrote letters on paper and sent them in envelopes with stamps on) with my book proposal, and he got back saying that yes, he was interested. It so happened that I had a Fulbright grant at UMass, Amherst, and while I was there I was invited to give a talk at the Kerlan Collections, University of Minnesota, which was Jack Zipes's place. I wrote to him, on paper, etc, seeking an appointment, and he took me out for lunch. He said he liked my proposal, and how long did I think it would take me to finish the project. I explained that I was on a Fulbright with a tolerable amount of teaching and would start the next day, and I actually had a full draft in Swedish. I also mentioned that since English wasn't my native tongue I'd make sure I had a native reader before I submitted the draft. "Well, I am not going to edit your draft for you", said Jack cheerfully as ever. So we parted, and in due time my book appeared as the very first volume in the series. It is still quoted a lot, although I think I have written several better books since then.

A few years later I met Jack at a conference where he was a star, and I am always reluctant to display my familiarity with stars so I waved to Jack from a distance, but he came closer, saying: "It's a long time since you've contributed a book to my series". What do you say to this? I said: "I am working on picturebooks, will you be interested?" "I will, he said, I will take anything you have written". Now, you don't hear THAT every day; I had to refrain from covering Jack with kisses. So this is how the picturebook volume appeared in the series.

By which time, I had got involved with another publisher because they brought out the series for Children's Literature Association, and I was commissioned to do a book for them. Scarecrow was a good publisher to work with, and I published four books with them, three single-authored and one co-edited. But then something happened, perhaps they changed the acquisition editor; so when I sent in the next proposal they never got back, and suddenly I remembered that unforgettable: "I'll take anything you have written".(Meanwhile, Jack had taken a lot of stuff I had written for his fabulous encyclopedias). So I sent in a proposal with three finished chapters, and the book was out within a year.

There is nothing to boost your creativity like a publisher's contract. But an editor's enthusiasm cannot be overestimated. Thank you, Jack, for all your support - and I know I share my gratitude with many colleagues all over the world.

So Philip has a lot to live up to. But I hope he will be as supportive and generous toward younger colleagues as Jack has been toward me.

One ordinary day

Yesterday was a bank holiday, and today I realised that summer is over because work-related emails have started arriving: meetings, inductions, requests to join committees and other exciting business. Note that we are still five weeks before classes start, but these reminders bring me back to earth from my ivory tower.

I stated in the beginning of this month that I had just about embarked on my so-called research period that unitiated people call summer holidays. Although I have done some of my own work, today is a very good example of what a very ordinary day during your holiday/research period may be like. I was fully determined to work on my own stuff this morning, and - what a blessing! - there was an interruption in our internet connection, meaning that I did start working on my own stuff and probably wrote a page or two before the connection was back, and then it all began. There was an urgent thing to do on that edited volume (on which I spent the whole day yesterday, bank holiday or not, and no more comment), and I was on the phone with my co-editor for half an hour, then fixed the bibliography, and by the time I made myself a cup of coffee I knew that my inspiration was gone.

That's the big problem - my big problem, but I know I share it with other people. I used to be able to work an hour here and an hour there, especially when the kids were small; I used to be able to work late. I cannot do it anymore, and if I am distracted mid-morning, the day is lost. So I didn't even try. Instead, I went first through my list of urgent things to do and then through my emails looking for - well, urgent things to do. One email was about a copy-edited text for an article, not due until mid-September, but just as well to get rid of it. That took the rest of the morning. It was quite pleasant because I wrote this article some time ago and still like it. In fact, like it very much. So much I wish I had written it, if you see what I mean.

The list of urgent matters reminded me of another deadline that I had completely forgotten because it was so far away once, but not anymore. This article was more or less finished, but as soon as I consulted the stylesheet I realised that it would take some hours to fix all the commas and fullstops. Frankly, it is ridiculous - although I would deny it if a student pointed it out to me - to have full bibliographic information when you can these days easily search the web for anything. And the three miliion different formats for references that journals use is elaborate power exercise. (And don't tell me you can use Endnotes; there isn't such a journal that couldn't invent a format Endnotes hasn't conceived of).

Anyway, that took care of most of my afternoon, and then I submitted it to the journal which these days is also a weird experience, with passwords and double-blind copies. I knew I had a password for this particular journal, but it took me several attempts before I gave up and used the "Forgot password" button. Then the system asked for this and that, and I was just hoping that there wouldn't be any internet interruption. Or maybe I hoped there would.

Meanwhile I replied to scores of emails, checked the schedule of the conference where I am giving a paper next week and checked that I actually had finished the paper - sometimes I think I have and discover I haven't which is awkward. While I was at it, I checked whether I had finsihed the slide show for another conference paper that I am giving later in September, and guess what? I haven't.

Five minutes ago I got an email asking me to review a paper submitted to a journal. I should have said no. But I can resist anything but temptation.

Book of the week: The Borrowers

Last week I went to see the new Japanese animation, Arrietty, based on an old favourite, Mary Norton's The Borrowers. I work from home these days, but I happened to be in the office for a moment so I took home my battered copy and re-read it. This is the cover of my edition:

I bought it in Russia, sometime in the late '70s, for a royal sum of 5 roubles. I am not ironic: it was 5% of my salary. Would you pay 5% of your salary for a used paperback? The reason I bought the book was twofold. I had read about it in Margery Fisher's Intent Upon Reading, the major source of information about British children's literature available in the Moscow Foreign Literature Library. I had also seen it at the exhibition of children's books organised by the British Council in 1975, the catalogue of which became the source of all information about British children's literature for many years coming. But actually - who needs a reason for buying a book! I had a special interest in The Borrowers because I was writing an article about fantasy which eventually, in my next life, became my PhD. Miniature people was among many aspects I considered. There is a very interesting Russian classic about miniature people, but the charm of The Borrowers is their subtle interaction with the world of human beans which is the plot engine, the comedy and the tragedy.

As usual when you re-read a book that you think you remember well, there are many details I had forgotten, and many details are different from the film. The standard interpretation is Arrietty's coming of age, and watching the movie with a 15-year-old I couldn't help wondering how much of that she recognised. As a parent with an empty nest, I recognise the parents' separation anxiety.

I also remembered the metafictional aspect, the story within a story, and the eternal question: did it really happen. Even when I read it first, long before I knew the word metafiction, I enjoyed this playfulness and mystery. The Russian midget story was nothing as sophisticated.

As I remembered, this book was about the impossible love, because the boy can never shrink to Arrietty's size and she cannot grow to his. There is a short story by Astrid Lindgren in which there is a magical word which allows the protagonist to shrink. It makes it all much easier. And although I have read the sequels, Arrietty's and the boy's farewell is irreversible. (Books like this shouldn't have sequels, but that's another matter).

What has always fascinated me about the borrowers was all the intricate ways they used the borrowed objects. And suddenly it filled with new significance. I am a borrower! That's exactly what I do when I make my dollhouses. In the book, there are both minute descriptions and illustrations. I must now put it on the shelf together with all my other dollhouse-maker books.

Lost and found

Wait a minute, I said to myself over a cappucchino and carrot cake after I had safely delivered my granddaughter to the other set of grandparents who would take her home to Stockholm. Wait a minute. I am in London. On my own. On a Saturday. Portobello Road!

And off I went to Portobello Road. It was crowded, as it always is, and I went in zigzags from shop to shop, from stall to stall. There was one with lots of dollhouse stuff, but stuff that I don't buy anymore because I can make much better myself. And then I found this fabulous little shop on the upper floor, where I happily parted with all my cash and where I could have stayed longer just looking at things. Eventually I left, heading north toward an underground station which turned out to be permanently closed, so I had to walk all the way back to Notting Hill Gate. By this time, it suddenly started raining, and every stall was offering umbrellas and ponchos, so I dived into my bag to get two pounds - and couldn't find my purse. Now, in such situations I know that I mustn't panic. It happens to me all the time that I cannot find my purse or my keys or my card in the depths of my bag, and I know that I just have to go through it carefully. Since it was pouring rain, I couldn't get out all my purchases and my London map and my cell phone and my Kindle and my car keys and put them on the pavement, and it was anyway much too crowded. When I finally stated that my purse was simply not there, I rather optimistically concluded that I had had my bag on my stomach all the time, so it was unlikely that the purse was stolen, but I must have dropped it in the shop. The thing was, I didn't remember which shop, and there are hundreds of them along Portobello Road. Since I didn't have money to buy an umbrella or poncho, I just walked on, soaked to the bone, looking into every shop and hoping to recognise the right one, which I finally did. Before I could open my mouth, the lady in the shop cried: "Relax, I have it". I sank on the floor. They got me a cup of tea and entertained me with stories of how they had lost and found their purses and how other people had been kind to them.

I was still wet through when I left the shop, so it didn't make much sense to buy a poncho. I marched to the station and came to King's Cross just in time for a quarter-past train. As I sat there, I couldn't help thinking of the could-have-been if it hadn't rained and I hadn't discovered the loss of my purse until maybe the day after tomorrow, and I felt that I had had a tremendously lucky day.

This is what I bought. If you don't know what a Dutch doll is, there is vast literature on the subject.

My road to children's literature

Me the copycat is once again responding to Philip Nel's blog post. I think his story is more typical than mine: someone discovering that children's literature is fun and successively making it the focus of study. In my case, I always wanted to study children's literature. When I was finishing middle school/junior high/whatever; when I was 15 I was seriously considering quitting my very prestigeous school and change to a library college because they taught children's literature. But they taught a lot of other things I wasn't interested in, so finally I didn't. Schools of librarianship were the only places you could do children's lit, but there was another path: translation, and that was the path I took. And then, by serendipity - as everything else - I met an editor from the only Russian professional journal in children's literature, which mostly targeted librarians, but at least I found myself in a community of devotees.

The rest is history, but I'll tell it very briefly. Since I could not do children's lit for a living, I did it in my spare time, writing essays, book reviews and stuff. So in this respect, I was an autodidact, like Philip. But later I took undergrad and masters in child lit in Stockholm, did my PhD in child lit, so I actually have formal qualifications for what I am doing now. In contrast, I have been obliged to publish on general literature (two single-authored books, several edited volumes, scores of articles) for promotion, and I have taught almost everything, except ancient and medieval literature: Dante, Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, Austin, Swedish Romantic poetry, Russian magical realism, Imre Kertesz, feminist theory, you name it. And supervised on almost anything one can think of.

Children's literature is my Rachel, everything else my Leah, and I have worked hard for both.

Wings of history

Twenty year ago today I was in Moscow to attend the Congress of Compatriots. I still don't know who invited me and why; I was a Swedish citizen by then, but I guess the Soviet Embassy kept an eye on us expats. The Congress was one of many events that marked the new openness after Gorbachov's ascent to power; a huge gathering of diaspora from all over the world. I wasn't particularly keen to go because I was, as usual, suspicious of anything to do with the official side of my former Motherland, but Staffan was eager, and he wasn't invited. So we went by car, loaded with wheelchairs, Bibles and soft toys because I was at the time involved with charity work in Moscow.

We were placed in the monstrous hotel Russia overlooking the Kremlin, and in the morning, twenty years ago, we went down to breakfast, and then we were meeting one of my contacts who would collect the wheelchairs. We overslept after the long travel the day before and hadn't listened to the news. In the gigantic restaurant, two ladies were talking agitated at the table next to us. We addressed them politely saying that we couldn't help hearing their conversation, so could they please explain what was going on. After half a sentence, we left our breakfast unfunished and rushed to our room. The radio was playing classical music, the TV was showing an old movie, and we knew it was really bad. We were in the middle of a coup d'etat.

My wheelchair contact did turn up, only to say that as a medical doctor he had to be on the barricades in case of casualties. There were tanks in the city centre. We called our friends; they were packing emergency bags and expecting arrests (when it was all over, lists oif people to be arrested were indeed found, and all our friends were on those). We went to a newspaper office where all major dailies, already prohibited by the new authorities, were producing a joint flyer Everywhere we saw people bringing food to people oin barricades.The Congress of Compatriots continued as planned.

If you hear anyone say that they knew from start that it would all end well - that's not true! Everyone was in panic because everyone had their own or their family's memories of the Great Terror of the 1930s. The Swedish Embassy encouraged all Swedish visitors to go home. Many did. We were trying to figure out how many friends' children we would be able to save, and how. The radio was playing classical music, and TV was running old comedies. We listened to world news on our short-wave.

Don't believe foreign correspondents and casual eye-witnesses that claim they were not scared. We all were. But we, the visitors, at least knew that in real emergency we would find shelter in our embassies. Our Russian friends had no protection.

It was on the afternoon of the third day that classical music was interrupted by news from an independent station. The coup was suppressed, Gorbachov was back in Moscow after three days of house arrest. Statues of former KGB generals were pulled down. The Communist Party headquarters was sealed off. The hated regime was overthrown, although we didn't know it yet.

I was there.

Me and my teenager

Yesterday morning when our cleaning lady came I asked her to wait with the vacuum cleaner because I had a teenager asleep in the guest room. Her reaction, when I explained the circumstances, was perplexing: "So you are taking her shopping?" I decided I'd better not dicuss the plans I had for my teenager. But apparently it was a typical reaction since later the same day I asked a colleague with a number of kids of relevant age what a fifteen-year-old might want to do in Cambridge and got the answer: "Sleep and shop".

What we did yesterday, my teenager and me, was visit King's Chapel with a lengthy discussion of fan vaults, Christian motifs in stain-glass windows and the symbolism of the red and the white roses; we studied the architecture of Tudor houses and the advantages and disadvantages of half-timber structures; we visited Clare Fellows' Garden, we went punting where I learned some new stories (all punters tell different stories and assure you that they are absolutely true), and generally had a pleasant and mutually enriching conversation. In the evening we went out for a fancy meal.

I am not at all surprised - although I realise now I should be - because I was like this myself once upon a time in Stone Age. I was curious about almost everything and appreciated being taken around on trips. Don't misunderstand me now: I was also a normal teenager with horrible moods, rude and unhappy, and the only reason I didn't enjoy shopping was that there wasn't much to shop for when I was growing up.

Our further plans include Ely Cathedral, Anglesey Abbey and Lode mill, the medieval town of Lavenham, Shakespeare in the gardens and a highbrow movie. We will go shopping too. We are in urgent need of Philip Pullman's most recent book. But she also gets up late and spends hours in the shower, so I am not worried about her.

I am very proud of my teenager.