Latest / Mythmakers / Climate Change and Fantasy: H.S. Norup and The Changeling Child
Transcript
- 0:00Hello and welcome to Mythmakers. Mythmakers is the podcast of the fantasy fans and fantasy creators brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy.
- 0:15My name is Julia Golding and today I'm delighted to welcome back H.S. Norep, also known as Helle, whose second book in a small series meant for children is about to come out.
- 0:31Her book is called The Changing Child. And as Helle has returned to talk to us, I thought we would broaden out the discussion prompted by her book into a more general theme of looking at her.
- 0:44How fantasy and sci-fi deals with are pressing environmental issues. Anyway, welcome back, Helle.
- 0:52Thank you so much for having me, Julia.
- 0:55So let's start with The Changing Child, which I read and enjoyed greatly. It's I think the perfect book for a child of about 10, 11, 12, that kind of age,
- 1:06who had just begun to sort of explore their own power in a way, because one of the characters, Saga, is a little campaigner in her own right.
- 1:19Yes, and equal activists, I would call her.
- 1:23Thank you, yes. And her best friend, Alfred, is a child who has a foot in the fairy world, should we say.
- 1:32So would you like to sort of just give us a little glimpse of the plot line and also sketch out where it intersects with your concern for the environment?
- 1:44Yes, so this is the second book in the series. And the first book without being too much of a spoiler ends kind of with a solution that involves Alfred and Saga finding this dripscomb cavern.
- 2:00And they think they have found a complete solution to avoid having like a motorway tunnel through their local hill and forest and and the place where the fairy slim.
- 2:11But as it turns out in the beginning of this book, the mayor of this area, who is really one of the bad guys announces that he wants, because of this dripscomb cavern, he wants to turn the entire area into this gigantic tourist attraction.
- 2:29And this is where the book starts and Alfred and Saga, they know this is going to have detrimental effects on both kind of the local wildlife and whoever is in this forest and of course on the whole fairy world.
- 2:46And so they kind of set up to see what can be done about it and they quickly discover that the fairies are not going to take anything from the humans anymore and they are going to fight back.
- 2:57So they kind of have to both mediate with the fairies and make sure that they don't do anything drastic towards the humans.
- 3:06And then also find a solution to stop this project being an enormous thing and part of that is that they need to search for this changing child of the title.
- 3:20And in this book, the first book was told entirely from Alfred's perspective, but this book is told in a dual point of view from the two children also because they are separated for part of the book and need to do some things on their own.
- 3:40And they have some slight conflicts between them as well, which is so much better to explore when it's told from two points of view.
- 3:51Yeah, just to sort of point out to the listener that the kind of fairy we're talking about here is the fairy, which is very much a sort of in some a night's dream style fairy, not pretty little fairies of the flower.
- 4:05Not the Disney kind to know.
- 4:08This is really the dark older folklore with quite scary creatures like really powerful creatures, some of them are small and tricky and spiteful and some of them are very powerful and there's a whole range of fairy creatures in this story.
- 4:33And of course the folkloric origins of environmental concern is perhaps where we could start because in a way a lot of the tales that were told about the little people in the green hills, the ones who spirit you off when you get lost in the forest.
- 4:49I mean, some of these are embodiments of our distrust and our fear of the wild and how it's and actually be very dangerous. So there is already in folklore.
- 5:01It's mainlining, you know, it's completely plugged into our human responses to the environment, if you just think through any fairy tale, for example.
- 5:13It's a red-riding hit. The wolf there, of course, is there were wolves.
- 5:19Exactly.
- 5:20It's captured a moment when you really did have to be worried going through the forest granite cottage.
- 5:27Yeah, and a lot of these fairy tales and stories about fairies, they were used to explain also some of the dangers maybe in nature going back.
- 5:38And I think one of the thoughts that I've had behind this series is also like what if the things that we as human do to the environment and to our world, what if that also damages the fairies realm, which is what happens in this story.
- 5:57And then kind of the second question is that what of these fairies and they are not these Disney fairies, they are they are fearsome fairies.
- 6:06What if they decide to fight back against what we are doing to their world as well.
- 6:14So I think that's kind of the thoughts that came and the initial thoughts about these books was something I had in a writing workshop 10 years ago or something when I thought about this water sprite in a river with very, very long hair.
- 6:33Her function was kind of to filter the water in this river where she lived and of course she would be immensely deserved by rubbish that was thrown in the water and whatever was found in there.
- 6:48So I think it's it's this about nature spirit and I think like all of these kind of water sprites trees sprites and and and whatever we call these creatures.
- 6:58They are nature spirits and they are linked to healthy nature in a way and and this was kind of by starting points from writing the books as well.
- 7:11And yes, I suppose if people are thinking where are the news stories thinking about the old creatures in conjunction with our modern.
- 7:20Playing changing climate is a very fertile place you can't open a newspaper without or read it online more often these days I suppose without thinking what would that be like as a story this morning I was reading about a huge bleaching event going on in not the great barrier reef but another coral reef in Australia which they called like an underwater forest fire.
- 7:46It's a beautiful but awful image and you could imagine an Australian writer really running with that as a story so yeah so okay then we've sort of touched on the fact that concert our relationship with nature has come through story.
- 8:05Handed down through folklore or Shakespeare or sorts of sources but should we talk about what the sort of fantasy novel and will include within fantasy sci-fi because so much of this will be projections into the future.
- 8:22Who has been the the big markers of care or concern about the environment would you say writing about the fact writing in the fantasy genre but referring to our treatment of the environment.
- 8:39I think something like watershed down is probably one of the earlier novels that that go in and and look at what happens when our home is destroyed.
- 8:50And I remember reading that when I was a child it was called translated from Danish the rabbit mountain is tightly in Danish so quite interestingly.
- 9:04It was so I think there was a big film wasn't there I don't feel the same vintage as me but there was a big animated film of this I don't think I ever saw that I think we are kind of the same age but I don't remember seeing it.
- 9:20People have in in the later decades like me with a very moving song bright eyes which stayed at number one when these things mattered with the video taken from worship down for weeks.
- 9:38I won't say it to you because you can be spared that but the idea that this animal tale the framing in that fantasy in the sort of microcosm of what happens to a colony of rabbits really really did strike a chord for that generation I'm not sure
- 9:57so many people know about it now but it was a recent recent version like Netflix or something to the recent version actually so I think the newer generation will have seen some of those yeah yeah
- 10:14animated so so definitely something like that is but but I think I think for me it's also wider I think the way I approach is also through showing the beauty of nature anyway.
- 10:31It's not so much going in and talking about climate change in the books but showing like the details like a butterfly can be absolutely magical or a tree or a little flower or something like that and showing this beauty because I think especially as children's authors.
- 10:51Going in and kind of conveying this beauty of nature not all children have access to nature and I think they need to also see this and if we look at it from that perspective then I think I mean you know that better than anyone that talking in his nature descriptions that are just so evocative is something that also some of them are very scary but but his imagery is something that also makes you long to go out in nature.
- 11:21And and see these places for yourself.
- 11:24Yes he was the first on my list of course about this and the thing about the Shire in particular because there are the beautiful places which are passing so there's a sense that lorian is passing is going to eventually become a special but ordinary wood you know that the
- 11:45lorian moment is passing. Shire can stay because it's a hobbit slash kind of human place. Yeah and so it's when the Shire gets scoured when the Shire gets its industrialization and the trees that shaded the road to buy water are cut down and the pool is polluted that you really fill the pain similar to
- 12:14tree beard lamenting the fallen trees they actually did quite well in the Peter Jackson movie version because I think so yes I mean it's a short it's a film film the short hand but when they step out and see the cut down trees they just cry.
- 12:34Yeah definitely yeah so you know that's that's or a hoot or grown or whatever the equivalent of entish the ants yeah so talking was thinking about the early stage well the
- 12:5420th century industrialization where many things spread so where he lived in on the outskirts of Birmingham was swallowed up by that big city suburbia and if you visit it today funnily enough it's the mill but is the one thing that's kind of in a little country park with a bit of greenery around it and everything else is roads and suburban houses so he wouldn't be impressed.
- 13:22And that's what he was warning against and that in itself goes back to a sort of Victorian movement and a romantic go back I'm going back on say romantic.
- 13:35Yeah the country side could be because industrialization was leaving scars on the landscape we now have the power to really radically change the places we live in railways roads factories killing rivers and and all that kind of thing but the Victorians also had the sense there were some solutions so
- 14:00if you if you kill the river tend to build a decent sewer system you know they they had me they thought of engineering solutions so they're there weren't completely hopeless they weren't just throwing up their hands and saying no we can't do the about it they did begin to think and I think where we are now as environmentalists knowing that the problems are so much bigger now.
- 14:25And with the galloping climate change and the moment where things are tipping so that ice sheets melt and all that is that we also need to have a sort of Victorian solution focus of what can we do about it and sometimes fantasy can model that.
- 14:47So in talking terms it's kind of well you replant you rewild the shy you get special little bit of earth from Galadriel which I suppose stands for care and love and concern and you repair the fault.
- 15:05So I think we're moving into a phase where we're looking for solutions because we all know there's a problem and sometimes fantasy can model potential solutions so let's go back and have a thing so we've agreed that Tolkien yes.
- 15:18He's because of the way he writes about just the countryside and the value of the wild is part of the reason for wanting to preserve it and love it.
- 15:33I think that looking at CS Lewis is less known for this it actually just struck me today that that hideous strength which I don't know if you've read his science fiction trilogy for I haven't no no no they're quite interesting in this way because the first one out of the silent planet has a.
- 15:56A version of Mars which is called Malacandra where there's two species sort of living in harmony and it's the exploitative humans who bring death to that world and perilandra which is the second one is about Venus which he calls perilandra and that's an unfold and world with a green lady and a green man.
- 16:16So interesting yeah it's a it's a plot which is it feels quite medieval in a way which is that's very that fit for him it's an incredible world building exercise that one for the one which had the most.
- 16:30So application I think to sort of the more environmental campaigning side of it is that hideous strength which is the last of this group not my favorite novel of his I must admit I found it quite difficult when I first read it enjoyed it more the second time but it does have a strong antiviva section message in it and it also has a message about the damage you can do the stirring up of old travels if you cut downwards.
- 17:00Berlin basically is dug up again and this particular corporation so it's interesting he's modeling a corporation rather than a government a corporation who is the rot of it is spreading through the governments.
- 17:19I suppose a bit like today's scenario so it has a present day resonance which it may may not had the first time I when I read it so that I think that's quite interesting from looking at it through an environmentalist viewpoint but moving on from the inklings I was thinking what are the seminal books where we've got the in the nonfiction world you've got Rachel Carson the silent spring which kind of was the one that crystallized the problem.
- 17:49And I was looking at books other people mentioning they they start early this worry so you've got in the 60s or something 50s 60s the drowned world by J.G. Ballard.
- 18:02Yeah and then of course you got the power of the server by Octavia Butler.
- 18:08I've not read those two but I have read the Margaret atwood or X and Craig yeah from 2003 I honestly haven't read them I.
- 18:20I'm I'm I'm I worry too much if I read the stoke in novels I it children's dystopia is okay because they're usually hopeful they're getting on to those in a second.
- 18:32Arex and Craig is an interesting one because it's got a world of people sort of engaged communities yeah who are privileged.
- 18:43Yeah and then I did wonder if if we should count I was talking about this my son who reads a lot of sci fi does tune fit here because it's not all world but it's also about living in harmony in a desert world so it's certainly.
- 18:58In a way yes because it is it is set in a bleak nature in a big in a landscape but it is as you say about adjusting to this landscape where you are and.
- 19:12And if I recall I mean I haven't read tunes since I was a teenager and I think but I think there are other landscapes and other planets that are very different as well.
- 19:22I was also wondering about the dispossessed which is the absolute lagoon book though yeah I think what she's really modeling is some communism and capitalism well her books have so much.
- 19:36Yeah anyway so it's easy to see when we move over to children's fantasy you mentioned will ship down.
- 19:42I was thinking of I don't know if you've read or seen the film of the mortal engines by Philip Reeve which is read I read the first book yes yeah for me that's like a metaphor because you've got the cities that are moving around and they're eating up other cities it's like exploit you know they're.
- 20:04Exploiting them and it's also in kind of this strange landscape where it's only the cities where you can actually live in right as far as I remember yeah yeah yeah.
- 20:15And then I think about Philip or man got to you know keep going with the Oxford people yes and the book of dust the second of his where it starts with the flood yes.
- 20:27Anyone in Oxford know we're worried about the floods was when the 10s rises it's big problems in Oxford okay and then I would there are quite a few younger.
- 20:40More recent title like the last bear by Hannah gold and and the others in this area of children encounter and I would also say the last wild trilogy by pierced or day yes it's very much that's dystopian and about this where the animals have this red eye disease.
- 21:02And and humans can't move around in about a nature and and Nicola penful I don't know if you've read her books they also also very much about.
- 21:13Rewilding and climate change and.
- 21:18Really beautiful nature descriptions as well that really that really evocative and you want they I think they take place in in the lake district some of the her her her books and it's just this fantastic landscape but again there's a virus that means a humans can't move outside the cities.
- 21:40Yeah I think about what you were saying about you sort of don't want to you don't want to read it because it's depressing whereas you can cope with it in Georgians and I was thinking this is a problem for us there was that alcohol film and inconvenient truth yeah.
- 21:54And it's like when I watch a Richard happen to a documentary fantastic documentary but it soon becomes every documentary is about how we're losing all of this how the world is you know so after a while you think oh I don't do I you know.
- 22:08Shall I watch that or shall I have a laugh and watch Ted lasso where I don't have to think about climate change I don't remember an episode in Ted lasso where they.
- 22:18You know carbon counted football matches or anything no no and of course when it comes to the decisions about making big films.
- 22:28It seems to me as though things like superhero films sometimes touch on it but they don't really go for it because there's a opposition people don't want to hear it's the fingers in the ears la la la I'm not listening so they have to quite sly about the way that you're in about the two that stand out as.
- 22:49Having gone straight for it one is avatar yes which did it on other planet but clearly clearly a lessons apply and Wally which is just the most clever beautiful bit of animation and
- 23:07morning what the future could be doing it with humor but also you can recognize the world that Wally is working in yeah yeah so that was where I was thinking though I think also the original planet of the apes when I saw I remember that so vividly I don't know if that
- 23:26was in the 80s or something like that this might have been older because it was childhood Heston yeah riding down maybe I don't know but I probably not seen it until like the early 80s or something yeah I probably made it to television by then so yeah yeah yeah yeah I remember it was the head of
- 23:44a statue of liberty wasn't it yes yes and that was such a powerful image I think that was something that that stayed with me for so many years so I think yeah but but films as well books as well yeah so my thoughts
- 24:02when I was doing a little bit of I'm doing my literature review here was that almost any recent series deals with it I've certainly dealt with it all the way through my career my first book I wrote
- 24:12was called the secret of the sirens and it has a lot in common with your series because it's about children who belong to the secret society for the protection of
- 24:22mythical creatures and each book has a different environmental issue that they have to solve to protect creatures from so it's so full on is right in there one of
- 24:32painter and I wrote this back in the 2000s okay because I remember yeah yeah I was working for Oxfam and I remember hearing from
- 24:43Greenpeace colleagues whatever that if we don't get this sorted by 2020 was stuffed well that was worrying so I and they might
- 24:53might be true and so I wrote these these books to frame a problem I found really a cause of anxiety I was also having just begun my own family of seeking what kind of future I'm
- 25:10having them into and then in the 2010s I wrote a series of just sterling called peril which is about a flooded world not too far in the future it's it's sort of how the world might look in 50 80 years
- 25:28time yeah and then more recently I've written a series which is a thousand years in the future okay good magic no more and that's not that's not out yet is it yeah it's just
- 25:42sterling book which is out okay and that one is about so in a fantasy world they saw the problem of climate change somebody invented the magic
- 25:52particle a conscious particle like a wish particle and wish to what it basically the magic took over a bit like AI but it was magic took
- 26:01over and fix the problems that sounds good but in itself has created problems so it's the end of this period so you do be careful what you wish for
- 26:12so you get one kind of solution which then brings in its own yes which is great fun to write about so I was thinking
- 26:24well why do I write on a fantasy theme I'm going to ask you the same question in a second it's for me it was to frame a problem
- 26:32that is the one I found I was almost paralyzed by and I found by moving into that world in my imagination rather than sticking my fingers in my
- 26:42ears and wishing it away I was able to find some think constructive some ideas some comfort not not writing to preach to the younger
- 26:56generation because not therefore they probably know it's more working it out I think yeah it's working out so does that chime with you
- 27:06it does but I would also say that for me it's very much about yes highlighting the problems but in a hopeful it bringing hope
- 27:18it bringing hope as well making sure that they have characters in the stories that can empower them and not make them
- 27:28feel like there's nothing they can do and I think like the whole issue of climate teams is it's such a huge thing and for these
- 27:3810 to 12-year-olds it's just insurmountable and and and and in any case I think the first step for us is to kind of instill
- 27:48a love of nature and show them this the beauty of nature show them that it's worth protecting anyway and then maybe
- 27:58show them small steps that you can take in order to to help moving this world and I know small steps it's not
- 28:08going to be enough but we can't put the burden on children at that age it's I mean it's our problem our
- 28:16parents generation our generation maybe the previous generations as well we have created this
- 28:22problems and I don't think we can we can't put the full scale on them I think they know quite a lot
- 28:30yeah that how bad it is so it's also about showing them something that can give them some hope also and if they are
- 28:40just told about these carbon levels and targets and water rising and in 50 years the water will have risen
- 28:52so much and so it's terrifying I mean that's really terrifying for them and and it's I was actually
- 29:00at a book launch for a friend of mine who's co-written a book about how you can kind of with a work book about how
- 29:08you can work on your own carbon emissions and and kind of go in and you can look at at world wildlife
- 29:14foundation they have these calculators you can see where your carbon emissions are coming from see
- 29:20how you can adjust your own small contribution we all know there are big corporations and things
- 29:28that are so much bigger but but at least we can do some small steps and at this launch there was some
- 29:34children there as well around this age 10 13 to 13 year olds
- 29:40and and one of the girls asked the question and she was she was so near to tears because she was like
- 29:46because of course the speakers have had really been hanging in this message
- 29:52about if we don't do something it will be all horrible and this girl she was she was in tears
- 29:58since she was like so he said no hope when when are we going to die almost I mean
- 30:02and and we cannot put that on them I think I think we need to
- 30:08show them that whether I mean whether that is enough I don't know but but at least at that age
- 30:18it has to be enough that they can ease into the problem that they they they know the problem but that they can
- 30:24understand that there's something worse worth saving there's something that
- 30:30that that that that they can fight for but also that there's small things they can do
- 30:36and then when they get a little bit older they can get the full full barrel and
- 30:42and and and understand like we do even though I mean honestly in our generation do we really understand how much
- 30:50it matters now that what we're doing I'm not sure I think it's the
- 30:56you can imagine you can imagine what's happening but how you yourself make a
- 31:02difference is the missing factor because there's the feeling of
- 31:08is it worth me doing something because it's not just one you know
- 31:14it's not enough for me to kind of go off grid or whatever it might be
- 31:20because that won't actually move the dial it is true this has to be at the level of
- 31:26nations and global changing ways because if one country is doing something and another country is
- 31:34increasing emissions you're you're back to the same problem
- 31:38yeah but I think we're still oddly in a phase where people don't want to
- 31:44recognize the problem there's certainly more people moved over to we see there's a
- 31:50problem yeah people who are happy in a world of fact
- 31:54there are quite a lot of people in power who are not at that stage yet
- 31:58and I think I mean I really commented it when I write I commented for this
- 32:10level of like for the children and I think it is what we can do in fantasy
- 32:16goes back to I think it's a the
- 32:20a Chesterton quote about fairy fairytales
- 32:26show us that or show children that monsters or can be beaten
- 32:32right they know their monsters there's no doubt most children
- 32:36tend to 12 year olds they do know their climate change problems
- 32:40and they do know their huge environmental challenges and so on
- 32:44but through fantasy we can kind of reframe the problems a little bit we can show
- 32:50a part of the problem that can seem maybe
- 32:54that's that's that's finite in a different way
- 33:00from reality and and they can see that in this in this world
- 33:04we can do something it is possible to to kind of beat the
- 33:08monster that is these in environmental challenges we're facing yeah
- 33:14and I think as well that because of the nature of fantasy we're often
- 33:18with the emphasis on a hero or group of heroes beating
- 33:22impossible odds that in a way it does suit this
- 33:26problem because the problem is so big that you need to
- 33:30actually believe that if you have courage if you have faith
- 33:34if you have heart that actually there is a chance the use of can succeed
- 33:40so it's quite an optimistic genre often not about dystopia
- 33:44no no
- 33:46I think even in general kind of middle grade for this
- 33:50for this age group I think
- 33:54endings they don't have to be happy they can be sad they can be
- 33:58a lot of things but I think they have to be hopeful I think books for
- 34:02this age group that's my personal opinion I think they
- 34:06have to be hopeful in some way I was thinking about the
- 34:10fantasy genre not just for for children because obviously yes
- 34:14hopefully don't depress and demotivate our children but we also
- 34:18need to do that for our adults we need to say we are
- 34:22you know it's not all impossible
- 34:26I've got a friend who runs an institute in Cambridge
- 34:30called the Climate Repair Centre so I'm often following his new stories
- 34:34and he's off at the Arctic looking in ways of preserving up to
- 34:38guys and all these other he talks about these things there are people coming up with
- 34:42solutions and we need to actually start thinking about that because I think
- 34:46changing our personal behaviour plus
- 34:50solutions like that are going to be the way forward
- 34:54and adaptation so we're going to be doing all these things
- 34:58hopefully if people will actually notice there's a problem
- 35:04or stop saying oh it's a freak weather event it's not it's now
- 35:10that's now our weather welcome to the new world
- 35:14so I've got a sort of rather depressing question here is do you
- 35:18feel personally when you're writing that you're rearranging the deck chairs on the
- 35:22Titanic and are we as writers part of the problem
- 35:26because of course we are it could be said to
- 35:30be encouraging escapism
- 35:34away from the problems rather than
- 35:38face up and deal with the problems in the real world because the problem isn't in the real world
- 35:42isn't the fairies problem in the real world is with
- 35:46you know with the real world yes the real world
- 35:50yes I'm putting the real world in so that's I'm
- 35:54purposely being provocative I don't think that myself but
- 35:58it is a criticism that can be made of people who disappear off into
- 36:02their computer game or their favourite fantasy
- 36:06series without actually engaging with politics or
- 36:10campaigning or one of the other things that might make a difference
- 36:14yes
- 36:18I don't think we are I don't think we are just rearranging
- 36:22because I
- 36:26think there are people that are better at going out maybe and telling
- 36:30the hard facts but I think also there's a need for
- 36:34kind of showing different I'm coming back to this about showing the beauty
- 36:38nature because unless you
- 36:42have feelings for
- 36:46butterflies and want to make sure they are conserved and we
- 36:50look at endangered species and make sure that
- 36:54they are preserved and whatever we can do
- 36:58unless you can kind of convey this love of this natural
- 37:02world then you can't get anyone to fight for it
- 37:06so I think that it's kind of the first step and
- 37:10maybe that's just as far as I
- 37:14feel that I am able to go in
- 37:18the kind of stories that I tell but I'm also not sure that we need to
- 37:24of course I mean they also they have biology geography
- 37:28different lessons in school where they hear about these messages
- 37:32as well they are told these messages and I think
- 37:36what we can do with fantasy books is kind of show
- 37:40a version show a version of nature show
- 37:44that nature is also magical and
- 37:48whether some children will read it and
- 37:52and only see the magic and only escape into the
- 37:56books or maybe or whether they will think about it
- 38:00and of course if we have like in your series you have an
- 38:04activist and I have saga as an activist you have someone who is also
- 38:08gently trying to kind of
- 38:12tell them that message on top of
- 38:16this kind of showing the world
- 38:20is it enough I have no idea
- 38:24it's something
- 38:28and I think it is something that it's really about showing
- 38:32them something in a way and not just
- 38:36see it just as escapism yes it can be escapism
- 38:40but there are things in there that is more
- 38:44than escapism and I think going back to where we were discussing at the very
- 38:48beginning about the book like June or the series June
- 38:52one thing fantasy does do is it allows you to
- 38:56model the interconnections of
- 39:00how a natural world works so the the world
- 39:04there the way some of the people have adapted to live in a world
- 39:08with these sandworms and the lack of water
- 39:12and spice and all of that kind of things it shows you
- 39:16bit similar to the beginning of what was
- 39:18moving struck the you know the very first
- 39:21Star Wars film that
- 39:24it's really interesting that his aunt and uncle
- 39:28Luke Skywalker's aunt and uncle are
- 39:32oyster harvesters yeah
- 39:36and that's also a sand world right I mean that's also really
- 39:40really desert all of it so putting in fantasy can actually
- 39:44say look at this you can understand it in a fantasy world you've got time to sort of pause and think about it
- 39:48and then you sort of think oh hang on a minute how does that apply to
- 39:52what we now call ecosystems um how does that apply
- 39:56and what you are saying reminds me of
- 40:00a saying by CS Lewis
- 40:04which I'm going to slightly paraphrase which is
- 40:08a person who reads about enchanted woods
- 40:12doesn't fall out of love with woods but for him every
- 40:16would becomes enchanted oh I don't know that one
- 40:20that's fantastic yeah he said it more succinctly than that so
- 40:24but the idea if
- 40:26if we fall in love with fangirl or
- 40:30lorian or dania when we're walking in our local woods
- 40:34we might turn to our companions and say oh this reminds me
- 40:38of reminds me of Tom Bombardill's house or this
- 40:42reminds me of um welling hall where tree bid lives
- 40:46and suddenly an ordinary wood and every day woods
- 40:50is has that magic light
- 40:54on it so we can
- 40:56value it even more because there are the stories there's the magic
- 41:00it's yeah
- 41:02yes
- 41:04so um
- 41:06thank you heli that's a
- 41:08fascinating discussion and I wish you all the best with the changeling child which is
- 41:12a great adventure story we've been talking mainly about the
- 41:14environmental theme but I don't want to get away from the fact that
- 41:18it's a gripping read and there's some very scary
- 41:22mountaineering in it
- 41:24that too yes
- 41:26there is lots lots of action as well as issues
- 41:30and swimming uh swimming and climbing so it's very active book
- 41:34um just as a final question we always think about
- 41:38where in all the fantasy worlds and we can add in the sci-fi dystopian
- 41:42worlds as well where in all the fantasy worlds is it a
- 41:46good place to be an environmental campaigner
- 41:50um yes where will it
- 41:52I mean now we have actually already touched on this but what I was
- 41:56thinking about and um
- 42:00it is a little on the nose but I would really really
- 42:03love to be in fangom with pure and uh
- 42:07the epipian and merry and and and tree bid and kind of
- 42:11get all the ends on the march and see the march and uh
- 42:17and see them destroy eyes and guard that is something that um
- 42:22that what I would find that's so satisfying being with the trees and with the
- 42:26ends yeah but but it is perhaps a little i mean
- 42:30they're doing it already so what would my contribution be
- 42:34I know I think i think i'm pretty there so a great place to go
- 42:37I was wondering about one place that might be quite amusing to be
- 42:39and dangerous to be an environmental campaigner um
- 42:43is uh in Alice in Wonderland to try and stop those um
- 42:49servants of the queen of hearts painting the roses
- 42:53oh no no the pink roses are you my head exactly it may be a very short
- 43:00um job as an environmental campaigner uh i think so
- 43:04that'd be quite fun though you could imagine a funny scene um
- 43:08a modern-day version of that yeah uh where you
- 43:12you Alice becomes a green activist uh and that that would be
- 43:19very much interesting i was also thinking about kind of in the
- 43:22Artemis foul world because i think Artemis foul would be
- 43:26kind of a very good ally to have in some some kind of
- 43:30environmental campaign he would be able to think out some great scheme
- 43:35but i don't know if they're environmental challenges in that world
- 43:40oh holly the um the the the tech of fairy yeah
- 43:45she gets her power from green spaces that's so it is it is
- 43:51interconnected connected you'd have to get Artemis foul when he was actually
- 43:54in his good phase because i think he gets reset as a villain at some point
- 43:58doesn't he so i think he starts or does not start as a villain
- 44:02it's not good and then i think he and and then yeah
- 44:04there's a reset i think i remember right maybe yeah it's been a while
- 44:08yeah thank you so much helly and uh it was a joy talking to you and thank you for
- 44:14going on this little environmental uh exploration with me
- 44:19thank you so much for having me that was it was really interesting to have a
- 44:23discussion around fantasy and and environmentalism definitely thank you for listening thank you
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