Latest / Mythmakers / Movies Showing Nowhere: Yorick Goldewijk and Memories in Fantasy
Transcript
- 0:00Hello and welcome to MythMakers. MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and fantasy
- 0:10creatives brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy and it's always great fun in
- 0:17my place here as running the centre is to meet fellow authors. My name is Julia Golding
- 0:24and today I am joined by Dutch author. Hold on to this because I'm trying very hard
- 0:28to get this right. Yorick Holderbike which he felt if you're looking for his book I'm going
- 0:36to say this because this is important. It's G-O-L-D-E-W-I-J-K Holderbike and here is his
- 0:45wonderful book which is called Moves Showing Nowhere and this has been translated from the
- 0:53Dutch by Laura Watkinson. Now first of all congratulations on this book it's very thought-provoking
- 1:02it's a middle grade fantasy we'll hear a little bit more about this in a moment very unusual
- 1:08very original so I'm very excited to talk to you about it but first of all I wanted to take you
- 1:14back in time because that is one of the themes in the book and your main character Kate is about
- 1:2112 when we join her. So where was Yorick when he was 12 and what kind of fantasy story was it
- 1:30turning him on to the whole idea of writing fantasy? Yeah well when I was about 12 years old I know
- 1:37my favorite book must have been Ruinjadder Robbersthorter from Astrid Lindgren which is actually also
- 1:45well it's a fantasy book actually I was such a book you know what you when you're young you have it
- 1:52more often I think than when you're an adult that you really fall in love with and you know you're
- 1:58actually really sad when it's when it's over you want to stay in that world forever that's what I
- 2:04experienced with that book and that's also the book I think because I was already writing before
- 2:09then I was writing little stories and I fantasized about being a writer but when I read this book I
- 2:16was sort of certain that I really wanted to be a writer so my first real efforts at that age were
- 2:22sort of copies of Ruinjadder Robbersthorter and I was writing. That sort of imitation phase is so
- 2:29important isn't it I did exactly the same thing I've got books from the end of primary level where
- 2:36it goes from some kind of a children of green no you know Lucy Boston story to some kind of
- 2:47nanny a story to some kind of space thing because it was for as reading and it is absolutely how
- 2:52you learn to write. Yeah and you've got to go and do she has to then that you just want to do that
- 2:57and you don't know you don't have your own voice yet so you're really looking for things to hold
- 3:03on to and yeah slowly something of yourself evolves then yeah exactly yeah so how did you get
- 3:10from the little boy at 12 well not so little at 12 are you how did you get from there to being
- 3:16the author you are today and this particular book well I I always wrote since then actually
- 3:25and the story's got longer and longer and I think at the age of 20 maybe I actually finished
- 3:33my first novel it was for adults by the way and I had worked on it for years and I neglected
- 3:40everything else my study my friends everything in the rest of my life but it got rejected
- 3:49I sent it to four publishers and they all rejected it and then I just continued writing I was
- 3:54a bit disappointed of course but I continued writing I only started writing children's books when
- 3:59my son was born because I had the idea as many people maybe have to start writing a book for my son
- 4:08and that became my first book I had it finished really quickly like in six weeks was done with it I
- 4:16thought and I was really really really really really really happy with it I never had written something
- 4:21so well I thought so I sent it over to a publisher and I was convinced that it would turn out fine
- 4:28but I got rejected again of course after half a year I got a note small note saying no sorry
- 4:36and then I rewrote the whole thing and thought about it a bit more and I sent it to a different
- 4:41publisher and again got rejected after half a year and that repeated like 15 times I think
- 4:49and then the 16th time which was nine years after I started writing there was finally a publisher
- 4:56that wanted to have my book and it's by the way really cool because it's the same publisher that
- 5:02also did a Dutch translation of Rania the rubbish starter so it was a fantastic publisher and it was
- 5:08the circle was round so that that was when it really started and then I just all of a sudden I had
- 5:16written so many things before that never got published and all of a sudden I had a publisher and then
- 5:21it was like a stream that just continued on so I continued writing and yeah it was full of ideas
- 5:30and then I wrote a second it's a series the first book I wrote a second book and then I also
- 5:37did a picture book with my wife and then after that that came my movie show in nowhere which was
- 5:44actually also a little bit accidental I guess because I was working on something else
- 5:50but it was I just got stuck all the time with that story so I decided at first I thought to do
- 5:56something light in between which was the start of movie showing nowhere and all of a sudden it
- 6:03sort of swept me off my feet I guess I was just completely obsessed by what it turned into
- 6:09and then it just sort of happened the story I guess so so people can understand what we're talking
- 6:16about because it is an unusual story you want to give us a little bit of a idea of the you know
- 6:22like the back of the book what what are we going to what story are we reading when we pick this up
- 6:27it's the story of Kate who's mum has died when she was given birth to her and her dad is like
- 6:35well it's still in a sort of a morning state actually never really got over it but it's not all
- 6:40what's wrong with him he's just kind of not there the whole time so she doesn't really know him
- 6:48speak to him she doesn't hear any stories about her mother also so Kate just has her own life and
- 6:54she has her own interests she walks around with the camera and takes pictures of all kinds of
- 7:00very normal things that actually are so normal that nobody really sees them anymore and she finds
- 7:06these things interesting so she has a very distinct and quirky look at the world and then all of a
- 7:15sudden she learns that cinema in the cities opened again it's an old cinema and there's a very
- 7:22weird lady who's running the cinema and in this cinema there are not ordinary movies that are
- 7:29shown but there's something very special about this cinema I don't want to tell too much about it
- 7:36that's right this is why I gave you the job of saying there is some wonderful twists in the plot
- 7:42but I think we can say it's a magical cinema it's a magical cinema yes yes you can do something
- 7:48in the cinema that I think everyone in the world would like to be able to do and Kate also wants this
- 7:57but she's also really scared to actually confront herself with her deepest wish
- 8:06so she slowly learns more about herself also about her father because her father has also
- 8:13there's more about him than just this empty sec who's sitting in his chair the whole day
- 8:20and as a reader you slowly learn how things are really put together yes I'm going to stop you
- 8:29there so you don't reveal this book in dutch won the golden pencil prize for the best dutch
- 8:38children's book of the year and it was shortlisted for the Flemish boon literature prize so
- 8:44pushkin press who children's books who we know very well at the Oxford Centre for Fantasy they have
- 8:50a mission to find the best in fantasy around the world and bring it into English because a lot goes
- 8:57the other way and then it's to bring books the other way and so it's why we've got this opportunity
- 9:02to read your wonderful book and so cs Lewis who obviously the Oxford fantasy writer he said that
- 9:11you know there's really two things in books lots more than two but two main things one is the words
- 9:18which are like the plots and then there's the secret atmosphere the theme or the he called it the
- 9:24capper because he was classically trained so he could be bearing to the the Greek alphabet
- 9:30in movies showing nowhere it seemed to me that that kind of secret atmosphere was grief and how we
- 9:39deal with grief and how we emerge from it yeah would you agree that's the kind of secret atmosphere
- 9:46of the book or is there something else that you'd like to highlight it no I don't I think it's
- 9:51it's it's grief it and maybe it's more specific it's about you know the way that nothing lasts forever
- 9:58everything passed by and which is sad because you can never hold on to things forever which is also
- 10:08very important that it happens and also very beautiful because if everything was to last forever
- 10:13you would never cherish anything or love anything anymore I think it's the idea of
- 10:18knowing that it's not forever that makes things worthwhile so it's a little bit about I think
- 10:26you know embracing life at the moment that it's happening instead of maybe you know also when
- 10:33you get older it's it's you're busy with all kinds of things that are not really the core of
- 10:40your life but are just things you have to deal with and you have to take care of and sometimes
- 10:47the that actually important things are sort of unseen passing you by and the book is more like a
- 10:56sort of a cry out to embrace it to not let it slip away at the moment that is happening and also to
- 11:07to deal with things that are passing by and to to cherish these things and that you can always
- 11:18do something about it that's never too late that you can always you know take things in your
- 11:22own hand and yeah make them yours so the idea that Kate takes pictures of things which other people
- 11:30don't notice is part of that capturing those moments isn't it that you you notice it's like keep
- 11:35have your eyes open everyone so one of the things in it that is great fun is it celebrates
- 11:41weirdness Kate is delightfully weird I mean in a really nice way she doesn't fit in at school
- 11:50she hasn't yet found her crowd which I think is the experience of many a child who feels school
- 11:57isn't their thing but on the other hand I often hear people saying that now the sort of geek
- 12:04nerd culture is now mainstream so just take for example those people who play dungeons and dragons
- 12:09and love talking back in the eighties those days that was deeply weird and and it's cool now it's
- 12:17cool yeah it's true so do you what do you think about this whole theme of being a you know the
- 12:24other English word for this is being a misfit yeah I wonder if we all feel we actually are in
- 12:30some way misfits I think everybody does really think they're misfits and everybody who
- 12:37seems to be not a misfit is I think someone who has just adapted and who is not showing everything
- 12:43and who's just learned how to maneuver in a sort of a smooth way in the world and maybe maybe
- 12:52has forgotten how to be a misfit because I think everybody is weird in a certain way always
- 13:01and that's I think why there are so many books about misfits because it's it's refers to
- 13:06everybody and everybody feels like you know they they and they see themselves in them in these
- 13:13characters for a certain way and like for Kate it's it's also not different I think there's
- 13:20also other there's also another guy a story about another guy who is actually in love with her
- 13:26and she hits him because she thinks he's just making fun of her you know and that's that seems
- 13:31to be like a very popular dude but he's also actually secretly in love with her and doesn't try
- 13:37doesn't know how to say it to her and also gets punched in the face with her so everybody has their
- 13:42own quirky embarrassing selves that are that is hidden in their in themselves somewhere I guess
- 13:54yeah and that's very comforting to find out that you are not in it being alone you know and also
- 14:00I think that when what's cool about Kate but not many people have I think I wasn't like that when
- 14:07I was young that that she that she sort of embraces this weirdness that she says well I'll just be
- 14:13this and I don't care if anyone else likes it although she actually really does care a little
- 14:19bit more than that of course but she does have a sort of an attitude which makes her a bit
- 14:26cool yes yeah and I was reading weird just while she she says something like I don't know exactly
- 14:34how it is in English but like if you if you're openly weird you're actually sort of invincible
- 14:39yeah that's yeah that's the translation yeah always I think it's invincible rather than powerful
- 14:45but it is where you get power from I feel the other way of thinking about this is if you're
- 14:50easy in your own skin you know if you if you're when everybody else isn't and then that gives you
- 14:55a real sense of power core strength and notice that you are not just a writer you're also an
- 15:01illustrator and a musician so how does all of this your creativity create your own unique
- 15:09delightfully weird world do you illustrate your own not really it's not really true or by the way
- 15:15I wanted to be an illustrator and I always did that on a primary school but that sort of slipped
- 15:20away I guess I like to draw time still but it's not not on a professional way so what music I do
- 15:27actually compose music it's like my other job and I always do this like for podcasts for example
- 15:35for games or I create music for other people's stories in that way but also for my own audiobooks
- 15:43I create music so I think always like music and language are really very much very similar actually
- 15:53yes you know language has a rhythm and it has also like a melody when you're when you're talking
- 16:00sort of singing a little bit I mean your voice goes up and down and raises and softens
- 16:07so it's very similar to me and also as an art form music is something dynamic so it starts
- 16:13somewhere and it evolves in time which is the same with a story that you're reading of course
- 16:20so they're two very similar art forms to me and it's also very important for me always when
- 16:27I'm writing I have to listen to music there's a certain so my books always start just with
- 16:35a mood nothing else I don't have a plot or anything it's it's completely unimportant it's just a
- 16:41mood that starts it all that I know this is something and that mood also is very easily
- 16:49activated by music so I have certain playlists for each story I have a different playlist with
- 16:55music that is suitable to this specific mood and I keep on playing that all the time when I'm
- 17:01writing and if I'm writing without the music it's notably just more rough to actually write
- 17:09something so they're really both very much the same for me and very important that's fascinating
- 17:16because it sounds like you almost compose your books yeah that is that is how it works I think it's
- 17:23that is a word for writing but very very closely composing yeah that actually takes me to my next
- 17:30question really well which is you talked about you doing your audiobooks and here we are talking
- 17:36about one of your books in translation so if you've got that sensitivity to language as you
- 17:43obviously have do you have you noticed a shift I've called it the weather pattern when well
- 17:50thinking about this so has that mood shifted from Dutch to English would you say or the two
- 17:57languages are quite close of course in the great family of languages yeah I think it's it's more
- 18:04at its place I think in in in English which is maybe weird to say because I've of course
- 18:12written it in Dutch and I'm you know more familiar with Dutch and Dutch preciseness of words
- 18:18to me is easily more easily conceivable than in the English words but still there is something about
- 18:27the English language I think and this yeah it's a magical story of course but not it's also it has
- 18:34also sort of a realism so it's somewhere in between there which feels really English to me
- 18:42so also because now we're talking with the movie rights for the Dutch film have been sold
- 18:50and we've also been talking to a lot of directors about the setting of the book and we were all
- 18:58in agreement on that it's not a typical duck village where it should be to me I see more like an
- 19:06English sort of movie village than a Dutch typical Dutch town so in that but that way I guess it's
- 19:18really good it found it's it's it's sort of origin plays almost I think in the English language
- 19:27oh that's absolutely fascinating and I and you've very carefully not given it a specific
- 19:31location the places are vividly realized but we're not told it's Rotterdam or Amsterdam like that
- 19:38it's very much its own yeah I think I never I never do that by the way if it put it somewhere my
- 19:47stories in a in a real geographic exact place because something you lose something in the story
- 19:58I guess I don't know why but I want to keep it realistic you know it could be in this world of
- 20:04course but it doesn't have to be and it doesn't have to be it's like like when you're illustrating and
- 20:08you're you're showing the face of your main character and that's then the face of your main character
- 20:12and there's no other face possible anymore which is the same I think here it should be I think
- 20:18everybody has their own feeling of where it takes place maybe it takes place you know for someone
- 20:24Spain it would be in a in a very hot town for example yeah it doesn't feel like I don't know but
- 20:31it's I think it's good to leave that open and to me well like I said it's very much yeah a
- 20:36British kind of feel what it has yeah it definitely as as a as the bridge on this is called I could
- 20:46you definitely imagine it in a film in some small town here and you wouldn't feel it was lost
- 20:55anything in fact it probably would just really sit very well in that landscape yeah just earlier
- 21:03you were saying how you start with a mood and this leads to a question about plotting
- 21:10because and we absolutely won't give away the twists and turns because it's a beautifully
- 21:15constructed book in a way it shifts your understanding of what's going on
- 21:22but do you do that as a something you discover as you write or is it something that after a
- 21:28little bit of writing you're beginning to plot your own reversal yeah it's a discovery for me I
- 21:35think like I said it always starts with a mood this specific book by the way started with
- 21:40well very fitting started with a photograph of myself from like 20 years ago when I was sitting
- 21:48in a cinema myself and I didn't know I had this photo anymore and I found it again and
- 21:54all of some something spoke to me like there's there's a story here something mysterious is going
- 21:58on in this cinema and that's enough for me to to start you know it will stay in my head for weeks
- 22:05and it will slowly evolve when some maybe a character arises from it or maybe as you're seeing
- 22:12arises from it or a place where I want to write about but it's all separate things that are
- 22:19connected to each other by this specific mood that starts it all so there was no plot except for
- 22:27the idea of a cinema where something mysterious was going on and that's all I had to go by
- 22:36and then I just started writing and at a certain point I thought of this relationship between
- 22:46Kate and her mom that her mom had died and and then I immediately went completely to the ending of
- 22:52the book I wrote the ending like one of the first things that are really chapters that were really
- 22:57finished I wanted to test out if it would work if it would be as cool as I hoped it could be
- 23:04and then when that worked I sort of started started to work backwards
- 23:10and of course without all this planning because I don't plan anything and just let it flow
- 23:16I stumbled upon lots of big problems specifically because the book has you know
- 23:23in terms of plot it's it's a bit complicated things have to really
- 23:34if one thing isn't done right and the whole thing sort of collapses and a lot of things you know
- 23:40seemed like they I could never get them to fit together so I often had to feeling like I couldn't
- 23:47go on with the book and I just had to give up and then I was sort of pondering and feeling bad
- 23:54for like a week and can sleep and just keep on thinking about how can I solve this how can I solve
- 24:00this is never going to work and then all of a sudden there's always sort of a piff in here I don't
- 24:06know how you call it but something that sort of a light and I think oh this is it and not only do
- 24:11I solve the problem then but there's also something else somewhere else that gets much better all
- 24:16of a sudden so it was like it wasn't as I said a discovery it's always like I feel that the story
- 24:22maybe just already exists somewhere I think Stephen King said something like that as well
- 24:29like he was referring to an archaeologist you know who was sort of slowly discovering his whole
- 24:36dinosaur bone thing by just really patiently rubbing away the earth around it and not
- 24:47messing it up it's it sort of feels like that sometimes like I just I know that the story is
- 24:52already there it wasn't this this first moment of this picture that I looked at it and I thought
- 24:56here's this mood here's a story and I just have to discover it and I can mess it up I can just
- 25:02take a wrong turns and lose the whole story but if I'm sort of careful enough then it will unravel
- 25:11itself and no you will have a book absolutely description and I I'm very much empathised with that
- 25:18because when I write I prefer the discovery route but I'm writing puzzle thrillers at the moment
- 25:25so that in this necessitates a bit more planning yeah and it's against the grain but it's
- 25:31necessary because of the nature of that book but I I love the idea of being an archaeologist
- 25:38so I'm trying not to give too much away but the cinema is at the heart of your story
- 25:46and there's an element here about using it as a way of examining your past that we put it like
- 25:53that yeah in a way the cinema is a form of therapy in my view for is this like you were thinking
- 26:01about because there is like a metaphorical or an application of what it might mean in our real world
- 26:07from what it was what was happening in the fantasy version of this yeah yeah I think I mean
- 26:13everybody has has things in the past that are you know they they'd like to do something with or
- 26:20like to really with the knowledge of how they are now so in that sense it is sort of a therapy
- 26:28of course to even as an experiment in of the mind to do something like that so yeah it comes
- 26:40to its dangers though doesn't it just to play devil's advocate here that there are some sort of
- 26:45talking therapies that do a lot of take you back and sometimes you can actually can put a
- 26:52construction around your memory and which may not be reliable yeah that is true actually also when
- 27:01you I've had that several times that there was a special special vacation for example and I
- 27:08wanted to return there again to that place with I was with my wife we we sort of met in Spain
- 27:15and it was really special of course and then a few years later we went back to the same place and
- 27:19it sort of spoils then the the actual memory of then because it's get sort of overwritten maybe
- 27:27by new things that are not as special as this memory because you always of course
- 27:34um change the things that really happen I mean you don't what you remember is not really what
- 27:40happens at moment I think uh as also I think this is all the richness of your book it's make it this
- 27:46is the thought pattern it sent me on I think I'd really encourage even if you're an adult um don't
- 27:52be put off why it fact it's a middle grade because I think it's got a level which you will meet it
- 27:58as an adult as well as being the perfect book for the you know 10 11 year old 12 year old in your
- 28:04life um because it certainly made me think about the place of memory and painful memories and good
- 28:10memories in in in in my life so this idea that fantasy can put a frame around something in our real
- 28:19world I sometimes use the idea it's like a laboratory where you put the way we treat memory
- 28:25and you've used this idea of a cinema as your little laboratory for that
- 28:29are there other things you want to put in your laboratory to have a look at future books that you've
- 28:34got lined up um yes um I am now working at another book which is more uh I think a more like uh
- 28:45about the world the way the world is going now and the way people are living um it's sort of
- 28:52what I think I mean I don't I don't want to put in a moral or a message in my book um yeah not
- 28:59not specifically by the way but I of course I think about things and I have a specific
- 29:06opinion about things and I feel very strongly about other things so they naturally come into my book
- 29:13I always like books to be you know they have to be nice to read but I also should
- 29:17um be thought-provoking I think you know they should be able to put you on a different in a different
- 29:24perspective of things or or or make you look at yourself and learn something that there should
- 29:29be more about the book than just having a fun read which I also I always read books that have
- 29:36that as well and I think that's important so I always look for something more than just this
- 29:41nice story uh and this next story I think um because everything I've written so far is really
- 29:47different from each other and this is more like a uh as sort of uh I don't know how you say this in
- 29:53English but a a critical critical look at how we uh spend our lives as human beings on the planet
- 30:01um also what makes us beautiful is maybe also what makes us dangerous to ourselves and to
- 30:09planet um there's something um sort of um controversial in ourselves that uh you know two
- 30:18powers that are opposing each other that come from the same root in ourselves so it's it's almost
- 30:24impossible not to be a human being and create music and art and and to love each other
- 30:32to do that and to not also have this you know more dangerous darker side so that's
- 30:38it's kind of complicated what I'm trying to say because it's the primitian aspect isn't it
- 30:46so it's like Prometheus so the giver of fire exactly yeah it's yeah but that entails punishment so
- 30:55we are that's why the romantic poets like Byron were so interested in Prometheus because it's
- 31:00the overreacher the person who yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and that's what we are it's our splendor
- 31:06and our failure yeah that's a quite as if a deep place to land on so well it's let's let's hold
- 31:12that because that's a really good thought so do you have for us to share with us a um a tip
- 31:20in the world of fantasy it could be something you've read something you've watched or even something
- 31:25that you thought of as you're writing that for other fantasy creators out there what would be your
- 31:31oh yeah I think I have something but it's really very different from what I'm writing myself but I
- 31:36really liked it a lot and it's called Never Night it's it's a book series maybe you know it's it's
- 31:42I don't know how it's Jay Kristoff from the top of my head if is that is the writer so it's also
- 31:48about the girl by the way and she's going to a school to become a killer which is kind of maybe
- 31:56almost like a cliche kind of yeah the assassin thing yeah yeah but it's it's done so well and
- 32:02and the whole setting of the of the world is also really original it's sort of a little bit like
- 32:09an an old-fashioned Italian kind of world it's very much like um uh with with a sort of a classical
- 32:19feel it has um and the book is really um very good in its plot it's really getting your
- 32:28constantly on your toes and you're constantly misguessing what's going to happen
- 32:33and the girl's a really cool character that's very complex too so I haven't you know I started
- 32:41reading this because a friend of mine said it was good and I didn't really know what I was starting
- 32:48to read I wasn't what something I'd normally read so I was really surprised by it so that
- 32:53that would be a tip for me thank you one more in the children's books by the way uh Lempi from
- 32:58Anna Schaap which is also a writer also for pushkin by the way yes wonderful it's a children's book
- 33:06but it's also for older readers and I think it's really wonderful read and so it's an actual
- 33:12typical fairytale kind of magical story really beautiful that one I have read and it's
- 33:19beautifully illustrated as well yeah by yourself yeah right yeah really cool thank you that's uh
- 33:26well I'll certainly look that up so we always finish by imagining wearing all the fantasy worlds by
- 33:31which I mean anything from books film TV whatever games where is all where is the best place for
- 33:38something and in honor of your cinema with its ability to examine our memories um where would you
- 33:46like to go back so I'm thinking here you could be looking in Galadriel's mirror you could be looking
- 33:51in dumbledores, pensive or you could even pack up your own cinema and take it with you where would
- 33:58you like to earn an examine memories of characters from the and see what the past was like
- 34:04so I can also go into the memories of other people other yeah definitely because I think that's
- 34:10these things work like that don't they it's not the the mechanism the cinema the mirror the
- 34:17pensive is available for you to look at other people's memories yeah that's true well um let me see
- 34:27um I think um like I would love to go back to a time where I don't know when science maybe
- 34:37like someone like Albert Einstein would be nice I guess because um of his um the way he lived I
- 34:45think and also the way he was um able to to really discover now actually magical things I think he
- 34:56was the one also who said um either there are two ways to live your life one is to think nothing
- 35:03some miracle and one is to think everything some miracle and I think he lived he lived his life
- 35:08as the second one and uh of course there's still a lot to discover in the world the universe still
- 35:14like a completely mysterious weird place with things we couldn't still conceive how they would be
- 35:20in reality I think but um he of course did some really big discoveries about and know how
- 35:27at times space is bent a completely uh getting loose away from the the old-fashioned Newton situation
- 35:35where I think it's the way it is uh so the I would like to go back to the moment that he was
- 35:41sort of uh starting to be aware that something big was going on and he was
- 35:47at the verge of discovering it um because I think that's that's something I always also in my books
- 35:54also how how Kate looks at the world as if there's something to be discovered uh behind
- 36:00a door or a wall somewhere there's there's something magical just behind the real maybe dull world
- 36:07around us there's something you know just just a little bit outside of where we can see there's
- 36:13something there that's eternal everything around and I think that Einstein actually you know
- 36:19had this moment and when he actually looked behind this wall or looked behind the door and saw
- 36:24uh reality in a completely new way uh which is just really exciting I think
- 36:32so we're going to bring Einstein into some other world so we can go back to him so something
- 36:36like a Star Trek world or something where we can go back to him in order to examine it I think
- 36:41in the examples of my um with my game here I think that what that made what he listened to you um
- 36:48describe Einstein and the fascinating what you're looking there is the encounter with an
- 36:54extraordinary mind and I was thinking that the fantasy worlds where I would like to do this
- 37:01journey is the ones which are most complete and you've got characters where you think they have
- 37:07something interesting to tell us and perhaps also the ones that live a very long time so there's
- 37:13the obvious people that would be great fun like you know hitch a ride in Gandalf's memory for example
- 37:19great you know um but that's perhaps a bit obvious I was thinking that maybe it would be very
- 37:25it would be really interesting to um go into the bit in Narnia that is a covered
- 37:32between the magician's nephew and um the line in the witch in the wardrobe
- 37:39to and the poster character that would give you that access is Aslan uh I have to admit that I
- 37:45haven't read it yet oh well gosh I should I should though I think we can uh they ask you know um
- 37:52in terms of an English-speaking world they are like everybody well not everybody a lot of people
- 37:59they are the entry way to fantasy they're easier to read than the Hobbit so probably a younger reader
- 38:08tends to find them at sort of eight and nine um whereas the Hobbit is a bit more of a challenge
- 38:14uh but yeah highly recommended there's a whole sort of uh the Narnian stories go from the
- 38:22creation of Narnia to the end of Narnia like a whole sort of biblical scope um so there is bits which
- 38:30are there's jumps in history and I'd love to see what happened in those uh also think about another
- 38:36one now by the way for the I'm not sure what his name was again but the the the younger the boy from
- 38:45a song of ice of fire like from game of thrones all right yeah the the one that has um crippled
- 38:52that fall from in the beginning falls from and and uh is sort of the new leader or the new seer
- 38:59of the future in the end who is going to be the emperor I think maybe in the end I'm not sure
- 39:05uh yeah so I don't know if it's true so I hope they haven't spoiled um so he's I think he's also blind
- 39:15maybe I don't know this guy is someone who perceives things I can't imagine what he sees and what he
- 39:22knows but he sees and knows everything I guess so that would be someone yeah I'd be interested
- 39:29in picking his mind and getting into his memory so you're it thank you so much um for talking to us
- 39:34today um you said to me that your first name Yorick is English I obviously know it best from
- 39:41Hamlet uh that's where so I was so excited to um speak to my first Yorick so that's the
- 39:49Yorick's book is the movies no movies no the movies showing nowhere it was published back in April
- 39:56so it's available now and highly recommended and um not you know it's a very good book to sit down
- 40:06and read in a short period of time because it's not huge not a huge like wedge of a book I read it
- 40:13over a couple of days and thoroughly enjoyed it so add that to your list of fantasy reads because
- 40:18it's well worth doing and I'm gonna look forward to the potential of it being in the cinema which
- 40:24will be a very confusing meta moment with the movie showing nowhere in the cinema
- 40:29the book you're confusing for people I think yeah it's going to be that's going to be wild
- 40:33anyway thank you so much for joining us Yorick thank you very much for having me
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