Latest / Mythmakers / Retelling Fairytales - A Lost Writer We Need To Rediscover - Madame D'Aulnoy

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Retelling Fairytales - A Lost Writer We Need To Rediscover - Madame D'Aulnoy · Mythmakers

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome to MythMakers, brought to you by the Oxford Centre for Fantasy. My name
• 0:11
  is Julia Golding, I'm an author but I'm also director of the Centre. And today I am joined
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  by a good friend of the Centre who is also one of our tutors on our novel in the year
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  course Claire O'Brien who is an author as well as a creative writing teacher. So Claire do you
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  want to tell us just a little bit about yourself? Okay yes so I've been writing for a long time
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  probably about 30 years so I feel almost qualified to say I have a writing life and I first published
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  for children in 1996 I had a couple of small titles published and then absolutely nothing for
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  13 years but I kept writing and doing the day job and living my life and then I went off and did
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  a master's in creative writing in Lancaster up near the wonderful Lake District and I
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  at that time was not writing for children I was actually working on a crime novel which did get
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  me an agent but that didn't work out we didn't get that one placed and it was another seven years
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  before I realised that actually with a background in primary school teaching and having read thousands
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  of children's books really I was best placed to write for children so I went back to that and it
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  was the Scooby undiscovered voices anthology that picked up my the opening for my Cordelia cod
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  novels which are funny novels about a girl just starting secondary schools so she's 11 12 13
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  in the novels and having all the issues and a dysfunctional family and parents who split up and she
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  has to get them back together again and her her place she goes to is vintage films and costume she
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  wants to be a costume designer and I have a great love of fabrics and sewing and costume so I had
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  fun with that so that was picked up by Orchard who are part of Hashtag and there are three Cordelia
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  cod novels and then since then I've had a range of commissions for funny stories with mostly with
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  education from publishers and we workings of traditional stories and fairy tales I think probably
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  my favourite of those is by reworking of Pinocchio which got me interested in reworking fairy tales
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  and there's mostly there's mostly the kind of things I do now or commissions for educational
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  publishers anywhere from five years to up to older teens I'll tackle really yeah so this is an
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  important part of the publishing world that people may not be familiar with but certainly it
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  provides the bread and butter to a lot of writer for writers for younger children getting into
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  the educational market and what we wanted to talk about today as a theme which has wider
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  application is the reworking of fairy tales and just before we go there listening to you talk
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  Claire it seems though there's some fairy tale tropes in your story particularly the thing about
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  the long wait the long wait for success which is often in there in fairy tales you know you have to
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  first spin this room full of straw into gold you know there's all that impossible tasks and
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  sometimes making a breakthrough in publishing or writing of any sort feels like a fairy tale task
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  so people can be encouraged I think by listening to your story so keep going yes yeah exactly so
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  understand that you've got a current project working on the fairy tales of madden now let me get
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  this right madden to all noise is that how you say a donnoir I think is a donnoir okay so that's
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  the apostrophe AULNOY so first of all let me ask why do we not have her as a household name like
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  Hans Christian Anderson or brothers Grimm oh hear me say I know really I mean I I
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  became interested in her after reworking Pinocchio because Pinocchio is a story we know the original
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  of we know who wrote it was written by Carlo Colodi in the 1800s and we have his you know his
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  original and so much I mean Pinocchio is the most reworked of all the fairy tales I think and
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  there is so much in that story that people have forgotten or don't know and I in my reworking
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  Pinocchio I tried to put back in as many of the magical events and things as I possibly could
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  fit in like who remembers the blue head fairy who rescues Pinocchio from the animal tricksters
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  and sends her coachman who is a poodle wearing velvet breaches who drives a carriage made of whipped
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  cream and biscuits you know that isn't in the Disney movie is it you know so and I thought well if
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  this has gone missing what else have we lost what else are children not getting you know what
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  else have they been deprived of and so I started to search around for more fairy tales and I came
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  across madden donwar and she was one of quite a group of women writing fairy stories in the 17th
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  century and having them published and having them translated into English she had a very successful
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  salon in Paris after a very scandalous life which in itself is like a fairy tale and her
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  so she was yes so she was published sort of 1692 93 there were other women
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  writing and publishing these sort of magical tales with a you know moral imperative in them
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  um at the time and she was also at the same time as Charles Perro who you know many people
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  know about him and associating him with French fairy tales now in about 1720 after she had died
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  a huge collection of fairy tales was made called the cabine de faix and in that collection something
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  like 70% of the authors were women and um but when you get to the like to the next century was it
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  the 1830s or something where the grim brothers were collecting their agenda their their brief if
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  you write was to collect stories that helped to solidify a sense of German identity because
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  Germany was like sort of a new country and I think that I mean this is purely my hypothesis yet
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  but I think that Madame Donoir and many of her contemporaries her stories were so much so so
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  so different culture that they perhaps didn't fit the bill so that may be one reason there's also
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  the fact that she was a woman and you know would not have been taking seriously Charles Perro
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  was a big mover and shaker in the academy for all says which um was the sort of and still is the
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  arbiter of you know what is culturally what is high culture and what is not if you like or what is
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  you know it's it's a it's the judge of those things and I say he was in a position to to have
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  his work to the fore and of course he was a man you know so there may be many reasons really um
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  but she she was she was very popular in England for a while but um I you know it's a mystery to me
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  and I think there must be scholars somewhere there are a lot you know she is known in academic
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  circles and I hope there are scholars somewhere who can unravel that mystery because her work
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  the the imaginative flights and the wonderful creatures that she conjures many of which were
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  brought from 15th and 16th century Italian tales which would have been known and then she's given
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  them her her own spin but they are so much stronger and more interesting than anything I have read
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  in Charles Perot you know she was just she was just better excellent so have any of her tales
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  survived that people might be aware of and then we'll talk about the gems that got lost yes I think
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  um I think the white cat is still quite well known and I think try how does that story go
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  well it's roughly a king does not want to give up his throne he doesn't want to retire and he has
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  three sons and so he kind of makes tasks for them to do to put it in possible tasks he sends them on
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  and one is they must bring him the most beautiful dog in the world the one who brings him the most
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  beautiful dog in a year go away for a year bring me the most beautiful dog and whoever brings me
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  that will inherit my my lands and my castle so he's at the brothers go out the two older brothers
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  think that the younger one is you know he's not in the running he's not really very bright he's not
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  going to make it and they all go off on their quests and of course the youngest brother he's
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  wandering the forest and comes across the an incredible jewel encrusted palace where there is
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  wealth beyond anything he's ever seen and there are disembodied hands that guide him through the halls
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  and the entire palace is populated by cats and the head of this household is this beautiful white cat
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  and he stays with her her hospitality is marvellous and of course time time has no meaning in this
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  sort of fairy land and he's away for almost a year and they find each other's company charming
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  and the most there are lovely scenes of feasting and music that are almost trippy and psychedelic they
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  are so beautiful you know plates of food tumbling and spinning and oh it's just just marvellous and
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  everything is is very you know opulent and jewel encrusted and so he promises he will come back
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  but he has to go he's supposed to deliver this this a dog so he's got to find a dog for his father
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  and of course the white cat gives him the tiniest little dog that's inside something like a
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  nutshell or something it's impossibly small and impossibly cute and so he goes back home and of
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  course he's won that challenge so the father sets them two subsequent challenges and each time he
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  goes back and he stays with the white cat and and he's sort of falling in love with her but she's
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  a cat and the final task is to bring the most beautiful the beautiful woman back and he comes back with
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  and he's transformed and so you cut out there can you go back to she came back with he came
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  she so she comes back with him and of course her curse is broken and she's revealed that she's
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  the most beautiful princess of course all ends happily so there's there's you know very familiar
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  tropes in it but the it's it's the imagination that either they're things that she conjures
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  the events or or really quite surreal and quite psychedelic in places wonderful i haven't
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  actually heard that story before it sounds wonderful um so i'm very excited to find out which ones
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  no longer are and apologise and that you feel need to be well presumably what you're doing
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  is rediscovering them for us yes i think i think i mean as they say they're known in academic
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  circles and quite recently the wonderful professor jack zypes did translate a few very much
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  for adults and they were written for adults they were you know caught entertainment um my
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  i suppose my mission that i set myself is to rework them for child readers you know i'm talking
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  about the sort of the six to nine age group in you know in today's world and i can see that
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  i mean there are about 24 that i've found and i think you you on first reading and the only
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  full translations i've found of them are in rather rather so cheaply done editions you know print on
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  demand things and they are they they only go back to about 1892 you know they they i don't think
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  there's been a full translation of them it's then so we're rather desperately in need of
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  someone to do this i think um so where was i about um so you which ones have you picked out for
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  your because obviously there's a lot of them okay oh there are a lot of them so some of them
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  are longer like the white cat and they um i think they could be reworked either for young adults
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  or for children but i picked out the ones that i feel um a lot of the the twinkle and the jewels
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  and the aristocracy could be stripped away it's not necessary that the characters are princess
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  and princesses it's not necessary that they're all on that cusp of falling in love you know
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  15 to 16 and i've moved them to be ordinary children um you know a pre pre pre peasant children
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  and usually having a a hard time because i don't i just don't feel that it's necessary to have
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  a lot of that princessy stuff and what i've hung on to is the wonderful magical creatures
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  and the happenings that that that that go on one of my favorites is um i think her name is
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  babiol babiol i think she's called she is cursed to be turned into a monkey because her mother
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  when she's expecting accidentally steps on the toe of a fairy and doesn't apologize
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  and fair is a very vengeful and easily upset so poor babiol is turned into a monkey
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  she's then taken away from her parents because the authorities say you cannot keep a monkey
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  in your house that monkey must go to the um to the the equivalent of the zoo or be sold to a circus
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  or something so the child is taken away she's taken away in a box um but the person who takes
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  away i think she likes the box so keep the box and he throws away the monkey so babiol is set loose
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  to try and fight her way her fortune in the world and a longer way one of the magical objects
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  that she's given by a fairy who helps her is a a walnut and at one point she's in the desert
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  and i think she's going to die and she cracks open the walnut and out of the walnut comes an
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  enormous hot hair balloon with a basket shaped walnut a walnut shaped basket underneath and she's
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  you know so she's she's rescued in that way there's a lot of things coming out of tiny things
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  out of seeds and nut shells you know huge like whole orchestras are conjured out of a tiny nut shell
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  i love that about Dawnweather that the way she plays with with space and time are really quite
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  bending and wonderful there's um an awesome beautiful tale of her a girl who is he's a very good
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  abaking and she's kidnapped by a sort of lioness woman sort of half lion half woman taking to
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  this very deep cave and the lion says you must bake me fly cakes i don't want anything but
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  fly cakes and if you don't i will eat you and she thinks where am i going to where am i going to
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  get the flies how am i going to bake the cakes she's got the flower she's got the sugar
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  everything she she where is she going to get flies down here and as would happen she rescues a frog
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  from the beak of a raven who's about to eat the frog and of course when animals are helped
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  they always repay their kindness in fairy tales absolutely yeah the frog summons all the other
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  frogs who are trapped in this subterranean place and they roll themselves in the sugar and attract
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  all the flies that she needs to make the cake so there's just beautiful little touches like that
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  and in the same cave in it there's a lake with a crocodile in who was once a very wicked king
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  and he's been condemned to live underground as a crocodile until he mends his ways
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  whether he does at the end or not we we should think so i've taken these and i've made them into
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  about six stories of the chapter books for kind of six six eight six to nine year olds
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  something like that because i feel that that sort of wacky um quirky humor and imagination
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  these days fits that age range really well yeah they love that sort of stuff i think it can be
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  worked up for adults as well but i feel that in the young adult and the adult we working
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  of fairy tales so much has been done so much has been done and the the younger age range has been
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  rather neglected and they're left with a very saccharine offering of rainbows and fairies with
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  sequiny wings and that sort of thing and i feel that children deserve better you know they're smarter
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  than that so just this raises the larger question for me about reworking as a fairy tales i think
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  we went through a bit of a pinch point where um i'll i'll understand you what a fairy tale world
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  was was mediated through the 19th century um red book of fairies but you know those books
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  yeah i'm doing lang yeah but also very much dependent on grim and and Christian Anderson um
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  with the i don't know if we call them exactly fairy tales but esok's fables are kind of
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  allowed in as the animal tales so that is what the follow me here that's what the 20th century
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  picked up for the sort of Disney films so we've got things that have become archetypal we've got
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  little red writing hood we've got little mermaid we've got Cinderella sleeping beauty
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  and these are the things which keep getting rework rework reworked i've noticed that recently
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  the sort of dream works um Pixar type people are moving into new kinds of stories
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  but they're no longer going so loana or um inside out you know they're doing different kinds of
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  stories and and the new fairy tales for our time i suppose or adventure tales but i was just wondering
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  if in fact that pinch point means that we have as you said we've missed out a whole kind of sense
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  to imagine broader sense of imagination from the past that could enrich and re rejuvenate
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  um what we think is familiar absolutely that's it at the yes that's it in nutshell i mean i think
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  it's great that um um you know animation companies and book publishers are um they're looking
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  to other cultures for inspiration and that's that's great because yeah and there's a whole huge
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  range of of stories that um you know the european if you like the european audience we've
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  missed out on those yeah actually you know i i think you know kids love those i think it should
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  all be in the mix all be in the mix definitely and but that but i think as you say we've also
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  missed out on like Disney sort of skimmed at the top if you like skimmed the top of the milk
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  and took a few fairy tale uh a few well-known fairy tales and made them into
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  brands enormous brands and we we we need to go back and dig a bit deeper into what we left behind
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  definitely because if i can find and i'm not a scholar but if i can find madame danois and her
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  contemporaries and and madame danois by the way was the person who gave us the name fairy tales
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  comp de fae was her you know her what she gave her she gave us that so if we if you know if i
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  can find those then you know there there must be many many more there must be many more and they're so
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  rich and we've missed so much and they were they were really quite proto feminist as well her
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  her stories that's another point that i think is important she had a very unhappy marriage very
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  there were a lot of abusive and arranged and forced marriages at the time and there are very
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  you know there are many sort of cruel fathers who marry off daughters in her tales and husbands
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  who are beasts and um a dealic places where there are only women and you know women and it's all
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  very civilized and no one goes to war and so she was very proto feminist so we've missed out on all
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  that as well and i can't help thinking if if um you know when i was a child when you were a child
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  and our grandparents if these stories have been part of our canon as much as red riding hood and
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  sleeping beauty are i think we would think differently because we would have a different vocabulary
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  of imagination and i i really be and it jack zypes said once that perhaps when society changes
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  we would change the stories we tell but i think it's the other way round if we change the stories that
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  we we tell to our children we will change society they will change society and it's very important
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  to dig deep and not leave anything behind either in terms of ideas or in terms of um it just
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  imaginative works you know all needs to be in the in the mix there for for our generation and
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  future generations to draw on and make more of them we work yeah absolutely so do you see any um
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  let's think about things people already know of all the retellings that have made into film and
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  elsewhere are ones where you think they really hit it well and ones where they did a real swing
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  and a miss oh my goodness that's a huge question are you allowed to you're allowed to insult a
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  couple of things i'm sure they're big enough be enough properties to survive well i mean it's
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  it's like i wouldn't i suppose i couldn't judge in terms of um in terms of um either being accurate
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  for the book probably you know to the book probably or to the you know to the tale um probably not
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  so many but there are those that were that were quite true to the spirit of a story and i suppose
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  i'm thinking about i mean would you would you count in that would you count something like
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  hook as a version of Peter Pan would would i be able to count that in yeah i think so that's more
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  recent tale but i i think that captured something at the spirit i quite liked that and um
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  i mean when you know even though Disney missed out a lot i do think that some of the things like
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  their version of panocchio it did capture the spirit of the boy who needed to change and reform
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  but there was so much more that could have been offered um i think the most the most problematic for me
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  uh in terms of what it didn't actually admit to is the little mermaid yeah because the that's a
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  very grim tale yeah even sorry it's not he's not a grim tale it's way and script nanson exactly
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  um there the actual there's a warning in that tale because she ends up as the foam of the seed
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  doesn't she um sorry people who wanted to oops yeah yeah um it's not a so fairy tales are not
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  they lived happily ever after so this thing in common speech of fairy tale ending actually quite a
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  few fairy tales ending a very macabre or sometimes they triumph for that sometimes they don't and i
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  think that particularly when you add up the elements of the little mermaid the ending that it
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  gets in sort of a Disney version yeah sort of muffles the questions about giving up all that um
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  and this is something about yeah this is something about protecting children from um from the
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  harsh side of life isn't it yeah i think and and you know one of in one of madam don was um uh
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  tales the the um the uh you know the principal princess do cannot get together at the end and they
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  become uh i think they become birds the some will become birds and there are others where they become
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  trees together so there are times when if you like you know the the the the love or the happy ending
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  that we would want is not possible but and there's a melancholy there but it's also a way of showing
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  things don't always work out as we as we perhaps would wish but it's okay sometimes it's okay
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  as long as there's hope because there's my hope at the end yes you know sacrifice is kind of
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  that's okay too and i think sometimes we we're we we cushioned children a little too much i think
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  and they're capable of um they're capable of such deep thought at such an early age and
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  considering the big questions and thinking about you know death and loss and things like that
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  and it's quite important that we don't cushion them too much because we compromise their resilience
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  you know they do need to and this is one of the things that tales can do is find gentle ways of
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  helping them build resilience well not just children also adults you know if you know in romance
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  novels which is um a lot of a lot of us read knowing that it's a fantasy um but it does
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  potentially mean that you have unrealistic expectations of real relationships
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  yes yes yes so adults also need to have this corrective though okay doesn't always work out
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  and because that is that is life so you said you you really enjoyed reworking Pinocchio that was
• 28:23
  your favourite tale to rework it didn't i reworked the nutcracker oh wow for a reading scheme
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  like this and i thought that was so went back to the Hoffman original tale and it's so brilliant it's
• 28:39
  so spooky of course because we most of us know it from a ballet these days and a ballet
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  works by doing set piece dances and it loses the the sense of menace and also the the time period
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  within it that you get in the original tale and i i thought the and the um the godfather figure is
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  so malevolent um like he's like that was a bad fairy he's like the yes he's sort of he's sitting on
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  this it's where the other is really powerful because he's other yeah so i really enjoyed reworking
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  that because i i stopped my knowledge of the nutcracker as oh it's a Christmas ballet yes
• 29:25
  but it's far more than that it's about it's about how it's about being believed when we're sticking
• 29:31
  to your gun saying i saw this this is true a bit like Lucy coming out of Narnia it has that
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  dilemma in it for the main character so um no it's a wonderful tale i really enjoyed it
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  so if you're listening to this as uh i want to be fantasy writer one of the places to find inspiration
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  is to go further back yes to go back absolutely dig yes dig deeply into those those those
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  the tales that have been forgotten that you will stumble oh sorry oh that you will stop
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  of course accidentally yeah so Claire do you think that um rewritings will ever fall out of favor
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  are we are we over fairy tales well i i don't think we'll ever be over them but i think we we do need
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  they do need refreshing and you know we really don't need any more versions of Cinderella or
• 30:25
  sleeping beauty um at the moment i don't think i'd say it's quite saturated um but i i don't think
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  no i don't think they'll ever fall out of favor because people love magic and um magical worlds
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  and if we stop having fairy tales then we you know our imaginations will with a little i think
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  won't they we need somewhere to go when they um when they you know it's i hesitate to use the word
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  escapism but of course it is a bit of escapism but you come the jizz is when you escape to fairyland
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  you come back with something don't you you come back with um some uh it might be moral or ethical
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  guidance or some reassurance that all is you know all is well in the real world i don't i don't think
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  so i do think that we need to approach them perhaps differently um i i feel that over the
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  centuries we know that fairy tales have been used as sort of moral guidance sometimes as warnings
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  to you know to try and influence the uh either influence the behavior of children or to
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  certainly in the case of madam donwar to um to be able to satirize a little and laugh at
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  some of the um what morals of the time and the inequalities of the time and they're used
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  you know they're quite um political with a small p in that way but they when you look at the
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  the sort of the the happy ending the print and the princess the the sort of very aristocratic
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  or the warrior-like qualities of fairy tale characters the idea that there's a special person
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  or that magic can change things can alter things i think we're in a we're in a world that's
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  post that now i think we're in a world where we know that power is internal to the human being
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  and that we need to be um you know resilient as we've said and confident and many of the re-workings
• 32:38
  that i've seen that have kind of claimed to be perhaps feminist or modern or whatever all they've
• 32:45
  done is they've kind of given the sword to the girl that doesn't change the world that just
• 32:51
  gives the girl permission to be like the man you know to be use violence or whatever that's
• 32:57
  something and that's quite as simplistic sort of or like in the more recent um beauty in the beast
• 33:05
  uh it's lip service really i think her father is an inventor and she wants to be an inventor
• 33:11
  yes that's the token of the- it's been engineered okay that's it the token you know gesture towards
• 33:16
  feminism but i think when you think about it those tales they're based on a lot of them are based
• 33:23
  on medieval chivalric codes aren't they and the ideas of honor and um we're willing princesses and
• 33:32
  and the the the place of of women there's still very much based on that and the and we haven't
• 33:39
  shifted from there and so it's perhaps time for um authors to become more people off philosophy
• 33:47
  i'm sure many you know many many of them are of course but i think that it's about what do we what
• 33:55
  sort of worlds do we want our children to build and to move into and if we really want to help
• 34:03
  children and help them to shape the world then we have to think about the stories that we're telling
• 34:09
  so we can use all the fairy tale vocabulary we've got we can rework you know what we have
• 34:15
  bring him from other cultures but underlying that what are the values that we're now promoting if
• 34:22
  you like and i feel that we need something that is broadly humanitarian and generally secular
• 34:30
  so that we can include everybody um and so i think we really need to be thinking quite hard about
• 34:37
  what am i actually saying is um a good way to live here and one of the things i've done in my
• 34:45
  tales um is that magic does not happen until the inner transformation has been undergone by the
• 34:53
  main character so and that's why i love Pinocchio so much because Pinocchio does not become a human
• 35:03
  until he has changed and then the magic happens so we create our own magic and i think that is what
• 35:12
  i'm trying to put across in my retellings and i feel that that you know feel maybe this is a
• 35:20
  bit egotistical but i feel that's the way that fairy tales need to go we need to think about what
• 35:26
  kind of world do we want to shape what kind of adults we want our children to develop into
• 35:32
  who are going to reshape the world and i hope most of us want a world where there is greater equality
• 35:38
  when there is tolerance where um there is resilience where there is no war where conflict is resolved
• 35:47
  through dialogue and understanding and there will always be you know the dark forces of evil there
• 35:54
  will always be the malevolent fairies there will always be the push back against that sort of
• 36:00
  desire and so there's lots of scope they won't all become wishy-washy there will still be lots
• 36:08
  of action and lots of need for you know i think i disagree with you partly there because you say
• 36:13
  that they need to be secular i don't agree at all i think we need to be diverse so that i'd be very
• 36:20
  excited to read a fairy tale coming out of the Islamic world or the Buddhist world or the Hindu
• 36:29
  world or the Jewish world i don't think it has to be secular because secular is a choice
• 36:34
  of a certain kind of mindset and the vast majority of the world people have a whole range of
• 36:41
  faiths and all the inklings of course for Christians and they wrote fairy tales too so i don't
• 36:47
  agree there i think the important thing is and also i'll be wary about coding in messages i
• 36:55
  i think that children need to have the discussion so they can reject so they can reject um
• 37:02
  beauty in the beast say hang on a minute isn't he basically incarcerating a female
• 37:07
  yes yes i think it's quite good that to have the discussion around a fairy tale i think the
• 37:11
  stuff needs it's good to be in the fairy tale and then have the discussion so i think i would be
• 37:17
  i would think more about the discussion that follows on rather than the sort of coding in advance
• 37:24
  if you know this is great this is great i like to approach you know debate and if you're
• 37:29
  retelling um beauty in the beast now you can put some pointers in there where it does feel
• 37:35
  uncomfortable so somebody can say hang on really um what's going you know what's going on here
• 37:43
  even at a young age though i find that arrangement unfair and monstrous and i think that's that's
• 37:49
  that's true if children are also equipped with um you know a critical being you know with with
• 37:56
  um uh you know with the with the um ability in the permission to question things you know
• 38:04
  you know that that yet you know question what you're reading question what you're seeing
• 38:09
  and as long as we're also equipping children with with that skill and that permission if you
• 38:14
  like that confidence yeah because i mean there is a movement at the moment i mean particularly
• 38:19
  as i understand it in parts of america to take books out of a library and you look at the content
• 38:24
  of what the books are taking out you think why are you taking that out why don't you just make sure
• 38:28
  there is a range of books that present another view yes yes um so that that child can say well
• 38:35
  i didn't agree with that one but i did agree with this one i i think this fear that children are
• 38:40
  somehow going to be um so blank that they don't analyse what they're reading is is force i mean
• 38:51
  obviously very very young children you have to be you wouldn't want to terrify them or anything
• 38:56
  yes um but as they get older i think it's it's unless there is something really outrageous in a book
• 39:04
  i think leave it on the shelf and and and have the discussion yes yes yes yeah no and when i say
• 39:11
  sec you know i think i don't mean um you know devoid of uh you know you get rid of the Arabian
• 39:18
  knights if you say so yeah yeah no no i mean i was no i mean to me that's that's kind of the
• 39:24
  the tales of different cultures are almost like a whole other way of the things that yes of course
• 39:30
  we must we must have yeah there's nothing wrong with people writing secular tales like you know
• 39:36
  the Philip Pullman's of this world absolutely put those in there the firework maker's daughter
• 39:42
  fabulous Philip Pullman's story um it's just my my my please that we don't think that we need to tidy
• 39:51
  everything up and make a lovely digital garden safe garden for children to go in i think
• 39:55
  and actually books should be a little bit dangerous should have a bit because that's safer to
• 40:00
  experience and question some of these things in a book and it is to go and try these things out
• 40:07
  in real life uh your psychedelic feast sounds great to read about but maybe maybe
• 40:14
  actually in real life might be a bit dangerous anyway so i know i know you said you weren't keen on
• 40:20
  another retelling of Cinderella but as a final place to go uh i thought yeah i thought that we
• 40:27
  could actually decide where in all the fantasy worlds in all the retellings um and hidden versions
• 40:35
  of Cinderella is the best place to be Cinderella and it can be a male Cinderella what we're
• 40:40
  picking up here is a rags-to-riches story where there is some sort of um wicked step
• 40:50
  mother-y pipe figure keeping them down and some sort of miraculous the shoe moment where they're
• 40:59
  they're recognised so where do you think it's you can be a straightforward Cinderella but
• 41:03
  yeah yeah i mean a fairly straightforward Cinderella i mean that you know that it's like there
• 41:08
  isn't a good place to start off being Cinderella is there you know her oppression is oppression
• 41:13
  i think um i would want to put her in a fairy tale world where um if things don't work out with the
• 41:20
  prince or princess you know if it's a you know or prince and prince or whatever you know if things
• 41:25
  don't work out in this fairy tale marriage um she will be okay she will be able to find purpose
• 41:32
  and uh feel strong and be independent um that's that's where i would put her she has to have
• 41:40
  other choices i think yeah i think there's um just for those of you who are also watching
• 41:47
  Bridgerton there is a Cinderella story coming up in Benedict Bridgerton his love interest is Sophie
• 41:55
  who is a Cinderella figure absolutely um so i think in terms of you get to be in the
• 42:01
  Bridgerton world at the same time as being in a fairy tale world that's my pick i think it's called
• 42:06
  um an offer from a gentleman so it is fairly traditional but you get a Bridgerton so
• 42:14
  what's not not not not not like rocks you get great rocks but it's actually right to be fair to
• 42:21
  junior queen it's actually a really a fun and for a really interesting one so it is very closely
• 42:25
  ready to the Cinderella story but she does allow one of the ugly sisters to escape you know the ugly
• 42:31
  sisters yeah people yeah they they don't have to stay an ugly sister they can move over to be
• 42:40
  a salvage a magical character so yeah that's my pick an offer from a gentleman Julia Quinn Bridgerton
• 42:47
  how good is it be interesting to see what they do with that one because it's so clearly Cinderella
• 42:54
  i've got a feeling shonda rhymes and co will struggle with that one but we'll see that's probably
• 42:59
  that season after next um yeah anyway you get Benedict Bridgerton is already yeah he's already
• 43:07
  in the season he's the one who's the artist so he's already a bit Bohemian so he's being set up
• 43:12
  to be suitable for marrying a servant who secretly of course is aristocratic going back to
• 43:20
  your point about you know um fairy tales rather overdoing the nobility thing okay well thank you
• 43:27
  so much um that was very fun to do to discuss and i really look forward to reading some of your
• 43:33
  retellings thank you so much it's been a pleasure thank you very much Julia thank you Claire
• 43:44
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