GOOD OL’ BART: A Chat With Jonathan Stroud

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GOOD OL’ BART: A Chat With Jonathan Stroud

Sunday, 24 May 2009 20:51

Jonathan Stroud is the author of the renowed Bartimaeus Trilogy, which chronicles the adventures of Nathaniel the magician, Bartimaeus the djinn and Kitty, a human caught up in the whole mess. The Trilogy has been hailed for it’s rare depiction of the magician – slave relationship, and the splintering of the all too ideal picture we have of them. Recently releasing a new book, Heroes of the Valley, Jonathan answered Press+1 questions via email about anti-heroes, book trailers, and of course, The Trilogy.

Press+1 (Alex Hutt): What is your favorite book in the Bartimaeus Trilogy? Why?
Jonathan Stroud: I’m proud of them all for different reasons, but my favourite is the third, Ptolemy’s Gate, which I think has the best balance of humour, excitement and more serious themes. I was really nervous beforehand about whether I’d be able to tie all the various threads of the trilogy together, and especially about whether I could finish it in the right way. But I think it all fell into place in the end!

What did you draw inspiration from for the Trilogy?
Jonathan Stroud: The first idea was a direct desire to find a fresh way of dealing with magic and magicians, one that didn’t involve funny hats and beardy blokes in long robes. I’ve always loved stories about magic – the thing was to try to bring something new into the equation. What began it was the realisation that it would be interesting to make the human magicians into the bad guys, and have a demon (or djinni, in the end) as the protagonist. I was also keen to give the whole thing a political dimension, and set it in a fairly familiar world. Fantasy works best when it collides with ordinary, everyday things.

I think that each of the leads in the series, Nathaniel, Kitty and Bartimaeus are all anti-heroes. Do you agree?
Jonathan Stroud: I think so, particularly Nat and Bart. Kitty is perhaps more conventionally heroic, but even she starts out essentially as a terrorist fighter (from the magicians’ perspective, anyway), actively involved in violence, before moving towards a more peaceable, long-term perspective. Both Nat and Bart are certainly anti-heroes, both strong mixes of good and bad impulses, often acting for the wrong reasons.

Does having an anti-hero at the center of a book make it more exciting? What caused you to make Nathaniel so unlikable?
Jonathan Stroud: Antiheroes provide a frisson that a straight honest up-and-down good guy hero doesn’t really give you. There’s a charisma and a friction that comes from a protagonist who isn’t whiter than white. So yes, I think antiheroes are exciting, but having said that, I believe that in the end they do have to be heroic – I’m no great fan of genres where bad guys are paraded about and we’re expected to root from them. The thing about Nat is that we see him at the start, and see that he’s idealistic, lonely, isolated… so his development to a cold, aloof teenager is to be pitied as much as despised. It means his eventual redemption isn’t wholly a surprise, and is (hopefully) earned in the eye of the reader.

In your opinion, is Bartimaeus evil? It seems to be more complicated than that.
Jonathan Stroud: I don’t see Bart as evil at all. For several thousand years, he’s been brought to this world as a slave, enduring pain and discomfort thereby: it’s fairly remarkable that he’s NOT thoroughly wicked as a result. One of the emerging themes of the books is the way that his personality has been moulded, particularly by one or two key relationships with certain humans. His cynicism and bitterness has been wholly earned by his experiences, but his redeeming feature throughout the trilogy is, I think, his humour.

Tell me about your new book, Heroes of the Valley.
Jonathan Stroud: Heroes is the story of a boy named Halli Sveinsson, who lives in a little village high in the mountains. Every night he hears tales of great heroes of the past, who fought against nasty monsters and drove them into the hills. When he looks up at the ridges around the valley, he sees the burial cairns of his ancestors, and wishes he was like them. Unfortunately he’s short, stocky and bandy legged, with a face like a toad peering out in a rainstorm. Another problem is that the days of heroes are past, and it’s all very peaceful. However, when a murder is committed, Halli sets off on a quest of vengeance, only to find that life is very different from the stories he so admires. Together with a girl called Aud, who’s just as brave and curious as he is, Halli begins to uncover the truth about the legends, the valley and himself.
Heroes of the Valley is inspired by my love of old Norse sagas. I wanted to write something that was very different from the Bart stories, while at the same time being infused with the same comedy and adventure. If you like the Trilogy, you should enjoy this too.

Creating a trailer for the book, why did you choose to market it in such a way? Do you think more authors will do this in the future?
Jonathan Stroud: The idea for the Heroes trailer came from my UK publishers, and I didn’t know how it was going to turn out. But I was blown away when I saw it. Leevi Lemmetty, who’s a Finnish director and animator, has put together a brilliant piece that thoroughly captures the excitement of the legends that Halli so admires. You can check it out via my website (www.jonathanstroud.com ). I’m a convert to this kind of marketing, because it’s ideal for web distribution, and hopefully catches the attention of people who wouldn’t otherwise notice the book. I’m sure that this kind of thing is going to be more and more frequently used as a marketing tool.

Do you have any authors that influenced your writing?
Jonathan Stroud: Too many to list, really. When I was young I loved all the classic fantasy writers for children, such as Tolkien and CS Lewis; then I migrated to great adult fantasy stylists, such as Le Guin and Jack Vance. Then, in my mid-teens, I stopped reading fantasy for the most part, but followed an interest in fairy tales, folktales and myth into my English Lit degree, where I studied Arthurian Legends and many other periods of literature. These days I read all kinds of things, and enjoy stylists such as Evelyn Waugh, Rudyard Kipling, George Orwell… the list goes on.

Why is incorporating mythology into fiction important?
Jonathan Stroud: I’m not sure mythology is quite the term I’d use. If you define it more generally, as ‘fantasy’, then yes – it’s a very useful medium, provided it’s mixed with things that are essentially realistic. I’m not that interested in stories that are wholly escapist, or where magic works too freely. Interest comes when a sudden incursion of fantasy throws light on real things – characters, hidden agendas, political structures. Fantasy provides the thrill, the sense of wonder; the realistic stuff gives it weight and substance. I look upon it as taking sugar with your medicine – you get a stimulating bitter-sweet sensation.

Some of the events in the Bartimaeus Trilogy are quite harsh, do you think this is essential to children's literature?
Jonathan Stroud: I don’t think ‘harshness’ itself is essential, especially for harshness’ sake. Equally children’s fiction that denies some of the tough realities of the world has a tendency to become too sentimental. I guess my answer is that a certain steely quality is important: you want your young reader to be able to look at things as they are and see the moral implications. Traditional tales have always done this – oral folktales could be extremely harsh, in their pared down way, but it was always fixed to a clear moral vision. If you’re bad (or lazy, stupid, cowardly), you’ll suffer; if you’re good (and brave, and intelligent), you’ll prosper. There’s no harm in exploring this a little from a very young age.

Have you ever written books for adults? What do you find more enjoyable, adult or children's literature?
Jonathan Stroud: As a reader I enjoy all kinds of literature, and like most people many of the books I hold closest to my heart are those I read when very young. As a writer I try to have my cake and eat it: the Bartimaeus books (and Heroes of the Valley) are all intended for adults as well as children. I visualised myself as a 12-year old, and tried to please him, as well as the 30-something adult scribbling away.

Who is your favorite character from the Trilogy? Do you have a least favorite?
Jonathan Stroud: I’m deeply fond of all my main characters in the Bart books, but Bart himself is the most fun to write, because he’s the rudest, most sarcastic, the most vigorous and versatile. I’m not sure about a least favourite: I try to find something interesting about all the characters. Maybe a couple of the minor human figures don’t fascinate me too much.

You shift perspectives from character to character in the Bartimaeus Trilogy, why did you choose this method? How would the book be different if you stuck to one perspective? (I'm not complaining, I really enjoyed it that way).
Jonathan Stroud: Originally I was going to do the whole book from Bart’s point of view, but I soon realised that was dangerous – his footnotes and witticisms might start to grate. Then I realised that if I alternated between his first-person narrative and the more sedate, cooler, Nat third-person sections, we’d get a nice contrast and rhythm in the book. If I’d stuck with one perspective it might have made a more cosy ride for the reader, but I think it would have made for a lesser, more predictable book.

The protagonist in your new book Heroes of the Valley, is he an anti-hero in the sense that he doesn't fit the stereotypical image of the hero? Or is it something else?
Jonathan Stroud: To those around him Halli doesn’t fit the hero image because of his physical limitations. But to the readers (I guess) he seems suspect at the beginning because of his impatience, his self-centred approach to things. One of the main themes of the book is how, slowly but surely, Halli alters: how he moves to become truly heroic, mainly by discovering a sense of responsibility for others.

Okay, last question. What is your favorite part of the writing process, and how do you cope with writer's block?
Jonathan Stroud: The best thing: at the end of the day, getting up from the desk and seeing a little pile of pages of text that didn’t exist a few hours earlier. It’s the act of raw creation. (This doesn’t necessarily mean they’re good, of course… but you can always alter them later).
Writer’s block: my strategy is to try to write through it, scribble things down even if you know it isn’t really working. More often than not, it allows you to break through your inertia and allow things to flow again. Failing that, go out and buy a pen or something, then go for a nice long walk. Inspiration comes on walks, I find.

Heroes of the Valley was released in January 2009 and details, as well as reviews can be found on its website . For more information on the author, visit Jonathan Stroud’s own website. If you haven’t already read the Bartimaeus Trilogy, you don’t know what you’re missing!

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