Week Seven: How to Immortalize Your Writer

Hello Internet!
Before I get things started, I have a quick announcement. My week-long mid-semester break starts on Friday, and I plan to spend the majority of it traveling around the UK. As a result, I almost definitely will not be able to post next week. However, I'll be back to my normal posting schedule the week after, and I plan to post an excerpt from one of my stories tomorrow. Sound good? Awesome. In that case, on to the class updates!

Gender Identities in Medieval Literature: This week, we discussed homosexuality in the middle ages. I can't really examine our discussion in detail because it involved some potentially disturbing subject matter and I'm pretty sure my younger siblings read this blog. However, I can say that it was intriguing to learn where, when, and why homosexuality was condemned during medieval times (hint: it had a lot to do with both the church and Aristotle).

Fantasies of Youth: For this class, I dug way, way back into my childhood and read The Borrowers by Mary Norton. This book inspired a lot of my games as a kid, so you can imagine my surprise when I discovered it's essentially an allegory for WWII. You learn something new every day.

Writing for Children: My classmates and I talked about Sky Hawk by Gill Lewis, which is the first book I've read for this class that I didn't like. It was realistic fiction, which I already like a good deal less than fantasy, and the narrative felt extremely disjointed. It was almost as if Lewis was trying to tell two unconnected stories in the same book. There were a lot of time skips and instances of the author telling readers things that, in my opinion, she should have shown us. Anyways, my classmates and I were also given some time to write, during which I worked up a short story heavily based on the times I've gone go-karting with my brother. So that was fun.

Advanced Creative Writing Tutorial: Honestly, this session consisted of a whole bunch of tangents. My tutor and I talked about everything from a poetry course I took once upon a time to the possibility of crafting a healthy relationship between two fictional characters. We also analyzed my writing a bit more, and I found out that I totally overcorrected from the last session (i.e., I cut descriptions that I needed to include). My lesson for the week: describe settings more and character's actions less.

Outside of my classes, my week was relatively slow. On Wednesday, I met with the Bath Spa Reenactment Group for a second time and sealed my fate. (I also learned that the group's official name is the Tilliers Regiment of the Sealed Knot, so yeah, that last sentence was a pun). In other words, I signed the paperwork to attend the group's next reenactment, the Battle of Edgehill, which will take place on October 26th-27th. I"m really, really looking forward to it!

After my meeting with the Regiment of the Sealed Knot, I booked it to my second session of Jane Austen dancing. At this session, I learned the official footwork for the dances, so I (hopefully) looked like less of a clumsy giraffe than I did the first time around. In short, I genuinely had a blast.

The Dance Hall

The real highlight of the week was on Friday, when I had my Fantasies of Youth class trip. The first stop of the day was C.S. Lewis's house, also known as the Kilns. We got to see the library with the original sign from the Eagle and Child; a replication of the wardrobe that inspired The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe; and even Lewis's bedroom. The best part of the tour was when we took a peek at the pond where Lewis and his brother used to swim. As my classmates and I huddled under the trees along the bank, a crane touched down across from us. I half expected it to start talking; it felt like we'd stepped into Narnia. I can't help but suspect that Lewis himself wrote the Kilns into existence; it was straight out of a fantasy writer's dream. 

The Kilns

Replica of Lewis's Writing Desk

After the tour of the Kilns, we visited the church where Lewis is buried. The church itself had a gorgeous Narnia-themed window, but that paled in comparison to C.S. Lewis's grave. The gravesite itself was simple, really, but it stunned me into silence. It was strange knowing the body of a man who had touched so many lives, including my own, was right in front of me. The best way I can describe the emotion I experienced in that graveyard is awe mixed with the certainty that all things come to pass just as they should.

Narnia Church Window

C.S. Lewis's Grave

Thankfully, the mood lightened at our next stop: Great Missenden, home of Roald Dahl. We took a quick tour around the town, spotting landmarks such as the library from Matilda and the orphanage from the BFG. We also visited Dahl's grave, which was slightly less solemn than Lewis's. There were BFG footprints nearby as well as a glass jar full of notes that Dahl's fans had written. It was fascinating to see the differences in the ways the two authors had been paid homage to.

Matilda's Library

Roald Dahl's Grave

The BFG Must Be Nearby!

Our last stop of the day was the Roald Dahl museum. After having some delicious Bogtrotter cake, we toured the museum and learned more about Dahl's life. We even got to check out a reconstruction of Dahl's writing hut, which housed, among other things, his specially-designed writing chair and the top part of his thigh bone. (Side note: I have decided that I need my own writing hut). Finally, my classmates and I were brought to the museum's archives. There, we saw the coat that Johnny Depp wore in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, as well as the handwritten first drafts of James and the Giant Peach and Matilda. All in all, it was an experience that I'm sure will stick with me for the rest of my life.

Bogtrotter Cake

Dahl's Writing Hut

Long story short, if I'm ever immortalized as a writer, I hope I get as cool a treatment as Dahl and Lewis did. I doubt it'll ever happen, but hey, it's nice to dream. To conclude: "FOR NARNIA, AND FOR ASLAN!!!"

Thanks for reading!

Abby

Artsy Picture of the Day: The Pond Near The Kilns