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interview with the author
The Red Queen is comprised of two gripping storylines set centuries apart. What are the benefits of dividing the book in to two separate time-frame divisions like this (rather having continuous flashbacks interlacing the past and present)
I had at first thought of a more conventional interweaving of past and present, but the first section of the book seemed to write itself, with great impetus, in the invented voice of the Red Queen, who seemed to override interruptions. So I decided to go along with her, and then to take a deep breath and begin again. I think the advantage of this is that each section has its own timeframe and its own narrative drive, but it’s not what I really intended when I set out. Things rarely work out quite as I intend.
The novel is full of wonderfully rich detail. How did you research the book?
My research involved two visits to Seoul and two to New York, as much reading of English language texts as I could find, and visits to museums and galleries in Engand- as well as talking to some Korean scholars. The most striking historical visual images in the novel are from the illuminated manuscript in the British Museum, which I describe in the novel, (and which is on show on request) and from an exhibition of Korean painted fans and screen that I visited in the Musée Guimet in Paris. I know very little about oriental art and was surprised by how moved I was by the delicacy and detail of the paintings- particularly of the enchanting views of study interiors, compete with little shelves, writing materials, and even horn-rimmed reading glasses. They were intimate and full of personal feeling. It was a pleasure to me (after describing some bleak aspects of London in The Seven Sisters) to inhabit, for a while, such an elegant world. The colours are very beautiful.
Were you tempted at any point to write this as non-fiction?
I could never have written this book as non-fiction. Only a scholar with a thorough grasp of the Korean language could do that. I was concerned to convey the impact on me of the Crown Princess’s Memoir, and its reverberations in our world- not to try to reconstruct her world. But I was very taken by the idea of a ghostly meditation, through a contemporary story, on a past life. If we could look back, a hundred years from now, on the world we live in, how would we interpret it? With hindsight, how would we re-read our own lives?
Barbara Halliwell had a profound reaction to the memoir. When we read her reaction to the book are we actually reading about how you felt about the memoir when you found it?
I did respond very strongly to the memoir, as did Barbara Halliwell. I invented some plausible reasons for her response, but am still not quite clear why mine was so strong.
Was there a link between the rice chest and the Leaden Casket that was the title of the professor’s presentation?
The rice chest and the Leaden Casket are indeed thematically connected- the idea of being locked up or sealed in is horrifying to most of us.
How did you start writing and have you been influenced by any particular writers?
I started writing when I was twenty one, and have been writing ever since. I’ve been profoundly influnced by other writers- too many to name. At university I read Jane Austen, the Brontes, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, and later I discovered Virginia Woolf, Saul Bellow, Doris Lessing, and many more who have meant a great deal to me, including poets like Wordsworth, Yeats and Sylvia Plath. I do not write poetry, but I do think of it while I am writing, and have to restrain myself from quoting too much.
What are you working on now?
I’ve just finished a first draft of a new novel, The Sea Lady, and will be doing a little rewriting of that shortly.
Please could you recommend two books for reading groups.
Maggie Gee’s The Flood
Stevie Davies Kith and Kin
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Author interviews
