Paul Blezard talks to Michelle Paver about Spirit Walker, part of her Chronicles of Ancient Darkness, and what it's like to have them read by Sir Ian McKellen.
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Hello. My name is Paul Blezard and those kind people at Orion have asked me to have a chat with Michelle Paver, to talk about her second volume of the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness, entitled Spirit Walker.
PB: Michelle, hello.
MP: Hello Paul.
PB: Michelle, many congratulations on the success of Wolf Brother. What tricks, as the author, did you have to employ to keep your interest up, and that of the reader, between finishing Wolf Brother, and starting Spirit Walker?
MP: Well, there wasn't much of a trick in keeping my own interest up in the story, because I have all six books of Chronicles of Ancient Darkness in my head already, so I was very, very keen to write Spirit Walker, because I knew what was going to happen and where it was going to take Torak. But funnily enough, even though I was champing at the bit to start the story, it was a really difficult one to know where to start, because I was obviously conscious of the fact that people who'd read Wolf Brother would know the story, but there are others who haven't read Wolf Brother, and I needed to tell the story from both points of view. So it took me a long time to work out exactly how to bring in the sickness, and then I was just walking along one day, and I thought, let's make it really, really simple; go back to basics - a sickness strikes the forest. So let's see a sick person and have him meeting Torak in fairly dramatic circumstances. And as soon as I knew that, that was the way forward.
PB: It's a very scary way to start the book, I have to say. Michelle, as people will have listened, Ian McKellen has done a marvellous job in voicing both Wolf Brother and - now - Spirit Walker.
MP: Yes.
PB: Does he make it come alive for you, as you listen to his readings?
MP: Unbelievably so. It was a new experience for me, sitting in the recording studio, listening to an actor recording one of my books. I've never done it before, even though some of my grown-up books have been turned into audiobooks, and it was quite extraordinary. I mean, he is an actor of tremendous calibre! And then to hear him, just bringing the story - both of them - alive so much. I mean, just to give you an example - two examples. There are certain characters whose voices I can hear very clearly in my own ears when I'm writing.
PB: Such as whose?
MP: Teneris, for example, in Spirit Walker. The Walker, the old man, a smelly old man, in Wolf Brother. But I wasn't sure how Ian was going to record them. When he first began recording the Walker, it was just wonderful. I started laughing, actually. I mean, I was in another part of the studio so he couldn't hear me, but it was just perfect. It was exactly the way I had heard it in my head. The way he reads Wolf, as well, is perfect. He doesn't play it for laughs; he's just straight - and he loves Wolf. Ian really does empathise tremendously with Wolf and I think that comes through.
PB: Does it mean that when you come to write the next book, when you're working on the Soul Eater, you now hear Ian McKellen's voicing of the characters that you've created? PB: I think that does happen to some extent. It was already happening a little bit in Spirit Walker - in a good way, a really nice way - and I have to say, there were certain bits in Spirit Walker I thought, "Ooh, I hope Ian will be reading the next one, and I can't wait to hear how he does it". Because, of course, I don't assume. Y'know, he's such a busy man that . . . But, yes, I suspect that with Soul Eater I will be thinking about that at some stage.
PB: You deal with some fairly dark themes in these books. How difficult, or how sensitive do you have to be in handling them, for your readers?
MP: Well, I never make concessions to the fact that some of the readers are going to be younger than others. I don't believe in using different language, or shrinking away from certain themes, like illness and death. Obviously, you've got to be responsible, and I don't like to linger on violence, or make it gratuitous. There's always got to be a point to it, and it's got to have consequences.
PB: As people who have read Wolf Brother will know, the stories are set some 6,000 years ago, after the end of the last ice age, and before the dawn of agriculture. Is there ever a part of you that wishes, as you're creating this environment, that you wish you could go back there, and spend some time there, and really see whether what you're writing about really was what happened, and how it happened?
MP: Oh, I'd completely love it, Paul. I really would. I'd love to go back. I'm sure I've got things wrong, in ways I can't even imagine. I have to say, I'd only like to go back for maybe a day or so, I think. [laughs] I'm a bit of a wimp, really, in terms of actually roughing it for any length of time. I don't think I'd be able to do it. I'm sure Torak really is far less sensitive to the cold, for example, than I am. But it would be fantastic to see, just for a while. And just to try to experience their oneness with the natural world. It's just something I've tried to get across in Wolf Brother and Spirit Walker, but it's very difficult.
PB: After the extraordinary success of Wolf Brother, how much contact did you get from your readers? Did you get a big mailbag from people [who] read it and loved it?
MP: I have had some wonderful letters, yes! And they keep coming. I get the most amazing letters from people of, literally, from seven-year-olds to, I think the oldest was 85, from all over the world. I do try my best to answer them! And they're wonderful. Some of them know an awful lot about wolves, or about archeology. Some of them just love the adventure aspects of the story, or they see aspects of wolf in their own dogs. So tremendously varied, and I absolutely love that. I get a real kick out of that.
PB: And, perhaps finally, Michelle; what message do you have for your readers? What do you want them to take away from these books?
MP: I don't have a message, as such. If they want to read the books just for the sheer excitement and adventure, that's terrific. If they want to read the books to get a bit closer to wolves, and to feel that they understand how another wild creature lives, that's wonderful. If they want to get a flavour of what it was like to live 6,000 years ago, that will be terrific. There's all sorts of reasons why you could read these books, and whatever they want.
PB: Perhaps the truly final question should be, when can we expect Book Three, 'cause I'm dying to read it? [laughs]
MP: [laughs] Well, I'm just sitting down to begin Soul Eater - Book Three - so it'll be ready, provided I don't hit any major problems with it, September '06.
PB: Sorry, what was the title of Book Three?
MP: Oh, Soul Eater.
PB: Soul Eater.
MP: Soul Eater. Yes.
PB: So we've gone from Wolf Brother to Spirit Walker to Soul Eater . . .
MP: Yes indeed.
PB: I've got goose bumps on my throat already.
MP: [laughs]
PB: Michelle Paver, thank you so much for talking to us about Spirit Walker.
MP: Thank you very much, Paul.
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