The Andrew Lang lecture, which has been running for almost a century at St. Andrews University in Scotland, holds a vital place in the history of fantasy literature. In 1939 an Oxford don named J. R. R. Tolkien presented a lecture there that would grow into his seminal essay “On Fairy-Stories,” in which he spelled out some of his ideas about secondary worlds, eucatastrophe, and the importance of fantasy. It would have a powerful effect on a generation of writers, including Jane Yolen, author of more than three hundred books.
“And lo and behold, last spring, they asked me if I would give the next Andrew Lang lecture,” says Yolen in this week’s episode of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. “And I was told I was the first woman — since 1927 — to give the lecture.”
Though greatly honored to be following in Tolkien’s footsteps, she was distressed to think of how many great female writers of the past century had been passed over — names like Katherine Briggs, Zora Neale Hurston, and Angela Carter. Especially considering that the lecture’s namesake, Andrew Lang, is best known today for the Colored Fairy Books, which were largely written by his wife.
“I did point this out in my lecture,” says Yolen. “I did also offer them some names that they might think of having, including Terry Windling and Katherine Langrish and Elizabeth Wein, and people like that.”
Listen to our complete interview with Jane Yolen in Episode 78 of Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy (above), in which she discusses female pirates and jesters, how to deal with book burners, and why celebrities write such bad books. Then stick around after the interview as author and fencer Kat Howard joins hosts John Joseph Adams and David Barr Kirtley to discuss swordfighting.
Jane Yolen on book banning:
“We still have problems, especially with the Tea Party and the really right-wing zealots of one kind or another, who feel that the way that you protest is not to say ‘I don’t want my child to read this’ but ‘I don’t want your child to read this either,’ and that happens very often at the school board level, where people go in and they insist that books are taken out of school libraries. And very often what happens is they have a town meeting or they have an educational board meeting where people can come and vent, and then very often the book is returned to the shelves. But what happens afterward is that someone from the administration — maybe the principal, maybe the superintendent of schools — comes to the teacher or the librarian and says, ‘Look, we’ve spent a lot of time, a lot of energy, and a lot of money on this process. Be a little more careful next time. It’s OK, we won the battle, but don’t use that book again, don’t use books like that again. We’re not going to fight this battle for you next time’ is what they’re hearing.”
Jane Yolen on similarities between Harry Potter and her earlier novel Wizard Hall:
“I’m pretty sure she never read my book. We were both using fantasy tropes — the wizard school, the pictures on the wall that move. I happen to have a hero whose name was Henry, not Harry. He also had a red-headed best friend and a girl who was also his best friend — though my girl was black, not white. And there was a wicked wizard who was trying to destroy the school, who was once a teacher at the school. But those are all fantasy tropes … There’s even a book that came out way before hers where children go off to a witch school or a wizard school by going on a mysterious train that no one else can see except the kids, at a major British train station — I don’t know if it was Victoria Station or King’s Cross. These things are out there … This is not new.”
Kat Howard on The Mask of Zorro:
“Banderas is actually a pretty decent fencer, for an actor. Zeta-Jones isn’t that bad either, though I would really like to correct Catherine Zeta-Jones’ hand position every time I watch that movie. But this is a scene that really does something, it shows something about them as characters, it makes us like them, it starts to show that chemistry there … It’s supposed to be showing that he’s got this great technique and control with his blade where he can make a cut that goes that close and doesn’t actually break the skin, and hey, sexy Catherine, awesome. But then there’s the whole problem of, you really shouldn’t cut a lady’s clothing off of her body. That’s not good form.”
Kat Howard on swords and futuristic technology:
“A lot of it is that whole idea of the Jedi, which is this very ancient order, and again these ideas of honor and behavior that gets wrapped up in what kind of weaponry do you use, what kind of fight do you have. And so with swords in futuristic sci-fi and things like that, I look at what I have with my gear, where I’m wired up and I’m electric. I plug in when I fight, except I’m fighting with a sword, which is this really old thing, so you get this blend of history and futuristic technology in the same weapon, which if you like telling stories and you like to have symbolism, this is a great thing.”
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