....

[d_aulnoy]

... and boy, are my arms tired.  I figure I don't really need a lead-in, given that the common reference points are recognized by all, and that my alternative would be "and all I got was this lousy t-shirt," which would be inappropriate for what was a fantastic conference and a delightful trip.  And somehow, after a solid week of Post-Modernist ... reconstruction, as opposed to deconstruction, of motives and intentions and effects both in Carter's work and on the contemporary fairy tale as a whole, it seems fitting to start the write-up off on a self-referential note ....

Apparently, it was necessary to placate the Gods of Travel at both ends: on the way out, I left my beloved red satin trenchcoat to visit with the Gnu in Houston, and on the way back, I gave my Old Faithful of a leather folder an extended vacation in London with fjm (given that my father used it when he worked on Wall Street and passed it on to me when I thought I might want to be a lawyer like him back in the early days of college, I suppose the poor thing deserves some time off).  But, eventually, thanks to the wonders of modern air travel, we will all be reunited.  (Picture me, the unembodied trench-coat, and the folder all holding "hands" and dancing around in a circle in a field of flowers after a slow-mo run-up.)  This means that my notes are now all souveniers to be enjoyed at a later date as opposed to aids de memoir, but I'll endeavor to overcome that.

Don Haase, the esteemed editor of Marvels and Tales, started the conference off on a high note with a humorous, apt, and provocative talk on decolonizing the fairy tale as a genre and as a discipline: he talked about how frequently the fairy tale is used by specialists from other fields who assume that no one has ever thought critically about its materials, and how that misapplication and misunderstanding stems back to the original forms of collection.  Listening to his talk, I was struck by how our vocabulary for discussing collection casts the discipline in an adversarial guise against those whose stories we study - we have informants, we have collaborators, etc. - and how this might contribute to a problematic discourse.  Eventually, I will have to write a paper of my own.  Haase's presentation dovetailed beautifully with a paper given the next morning at a panel called "Writings and Rewritings" : "Collecting the Empire: Colonial Discourse in Andrew Lang's Colored Fairy Book Collection" by Sara M. Hines from the University of Edinburough examined two stories of "beauty" translating to "pallor" in stories from the Yellow and Orange Fairy Books with verve, and I have to say that I am really looking forward to the eventual publication of the longer work; because so many of his papers were destroyed after his death, there isn't nearly as much out there about him as one would wish.  The rest of that panel was also quite well done: Vanessa Joosen talked about contemporary retellings of the fairy tales of the Grimms in the Scandinavien nations in a paper titled "Back to Olenberg," and Laurence Talairach-Vielmas presented on the variegated and fascinating metanarrative conventions of Frederic Clement's The Merchant of Marvels and the Peddlar of Dreams.   The paneling at this conference was very well arranged by Stephen Benson, who organized two panels in each session, and two sessions at a go quite neatly throughout the three days of the conference: because my omnipresent con-buddy vschanoes  shares most of my taste, alas, I do not have a decent informant of my own to tell me how the other papers went, but people were presenting on everything from Fables to how Snow Patrol's "Absolute Gravity" is a rewriting of The Courtship of Mr. Lyon."  Wild horses will not be able to stop me from e-mailing Andrea Schutz to get a copy of that particular paper.

During the next panel on Translation, I heard three great papers: two looked at how Carter was read in translation in Portrugal and Brazil, and in Italy and France, and one looked at Carter's own translations (little known fact: two years before the publication of The Bloody Chamber, Carter published her own translation of the fairy tales of Charles Perrault).  Not knowing the languages in question, the first paper, by Cleide Rappucci, served as a really fascinating compare and contrast of how one translation can influence another, as she examined the choices that cascaded from the one version to the other in the course of a ten-year gap.  The second presentation, a joint effort by Diana Bianchi and Catia Nannoni, fascinated me completely and utterly: they looked at how many of the choices made by the translators dignified and rehabilitated Carter's work by referencing other, more accepted, more established authors, from echoes of Basile's phrasing in the Italien translation to very deliberate echoes of Katherine Mertuil conversing with Valmont in "The Bloody Chamber."  Brilliant.  And the last paper, by Martine Hennard Dutheil, just knocked my figurative socks off: she talked about how Carter reclaimed Perrault for feminism after the extended misreading of his work, first by fellow collectors like the Grimms, who praised Perrault for qualities that he probably intended as a part of his tongue-in-cheek jokes about French culture, and laid the groundwork for critics who would later see him as reinforcing the values of the patriarchy (ironic, for a man who defended women's rights to education, and who, prior to publishing the Contes de ma mere l'Oye published the Vindication of Women, containing "Griselda" and "Donkeyskin.")   Dutheil brought in a first edition of Carter's translation to show us how the illustrations prefigured many of the choices that she would make in The Bloody Chamber.  This paper struck me as perfectly occupying the crossroads between literary criticism, translation theory, and comparative media.

 

And then there was lunch ... a minor aside, but an important one for me, with my tendency to get first cranky, and then stupid, if I'm not fed regularly: fantastic grub!  The conference was catered generously and deliciously, and the atmosphere for socializing was very relaxed.  During our first dinner, following readings from Michele Roberts and Sara Maitland (I'll get to this, don't worry!), I sat with a table fully of people presenting on great papers that I, alas, did not get a chance to hear (on Pullman, Maguire, Jill Patton Walsh), and with Maitland herself, who's just the loveliest and most accessible of women.  During the luncheon, I plopped myself down next to Don Haase (sort of by accident: see, stupid-hungry, as otherwise I think I might have been a tad intimidated; hopefully, it didn't do too much damage to my conversational skills).  I'm shocked that Don actually remembered me in person and by name without prompting, as to the best of my recollection, we've only met once in person, and that during the very first conference that I ever attended, back when I was an undergraduate, at Princeton.  (Um.  The conference was at Princeton.  I was an undergraduate at Hunter.  Just to avoid any confusion.)  But, then again, immediately upon being introduced, Cristine Bacchilega said, "Oh, yes!  We've corresponded!"  and that was during my first year of grad. school, when I wrote a review on Kate Bernheimer's The Complete Tales of Ketzia Gold.  7 and 6 years ago, and the Great Ones of the field remember my name: methinks this is much less to do with me, and much more to do with the general talent for detail that makes it possible for them to be the ones we all look up to.  But it's a quality I'll do well to cultivate: sitting with Don Haase gave me the chance the person whom he was speaking with as well, Jacqueline Weeks, a grad. student who's currently at Notre Dame who I'd already observed asking all the best questions at every panel I attended.  If I meet Jacki 8 years from now for a second time, somehow, I'm confident I'll remember.

And after lunch, it was pack to the weary grind of listening to absolutely brilliant papers: first up was "Fictions II" (as earlier panel, on Jeanette Winterson, Margaret Atwood, and A.S. Byatt was "Fictions I": there would be a total of 5 panels on "Fictions," and only one "Fantasy," which is perhaps my only gripe with the conference; I really would have liked to have seen more work being done on Terri Windling and Tanith Lee and Jane Yolen and Delia Sherman and Ellen Kushner and Gregory Frost and all of the other writers who are doing amazing work on the fairy tale in the ghetto of fantasy ... but I can't blame the organizer if the papers weren't submitted, after all, and that's a direction of study that doesn't seem nearly as prevalent in the field as I would like) looked at Carol Anne Duffy and Kate Atkinson and A.S. Byatt.  All three papers were strong, but I particularly enjoyed Joshua Lobb's paper on Byatt, both because of what he had to say, and because of how he said it.  See. I'm a bit of a technophobe: the one time I tried to use PowerPoint at a conference, the screen in the room went kaput (and this was only my second time presenting at a conference, Terri Windling and Charles Vess were in the audience, etc., ect.).  So, since then, I've stuck to handouts and the generous interpretation that talking with my hands counts as a visual aid.  But Lobb put together a really gorgeous PowerPoint presentation that served to visually enhance and simplify his argument concerning how Byatt disrupts narrative strategies -  very cool.  He's inspired me to attempt to cultivate this skill for the future.  I also quite appreciated Jennifer William's talk on Duffy and Carter and the occasionally masochistic demands that the fairy tale can both illustrate and rebutt, and Fiona Tolan's excellent paper on ambiguity and doubling in Kate Atkinson's Behind the Scenes at the Museum.  Tolan in particular presented a really compelling reading that fit well with what Lobb was doing, and the discussion at that panel was particularly lively.  And then it was time for Jack Zipes' plenary address on the schizophrenic presentations of LRRH in our culture ....

However, I’ve just hit three pages of review, and realized that, regardless of how much I am enjoying reminiscing, it is now time to hit the ground running and get on with class-planning, the writing of reviews, etc.  Sung to the tune of "Someday My Prince Will Come"; "Someday, I'll Have Time Off" ... but before then, rest assured that there will be a Part II, probably on Wednesday.

Comments

[deliasherman.livejournal.com]

Oh, how I wish I'd been there. Any moment you recount is one I'd treasure. Really. It sounds fascinating.

[erzebet.livejournal.com]

Can I say it again? I so wish I'd been there. :)

[prosewitch.livejournal.com]

Wow, thanks for posting all this! All the papers sound fascinating! And yeah, both Don and Cristina are awesome people, I've adored working with both of them... :)