Susan Cooper is one of the small and very
select company of writers who - somehow, somewhere - have been touched by magic;
the gift of creation is theirs, the power to bring to life for ordinary mortals "the
best of symbolic high fantasy." Where does such a gift originate? How is it
manifested? These are questions never wholly answerable since they lead back to
the mystery of birth, but they are immensely interesting to pursue, and the
pursuit is infinitely rewarding though never concluded. The impact of Susan
Cooper's writing, like the impact of meeting her in person, sends one off on
this pursuit, to seek the answers to the unanswerable, to gain insight and
treasure along the way.
Modest, reserved, with a quick, shy smile, and filled with ready wit and humour, Susan conveys immediately a shining sense of life, of sharp, clear individuality, of intense and brilliant inner resources, of strong purpose and definite intention - all firmly controlled by a well-disciplined, well-schooled mind and heart. To know her is an unending, constantly renewing joy and delight.
Aware that Susan had broken off an extremely successful career in journalism as a feature writer for the eminent 'Sunday Times' of London when she married a distinguished American scientist and came to live in the United States, I wondered why someone who has been recognised as an outstanding creative writer had chosen journalism at the start. Though not mutually exclusive, the two kinds of writing are not as a rule equally attractive to writers, who tend to find their niche early in one field or the other. How had Susan been led to the 'Sunday Times'?
The first eighteen years of her life were spent in Buckinghamshire, England, the setting of 'The Dark Is Rising', the second book in her five-book sequence by the same title. She grew up knowing that reading was an important part of life. Her home was full of books and music, reflecting her parents' interest. Despite World War II and its aftermath, she and her brother, as children, were taken to the theatre for such plays as 'Peter Pan', to concerts, and to Gilbert and Sullivan operettas. But looking back, she realises that radio was an important part of her life, too. At that time - in the 1940's - 'Children's Hour' was a regular program on the BBC. It featured "marvelous and intelligent dramatisation of books," Susan recalls. She remembers particularly John Masefield's 'The Midnight Folk' and 'Box of Delights'. Programs like these played a great part awakening her imagination. Years later, as a journalist, she met David Davies who planned the music for 'Children's Hour', produced plays for it, and in time ran the program. It was a curious sensation to hear his voice in the present as an echo from the time when she was a ten-year-old.
Susan has no conscious recollection of learning the old tales and legends of Buckinghamshire. They seem always to have been a part of her, acquired "by osmosis," as she puts it. The great oak tree of Herne the Hunter, the tree where Will Stanton and the Hunter meet in 'The Dark Is Rising', was a familiar sight; so were Bronze Age barrows and Saxon and Norman churches. "It's all part of daily living in England," Susan says. "There were tramps and there was a Tramps Alley, as in 'The Dark Is Rising'. There were Roman villas nearby where we went on school trips." Her strong imagination was nurtured by the ancient land in which she lived. An extra influence at this time was 'The Land', a book by Jacquetta Hawkes about England - the long and ancient history of its countryside, the land itself.
At eighteen, Susan left Buckinghamshire to become an undergraduate at Oxford in Somerville College, studying for an honours degree in English Language and Literature. Two of the professors whose lectures she was to attend were C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien.
In the great tradition of English Universities, extra curricular activities for undergraduates are fully as important as lectures and study. Lacking the self-confidence to become involved in her deepest interest - the theatre - Susan chose instead the university newspaper, 'Cherwell', and won a place on it as a reporter, thus beginning her journalistic pursuits. In time she became the first ever woman editor of 'Cherwell'. All of this gave her valuable experience, and she also got to know some of the top London newspaper people who came to lecture at Oxford.
By the time she graduated, Susan was totally committed to writing. The only way to earn a living by writing, however, was journalism - not by writing books or plays - so against everyone's advice she set out to find a job in London. A Saturday job with one of the large London tabloids was terminated because Susan was not aggressive enough as a reporter. She refused to climb over a wall of a country estate, where Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe were staying, to get an interview! On weekdays, she worked for a man who was publishing lists of jobs for university graduates. Then came an offer from the 'Sunday Times' to cover the rose growers' annual show in London as a free-lance assignment. It was fun to meet and talk to the growers, but Susan could not find a real lead with which to begin her story. Just as she was leaving the show, she heard an old lady enquire of a grower, "How far apart should I keep my Passions?" Susan had her lead and went off triumphantly! The 'Sunday Times' liked her piece, and she was offered a job by Ian Fleming, who was writing the 'Atticus' column at that time. "He was a tall, elegant man with a bow tie," Susan says. "A poppet - but I was scared to death of him!" This was the beginning of her years as a reporter, staff writer and eventually feature writer for the 'Sunday Times', which was just at the start of an exciting period of expansion and development.
Susan's first writing for children began by happenstance. The art editor started a feature called "Mainly for Children." It was illustrated with photographs or drawings, and staff members took turns in writing it. Susan's first article for it was based on Mallory (a great love of hers at Oxford) and was called "Who was King Arthur" Other subjects ranged from pantomimes to steam-engine railway trains. Because her father, grandfather and great-grandfather had all worked for the Great Western Railway, Susan was allowed to ride from London to Bristol, standing on the footplate of a steam engine with the driver and fireman, the only woman to do so except Princess Elizabeth.
The work led Susan toward the world of children's books, and before long she began to write 'Over Sea, Under Stone', the first book in her five-book sequence. Because Jonathan Cape Ltd was the publisher of Arthur Ransome's books, which Susan had loved as a child, she sent her manuscript to Cape. It was accepted - and it was published in England (1965) just after Susan married Nicholas Grant and moved to this country.
Her adult science fiction novel, 'Mandrake', had come out in England just before that (1964). 'Dawn of Fear', her second book for children, was published first in the United States (1970) and later in England. A powerful, realistic story of wartime England, it is not part of the sequence. By then Susan had published two other books for adults: 'Behind the Golden Curtain' (1965), a study of the USA, and 'J.B. Priestley' (1970), a biography of the long-time friend, the English writer.
It was here, in the United States, that the rest of the five-book sequence took shape in her imagination. Susan likens the books to the movements of a symphony. Each is set in a specific season - Lammas, Christmas, Halloween, Midsummer - times when magic is strong over the land. Susan made voluminous notes to herself on images from myth and folklore, reflections on good and evil, interlaced with jottings about possible scenes, character interactions and plot developments. Eventually, she wrote the last page of the fifth and last book in the sequence, 'Silver on the Tree'. Then she began to write 'The Dark Is Rising'.
To have 'The Dark Is Rising (1973)' singled out as the only Newbery Honour Book in 1974 was a tremendously encouraging event for Susan., who was still undergoing a process of adjustment in her new country. She was still shy. When she attended the Newbery-Caldecott banquet at ALA in New York City that year, after an unbelieving look at the nearly 2000 people in the audience, she turned to me and whispered, "I don't believe I ever want to win the Newbery!"
There followed 'Greenwitch' (1974), a shorter, less dense book, which Susan considers to be a sort of rondo in her sequence. Its setting is again in Cornwall. In 'The Grey King' (1975), the setting changes to North Wales, the third and important geographic location in Susan's life. It was her grandmother's home - and is now her parents' - and, as with Buckinghamshire and Cornwall, Susan knows it well. The fifth and last book of the sequence, 'Silver on the Tree' (1977), also takes place in Wales.
Her years as a writer, both in and out of journalism, have given Susan Cooper a sure command of the English language. She uses it as a fine instrument to achieve her purpose. But the deep, subconscious well-springs from which her true creation comes are not the subject of command. Susan likens the sense of revelation that comes at moments of imaginative breakthrough to Will Stanton's opening of the great carved doors on the snowy hillside that led him to the vast hall where he first met Merriman Lyon and the Lady in 'The Dark Is Rising'.
Though England is the home of the powerful, ancient magic, here in our own United States the magic still goes on for Susan and for those near her. On a lovely May evening last year, she and I were walking through a meadow that borders a salt marsh pond near my home in Rhode Island. Susan had mentioned earlier that the first chapter of 'Silver on the Tree', all she had written so far, was giving her some trouble, and she wondered if we might have half an hour the next morning to talk about it. But this evening, in the long, lingering light, we were relaxed and peaceful. As we neared the pond, we saw two lovely white swans in stately transit through the still water.
"There are two swans in my first chapter," Susan said, quietly. A few minutes later she exclaimed - with a sense of urgency that surprised me - "Look at that huge bumblebee out so late." It was a big bee, but I was mystified by her excitement. "There's a bumblebee in my first chapter," she said. We walked on. I began telling her casually of a black fisher, a kind of mink, that we had seen only once in that same meadow, a species of animal that had never before or since been known in that area. She was silent for a moment. Then, "But there's a black mink in my first chapter," Susan said. The next morning, when I came down stairs, she was already outside, cutting dead blossoms from the daffodils.
"When do you want to talk about that chapter?" I asked.
"Oh," she replied airily, "last night's magic worked. It all came right this morning and I've worked it out. There is magic here, you know."
Music and song, old tales and legends, prose and poetry, theatre and reality, imagination and intellect, power and control, a strong sense of place and people both past and present - all are part of the magic that has touched Susan Cooper. She is undismayed about the challenge of crossing borders old and new, physical and metaphysical. Her journeys add great lustre to the world of literature.
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
