This extract [forms the short introduction to Nina Bawden’s book: Sightlines.
I HAVE ONLY once written a book. not to order, exactly, but to please a particular audience; a girl of seven who was, as she put it. 'a little bit blind.’
We had gone on holiday with her family, friends who had children much the same age as ours, renting an old manse on the side of a loch on the island of Mull. Janey—that is the name I gave her in the book I wrote for her—was the youngest of four children. The older two were perfectly sighted. The third child, a boy. had been born with infantile glaucoma. He could see out of one eye, the other was glass; a useful prop for a boy with a mischievous nature. The first time 1 bathed him, along with my son the same age. I steeled myself to take his eye out and wash it as I had seen his mother do, intending to be absolutely casual about it as she was. But I was secretly terrified and he knew it . . .. He called my bluE. He took the eye out himself, hopped out of the bath chased me round the bathroom with it. Serve me rightJaney had less sight than her brother She could only see a little light and shade. One day. the other children decided to climb to a particularly enticmg cave they had spotted on the face of a cliff that was too steep for Janey—and for me. too. since I was going through a vertiginous period So she and I walked round the loch instead and talked about the old story the locals had told us about the Lake Horse. a great home that was to be seen sometimes. galloping on the surface of the loch, a greedy creature of trust and terror thnt took souls to keep it company in the deep water. Janey and I decided that this was Just a story to frighten children and keep them away from the. dangerous loch. Then she sighed. They won‘t let me do dangerous things.‘
She had wanted to climb to the cave With my children and her brothers and sister She sighed again. Then she said, ‘I wish you'd write a book about a blind girl, Nina.‘
‘What sort of book?
She said. very promptly. ‘A book about Jewel thieves and caves. And a girl who does something brave.‘
We discussed what a blind girl could do that was special; something a sighted person would find difficult. Then, that night in the creaky old manse, we were given the answer There was a storm and all the lights in the house went out. (We were an improvident lot and had neglected to buy candles. Or perhaps they were provided and we had simply not seen them.) The mouse was full of crooked
corridors and unexpected stairs. The only person who was able to find her way around, the necessary guide when one of us wanted to go to the. lavatory. was the the seven-year-old. ‘I can see how to go in my mind.’
She could find her way in the dark. So, in my story, the children— Janey and her brother and Perdita, the witch‘s daughter. are abandoned by the wicked jevel thieves in a dark cave and Janey leads the way out to daylight and safety. The Witch’s Daughter is a conventional adventure story, and I hope Janey enjoyed it, but writing it, trying to imagine what she could ‘see in her mind’, was the real adventure for me.
Not, alas, for everyone. A couple of years ago an American company made a film of the novel. I was well paid but not consulted. This happens sometimes, and I was not particularly dismayed, merely interested to see what they made of it. And when I finally saw the film I could hardly believe it. It was quite well done, my thirteen—year-old granddaughter caught her breath and sobbed in the right places. But they had left out the blind girl. No Janey! One of my grandson said, it was like making Hamlet without Hamlet.’
‘I’m not Shakespeare,’ I said. But I took his point.
Nina Bawden"
No comments:
Post a Comment