Life in the Borderlands*

This week I have read, more or less in tandem, Michael Chabon's Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands, and Nick Griffiths' Dalek I Loved You.

Michael Chabon is a brilliant, Pulitzer-prize-winning US author; Nick Griffiths is an obscure (at least to me) UK journalist whose main claim to fame seems to be writing a TV column for the tabloid Daily Mail. Chabon's writing is dazzling and erudite; Griffiths' is self-deprecating and cheerful.

And yet I was struck by what the two books had in common - an ardent and continuing love for their childhood passions. In Chabon's case, it's mostly comics and what snobs call "genre" fiction - sci-fi, horror, fantasy. For Nick Griffiths, it's Doctor Who (Chabon is also a fan of the Doctor; though he doesn't mention the show in this book, there is a fannish essay about it in Manhood for Amateurs).

Maps and Legends is a collection of essays in which Chabon argues that the most stimulating, exciting writing often occurs at the place where "serious" "literary" fiction blurs into the territory reserved for the darkest corners of the book shop, the genres mentioned above (I would argue the case for children's literature to be included on that list). For example, he claims that Cormac McCarthy's The Road is sci-fi/horror wearing a respectable literary mask.

Dalek I Loved You is a pretty straightforward memoir of growing up in the 70s as a closet Doctor Who nerd (bless). Nick Griffiths is almost exactly my age, and worked as a music journalist in the 1990s, so I found a lot to relate to in his account. He is sweet and unpretentious, and endearingly excited about the prospect of having his book published, and Dalek I Loved You made me laugh a lot (not just the Who reminiscences either, though I had to chortle at his unabashed loathing for the abominable Adric).

It was a weird coincidence that I read these books at the same time. Together, they demonstrate clearly that things we love in childhood are the things that continue to define us as adults; which is good news, if humbling, for those of us who toil in these shadowy borderlands, trying to write children's literature.


*No, this is not yet another blog post about the collapse of Borders bookshops and the consequences for the publishing industry...

The Doctor (And Another Doctor)

So it's a year since Stephen Moffat took over the reins as executive producer and chief writer at Doctor Who, and it's time to consider what kind of a fist he's making of the job. In my opinion: a pretty damn good one.


In the new version of Who, I've always loved Stephen Moffat's episodes the best. His writing is simply breath-taking, and he understands the possibilities of time travel for clever, puzzling, deeply satisfying stories in a way that I don't think Russell T. Davies was ever really interested in. It seemed to me that RTD was so caught up in the mythology of the Doctor's character (a near-immortal, deeply lonely, almost god-like figure, stalking the wastes of time and space with the fate of worlds weighing oh-so-heavily on his shoulders, etc etc) that he rather neglected the sheer fun you can have with a time machine, zooming back and forth to five minutes ago with a silly fez on your head and contradicting what you're just about to say, if only you hadn't already said it.

I was quite prepared to not warm to Matt Smith's Doctor (too young, not serious enough) but he's won me over. It's been a wrench to part from David Tennant's No. 10, who did seem to me the perfect embodiment of the Doctor, but I think I've come to terms with it now. And I must admit, at times, RTD's Doctors were so freighted with all that history, all that meaning, that it sometimes became a bit... a bit much. A bit pompous, a bit earnest, a little bit too much staring soulfully into the middle distance with flames in the background. The Eleventh Doctor, Stephen Moffat's Doctor, is playful and merry and clever, and most of the time, he's having fun.

Having said all that, I do have reservations. I don't like the new Daleks. The cartoonish, clunky, brightly-coloured versions just aren't scary to me; I prefer the rough, industrial, ruthless originals. I'm not sure about all this business about being married to River Song; the Doctor doesn't do "married."Moffat doesn't seem to have the same reverence for the Doctor's mythos as RTD; he chucks stuff around a smidge too carelessly, perhaps.

But I can go with it. We all have our own visions of the Doctor. I was around when John Nathan-Turner reinvented the Fifth Doctor as a youthful action hero; there were gasps of dismay from fandom, but we all survived. And the Doctor and his TARDIS keep on spinning, through eternity.

I Dig Time Lords, Too...

When I came across Chicks Dig Time Lords (via Lizbee's blog -- see, good things do come from googling oneself...) I knew I had to have it. This is a book about me, I thought. And lo, I sent away for it, and it hath arriveth, and I hath eagerly read it.

And discovered, no, it isn't about me after all. This is overwhelmingly a book about Fans of Doctor Who. And I've realised that I am a mere fan, not a fangirl. Squees and shipping and zines and cons and New Adventures have never been part of my experience of adoring Doctor Who; my long and loving relationship with the show has lived behind closed doors, inside my mind, and for the most part, secretly. I never felt that need to share my devotion -- only once, at high school, with one other friend, did I reveal the true extent of my secret life (hello FE, if you're out there).

Because my love has been solitary rather than communal, is it any less real? The mythology of the Doctor has been part of my identity since I was thirteen. I know I'm not the only person who's imagined their own version of the Doctor's story. I never identified with the Doctor myself, or with any particular companion, but invented my own companion and constructed an elaborate story arc around her.*

My high school friend and I referred to our secret life as "etcetera." Etcetera was extra, a parallel existence. The closest I came to fanfic was writing about Calwyn and Darrow's relationship in the Tremaris books. Yes, there was a little pinch of the Doctor in Darrow, and a little smidge of "her" in Calwyn, though they soon developed their own independent lives.

So I guess I'm not a true fan, even though the world of the Doctor is such a part of my own history; I must be something else, something less, something merely partial. A borrower, a visitor in another's world. I've knitted my own scarf out of the Doctor's wool; but it still keeps me warm.

And hey, the TARDIS is a big place. There's plenty of room for all of us.


*Yes, her -- not me, not exactly. She was a princess, for a start, and from another planet. She didn't have my name. And she'd mastered temporal mechanics and developed her own means of time/space transport. In fact the more I think about it the more I realise she was modelled on Romana -- an equal, not a hanger-on, not a damsel in distress. And her adventures weren't restricted to travelling with the Doctor (though he was certainly a handy way of accessing other worlds).

Happy Sad

Big sobs in our living-room last night as the delectable David Tennant signed off as the tenth Doctor Who. Despite my lifelong loyalty to Tom Baker (no 4) and Peter Davison (no 5), DT takes out my award as Best Doctor Ever. The perfect blend of intense, funny and drop dead gorgeous, he's going to be a hard act to follow. Good luck, Matt Smith - you're going to need it. Though I have to say, I'm slightly disturbed that the Doctor is now being played by an actor who was born a couple of years after I started watching the show... But hey, that's the paradox of time travel, isn't it?

And also much happy this weekend when Penni and I visited The Younger Sun bookshop in Yarraville to talk about Dear Swoosie (and sundry other topics). We got the girls to guess which of us wrote India and which wrote Poppy (they got it right). The cupcakes were delicious, the girls were delightful, and Kate was very welcoming. It was so lovely to meet a bunch of keen readers who were so enthusiastic about sharing their love -- not just for our books (though, hey, that was nice, too!) Thanks for having us!