Favourite Author Focus: Francesca Lia Block

Your whole life you can be told something is wrong and so you believe it. Why should you question it? But then slowly seeds are planted inside of you, one by one, by a touch or a look or a day skateboarding in a park, and they start to burst out of old hulls shells and they start to sprout. And pretty soon there are so many of them. They are named Love and Trust and Kindness and Joy and Desire and Wonder and Spirit and Soulmate. They grow into a garden so dense and thick that it starts to invade your brain where the old things you were once told are dying.

I never really “grew out of” fairy tales, I still love them. I love the real ones, Hans Christian Andersen, Grimm, et al, but I admit to loving the Disney-fied versions too. I love happy endings and everything falling perfectly into place. It’s in such contrast to real life and that is a significant part of why I loved stories that I could get lost in while I was growing up. I could forget about other scary things like surgery and pain (in the past, present or future) and live someone else’s life for a while. My love for fairy tales is primarily what brings me to write about the beautiful stories of Francesca Lia Block.

Magic can be found in stolen moments.

I started reading Francesca Lia Block in 2001 after reading her name being mentioned by some people on a band’s message board. I may have been a little ‘old’ at 16 to start reading her books, but I have never been bothered by reading books intended for audiences older or younger than myself: as long as they are well-written. It’s probably why I was reading George Orwell's 1984 at age 12, but also read Lauren Oliver's amazing Before I Fall at age 25. Francesca Lia Block’s books were (and are) virtually impossible to find in Australia, so I ordered The Rose and the Beast from Amazon because the subtitle, “Fairy Tales Retold” intrigued me. To this day, I consider this to be my favourite book of hers partly because it was the first I read and partly because it is literally fairy tales retold, which naturally I loved.

Sometimes you fall, spinning through space, grasping for the things that keep you here. Sometimes you catch them. Sometimes you don't. Sometimes they catch you.

Through The Rose and the Beast, I fell in love with Francesca Lia Block’s incredible use of language. It is fluid like poetry and the imagery is stunning. I went on to read the Weetzie Bat books (now in a collection called Dangerous Angels) within a month or so and she became one of my top five favourite authors of all time. The way she writes about love, family, sexuality, life, happiness, depression, self-injury, suicide, anything and everything, is done in such an original and creative way that I am yet to come across another author like her. I also admit to adoring the cover art of her books; this a significant part of what drew me in to want to know more about this author and her stories.

You make me feel like I have wings when you touch me.

I think Francesca Lia Block is an important author for teenage girls; I think it’s an incredible shame that her books are not really known here. I really believe that reading her books earlier in my teenage years would have helped me cope with some of the things I went through, largely due to the significant topics she covers in her books without being too opinionated. The stories she creates are, simply, beautiful.

Love is a dangerous angel.

The Castle in the Pyrenees by Jostein Gaardner

Release Date (Australia): 1 May 2010

Rating: 8/10

Two former lovers meet across space and time. But what brought them back together? And can they really trust their pasts? A dialogue between world views reopens and an old love burns again...

I love Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaardner. I think it’s one of the most amazing creations in this life. That book is a significant part of the reason as to why I became fascinated by philosophy and history at quite a young age. It was a difficult read the first time I read it; I was 11 years old. Reading about Aristotle, Plato, Kant, Descartes, Satre, Marx, Darwin, and Freud, among others was a lot to take in when I didn’t really know any of them or their ideas when I began the book. My favourites were the empiricists, John Locke and David Hume. (Is it any wonder I fell in love with Lost?) I went on to study these two, and Freud, in particular at university and loved every second of it. I thoroughly enjoy reading about the different theories behind human existence and human actions. This and my love for history (especially Russian) is not something I often talk about, but when I find someone that is interested in the same kind of things, I can ramble for hours.

What Jung called synchronicity is just pure, simple coincidence in my opinion.

I’ve never read anything else by Jostein Gaardner, which might seem a bit strange to some people, but sometimes a book has such an impact on me I almost don’t want to ‘taint’ it with another book by the same author that might not live up to my expectations. When A Castle in Pyrenees was released, I gave into temptation given that it is written in a similar style to Sophie’s World and returned to the world of philosophy as well as the possibility of psychic phenomena. This time it is intertwined with a love story that makes the sometimes dry facts much easier and more fluid to read. The overwhelming questions within the book are the issues of science vs. faith, facts vs. destiny, control vs. destiny. Is reason the only aspect that sheds light on human existence or are there greater forces at play?

I see this new contact as a stream of thought vibrating between two souls rather than an exchange of correspondence which will be there between us forever.

Told in correspondence format, similar to Sophie’s World (except this time via email, as it’s no longer 1995), Steinn represents the firm belief in science and Solrunn can’t understand a lack of belief in fate or destiny. Between their emails written over a couple of weeks after they fatefully (or coincidentally) meet again after decades apart, they discuss their different opinions and ideas on how and why they met again and also their contrasting versions of their history together. I loved this book, but I can certainly see how it would not be everyone’s cup of tea. If you have even a minor interest in philosophy or the issue of science vs. faith, you will most likely love it as I did – but if such things bore you, the book’s love story may not be able to make you fall in love with the story alone.

Perhaps Jesus was able to walk on water because the Sea of Galilee was covered in ice!