As Angus has said, we met up and went to the Ruth Rendell/PD James session at Cheltenham on 15th October. I made some notes during the session and have finally managed to decipher my scribble and produce something that I hope will be of interest to people, although obviously not as comprehensive as the transcript which Angus is working on. This will be a long email so I've split it into 2 parts. =========== They started by explaining that they have been friends for over 20 years and have had this type of public discussion on several occasions. They are never rehearsed. RR began by asking PDJ about her first novel - Cover Her Face - which was seen as a very advanced title for its day. PDJ said she always wanted to write but began late. She was 19 when WW2 broke out and after the war, she had a mentally ill husband and 2 small daughters to care for. She worked in the Health Service and wrote and planned her book on the way to work. She feels her books are in the tradition of Agatha Christie rather than Dorothy L Sayers. RR said at this point that her books are not in the tradition of either! RR talked about how she got started. She had written short stories and other novels but had had no success in getting published. She wrote from Doon with Death, sent it off and it was accepted and published in 1964. PDJ asked her about Wexford and whether she had thought of him as a serial character when she first started. RR said she was so glad to be published that she didn't really think about that issue - it was something she had to tackle later on. She asked PDJ about this issue in relation to Dalgleish. PDJ said she felt it was the right thing to go on with the character. They referred to other writers who felt they had got 'stuck' with a character to the extent that they wished they had never created him in the first place e.g. Agatha Christie in relation to Poirot; and Sayers changed Wimsey from a Bertie Wooster type to someone very different in the later books. There was some talk about how much of themselves they put into the characters and PDJ made the sta! tement that most fiction is autobiographical and most autobiography is fiction! There was discussion about the fact that their main characters are professional investigators. They both do this because they think it is more realistic. RR said she thinks the days of amateur investigators are gone, if indeed they ever existed - was there ever in reality someone like Miss Marple or Lord Peter Wimsey. She can imagine it on a one-off occasion but not for that type of person to go on getting the opportunity to be involved in investigations. RR asked PDJ about the character of Dalgleish and how she created him. PDJ said that she gave him the qualities that she admires. She killed off his wife and child in order to avoid his love life! She wanted him to have a talent so made him a poet as well as a policeman. She talked about the fact that as a detective he tears down the privacy of other people whilst preserving his own. She revealed that she is working on the next book in the series and Dalgleish's relationship which has featured in the last 2 books will be dealt with in this book. RR talked about Wexford, that at first he was just an investigating officer but as the series developed she made him more interesting. She wanted him to be the sort of person she would like to know - she gave him some of the qualities of her own father. She did not want him to be a seedy character - smoking/drinking/living in squalor. He has a steady marriage and his family is important to him. PDJ talked about her Cordelia Grey books and how she gave a TV company the right to continue with the character. They then wrote 2 terrible scripts and hence she felt unable to continue with the character herself. She has created Kate Miskin as an alternative. RR talked about the fact that she is 2 people - RR and Barbara Vine, although she did say that she think her 2 personas are not as distinct as they used to be. She started the Barbara Vine books because she wanted to do something more complex and in depth. She feels PDJ can do this within the context of a detective novel but she can't. PDJ commented that she feels RR has an astonishing creative imagination, as her books are never the same. PDJ talked about the 2 books she has written which are different from all the others - Innocent Blood and Children of Men. She was asked if she will ever write another such book and replied that it will depend on getting a powerful and suitable idea. She explained that the idea for Innocent Blood was a combination of knowledge of a real-life murder (The Raven Case) and the implications of an Act of Parliament being passed which enabled adopted adults to trace their birth parents. ============ Continued in part 2. Judy [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> $9.95 domain names from Yahoo!. Register anything. http://us.click.yahoo.com/J8kdrA/y20IAA/yQLSAA/CEbqlB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ruthrendell/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: ruthrendell-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ At this stage of the proceedings, the audience were invited to ask questions. Someone asked how they choose their names. RR says she does not use the phone directory but does use a dictionary for first names. PDJ says she named Dalgleish after an English teacher at her old school. Also she looks at the death notices for ideas! RR was asked if she feels she is more tolerant of Wexford's foibles than of Burden's. She agreed that she is more sympathetic towards Wexford. She said 'Wexford is me, but Burden is absolutely not me' There was a question about literary awards and the fact that their type of books are not taken seriously in this respect. It was interesting to learn that both RR and PDJ have been judges for the Booker prize in the past. PDJ said she does not worry about the issue and RR said she doesn't care much about it and then went on to speculate on how many of the books that have won the Booker prize are still in print. There was a question about plots - do they work things out completely before starting the book or do they find that things happen that they didn't expect? PDJ says her books are planned in great detail but even so, the book always changes as she writes. RR works differently; she said she doesn't know what's going to happen, it changes all the time and the older she gets the worse this tendency is getting. They were asked about the TV portrayals of their books. RR feels she has been very well served with the Wexford TV series. PDJ was more guarded in her response! She said she had had 2 very good actors playing Dalgleish but then expressed some frustration about the fact that dialogue, which has been written in detail in the book is not used in the TV version and something written by a script-writer is substituted. There was a question about whether their crime fiction is escapism or is there a message for the reader? RR was clear that her Wexford books have got a political message and have had since Simisola. Each book since then has had a theme and she has done this because she felt if she didn't the series would have become very stale. PDJ said she tries to set her books in the modern world but gave the impression that she does not go as far as RR in building issues into her books. ============ My notes ended at this stage, whether this was actually the end of the session or whether I just ran out of energy to take notes, I can't remember! But it was a great evening and well worth the effort of getting there. Judy [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> $9.95 domain names from Yahoo!. Register anything. http://us.click.yahoo.com/J8kdrA/y20IAA/yQLSAA/CEbqlB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ruthrendell/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: ruthrendell-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/