(I was once an incredible reader. By the fifth grade, I had been tested as having a "post-college reading level" and would tear through science fiction novels three or four at a time, often finishing a book a week and once finishing an entire novel in under three hours. Now? I'm lucky if I read two books a YEAR.)
Anyway, when I was writing to John Williams a while back I stumbled upon the notion of writing to Mrs Cooper as well, since her novels served to fill a very important part of my growing up. My letter follows, then her reply which I promptly received merely a week later...
===
I consider it the privilege of a life time to have
the chance to write to you. I’m a little giddy to be honest because I had no
idea you accepted mail. Along with Robert E. Howard, I don’t think there is a
writer who had a greater influence on not only my reading but in how I perceive
the world around me.
I first read The Dark Is Rising cycle back in middle
school, which is now half my lifetime away. I cannot say how it happened into
my hand, save either magical means or (perhaps) my mother feeding me any book
she could find. Stomping around with a copy of “Le Morte d'Arthur” strapped to
my back by grade seven, she was hard-pressed to find anything that I found up
to snuff. To say that your books agreed with me would be an insult to their
power; I can say with some certainty I finished the entire cycle in under two
months. I was a hellion for reading, something I seem to have lost with age and
a full-time job.
And with age comes a certain cynicism and cynicism
is now at a premium in this era. Everything is a rehash, reboot, recycle. What
little I’ve experienced of Harry Potter made my insides twist like I’d eaten
bad oysters. Movies are increasingly tedious and predictable with few morals
and ever-more robots with machine guns. I look at how a generation behind me is
experiencing what passes for art or writing or music and I am reminded of the
subtitle to a Chris Hedges book – “The End of Literacy and the Triumph of
Spectacle”.
And so, by proxy, by disliking the cynical – I too
have become cynical. Oy gevalt.
I’ve since decided to disconnect (as much as I can)
from that frustrating world and, in a sense, partially regress to being a child
again. And so I am very pleased to say I’ve sat down with your books this
winter and have been enjoying myself immensely, as if for the first time. That
young boy that would read about Will Stanton and Bran in front of a bay window
during a steady snow is doing the same as an “adult” – though perhaps with a
dark porter instead of hot chocolate and Bernard Herrmann instead of Pearl Jam.
It was as if I was meeting childhood friends all
over again and the boy who went stomping through acres of woods after a good
snowfall or in the blister of summer was still pleased to get lost in something
and have an adventure. And it is very strange that something from so far past
has as strong a hold on me as Rilke or Neruda or any other writer I discovered
in college or elsewhere. Perhaps because the books are about such elemental
concepts, they fulfill an elemental desire in all readers? I do not know for
certain, only that they do fulfill something deeply unmentionable. And so,
perhaps this letter to you is an abject failure - because what I feel and sense
about them is so much more than what you're reading. (Please know that this
letter is somewhat roughshod and “finished” after so many drafts, that I'm done
trying to get it perfect and will concentrate on making it right.)
But in any case, I cannot thank you nearly enough
for what you have brought to my life twice now. Thank you, thank you, and thank
you. It is a great comfort to find that powerful writing remains timeless and
as sweet as ever.
Enclosed you’ll find a SASE though feel no
obligation to use it; it is there merely as option. Again, thank you ever so
much. You’ve deeply changed this one person’s life for the better.
Most sincerely,
Justin
Dear Justin,
Thank you very much for your letter, and your kind words about the books. If your mother did send you to them, I should thank her too.
Don't give up hop for your generation and its successors. Yes, theres always a lot of rubbish out there, much of it best-selling, but there always was. In all the arts, theres always a lot of candy, which gives pleasure, relieves depression - and then vanishes. But also theres always a little of the other stuff, which lasts.
I was a judge for the National Book Awards this* year, for "young people's" books of course. We read 325 books (each submission costing its publisher $150 I believe) and most of them were candy. But I kept about 35 of them for my grandchildren to read, we had five finalists, and just one book (the winner) really gave me hopes for the future: it was William Alexander's "Goblin Secrets". His first novel. So now I'm wondering how on earth I find the people like him who are out there in the worlds of music and painting - but I do know they exist, quietly, as they always have and will.
So hang in there - keep looking! And thank you so much for being on the wavelength of the "Dark Is Rising" books.
With best wishes,
Susan Cooper
* well, no - last year!
