Bar Fridman-Tell on her novel 'Honeysuckle'
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
I'm Beth Golay and this is Marginalia. Inspired by the Welsh myth of the Blodewed, a woman created using flowers and plants, author Bar Freedman Tell set out to create her own version of the story in her debut novel, Honeysuckle.
What inspired Bar Fridman-Tell to write 'Honeysuckle'?
The book opens with two siblings, a sister and a brother named Wyn and Rory, who are several years apart. Frustrated by his endless demands to play, Winn crafts a playmate for Rory, a Blodewed, which Rory names Day. As Rory grows up, Day is recrafted and renewed each season, and the power dynamic between the two shifts and begins to take a more sinister turn because Day, as a Blodewed, must always do what her creator requests. I recently spoke with Bar Friedman Tell about Honeysuckle and the Welsh myth of the Blodewed that served as her inspiration.
Honeysuckle is a very loose retelling of a story from Welsh mythology, and it's about a girl made of flowers who must be rewoven at the end of each season or she'll fall apart. and a lonely boy who will do anything to save her and stop this cycle of bloom and decay, including a lot of things he really shouldn't.
I was unfamiliar with this myth of the Blodewed. Where did you develop an interest in this mythology?
So my first encounter with Welsh mythology, I think like a lot of other people my age, was through Lloyd Alexander and the Chronicles of Verdain. which is very loosely based on Welsh mythology. And it took me years to realize that it's even connected. But I was also always very fascinated by myths and folklore, and pretty much magpied anything I could get my hands on. And when I was, I think, in high school, I came across the Mabinogion, and it felt a bit like coming home, because I grew up on the names. And I absolutely fell in love with the story of David.
How do the characters Wyn and Rory influence the story?
It's so pretty and it's so imaginative and it's so full of everything. But it also never sat well with me that she was framed as the villain. In the story, a girl is made out of flowers to be a bride as a way to overcome a curse that prevents her husband from taking a human wife. And she's later turned into a bird, to an owl, as punishment for choosing a different love and a different life. And the fact that she was framed as the villain, despite never having any choices or any say or any agency, even over her own body, it's changed first from flowers to woman and then from woman to bird. And it really fascinated me and it really stayed with me and resonated with me.
So your novel, Honeysuckle, is set in a different world where there are some elements of magic. And obviously the Bledeweds are magical. And at the school, you know, one of our primary characters, Rory, attends. It's implied that he's learning magic in some of his courses. But other than that, the magic is really subtle here. I mean, there aren't any crazy magical things going on and life seems really pretty ordinary. I mean, there are pay phones and answering machines. Talk to me about how you decided upon setting and just how much magic would be a part of this world.
I think the type of fantasy or the type of books I often gravitate toward are the ones that have
What role does the Welsh myth of Blodewed play in the novel?
a world with a twist, where you have some element of magic, but it's not seen as magic. It's seen as commonplace, seen as science in this book. And that way, when everything else is the same, when it's the same experiences that we have, the same relationships, it's just the cascading ripples of this one change. I think the really cool thing is that magic, the fantastical, can be both what it is and function as a metaphor, function as a way to talk about things that we experience every day, but from a different angle or like from tilting them on their side and seeing what happens. And I really love the freedom that it allows us and how it opens up so many doors to that we are tired of opening, usually.
So in Honeysuckle, the Bledewed was created for Rory, a young boy who was eight at the time, by his older sister, Wyn. And he called her Day. And although Day is not human, she still deals with some of the challenges that human women endure, particularly when it comes to safety around men.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–0:17
2
What inspired Bar Fridman-Tell to write 'Honeysuckle'?
0:17–2:12
3
How do the characters Wyn and Rory influence the story?
2:12–3:57
4
What role does the Welsh myth of Blodewed play in the novel?
3:57–5:56
5
How does Bar Fridman-Tell explore themes of power dynamics in 'Honeysuckle'?
5:56–22:55
6
How does the setting influence the magical elements in 'Honeysuckle'?
22:55–29:22