Chapter 1: What inspired Naomi Novik's latest novel, A Deadly Education?
All right, this is going to be good, isn't it? I loved this book. Put that effing book down. You know, the Iliad and the Odyssey. She's a furious woman. I'm reading it and reading it and I'm going, oh no. So I thought I really have to hook the reader. It's taken up half my heart, you know. There's no trickery in her writing. Have you heard of the Scholomance?
It's a school for black magic, or maybe necromancy, that appears in Transylvanian and other folklore. Hold that dark and fabled thought for just a moment as I say hello and welcome to a podcast extra edition of ABC Radio National's The Bookshelf. I'm Kate Evans and the reason I'm referencing folklore is because today's guest likes to play with old stories.
Her name is Naomi Novik and I discovered her thanks to a guest reviewer here on the program. Thank you, Trent Jamieson. Now, he recommended her books Spinning Silver and Uprooted, which drew on Polish Jewish stories in a way that make them feel like historical fiction before they turn more and more magical and fantastical.
She also has a series called Temeraire, which is about dragons, but also set during the Napoleonic Wars. Her latest book, though, is called A Deadly Education, about a school where you tend to be killed off if you can't keep up with your lessons. Naomi Novik, thank you so much for speaking to us on the bookshelf.
Thank you for so much for having me.
Now, congratulations on a deadly education set in a magical institution with no teachers, but a lot of lessons and traps. Could you describe the place for us?
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Chapter 2: How does the concept of the Scholomance influence the story?
The Skull of Months is basically this sort of enormous corkscrew shaped school. In fact, when I first was writing the books, I didn't actually know what it looked like. I was about halfway through when finally the shapes sort of coalesced. There's a very famous legend of the Scholomance. It appears in Bram Stoker's Dracula.
And the original legend is of this school where wizards would go to study the dark arts. They would ask their questions. There would be no teachers. And their answers would be given to them in letters of flame that shone out of the dark. And they spent their entire time in the school in the dark. And at the end of it, when they graduated, the devil would take the hindmost.
the last graduate, and keep their soul in payment for the secrets and dark knowledge that the others have gained. That basic sense, that idea of sort of these, the students in the dark and paying this terrible price, this sort of almost gambling with something more than their lives, almost, was the sort of the genesis of the Scholomance.
And from there, it mingled, of course, with so many, you know, the trope of the magical boarding school, which itself grows out of the trope of boarding school stories, is one of my favorites. And the two sort of felt like a place of an interesting conversation.
So, I mean, that seems to be something that you've done quite a bit in your writing, though, is taken an old idea and then sort of questioned what would happen with it. I mean, you've done it with Rumpelstiltskin's story. You've done it with other folk stories. So what does that tell us about you as a reader?
You know, I started writing as a fanfic writer. So for me, what I always am interested in as a writer is having conversations about Writing in a way is very much how I respond. Writing is my response, my reader response. You know, some people might write an essay. Some people might want to act out something that they've read and loved or something like that.
But for me, when I read something that I love and I want more of it, I want to, I have questions about it. I sort of write myself, write my way into the story and sort of try and grab hold of the story in that way. That's always something that I'm looking for as a reader.
In this institution that you've invented in A Deadly Education, it's full of danger and threat. Every shadow might hold a monster, but the library is the safest place in the school. So tell us more about your relation to libraries.
I think that's right. You know, the library is the least terrible place in a terrible place in the scholar minds. You know, obviously, one of the pleasures, I think, of the Scalmont's books of a deadly education is that it does that sort of amplification of a shared experience.
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Chapter 3: What unique elements does A Deadly Education bring to the magical school genre?
And so... With Temeraire, what was interesting was that I was having to work quite hard to be in conversation with my past self and try and find the way to bring the story to a satisfying close at the end. And obviously there's a military history and Atlas of the Napoleonic Wars was an absolutely critical book for me throughout the whole series, which is this wonderful, wonderful book
that essentially goes through every single campaign of the Napoleonic Wars, often on a day by day, and sometimes on an hour by hour basis, showing you the troop movements across the countryside, describing things like, you know, I mean, and it's just wonderful because you realize how 95% of the Napoleonic Wars Through at least 95 percent of the battles, nobody had any idea what was going on.
You know, like the and in fact, that Napoleon's fundamental genius really was in basically better being able to manage and respond to to that uncertainty.
When I started to read Spinning Silver, I thought I was reading historical fiction, which I sort of was, and then realised there was the fantasy element as well. But I just want to ask you one final question, Naomi, which is what have you read recently in any genre that you have just loved?
You know, I have been reading very, very slowly lately just because I have very little time. I am currently still making my way through ā Toji Onyebuchi's Beasts Made of Night, which is wonderful. And I've been really enjoying that. I've recently, you know, not read. I just finished watching the whole series Avatar, The Last Airbender with my daughter, who just hit the perfect age for it.
And so we essentially watched the whole thing relatively quickly over the summer. And that was just a really wonderful experience. example of sort of storytelling that works for a whole family.
And she was reading, and so I actually ended up rereading Susan Cooper's wonderful series, The Dark is Rising, which is just an absolute classic and still one of my favorites, even though I'm still angry about the ending, which I will not spoil for any of you listeners who have not yet read it. They should read it anyway and be angry with me.
Well, Naomi Novik, congratulations on a deadly education. And thank you so much for speaking to us on Radio National.
Thank you so much.
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