:00:00. > :00:00.then, let's have a look at Meet The Author. This week it is David
:00:00. > :00:00.Mitchell. David Mitchell is a writer
:00:00. > :00:00.with a restless imagination who loves playing around with time
:00:00. > :00:09.and perspective and the magical. His first big success
:00:10. > :00:13.was Cloud Atlas. His new novel Slade House
:00:14. > :00:15.brings together all those enthusiasms in a ghost story fantasy
:00:16. > :00:18.that is creepy and very funny Once every nine years two strange
:00:19. > :00:27.children lead real people through the iron gate to Slade House
:00:28. > :00:31.into a different world. And there, they're stripped of much
:00:32. > :00:36.that makes them human. Welcome. David Mitchell, magical,
:00:37. > :00:56.fantastic things happen inside Slade It is a familiar scene
:00:57. > :01:04.and people are drawn to an iron gate once every
:01:05. > :01:07.nine years to a place where the rules are different,
:01:08. > :01:10.where things are different. This is something we all remember
:01:11. > :01:16.from reading in our childhood Is that something that lodged
:01:17. > :01:20.in your mind as a boy, that image, Yes, the door to Narnia
:01:21. > :01:29.casts a long shadow. And many of our earliest,
:01:30. > :01:35.most visceral reading experiences involve fantasy and unless the world
:01:36. > :01:45.of the book is set exclusively in that world, as it is,
:01:46. > :01:48.say, with The Hobbit and the Lord Of The Rings,
:01:49. > :01:52.and it's not that kind and we start in our world
:01:53. > :01:55.then you need a door, you need a portal of some type,
:01:56. > :02:00.you cannot avoid it. If there was a nifty way
:02:01. > :02:05.around using the door There are few things more
:02:06. > :02:10.elemental than doors to go Indeed, going down a dark tunnel
:02:11. > :02:15.as it were, it is something that stirs feelings in us
:02:16. > :02:21.of excitement and the unknown. The unknown that they reach
:02:22. > :02:25.inside Slade House is a different It is a strange machine,
:02:26. > :02:33.in a way, isn't it? It is a diabolical
:02:34. > :02:34.machine. Without wanting to give too much
:02:35. > :02:42.away, it is a kind of machine that needs to work out how
:02:43. > :02:48.to lower your guard, and how to, sort of,
:02:49. > :02:52.inject you with a particular substance that will allow this
:02:53. > :03:01.weird surgery to happen. It is different for every person,
:03:02. > :03:12.which is handy for the author, because it allows you to avoid
:03:13. > :03:16.the sin of repetition and to set up patterns in the reader's mind
:03:17. > :03:21.through which you As a writer, this is a short
:03:22. > :03:25.book by your standards. Not quite a novella,
:03:26. > :03:31.whatever that is. Nonetheless, you pack it
:03:32. > :03:39.with all of these ideas like sparks You're somebody who loves
:03:40. > :03:44.to have a fairground going around I guess I'm a child
:03:45. > :03:50.of the video age. I think screen drama does
:03:51. > :03:57.influence or has influenced It is clear you like playing
:03:58. > :04:04.with these ideas that have been, sort of, maturing away in your mind
:04:05. > :04:08.as a reader and whatcher of films and player of video games,
:04:09. > :04:13.you like using all these influences We pile stuff onto it before
:04:14. > :04:28.we are writers through our childhood and teenage years and when it's
:04:29. > :04:31.in the compost heap it changes. And what comes out the bottom
:04:32. > :04:43.or the top is somehow something that gives energy back,
:04:44. > :04:47.that is the point, isn't it? It is the raw material,
:04:48. > :04:53.the stuff that our narratives You can keep adding to it in later
:04:54. > :04:59.life but once you are busy earning a living as a writer and busy
:05:00. > :05:04.being a dad you're less able to throw things in a backpack
:05:05. > :05:07.and vanish for half a year, which you can do in your 20s much
:05:08. > :05:11.more easily, it's harder to put You are involved in this future
:05:12. > :05:17.library project, tell us about that? Future library project
:05:18. > :05:21.is a fairly audacious, is different things to different
:05:22. > :05:25.people, began as an art project created by a Scottish artist
:05:26. > :05:29.called Katie Paterson, it has three main strands,
:05:30. > :05:34.number one is plant 3000 trees or perhaps 1000 trees
:05:35. > :05:37.in a plantation in a forest outside Oslo, strand two,
:05:38. > :05:41.persuade an author from a different country around the world
:05:42. > :05:44.for the next 100 years to give something, we're not supposed
:05:45. > :05:48.to speak about what it is, it might be short or a full-length
:05:49. > :05:53.novel which we will never show anyone and which we will destroy all
:05:54. > :05:59.trace of once we've handed it over. Strand three, in 2115 these 100
:06:00. > :06:05.books that have been accruing in this special dark room
:06:06. > :06:13.in the State Library in Oslo will be published as an anthology on paper
:06:14. > :06:20.derived from the Norwegian spruces that will spend the next
:06:21. > :06:22.100 years growing. And a sort of declaration of faith
:06:23. > :06:39.that people will still want to read There will still be readers
:06:40. > :06:44.and still be books and there will still be forests
:06:45. > :06:46.and there will still be and the anti-civilisational forces
:06:47. > :06:51.that dominate the news won't Writers will still be playing
:06:52. > :07:00.with all of the ideas and influences and happy memories that you throw
:07:01. > :07:02.together in the darkness As long as people want to read then
:07:03. > :07:08.there will be writers needing Human beings are
:07:09. > :07:17.hungry for narrative. It might be the narrative around
:07:18. > :07:22.a campfire in the Stone Age and may The novel is having a really good
:07:23. > :07:31.run, 300 years old and counting, it can read parts that other
:07:32. > :07:35.narrative forms cannot reach. As long as people are hungry
:07:36. > :07:38.for narrative there will be providers for that hunger,
:07:39. > :07:40.people who are wires to only really be happy when they are nerdily
:07:41. > :07:45.constructing these little plot structure character ideas,
:07:46. > :07:49.themes and making them like Lego, David Mitchell,
:07:50. > :08:00.thank you very much.