Louis Sachar makes his adult fiction debut with an enchanting tale set in Renaissance Italy
Katie FraserKatie Fraser is The Bookseller's deputy books editor and chair of the New Adult Book Prize. She has chaired events at the Edinburgh
...moreThe new novel from the bestselling author of Holes is a Renaissance-set tale featuring a hairless magician, a rebellious princess and a medieval Italian castle.
Katie Fraser is The Bookseller's deputy books editor and chair of the New Adult Book Prize. She has chaired events at the Edinburgh
...moreIt feels like one of those rare pinch-me moments when I sit down to interview acclaimed children’s author Louis Sachar over video call. Like many, I remember reading Holes at school and becoming completely swept up in the capers of Stanley Yelnats and the mystery at the heart of Camp Green Lake Detention Centre.
Adults who read Sachar as children will recall his whip-smart dialogue, humour and propulsive plotting. Now, 46 years into his career and 23 children’s books later, he has brought the same skill, wit and verve to his enchanting adult debut, The Magician of Tiger Castle.
“It’s like I’ve suddenly become famous again,” he says, eyes twinkling. “All the kids who read my books are now in positions of being critics, reviewers, publishers or booksellers. When I was starting out, the people in power had their favourites, and now I’m the one they look at and remember from their childhood.”
The Magician of Tiger Castle opens in the present-day, where we meet Anatole sitting, sipping a cappuccino and admiring the turrets of the medieval Tiger Castle. Anatole is no mere tourist, but an unageing magician who worked at the castle hundreds of years ago, during the Renaissance. Think the Arthurian Merlin, if he were much grumpier, prone to bouts of self-aggrandising and had a penchant for tea-drinking. The novel is told through the eyes of this jaded, disgruntled man, who recounts part of his time spent in Tiger Castle working in the service of King Sandro and Queen Corinna, rulers of the Italian kingdom of Esquaveta.
Anatole recalls a time when he had fallen in the estimation of the court, having suffered what the magician terms a series of “temporary setbacks”. An opportunity to ingratiate himself with the king and queen soon arises when, weeks before Princess Tullia’s arranged marriage to Prince Dalrympl of Oxatania, she announces her love for the scribe Pito and reneges on the betrothal. Pito is thrown in the dungeons pending execution and Anatole suggests an ambitious solution to save the marriage: he will concoct a memory-loss potion that will erase all memories of Pito from the rebellious princess’ mind.
I never think in terms of genre… I’m just trying to write an engaging story
However, while testing prototypes on Pito, Anatole’s motives become conflicted. Can he leave this innocent man to be publicly executed, or should he perform an extraordinary rescue mission? His choice will change his fate and that of the two kingdoms. Welcome to Esquaveta, a world of wonder, trickery and strong-willed princesses, where the fate of two kingdoms rests on the shoulders of a hapless magician.
Sachar beautifully reimagines Renaissance Italy in a story that reads like myth, brimming with wit and daring escapades. Tullia and Pito’s relationship harkens to some of the key tenets of legend – fate, love lost and, perhaps, regained. But Sachar did not set out to write adult fiction. The Magician of Tiger Castle began life as a YA novel, but the story “evolved” when, three drafts into his usual six-draft procedure, Sachar realised “this isn’t a book for kids”.
“I always thought I wanted to write an adult book. I didn’t start out thinking I wanted to be a children’s writer. I wrote my first book after helping out at a primary school and thought: ‘Ok, I’ll try writing a kids’ book.’ After that, I just felt a lot more comfortable writing children’s books. I felt in control. I felt if I wanted to write for adults, it had to be great.” For Sachar, because The Magician of Tiger Castle began as a YA novel, “there wasn’t that same pressure”. Sachar also is not sure whether, at the age of 71, he can “relate to kids anymore”. He continues: “I’m just a lot older, but I can relate to the same people who grew up reading my books.”
Originally, Anatole was a secondary character, simply narrating the fraught love story of Tullia and Pito. But, in typical Anatole fashion, he barged his way through to centre stage. “I became completely enamoured with Anatole… He became my alter ego while writing it.” One key similarity Sachar points to is their shared love of tea. “I’d make a pot of tea every morning. I’ve got a special teapot, and I use this crude pottery mug I got in Italy. I would just become Anatole for those few hours when I would write.” Sachar favours Dragon Well green tea and I have since noticed that Anatole enjoys Dragon Pearls green tea in the novel.
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For Sachar, there is “something special” about the Renaissance and the medieval world, a time where industrialisation was yet to take hold and ambiguity and uncertainty were part of everyday life. “The world seems more magical when there’s wilderness and there’s still wild animals around. Everything [now] is too mechanised and getting too homo-genous.” There is undoubtedly something intrinsically magical about Sachar’s medieval castle and the realms of possibility that lie beyond it.
Although the story contains magical elements, Sachar does not see it as a fantasy novel. “That’s the problem, everything has to be labelled, but I don’t think of it that way.” He continues: “Because most of my books are for young people, I get letters from kids asking me what genre Holes is or something like that. I never think in terms of genre. I tell them that’s not my job. I’m just trying to write an engaging story.” The fantastical elements in The Magician of Tiger Castle are sparse, folding into the narrative more as a product of the wonder and uncertainty of the historical period rather than as a separate magic system.
Anatole’s magical abilities lie at the boundary between science and magic, an idea inspired by two online lecture series on the Renaissance and medieval world by Professor Jennifer McNabb and Professor Dorsey Armstrong, respectively. “One of the things the lecturers said was that magic and science were two sides of the same coin [in this period],” explains Sachar. “I liked the idea of a world where people are still just figuring things out.”
Anatole’s potion success rate appears to fall into what Sachar enjoys about the period – the sense that everyone is still figuring things out. One inadvertent side effect of a potion designed to “limit human perspiration” has rendered Anatole completely bald across his entire body. He may be hairless, but he also lost the ability to sweat, which, although it may sound appealing to the average London commuter, does seem to leave the magician with a myriad of overheating problems.
The Magician of Tiger Castle is a beguiling tale of fate, morality and adventure. Anatole learns that true transformation occurs, not from a potion, but from true love. It is a strangely comforting thought to think of this exceptionally bald magician observing the workings of our world. As Sachar says, “he is this peculiar person still bopping around”. Best keep an eye out.
