My Visit with Katherine Neville

(Please note that this article contains spoilers for The Eight and The Fire.)

On June 24, 2019, when I was in Washington, DC, for the American Library Association Conference, I went on a private tour, which Katherine Neville organized, of two of the Smithsonian Libraries. In the morning we visited the Cullman Library in the Museum of Natural History, which contains an amazing collection on works of natural history, including rare, beautifully-illustrated books on plants and animals, some as old as the 16th century, and the works of explorers, including one of Katherine Neville's heroes, Sir Richard Francis Burton. In the afternoon, we went to the Dibner Library, located in the Museum of American History, and saw an incredible collection of rare books on the history of sciences, including works by Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton. As an amazing coincidence, this collection includes the alchemical papers of Sir Isaac Newton, the very same ones mentioned in The Eight. I was absolutely thrilled to see them, of course.

After the tour of the libraries, Katherine Neville invited me to her lovely apartment, where she showed me her collection of books, including many of the books she used to research her novels. Then we had a delightful conversation about The Eight and The Fire, and she answered several questions I had.

She said that the publisher originally wanted The Fire to be called Endgame, but she thought readers might take it to mean that it was the last book in the series, which, I am very pleased to say, it is not. She wanted the title to be The Firebird, because the symbolism of the phoenix and the firebird is extremely important to the book. The phoenix symbolizes self-destruction and rebirth, while the message of the firebird is "recalled to life." From what I understand, the phoenix represents the path taken by Mireille in The Eight and Charlot in The Fire, when they drink the elixir, using the formula to benefit themselves. People who follow that path can never realize the true purpose of the Montglane Service, which is to benefit all of humanity. This true purpose of the chess set is represented by the firebird. Eventually she and the publisher compromised on The Fire.

About Book 3, she said that the main characters in The Eight and The Fire might not reappear, and Book 3 might focus on characters who have, so far, played a very minor role. She specifically mentioned that there were other people in the room when Fiske was killed in The Eight, and that these people will come to the forefront in Book 3. I also told her how I loved the character of Nokomis Key in The Fire, and I said I hope she reappears.

We talked about the Black and White teams and the differences between them. Katherine Neville said that many readers of The Eight (including myself, I have to admit) thought that the Black team is good and the White team is evil, but that is not really the case. No one is entirely good or entirely evil. (Even though, I have to say, I can't find much good in characters like Blanche and Llewellyn.) Mireille and Cat are the heroines of The Eight, but Mireille kills Marat and Cat kills El-Marad, even though, in Cat's case, you don't know this until The Fire. I don't think I mentioned this at the time, but in both cases, you can argue that this is not necessarily a bad thing. It depends on whether you think killing is ever justified or not, and this is certainly a topic on which my own views have changed over the years. If you have read my earlier articles on this site, you will see that I used to think killing was never justified, under any circumstances except, possibly, self-defense, but I have come to believe that there are certain exceptional circumstances where it can be justified, and that Mireille's and Cat's actions fit into this category. But that is only my opinion. I certainly don't think their actions make them bad people.

Anyway, in The Fire, Katherine Neville created two characters who are good people, and they fall in love, but they are on the White team. She wanted readers to see that the White team is not entirely bad. I asked her what determines whether someone is on the Black team or the White team, and she said there is nothing in particular that decides that. I also asked whether the Black and White teams have a different outlook on life, and she said they do not.

I also asked her about characters who appear to be on one side in The Eight and a different side in The Fire. I had been confused about this, and I know I was not the only one who was. Katherine Neville said that the Game in The Fire is different from the one in The Eight and that, in a different Game, people who were on one side in the previous round can be on the other side. Charlot was on the Black team as a child in The Eight, but he's the White King in The Fire. Shahin is on the Black team in both books. I was confused about this because it seems like he's definitely on the Black team in The Eight, but in The Fire he helps Charlot and Haidée, who are on the White team, so I wondered if he was on the White team, too.

We talked about Valentine, a character who is a particular favorite of mine, and how it appears at first that she is going to be the heroine of the historical section of The Eight, but then she is killed. Katherine Neville said that she got the idea of killing off the person you think is going to be the main character from The Godfather. She said the problem with killing off Valentine is that then you're "stuck with" Mireille, who's always correcting Valentine and worrying if their dresses will please Madame de Staël. I don't think I mentioned this at the time, but it must have come as a big surprise when Mireille turned out to be many people's favorite character. She certainly comes into her own after Valentine dies.

Also, we talked about the question of whether Mireille murders Marat. I think the answer is yes, but Katherine Neville says the important thing about that scene is when Marat tells her where to stab him. Otherwise, how would she have known? She's spent most of her life in a convent and certainly never studied anatomy. (As I thought about it later, I wondered if this might be considered assisted suicide, or close to it. It's certainly clear that he wants her to kill him. His illness is so horrible, he might have wanted to die.) I do think this is very important. Mireille certainly thinks about it much later on, when she's with Talleyrand in 1799, six years after she killed Marat.

Then we talked about how Mireille abandons her children. I don't think I said this at the time, but the more I think about it, the more I realize that Mireille is trying to protect them from the Game. It's not like she dumps them in the street, after all. They're in good hands--the son, Charlot, with Shahin, and the daughter, Charlotte, with Talleyrand, who clearly loves her. Charlotte was a real person, after all, who was born on October 4, 1799, adopted by Talleyrand, and later married into his family so he could leave his vast estate to her. We talked about an article we both read, by Poniatowski, who wrote a multi-volume biography of Talleyrand. Poniatowski thought he had discovered who Charlotte's real mother was. Anyway, as I thought about it later, I realized that Mireille must have been afraid her daughter would turn out to be the White Queen, since her birthday was October 4--the very same fear Cat has for her own daughter, Alexandra, in The Fire. And is Mireille's treatment of her daughter really worse than Cat's treatment of Alexandra? After all, Cat forbids Alexandra to play chess, which is what she loves most in her life. In both cases, I think they're trying to protect their daughters from the Game.

We also talked about some of Katherine Neville's favorite books, including The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers. I was sure that she had gotten the name Valentine from The Count of Monte Cristo, but that turned out not to be the case. But she said that, now that I mentioned it, it's an amazing coincidence that Valentine in The Eight and Valentine in The Count of Monte Cristo are so similar in their physical appearance, with the blond hair. We said that characters really do take on lives of their own.

It was a delightful visit, and I was thrilled to have this opportunity to talk to Katherine Neville about her books. I hope to continue the conversation in the future.

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