SF Online Interview with Hagio (Part II-4)

(Continued)

Sakai:

Who decided which stories to adapt?

Hagio:

I did.

Sakai:

You picked your favorites?

Hagio:

Yes, but I also considered the target audience of Weekly Margaret—I picked my favorites as well as what I thought would be suitable for the readers. In truth, I thought "The Fog Horn" might not be very accessible, but that was my most favorite from Bradbury back then.

Mizutama:

But how about the story about finding a buried woman?

Hagio:

That's "The Screaming Woman."

Mizutama:

I feel that was less accessible to the readers of Weekly Margaret than "The Fog Horn."

Hagio:

Well, but there is definitely a girl in the story. While "The Fog Horn" has only a middle-aged man and a monster.

Mizutama:

Oh, is that how it goes? (laugh) But it's a masterpiece, "The Fog Horn."

Hagio:

It's a masterpiece indeed.

Sakai:

Then, the SciFiers who encountered and were won over by Hagio-san in "They Were Eleven" got blown away when they read the sequel "The Horizon in the East—The Eternity in the West."

Mizutama:

And then we got "Silver Triangle," and "Ten Billion Days and Hundred Billon Nights," then "Marginal." I also liked "Heiresses in the Cabbage Fields," [Note 1] which reminded me of Lafferty. Oh, by the way, while "Marginal" was serialized I recall being really excited, with a strong gut feeling that you surely must also love "The Left Hand of Darkness."

[Note 1] "Heiresses in the Cabbage Fields" (1973)—the apartment where the Year 24 Group gathered was also in the middle of the cabbage fields. The manic mood in the piece perhaps conveys the reminiscence of the life there.

Sakai:

What an opinionated fan! (laugh)

Hagio:

Ah, I did read "The Left Hand of Darkness." It was so good that I chased down everything by Le Guin. "Marginal" was about a world where only men were born. Incidentally, you've probably heard the news stories about a recent survey of shellfish along the coast of Japan. The study indicates that these shellfish have all been feminized because of endocrine disruptors in our environment. When my manager heard this news, she said, "That story in 'Marginal'—that was really about shellfish, wasn't it!?" I replied to her, "That's right, actually." (laugh)

(Continues)