Favorite Dianna Wynne Jones

[jack]

Which is my favorite Dianna Wynne Jones? It might actually be Fire and Hemlock, though I'm probably biased by reading it first.

* Portraying real characters in the real world. Archer's Goon, Ogre Downstairs, and some of the magid books do this well, but Fire and Hemlock is very good. The relationships between Polly and Nina and Fiona, her parents, Grandma, and Tom all feel like a genuine mix of love and exasperation; impressive when you consider the different ways Tom and Polly know each other.

* Convincing magic. DWJ is often good at this, though in the more magic heavy books it's never perfect, but it's all understated in F&H. It's always the sort that you think you might just be imagining, or is some sort of metaphor, and generally done by other people, which makes it less implausible and more impressive at once. You think "that makes sense" not "Huh?" even when you don't understand.

* Creepyness. All DWJ are fun romps, but in F&H I felt loss when Polly's nice life went wrong. And the maelevolence and simultaneously sleazy pettyness of some of the people made me shiver a bit.

* Almost the same as creepyness, Feeling like things matter. Sometimes you want to read something fun, where you basically know what's going to happen, but want to know how it'll get there. Sometimes you want excitement. F&H actually moves into the latter, whereas her "adult" books, while fun, seem to be more sex, but concentrating on being fun. The Dalemark books, though less adult, are good at this too: each ends with everything changed beyond recognition, and with lots of things genuinely going wrong and the heroic moments standing out.

* Portraying young children. DWJ does this really well, it brings back all the silly beliefs we had and the stupid things we did, and how we had fun, and wanted to grow up... The Chrestomanci books probably show younger children, but F&H is a great example of someone's perceptions growing up. At the start, everything is simple and fun, and as Polly grows up she gradually understands more, and both sides feel realistic. This is *so* rare.

* Intricacy. Hexwood is her crown of intricate plots played out in lots of different times with lots of different characters turning out to be different people, but F&H does the slow reveal of what's going on well.

* Funny. No DWJ are really laugh out loud that I remember, but they all have their moments. F&H mainly with Leslie if I recall correctly :)

* Homages, references or in-jokes. It's based on the legends of Thomas the Rhymer and Tam Lin. You may not have actually read these, but the background probably seeped into your consciousness somewhere. (Tam Lin was the captured lover of a fairy queen who haunted Carterhaugh collecting virginities of maidens who strayed there; one fell in love and rescued him from the fairy hunt. Thomans the Rhymer dallied witrh the fairy queen and came home to find seven years had passed.)

Also, while Eyre Affair persuaded me to read Jane Eyre, F&H supplied of over a dozen books I should have read growing up but haven't got to yet :)

Comments

[mair_in_grenderich]

have you read Jane Eyre?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Not yet, but I'm persuaded.

[mair_in_grenderich]

read it! read it! read it!

I'll be interested to know if you like it.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

LOL. I'm convinced already.

Me too, actually. I get the impression it's one a lot of people quite like me, including mum, do like.

Of course, it won't be quite the same because by now I've picked up almost all of the plot, so I won't have the "Hey, this is a nice romance. OMG what's that in the attick??" moment :)

[mair_in_grenderich]

we read it for GCSE so I got to know it inside out but I still reread it.

some of our GCSE group hated it though, depends what you look for in a book.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Of course. In retrospect, I wish english GCSE had come at a different time in my life. Now, I'd really appreciate analysing a book, but then I found it annoying.

And no-one ever taught us grammar, as far as I can remember, just penalised us for not knowing it.

[sunflowerinrain.livejournal.com]

Most of the books used for GCSE are over the heads (or possibly the emotions) of the age-group. I thought I disliked Austen, completely missing her wit; luckily I read one of the novels when I was older and had more knowledge of the background as well as more life-experience.

The teachers also have an effect. I appreciated Shakespeare because of being introduced to the plays by a director of the Nuffield Theatre who happened to teach at my school; perhaps I just wasn't so lucky with novels.

Maybe one day I'll try Conrad (A-level misery) again. Maybe.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yeah... I mean, it would be useful if wit were pointed out. Like, when I first read Gulliver's Travels, I was just rather puzzled. When you realise it *is* a parody, you go *oh*. If someone had *said*.

I remember lots and lots of "this is symbolism in shakespeare" which just seemed obvious, and "this is symbolism in TKAMB" which seemed false, whereas a high-level explanation might have clicked it. Fortunately I loved TKaMB anyway, though many people object to this.

I *still* haven't read Austen, except Northanger Abbey, again which the parody of which is striking something which isn't there :)

[sunflowerinrain.livejournal.com]

Know what you mean about Swift. I was about 12, and most of it completely passed me by. We did go through some of it later in school, as part of a political history lesson, and then it made much more sense. I still need to read it again.

It's strange that children are given "classics" which are so clearly books for adults (as distinct from books which appeal to children and also have layers for adults - the best kind of book). I remember my puzzlement over Robinson Crusoe, reading it in hospital at age 11. Why would anyone think it was suitable for a child? Just because there was no swearing and sex? (oops, must not get on soapbox about "adult content".)

Shakespeare has to be heard, not read. It is music. And quite erotic music, at that.

I read Northanger Abbey after several gothic novels, and hence found it very funny. It also works as a send-up of modern romantic novels and pink magazines. Some things haven't changed that much :) It is her nearest to frothy, though, and perhaps not representative.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

(Ditto on 'adult content'. Sex and violence are all very well in their place, but are fobbing off when you expected critical thought and themes :))

Or perhaps, we're not led up to them enough. 16 isn't inherently too young, provided you're used ot reading things. But if you start with soemthing you don't get, you're not *going* to get it, not really.

[sunflowerinrain.livejournal.com]

I love DWJ's writing style and her imagination.

Have you read Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising sequence?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yay! That was one of my favorites when I was little. Though in retrospect I don't know if I'd still cope with the whole good/evil thing; though traditional it seems too arbitrary to have lots of apparently sapient beings devoted to evil for its own sake, rather than just wanting, eg, power; contrariwise, you there wouldn't be plots without them.

[(Anonymous)]

I know what you mean about the motivation of the evilbeings, but when I re-read it as a adult the main characters were still real and the descriptive writing vivid.

In fact, I must find it...

[sunflowerinrain.livejournal.com]

*sigh* cookies *mutter*

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they were very good; I did like them.

I think I never owned any, they came from different libraries as I recall. I'm trying to remember mum's impression: she'd seen most of what I read and in retrospect had good opinions on what I'd grow out of and what I'd love forever.

[tienelle.livejournal.com]

I didn't notice that many such beings. There were a few monsters, of the really-not-human variety, but the Lords of the Dark were (I thought) explicitly humans who'd sought power, and were opposing the Light because the Light wanted to take away their shiny toys.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I remember some mention of that, I probably wasn't totally paying attention at the time. I think it's that the conflict was always over plot object, not Lord of the Dark wants all the candy and we have to stop him. The real differences were always at one remove, so I wasn't sure.

There was Walker, but there didn't seem any suggestion that a dark one might change their mind, or an old one might truly fall, not just fail. Weren't they supposed to be born to it like the old ones, I'm sure I remember a "prick us, do we not bleed? But kill us, and we don't die" line...

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

That is, avoiding spoilers, I remember an instance of humanity from a dark one, but not a suggestion that they might be not dark because of it.