DWJ Reading Project. Part III
As I said here, my 2021 2023 resolution is gonna be READING EVERY DIANA WYNNE JONES BOOK I CAN FIND, and due to my love of making lists and taking notes, I’ve decided keeping track of this reading project here in this post, which I’ll keep updated as I make progress. It’s mostly for my own pleasure, but maybe it helps someone who wants to give it a try to this amazing writer and doesn’t know where to start.
Part I (1970 - 1976 & The Dalemark Quartet)
Part II (1977 - 1981 & The Chrestomanci Series )
Part IV (1993 - 2014)
- Archer’s Goon (1984): At this point it’s just ridiculous how these books keep being surprising and leaving me all wtf (in a good sense). This one is, again, about a family with very realistic dynamics who have to deal with some surreal fuckery. In this case, they live in a town ruled from the shadows by seven brothers and sisters, each of one farming a different aspect of the town (energy, police, crime, education, sewage... etc). I couldn’t explain the plot if my life depended on it, but I enjoyed every single page. ALSO, there’s a TV adaptation, althought it doesn’t seem very faithful***
***Edit: I’ve watched the whole thing now and I stand corrected: It’s actually quite faithful. Some characters are not how I imagined them, but they did mostly a good job, and I’m obsessed with Dillian’s dress
- Fire and Hemlock (1985): Well, I finished it yesterday and I’m still processing it. What a ride. I felt I missed a lot of subtext by not knowing the stories it’s inspired by, so I’m totally re-reading it in the future, after I’ve checked those up. About the parts I did get, it’s just WOW. Polly in all her complexity is just amazing. I love that the premise seems to be a feminist revision of a tale of clingy love, and I love how all along the book you can see different examples of shitty stuff women have to put up with (grown ups sexualizing underage girls, boys mansplaining shit and being a pain in the ass until the girl they’re after gets so tired she gives up, slut shaming between girls, whatever is going on with Ivy’s mental health, THE FUCKING GROOMING –really, this made me so unconfortable from the very beginning). Of course I don’t think this is the main theme of the book, but I do believe DWJ wasn’t random about anything. There’s so much going on in my mind I don’t really know what else to say.
- Land of Ingary Series: · Howl’s Moving Castle (1986): This is 8th time I read this book (the 4th in English. It was actually my first book in English). It's my favourite book in the world and I could write a whole essay about how much I love it and how good it is for my mental and emotional balance, so I’ll just mention a few thoughts to keep this short: 1) I relate to Howl much more than I’d like to admit. 2) Sophie taught me to use aggresive cleaning to cope with anxiety. 3) Also, I would kill for powers like hers. 4) I actually relate to all of them, bunch of human messes. Diana predicted the millennials. 5) I can’t believe it took me this long to really understand [Calcifer spoilery stuff]. 6) Now that I’m more familiar with DJW usual tone and themes, I have to asume she wrote this lighthearted (pun intended) and fun story to relax a little bit after the previous 3-4 books, and that makes me love it even more. 7) I should read Stardust.
· Castle in the Air (1990): I’ve also read this one several times, and there’s a lot to love in it. Most of the new characters are amazing and the plot is quite a ride (and if you’re into The Arabian Nights, you’ll probably love this). I even stole some traits from Abdullah for one of my OC. But I must admit it didn’t age well, or at least there are some aspects I like less every time I read it, mostly regarding the female characters and what is said about their looks and beauty. I also felt Sophie was a little bit out of character, but obviously she’s going through STUFF so I’d rather not to judge. In any case, it’s a nice story and it’s not its fault not being as perfect as the absolute masterpiece that was HMC
· House of Many Ways (2008): The first time I read this one it was months before DWJ died, and since I hadn’t like that much and it made me really sad to know it would be the last book of this series, I used to feel a weird resentment against it all these years. This new re-read helped me to reconcile with it and actually enjoy it a lot. Maybe back then I was too similar to Charmain and I felt attacked or something, idk, but I’ve definitely learnt to love useless idiots who have no clue about anything going on in their lifes and it’s almost a miracle they’re still alive. And the fact that a huge % of the book it’s just her and Peter doing house chores? Hilarious. Also, I have the impression that DWJ was so tired of people fancying Howl that this time she did her best to show us how fucking annoying he can be.
- A Tale of Time City (1987): This was the first DWJ book I read after a long hiatus and I must confess it took me several months to finish it, which was surprising because I had missed Diana a lot and time travel is one of my favourite things in literature. Maybe the hype was too high, but it just didn’t hook me at first. It gets better once the worldbuilding is settled and the plot can fly free, and I did enjoy a lot of silly scenes that only provide vibe, like the main character laughing her ass off during the chaotic morning routine in the house. I also appreciate the racial diversity, and the comeback of the Surprise Evil Uncle (tm), a DWJ classic. And I do want one of those butter-pies now. - Wild Robert (1989): Heather is a girl who lives in a castle-museum because her parents are the curators there. She hates tourists so I could relate to her from the very beginning. She hates them so much she accidentally wakes up a 350 yo wizard from his grave so he gets rid of them. The story is so short that it almost feels as pilot for a show, like, you want to keep seeing Heather and Robert getting into trouble and stuff. It would have made a nice series of children’s books.
- Black Maria (also known as Aunt Maria, 1991): The timing for this one was weirdly good because: a) I had to move in with my old aunt for a few days to help her while she recovers after a surgery (which is basically the starting point for Mig, the mc of the story, and her family), b) the book has several mysteries, including a crime one (my aunt forced me to watch hours of police procedural shows), the town where Mig's aunt lives has a extreme matriarchal social structure, where women are on the top, and men are just Ken, and the main conflict surrounds this (I started reading the book around the time Barbie premiered). I don’t normally like the first-person narrative, but DWJ managed to do it, once again, in a rather clever way that fits the story quite right and made me like Mig a lot. Also, it was nice to see that the adult relative is actually helpful and good, instead of the classic neglectul piece of shit that she so often includes.
- A Sudden Wild Magic (1992): The first DWJ’s adult novel I get to read, and I’d say the main difference with her other works is that the themes are a little more mature (boring relationships, existencial crisis, etc), and that there’s a lot of sex. Beyond that, it’s still a classic DWJ where normal, dailylife stuff is mixed with crazy magical conflicts. In this case, a secret magic organization in our world finds out that most of the tragedies we've faced, like climate change, AIDS, wars, etc, are actually caused by a parallel world's magicians, who created those problems to see how we solve them and then steal the solution. It took me 1/4 of the book to actually start caring about what was going on, but once Zillah is introduced and the real action starts, it gets more interesting. I found some patterns in Jones’ work that make me wonder what was going on in her life at this moment, like the fact that both this book and the previous one show some sort of “battle of the sexes” thing, where traditional gender roles and prejudices are explored and confronted. A Castle in the Air was only two years ago and it touched the subject a little too. In that line, I noticed A LOT of nice male characters who get victimised by powerful women. What did you want to tell us, Diana?? I also want to mention that I appreciate her acknowledging the existence of gay people, although I hoped Tam would do something more interesting.
