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white_hart) wrote2016-04-13 07:05 pm
white_hart) wrote2016-04-13 07:05 pm
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Reading: The Spellcoats and The Crown of Dalemark
When I read Diana Wynne Jones's Dalemark books in the mid-80s, there were only three of them, and I didn't really get a lot of things in them as they were a lot more complicated than most of her other books which I was reading at the time. So when I found the fourth book (published in 1993, after I had gone to university and stopped looking in the children's sections of bookshops, because somehow it never occurred to me that the authors I'd loved five or ten years earlier were still writing new books) in the Oxfam bookshop a few years ago I bought it, and then bought the other three so I could re-read them and remind myself of what happened in them. I re-read Cart and Cwidder quite some time ago now, eventually moved on to Drowned Ammet last summer and picked The Spellcoats off the shelf this weekend.
The Spellcoats is a book that I really didn't get when I was eleven or twelve, or however old I was when I read it the first time. Re-reading it thirty years later, that doesn't surprise me at all. It's not that the plot is complicated, exactly, but it's probably more about relationships between people than it is about events; in fact, very little actually happens. It doesn't have the comic element that much of Wynne Jones's writing has; on re-reading, I felt that the writing reminded me of Ursula Le Guin, sometimes even more than it reminded me of DWJ's other work. And the ending is very ambiguous, especially for a children's book. The novel is structured as a "found" narrative of events which breaks off before the real climax of the action; as an adult I can see that there are enough clues in the narrative itself and the "afterword" from the supposed finder to make it clear what the resolution is intended to be, but I wasn't a sophisticated enough reader at the age when I first read the book to feel confident in making that inference, and I was disappointed and frustrated that the story didn't seem to end properly. As an adult, I thought it was brilliant; I loved the economy of the storytelling, without any superfluous information, and the landscapes of Dalemark seemed so vividly present.
In the event, I enjoyed The Spellcoats so much I couldn't resist going straight on to The Crown of Dalemark. This felt more like typical Diana Wynne Jones, but definitely Diana Wynne Jones at the top of her game; it brings together the characters from the three previous books, and adds an element of time-travel fantasy which is unusual in being time-travel fantasy in a fantasy history, rather than in real history. There is more of DWJ's typical humour (I was particularly charmed by the ancient college with its own impenetrable slang and traditions, which I strongly suspect to have at least a partial model not a million miles away from where I work) and the characters are interesting, complex and generally likeable, even those who also exhibit serious flaws. I could barely put it down, although I was also sorry to come to the end, and saddened all over again to remember that Diana Wynne Jones is dead and that I'm running out of books of hers that I haven't read (though I still have a few more to go, so maybe I'm glad to have had that 15-year gap).
The Spellcoats is a book that I really didn't get when I was eleven or twelve, or however old I was when I read it the first time. Re-reading it thirty years later, that doesn't surprise me at all. It's not that the plot is complicated, exactly, but it's probably more about relationships between people than it is about events; in fact, very little actually happens. It doesn't have the comic element that much of Wynne Jones's writing has; on re-reading, I felt that the writing reminded me of Ursula Le Guin, sometimes even more than it reminded me of DWJ's other work. And the ending is very ambiguous, especially for a children's book. The novel is structured as a "found" narrative of events which breaks off before the real climax of the action; as an adult I can see that there are enough clues in the narrative itself and the "afterword" from the supposed finder to make it clear what the resolution is intended to be, but I wasn't a sophisticated enough reader at the age when I first read the book to feel confident in making that inference, and I was disappointed and frustrated that the story didn't seem to end properly. As an adult, I thought it was brilliant; I loved the economy of the storytelling, without any superfluous information, and the landscapes of Dalemark seemed so vividly present.
In the event, I enjoyed The Spellcoats so much I couldn't resist going straight on to The Crown of Dalemark. This felt more like typical Diana Wynne Jones, but definitely Diana Wynne Jones at the top of her game; it brings together the characters from the three previous books, and adds an element of time-travel fantasy which is unusual in being time-travel fantasy in a fantasy history, rather than in real history. There is more of DWJ's typical humour (I was particularly charmed by the ancient college with its own impenetrable slang and traditions, which I strongly suspect to have at least a partial model not a million miles away from where I work) and the characters are interesting, complex and generally likeable, even those who also exhibit serious flaws. I could barely put it down, although I was also sorry to come to the end, and saddened all over again to remember that Diana Wynne Jones is dead and that I'm running out of books of hers that I haven't read (though I still have a few more to go, so maybe I'm glad to have had that 15-year gap).
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When the Crown of Dalemark was published, they re-released the other three as well, and I found them when I was supposed to be in the middle of studying for college exams... I'm sure it didn't do my results any good, but I still have the books.
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I must admit, though, that I was disappointed in 'The Crown of Dalemark' - I think because I was expecting more.
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(Given the nature of the book this is far more creepy than it ought to be!)
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(What happens in it?)
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