The Chrestomanci Chronicles

By -
Today Kristen wants to know what we think about the Chrestomanci Chronicles.  These are, in order of publication:
  • Charmed Life (1977)
  • The Magicians of Caprona (1980)
  • "The Sage of Theare" (1982 short story)
  • Witch Week (1982)
  • "Warlock at the Wheel" (1984 short story)
  • The Lives of Christopher Chant (1988, a prequel)
  • "Stealer of Souls" (2000 novella)
  • "Carol Oneir's Hundredth Dream" (1986 short story)
  • Conrad's Fate (2005, a sequel to the prequel)
  • The Pinhoe Egg (2006)
Witch Week is the first of these that I read, and I think it must be one of the first DWJ books that I read at all; it would have been pretty new then.   I read the three other main titles in the mid-to-late 80s, and it took me years to get something resembling a timeline sorted out.  The last two were a happy surprise.  I am really glad DWJ went back to the Chrestomanci universe for a couple more books.

For non-fans, the books are set in a multiverse of twelve Related Worlds, with nearly all the 'worlds' containing a series of nine closely-related worlds.  The Chrestomanci's job is to make sure that magic is not misused on his world (12A), but he is a general straightener-outer of magical trouble and there is a lot of world-traveling in the stories.

Chrestomanci is a fantastic character.  Aloof, suave, terrifyingly well-dressed and sarcastic, he seems barely human until you get to know him, but he is also imaginative, bumptious, and always on the side of good.  His penchant for wearing flamboyant dressing-gowns has my older daughter wishing for one too.

DWJ's humor comes out wonderfully in these books.  They are so very funny!  The most absurd things happen, and they are wonderfully described.  A Chrestomanci book is guaranteed to have you in stitches.  At the same time, DWJ throws in sly, quiet little insights that stay with you.

I've just gotten my 10-year-old daughter to start reading the Chrestomanci books.  She is a little reluctant to read anything that she doesn't already know she will like, so even though she likes DWJ, even though I told her these are very funny, she had to be nudged a bit.  I actually assigned her to read the first few chapters of Witch Week for school--I knew she would love it if she could just get past the first few setting-up chapters, and indeed it was a huge success.  She loved it.  Then I did the same thing with The Lives of Christopher Chant, but I read quite a bit aloud to her too.  She likes having me read, and I tell you what--reading DWJ aloud is so enjoyable.  It forces me to slow down, so I catch more details, and her writing is just a joy to read out loud.  I really get to savor those perfect sentences and watch my daughter's delighted reactions too.


Chrestomanci seems to be a favorite of the fan-art crowd (a close second to Howl), so if you google it there is some quite good stuff out there.  Some of it even looks something like Chrestomanci does in my head, which is quite tricky to do.

Comments

  1. AnonymousMarch 2, 2014 at 8:16 AM

    Reading Diana Wynne Jones out loud is absolutely the best. I read the great majority of her books out loud to my little sister over the years, and we just loved doing it. I'm kind of hoping we can read The Islands of Chaldea together -- she still likes being read to, and I still like reading aloud, so why not?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Kristen M.March 2, 2014 at 10:16 PM

    As soon as Z and I finish the book that we are reading at bedtime, I am going to start a DWJ with him. We've read Earwig and the Witch together but I'm sure he's ready for something a little more meaty (and hilarious!).

    I agree that Chrestomanci seems barely human until you get to know him better and then he's absolutely fantastic! I think this is a series that I could read dozens of time and always find something new in each book.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I'd love to know what you think, so please comment!

Popular posts from this blog

The Four Ages of Poetry

By -
Image
  "The Four Ages of Poetry," by Thomas Love Peacock I am becoming fond of Thomas Love Peacock.  Besides his unbeatable name, he was a lot of fun.  Peacock was a minor literary figure of the early 19th century; he tried his hand at poetry but mainly succeeded in satire.  I read his short novel Nightmare Abbey last year, but at the time I didn't know that the young hero of the story, Scythrop, was modeled on Peacock's good friend Percy Shelley.  He and Shelley were quite close and Peacock was the executor of Shelley's will. Thomas Love Peacock Percy Bysshe Shelley "The Four Ages of Poetry," a tongue-in-cheek essay on the history and development of poetry, was published in 1820 in a new magazine called Literary Miscellany , which promptly died.  It would probably have been completely obscure and unknown--it nearly is anyway--but for Shelley.  Peacock sent a copy to his friend, who I guess didn't really have much of a sense of
Read more

A few short stories in Urdu

By -
Image
 Back in August, I got hold of a book of Urdu short stories translated into English.  It's a large book, so I wanted to read just the women authors for WIT, and that would still be a good amount.  August got away from me, and I only read one or two stories back then, but I've continued reading them since.  I've now finished all the short stories in the book that were written by women (luckily for me, there are short biographies in an appendix, since I could only tell from the name about half the time).  I'll just highlight a couple: "The Wagon," by Khalida Asghar, is a hallucinatory, apocalyptic story.  The narrator meets three strange men who are watching the evening sky and point out that it has become red.  No one had noticed until they said so, but the sky is now strangely red.  Then a smell arrives, so offensive and sickening that it causes real pain -- but only once it's pointed out.  And finally, a mysterious wagon, which may be the source of the s
Read more

Faerie Queen Readalong I: Redcrosse, the Knight of Holiness

By -
Image
I did it, I read all of Book I!  My minimum requirement was two cantos a day, but I managed three a couple of times.  I'm hoping to read ahead, because I'll be gone for two weeks in the middle of this event and I'd like to be able to prep a post ahead of time...but the schedule is already pretty demanding.  The reading is not terribly difficult, but it is slow.  I keep thinking that I've read a large chunk, only to look back and realize that in fact I have read six verses.  So here we go with analysis... Each book in the Faerie Queene features a knight, and a story, about a particular virtue.  The Redcrosse Knight, to be known as St. George after he accomplishes his feats, is all about Holinesse .  This does not mean that Redcrosse already exemplifies holiness; he doesn't.  Holiness is what he's working towards and struggling with.  His foes symbolize various forms of unholiness, and he falls into their clutches at least as often as he defeats or avoids th
Read more