DWJ March: Conrad's Fate

By -
Today we're talking about Conrad's Fate, a story I just love.  We have Conrad, a great narrator who has to figure out that he's been lied to his whole life, and get to see more of Christopher and Millie before they grow up.  I would have been perfectly happy to read endless adventures of Christopher, Millie, and assorted friends, but DWJ was not that kind of writer.

One character I both love and cringe at is Conrad's mother, who ignores everyone and everything in order to write books of academic feminism.  She is awful, sometimes in an over-the-top, funny way, and more so in a truly tragic way.  I suspect that DWJ was poking a little fun at herself here, magnifying the way all writerly mothers have to neglect other things in order to write at all.  Conrad's mother is not the usual hungry mother of DWJ writing -- that element shows up in the Countess -- but the way she utterly neglects her children and even succumbs to spells pushing her to forget them makes her just as bad in her own way.  She and the Countess are a pair.

And for today's question, Kristen asks:
If you were to discover a family secret, would you rather it be: a noble title, money, or magic?
 Well, I don't know what earthly use I'd have for a noble title!  (Unless maybe it comes with a semi-ruined castle and lots of money for upkeep of said castle?)  Money would certainly be awfully useful, but magic would be more interesting.  I guess it would depend on what kind of magic it is.  Also, I'm a sucker for surprises, so I'd probably pick magic just to see what would happen.  I can never resist the unknown quantity -- at gift exchanges I never steal opened presents.  I invariably pick the most intriguing-looking mystery package, and usually end up with something dopey.  (I got dollar-store Tupperware two years in a row at the Christmas party, and it still didn't cure me!)  On the other hand, if I had lots of money I could take another trip to the UK and see Bristol this time....

Comments

  1. jrleekMarch 18, 2017 at 8:59 PM

    I think finding out our parents are secretly rich would be just as surprising to me as finding out they are secretly wizards.

    ReplyDelete
  2. JeanMarch 18, 2017 at 10:47 PM

    Yes indeed! For purposes of this question I had to assume that the money would appear out of pretty much nowhere....

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousMarch 20, 2017 at 3:57 PM

    Ooh, tough call! I think it depends on what the magic would be, right? Like if it were Chrestomanci magic, that feels like it would derail my career path. If it's Chrestomanci magic, I choose money. If it's magic I can do whatever I want with, and especially if it's teleportation, then I choose magic.

    Also, Conrad's Fate is special and glorious because it's one of the very few Diana Wynne Jones books where I genuinely love the cover.

    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