A year of reading DWJ

 Happy March Magics!  Back in July of 2024, I joined a group of Diana Wynne Jones fans in reading the complete works, in publication order.  You can see the host at her blog!  She gave us a schedule and we dove in.  This has been such a fun project for me, and a real lifesaver during some rough times.

It's very enlightening to read the books in order, because I could see her writing talent developing.  Every so often she would hit a new level of descriptiveness, of plot layering, of subtlety.   Themes come up and into focus, and get several treatments before subsiding in favor of some new theme.  So for example, Homeward Bounders (arguably her most tragic story) and Time of the Ghost (most horrifying) were written right next to each other.  What does that say about what she was thinking at the time?

Reading so continually also brings out characteristics that last across many books, such as a love of joyful, possibly destructive, chaos, vagueness or boringness as a self-defense mechanism, and the use of humor to leaven an otherwise extremely heavy or dark plot.

This is a project I recommend, especially if you can find a group of friends to discuss with.  Below I've grabbed some of the comments I made; they're not terribly organized or anything, just stray thoughts that might turn into a conversation.  Of course I can't copy some of the more insightful stuff other people have said!  One person has even made annotations on a two or three stories.

A couple of other DWJ things you may enjoy, before we get to those comments:

• Last summer I hiked the Ridgeway, and to my surprise I found Diana Wynne Jones there. 
  

•  The new Eight Days of Diana Wynne Jones podcast, which plans to have four seasons, each tackling about 8 books (DWJ produced about 8 books per decade).  Folks, it is excellent, and it's delightful to have two people as obsessed as I am (but more clever) analyzing the stories.  I will say I think they kind of fell down on Power of Three, but otherwise WOW.

On Witch Week, I commented:

As a former bottom of the heap kid, her writing about being there is so accurate and impressive -- the way nothing can 'fix' it, because everything can be used as a weapon, as proof that you are the bottom kid and that's only how things ought to be. The Theresa Mullets of the world are good at what they do.

 

There are so many really quietly clever bits. One of my favorite lines is in the entry about Dulcinea Wilkes, how they had to stop burning effigies "owing to the high price of lead." !!! There's a whole story in that phrase.

 On Fire and Hemlock (which I am nowhere near intelligent enough to analyze):

I'd like get the triads down.... there's Nina/Polly/Fiona, Ivy/Polly/Laurel, and I think also Mary/Polly/Ann. Tom has Morton/Tom/Seb, Charles/Tom/Leslie, and Ed/Tom/Sam.

Question: what is Polly a nickname for? I've seen it said both Mary and Margaret. If it's Margaret, that's another plant like Ivy and Laurel (which is short for Lorelei), isn't it? But the daisy symbolizes innocence and new beginnings rather than being toxic or parasitical.  [As we know, Polly is also a comment on her 'many' nature, as she is all the mythic heroines in turn.]

 

Tom and Seb both want the same thing from Polly; a means of escape from Laurel. The difference between them is that Tom refuses to force or pester her into it, and tries to choke her off once he faces what he's doing. I like that he admits to it without trying to say he didn't. Seb, however, does nothing but push Polly. Yes, he's also smitten pink, but it's never anything but selfish. Everyone in Laurel's court is remarkably selfish, but so are Polly's parents...

 (I also had to wonder: isn't anyone at Polly's school paying enough attention to see how neglected she is, that her hair has turned into grey ropes?)

 Howl's Moving Castle:

 I like how in this story, Sophie and others all have to learn not to take other people's judgements at face value. Sophie misjudges almost everyone -- Fanny, her sisters, Howl, even herself! -- because she relies on what other people say.

It was many years before I found out that Calcifer's saucepan song:

a) is a Welsh folk song everybody knows (in Wales I mean) and is in fact about saucepans among other things

b) is for some reason what Welsh rugby fans sing at matches. Somebody explain why! Maybe just because?

Now I kind of know the song, and eventually I found a version that my (adult) kid loves to play in the car. It cracks us up.   Anyway I think this was brilliant DWJ humor.

 The Lives of Christopher Chant: 

My oldest brought up an interesting point about the Chrestomanci books the other day. In World 12-A, England is basically a late Victorian (Christopher) or Edwardian (Cat) copy of our World 12-B, but with magic. So much so that everyone goes to church as a matter of course, despite DWJ's own rejection (I don't know how vehement) of Christianity and a seeming mismatch between enchanter-level magic and the Anglican church. Why do you suppose that is? I kind of suspect that it's very simple: DWJ thought up the misbehaving stained-glass scene in Charmed Life and simply couldn't resist, and therefore we have church in the Chrestomanci universe.

 Black Maria:

I love the wordplay title of Black Maria, and the exploration of what happens when we take the gender wars too far, or too seriously. The idea of a Gammer and a Gaffer as traditional gender leaders who can get out of control is one that shows up several times, along with the tragic and attractive young man, possibly musical, who is bound or buried alive. [Wild Robert, written at the same time, has this too.]

 

I like how Mig has to notice when she falls into the same traps and teach herself not to. She subconsciously knows that Aunt Maria is a villain and draws her as an insect, but she keeps falling for the fuzzy lovable image. She relies on Chris to supply ideas, even though she's the imaginative one.  (Speaking of Chris, it seems notable to me that Aunt Maria always deliberately calls him Christopher... Because she doesn't want to say the word Christian?)

 

Mig gets so much more detached by the end, enough that her comment about her father's remarriage is just to say "the silly fool."

Then, Black Maria comes right before A Sudden Wild Magic.  All this stuff about gender roles comes out again there, especially about what happens when we take them too seriously and too far -- when we set up society so that everyone has to serve gender roles and be ruled by them, instead of doing what they want and sharing ideas and power.

The Tough Guide to Fantasyland:

I'm up to C, and this entry on Chilblains is hilarious: Chilblains are unheard of, however inclement the Weather. This is probably because the Management lives mostly in California.

I live in California, and I endorse this message. We don't know a thing about chilblains.  Heatstroke, yes!

Anyone else gotten to Horse? Definitely written about the same time as Crown of Dalemark...

The 90s are marked by longer books for an older audience: Sudden Wild Magic, Crown of Dalemark, Deep Secret, Dark Lord of Derkholm.

And that's where we are right now, having just finished Deep Secret and about to adventure in with the Derkholm family.