The Ogre Downstairs, by Diana Wynne Jones

[rachelmanija]

One of Jones’s earliest novels, it has a far simpler plot than most of hers: an unhappily blended family has hijinks with a magic chemistry set. I wouldn’t put it in her top ten or even top fifteen (maybe top twenty) novels, but I have re-read it several times and it reliably cracks me up. Rather unusually for Jones, it contains sympathetic parents, including, eventually, the eponymous ogre.

They came home from school to the not quite unexpected sight of six enormous toffee-bars undulating down the stairs toward them.

This sentence both sums up the novel and demonstrates Jones’s particular sense of humor and genius for creating inherently funny situations and then combining the perfect wording with the perfect image to put me, at least, on the floor. What makes this sentence so brilliant is the combination of the image, the resignation to the oncoming catastrophe implied in “not quite unexpected,” and the word “undulating.”

The Ogre Downstairs

Comments

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

Oh, Malcolm McIntyre. *dreamy sigh* (I was young and impressionable, okay.)

[skygiants]

It's not that he's really a jerk, it's just that his face doesn't show emotion properly!

[skygiants]

Oh, The Ogre Downstairs! Despite not being particularly deep or complicated, it has always been one of my absolute favorites of hers for the way the different kids' cranky antagonism gradually turns into cranky family feeling. (But then I have a weakness for bickering siblings and created families.)

Also, I never fail to laugh at the bodyswapping and the pink soccer balls.

[neery.livejournal.com]

I just read all three of your Jones reviews, and they all contain some variation on the phrase "I liked it, but it's not one of my favorite of her novels." I've only read one of her books so far and was planning to pick up a few more, so I was wondering - which of them are your top favorites?

My top ten Jones novels, complete with handy Amazon links! (Part I)

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

The Homeward Bounders. Funny and heartbreaking, numinous and original. Jamie is forced out of his home and sent on a hopeless quest between worlds to find it again, collecting weird companions as he goes. Helen, who mostly only loves insects and has a transforming arm, is one of my favorite heroines ever.

Fire and Hemlock. Polly has two sets of memories and the stories she writes have an odd way of coming true, even the terrible wish-fulfillment ones. Like Homeward Bounders, it's very funny but also very emotional and magical. I don't quite understand the ending but I don't care.

The Chronicles of Chrestomanci, Volume 1: Charmed Life / The Lives of Christopher Chant. Christopher Chant is fun but Charmed Life is the one I love. Unhappy orphans, family dynamics, and all sorts of cool bits - it's like a much more interesting version of Harry Potter, actually.

The Chronicles of Chrestomanci, Volume 2: The Magicians of Caprona / Witch Week. I like Caprona but I love Witch Week, a parody of all those very British boarding school stories. In a world where it's illegal to be a witch, witch orphans (whose parents were burned) are sent to a horrible boarding school. Great characterization and several scenes that literally make me weep with laughter.

Howl's Moving Castle. Not very much like the movie. Sophie is cursed into old age, and moves into the flying castle of the supposedly evil magician Howl and his pet fire spirit. This has some of the best plotting of anything I've ever read, and is a whole lot of fun.

Re: My top ten Jones novels, complete with handy Amazon links! (Part I)

[neery.livejournal.com]

Awesome, thank you!

Re: My top ten Jones novels

[jinian.livejournal.com]

I love Witch Week too! (And all the others but Fire and Hemlock, which I Do Not Get, but too few people talk about Witch Week.) It's so hilarious, more so against the dark background.

Re: My top ten Jones novels, complete with handy Amazon links! (Part I)

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

I don't quite understand the ending but I don't care.

Me, neither.

I rank all the ones you list highly except maybe Howl, which didn't impress me as much as I had hoped. But, I should read it again (especially now that the third book is out). I also rather like Deep Secret and the Dalemark books.

Re: My top ten Jones novels, complete with handy Amazon links! (Part I)

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

This has some of the best plotting of anything I've ever read

Looking at this again, I find I'm not exactly sure what you mean here. I'd be interesting in seeing a post about plotting if you should ever care to write one.

Re: My top ten Jones novels, complete with handy Amazon links! (Part I)

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I haven't read this in a while, but my recollection is that there are a lot of events which seem random at the time but which all turn out to be meaningful by the end - it's a puzzle-box novel, like several others of Jones', Rebecca Stead's When You Reach Me, and Louis Sachar's Holes. It's a form of plotting which I particularly like.

Re: My top ten Jones novels, complete with handy Amazon links! (Part I)

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

That makes perfect sense. I too like this style, when it is done well. Like anything else, there are lots of ways to do it badly.

Have just done a quick re-read of Howl, I like it better and agree it is a fine example of this form. Castle in the Air is actually another example - I am curious to see if the third book is too.

I guess I should read the Stead and Sachar books.

Re: My top ten Jones novels, complete with handy Amazon links! (Part I)

[chomiji]

Interesting ...

My top DWJs are similar:

• Fire and Hemlock (and I don't mind the ending either)
• Homeward Bounmders
• Deep Secret
• Witch Week (Nan, Charles, and Nirupam are exctly the kind of kids I would have befriended as a child myself)
• Archer's Goon

[sovay]

My top ten Jones novels, complete with handy Amazon links! (Part I)

The Lives of Christopher Chant and Howl's Moving Castle are two of the earliest novels I can remember reading; they are still favorites of mine. Fire and Hemlock is brilliant. I am also incredibly fond of A Tale of Time City.

[chomiji]

Eeee, the toffee bars! Lord, I love those things!

To me, the complete genius of the biologies she creates for the animated things was one of the biggest pleasures of that book. Also, the dragons' teeth soldiers, modernized, crack me the hell up.

As I got older and more parental, I found myself sympathizing with the parents more than I did at first. The Archer's Goon parents aren't so bad either, especially the mother.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I loved how the toffee bars shed their wrappers!

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Love that novel. It contained one of my favorite words for years--can't recall it now, but it also was in reference to those toffee bars.