Diana Wynne Jones

[rachelmanija]

I just read that Diana Wynne Jones has died. She had been very ill with cancer for at least the last year.

I can't remember if my first Diana Wynne Jones book was Charmed Life or Fire and Hemlock; they're both still among my very favorites of hers. Or it might have been the odd, spooky Power of Three, which could be classified as a "psychic kids" book, but was not exactly a typical example of the genre.

After I read whichever one that was, I began to haunt used bookshops, libraries, thrift shops in search of her novels, until I slowly, slowly managed to obtain everything she'd ever written, even her very slight and hard-to-find first novel Wilkin's Tooth. I was thrilled when her books finally came back into print in the USA, but I got enough enjoyment from the search, not to mention the finds, that I don't regret the probable hundreds of hours I spent prowling dusty stacks.

She wrote at least five of my very favorite novels of all time: Witch Week, Fire and Hemlock, Charmed Life, The Homeward Bounders... The fifth is always difficult: Do I select Archer's Goon or Howl's Moving Castle for their perfect puzzle-box structures, with every element clicking into logical place at the end? The Ogre Downstairs for the living toffee bars undulating down the stairs? The Year of the Griffin for its all-too-recognizable portrait of college life, complete with curses and ninjas? The heartbreaking Dogsbody?

Everybody who likes Jones' work at all seems to have a completely different list of favorite Jones novels, which speaks to her versatility and quirkiness. I love Fire and Hemlock because it's so funny and numinous - a very unusual combination - but others find it unreadable or flat. I didn't think Dark Lord of Derkholm was funny at all, but it's on plenty of people's top three lists.

I read an essay of hers in which she discussed being neglected as a child, and noted that Time of the Ghost was directly autobiographical, except for the ghosts and curses and witches and split personalities and time travel. Her adults are often villainous, but nearly always have understandable motives, and just as often are complicated and sympathetic; her children are surprisingly unsentimentalized.

I can't read Fire and Hemlock without breaking my heart, but in the good kind of way (if you like that kind of thing); I can't read the "worms in custard" or "Simon Says" or "MY SPIRIT IS BEING DRAGGED TO UTTAR PRADESH TO UTTER DESTRUCTION I MEAN" scenes in Witch Week without weeping with laughter.

It seems like a good time to re-read and review her novels. Look for them here.

The Chronicles of Chrestomanci, Volume 1: Charmed Life / The Lives of Christopher Chant

The Chronicles of Chrestomanci, Volume 2: The Magicians of Caprona / Witch Week

Howl's Moving Castle

Year of the Griffin

Dogsbody

Fire and Hemlock

The Homeward Bounders

Comments

[ursula]

Undulating toffee bars! I love that scene so much.

[jinian.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I'm loving reading everyone's lists of their favorites. I'm one of the "just doesn't get Fire and Hemlock" people, to my sorrow; I totally want to read the book that so many other people see in it!

[cija.livejournal.com]

Time of the Ghost is the best one for me. Fire and Hemlock too.

I don't know why I always go back to this since it's not the primary thing that made her brilliant and wonderful, but there isn't anybody else in the world, not in horror novels, not in anywhere -- except Joan Aiken a few times -- who could do that creeping yet matter-of-fact depiction of having bad parents, who are also bad people. Most writers I think have only the stomach to show one or the other at a time. There's not even usually blatant abuse or unambiguously criminal neglect -- just, the children realize, or we do, that not only are their parents not good to them, they aren't very good at all. I never know how to describe it right to convey how stunning it is.

also, Gwendolyn Chant: the best.

[shweta-narayan.livejournal.com]

<3
This. I couldn't make words happen m'self but kept thinking YES as I read what you said.

[kateelliott.livejournal.com]

I still don't understand the end of Fire and Hemlock.

[qian.livejournal.com]

Oh no. I've been out all day and your post is the first I've heard of this.

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

For some reason I never encountered any of her books when I was young. But I was made to read one as an adult and have by now read almost everything of hers (I don't think I've read Wilkin's Tooth, one or two books aimed at younger children, or her adult political novel).

I don't know which of hers are my favorites... I could better say which ones I don't like. I tend to share your opinion of Derkholm, although I don't think I dislike it quite as much. And I didn't care for A Sudden Wild Magic, though I'm not sure I could have articulated why at the time and certainly can't now.

I am one of the people who doesn't quite understand the ending of Fire and Hemlock. But I like the book anyway.

I haven't re-read too many of her books yet: if you post a schedule of the ones you will review here I and others might want to re-read with you.

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

I still don't understand the ending of F&H either, but love it anyway. That and Ghost and Howl's and Hexwood are my favourites -- I'll have to check out Witch Week and Charmed Life.

DWJ tribute

[fjm.livejournal.com]

Dear Rachel

Charlie Butler (a close friend of Diana Wynne Jones) and I, are collecting together all the web tributes. We intend to format them, print them on good quality paper and bind them into seven copies for Diana's immediate family.

Would you be willing to allow your piece to be included?

No publication or sale is involved.


[Given that you don't know either of us: both of us can be checked out by googling our names + Diana Wynne Jones].

All the best
Farah Mendlesohn