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pameladeanSo first there was Charmed Life. I read it over and over until I had to stop reading it because I knew how all the sentences went on. Not long after, there was The Spellcoats. I read it a lot too, but unlike Charmed Life, it was too strange to be comfort reading. Charmed Life is very prickly and has frightening bits, but since Chrestomanci is in it, it can't be as strange as The Spellcoats. I used to try to figure out the secret of that book, and I think it's Tanaqui's voice. I was in my twenties when I found both these books, and I was startled when I realized how young Tanaqui was when the story began. There is such a weight in that voice.
In time, through the MagiQuest line, there was Power of Three, though for some years I persistently assigned it to Jane Yolen, and would read it when I was in the mood for more Janeish books. It is pretty strange too, but it has a homeiness in it as well.
For some time, that was all the Diana Wynn Jones I had. I was no longer a child when I first read her, but through her I somehow passed back into a time when I hardly knew who authors were, and books appeared by luck or happenstance and were greeted as if they were thunderstorms or fine spring days. Then I began to fumble about with the planning and writing of Tam Lin, and somebody told me that Fire and Hemlock was a Tam Lin story. I began to read it with huge trepidation. I remember being relieved that Polly was not a college student, but after that I forgot why I was reading the book. At the end I remembered, but just thought, "Well, I could never in a million years have done that, but it's done, so I can do what I was going to do. Everyone will always like Fire and Hemlock better, but that's all right."
Around this time I collected a very motley and incomplete set of Diana's books, probably as a result of one of the trips to England that David and I, or in one case Pat Wrede and I, were making to England. I found Wilkins' Tooth, The Ogre Downstairs, Eight Days of Luke, Witch Week, Archer's Goon, The Time of the Ghost, and Dogsbody. I read and reread all of them, except for Dogsbody, which was so sad and wrenching that I could only manage it about once a year, when I was really craving more books by Diana. The odd thing was that I was perfectly well aware that friends of mine were scouring Hay-on-Wye for Drowned Ammet, and that there was another book also connected to The Spellcoats. But I didn't want any books connected to The Spellcoats. In my mind it was as a star and dwelt alone.
I thought, though, that there was a homeiness in almost all Diana's books, found sometimes in very strange places, or made without place by ill-assorted groups of people. It's thin in The Spellcoats and thinner yet in Dogsbody, and threatened in a way that is part of why that book is so hard to read.
Diana was the guest of honor at Fourth Street Fantasy Convention in 1991. I wish my memory was clearer, but she was so dazzling. I remember table after table overflowing with laughter and chatter, as more and more people crowded in to talk to her; what I really remember is the way that she said, "Bathroom." This is because Pat was having her bathroom remodelled at the time, with the usual list of awful discoveries one makes in old houses, and her tales of woe caused everyone to tell bathroom stories. There was no bathroom humor except in the meta, which is probably where it belonged. Diana threw herself enthusiastically into this set of conversations, as she did into everything. Our playreading group was meeting regularly at my house at that time, and when we discovered that Diana was staying after the convention to visit Neil Gaiman, we invited them both to the next reading. They couldn't make it for the reading proper, but Neil did bring Diana by, and they ate some of the leftover refreshments and talked to everyone for an hour or so, after which they had to go out to the porch for a smoke. At some point when my hostly duties abated, I realized that they had been out there for quite some time, and furthermore that the furniture I had vaguely believed to be there was actually in the back yard. I discovered them both squatting happily on the dusty, spidery porch, with a few smoke-hardy souls, talking as hard as they could. Neil told me later that they had begun with discussing oxbow rivers and ended with the idea that became Hexwood.
I finally gave in about the Dalemark trilogy and read Cart and Cwidder. To my considerable astonishment, it made The Spellcoats even stranger. In time, good friends gave me the new hardcover set of the Dalemark books, and I found out why one would scour Wales for Drowned Ammet. I read the other Chrestomanci books, and A Tale of Time City, and, oh, heavens, The Homeward Bounders, which is almost as hard to read as Dogsbody and does such things to one's expectations of homeiness, should one have them. I bounced off some later books, including A Sudden Wild Magic and Deep Secret; and, I have to confess, I didn't actually like The Tough Guide to Fantasyland. Having heard that Dark Lord of Derkhelm was set there, I didn't read that one. I also held out on Howl's Moving Castle for years, although I did read Castle in the Air. I only read Howl's Moving Castle about a month ago. I feel that its ending, which takes place at the tops of everyone's voice in a rapidly moving magical object under several kinds of attack, is actually harder to understand than that of Fire and Hemlock, but I love it the more for that. I also read, about a month ago, Year of the Griffin, and though I realized that it was a sequel to Dark Lord of Derkhelm, it was too late for me to stop reading it. I really loved it. It was very funny and wonderfully sharp and satirical, but also deeply sweet. I had to give in and read Dark Lord of Derkhelm. This was also very funny, very sweet, and completely imbued with the theme of homeiness, and how easy it is for one to lose it and how hard people work to make it happen in strange ways and places.
I hope Diana has gone home.
Pamela
In time, through the MagiQuest line, there was Power of Three, though for some years I persistently assigned it to Jane Yolen, and would read it when I was in the mood for more Janeish books. It is pretty strange too, but it has a homeiness in it as well.
For some time, that was all the Diana Wynn Jones I had. I was no longer a child when I first read her, but through her I somehow passed back into a time when I hardly knew who authors were, and books appeared by luck or happenstance and were greeted as if they were thunderstorms or fine spring days. Then I began to fumble about with the planning and writing of Tam Lin, and somebody told me that Fire and Hemlock was a Tam Lin story. I began to read it with huge trepidation. I remember being relieved that Polly was not a college student, but after that I forgot why I was reading the book. At the end I remembered, but just thought, "Well, I could never in a million years have done that, but it's done, so I can do what I was going to do. Everyone will always like Fire and Hemlock better, but that's all right."
Around this time I collected a very motley and incomplete set of Diana's books, probably as a result of one of the trips to England that David and I, or in one case Pat Wrede and I, were making to England. I found Wilkins' Tooth, The Ogre Downstairs, Eight Days of Luke, Witch Week, Archer's Goon, The Time of the Ghost, and Dogsbody. I read and reread all of them, except for Dogsbody, which was so sad and wrenching that I could only manage it about once a year, when I was really craving more books by Diana. The odd thing was that I was perfectly well aware that friends of mine were scouring Hay-on-Wye for Drowned Ammet, and that there was another book also connected to The Spellcoats. But I didn't want any books connected to The Spellcoats. In my mind it was as a star and dwelt alone.
I thought, though, that there was a homeiness in almost all Diana's books, found sometimes in very strange places, or made without place by ill-assorted groups of people. It's thin in The Spellcoats and thinner yet in Dogsbody, and threatened in a way that is part of why that book is so hard to read.
Diana was the guest of honor at Fourth Street Fantasy Convention in 1991. I wish my memory was clearer, but she was so dazzling. I remember table after table overflowing with laughter and chatter, as more and more people crowded in to talk to her; what I really remember is the way that she said, "Bathroom." This is because Pat was having her bathroom remodelled at the time, with the usual list of awful discoveries one makes in old houses, and her tales of woe caused everyone to tell bathroom stories. There was no bathroom humor except in the meta, which is probably where it belonged. Diana threw herself enthusiastically into this set of conversations, as she did into everything. Our playreading group was meeting regularly at my house at that time, and when we discovered that Diana was staying after the convention to visit Neil Gaiman, we invited them both to the next reading. They couldn't make it for the reading proper, but Neil did bring Diana by, and they ate some of the leftover refreshments and talked to everyone for an hour or so, after which they had to go out to the porch for a smoke. At some point when my hostly duties abated, I realized that they had been out there for quite some time, and furthermore that the furniture I had vaguely believed to be there was actually in the back yard. I discovered them both squatting happily on the dusty, spidery porch, with a few smoke-hardy souls, talking as hard as they could. Neil told me later that they had begun with discussing oxbow rivers and ended with the idea that became Hexwood.
I finally gave in about the Dalemark trilogy and read Cart and Cwidder. To my considerable astonishment, it made The Spellcoats even stranger. In time, good friends gave me the new hardcover set of the Dalemark books, and I found out why one would scour Wales for Drowned Ammet. I read the other Chrestomanci books, and A Tale of Time City, and, oh, heavens, The Homeward Bounders, which is almost as hard to read as Dogsbody and does such things to one's expectations of homeiness, should one have them. I bounced off some later books, including A Sudden Wild Magic and Deep Secret; and, I have to confess, I didn't actually like The Tough Guide to Fantasyland. Having heard that Dark Lord of Derkhelm was set there, I didn't read that one. I also held out on Howl's Moving Castle for years, although I did read Castle in the Air. I only read Howl's Moving Castle about a month ago. I feel that its ending, which takes place at the tops of everyone's voice in a rapidly moving magical object under several kinds of attack, is actually harder to understand than that of Fire and Hemlock, but I love it the more for that. I also read, about a month ago, Year of the Griffin, and though I realized that it was a sequel to Dark Lord of Derkhelm, it was too late for me to stop reading it. I really loved it. It was very funny and wonderfully sharp and satirical, but also deeply sweet. I had to give in and read Dark Lord of Derkhelm. This was also very funny, very sweet, and completely imbued with the theme of homeiness, and how easy it is for one to lose it and how hard people work to make it happen in strange ways and places.
I hope Diana has gone home.
Pamela
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no subject
Date: 2011-03-28 11:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-28 11:58 pm (UTC)I feel awkward for being so upset about her death, but I really am.
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Date: 2011-03-28 11:59 pm (UTC)I loved how your Tam Lin was both alike and quite unlike Fire and Hemlock. They scratched the same itch for me, but each was imbued with the individual flavor of its distinct author.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-29 12:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-29 12:36 am (UTC)Believing is Seeing
The Pinhoe Egg
The Tough Guide to Fantasyland
Dark Lord of Derkholm
The Dalemark Quartet: Cart and Cwidder, Drowned Anmet, The Spellcoats, The Crown of Dalemark, A Guide to Dalemark
Archer's Goon
Witch's Business
Power of Three
Eight Days of Luke
Year of the Griffin
Aunt Maria
A Tale of Time City
Deep Secret
The Chrestomanci Quartet: Charmed Life, Witch Week, The Magicians of Caprona, The Lives of Christopher Chant
Wizard's Castle: Howl's Moving Castle, Castle in the Air
Conrad's Fate
And one of those painful timing things -- our bookgroup was the 19th and I suggested we read something of hers coming up, because I was sure the library would have one, and only the librarian and I had ever heard of her.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-29 12:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-29 01:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-29 01:42 am (UTC)I haven't read all of them yet -- I always hold back, waiting for another one. And I loved Spellcoats so much and found Cart and Cwidder (I think) so weird that I have yet to read the other two, sitting in a box in Eighth Box Central.
But seems that I need to find them now.
I wish I could have told her how much her books meant to me. I'm glad so many other people did.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-29 01:44 am (UTC)Thank you for sharing all this.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-29 01:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-29 02:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-29 02:44 am (UTC)P.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-29 02:51 am (UTC)(from when I was a kid) Heidi, The Black Stallion series
(more grownup) Hitchhiker's Guide, Hobbit/Lord of the Rings, your Secret Country trilogy, Arthur C. Clarke.
I haven't read much of anything in a while, she said apologetically.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-29 03:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-29 03:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-29 03:39 am (UTC)I honestly can't recall if I was Diana's at-con liaison when she was GoH that year at Fourth Street, but I know I managed some of the precon duties, which (among other things) meant I got to make a few international calls when that was highly intimidating (I've since become much more blase about the whole thing). She was always gracious with my dithering, and was obviously very experienced at being a guest of honor. That was a great convention.
She had invited me to drop in on her when I got to England next, and Cally and I tried to visit her in Bristol. Unfortunately, she was busy when we were there, but we had a brief but pleasant chat. I always regretted not having planned that ahead better. Had there been e-mail, I probably would have.
And now I wonder if there are any of her novels that I haven't read yet. I only discovered Hexwood on my last trip to the UK, after all.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-29 03:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-29 03:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-29 04:36 am (UTC)I'm planning my rereads right now.
P.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-29 04:37 am (UTC)P.
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Date: 2011-03-29 04:38 am (UTC)I made myself wait to reread Fire and Hemlock until I was finished with Tam Lin, but I could tell it was getting in there anyway. I'm glad you like them both.
P.
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Date: 2011-03-29 04:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-03-29 04:44 am (UTC)I hope that I did not seem presumptuous to you. :/
no subject
Date: 2011-03-29 04:49 am (UTC)P.
no subject
Date: 2011-03-29 04:50 am (UTC)*ouch* for the book club experience.
P.