The discussion group Your Humble Blogger mentioned previously is more or less going on with the Chrestomanci books, although very quietly. Anyway, I re-read The Magicians of Caprona and Witch Week which comprise The Chronicles of Chrestomanci, Volume II. Caprona is marvelous fun, and although the ending is very much ex machina, there’s no reason to care. The spells are great, the characters are fun, and most of all the restrictions that the plot and background put on the Powerful Magickers do give a sort of how-will-they-get-around-it suspense. Witch Week, on the other hand, is annoying, the ending is ex machina, and since it’s clear from early on that nothing anybody does is going to make much of a difference in the plot, there’s no suspense or excitement. Yes, there’s some fun school-story stuff, although the characters are all so wet that the fun is diluted. The actual magic isn’t terribly interesting, particularly when compared to the paper horses of Caprona.
One of the things that Diana Wynne Jones does is make her main characters selfish, or useless, or lazy, or gullible, or otherwise incapable of saving the day until something in the story gooses them into growing and changing. This can be a magnificent thing, and I do admire her for doing it well, when she does it well. On the other hand, sometimes the annoying main character is too annoying, or is annoying for too much of the book, and even with a redemption at the end, the book suffers from it. It’s a tricky thing to do, and I shouldn’t be disappointed that she only really succeeds at it most of the time.
chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.
My favorite Wynne-Jones has always been (and might always be) Archer’s Goon.
Well, that was rather pointless. I think I hit “insert comment” because Theo needed something. Now I can’t remember what I was going to say that actually had some relevance. Phooey.