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Diana Wynne Jones 1934-2011
Mar. 26th, 2011 08:40 pmI don't remember the first Diana Wynne Jones book that I read.
I must have been eleven or twelve, because she was one of the authors I found in the children's section and followed out to the YA shelves. It might have been Charmed Life, which I loved for Janet's practical cheerfulness and Cat's vulnerability and Julia and Roger's unexpected awesomeness. Or it might have been Witch Week, which I loved for the world-building and the witch-burning and Nan, the first of not enough fat, bookish, emotionally damaged female characters I have loved and identified with. I do still remember the battered old copy of Howl's Moving Castle the library had, with the glue crumbling off and the horrible cover art, which I checked out so many times I might as well have kept it, and I remember Sophie and Michael and Howl's tantrum about his hair. Dogsbody makes me tear up every time I think of the ending. Lines from The Tough Guide to Fantasyland and Dark Lord of Derkholm pop into my head at odd moments. So many books, when I think about it. Deep Secret. Eight Days of Luke. Cart and Cwidder. I read them all over and over again. I still do, when I get the chance. She's one of the writers I've never grown out of - her books for children were as careful and heartfelt and crafty as her books for teenagers, which were as clever and biting as her books for adults - and I'm glad, because she really is one of the writers who made my childhood and adolescence what it was.
It's strange to think about all those books, and realize there will never be any more. It's strange to think that she's gone. But I hope she's at peace now, in whatever afterlife she would have wanted.
I must have been eleven or twelve, because she was one of the authors I found in the children's section and followed out to the YA shelves. It might have been Charmed Life, which I loved for Janet's practical cheerfulness and Cat's vulnerability and Julia and Roger's unexpected awesomeness. Or it might have been Witch Week, which I loved for the world-building and the witch-burning and Nan, the first of not enough fat, bookish, emotionally damaged female characters I have loved and identified with. I do still remember the battered old copy of Howl's Moving Castle the library had, with the glue crumbling off and the horrible cover art, which I checked out so many times I might as well have kept it, and I remember Sophie and Michael and Howl's tantrum about his hair. Dogsbody makes me tear up every time I think of the ending. Lines from The Tough Guide to Fantasyland and Dark Lord of Derkholm pop into my head at odd moments. So many books, when I think about it. Deep Secret. Eight Days of Luke. Cart and Cwidder. I read them all over and over again. I still do, when I get the chance. She's one of the writers I've never grown out of - her books for children were as careful and heartfelt and crafty as her books for teenagers, which were as clever and biting as her books for adults - and I'm glad, because she really is one of the writers who made my childhood and adolescence what it was.
It's strange to think about all those books, and realize there will never be any more. It's strange to think that she's gone. But I hope she's at peace now, in whatever afterlife she would have wanted.