![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
extemporallyThe Pinhoe Egg, by Diana Wynne Jones.
I was kind of nervous about how I was going to find this, but I really really liked it! Good choice expanding out from a Chrestomanci Castle-centred story into the surrounding villages, for one. I actually really enjoy DWJ's conception of how magic and power works in this universe - of course there are clans squirreling their magic away from the notice of The Big Man, of course. *beams*
But what really got me in the gut here is the way DWJ depicted whatcleodaxa has referred to as the vulnerability of children, which is actually incredibly original. Terms like 'self-esteem' or 'self-doubt' don't quite seem to cover it for me, if only because that tends to be thought of as if not an adult thing then an adolescent one, because the idea is that self-esteem or self-doubt is a barrier to the attainment of a strong identity; and the search for identity is one of those themes of bildungsroman. But here, I think Marianne remains a child in many other ways by the end of the book, and the release of her identity from crippling - still can't find a good term for it, self-doubt will have to do - only allows her to be herself (a child), more fully than she's ever been.
Just things like this:
♥♥♥ (Also, how fitting is it that Cat notices that about her?!)
I also really love that Marianne does what she's told (by Gammer) without thought because that's what she's always done, and what everyone else in her family's always done, and then it turns out that her family's always been incredibly obedient to Gammer because they were bewitched, with the exception of Marianne, whose magic is stronger than Gammer's, who did it because... of her learnt obedience. THAT IS THE MOST PERFECT PLOT POINT ON EARTH.
In conclusion, Marianne is my favourite woobie the end:
Awwww! Anyway, I could talk about how luminous the writing is in here, and how much I appreciate DWJ's tactile magic in the Chrestomanci universe, or the knack she has of getting family dynamics down pat, or the cleverness of the Big Revelation towards the resolution (though I would quite have liked for that to be a bit more spun out), but I think what I'd like to hipcheck most of all is how much sense it makes to me that Marianne's dad was the most resistant to Chrestomanci's exposition and decisions, and how gutting but also fitting it is that he basically practically disowned Marianne for her role in things, and how that just fits with his 'peaceful' temperament, and bla bla bla status quo bla bla bla power bla bla bla dynamics. ♥
Sense & Sensibility, by Jane Austen.
Eh, I actually think my reading has been, um, affected by the fact that I read this fairly fast so did not actually understand that Edward Ferrars continued in his engagement with Lucy Steele out of a sense of honour and that it would certainly have been a loveless marriage? So I am afraid I read Edward Ferrars as a lot more passive than he actually was (I often find the fact that Regency society is so different from modern society - essential qualifier to the statement - a difficulty in reading Austen novels, in the sense that a lot of the instinctive social reactions characters have to things aren't the most intuitive ones; so basically for a lot of this novel I was thinking yes but why couldn't he have broken it off???). Anyway.
This wasn't SUPER satisfying as a romance, and I actually felt that there was a much darker novel, a la Mansfield Park, or even Persuasion with none of the gentleness or understanding or redemption - underneath this struggling to get out, in the sense that Elinor did end up with Ferrars, and he was her first love, but this was after she'd been disappointed by him and she was his second love, and that Marianne's marriage to Colonel Brandon (no matter how happy it ended up being) was done really hastily and so on. I don't know, it's just really dissatisfying!!! And of course, the whole Willoughby thing was really ambiguous and his big ('big') revelation came only after Marianne had sort of gotten over it which just made it all feel super misplaced???
So, yeah: either this is a hot mess or a modernist masterpiece ahead of its times - can't really decide which. Bla bla, insert note about Sense & Sensibility and how these two concepts aren't as fully dichotomous as they would have been, and how contemporary readers would have been ~all het up~ on this 18th century intellectual debate, and how Austen was pretty great in her ambition but I don't think that the sense vs sensibility debate is as interesting as the Underlying Confusion I have identified (jokes!) in this novel.
I was kind of nervous about how I was going to find this, but I really really liked it! Good choice expanding out from a Chrestomanci Castle-centred story into the surrounding villages, for one. I actually really enjoy DWJ's conception of how magic and power works in this universe - of course there are clans squirreling their magic away from the notice of The Big Man, of course. *beams*
But what really got me in the gut here is the way DWJ depicted what
cleodaxa has referred to as the vulnerability of children, which is actually incredibly original. Terms like 'self-esteem' or 'self-doubt' don't quite seem to cover it for me, if only because that tends to be thought of as if not an adult thing then an adolescent one, because the idea is that self-esteem or self-doubt is a barrier to the attainment of a strong identity; and the search for identity is one of those themes of bildungsroman. But here, I think Marianne remains a child in many other ways by the end of the book, and the release of her identity from crippling - still can't find a good term for it, self-doubt will have to do - only allows her to be herself (a child), more fully than she's ever been. Just things like this:
Marianne's eyebrows went up, but she obediently took hold of the rope on her side. She was terribly obedient, Cat thought. He remembered Janet once telling him that he was too obedient, and he knew that had been the result of the way his sister always despised him. He was suddenly, firmly, decided that, however much Marianne protested, he was going to tell Chrestomanci about her.
♥♥♥ (Also, how fitting is it that Cat notices that about her?!)
I also really love that Marianne does what she's told (by Gammer) without thought because that's what she's always done, and what everyone else in her family's always done, and then it turns out that her family's always been incredibly obedient to Gammer because they were bewitched, with the exception of Marianne, whose magic is stronger than Gammer's, who did it because... of her learnt obedience. THAT IS THE MOST PERFECT PLOT POINT ON EARTH.
In conclusion, Marianne is my favourite woobie the end:
Marianne's face crumpled a little as she thought of her story of "Princess Irene and her Cats," still barely started. But she said bravely, "Our family likes to keep children busy."
"You're no child. You're a full-grown enchantress," Jane James retorted. "Don't they notice? And I don't see any of your cousins very busy. Riding their bikes up and down and yelling seems to me how busy they are."
Awwww! Anyway, I could talk about how luminous the writing is in here, and how much I appreciate DWJ's tactile magic in the Chrestomanci universe, or the knack she has of getting family dynamics down pat, or the cleverness of the Big Revelation towards the resolution (though I would quite have liked for that to be a bit more spun out), but I think what I'd like to hipcheck most of all is how much sense it makes to me that Marianne's dad was the most resistant to Chrestomanci's exposition and decisions, and how gutting but also fitting it is that he basically practically disowned Marianne for her role in things, and how that just fits with his 'peaceful' temperament, and bla bla bla status quo bla bla bla power bla bla bla dynamics. ♥
Sense & Sensibility, by Jane Austen.
Eh, I actually think my reading has been, um, affected by the fact that I read this fairly fast so did not actually understand that Edward Ferrars continued in his engagement with Lucy Steele out of a sense of honour and that it would certainly have been a loveless marriage? So I am afraid I read Edward Ferrars as a lot more passive than he actually was (I often find the fact that Regency society is so different from modern society - essential qualifier to the statement - a difficulty in reading Austen novels, in the sense that a lot of the instinctive social reactions characters have to things aren't the most intuitive ones; so basically for a lot of this novel I was thinking yes but why couldn't he have broken it off???). Anyway.
This wasn't SUPER satisfying as a romance, and I actually felt that there was a much darker novel, a la Mansfield Park, or even Persuasion with none of the gentleness or understanding or redemption - underneath this struggling to get out, in the sense that Elinor did end up with Ferrars, and he was her first love, but this was after she'd been disappointed by him and she was his second love, and that Marianne's marriage to Colonel Brandon (no matter how happy it ended up being) was done really hastily and so on. I don't know, it's just really dissatisfying!!! And of course, the whole Willoughby thing was really ambiguous and his big ('big') revelation came only after Marianne had sort of gotten over it which just made it all feel super misplaced???
So, yeah: either this is a hot mess or a modernist masterpiece ahead of its times - can't really decide which. Bla bla, insert note about Sense & Sensibility and how these two concepts aren't as fully dichotomous as they would have been, and how contemporary readers would have been ~all het up~ on this 18th century intellectual debate, and how Austen was pretty great in her ambition but I don't think that the sense vs sensibility debate is as interesting as the Underlying Confusion I have identified (jokes!) in this novel.