Diana Wynne Jones

One of my favorite authors, Diana Wynne Jones, has died. DWJ is generally regarded as a 'children's book' author, but you'd have to search long, hard and far to find a better example of 'if it's not good enough to be read by adults, it's certainly not good enough for children.' I forget who said that, and I para-phrase, but it's pretty close to fundamentalist religion to this author and parent. She was clever, funny, warm and sometimes tragic in her writing (Dogsbody made me weep. It doesn't stop me reading and re-reading it). The other thing that shines through her characters is just how real and 'ordinary' and accessible her fantasy characters are. She stands out because wrote amazingly fallible characters... that you still liked. There was a certain warmth and indomidability of spirit about them -- she knew these people and in many cases, was them. I've just been reading her autobiography and it is obvious, fairly soon, as you recognise places and people, that DWJ's writing was shaped by a razor sharp memory (and a razor sharp mind) and curiously, an ability to cruel - both to herself and the illusions we humans like to cling to about our parents and background. The distances and sometimes weakness of parents come through strongly - in Archer's Goon for instance, where, to be honest Venturus's step- parents made me long to give them a clip around the ear-hole. It took me a while to realise that it was this that made DWJ stand out in the 'urban fantasy' sense - in an era where families were portrayed as either perfect or detestable - hers were neither. They were fallable, and often likable despite it. In Fire and Hemlock, in which DWJ mercilessly details the breakdown of Polly's family, you keep reading, because 1)there's Polly - and it is hard not to care about her, and 2)in both her parents - Reg and Ivy (but particularly the weak father) there are moments, when as an adult anyway, I found myself in sympathy with him. Grannies, we note, do tend to get a soft billet :-). Reading the autobiography - and knowing the books - it is fascinating to see how the places and people of her youth keep coming into the books.

The other aspect that shines through DWJ's fantasy is the feeling that many of her fantasy worlds convey - of a complex, vast, and very 'alien' but real universe. Part of this is her sheer magic - from whence it came, besides inside her, who knows. It was just... special. Part of it is of course that she had a vast background in mythology (which, if you know the myths, make the books even more like opening one of those layered gifts). Books such as The Spellcoats, the Power of Three or Black Maria fill you with a feeling strangeness - as if you've been lucky enough to catch of fleeting glimpse of something truly magical, on the edge of the dream.

And yet... she makes me laugh. And the books send me out stronger. Read her books and learn. Buy them for your kids, buy them for yourself. Treasure was never so cheap.

Respect. One of the great has passed beyond.
A glass for the living and glass for the dead.

Romancing the Cliche

I've done a lot of browsing lately over at TV Tropes, and it's interesting to see how many different ways all sorts of incredibly common tropes get used. Possibly the biggest eye-opener is how much really good fiction uses the exact same worn out old cliches everything else does, proving that it's not the package, it's what you do with it.

In the same vein, Diana Wynne Jones The Tough Guide to Fantasyland takes apart the fantasy cliches everyone has seen - but an awful lot of those self-same cliches can be found in the great books. Terry Pratchett - you can stop rolling your eyes, they gather far too much dust that way - has sold ridiculous numbers of books that use (and usually skewer) any number of the cliches. Interesting Times has a wonderful collection of them, including the barbarian horde, the inscrutable oriental, the innocent abroad ('innocent' in this case should be taken with a grain of salt, since we're taking about Rincewind) and much, much more. What Jingo does to political machinations, the ugly cross-dressing male, and any excuse for a war has to be seen to be believed.

What stories have you enjoyed that used one of the old standards in a fresh and interesting way? And on the flip side, what are some examples of recycling the cliches and beating out whatever life they still have?

p.s. Tolkein does not count. He pretty much pioneered the multi-racial group of mismatched questers battling existential evil.