In my quest to read all of Diana Wynne Jones’s books in one year, this month I read Charmed Life, Drowned Ammet, and The Spellcoats!
Charmed Life is the first in the Chrestomanci series, and I found it fun to revisit the introduction to that world and family. Drowned Ammet and The Spellcoats are the middle books in the Dalemark Quartet and both are pretty intense!
Charmed Life, (1977)
In Charmed Life, Cat Chant is in his older sister’s shadow. She’s very confident and talented at magic, and he follows her around like a kicked puppy as she receives accolades. Then they are taken in by the powerful enchanter, Chrestomanci, and it becomes clearer and clearer just how malevolent Cat’s sister really is. Chrestomanci Castle is a fun setting, with all its quirky inhabitants and magical shenanigans. Once Cat starts to grow a backbone, he’s a more enjoyable character, too.
Charmed Life has me thinking about how Diana Wynne Jones treats sibling relationships, or the lack thereof. I’m an only child, and I notice that whenever there are siblings, that’s important to the plot, and whenever a point-of-view character doesn’t have siblings, that’s important, too. Combined with Diana Wynne Jones’s well-known focus on bad mother figures and absent or angry father figures, I think an interesting study could be done of the range of dynamics presented in her nuclear families.
Drowned Ammet, (also 1977!)
Drowned Ammet takes place in the same world and time as Cart and Cwidder, and there are overlapping big world events. In southern Dalemark, a poor kid joins a revolutionary plot to assassinate a tyrant, only to be usurped by someone else assassinating him. Fleeing for his life, he ends up on a boat with two kids from the tyrant’s family, and they sail together, learning Valuable Lessons About Friendship and Privilege.
It has been a while since I first read Drowned Ammet, and in the meantime, I read all of Ursula K. LeGuin’s Earthsea books. Therefore I was thinking about these kids on their boats and the way the magic in both Dalemark and Earthsea is based on “true names” for this reread. There are a lot of parallels.
The Spellcoats, (1979)
The Spellcoats takes place several generations before the action in Cart and Cwidder and Drowned Ammet. A family whose members are stigmatized for their different hair and skin color and different religious practices are turned out of their home after a flood and must make their way through country treacherous with the dangerous river, their own neighbors, and factions of an invading army. They turn to their gods for help, and their story is recorded in the weaving language of the spellcoats. Like Cart and Cwidder and Drowned Ammet this one is anti-monarchist.
It’s tough to talk about what’s cool in this one without spoilers, because as the point-of-view character records the story, she gradually figures out how the spellcoats work. Overall, the power and importance of telling your own story is emphasized. I don’t think that counts as a spoiler! I have basically zero memory of what happens in the final book of the Dalemark Quartet, so I’m excited to get to that one in (checks notes) February. There’s a lot in between!
If you’d like to read along with me, my schedule is here! The Magicians of Caprona, The Time of the Ghost, The Homeward Bounders, and Witch Week are up next.
Custom images for this series are by Marnanel Thurman.
