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Jun. 6th, 2011 11:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsThe Time of the Ghost ranks way high up there among the absolute weirdest of Diana Wynne Jones' books, so of course it's one of my all-time favorites.
It's also even more difficult to talk about than Diana Wynne Jones' weird books usually are, starting from the fact that even the protagonist has no idea who or what she is. She seems to be a ghost, and she's fairly sure that she's one of a set of four adolescent sisters - who are as bizarre and believable and flawed and hilariously cranky as DWJ siblings usually are, and whose parents are even worse than the usual run of DWJ bad parents, appearing to regard their daughters most of the time as nuisances whom it is too much trouble to feed or clean. (This is Diana Wynne Jones' most autobiographical novel, by the way. The parents are very believable and very human in their terribleness, because they were in fact her parents.)
The sisters - Charlotte-called-Cart, Sally, Imogen and Fenella - have concocted a Plan to get their parents' attention. The possibly-ghost may have something to do with this plan. But there is also the evil ancient goddess who's molding outside in a henhouse to cope with, and the set of schoolboys the girls have adopted because they are equally bizarre (except the sexy one all the girls are in love with, who unfortunately is probably a sociopath), and then you get to the ouija board and the blood-collecting ritual and the ancient barrow wights in the Back of Beyond and pretty soon the entire cast is taking it in turns to make their own personal version of the Ultimate Sacrifice, and it really isn't what you think.
In case you did not pick up on it, this is a very creepy book; it fits in the set of DWJ books along with Hexwood and Black Maria, which if you've read those should give you something of an idea. I mean, Ancient Evil aside - which is creepy enough in and of itself - several different kinds of abusive relationships run through it, and are presented with as much matter-of-factness as anything else in a DWJ novel, and with the same kind of everyday humor and squabbling and flashes of absurdity. (I love the sisters and their dynamic so much. I love how they get along well in different combinations, how they switch on a dime between excellent teamwork and getting into screaming fights - and how the ghost forgets she is a ghost and starts screaming with the rest of them even though no one can hear her - and how whenever one of them is gone the rest of them start complaining vindictively about the missing one but clearly really miss her at the same time.)
For Yuletide this year, I desperately want postcanon fic about Sally and Imogen learning to live outside of the past seven years of discontentment. (I mean, I think Imogen will always be prone to depression, but it's clear that there is still a difference.) The king under the barrow or other supernatural stuff can be happening too, but mostly this!
It's also even more difficult to talk about than Diana Wynne Jones' weird books usually are, starting from the fact that even the protagonist has no idea who or what she is. She seems to be a ghost, and she's fairly sure that she's one of a set of four adolescent sisters - who are as bizarre and believable and flawed and hilariously cranky as DWJ siblings usually are, and whose parents are even worse than the usual run of DWJ bad parents, appearing to regard their daughters most of the time as nuisances whom it is too much trouble to feed or clean. (This is Diana Wynne Jones' most autobiographical novel, by the way. The parents are very believable and very human in their terribleness, because they were in fact her parents.)
The sisters - Charlotte-called-Cart, Sally, Imogen and Fenella - have concocted a Plan to get their parents' attention. The possibly-ghost may have something to do with this plan. But there is also the evil ancient goddess who's molding outside in a henhouse to cope with, and the set of schoolboys the girls have adopted because they are equally bizarre (except the sexy one all the girls are in love with, who unfortunately is probably a sociopath), and then you get to the ouija board and the blood-collecting ritual and the ancient barrow wights in the Back of Beyond and pretty soon the entire cast is taking it in turns to make their own personal version of the Ultimate Sacrifice, and it really isn't what you think.
In case you did not pick up on it, this is a very creepy book; it fits in the set of DWJ books along with Hexwood and Black Maria, which if you've read those should give you something of an idea. I mean, Ancient Evil aside - which is creepy enough in and of itself - several different kinds of abusive relationships run through it, and are presented with as much matter-of-factness as anything else in a DWJ novel, and with the same kind of everyday humor and squabbling and flashes of absurdity. (I love the sisters and their dynamic so much. I love how they get along well in different combinations, how they switch on a dime between excellent teamwork and getting into screaming fights - and how the ghost forgets she is a ghost and starts screaming with the rest of them even though no one can hear her - and how whenever one of them is gone the rest of them start complaining vindictively about the missing one but clearly really miss her at the same time.)
For Yuletide this year, I desperately want postcanon fic about Sally and Imogen learning to live outside of the past seven years of discontentment. (I mean, I think Imogen will always be prone to depression, but it's clear that there is still a difference.) The king under the barrow or other supernatural stuff can be happening too, but mostly this!
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Date: 2017-09-15 01:03 pm (UTC)