(no subject)

[skygiants]

I was scared to read The Islands of Chaldea. In order to make myself read it, I had to get it out of the library, and then let it sit around for a while so I could get used to the idea. I read it on the day before it was due back.

And now that I've read it still don't really know how to write about it. I mean, I've got stuff to say, I just don't know how to say it. It's not that the magic wasn't there, except sort of wasn't. But it sort of was. There are a lot of ways in which, as a book, I liked it better than Enchanted Glass. On the other hand, it was hard not to spend large swathes of the book making unfair comparisons. I could write a whole essay on how Islands of Chaldea seems to lie closer to Dalemark in some ways than anything else DWJ has written (and Ogo is vastly less interesting than Mitt Alhamittson but he has the same physical frame and silhouette, which in DWJ doubles-parlance probably means they split off the same archetype in her mind.)

It does read like Diana Wynne Jones, prose-wise, which means that it's easy to read in some ways, although it hurts in others. I guess maybe the best way to put it is that it feels like there's much more surface to it than there should be. It's like when you jump into a pool, expecting the water to be pretty deep, and it's not, so you stub your toes. But you can still enjoy paddling.

Also, as someone who has in the past spent significant time trying consciously to pastiche Diana Wynne Jones, there were definitely times towards the end when I'd eye a sentence and think, "that sounds so archetypally Diana Wynne Jones that she can't possibly have written it." I mean I would recognize it as the sentence I would have written at that point, if I were trying to sound like Diana Wynne Jones. Which is kind of an interesting feeling to have.

... this is a really useless entry. Have I even said anything about the plot of Islands of Chaldea? There are some very British islands, and a magical barrier, and the cast of characters has to go on a road trip to fix it, there you go. I don't know, someone else please come talk about this and help me sort out my emotions, because I'm clearly not doing a great job of it on my own.

Comments

[ceitfianna]

I enjoyed it when I read it but it didn't stick for me. I'm pretty sure that I sat down and read the book in one or two gulps but I can't see rereading it. Parts of it worked, I liked the barrier and ideas about rulers but I just reread Deep Secret and that's her at her best.

I reread Deep Secret as job searching is sucking and that's one of those books that goes, keep looking, life is weird but you're not alone.

[skygiants]

Yeah, I gulped it too; I didn't start too much trying to think about it until after. But I too would much rather go back to Deep Secret any day. :)

[lacewood]

I read this, and I'm also not too sure what to say or think. It was okay, but it's also quite hard to process it on its own merits without the whole DWJ thing hanging there.

Like I think the later half felt a little too... direct? Usually DWJ stories pile on themselves into a more and more confusing snarl RIGHT UP until the moment they get ripped apart/untangled in the climax, but the 2nd half of Islands straightens itself out long before the climax occurs. So it's easier to follow what's happening but it also doesn't quite have that DWJ brand of strangeness.

I did enjoy the surprise reveal when they got to the last island though. SURPRISE, YOUR HOSTAGES ARE ACTUALLY THE ONES... RUNNING THINGS... since they're stuck here anyway and didn't have anything else to do with their time... So it's like, there were some of those moments of strangeness there, but not quite.

[skygiants]

Yeah, and it was like, though the climax itself does have that kind of sudden plot-convenient magical pile-up -- the Guardian in the cave, which again felt like an echo of Dalemark and the interaction with Hern, and everything going very numinous and Aileen coming ABRUPTLY into her superpowers as soon as someone yells at her about the, which felt like Cat towards the end of Charmed Life, and ugh, I can't stop making comparisons! -- but maybe it's because I can't stop making comparisons that it feels, again, like a solid attempt at writing a climax like DWJ would have written. But everything going into that climax doesn't quite earn it.

[the_rck]

I still haven't managed to get myself through The Islands of Chaldea. I know that it's the last, and I know that it's not all hers, and I just haven't been able to yet. It's not that I dislike what I've already read. I just don't want it to be over (or to be disappointing).

[skygiants]

Yeah. I felt the exact same way. I had to leverage all my feelings of 'if the book goes back unread, THE LIBRARY BEATS ME!' to get myself to do it at all.

[betony]

Oh, I've been wanting to talk about Islands of Chaldea for ages!
*spoiler warning? just in case?*
I'm interested by the Dalemark comparisons (well, other than the fact that ) because Dalemark always seemed so brutally realistic when it came to its politics (As a comparison,I suppose, Dalemark is Westmark to IoC's Prydain). Also, personality-wise, I saw Ogo as more similar to Flury from YotG which...did not do much to endear him to me, though the idea that he's meant to be more in the Mitt mold is fascinating. There's also the mildly bizarre plot point that, IIRC, the heir to a throne gets left behind in a foreign country and...somehow no one recognizes him? And I was disappointed that the Queen who's hinted to be evil...turns to be, yep, 100% evil and filicidal, instead of being well-intentioned but ridiculously bad at magic. Or Beck's enchantment, which eventually gets better, but her face-off with the Red Witch goes nowhere, more or less?/ Most of all though, the romantic resolution fell flat for me, even considering it was a DWJ climax (Aileen, you are thirteen! Possibly the Ivar thing might have taught you that making major life decisions so soon might not be the best idea?).
All that aside, though, I really did like it! And I am more grateful than I can say that Earwig and the Witch isn't the last DWJ book.

[skygiants]

YES I AGREE 100% WITH ALL OF THIS. But, yeah, it's interesting for me as a Dalemark comparison because it feels sort of like the flip side of Dalemark in a lot of ways -- like, it's rooted in a kind of very interactive and personal national mythology (Magicians of Caprona does this a bit too, but that's the only other one I can think of) and it has the linked but divided cultures, and the despised kid who turns out to be the destined leader, and politics and princes and kingdom-uniting destinies. But Dalemark is so enormously real and harsh and complicated, and Islands of Chaldea is so ... over-the-top and candy-colored, a bit? It's painted in very broad strokes whereas Dalemark is fine lines and layers all over. The Westmark/Prydain comparison is definitely on the mark; Westmark and Dalemark have always felt to me like they were talking a lot to each other anyway.

I don't think Ogo is all that much like Mitt, exactly, but -- there's a bit in Reflections, if you've read it, where she talks about how characters in different books will often be two halves of the same person in her head. The example she gave is Erskine and Thomas Lynn, who personality-wise are really not alike at all, but they do have the same physical silhouette, and the more you look at them with that knowledge the more you can start to see a bit of the parallels -- Erskine and Awful are even kind of an echo of Tom and Polly, and ... that's a whole weird conversation for another time. BUT ANYWAY that's how I started thinking of Ogo, once I realized she was using all the same gangly too-long adjectives for him that she used for Mitt -- not necessarily much like Mitt exactly, but a different side maybe of some original Mitt-character in DWJ's head.

....though now that you mention it I can totally see the Flury thing too. I mean, the lecturing Aileen about her self-esteem rubbed me the wrong way anyway, but. (As a sidenote, I wish I understood more of why Aileen has such bad self-esteem. We don't seem to actually see it until it's plot-relevant. DWJ writes characters struggling with self-esteem issues all the time and very successfully, but something about Aileen's felt a little perfunctory to me somehow. Maybe that's just me?)

I also was SO DISAPPOINTED that the queen thing wasn't more complicated. And that Beck didn't get more to do.