Magic cows, we all need one.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
La Sagrada Familia
Gaudi's phantasmagoric cathedral—forest of stone, rainbow shadow play, primordial life seething beneath rock and mortar, each inch a puzzle, each step another wonder to behold, a lifetime and a half would be insufficient to know intimately its precise lines and contours, and every time the first time.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Monday, April 11, 2011
Salve, Diana.
Let me begin with an ending.
On Saturday the 26th of March, the British fantasist Diana Wynne Jones passed away. I had been reading travelogues about Bristol when I found out, and I burst into tears. I knew she had been ill for quite a while, but I always thought that she would live forever somehow.
I was twelve when I bought The Lives of Christopher Chant. A believer of judging books by covers (and last paragraphs) I had desisted from buying it for several months, absolutely turned off by the muddy browns and 80s aesthetics. But each time I came into the bookshop I would be drawn to the book, and when I finally did come away with it, I bought Charmed Life as well.
I was a huge Harry Potter fan at the time, but halfway through The Lives of Christopher Chant I realized that J.K. Rowling was an amateur and Diana Wynne Jones a vastly underrated genius, slighted by children and publishers all the world over. There was no looking back after I turned that last page, I worshipped at the throne of her greatness from then on.
And I wasn't the only one.
As my collection grew, I would foist her books off on friends and family who were converted to the cult of Diana. Howl's Moving Castle is the only book that all my five siblings and I love and I have debated with friends late into the night about what exactly goes on at the end of Fire & Hemlock. Later, I found out that some of my other favourite writers like Neil Gaiman and Megan Whalen Turner loved Diana Wynne Jones too, enough to dedicate books to her. The lack of mass appreciation for her work made me angry sometimes, but I also felt like I was part of a secret society composed of kindred spirits who Knew A Good Thing When They Saw It.
I have gone through long lengths to read her novels. I borrowed A Sudden Wild Magic from a public library on holiday in Vancouver, though it took me an hour to apply for a visitor pass, and it took three years to find a copy of her first book, Changeover. I have nagged all the local shops to stock her new books long before they were released. I'm probably on Fully Booked's difficult clients list. Abso-bloody-lutely worth the time, effort, and money.
Diana Wynne Jones was an excellent writer mostly because she could turn very ordinary things and situations into objects of wonder and delight and MAGIC—a children's laboratory set (I had several as a child but never one with drac. dens.), a painted doorknob, a thrift store painting. Her characters were never perfect (if they were, there must have been something terribly, terribly wrong). Christopher was rather self-centred, Rupert too proud, and Polly foolishly caught up in teenage feelings and fantasies. A little (or a lot) like me, and I loved them for it.
When I was thirteen or fourteen I wrote to her (spent days illustrating the margins with castles in clouds to mimic an illuminated manuscript) and I was so surprised when she replied. I think I should have that letter framed now. Over the years, I would draft letters in my mind, mostly about the latest books I read but I never sent another by post. I regret it very much. I wish she had known how much I loved Fire & Hemlock (I last read it the night before I turned nineteen on some whimsical notion that it was last time I would be younger than Polly and hopefully as immature) and that I thought she was so clever for teaching me the principles of game theory in Homeward Bounders (whereas I've read the other novels more than three times, I've only read it twice as I cried too much at the end).
Diana Wynne Jones, thank you thank you thank you for the countless hours of joy that I found in your books. Requiescat in pace. I hope you have found your happily ever after.
On Saturday the 26th of March, the British fantasist Diana Wynne Jones passed away. I had been reading travelogues about Bristol when I found out, and I burst into tears. I knew she had been ill for quite a while, but I always thought that she would live forever somehow.
I was twelve when I bought The Lives of Christopher Chant. A believer of judging books by covers (and last paragraphs) I had desisted from buying it for several months, absolutely turned off by the muddy browns and 80s aesthetics. But each time I came into the bookshop I would be drawn to the book, and when I finally did come away with it, I bought Charmed Life as well.
I was a huge Harry Potter fan at the time, but halfway through The Lives of Christopher Chant I realized that J.K. Rowling was an amateur and Diana Wynne Jones a vastly underrated genius, slighted by children and publishers all the world over. There was no looking back after I turned that last page, I worshipped at the throne of her greatness from then on.
And I wasn't the only one.
As my collection grew, I would foist her books off on friends and family who were converted to the cult of Diana. Howl's Moving Castle is the only book that all my five siblings and I love and I have debated with friends late into the night about what exactly goes on at the end of Fire & Hemlock. Later, I found out that some of my other favourite writers like Neil Gaiman and Megan Whalen Turner loved Diana Wynne Jones too, enough to dedicate books to her. The lack of mass appreciation for her work made me angry sometimes, but I also felt like I was part of a secret society composed of kindred spirits who Knew A Good Thing When They Saw It.
I have gone through long lengths to read her novels. I borrowed A Sudden Wild Magic from a public library on holiday in Vancouver, though it took me an hour to apply for a visitor pass, and it took three years to find a copy of her first book, Changeover. I have nagged all the local shops to stock her new books long before they were released. I'm probably on Fully Booked's difficult clients list. Abso-bloody-lutely worth the time, effort, and money.
Diana Wynne Jones was an excellent writer mostly because she could turn very ordinary things and situations into objects of wonder and delight and MAGIC—a children's laboratory set (I had several as a child but never one with drac. dens.), a painted doorknob, a thrift store painting. Her characters were never perfect (if they were, there must have been something terribly, terribly wrong). Christopher was rather self-centred, Rupert too proud, and Polly foolishly caught up in teenage feelings and fantasies. A little (or a lot) like me, and I loved them for it.
When I was thirteen or fourteen I wrote to her (spent days illustrating the margins with castles in clouds to mimic an illuminated manuscript) and I was so surprised when she replied. I think I should have that letter framed now. Over the years, I would draft letters in my mind, mostly about the latest books I read but I never sent another by post. I regret it very much. I wish she had known how much I loved Fire & Hemlock (I last read it the night before I turned nineteen on some whimsical notion that it was last time I would be younger than Polly and hopefully as immature) and that I thought she was so clever for teaching me the principles of game theory in Homeward Bounders (whereas I've read the other novels more than three times, I've only read it twice as I cried too much at the end).
Diana Wynne Jones, thank you thank you thank you for the countless hours of joy that I found in your books. Requiescat in pace. I hope you have found your happily ever after.
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