Diana Wynne Jones, 1934-2011

[starlady]

Ave atque vale. She brought light to a great many people.

Diana Wynne Jones was never my favorite author, which makes me think I've not read the right ones out of her books--of the few (five?) I have read, I liked The Spellcoats and The Crown of Dalemark best, for very different reasons. I've seen appreciations for Dogsbody and Fire and Hemlock today; what's your favorite DWJ novel? 

Comments

[louderandlouder]

I haven't read her in about fifteen years, but I was a huge fan then and suspect it holds up. Dogsbody is indeed singular; I always liked A Tale of Time City, which if nothing else has an incredibly detailed and intriguing time-travel premise which I'd love to see turned into an RPG or some other kind of shared universe. I think the Chrestomanci series is somewhat uneven, but was always my favorite (it says something that I managed to spell "Chrestomanci" right the first time, even after all these years). It might read better in chronological rather than series order.

How's Moving Castle, too, absolutely. I never read the sequels (my school library didn't have them...) but I read the book over and over.

[starlady]

Thanks for the suggestions!

I read HMC after I saw the movie and found that for me the book fell far short in comparison.

[anatsuno]

This is interesting! I read the book first and I felt that the movie was so much more obscure as to the chatacter's motivations... It felt to me like the movie was trying to be several things at once, and though it might have been good in movie terms, for me as an adaptation of the book I had loved it fell short.

But then I often thing that from the mbook or the movie, whichever one gets to know first keeps a sort of forever upper hand, so maybe it's just that.

[starlady]

The book and the movie are really strikingly different in a way that I think most adaptations don't aim for, but Miyazaki didn't mind. What I loved about the movie is how it blended elements of the book with elements of Miyazaki/Ghibli themes, and I think in some ways it's the best of the Ghibli movies--so I really was hoping that the book would be like that, but it was way more its own DWJ thing.