The Dalemark Quartet by Diana Wynne Jones

 

I was delighted,  when I was in a bookshop yesterday, to see a new UK paperback edition of this great work - with the first two volumes out now and  the other two due to follow in Jan '17. Although it has continually been reprinted since it was written (its four parts originally dating from 1975, 1977, 1979 and 1993) this latest  reincarnation will make accessible to a new generation of children, and hopefully teachers too, one of the recent past's very finest examples of children's fantasy. And this is a wonderful thing. As I am trying to re-emphasise on this blog, many examples of children's fiction from the later half of the twentieth century still have a great deal to offer. They are often somewhat different in feel from today's fantasies, whilst still providing wholly engaging reads. They can potentially extend and enrich that range of reading for contemporary children most valuably . It is not only Dickens et al who are our deserved 'classics'. 

The four books which make up what is now known as the Dalemark Quartet are connected in a number of ways (not least, and fairly obviously, by their setting in the fantasy 'Dalemark') but they are not really a sequence as such. Apart from  the last, each could stand fairly independently, although greater understanding and enjoyment does come from fitting together their component pieces.

Again apart from the last, they are fairly early works of this wonderful author, and in many ways not completely typical. They are however no less great for that. In fact they are amongst my personal favourites of her books. They are rather more 'serious' fantasy than many of her later books, which are much quirkier and often more overtly humorous, even satirical. And I love them all the more for that.

Cart and Cwydder was the first written and is a rather lyrical fantasy, full of the mysterious power of music, and quite, quite magical.

The second, Drowned Ammet, overlaps the first and has characters in common, but is largely a separate story with different protagonists   It is perhaps more powerful and exciting than the first, but also stranger.

The third to be written, The Spellcoats, not just a prequel to the others, but in fact takes place a long time before them, in Dalemark's 'prehistory '. It is a an even stranger and more mystical tale, which puts me in mind in some ways of Le Guin's fantasies . Quite breathtaking in both concept and writing, it is easily my favourite of the four. Well worth not only reading but repeated re-reading. True literature for children..

The final book The Crown of Dalemark was published almost twenty years after the others. It has a more modern feel, and not only because it is partially set in a 'contemporary' Dalemark. It is a multi-layered, multi action story, with rather more of what was to become a Wynne Jones  feel. It is also something more akin to 'epic' children's fantasy. It is actually my least favourite of the four, but still well worth reading not least because it draws together the other stories and their characters, bringing everything to a climactic and thrilling conclusion. 

The work as a whole is essential reading for anyone instersted in the development of children's fantasy; it is a landmark work. It also remains a truly great read for children of any age and time. 

 

The Snow Spider by Jenny Nimmo

 

I do not always agreee with Waterstones' choice for their Children's Book of the Month, however this November it is a real joy to see Jenny Nimmo's modern fantasy classic being promoted in this way, marking the 30th anniversary of its original publication. 

In the 1960s Alan Garner developed a style of British children's fantasy that was very much rooted in particular landscape and drew richly on its deep heritage of myth and legend. Often its  characters and worlds, experienced just below the surface of our reality, were used both as a canvas for external 'adventure' and as a metaphor for some young protagonist's inner journey.

This tradition continued to be exploited and developed by some quite exceptional children's writers over the next twenty or thirty years. Jenny Nimmo was one such when she opened what was to become known as her Magician Trilogy with The Snow Spider in 1986. It is a close 'relative' of Susan Cooper's equally wonderful The Dark is Rising sequence. The Snow Spider is a powerful evocation of Welsh landscape and of its potent heritage of story. It is also a beautiful tale of a boy coming to terms with very real  loss, and ultimately with his own integrity and worth. It has rich, warm characters, beautifully drawn, and is altogether truly enchanting. 

Whilst, perhaps, in a sense gentler than much  of today's children's fantasy fiction, it captures a potency of magic that exists in many ancient places and indeed in the very souls of children themselves. Protagonist Gwyn explores what it means to be a magician long before HP does, and in very different ways. It was a firm favourite of my own children in the late 80s,  enhanced, as it was, by an excellent TV adaptation that was around at the time. As a book, it remains both hugely accessible and deeply relevant.  It would be a fine thing to see more of today's young readers discovering it. 

The sequels in the trilogy, Emlyn's Moon and The Chestnut Soldier, become rather darker, and are also well worth exploring by any children (or like-minded adults) who have not yet done so. They will make a refreshing and rewarding change from contemporary fare.  This is a somewhat different side of Jenny Nimmo from the entertaining romps of  Charlie Bone, and not to be overlooked. 

Fintan's Tower by Catherine Fisher

 

The wonderful Catherine Fisher has been writing high quality children's/YA fantasy for twenty five years or so and some of her early works fully merit the status of modern classic.

Fintan's Tower, first published in 1991, is one of her earliest. Rereading confirms that it is still a must read for fantasy enthusiasts, and a strong recommendation for today's children.

Like her other early work*, Fintan's Tower is very much in the post-Garner tradition; in fact in the early nineties Catherine Fisher essentially revived for a new generation of readers the style of location-rooted, myth-based fantasy which Alan Garner had pioneered twenty five years earlier. This novel draws strongly on Catherine Fisher's own Welsh home and heritage and sees a young boy, Jamie, and his sister Jennie, follow the clues in a magic book which indicate that Jamie has been chosen for a special destiny. They accompany strange and seemingly magical companions through a portal into the mythical 'Summer Country' to rescue an imprisoned youth from the titular tower. The mythology is broadly Arthurian and Grail but with a strong Welsh bias, the emphasis being on early versions from such sources as the Mabinogion where the Grail is a magical cauldron. None the of this is particularly original, and in fact it is not originality which is the strength of this early Cathetine Fisher.

Although sharing much of the mythological base, this book is considerably darker and more brooding in atmosphere than the derring do of Lloyd Alexander's much earlier Chronicles of Prydian, and, in Alan Garner terms, it is more cousin to Elidor than to the more 'children's adventure' feel of The Wierdstone or Moon of Gomrath. However it is the quality of language here that is exceptional, as are the power and structure of the storytelling. In fact this is very short book, almost a novella, but it is is no way thin. Rather it is richness concisely expressed. Moreover, by its end, the story does more than just draw on myth but has morphed into a myth in its own right, engendering universal resonance on many levels. It is this more than anything which makes Fintan's Tower an absolute classic of its genre.

Throughout the nineties Catherine Fisher continued to explore and develop this genre, experimenting with a variety of sources and settings. In 1997 her Belin's Hill, for example, intimately blends a contemporary boy's own fire trauma with the story of a witch burning, with the much older mythologies of a putative Camelot and with the malevolent presence of an ancient god. It is a truly ground-breaking book and has the particular courage to end very disturbingly. By early this century, her landmark Corbenic had fully developed her storytelling to a stage where the mythology is simultaneously an adventure and a metaphor, a working through of the protagonist's own issues. In this she has helped prepare the way for a whole host of 'psychological' fantasies which have followed. All of these books are well worth the trouble of seeking out. In a world where much young adult reading revolves around vampires, werewolves, fallen angels and the like, it would be good to see more young people also accessing this strand of fantasy which instead tunes the imagination into the rich vein of archetypal celtic mythologies.

Also around the turn of the century, Catherine Fisher wrote her quartet The Book of the Crow. This was the first of her fantasies to feature a largely invented world as opposed to drawing on existing mythologies. This is also well worth tracking down, and led, perhaps, more directly to the fine works of fantasy for slightly older readers which have dominated her writing in the present century.**

 

 

* The Conjuror's Game (1990) and The Candle Man (1994) come into the same category, and also remain well worth reading. In 2004 these three short novels were published together in one volume and retitled The Glass Tower: three doors to the other world.

**Some of which I hope to write up very soon on my other blog Magic Fiction Since Potter

 

Posted with Blogsy