I read Charmed Life

This week's novel is Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones.  This was on a recommendation list for books about magic schools, and Howl's Moving Castle, another of Jones' books is one of my favorites, so I thought I should check this out.

Cat's older sister Gwendolen is a talented witch, so when their parents die and they're eventually whisked off to live with Chrestomanci, the rich and talented wizard, she thinks she'll finally get the attention, respect, and power she deserves.  Cat is just homesick.  But when Chrestomanci refuses to let Gwendolyn use magic, and she sets out on a series of daily magical pranks to get attention, things get even more difficult for Cat, who's put in the middle of trying to appease his sister and trying to fit into his new home.

I really liked the first half or so of this book, because Gwendolen's siege against Chrestomanci, trying to get a rise out of him, felt real to the kind of crap a kid would pull who has just lost her parents, and then been displaced from her home.  It felt like she just needed some attention, even if that attention was punishment.  If she gets in trouble, at least the adults in charge are noticing her.

I also liked how Cat is the devoted underachiever, and that he loves his sister even if she's being a pill.  I liked how his life was structured so that "Gwendolyn is going to do great things, and I'm not" is a fact that's never questioned or resented.  That felt real too.  It also felt real that he struggles so hard with standing up to her, and that he wished she'd calm down so he could make friends with the other kids at Chrestomanci's castle.  He just wanted to play in the tree house, but his sister needs him to help her make giant spider monsters so she can disrupt Chrestomanci's dinner party.

So I'm pretty disappointed that the ending ruins all of that.  I was expecting Gwendolen to have a sobbing breakdown where she admits she only wants love and misses her parents and is trying so hard to be the great witch everyone back home expects from her and it's difficult do deal with the realization that she was a big fish in a little pond.  I was expecting Cat to realize he had his own power, and to move out from under Gwendolyn's shadow, and for Gwendolen to realize that she'd been overbearing.  That would have been a more emotionally satisfying book for me.

That is not what happens.  In fact, what happens has to be summed up at the end in true Jones style with Chrestomanci explaining everything while everyone has tea.

I did like the hints at the mystery that are strung along through the book.  They were enough for the reader to know there were things afoot, but not enough for me to piece it all together myself.  It was also reasonable that Cat, after hearing these clues, wouldn't have his interest piqued by them and investigate them to their conclusion. Jones does this all very well.

As a warning, this was written in the seventies, and there are a couple moments of weird racism just dropped in for no reason.  All the instances are so brief that if the lines were cut, the story wouldn't lose anything but racism, but it was the seventies, so no editor cared.  It's really more jarring than anything else.

Next week: The Muse of Nightmares, the sequel to Strange the Dreamer, by Lani Taylor.