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liriThe Pinhoe Egg
Weirdly, I remembered far less of this book than I remembered of some of the older ones that I read much longer ago. All I really recalled was the plane full of objects declaring they belonged to Chrestomanci Castle.
I think I mentioned that I'd heard criticism of DWJ's tendency toward evil matriarchs, which has never bothered me, because my family has one of those and so not only does it not strike me as unusual for little old ladies to be absolutely horrible, it's actually kind of reassuring to realize that there are other people in the world who may have had the same experience. It's also kind of interesting how many of her books have the villains - female or not - espousing a kind of non-political conservatism. It's most noticeable in Aunt Maria, where both the men and the women enforce strict sex roles, but it's there in Pinhoe Egg, too. (The villages in these two books are so alike that you really can't escape the conclusion DWJ just HATED small, insular towns.) In Aunt Maria the only way for things to work is to completely change the existing order, while in Pinhoe Egg, the change is more gradual, and you just have to live with the people who won't change. At the end, Marianne's mother is visiting the castle despite it pissing off her husband, and her response is to sort of shrug: "There you go, that's Dad." This is more or less the way my own mother deals with my father, so it hit home in a way that it clearly didn't a couple of years ago.
I do remember noticing - and seeing it over again this time - that the Chrestomanci books are kind of refreshing because the parental/authority figures are good people to turn to in a crisis. That mostly goes for Chrestomanci and Millie, but it's there when Marianne is trying desperately to convince the adults in her family that Gammer is up to no good. This time, it's Marianne's insistence that keeps Cat from involving Chrestomanci right away - I think at one point he notes that Chrestomanci could fix the whole business by waving his hand. Not quite, in the end, but that's partly because it had escalated by that point.
I was a little bummed that apparently Rosalie is still "Miss Rosalie." I would have liked things between her and Mordecai to work out. But maybe they all just call her that out of habit and the two are happily married.
Another thing I noticed this time: The various fairy-like creatures were locked away because of the influence of a new, violent religion that frowned on magic. It sounds like the same kind of thing Marion Zimmer Bradley wrote about (to my shame, I read Mists of Avalon many years ago) with the Eeeevil Christians suppressing the good, pure and true magical practitioners - until Millie says that the religious people were conquered, possibly by the Romans. Do what now? The Romans? This suggests that in the Chrestomanci world, either Christianity was spread very differently (and reached Great Britain before the Romans did; pretty sure that's not how it worked in real history) or the violent religion was something else entirely... Druids? It's a really interesting note, since we get so little other info about that world's history. America is known as Atlantis there, Hitler apparently did not accomplish much (Chrestomanci has to get more info on him in Witch Week), the royal family's course has been a bit different since they have a king... that's about it, really.
Also noteworthy: I found Dragons and Dreams, the anthology featuring "Carol Oneir's Hundredth Dream," and its setting immediately became clear: The summer between Charmed Life and Pinhoe Egg, shortly after Magicians of Caprona, since Tonino appears. Written in 1986, twenty years before Pinhoe Egg. (And two years before Lives of Christopher Chant, which confirms what I wondered about; the Oneir pun dictated Christopher's classmate's name.) Now I sort of feel like I should read Magicians of Caprona, since I'm hovering around that point in the timeline anyway, but I just found Conrad's Fate... or rather, the husband did, but it's in my custody again.
I've also been gardening like a crazy person lately. If my calla lilies actually live this year instead of mysteriously rotting away from the ground up, I should have things looking pretty good by next year. (I guess this is the upside to the "something is always producing pollen" element of California - my garden can be a multi-year production because the plants don't die off unless I stop watering them, and sometimes not even then.) I'm trying to get the flower beds in front of the house, which we've neglected for years, looking decent, which involves planting more of the things that are still holding on from the previous owners' garden, and coming up with other stuff to fill in the gaps. The previous owners had callas, daisies, and fountain grass. They had some periwinkles and possibly a rose bush, too (I've found the corpse of something thorny, anyway) but the periwinkles gave up the ghost this past winter. I added zinnia and nasturtium seeds, and I've planted snapdragons and marigolds in the meantime. My flower-gardening strategy is basically to pick things at random, throw them all at the wall and see what sticks. If I end up with big holes in the garden, I'm going to try out ferns, or see if there's fountain grass available by that time. I've also found a couple of plants (coleus and gold dust plant) for a shady corner I couldn't get anything to grow in, woo.
As for veggies, I have four types of tomatoes, red bell peppers, and eggplant, but the seedlings are still so small I can't really tell which is which, so they aren't going into the ground until I'm sure. This is apparently what I do to be productive instead of writing, which is unfortunate for my untouched plotbunnies, but should make for tasty salads at some point.
Weirdly, I remembered far less of this book than I remembered of some of the older ones that I read much longer ago. All I really recalled was the plane full of objects declaring they belonged to Chrestomanci Castle.
I think I mentioned that I'd heard criticism of DWJ's tendency toward evil matriarchs, which has never bothered me, because my family has one of those and so not only does it not strike me as unusual for little old ladies to be absolutely horrible, it's actually kind of reassuring to realize that there are other people in the world who may have had the same experience. It's also kind of interesting how many of her books have the villains - female or not - espousing a kind of non-political conservatism. It's most noticeable in Aunt Maria, where both the men and the women enforce strict sex roles, but it's there in Pinhoe Egg, too. (The villages in these two books are so alike that you really can't escape the conclusion DWJ just HATED small, insular towns.) In Aunt Maria the only way for things to work is to completely change the existing order, while in Pinhoe Egg, the change is more gradual, and you just have to live with the people who won't change. At the end, Marianne's mother is visiting the castle despite it pissing off her husband, and her response is to sort of shrug: "There you go, that's Dad." This is more or less the way my own mother deals with my father, so it hit home in a way that it clearly didn't a couple of years ago.
I do remember noticing - and seeing it over again this time - that the Chrestomanci books are kind of refreshing because the parental/authority figures are good people to turn to in a crisis. That mostly goes for Chrestomanci and Millie, but it's there when Marianne is trying desperately to convince the adults in her family that Gammer is up to no good. This time, it's Marianne's insistence that keeps Cat from involving Chrestomanci right away - I think at one point he notes that Chrestomanci could fix the whole business by waving his hand. Not quite, in the end, but that's partly because it had escalated by that point.
I was a little bummed that apparently Rosalie is still "Miss Rosalie." I would have liked things between her and Mordecai to work out. But maybe they all just call her that out of habit and the two are happily married.
Another thing I noticed this time: The various fairy-like creatures were locked away because of the influence of a new, violent religion that frowned on magic. It sounds like the same kind of thing Marion Zimmer Bradley wrote about (to my shame, I read Mists of Avalon many years ago) with the Eeeevil Christians suppressing the good, pure and true magical practitioners - until Millie says that the religious people were conquered, possibly by the Romans. Do what now? The Romans? This suggests that in the Chrestomanci world, either Christianity was spread very differently (and reached Great Britain before the Romans did; pretty sure that's not how it worked in real history) or the violent religion was something else entirely... Druids? It's a really interesting note, since we get so little other info about that world's history. America is known as Atlantis there, Hitler apparently did not accomplish much (Chrestomanci has to get more info on him in Witch Week), the royal family's course has been a bit different since they have a king... that's about it, really.
Also noteworthy: I found Dragons and Dreams, the anthology featuring "Carol Oneir's Hundredth Dream," and its setting immediately became clear: The summer between Charmed Life and Pinhoe Egg, shortly after Magicians of Caprona, since Tonino appears. Written in 1986, twenty years before Pinhoe Egg. (And two years before Lives of Christopher Chant, which confirms what I wondered about; the Oneir pun dictated Christopher's classmate's name.) Now I sort of feel like I should read Magicians of Caprona, since I'm hovering around that point in the timeline anyway, but I just found Conrad's Fate... or rather, the husband did, but it's in my custody again.
I've also been gardening like a crazy person lately. If my calla lilies actually live this year instead of mysteriously rotting away from the ground up, I should have things looking pretty good by next year. (I guess this is the upside to the "something is always producing pollen" element of California - my garden can be a multi-year production because the plants don't die off unless I stop watering them, and sometimes not even then.) I'm trying to get the flower beds in front of the house, which we've neglected for years, looking decent, which involves planting more of the things that are still holding on from the previous owners' garden, and coming up with other stuff to fill in the gaps. The previous owners had callas, daisies, and fountain grass. They had some periwinkles and possibly a rose bush, too (I've found the corpse of something thorny, anyway) but the periwinkles gave up the ghost this past winter. I added zinnia and nasturtium seeds, and I've planted snapdragons and marigolds in the meantime. My flower-gardening strategy is basically to pick things at random, throw them all at the wall and see what sticks. If I end up with big holes in the garden, I'm going to try out ferns, or see if there's fountain grass available by that time. I've also found a couple of plants (coleus and gold dust plant) for a shady corner I couldn't get anything to grow in, woo.
As for veggies, I have four types of tomatoes, red bell peppers, and eggplant, but the seedlings are still so small I can't really tell which is which, so they aren't going into the ground until I'm sure. This is apparently what I do to be productive instead of writing, which is unfortunate for my untouched plotbunnies, but should make for tasty salads at some point.