Aunt Maria, Diana Wynne Jones

Witches are bitches. So we know, for an American audience, witches aren’t really ever on the good side. They are either trying to steal children’s souls out of vanity or are trying to bring forth the devil. Hallelujah, praise Jesus that he may smite this witch.

But let’s go across the Atlantic to where it started, Britain, which is the location in the novel Aunt Maria. Where as we know from Harry Potter not all witches are bad and not all of them are good. Across the Atlantic witches have a longer history and although in old renditions are depicted as evil, because it is a woman with power. They tend to land in a gray area. So does Aunt Maria, Dianna Wynne Jones plays with the idea of the basis of the witches, the fight for power between the sexes. That is the whole theme of the book is that balance of power and how when the balance is tipped to one side bad things start to happen. And things only become balanced when Mig and Chris finally communicate. Now in the story the power is to the women with this manipulative selfish queen bee, Aunt Maria. Things in the town aren’t quite right, the men seem like zombies and the women are stuck under Aunt Maria’s thumb, some enjoy how she uses her power but mostly they fear it. This is interesting since as we have seen in history when someone is tyrannical a minority becomes quit and those in the tyrants favor live meekly under them. They hope not to upset them. Amazingly Diana Wynne Jones puts this historical knowledge into a young adult novel and makes it understandable. She doesn’t make you feel as though she is patronizing you. This is due to the character Mig retelling the story.

Diana Wynne Jones puts forth that there needs to be a balance between genders and that putting restrictive rolls upon a gender is unfair. Hence why Aunt Maria fears Anthony Greene he simply wants to share the power with everyone. It’s socialism versus fascism. Aunt Maria wants a society like a dollhouse where she controls everything, women do women like things, men do men like things. Both Mig and Chris hate this because they become restricted in who they actually are. Mig is not just a girl, she is a writer. Chris isn’t just a boy, he is a mathematician. But Aunt Maria sees in a gender specific view, you have certain roles as a girl and certain roles as a boy that’s it. Anthony Green in some ways, he doesn’t acknowledge Mig at first till her mother forces her way in, does not see just through your gender, he see through your attributes. This is what can destroy people with to much power; once you see you can stretch out of their restrictions you can think for yourself. This is what Mig learns, she learns she can stretch beyond what is restricted and help Chris, this also happens to Chris. That is how they learn they can save the town, it is also what Anthony Greene also learns. Because he learns to trust them. This at the end of the novel brings the balance of power.

Now I know I just threw up a slew of ideas, but I’m not sure how to neatly tie it up. Dianna Wynne Jones even in her tiniest of novels seems to always have a way of packing a punch.

Kraken, China Mieville

The new weird, the new crossover of fantasy and horror, something that has actually been around for a while; you just have to think of X-Files and you get the picture. Kraken is part of that weird; it has some very horrific moments with the notable Goss and Subby. And some very fantastical with the use of knacks (powers) used by the characters, that require certain habits in order for them to be used, thank you Collingswood. It is a book immersed in its location, London, and feels as though this could be real. This is due to the main character, Billy, and how Mieville writes him and the people surrounding him. Often times, and Mieville plays with this, you got your average Joe a person with nothing special that in the story actually has some sort of special juice. But that’s just it, Billy doesn’t really have anything special about him other than that he knows a lot about mollusks. That’s what makes the story feel real, is that you do have an everyday character who gets thrown into something horrible, due to a series of misunderstandings. But because of these misunderstandings and what people believe of Billy, he actually becomes quite powerful in that, because he understands that to destroy his enemy he has to destroy belief. Belief is what made Billy special, even if it was a misunderstanding, like Brian in The Life of Brian. Belief is what makes a person powerful or special. That’s something that really impressed me with Mieville, is that I didn’t feel distant from the character or out of touch. We all can achieve something like that. Parents I think can attest to this oddity in someone believing you are so powerful and special. That what was impossible is possible because it’s for them, it is for yourself.

Mieville took the typical character that goes from zero to hero and he made him one of us. He made him something humanly achievable in a magical and real world. That is what I think the new weird and novels like Kraken are all about, the combination of genres tends to pull out more about humanity and how life really is. Life isn’t just fantastical, scary, strange, serious, plain, and adventurous. It’s a combination of these things, life is weird and strange and can have moments where you get pulled into a hail of a storm because a giant squid disappears and you’re know your shit about mollusks, and everyone once a piece of what you got.

A Wild Sheep Chase

I really enjoyed reading A Wild Sheep Chase by Haurki Murakami. I found the slow pacing a good way to build up the tension and curiosity at the end of the book. Murakami is really good at building a story with what would seem daily life events with a bit of the weird. He is I would say eastern in that sense, using the day to day to build up a very slow build to the climax that really isn’t as epic as most western literature. But he is western in a sense with his characters. His main character is relatable and we get to get inside his head, he is kind like an everyday Joe. His characters have something and I can’t really put my finger on it that makes them feel American. They aren’t really uptight there isn’t a feel of reservation. I’m not really sure but his characters, I guess they just don’t feel Japanese. 

Now there were some points in the reading and this is just an opinion where I at times got confused with some of the dialogue. I felt that at times his characters didn’t have a distinctive voice. It wasn’t bad it was good dialogue it just if you held up a piece of the dialogue I probably wouldn’t be able to tell you who was talking. But in my head I compare everyone’s dialogue to Elmore Leonard, which isn’t fair really. But I would say that was my only technical hang up. I get pretty picky when it comes to dialogue. I really did like the overall pacing of the book, I think some people would find it slow and not really getting to the point. But I don’t think he was looking for an all encompassing point or answer. I think the whole point is to enjoy the mystery; it really makes you think. I think it is also one of those books you just have to reread. There are points in the book where I didn’t catch a clue or a string that lead to an answer, not all the dots got connected. I really look forward to rereading this book again, its like a cold case file. You always find something new.