Cart and Cwidder by Diana Wynne Jones

[lightreads]

Cart and Cwidder by Diana Wynne Jones

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


A deceptively simple fantasy about the children of an itinerant singer discovering, after his murder, that they are harboring a political fugitive.

I liked this. It's straightforward and old-fashioned, but with that DWJ way of passing lightly but complexly upon death and power and growing up and living in your own truth. This is one of those books where the magic isn't awoken by feel, it's awoken by thinking very hard and speaking truth to yourself.

And like a lot of DWJ books, it kept me engaged the entire time, even when what I was engaged in doing was vigorously arguing with this book's definition of honor. (For the record, my definition has a lot more self-respect in it, and specifically doesn't include a wife denying her happiness and desires in deference to her husband's political views, which she does not share). Or chewing uncomfortably over a passing reference to coercion that I found exponentially more creepy and awful than the book did. But I liked it for all that, which tells you something.




View all my reviews

Comments

[azara]

I never saw that as the book's definition of honour - I thought it was presented as the (wrongheaded) Dalemark aristocrats' idea of honour.

This is such a cold, cold book! The children have been brought up in the belief that their parents' romantic elopement was the beginning of a happy-go-lucky life as nomadic bards. Then they find out that their father was a ruthless manipulator who coerced their mother into it, while their mother has been lying by omission when she backs him up out of her barren sense of duty. So their father did some really despicable things, while their mother's silence means they never really knew her. It's no wonder they feel like orphans.

It always struck me as a fairly savage look at quite how much damage a "let's stay together for the sake of the children" attitude can do if the children end up being fed a diet of lies.

On top of that is the emphasis on the way that idealistic freedom fighters can hurt so many innocent bystanders, which is also a theme in a couple of the other Dalemark books. So I always found it very uncomfortable reading.

[lightreads]

I never saw that as the book's definition of honour - I thought it was presented as the (wrongheaded) Dalemark aristocrats' idea of honour.

Yes, that's what I thought too. But then the last quarter or so did some work to complicate the north/south dichotomy, and specifically to talk about the virtues of southern culture. Or at least how one could live inside those ways while still being oneself. Which was very necessary, I felt, but also raised some questions in my mind about the intention of a lot of the prior judginess. That, and this definition of honor gets reflected back through multiple iterations. It never seems to go well -- carrying on dad's work when you aren't suited to it but you promised to, for example -- but damn if it isn't what everyone tries, and also what almost everyone people in the book approve as proper. Moril doesn't, though, notably.

Yes, very cold. There's a particular bit at the end where they receive a letter from their mother, who is reportedly a new person now that she's actually happy. And he reads it and thinks distantly that she sounds like a far off relation he doesn't really care about. Ouch. And yet, very fitting. I would not have enjoyed this book nearly so much if his view of his parents wasn't radically altered throughout. Deceptively simple, like I said.