Lost in Dalemark

Diana Wynne Jones: The Dalemark Quartet: Cart and Cwidder, Drowned Ammet, The Spellcoats, The Crown of Dalemark
 

Well, wow. These four books deserve a full post, not just a little book review. I started the first book in this quartet a few months ago, then slowly spread out the enjoyment of reading the other three until I finally finished Crown a few nights ago. When I browse reviews of the quartet, many readers say that they read these when they were young and now have come back to re-read and appreciate them. I missed all of DWJ’s books when I was young (although Crown was written in the 1990s, and I certainly wasn’t young then). As mentioned in a prior post ("It Came on to Pour with Rain"), I missed out on her magic way back when, but now I get to immerse myself in it with childish delight. 

I really didn’t think the fourth book could tie up the loose ends from the first three—but it does, and with effortless ease. As with each novel, the story, the characters, the style—all are quintessential DWJ. It’s no wonder that this novel won the 1995 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature. After closing Crown, I experienced a Tolkien-esque yearning: I didn’t want the series to end, I wanted to read all of the books again, I wanted to hear what happened to everyone and their descendents. This is because DWJ’s world-building is so thorough, so richly conceptualized that she makes you want to live with the characters, be their best friends, share meals with them, groom their horses, gossip with them. I just long for the world of Dalemark to be real, and to be able to flit back and forth between time periods, or to work in the Library at Hannart maintaining everyone’s family tree and history.

Part of this whole-world envelopment is illustrated in DWJ’s use of character names. Particles of names—Tan, Noreth, Amil, Moril, Mitt—mix together throughout generations or are spelled slightly differently from generation to generation. The characters wonder about the meanings, but the reader does, too, and the realizations of what names mean are clues to the plot and ultimate ending. DWJ’s use of gods’ names, also, is so vivid and mythological that the reader will be surprised, by the end of the series, to remember that they do not exist. (Or do they? :) )

There are a lot of characters, especially in Crown. I think I counted ten-plus main characters in several scenes. Many writers/readers nowadays caution not to use more than three or four main characters—but DWJ gets away with it. Sure, you have to work a bit to remember them all, but you’ll find that you want to remember them, so you’ll invest the time to concentrate. This many characters, and the convoluted, layered plot, can be difficult for adults to read, but as DWJ has stated many times, her books written for children are actually more complicated than her books written for adults because children understand them better:

“Children are used to making an effort to understand. They are asked for this effort every hour of every school day, and though they may not make the effort willingly, they at least expect it. In addition, nearly everyone between the ages of nine and fifteen is amazingly good at solving puzzles and following complicated plots . . .  I can make my plots for them as complex as I please, and yet I know I never have to explain them more than once (or twice at the very most).” (Reflections on the Magic of Writing, p.34)

Finally, I want to say that the ending of Crown was just plain lovely. Some of DWJ’s endings are bittersweet, but this one is quite satisfying. She just keeps on squeezing her plots and surprising her readers. Wouldn’t it be fabulous to have her imagination and her ability to view lives differently, to always present an unexpected jolt that makes the reader sit up and exclaim, “Flaming Ammet! I didn’t see that coming!”

DWJ, wherever you are, thanks for another wild experience. And lucky me, I’ve still got lots of your books yet to read.