Book Report: Diana Wynne Jones, The Game
Feb. 24th, 2008 07:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustThe Game is a novella, a short book which appeared when I wasn't expecting it (clearly I haven't been paying enough attention), and crept into my Amazon order. It's a quick read and a fun one (well, of course it's fun: it's Diana Wynne Jones). There's an element of the jeu d'esprit about it (as defined here, at any rate), in the way characters from classical mythology are presented: you read the book as you read any story, trying to work out why this character did this, and wondering what will happen next, but at the same time part of your mind is invited to decipher the names and qualities which are clues to the mythical figures behind the perfectly human (if sometimes slightly sketchy) characters - it's a bit like trying to solve a crossword. The Game, in fact, is also a game.
But its subject matter is not games, but stories: "This is the mythosphere. It's made up of all the stories, theories and beliefs, legends, myths and hopes, that are generated here on Earth." It's an entrancing place, though not always a comfortable one, and Hayley and her family can visit it. The adults disagree about whether this is a good thing, but the younger cousins go there repeatedly, playing the Game, a mixture of race and scavenger hunt. There's something of the Immateria of Alan Moore's Promethea (particularly in the way different aspects of the same myth are able to coexist), something of Mary Poppins' evenings off, and something of some of Diana Wynne Jones' own earlier books (I suppose I'm thinking of Dogsbody here): naturally, because it's all about the story.
One superficial remark: I have been very critical about the appearance of some of DWJ's recent books: the squat little volumes, too fat for their height, the garish foil covers, hard on the eye and brittle to the touch. So I'd like to place on the record that The Game is a very pretty little book, well-proportioned with a jacket whose darkness is offset by the metallic colours of the details, and whose meaning gradually emerges as you read the book.
But its subject matter is not games, but stories: "This is the mythosphere. It's made up of all the stories, theories and beliefs, legends, myths and hopes, that are generated here on Earth." It's an entrancing place, though not always a comfortable one, and Hayley and her family can visit it. The adults disagree about whether this is a good thing, but the younger cousins go there repeatedly, playing the Game, a mixture of race and scavenger hunt. There's something of the Immateria of Alan Moore's Promethea (particularly in the way different aspects of the same myth are able to coexist), something of Mary Poppins' evenings off, and something of some of Diana Wynne Jones' own earlier books (I suppose I'm thinking of Dogsbody here): naturally, because it's all about the story.
One superficial remark: I have been very critical about the appearance of some of DWJ's recent books: the squat little volumes, too fat for their height, the garish foil covers, hard on the eye and brittle to the touch. So I'd like to place on the record that The Game is a very pretty little book, well-proportioned with a jacket whose darkness is offset by the metallic colours of the details, and whose meaning gradually emerges as you read the book.
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Date: 2008-02-24 09:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-25 12:25 pm (UTC)I haven't read Mythago Wood.
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Date: 2008-02-24 10:05 pm (UTC)Nine
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Date: 2008-02-25 12:25 pm (UTC)