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shewhomustThe Spellcoats, as I was saying, is something else again. Where the first two books work as a diptych, taking place simultaneously, enlarging and reflecting each other, this unlikely sequel goes back to the distant past of Dalemark, to a time before the cities, before the division between north and south, before the land had its familiar shape. Only the 'Final Note' makes explicit that the events took place in Dalemark: you could read the book without knowing that, and enjoy the shock of recognition at the revelation.
It's an ingenious way of returning to an invented world and writing more about its gods, its magic, its nature, without impinging at all on what has already been said. I find it hard to remember that The Spellcoats was published just two years after Drowned Ammet, just as Drowned Ammet was published two years after Cart and Cwidder: it has the feeling of a return after a much longer interval, a period of both learning and rethinking.
There's a slipperiness about the passage of time between the two narratives. The 'Final Note' describes the spellcoats as "of immense antiquity" (though their colours, presumably natural, non-chemical dyes on wool, are still bright), and there is no certainty that the 'Final Note' is contemporary with the events of Cart and Cwidder and Drowned Ammet: it refers to an 'Earl Keril', but not necessarily the same Earl Keril. From this uncertain vantage point, we look back to a remote past, without knowing how remote it is. The expression "prehistoric Dalemark" is current, but it could mislead. The prehistory of our own world is more remote from us than the time of The Spellcoats, which feels more like an early medieval period (compared to the late medieval / early modern of its predecessors). It is a period from which the coats themselves have survived intact (without magic having to be invoked), and which seems more distant than it is because of the magical transformation of the landscape. Dalemark is a multi-layered fantasy land in both its history and its geography, and some of its richness consists in our inability to reduce either of these to a simple map (and I write here as someone who rather likes the much-mocked fantasy map).
To speak of 'prehistory' is also inappropriate because the word describes the absence of written records, and the book is all about the writing of a record. Tanaqui's weaving is her narrative, each word represented by a figure in the design (some of which, I think, she has learned, some invented, and occasionally she learns a new 'more expressive way' to record something), the text as a whole creating unexpected and meaningful patterns in the finished garment. It's a lovely image of the writer's work, and an ingenious one, as the narrative itself becomes an object within the story (which reminds me, unexpectedly, of the uses Laclos makes of the letters of which Les Liaisons Dangereuses is composed). The first coat tells Tanaqui's story as she sees it up to the point where she completes that coat; the second revises the first, which is now contained within her greater understanding. The completion of the coat allows her to make her bid to free the One, but that climax of the book cannot, by definition, be described within the book: it can only be inferred from the 'Final Note'. This is technically innovative stuff for a children's fantasy.
Tanaqui's voice is coloured by the way it is recorded: it appears clear and simple, full of short sentences and declarations, but the story is in what Tanaqui doesn't say, as well as what she does. It makes me want to write more about Diana Wynne Jones' use of first person narrators (how often does she do it, and why does she choose to do it when she does?) which would mean more re-reading, and isn't going to happen tonight.
Other things I am not writing about tonight, because I am going to bed now: the River; gods, souls, heathens and idols.
I had forgotten how very good The Spellcoats is. Much as I love Drowned Ammet, this feels like a step up to another level. It also feels perfect of itself: it isn't harmed by its insertion in the Dalemark sequence, but it gives more than it gains from the association.
It's an ingenious way of returning to an invented world and writing more about its gods, its magic, its nature, without impinging at all on what has already been said. I find it hard to remember that The Spellcoats was published just two years after Drowned Ammet, just as Drowned Ammet was published two years after Cart and Cwidder: it has the feeling of a return after a much longer interval, a period of both learning and rethinking.
There's a slipperiness about the passage of time between the two narratives. The 'Final Note' describes the spellcoats as "of immense antiquity" (though their colours, presumably natural, non-chemical dyes on wool, are still bright), and there is no certainty that the 'Final Note' is contemporary with the events of Cart and Cwidder and Drowned Ammet: it refers to an 'Earl Keril', but not necessarily the same Earl Keril. From this uncertain vantage point, we look back to a remote past, without knowing how remote it is. The expression "prehistoric Dalemark" is current, but it could mislead. The prehistory of our own world is more remote from us than the time of The Spellcoats, which feels more like an early medieval period (compared to the late medieval / early modern of its predecessors). It is a period from which the coats themselves have survived intact (without magic having to be invoked), and which seems more distant than it is because of the magical transformation of the landscape. Dalemark is a multi-layered fantasy land in both its history and its geography, and some of its richness consists in our inability to reduce either of these to a simple map (and I write here as someone who rather likes the much-mocked fantasy map).
To speak of 'prehistory' is also inappropriate because the word describes the absence of written records, and the book is all about the writing of a record. Tanaqui's weaving is her narrative, each word represented by a figure in the design (some of which, I think, she has learned, some invented, and occasionally she learns a new 'more expressive way' to record something), the text as a whole creating unexpected and meaningful patterns in the finished garment. It's a lovely image of the writer's work, and an ingenious one, as the narrative itself becomes an object within the story (which reminds me, unexpectedly, of the uses Laclos makes of the letters of which Les Liaisons Dangereuses is composed). The first coat tells Tanaqui's story as she sees it up to the point where she completes that coat; the second revises the first, which is now contained within her greater understanding. The completion of the coat allows her to make her bid to free the One, but that climax of the book cannot, by definition, be described within the book: it can only be inferred from the 'Final Note'. This is technically innovative stuff for a children's fantasy.
Tanaqui's voice is coloured by the way it is recorded: it appears clear and simple, full of short sentences and declarations, but the story is in what Tanaqui doesn't say, as well as what she does. It makes me want to write more about Diana Wynne Jones' use of first person narrators (how often does she do it, and why does she choose to do it when she does?) which would mean more re-reading, and isn't going to happen tonight.
Other things I am not writing about tonight, because I am going to bed now: the River; gods, souls, heathens and idols.
I had forgotten how very good The Spellcoats is. Much as I love Drowned Ammet, this feels like a step up to another level. It also feels perfect of itself: it isn't harmed by its insertion in the Dalemark sequence, but it gives more than it gains from the association.
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no subject
Date: 2011-04-28 07:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-28 09:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-28 11:32 am (UTC)I'd be interested to know if that gap is reflected in the years in which they were written, or if The Crown of Dalemark was written in 1978/9 and delayed by contract difficulties. Chris Bell would know, and probably Farah would too...
no subject
Date: 2011-04-29 06:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-29 08:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-29 11:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-01 10:53 am (UTC)