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Trails and Fails
Tomorrow is The Changeover day!
I can't tell you how important Mahy's book was to me when I first came across it in 1991 (seven years after it was published) - but suffice it to say that without what I learned from The Changeover I doubt I'd ever have managed to produce a publishable book of my own. It helped me triangulate my Garner and Cooper obsessions, and find an angle of approach that wasn't just a feeble echo of theirs. Where Garner wrote with fierce spareness, Mahy was linguistically munificent; where Cooper was writing about ancient places, Mahy wrote about shopping malls. And no children's writer before her had brought Wicca-style magic into a modern setting. (If you know of a counter-instance, I'd like to hear about it.) When this book was published, Buffy was only a twinkle in Joss Whedon's teenage eye...
So, I hope the movie does it justice. The trailer seems promising, and having watched some other clips on the same Youtube channel I feel confident that this is, at least, no The Seeker. I only hope it will be released in the UK, as I don't want to have to wait for the DVD.
On the other hand, for James Corden's Peter Rabbit I will happily wait until the second law of thermodynamics has rendered the universe a thin atom gruel.
I can't tell you how important Mahy's book was to me when I first came across it in 1991 (seven years after it was published) - but suffice it to say that without what I learned from The Changeover I doubt I'd ever have managed to produce a publishable book of my own. It helped me triangulate my Garner and Cooper obsessions, and find an angle of approach that wasn't just a feeble echo of theirs. Where Garner wrote with fierce spareness, Mahy was linguistically munificent; where Cooper was writing about ancient places, Mahy wrote about shopping malls. And no children's writer before her had brought Wicca-style magic into a modern setting. (If you know of a counter-instance, I'd like to hear about it.) When this book was published, Buffy was only a twinkle in Joss Whedon's teenage eye...
So, I hope the movie does it justice. The trailer seems promising, and having watched some other clips on the same Youtube channel I feel confident that this is, at least, no The Seeker. I only hope it will be released in the UK, as I don't want to have to wait for the DVD.
On the other hand, for James Corden's Peter Rabbit I will happily wait until the second law of thermodynamics has rendered the universe a thin atom gruel.
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I'll have my fingers crossed both that the movie's good and that it somehow makes its way to a place where I can see it.
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It's a book I really wish I could get my daughter to read, but she's adamant that anything I like must be boring.
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The DWJ title doesn't have a definite article, for what it's worth. And no, it's not fantasy - more a kind of Tom Sharpe style farce.
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My daughter will complain that she has 'nothing to read.' I then point out that we own about four thousand books, and she looks at me and says, "Yes, but they're all boring and terrible." And then I try very hard not to bang my head on something because, of course, I kept all of those books because they were terrible. I only keep terrible books.
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I hadn't even heard this was happening! Oh, wow. Well, I like the casting that I can recognize. Now I wish I knew where my copy of the book was.
And no children's writer before her had brought Wicca-style magic into a modern setting.
What's your definition of Wicca-style magic as opposed to other forms of modern witchcraft?
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Necessarily a little vague, but items from the fuzzy set would include: a) the use of actual Wiccan concepts such as a cone of power, b) the emphasis on magic as being aligned with nature rather than standing outside or in opposition to it, c) the positive moral positioning of witchcraft (with due allowance being made for its potential to go awry). Then there are things that aren't unique to Wicca but prominent in it, such as the maiden-mother-crone triad, the use of Tarot symbolism, etc. And finally the absence of more traditional witch impedimenta (pointy hats, broomsticks and the like).
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I tracked down DWJ's Changeover as a DWJ-obsessed teen and was massively disappointed by it - haven't ever given it another go.
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Yes, I like the fact that they've used the earthquake, even if it's non-canonical. (But earthquakes do feature creatively in Mahy's work, as I've noted elsewhere.)
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I note your wordplay on Styx - there's actually a Styx river in Christchurch, and I used to take my dog to the Styx Mill dog park, without ever (fortunately!) encountering any gloomy ferrymen.
(I am saving the radio interview until I've seen the film myself!)
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One thing I've found teaching it is that students get really upset by Sorry because the text is comfortable framing him as both the protagonist's romantic partner and as super-sketchy in a way that bothers Laura. Meanwhile, they are much less upset by romantic protagonist in a modern paranormal romance, where there is usually far sketchier behavior, and often a much larger age difference, but the text doesn't see the behavior as sketchy. (My classic edge case example is in which ever Twilight book it is where Edward steals Bella's carburetor so she can't go visit another boy.)
So I wonder how that is going to be portrayed in a film. Will he be seen as sketchy? Will the film be an apologist for it?
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"I love to watch you sleep" is one of the creepiest lines in cinema history.