Trails and Fails

[steepholm]

Tomorrow is The Changeover day!

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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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Comments

[the_rck]

I didn't know that they were making a movie of The Changeover! I reread that book so many times in high school and was so very pleased when I managed to get a copy of my own.

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.

[sovay]

Tomorrow is The Changeover day!

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?

[cyphomandra]

I am very much looking forward to seeing this, especially as they've set it very deliberately in post-quake Christchurch - I'm not living there now, but I've spent 8 years there, including the quakes, and I'm glad they didn't try to write them out or vague up the setting (I've offered The Changeover for the Yuletide fanfic challenge a few years now, but haven't matched for it - I am curious as to what I'd write).

I tracked down DWJ's Changeover as a DWJ-obsessed teen and was massively disappointed by it - haven't ever given it another go.

[poliphilo]

Ooh, Tim Spall being evil. That looks interesting...

[jadelennox]

I have crossed fingers, although they certainly seem to have made it more classic-horror. It is one of my favorite go to rereads.

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?