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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.
no subject
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?
no subject
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).