I think it was then that it dawned on me that Mum wasn't going to notice Chris was missing. She has been made so that she thinks Chris is just round the corner all the time. She doesn't realise that she never sees him. I don't know why I didn't understand earlier. If Aunt Maria can turn Chris into a wolf, she's surely strong enough to do this to Mum- except that it seems a different kind of thing, much more natural and ordinary, and I didn't really think she could do both kinds.Old Aunt Maria's sweet victim voice is a whistle only a kicked dog can hear. Mig, her brother Chris and their mother Betty were free in London until the wheedling voice found them. Pack up for a "working holiday" in Cranbury-on-Sea. You'll never see the sea. It must have been littered with s.o.s bottles. Honey, do take care of this one for them. Well, the mom answered the phone and that was that. It's selfish to live the only life you will ever have. I know how this goes. I didn't buy all of the stuff about how Aunt Maria is so sweet. She sounded exactly like the passive aggressive assholerly of my elderly relatives. The younger ones are fond of volunteering me to babysit for others. Don't have kids? You can't be doing anything important like the important people. I have to put up with the disappointment in my "selfishness" when I don't drop my plans. It feels like not being one of them. It's better than the alternative. You don't become more of a person if you play their part. They hate Aunt Maria and they didn't have to be there. What made this so real is that Betty wanted Mig to be eternally understanding, keep the cold war under lid. Look at the old woman. I know she is faking it, she didn't need those walking sticks because there she is running, but come on take this burden from me so I don't have to sacrifice or feel guilty. Chris she sent out of the house as much as possible. Mig is the girl and won't she be the dutiful little lady. The Queen is a big spider weaving her sticky familial duty strings. She's an ant with worker slaves, a bee's sting. If they were there could only be one queen. There is a contender in the thirteen females in her posse. I don't know why Aunt Maria needed her power. She has the same conversations, eats the same food. Someone to wait on her hand and kiss her feet. What made this so eerie is the drones-in-waiting quality. Children don't live with families. They are mind clones in superfluous camouflage. Waiting in orphanages to take their place for what is the point anyway. Why are people more important if they have kids, anyway? The kids will grow up and then their point is to have more of them. The men of Cranbury-on-Sea are zombies. An ambitious player in Aunt Maria's circle is the creepy Elaine. Her husband is one of these zombies. She didn't bite his head off when he's done but she may as well have done. I say why would someone go looking for this kind of relationship in the first place. If you are married to an Elaine you asked for it. She's one of those women who don't like other females. They aren't assured of their pheromones working the zombie magic, I guess. Black Maria is the best when the sinister expectations are real world dead air from the you're doomed seas. Goblin woods, underground alive. It doesn't have to be that way. Aunt Maria does have a power. There's an garden of eve apple in a Pandora's box reason for her hold on Cranbury. Hunter and gatherer history. The women have the power for now. I didn't like the book as much in the end as the beginning. It annoyed me that one woman would keep other people down and that it could be a man to restore the balance. I know that there are people who are willing sheep. I have known men who choose women who will do absolutely all of the life necessities for them, only to drool over the airhead at work who will "make them feel like a man". So gross. But every single person is like this unless one person is going to fix everything with magic? I wanted Betty and Chris to stop railing at Mig for not being preternaturally heroic, figure out things they didn't figure out themselves. She's a real girl and why isn't that enough for people. Black Maria was so good when Aunt Maria seems to have an inexplicable power over their mother. When it feels like Betty will be an ally, they'll go home. It's such real life shittiness when that happens. She know life is the miserable unreasonableness sneaking on you like hidden ways down. It is, but I liked it best when it's not accepting it in the end. Jones got it right when she hugs to herself an almost seeing the light. It feels truer that you know this and it feels so bad in spite of that "understanding". I hope Mig doesn't grow up to do things she doesn't want to do because she feels she will be a bad person if she doesn't. I loved the orphans who always sneak each other cookies when one of them is punished. That gave me something that the women on one side and men on the other was wrong here. Brains turned and hearts churned off Aunt Maria's web, maybe. I'm not sure either about the men who would one moment accuse Mig on behalf of all women that they manipulate men with these people burdens only to be comfortable in figment rules. The could beam well practiced getting away with it smiles. I guess you can make a case for this happening (it could if you looked for it without meaning it is true for everyone). I just didn't like it that it's so conscious. Everybody seems to know it is going down when it is going down. Getting away with what? It seems just like feeling bad when you're being you. It was neat when a buried alive character astral projects himself as he sees himself. A court jester parrot. It's a weird mix of special with some nagging reasoning. It would be great if I could go inside books I read and then argue with them about what I can't deal. Not that I would think it would work in life.
Well, the cover is slightly misleading in a bibbity-bobbity way.I initially thought of just letting that be my review, but that wouldn't really help someone who hasn't read this book with this cover. If you have, then you know it's rather like seeing a poster for The Secret of NIMH 2: Timmy to the Rescue used as the cover of Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. I prefer the demented version of the titular character from the German version, but I digress.Mig, her brother Chris, and their mum are politely forced to visit a relative with whom they associate lethal boredom for the Easter holiday. There, they find that Aunt Maria is not only a vicious old hag, but powerful and just plain bloody evil.If you have ever lived or been forced to "visit" in an environment like the one Mig and her family have to deal with, then this book will hit you right in the feels. I was cursing the second Aunt Maria's politeness began. Also, one of my berserk buttons crops up more than once: when a character refuses to call someone by their desired name. Mig, not Naomi. And Chris is short for Christian, not Christopher! You are supposed to see it as annoying, but I always get a little bit of gibbering rage when it comes up because of all the Romance heroes (including YA) who smugly call the heroine whatever they want. Ugh. I hate that so much.Eheh. TL;DR.The book is written in a pseudo-epistolary fashion. Mig keeps a journal with a lock on it. This means that sometimes the book is in past tense, and sometimes it's in present. I hate present tense usually, but I didn't bother myself about it here, since there's an actual reason. Mig has that kind of mild, upfront, bald likeability that I like to think of as Diana Wynne Jones's default voice.In fact, some of the other characters have common traits with other DWJ characters. The mother reminded me of Howard's mother from Archer's Goon. This is not bad, it just goes to show how many of DWJ's books I have read...The beginning can be a bit of a slog, with all the angry-making, and I didn't feel like it was really resolved at the end. I really came to hate Aunt Maria. The magic is also remarkably under-defined, and is explained too late in the book to allow for much impact other than to explain things that went on a bit too long.
What do You think about Black Maria (2000)?
I was totally with this book right up until the very end, which I thought wrapped things up too quickly and too neatly. And although to be completely fair, it does fit with the general conceit of the book being was written by a girl who loves stories with happy endings, it did pull me out of the story very abruptly. Also, the book does present some pretty interesting thoughts on gender relations, and the inherently problematic nature of differentiating between sexes, but they are never really further expanded upon and explored.But Dianna Wynne Jones is a cleverer writer than most, so it was still an enjoyable read, and her rich characters carry the plot along admirably. Aunt Maria in particular is a brilliant and unsettlingly realistic villain. A spiritual ancestor of sorts to thrillingly terrifying antagonists like Dolores Umbridge (arguably the best baddie in the Harry Potter series) and Ursula (from Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane).
—Rick
Everyone has one -- an older relative who disapproves of you unless you do what she wishes, and isn't nearly as nice as she pretends to be.But "Black Maria" turns out to be even worse than your average annoying relative, in this engaging, humourous and chilling fantasy novel. Diana Wynne-Jones spins a fantastical story of witchcraft and revenge, all centering on the elderly lady who sweetly lords it over Cranbury-on-Sea.After her father is apparently killed in a car accident, Mig and her family go to stay with Aunt Maria, mainly because her mother feels guilty. Aunt Maria is very prim and very sweet, and makes a point of guilting people into doing what she wants. Life revolves around Aunt Maria's tea parties, and the men and children act like automatons.Mig and her brother Chris hate it there, despite the sad ghost who appears in Chris's room. But they start to suspect that magic may be at work, and that Aunt Maria may be at the center of it. When Chris annoys her, she transforms him into a wolf. Now Mig must uncover a magical plot that stretches back over the decades -- and is the key to dethroning Aunt Maria.It's hard enough to deal with such elderly, sickly-sweet relatives if they are normal. Imagine if they are cold-hearted witches, who turn their own daughters into wolves. And if Diana Wynne-Jones was trying to make people feel lucky for not having an Aunt Maria, then she succeeds beautifully.Jones paints a chilling picture of Cranbury -- sort of a "Stepford Wives" situation, except it's Stepford Husbands and Kids, all slaves to the stifling sweetness of Aunt Maria. The one weak spot is the ending -- it's not a terribly bad ending, but it is kind of weak, especially compared to the quiet menace of the past several chapters.Mig is a likable character, although her rebellious brother Chris comes across as the more engaging of the main characters, and readers might want to kick her meek, submissive mother. Aunt Maria is the most frighteningly real, from her outdated opinions to her pushy sweetness; she's horrified at girls wearing pants, eating fish'n'chips for dinner, and favors boys over girls. Even worse, she genuinely believes that she is a wonderful person.Take the most irritating old lady imaginable... and give her evil magic powers. That's the chilling picture painted in "Black Maria," which will make readers intensely grateful that they aren't Chris and Mig.
—Ea Solinas
I read this book and it was called "Aunt Maria," not sure why there was a title change (to appeal to a wider audience?).Diana Wynne Jones is my favorite fantasy author, but this is one of the rare times where I don't particularly like her book. This is probably my least favorite DWJ book that I’ve read, which makes me kind of sad. The back cover makes it sound so much more exciting than it actually was. It was a good book, don’t get me wrong, but it wasn’t great.The whole male/female magic thing was just…blarg. It was all, “No, men and women are the same, really! It’s when they’re treated as different that things go wrong! See, look, we shut away all the men’s virtue in this box because that’s not manly! And all the women dress like they’re from the Victorian era because patriarchy rant rant!” First, that’s just a bad way to make that argument. Second, it really just overshadows the entire book. Third, what do the characters even learn from this, anyway? Nothing! Everything remains the same. If you want to make the point this obvious, then at least show some change.I love Jones’ descriptions. They’re so very unique and effective and so distinctly hers. I mean, you can tell you’re reading a DWJ book when you see those descriptions.I wonder if Jones made up these two words: “poopling/pooples,” as in “she had a poopling sort of voice,” and “gooped,” as in “Mum and I sort of gooped at one another.” Strange words, those. I laughed hysterically at “gooped,” though.Read a more detailed review at http://leafsreviews.wordpress.com/201...
—Elizabeth
