The Dark Lord Of Derkholm (2003) - Plot & Excerpts
Everyone has one of those silly books that they're incredibly attached to. Something about it just stirs your heart, and even if the language is simple and the concepts basic, you laugh every time and read it again and again. For many people, these books are those like the Harry Potter series; for others, it's The Enchanted Wood. The Dark Lord of Derkholm is mine. And it's not because I read it when I was very young; in fact, I picked it up off a neglected bottom shelf at my small town library when I was 15 because it happened to be next to Howl's Moving Castle, which I was reading in preparation for the animated film. Something about it snagged my attention, and I proceeded to read it twice before I had to return it. I ordered my own weatherbeaten paperback and have read it at least twice a year since.Diana Wynne Jones, who has a knack for bringing a sense of humor to the genre of fantasy, has created a world with charm, wonder, and intrigue. Derk, a homely wizard who creates unique animals (e.g. daylight owls, pigs that fly, and intelligent griffins) finds himself pegged to play the role of the Dark Lord for the Pilgrim Parties, tours that annually come through Derk's world and make a proper mess of everything. Derk and his people are contractually bound to play along, pretending that their fairly well-developed world is a medieval waste living in fear of the Sauron-like Dark Lord, and the Pilgrim Parties each think that their role in their tour is to kill him and liberate the world. However, as Derk scrambles to put his life aside to perform the role, other wizards work behind the scenes to end the Pilgrim Parties forever.We meet dozens of hilarious, colorful characters, such as Derk's family, which is composed of his wife, son, and daughter, and five griffins he has mixed with human cells "to make them people," as one of them explains. Each one behaves just like a peevish human teenager, and Derk's relationship with each of them is heartfelt. By the end of the story, we've nearly forgotten that they're griffins. Jones also presents ordinary domestic stresses to the story, weaving them neatly in with the magic of the world, creating a believable family with believable problems.Oftentimes, fantasy writers are so caught up with creating their worlds and developing the science, characters, and plot, they lose their voices as storytellers and become mere documentarians. Jones skilfully paints her world with so many joyful details, kingdoms, and stories that we are dazzled from the beginning; add her dry, subtle sense of humor, and you have a masterpiece. She masterfully satirizes the fantasy genre while adding an unforgettable piece to it.Derk is, of course, the man around which the entire novel whirls, but Jones easily transports us to and fro across the world to catch up the most important pieces of the story without losing us along the way. Communicating stress in a novel can be a dangerous thing (you don't want your readers to become too stressed themselves to keep reading) but Jones does it playfully, yet strongly enough to induce her audience to pitying our favorite wizard. Derk is just a harassed, unfortunate man, and yet a symbol of strength and steadfastness; just what a father should be. And yet, everything goes wrong. Jones's main point in the story is to remind us how very little we are in control once we give ourselves away. Sometimes, giving up control can be a good thing, like submitting to those we love; however, sometimes it can be so easy to just give in to those who want control, and for the sake of those we love, we cannot stop watching for what is best for our world. The end does not justify the means; collateral damage is necessary, but people's feelings must always be considered.Maybe this novel doesn't change the earth, but it worms its way into your heart, never to be forgotten. With lighthearted love for that world, readers of every age can enjoy The Dark Lord of Derkholm and its manifold virtues. At any rate, it's worlds better than your average R.A. Salvatore novel. All of Diana Wynne Jones's novels satirize fantasy, but this one does it best.The novel has no conclusive ending, but in the mood of the story, we don't miss it. Life goes on. Its sequel, The Year of the Griffin, was published in 2010; I have yet to read it, but be sure I'll get around to it.Because this novel is quite old now, it's available in most book stores, or on the Kindle for $6.64. Or, if you want a printed copy, it's available at Barnes and Noble in paperback for $7.99, which I recommend. Pick up one from your library if you can, but if not, it's worth the purchase. It's pretty bloodless and devoid of serious swearing, so kids can enjoy it. That is, once their parents are done with it.
What an excellent book! This is the fastest-paced DWJ book I've ever read, and several of the revelations at the end truly surprised me without seeming unreasoned. There were many powerful moments, both action- and emotion-based, and some great characters. There's a cast of zillions, but you get the hang of everyone pretty well. And of course, the book is full of Diana Wynne Jones' perfect word choices ("a tuft of flame"), neat critters and spells (Friendly Cows!), and great descriptions of feelings. I love that she's not afraid to make good characters feel jealous of other good characters who are stronger, smarter, etc. They feel jealous, and they feel bad about feeling jealous of someone so nice or helpful - just the way a real person would. I like that good characters can genuinely like, respect, and appreciate each other and still fight and feel envious or annoyed. The jumping not-quite-omniscient point of view, while sometimes frustrating to me, shows this pretty well.The grittiness, too, is staggeringly well-done - I really get the exhaustion of the characters during the long marches. And the plot itself is sheer brilliance.*SPOILERS*Like pretty much all DWJ books, this one has a sudden series of revelations at the end. Because the book is longer than many, this scene of discoveries is both longer and more intricate. Half the characters turn out to be other people, two-thirds of them provide answers to questions or solutions to problems, and everything is tied up in an incredibly complicated package. I'm actually really impressed by some stuff here - the Deucalion revelation and Geoffrey and Sukey's parentage, in particular, seem well set up but I never would have guessed. (I also never saw Barnabas' betrayal coming.) Brilliant.I also think Kit's fake death is one of the most convincing I've ever read. I'm enough of a longtime fantasy reader to know that if you don't see a body, possibly with the head ten feet away, he ain't dead. This one is very well done, though. What's more, Kit's family's grief is so strong that I found my cynicism slipping - it's hard to keep saying, "Well, I know he's alive and will reappear later," when his family is sure (with good reason) that he's dead and they're so sad!That's most of what I have to say, but I will conclude with a brief list of people who got better in the end than I thought they deserved.1. Querida. The crazy crusty magical old bat bespells Mara into leaving her husband, tries to kidnap Callette, and mercilessly dooms Derk to fail in every way. It's only through luck and the intervention of other beings that half of Derk and Mara's family didn't die for real. I think Querida's new job, fixing their world, could be made to sound like just a little bit more of a punishment - after all, it's going to be a lot of work and trouble - but in a sense, they almost make it seem like a reward, what with her extended life and apparent new strength. And personally, if I'd been Mara or Derk (or any of their kids), I'd have thrown a pig at Querida's head. I guess they're just too happy to be back together.2. Geoffrey. I don't actually have problems with Big G; I just don't see much reason to like him other than his making Shona happy. He's bossy and seems sort of too shiny and great. The only indication of his being less than "perfect" is that his feet blister after weeks of marching. What? :P Seriously, he kind of takes the Party over from Blade right away, steals Shona's attention with his dazzling-yet-totally-undeveloped character, and even bums Derk out by insisting on taking care of Shona himself. I didn't want anything actually bad to happen to him, and I'm fine with him staying with Shona; I just would have liked to see him fitting more neatly into her really cool family - maybe being forced to bow to the smarts/judgement/abilities of Blade or Derk.3. Sukey. Again, not hating her, but I don't think she's one of DWJ's stronger examples of the seemed-to-be-annoying-but-really-isn't character, a type she ordinarily does really well.4. Mr. Chesney. I would have thought his punishment was fair, except that Barnabas sets the bar pretty high by having his soul devoured by a demon in front of everybody. Barnabas is a total traitorous douche, yes, but Mr. Chesney could at least have been eaten by something . . .I do really love the endings for Kit and Blade, the demons (Awww?), and Umru. This book is epic, and I was super-impressed. Go DWJ.
What do You think about The Dark Lord Of Derkholm (2003)?
Derk’s world is systematically terrorized by our world for tourism purposes. Derk is chosen to play “the dark lord” which the tourists pay to see killed. Awkwardly, Derk seems rather unpopular, and the tourist manager wants Derk to summon a God. This book caught my attention because I had heard that Diana Wynn Jones had written as a parody of the fantasy genre. The book accomplishes that goal, but it is not perfect. Dark Lord of Derkholm was a fun book, but felt a bit bloated. I really appreciated the focus on multiple characters, but at times, the narrative became a bit confusing. It felt like reading The Two Towers, which was not a pleasant experience for me. I think part of this was to create an aura of chaos—which it did—I just didn’t love it.I appreciated the way Jones’ plays with the age of her protagonists. Although Derk is an adult, the other characters range from ancient to teenager and male and female, making Dark Lord of Derkholm applicable to a wider audience. I think the book would be good for pretty much anyone who enjoys a good fantasy that is willing to poke fun at itself.
—William Gibbs
Just over six years ago I met the person I want to spend my entire life with, in that time I was very quickly made aware of her affection towards the fantasy author Diana Wynne Jones and regularly told to give her a try. Being such a considerate husband I finally relented on the proviso that she choose me one that wasn't for kids, wasn't too massive and was one of her better novels. Apparently the first two choices are already lent to a friend of ours and so I was provided with a well loved copy of this Derkholm book. I quite enjoyed it, not that I'm surprised by this fact, she's a highly awarded and regarded author in the genre by all those in the know, and those that don't know are quite probably the type to gush over something interminably "epic".The Dark Lord of Derkholm is actually just the wizard Derk, prophesied by an oracle to be the chosen one, the wizard who would finally bring the world peace and free it from an evil overlord who holds the world in his vice-like grip via a portal from Earth. Derk is an outcast in the wizard community, a man who prefers to invent interesting new creatures rather than focus on more every day spells such as conjuring feasts and enchantment. Every year a wizard is chosen to be the Dark Lord for a series of tourist parties from Earth arranged by the villainous bean counter Mr Chesney, a position of great importance as you're responsible for keeping the entire planet organised to service the tourists or face death by Chesney's pocket demon. How the hell did she come up with this stuff? Derk has help from his loving family of wizards in training and magical creatures adopted as children, even the genetically altered flying pigs are dragged in to things despite their only real desire in life to nuzzle their father, Derk.The plot is labyrinthine, the characters plentiful, the prose incredibly playful, but it is the interraction between the many members of Derk's family that provide the real pleasure of this novel, they're all interesting and unique creations and they all have their own relationships with each other, factions and favourites etc, but as it's still technically a novel aimed at the teenage market they're all very loving towards each other when all is said and done. The other great skill displayed is that of world building without info dumps, the information is provided in short bursts as it naturally comes up in each chapter, sometimes only obliquely referenced and other times actually experienced by a character, in direct contrast to one of the major issues I have with most other books in the fantasy genre, "epic" books that take six pages to discuss the history of a valley that you'll never come across again in an entire sixteen novel sequence type of thing.I won't be reading more of this stuff I'm sure but I had a great time discovering Diana Wynne Jones all the same.
—Tfitoby
DWJ Book Toast, #12Diana Wynne Jones is one of my favorite fantasy authors, growing up and now, and I was saddened by the news of her death. I can't say I'm overcome with emotion - as personal as some of her work is to me, its not like I knew her after all - but I wish I could put into words how I feel about her no longer being out there, writing new adventures and laughing at all of us serious fans thinking so hard about her words when we should simply get on with the business of enjoying them.And that's...what I'm going to do. She's left behind a huge body of work, a large amount of which I haven't read yet, so I'm going to reread all my old favorites (and hopefully some new). Biographical rambling --> This is where it all began for me -- I read Dark Lord of Derkholm in the fall of 1999,I can place it that well because it was when I started 7th grade at this crazy charter school that had just opened in what had been the Elk's Club.Even at 12 I knew the place shouldn't have been allowed to open, the place was unfit to be a school for the two years I went there. It was a touchy-feely, free expression type place (read: we did what the fuck we wanted with no supervision) and we had 'self-directed learning plans' (a lot of kids went off into the woods at lunch and came back with red eyes...). At some point in November it got too cold to be outside all day, one of my projects was the library.We had no librarian. We had shelves set up in the old coat-room with books crammed willy-nilly on the shelves. A catalog? Index? Ha, right. Before I volunteered anyone could walk in, dig through boxes that no one had bothered to sort through yet, or scan the shelves and take whatever they wanted without signing anything. The system worked in its own way though, especially once I took everything out of the boxes, rounded up books from classrooms and hallways, and discovered that shelves that were overcrowded and too few in August, in February were plenty spacious. How? Magic!While I was sorting things into fiction and non-fiction, subject or author's last name, I came upon this book. Bright and shiny, the school had signed on to the service that taped or covered the books, labeled the spines and stamped the pages for you*, I was captivated by the scene on the cover and brought it home.I never would have brought it back, but I had to share it with my friends and the book swiftly made the rounds.ACTUAL REVIEWISH TALK HERE --> I have read this book at least once a year since '99. Some of her work hasn't aged on me well, some of it is scattered, but Dark Lord of Derkholm is razor sharp and despite having a seemingly sprawling cast it never gets confused and the plot neatly comes together. Predictable though? Never.The whole premise of this book still delights me: a fantasy world exploited for tourism and forced to enact the cliches and tropes of my favorite books and stories? The book is funny and warm, but there are several scenes where a dark realism comes through. War isn't a game, neither are people's lives. That's an important theme of Jones' that isn't as often talked about.Forget Howl, forget Chrestomanci, as enjoyable as those books can be if I were really to rate everything of Jones' on a scale, nothing but this would rate higher than a three. I love-love-love this book.Which is probably why at some point I took the book out again and never returned it.*This might make you assume that the school had been given an inventory, or perhaps a bill, of what they had purchased. But on asking Tom the 'Main Planner' or whatever (principal was too 'heavy') I was given a blank stare. Why would anybody need that? They could just look on the shelves.
—Myles
