I first read this one back in high school, if I remember correctly, but I think I was too stupid to understand it properly. I picked it up again because I have en endless faith in Diana Wynne Jones...and I mostly just wanted to prove to myself that she can write, after the totally yawn-inducing Merlin Conspiracy.I like this a lot better now than I did as a kid. I can keep up with the time jumps better and I'm less emotionally dependent on the characters, which allows me to keep an eye out for their flaws as well.For starters, I can truly appreciate the concept of having an unreliable narrator! This isn't spoilery, she is openly unreliable from the start. She is not only confused about who she is and what her purpose is, but she's also confused about whether she's actually there or where she actually wants to go. When I was a stupid teenager, I never appreciated the beautiful complexity of post-traumatic thinking, but I guess being a ghost really puts life into perspective. Sally is pretty easy-going I guess, but I never really had an open emotional attachment to her alone. I like her other three sisters equally, and ditto the boys (except Julian, but we'll get to him). Each of the characters is well-defined and come complete with their own flaws and strengths, making for very three-dimensional and believable characters.Julian Addiman, however, is a downright snot. This is unusual, because I tend to have a positive experience with Julians in literature in general. I've known two Julians in my lifetime and they're both been absolute darlings. Julian Addiman, however, is a manipulative, self-indulgent ratbag without a positive quality to him. Again, this isn't a spoiler. He is openly manipulative and cruel from the start. While Sally's view is unreliable and we may think we can't trust her, Julian is the one person she doesn't doubt her judgement on. He perpetually yearns to make everything work out in his favour to the cost of all others and is generally the most dislikeable character in the series. That said, it doesn't automatically make him the bad guy.Having finally read into Jones's background a little bit, I finally know how abusive and neglectful her parents were. So it's no surprise that neglect is mentioned a lot in this story. Abusive relatives appear often in her stories, come to think of it. There are parts in this novel where it comes across as nearly autobiographical.At one point, for example, Fenella says that she's going to wear her hair in two knots over her face for as long as it takes her mum to notice, and if it doesn't work she'll try to pretend to be sick (even though her mother says all sicknesses are 'psychological'). In real life, it was Jones's sister who kept her hair in buns to get attention, and Jones suffered from measles and appendicitis without her mother realizing. Once the doctor insisted that she was really ill and she got the appendix out, she kept it in a jar just to spite her mother. This is entirely something Fenella would do.What Jones has done is what Stephen King would call 'writing what you know'. Adding experience and reality to fiction only makes it more believable. So it's no surprise that these four girls are so realistic, when they've been modelled after the experience she and her sisters had growing up.Sally's parents are awful people. When her sister almost chokes to death when a trapeze-act goes wrong, the girls try to alert their parents. Their mom and dad get pissed off at being disturbed! What?! Apparently that's based on a real life occurrence too! What kind of parents are these?Jesus. Someone restore my faith in humanity.Her grammar, as always, is flawless. It's consistently that way and the book, despite being fantasy fiction, comes with 200 pages less fluff than your modern YA fiction book. This, my friends, is what we call good editing. All the unnecessaries are cut in favour of allowing the plot and character development to shine. The only complaint I have is that the concept seemed a little too deep for a kid's book, so Jones seemed torn between writing for kids the way she always does and writing for adults as this book so wanted. Personally, I think this may have been a little better if written with a bit more length and depth and marketed as a book for adults, but I may just be biased because I love this woman and wouldn't mind reading a library of her works. Honestly, this story isn't lacking anything that makes for a great read.The ending is well-thought out and surprising literally down to the last page, so you'll be left with that good-book-with-a-twist-gave-me-whiplash feeling that makes you want to go back and read it all over again just to make sure that you read it right. It's surprising and well-written and beautifully cohesive. More than anything, it's a reminder of why I wanted to join the publishing industry in the first place - to make sure that gems like these reach the mass market. If I can ever ensure that even one writer like Jones reaches publication, I can die happy.Go pick up this book, but Google her biography first. It makes reading this book so, SO much better.
DWJ Book Toast, #16Diana 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). Holy high concept! This is definitely one that I have conflicted feelings about. On one hand I appreciate what Jones is doing here, but I also see (and remember from personal experience) that it might be too complex for a younger reader. And I hate saying that.Here's the story: A girl is suddenly aware that she is on a country road, she knows she is headed home but on reflection can't remember why, where or what "home" is, or even who she is! She also realizes that she doesn't have a body. Soon she identifies herself with four strange sisters and has uncomfortable feelings about a game they invented called "The Worship of Monigan". The sisters' parents run a boarding house for a Boys' School and the sisters mostly live in mildy shocking conditions of neglect. I say mildly because in the post-Hoarders, kidnapped-and-raised-in-a-cellar world I find it hard to think of what "normal" neglect is. A plan is in place to show their parents how much they're ignored. A plan that has sent one sister away. At first she thinks she is the ghost of the absent sister and must be dead, but that is (eventually) proven wrong when the other sisters and some of the students call Sally up on the phone where she's staying. Jones keeps the identity and the communication of the ghost indistinct for a long time. The ghost herself has a hard time thinking clearly in her state and can't be sure if she is even one of the sisters at all. All the while the sinister force known as Monigen has a plan in action.The slow pace of the plot and the multiple timelines make this a hard book to get into. I remember attempting to read this 13-14(?) years ago, before Dark Lord of Derkholm at any rate, and being put off by it. So much so that even after I went nuts about Jones I didn't pick this up again until a few days ago when I stopped by my old town library.Because within the elaborate framework of the story, you get a feel for how the sisters interact with each other and some of the boys and the girl up the road, and hints at the internal politics of those relationships in childhood and how they transition (if at all) into adulthood, but it just doesn't go past the surface. Of all of Diana Wynne Jones' novels that I've read so far, this one really would have worked only if she had rewritten it for an older audience. Maybe young adult, but I'm thinking adult adult. There is a lot of potential in what is outlined here, but as is it's a mess.Still, I give her points for daring.
What do You think about The Time Of The Ghost (1981)?
Diana Wynne Jones is one of the best, respected, but vastly unknown fantasy authors out there. Despite this trying to find her in a bookshop is like wringing water from a stone. She is overshadowed by all the other fad-of-the-month books, which is such a shame as she’s a good, quality author.I don’t know why. Maybe it is because she hasn’t really written many big series, apart from Chrestomanci and she can never be trusted to write them in chronological order either. Or maybe it’s because there’s no big love interests, or anything that is really ‘big’ about them. The Time of the Ghost is one of her earlier books, written in 1981 for older readers.Something happened, there was an accident – is the only thing the ghost knows when she finds herself bodiless and invisible. She doesn’t know what happened to her, but she has to find out who she is and communicate to one of her sisters what is happening to save one of their lives.Diana Wynne Jones drew a lot of inspiration from her childhood to put in this book. If you want to read a short autobiography then follow this link. Her parents were basically negligent – ignoring their children even for the most basic of things, even food. It is a common feature in most of her books to have a distracted or negligent parents, but in this one it is almost autobiographical. Diana’s parents ran a place for city boys to come during the holidays and in the book the sisters’ parents ran a boys’ boarding school. The Time of the Ghost is a spooky little story, quite short at under 200 pages but with a brilliant story packed in. I loved the characters, they felt like my own sisters by the end. It isn’t a spooky story despite being a ghost story, I would say it is more about sibling relationships even beyond the chasm of life and death. Diana is such a good author, I really did feel as if I was actually there, reading one of her books is like being transported.My one criticism, which is a common one I think for Diana – but never shadows my enjoyment – is that she does tend to leave the details to the end and sometimes this happens all rather too quickly. What I do love about her though is that you can tell that there was a world before the book started and afterwards. It doesn’t feel like it merely exists between the front cover and the back. Her books usually start as if there was something that happened before, and ends at a point when you can still imagine things happening after. That way her stories just continue living forever and ever.Diana writes with a natural ease of a born story-teller and has a magical ability to appeal to all ages. Many people seem to remain loyal fans well past their childhood, most people who I have met that love Diana Wynne Jones being adults themselves.I myself came to her when I was nine years old, when I read Dogsbody. It is still my favourite book today, so many many years on in the future. Unfortunately, due to the general dearth of her books in the local library and bookshops, it wasn’t until much later that I got to read another one and then that one was actually the last in the series. (Another thing with her books is that for the most part you can read them in any order as she never writes direct sequels.)So about five years ago when I was able, I went online and collected up all the books I could find. I still have some of her shorter books to get now – Puss in Boots and others – but for now I still have a good supply of unread books. I’m in no hurry to run out of them either. Unfortunately, Diana is is not very well at the moment so I’m sending all my best wishes her way.
—Fiona
It's quite strange reading this after reading the Reflections collection, knowing how autobiographical this happens to be. And how things that really happened to Diana Wynne Jones had to be toned down to be at all believable in the story. Of course, it still has that expansive, slightly breakneck pace of most of Jones' work -- there's something a little, well, mad about it. Colourful. I don't know how to describe it -- it's a swirl of colours and impressions. A child's imagination.I read this all in one go; the biggest hook is the confused narrator, the way you can't quite get things straight. The plot itself -- I don't know, I wasn't so keen on the whole Monigan thing. (Intentional closeness to Morrigan?) I suppose that's my adult way of demanding explanations, though: as a child I'd probably just have accepted that an evil goddess clung to the land and somehow possessed a doll.(The last bit of this review is a reaction to Diana Wynne Jones' thoughts on the differences between writing for children and writing for adults. Children, she found, make the connections much more readily and instinctively than adults. She had to do more explanation when she wrote for adults.)
—Nikki
Totally fascinating story about a ghost (or is she a ghost?) forced to work out the mystery of her own existence. It kept me guessing, but at the same time it's not really about the answers, at least not factually.The central story is about a family of sisters essentially raising themselves while their neglectful and abusive parents run a school. I have a feeling this might be somewhat autobiographical, but whatever the inspiration, the family is wonderfully idiosyncratic. The girls hate each other and love each other, and have no end of bad ideas. So many bad ideas, in fact, it's almost a miracle they're still alive. No doubt they've saved each others lives a lot. What makes them even more real is that the book then skips some time so that we meet the girls again when they're older. They've developed in surprising ways, but are also the same as they ever were. The supernatural mystery turns out to explain some pretty serious adult problems. Again, this is something DWJ really has a gift for, creating characters who have lost something of themselves and grab at their chance to find it again.
—Sistermagpie
