Eight Days of Diana Wynne Jones

""Why have we got six soppy men in a green haze hanging about?""Tolkien and Disney, coffee and cotton, children and chattel, colonialism and capitalism, satire and sitcoms and sentimentality and as many jokes as can possibly fit in a three hundred page book. NB: This episode touches on prisoner abuse and sexual assualt. Transcript available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1edDFMD9LbdsdrgTIflJCwfynukFnrTw5/viewThis brings us to the end of our nineties season, but we're planning couple bonus episodes over the next few months, so please stay tuned, and send any questions for our Q&A to [email protected]! 

I thought of Uncle Ted's wobbly windows, and I began to think he must really, truly never look through them or anything else. Can't anyone look out there and see that you need not to think of everything in terms of what works or what they ought to do?Game dev and narrative expert Ariella Bouskila joins us for a discussion of bad colleagues, sick empires, beautiful boys, katabasis ducks, and the magic that can be found all around us if you have the eyes to see but can perhaps especially be found at a 1990s science fiction convention. NB: As much as we would like not to, this one inevitably contains some conversation about Neil Gaiman. Transcript available here, and we'll be wrapping up our season in two weeks with Dark Lord of Derkholm!

Mitt at last came out with the real cause of his disappointment with the North. "They told me it was free here," he said. "They told me it was good."North and South, history-time and story-time, past kings and future kings, bicycle horses and evil-haunted trains and a really truly impressive array of bad dads all meet on Dalemark's green roads in the book it took Diana Wynne Jones fifteen years to write.Transcript available here, and we'll be back in two weeks with Deep Secret!

This wood is like human memory. It does not need to take events in their correct order. Do you wish to go to an earlier time and start from there? It's a portal fantasy! It's a space opera! It's an office comedy! It's an epic romance! It's an exploration of parenthood! It's a metaphor for authorship and creative control! It's King Arthur! It's Siegfried! It's ten books in a trenchcoat playing 4D chess with each other, and we could probably talk about it for another four hours and still have more to say.Transcript available here, and we'll be back in two weeks with Crown of Dalemark! 

The restraints of knowledge harmed this wild power. In order to use it, Zillah could not know what it was. It would only answer a being as untrammeled as itself.Time for elves, centaurs, demons, gods, witches, monks, princes, soulbonds, spaceships, sex, death, and an ever-present toddler, in undoubtedly the wildest book of Diana Wynne Jones' career to date.Transcript available here, and we'll be back in two weeks with Hexwood!

What's the good of being civilized? That's what I want to know. It just means other people can break the rules and you can't.  The gender dictatorship, the horror of conformity, the limits of word power, and how to stop your mother-in-law from living rent free in your brain.Transcript available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1gnTKOU9XOofGvXZR4CdpBVJI-qYp5UqO/view?usp=sharingAnd we'll be back in two weeks with A Sudden Wild Magic! 

‘That djinn has taken liberties with a person's castle,’ Sophie said. 'Unless I'm entirely turned around, this used to be our bathroom.'Richard Burton's Arabian Nights and Edward Said's Orientalism, fairy tale and retail, big dreams, big crimes, and Diana Wynne Jones' empire of the imagination.Transcript available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1s-yK-BV-i6hpFtn-kpxpMUCdZe3Gr3Nf/view?usp=sharingAnd we'll be back in two weeks with Black Maria! (or Aunt Maria, depending on your location)

Nobody should be losing lives at this rate. What is wrong, Christopher?In our first episode of Season Three, the brilliant Iona Datt Sharma joins us for a discussion of bureaucracy, cricket boys, Burton and Kipling, and the limitations of escape into fantasy, Transcript available here, and we'll be back next time with Castle in the Air! 

The first time round most of the catching-up you do is retrospective. The second time round you see it happening.In our final S2 bonus episode, we do a terrible job of not looking ahead to Hexwood as we work our way through a wonderful pile of letters to discuss class, adulthood, lying DWJ fathers, the many (more) layers of Fire and Hemlock, and the real meaning of "The Master." Transcript available here. This episode wraps up our second season, but we plan to be back in November with Lives of Christopher Chant and a guest! 

"She has tremendous talent, of course, or she couldn’t do it at all, but I do sometimes feel that she—well—she repeats herself. Put it like this: I think maybe Carol doesn't give herself a chance to be herself any more than she gives us."  Endless questions, out-of-control characters, silly adults and weird bad dads: this week we're discussing the playground of ideas that makes up DWJ's short fiction of the seventies and eighties. Titles discussed include  "Carruthers" (1972), "Auntie Bea's Day Out" (1978), "The Fluffy Pink Toadstool" (1979), "The Sage of Theare" (1982), "Warlock at the Wheel" (1984), "Dragon Reserve, Home Eight" (1984), "No One" (1984), "The Plague of Peacocks" (1984), "Carol Oneir's Hundredth Dream" (1986), "Enna Hittims" (1987), "The Fat Wizard" (1987), "The Green Stone," (1988), and "The Master" (1989). Transcript available here.Please note: we've postponed recording our Q&A episode for the eighties until September 25th, so if you understand what's happening in 'The Master,' please write in and tell us!

The thing we must notice is frequently identified by what is not described or told or explained.In our first Season Two bonus episode, Farah Mendlesohn -- who literally wrote the book on Diana Wynne Jones -- joins us to bring a critic and historian's eye to the first two decades of DWJ's career. Transcript available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pUoTY4vf69pSgYCj-nTVKA7DCE_gePEF/viewIn our next bonus episode, we'll be covering the short stories of the seventies and eighties as collected in Unexpected Magic and Mixed Magics, including:Unexpected Magic: "Carruthers" (1972), "Auntie Bea's Day Out" (1978), "The Fluffy Pink Toadstool" (1979), "Dragon Reserve, Home Eight" (1984), "No One" (1984), "The Plague of Peacocks" (1984), "Enna Hittims" (1987), "The Fat Wizard" (1987), "The Green Stone," (1988), and "The Master" (1989)Mixed Magics: "The Sage of Theare" (1982), "Warlock at the Wheel," (1984), and "Carol Oneir's Hundredth Dream" (1986)And on September 17th we record our Q&A episode for the eighties, so please send us any thoughts before then!

Twenty Century refugee equipment. Case is open to show clothing and protective mask. A tale of one or two cities, three or four Vivians, four to fourteen badly translated old women, and at least two hundred thousand dollars' worth of butter-pie.Transcript available here.  This is the last official episode of our eighties season, but once again we have a few bonus episodes up our sleeve -- we'll be recording a Q&A episode September 17th, so if you have thoughts or questions for us on the 80s please send them in before then!

Her mind was such a blank that for a second, it actually seemed to her that Howl had no faults at all. How stupid! The fantastic Freya Marske joins us for a discussion of John Donne, fairy tales, unmusical Welshmen, and Diana Wynne Jones' first truly romantic novel.Transcript available here, and we'll be back next time to close out our season with A Tale of Time City!

She realized he had sat down on purpose near the door, and she knew, perhaps without quite understanding it, that if she ran away, it would mean he had to go back into the funeral again. She was his excuse for coming out of it, so she stayed.A man who wants to craft himself a Janet, a girl who wants to make herself a hero, and the full three hours we spend working through the powerful fictions and terrible truths that result.[NB: themes of grooming and child abuse are woven pretty inextricably through our conversation this episode. Also, it is Three Hours Long.] Transcript available here, and we'll be back next week for Howl's Moving Castle with another incredible guest! 

I hate Mum, I hate Dad, I hate Howard and the Goon.Big brothers and bigger brothers, good words and bad infrastructure, the power of being a megalomaniac evil wizard, and the power of having parents that you actually trust.Transcript available here. We'll be back in two weeks with a double-length episode for Fire and Hemlock!

"He was fairly sure it made you wicked too, to be kissed by a witch."The horrors of the British boarding school, the things you learn about yourself in the men's locker room, and what the Chrestomanci series is really about (it's Chrestomanci.) Transcript available here, and we'll be back in two weeks with Archer's Goon! 

"There are no rules, only principles and natural laws."   This week we're joined by the brilliant Adrian Tchaikovsky to discuss heroes and NPCs, gods and demons and sacrificial victory, and the worst fate that can befall anyone: endless nonconsensual cricket.Transcript available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rq7yK8p_adhlQzjyvK3087hiQAV8NqLw/view?usp=sharingWe'll be back in two weeks with Witch Week!

"People write stories pretending you can alter the past, but it can't be done. All you can do to the past is remember it wrong or interpret it differently."The horrors of the past, the traps of the future, and being cursed, with sisters.[NB: this is another one that deals more directly with abuse and suicidality in several forms]For more on Time of the Ghost, check out Em's Reactor article on Making the Metaphor Literal: Fantastic Reality in The Time of the Ghost by Diana Wynne Jones. Transcript available here. We'll be back in two weeks with The Homeward Bounders, and a guest!

"Tonino wondered how he could laugh like that at something so horrible until he remembered that he had stood himself a score of times and laughed himself sick at just the same thing." Two households both alike in comedy, in fair Caprona where we lay our first episode for Eight Days of Diana Wynne Jones, Season Two: the Eighties.Transcript available here, and we'll be back in two weeks with Time of the Ghost! 

And as I fixed upon the down-turned face That pointed scrutiny with which we challenge The first-met stranger in the waning dusk I caught the sudden look of some dead master...Dalemark conspiracy theories, double selves, and conversations with the past: a look back at DWJ in the seventies. Transcript available here. We're going on hiatus for a few months as we record the next season, but expect to be returning around May of 2025, where we'll be picking up again with Magicians of Caprona! 

"The story is largely self explanatory, but certain obscurities in the text have been amended to avoid confusing the reader." The power of the land, the return of the king, and the magic of finding meaning in a text.  Transcript available here. Spellcoats was the last book of the season, so no reading for next week, but next week we'll be recording a look back at the seventies as a whole -- if you have questions or topics you'd like us to discuss, feel free to send them to us at [email protected]. Thanks again for listening along with us!

"Mitt was not sure he knew what a free soul was – it never occurred to him that his mother had no idea either – but he thought it was a splendid thing to be."Revolution, righteous anger, gods and prophecy and the most common name in Holand.  Transcript available here. Next week we'll be finishing out our first season with Spellcoats!

"God bless her dear little sugar-coated shining soul." The English class system, American science fiction, and the Problem of Gwendolen. [please again pardon our audio this week as we dealt with travel and microphone issues]Transcript available here, and week we'll be doing Drowned Ammet!

"'But why should a few people suffer a lot,' he said, 'so that a lot of people shouldn't suffer at all?'"Thwarted tragedy, the useful myth of Christianity, and sad teen trios that transcend racism. Transcript available here, and next week we'll be doing Charmed Life!

"I sing for Osfameron, I move in more than one world."  The power of art, the divided self, and Walemark.Transcript available here. Next week will be a mid-season break, but we'll be back in two weeks with Power of Three! 

"Soon only Sirius was scratching and tearing at the dark, and he only kept on because he had a dim notion that anything was better than cold nothingness." Politics, parenting, sex and death. [NB: We had a special very small guest on this one, so if you hear the occasional kick or wail against the infinite difficulty of being alive, just remember: it's thematic!]Transcript available here. Next week we will be discussing Cart and Cwidder!

'He could only think of one solution: "Should have been me to hit you, I suppose. I will if you like."'  Revenge, violence, and several attempted murders [yakety sax]. (tw: it's a DWJ but this one has more than the usual amount of discussion of child abuse)Transcript available here. Next week we will be discussing Dogsbody! Also, there were some technical issues resulting in somewhat messy audio for both this one and the next one, we beg your patience on these early episodes.

"Wouldn't you say it was worth it to be really happy for a while, even if you knew you were going to end up sad ever after?Loki, Brunhilde, and the archetypal Diana Wynne Jones Cricket Boy. (Transcript available here.)

Eight episodes on the first nine children's books of Diana Wynne Jones, coming soon to an RSS feed near you.