Armadillo’s Book Blog

After having raced through umpteen of her novels, we placed Diana Wynne Jones in that category. Sure, The Magicians of Caprona was kind of stupid.... But if you locked us in a library, with a short deadline in which to emerge with a book we were willing to read, it might very well be one by Diana Wynne Jones.

On the other hand, many of the characters do resemble other Jones characters we've met in her other stories. For one thing, every young woman of child-bearing age is at the very least utterly self-involved and uncaring about her children.

Another theme is the unfortunate tendency of those who lack knowledge in science and healing to assume that those, especially women, who master those arts, are witches (evil).

Despite its sympathetic portrayal of Media, in this account, as in the original, Medea's overwhelming love of Jason very badly clouds her judgment and causes her to act murderously.

In Galileo's case, it seems to me, many of those who reviewed his writings understood that Galileo was correct. And yet, what was required was Obedience rather than Truth.

I enjoyed reading this book very much, for many reasons. One is because at first I was very confused about how Persia, Prince Orasmyn, and all the other things had to do with Beauty and The Beast at all, but it ended up making perfect sense, with the same happy ending and everything. I also thought that it was very cool how the Beast used lots of real Persian words in the story.

I found this book slow going at the beginning, but even if you start to think it is a boring book, I recommend that you keep on reading -- it ends up being a very wonderful book.

Notes to parents:

• There is a description of lions mating and some other content that Fizzy thought some might find "inappropriate" for some young readers.
• Napoli's take on the Frog Prince from the prince's perspective is similar to Beast in that it helps the reader empathize with the prince in his froggy embodiment. However, The Prince of the Pond, Otherwise Known as De Fawg Pin although quite sophisticated in theme, is probably appropriate for younger readers than Beast.

Dillard's reflections on the differences between her fascination with the French and Indian War versus her obsession with reading about World War II (one was history, the other was an open wound), about the good that Andrew Carnegie did for the people of Pittsburgh and the good that he could have done if he'd made different choices, about her father's aborted trip down the Mississippi, and, especially, about Dillard's growing awareness as she grew up that Pittsburgh high society was not the box she wanted to be in -- made me grateful to have read this book.

Book review: Part 1

Spoiler alert

That being said, I highly recommend all the books in the trilogy and I am glad that my daughter and I read them together.

Book review: Part 2

My 11 year old really loved these books. But they are a bit of a departure for her -- there's real murder and mayhem in them, which, until recently, she would not have tolerated.

• Feisty Kitty is one of the commoners who are mistreated by the ruling elites and the demons they employ and are devastated by the economy and grief that result from the incessant wars the elites wage on foreign shores. She realizes that she must do something. But how much can one person do and can she live with the devastating consequences of her actions on her friends and colleagues?
• Bartimaeus the sardonic djinni, who stands back and makes sarcastic comments about the other characters and the plot, even when he's right in the middle of it all, and
• Nathaniel (John Mandrake) the gifted but annoying magician who has been co-opted by an Evil government because of his great intellectual abilities. Most of the time, the djinni has to obey the boy's commands, and a lot of the humor/sarcasm comes in when the djinni explains to the reader how morally compromised the boy is becoming. (And, to his credit, the djinni doesn't hesitate to tell the boy either, not that the boy listens most of the time.)

In Ptolemy's Gate, Bartimaeus also develops a touching relationship with Kitty and an awareness of kinship with the commoners whom most djinn scorn if they consider them at all. So much for cooperation between oppressed masses.

Book review: Part 3

There are times when even a near omnipotent djinni knows to keep his mouth shut, and this was one of them. ... Trouble was, neither of them was in a mood to listen to my doubts. ... Pride has a part to play in it, and other emotions too. Neither wishes to fail; each redoubles their efforts to impress. Things get done -- but not always the right things, or not always the things expected. .. Farqual's phrase rang uneasily in my mind: He would welcome your attack and feed off it. And, call me pessimistic, but that struck me as a mite ominous. But it was too late to worry about that now.

I interrupt her and ask, gently as I can, "So what is the author telling us here?" My daughter pauses reluctantly. It's been an exciting, interesting, scary story so far, a story that persuasively argues that war can harm the invading country as well as the country that was invaded, that slavery compromises the humanity of the slave-owner as well as the slave, that torture is likewise devastating to both the torturer and the victim, and that a country in which the ruling classes blithely assume that what is in their interest is also in the interest of commoners who have no say is a country heading for destructive violence.

Book review: Part 4