A Tale of Time City, by Diana Wynne Jones (1987)Vivien Smith was being evacuated from London in WW II when her trip to the country turned out to be much more than she bargained for--she ended up kidnapped by two boys from the future, and whisked off to Time City. There, far from the familiarities of home, she finds herself in a pickle of twisted time, and Jonathan and Sam, would-be-heroes, find they have the wrong Vivien Smith. She's just an ordinary girl, not the powerful twister of time they had hoped to capture.
Vivien can readily accept that the twentieth century was unstable, time-wise; but it's a bit harder to grasp that Time City itself, with its elaborate edifices and artifacts accumulated over the centuries, is about to collapse. To try to keep that from happening, Vivien, the two boys, and a helpful android set off to whisk through the ages, searching for the lost artifacts that will stabilize Time City, and, in a temporally rippling way, all of the past...but someone is to be working against them, and none of their plans are working out....
Oh dear. This is my least favorite Diana Wynne Jones; I had hoped, this second time through it, that I would fall for it, but it was not to be. There is just too much detail. Too much Happening. To many things, and people, and little bits of plot that never coalesce to make magic happen. And time travel-wise, it's a bit of an amusement park ride, rather than a finely wrought immersive experience. I never quite grasped the whole Point of Time City's existence, or why people traipsed around through time...and so, time travel-wise, it didn't engage me, and by the time the Exciting Final Showdown happened, I wasn't all that sure I cared.
Yet. If you like lots of detail, if you don't mind not having a clue for much of the time, if you can appreciate great inventiveness, you might like this one....especially, judging by Stella Matutina's review, if you are a child....I was a grown-up when I read this for the first time, and am still a grown-up, so I never got to read it with the (cliche alert) bright wonder of the child mind. There are bits that almost sing, but.
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Ha, I think this may be my least favorite DWJ book too, or at least among my bottom three. I started rereading it earlier this month and didn't finish. I feel like it and I are at an impasse, where I'm never going to love it any more. :/
ReplyDeleteI went through a period where I read all of DWJ obsessively, whether I understood/liked them or not. This one - not. I admit I like her plain (if one could ever call DWJ plain) fantasies best. Year of the Griffin is my absolute favorite.
ReplyDeletePoor little book. I wish it actually were as awesome as it seemed when I was a kid.
ReplyDeleteLovely cover, but I couldn't agree more. This, and Archer's Goon, are my least favourite DWJ's. And there you go. Sometimes even Jove nods.
ReplyDeleteThis one IS a bit muddy, plotwise. It had some good moments, though.
ReplyDeleteI went through and read ALL of DWJ's books at once, so maybe that's why I didn't find it as nice... or maybe it really didn't make sense.
Maybe if it hadn't had so many butter pies in it I would have enjoyed it more--they made me feel sick to my stomach.
ReplyDeleteOh dear. I like this one and thoroughly enjoyed the butter pies!
ReplyDeleteIf only they had been called "buttercream pies...." It's just that "butter" doesn't sound so good...and I don't want to drink butter beer either! :)
ReplyDeleteI've never been impressed with her books. I think Diana Wynne Jones has some pretty nifty ideas, but overall, they fall flat with storytelling that tends to cram way too much in. Characters and plot-lines drift in an out for a less-than-engaging read. Sometimes, I feel that I'm going to drown, flailing, in whimsy. I think she needs to stop falling so in love with ideas, and start writing focused, coherent stories that survive on their own merit and not on the tyrannical will cleverness.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that sort of feeling happens to me in quite a number of her books--which is why I generally enjoy them more the second or third time around!
ReplyDeleteOf course, not all of them are equally tangled. Dark Lord of Derkhelm and Year of the Griffin, its sequel, for instance, are fun and straightforward.
Now see, I can't get through Dark Lord of Derkholm because I can't keep the characters straight. Don't you love different opinions?
ReplyDeleteEven my own dear husband has rejected all the DWJ I've tried to get him to read....
ReplyDeleteAnd refuses to try any more :(
Yet we are still married....
(But he is a huge fan of Mervyn Peake,and I am Not. Are you, mb, by any chance, a fan of Mervyn Peake?)
No, not really. I read him when I was younger, but not my favorite. I know the feeling, my husband just loves Philip Pullman, whom I can take or leave.
ReplyDeleteI love DWJ and I keep trying to read Dark Lord. I don't know why I always get so confused by it. I just think it's really interesting to read opinions of DWJ fans, because they vary so much on which ones are the favorites. I love Aunt Maria, some people hate it. I love Deep Secret but wasn't that crazy about the Merlin Conspiracy. Other fans are the complete opposite. I love Fire and Hemlock and don't even think the ending is that confusing. I think it's a tribute to DWJ that she appeals to people in so many different ways.
Was a fun book, but a bit confusing, really. I recall enjoying it, but ... perhaps it'd make more sense, having lived in the UK for 3 years now. When I read it, we were living in the US; I think I must have missed quite a bit.
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