Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Review: Drowned Ammet by Diana Wynne Jones

Mitt, the protagonist of DROWNED AMMET, is a bitter, misogynistic twat.

He’s also hella sympathetic.

That, right there, is why I love Diana Wynne Jones so very, very much. She continually writes characters who should, by all rights, be impossible to like; and yet, they almost never are. Jones takes us inside their personalities in such a way that we can’t help but see what formed them, and what might help them become better people--provided their darkness doesn’t rise to consume them. They remain frustrating, but it’s the sort of frustration one can revel in.

Mitt is no exception. He’s grown up in Holand, an oppressed city in the far south of Dalemark, and he’s frickin’ angry about everything. He’s mad at the Earl who runs roughshod over his people, he’s mad at the freedom fighters he blames for his father’s death, he’s mad at his mother for being a senseless ninny, he’s mad at his stepfather for being a decent person, and he’s mad at himself for his inability to solve every problem right this second.

So he decides to kill the Earl with a bomb, get himself caught, and tell the inquisitors that the freedom fighters put him up to it. Everybody dies, including Mitt. Whee!

Except the plan goes awry. And that’s when things really get interesting.

In a way, DROWNED AMMET is about choices. It’s about what happens when we don’t have a choice--or when we feel like we don’t--and how other peoples’ choices can drive our lives in directions we probably wouldn’t have gone without their influence. Mitt reaches many turning points throughout the story, and almost all his choices surprise him. He comes to realize he’s not the person he thought he was, on any level. What’s more, he doesn’t much like himself. The choices he faces determine his potential to become somebody he actually might tolerate, if not love.

There’s also a strong magical component which Jones handles with her customary blend of practicality and mysticism. The gods of Dalemark are at once neutral and keenly interested in what’s happening in their land. Their influence, or lack thereof, ties beautifully into the novel’s wider themes of choice, oppression, and governmental responsibility.

The book is gorgeous from start to finish, y’all. I loved it with an intensity that surprises me even now, months after the fact. Time and again, it put me in mind of Lloyd Alexander’s Westmark trilogy. While the Westmark books are utterly devoid of magic, they deal with many of the same ideas as DROWNED AMMET. I urge anyone who loved those books to pick this one up, or vice versa. Alas, it's currently out of print, but you can hopefully find it at your local library, your favourite used bookstore, or through a third-party seller on Amazon.

8 comments:

  1. I read this whole quartet years ago, right in a row (I think I had an omnibus edition), and I remember liking it immensely...but I've forgotten it almost entirely! (Except for The Spellcoats, which I somehow have contrived to read separately several times.) I already have the Crestomanci series on my "To Be Reread" list, but I'll have to put this set on next...

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    1. Indeed you will! I'm still hunting for the other two volumes (I've read this one and THE SPELLCOATS), but I have a feeling they'll become pretty durned special to me.

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  2. I read this one within the last year too, and liked it as much. I particularly liked the introduction to the idea that this hero has no special destiny, but one might be waiting for him if he has the wit to find it.

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    1. Yes, that was wonderful. DWJ always does such interesting things with her heroes. She really puts them in charge of their own fate.

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  3. omg, this series. I read it a few months ago and I STILL CAN'T GET OVER IT. The last book RUINED ME for reading for about three weeks or something.

    -- Anastasia @ Here There Be Books

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    1. Ooh, that sounds HELLA PROMISING. I love books that ruin me for reading. Now, if only I could find my very own copy of THE CROWN OF DALEMARK...

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  4. I'm a smidge surprised at the vehemence of your and Anastasia's reaction to this book. Clearly I need to reread the series. I am fond of the Dalemark quartet but not more than fond. It hasn't clicked in and become a part of my emotional landscape the way a lot of DWJ books have.

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    1. It's tough to say whether the entire thing will really embed itself in my soul, but this one sure did. I probably won't review THE SPELLCOATS, but it also surprised me. I spent the first half wondering whether it was okay to skip it (since I was bored, bored, bored), only to find myself super-duper invested in the second half. Huh.

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