Review: "Earwig and the Witch"

This very compact, stripped-down Diana Wynne Jones book is aimed at younger readers. This is almost a shame because the pro-active heroine makes for a very engaging set-up. She feels unusual in a general sense, and even within Jones' oeuvre--not a departure from Jones' general characterisations, but a canny, wilful enunciation of the pragmatic and adaptable capacities her child heroes often have. Earwig employs the kind of 'management' of people Jones was so ill at ease with even benign forms of in Black Maria.

Earwig quite enjoyed ruling over the orphanage she was left in as a child (by either her parents or a witch hunter, which is, kind of awkwardly, never cleared up or even revisited). People tend to do what Earwig wants--more because she's forceful, in an aboveboard way, and reads them well than due to any magical coercion. (And this is probably why Jones feels Earwig's brand of management plays sufficiently fair.) She believes in telling people what you expect out of a situation and striking your bargain early on. She tries to do this when adopted by a witch who wants a drudge, and to bargain for an apprenticeship. The witch agrees, but then proves a bad graduate advisor. Earwig takes the matter into her own hands, striking up a mutual assistance pact with the witch's familiar and playing the witch off their powerful, demon-controlling Mandrake housemate. The Mandrake is a bit more sympathetic to Earwig's practical needs than the witch is, but overall he's a force of benign neglect: leave him alone, and he'll do the same for you. This is about the best you can expect from a Diana Wynne Jones parental figure.

The end involves a highly unusual one-year time skip. Having garnered her apprenticeship, Earwig is coming along as a witch, attending school again and thus back in contact with her left-behind friend from the orphanage, has earned the affection of the Mandrake and even a limited ability to control his demonic familiars herself. The happy ending does feel pretty pat and abrupt--as though there could well have been more material here, to flesh out this engaging premise into a full novel, but Jones had more of an idea for a set-up than a plot. It's a very on-page satisfying ending for Earwig, who gets what she wants: a return to her 'rightful' place in her world, but a wider and more interesting world than her first one, that provides more scope for her talents. 

Spanish Reading

Thinking about a slow-paced Spanish book club, if anyone might be into that (I'm a learner, but I suppose not everyone would have to be). I’d prefer to read a Spanish-first text with a good English tl out in the world so that I can read it as well, after the Spanish chapters, to shore up my understanding. I'm pretty flexible as to what, though I'd incline to classic material.