(no subject)
HOMEWARD BOUNDERS, Diana Wynne Jones, 1981
Now, to be fair, I did not enjoy this book until about two thirds in, so I wasn’t paying attention, really. I guess it’s not surprising, then, that the whole ‘them’ thing confused me. They are playing a game with all the different dimensions/worlds. People sometimes find out, and they then get sent out into the game, being pulled to a different world each time one of them finishes a move. It sounds simple enough when put like that, I suppose. But it gets REALLY confusing. There are all the rules about bounds, and bounders, and numbers, hope, the future, all kinds of random stuff. I don’t know if I would have understood it better if I’d been paying attention, but I also don’t know if anyone of the targeted audience could understand regardless.
I found the easiest way to make sense of my feelings for this book by comparing it with Howl’s Moving Castle. None of the characters seems likeable upon first meeting, but in just a few pages, you’ll love them. After much thought, I discovered the reason for this: humor. Howl had tantrums and the whole women-chasing thing, and Sophie had the grouchy old woman thing and the picking-on-Howl thing. Ok, so in Homeward Bounders, Helen has her face-hiding hair, and her tendency to collect insects and rats; Joris pulls useful things out of his funny white clothes and talks obsessively about his beloved master. This is enough to be won over by them; well done to the author.
But sorry, I still didn’t like it, even though I DID burst out laughing when the characters land in current day England and are thoroughly confused by a game of Cricket.
The emotional tug of the story goes something like this: how DARE they play with our lives like this? Lead our worlds into war and eventually destroy us? LET’S DESTROY THEM FIRST!!! *cough* and then Jamie discoveries he’s lost in time, will never see his family again, and makes a personal sacrifice by staying in their cleared out lair FOREVER to make sure they never come back. I guess I just wasn’t convinced.
Also, the constant use of italics only to designate ‘them’ was really annoying.
The first part of Jamie’s journey, before he meets Helen and Joris, is told in a somewhat summary fashion, without too much action, with him just explaining to readers how he changed and now is a kick-ass bounder and he has emotional scars and stuff. It wasn’t an effective way for us to bond with the character, and really, I wanted to stop reading…
But it’s not like it was all bad, because it DID have humor and potential. I don’t know. It needs a lot of changes, I guess. But then, I am an adult, reading a kid’s book, and I think that argument will always be used against me when I criticize a YA book.
4/10