In memoriam: Diana Wynne Jones

The fantasy writer Diana Wynne Jones died on March 26th 2011, ten years ago today. 

There are several articles on here featuring or referencing various aspects of her life and works; here is another one to mark the occasion.

Diana Wynne Jones's book Reflections: On the Magic of Writing has already been mentioned as a source of fascinating and commentary-inspiring material; more information is available online in the form of interviews and various articles about her life and works.

I am particularly interested in finding connections between writers and detecting views, experiences, influences and elements that they have in common. It is very interesting to see them quite independently make the same points. 

Diana Wynne Jones has provided some good examples of connections with other writers in the past, most recently in the article about Nicholas Stuart Gray; I have found a few more to comment on.

A terrible realisation 

Diana Wynne Jones said this about her awful childhood:

“Children think they are unique in their misfortunes, and I want to tell them they aren’t alone. I thought my childhood was normal, and was terribly angry and miserable when I discovered it wasn’t.”

I hadn't read that when I created the article about parents and prison guards, from which this is an extract:

“...no anger, no fury is stronger than the final, unavoidable realisation that the protector has betrayed his role and is really the destroyer. But it takes a while to find out that the unthinkable is not the status quo, and that your daily 'normal' is very abnormal to a larger world.“

From Cat in a Midnight Choir by Carole Nelson Douglas  

They are both spot on here. Putting personal experiences into the context of other, more fortunate, children's lives often does result in great feelings of anger, outrage and betrayal.

Charlotte Brontë’s St. John Rivers: Cult Leader

The inspiration for the title of this article came from the names of some recent mash-up novels such as Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, and the article itself was inspired by the sudden realisation that St. John Rivers, a character in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, has some of the typical characteristics of a cult leader.  

It was reading about people such as Bronson Alcott to get material for forum posts about cults that stirred up memories of this fictional character. I went back to Jane Eyre to refresh my memory and look at St. John Rivers in the light of what I now know about charismatic cult leaders. 

The first few times I read Jane Eyre, I passed quickly over the chapters where he appears as he seemed an unsympathetic, not very exciting character; I much preferred Mr Rochester and other parts of the book. This time around, St. John Rivers was the main person of interest and his conversations with Jane the main scenes of interest. 

Re-reading the chapters in which he appears has confirmed my idea that he has some attributes in common with cult leaders. There is also his resemblance to Bronson Alcott: St. John Rivers too is tall and handsome with fair hair and blue eyes. He says himself that he has a hard, cold personality. He is a fanatic with a burning ambition to make his mark on the world.

In support of my case, here are some examples of the familiar attributes I found.

Unlimited ambition and a mission
St. John Rivers had a compulsion to change the world - or even save the world. His mission was to convert the Hindus to Christianity. 

In St. John Rivers’ own words:

“Reason, and not feeling, is my guide; my ambition is unlimited: my desire to rise higher, to do more than others, insatiable.  I honour endurance, perseverance, industry, talent; because these are the means by which men achieve great ends and mount to lofty eminence.“

This may have been spoken by a fictional character, but it is uncannily familiar: it sounds rather like something that Benjamin Disraeli might have said. 

Born at the end of November

Some of the writers who have been mentioned in previous articles were born during the last two days of November. 

Here is some interesting information to mark the occasion.

Born on the 29th
November 29th is the 333rd day of the year (except in leap years). 

Amos Bronson Alcott entered this world on the 29th November 1799; Louisa May Alcott, his daughter, was born in the early hours of the 29th in 1832, thus they were born exactly 33 years apart.

C. S. Lewis was born on the 29th November 1898.

Madeleine L’Engle was born on the 29th November 1918.

Born on the 30th
Angela Brazil was born on the 30th November 1868.

L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery was born on the 30th November 1874.

Influences and connections
For the Alcotts, sharing the same birthday was not the only connection. Bronson died in March 1888; Louisa died 2 days later.

C. S. Lewis died one week short of his 65th birthday and one hour before President John F. Kennedy died.

Louisa M. Alcott, L. M. Montgomery and Angela Brazil all wrote classic girls’ books.

One of Madeleine L’Engle’s main characters is called Meg; so is one of Louisa M. Alcott’s.

Madeleine L’Engle said this about books she read in childhood:

“My favorite was Emily of New Moon by Lucy Maude Montgomery, who is better known for her Anne of Green Gables books. Emily wanted to be a writer. Emily and I had a lot in common. Emily lived on Prince Edward Island and I live on Manhattan Island. Both are islands! Emily's father was dying of bad lungs and so was mine…“

Both C. S. Lewis and Madeleine L’Engle have been called Christian myth-makers. When asked whether her work has been compared to his, she replied:

“Yes, it has. I think that the main difference is that C. S. Lewis has more answers and I have more questions…”

C. S. Lewis created a flying horse, wrote a book called Surprised by Joy and married an American called Joy.

Madeleine L’Engle’s winged unicorn is called Gaudior, which has a meaning connected with joy and rejoicing. 

Being born at the end of November means that they were born under the astrological sign of Sagittarius. 

Flying horses, centaurs, philosophy, joyful religion and angels are all very Sagittarian. 

Unseen Influencers: The Women in Black by Madeleine St. John

I remember reading a review of this book when it was first published, which was in 1993. The review was in a free magazine that was given away at many stations; I used to take a copy if it was handed to me, but it never had much content that I thought worth reading. 

I read the book section in one issue, and saw a review of The Women in Black. The book’s outline did not sound very promising - sales assistants in the dress department of a Sydney department store in the 1950s are not what I would normally want to read about - but my radar picked something up. I had learned to respect these inner promptings so I bought the book.

My radar chose well. On one level the book makes a passable light read; on another level it acts as a teaching guide by providing examples of unseen influences of a positive kind. I did not immediately realise this: the insights came to me gradually in the following years.

The most significant character in The Women in Black is called Magda. She has a very beneficial influence on her fellow workers and their lives and families; deliberately or unconsciously she arranges their affairs so that they all get their heart’s desire. She is a wonderful example of someone who is the exact opposite of an energy vampire and a saboteur; she is a giver and a facilitator and everyone around her benefits from knowing her. The ripple effect spreads throughout her sphere of influence.

Magda the fairy godmother
The positive effect that Magda has on the people around her reveals itself in both very small and very large ways. 

Magda befriends a young temporary sales assistant called Lisa. Lisa eventually gets the glamorous model gown of her dreams, and her father withdraws his objections and accepts that university is a suitable place for such a clever girl. The original cost of the beautiful frock had put it way beyond Lisa’s reach and her father had not been open to the idea of her going to university, but the obstacles dwindle and melt away. 

Magda invites Lisa to one of her parties, where she encounters salami for the first time. Lisa tells her mother, who says that she has never heard of it but will see if she can find some. Her father says that the salami is not bad and wonders what it is made from. Thus Magda enhances Lisa’s life and she does the same for her parents.

Aryan supremacy: blond hair and blue eyes versus black hair and brown eyes

The idea that people from the Nordic race are superior to those from other races was of enormous importance to Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. They propagated that the best kinds of human beings were Northwestern Europeans, white-skinned people with blue eyes and blond hair; this meant that races such as the Negroid, Slavic and Mediterranean and people with black hair and brown eyes were considered to be inferior. 

Similar ideas affected people whose lives are of interest to me. 

When I first read a biography of Louisa May Alcott, I learned that her father was what we would now call an Aryan supremacist. Bronson Alcott was tall, and he had blond hair and blue eyes. He said that such people were superior to dark-haired people with black hair and brown eyes. Louisa resembled her mother, who could have passed for Spanish or Italian.

Bronson Alcott thought that his colouring indicated associations with the light and good, angelic forces; this implied that Louisa and her mother were not only inferior, but also dark, evil and demonic. When Louisa brought home a young man with fair colouring, Bronson said, “Sir, you are a child of light”. Why was this issue so important to him? What effect did his views have on Louisa and her mother?

Is it just a coincidence that Louisa was born in Germantown, Philadelphia? This reminds me of the connection between the Mitford family, Unity Valkyrie and her Aryan supremacist grandfather Bertie Mitford in particular, and Swastika, Ontario.

Mind control, brainwashing and psychological torture: an introduction

When I first started to read about the standard brainwashing and torture techniques that are used to influence, control and break people such as political prisoners, some of it sounded uncannily familiar. I thought immediately of what went on in my family; I was also reminded of the experiences of the young Jane Eyre, some of which were based on what actually happened to several of the Brontë sisters.

It is frightening to realise that some parents and other people in control of children apply these techniques instinctively.

It is devastating to read of such practices as isolating the victims, keeping them in a constant state of fear and uncertainty, keeping them torn between fight or flight and unable to do either, deprivation of food and sleep, constant humiliation, false accusations, making demands that are impossible to meet, random unfair and unjustified punishments, force feeding with political or religious ideology and mock executions and then to realise that they have been systematically applied to children, often in adapted and modified forms.

For example, where prisoners live in permanent fear of death and are forced to undergo mock executions, a child might live in permanent fear of being put in a children’s home and be forced to listen to frequent threats of abandonment or being sent away. I certainly was. Like the mock executions, these threats are never actually carried out, but on each occasion it seems that they will be.