Diana Wynne Jones’s witch Aunt Maria: part II

I have performed several data mining exercises on Black Maria aka Aunt Maria by Diana Wynne Jones and found a lot of useful material each time I made another pass through the story. There are always more points of interest to be extracted and connections to be made.

Diana Wynne Jones said that Aunt Maria was based on a real person. This might well have been her mother, who by her account was a horrible woman. I have never met anyone quite like Aunt Maria, but some of the actions of her and her circle and the effects that they have on people are very familiar indeed. More and more similarities come to mind each time I go through the book. 

Aunt Maria lures the family into a trap
With people such as Aunt Maria it is important to identify them immediately, if possible avoid them completely and if not begin as we mean to go on and let them know where we stand. Unfortunately, we often realise this too late. 

Sheri S. Tepper’s witch: Madame Delubovoska

Positive paranoia: this is when we believe that people are conspiring to help us and events are being arranged in our favour. This happened to me in the case of The Marianne Trilogy by Sheri S. Tepper, which I wanted to re-read but could not find anywhere. I visited many second-hand bookshops before giving up the hunt. 

I had done everything I could without success, so the universe took a hand. One morning, I experienced a strong inner prompting to visit a small Kentish town with historic associations. I wandered around the back streets, and found a charity shop with a big pile of Sheri S. Tepper’s books in the window.  An omnibus volume of The Marianne Trilogy was among them! I bought the lot for a very reasonable price. Not only did I have some good reading material, I also gained some more inspiration for articles.

Marianne, the Magus, and the Manticore introduces a very unpleasant character called Madame Delubovoska, who also appears in Marianne, the Madame, and the Momentary Gods, the second book in the trilogy. Before she even comes on the scene we learn that she is a sociopath, a psychopath, someone who uses people and doesn’t care about anyone. 

Diana Wynne Jones’s witch Aunt Maria: part I

Aunt Maria appears in Diana Wynne Jones’s Black Maria aka Aunt Maria. She operates and does a lot of damage on more than one level: she is both a dreadful, detestable, manipulative old woman and an evil witch. 

Aunt Maria gets under my skin in a way that none of the other witches I have discussed so far does. I can read about her turning people into animals without any problems, but I can hardly bear to read the descriptions of her ‘this world’ behaviour towards the family that she asks to come and stay with her: it comes too close to home; it triggers very painful memories and feelings. 

Her intrusive behaviour over the phone in the first few pages of the book is more than enough to make me want to stop reading, but I persevere because there are lessons to be learned and points and connections to be made.

Aunt Maria’s personality and behaviour
Aunt Maria is hateful; she is insufferable; she is intrusive, annoying, selfish, demanding and controlling. She is a complete expert at using suggestion, disapproval, martyrdom, disappointment, guilt trips, intimidation, emotional blackmail and mind control to manipulate people into doing what she wants. She is cruel and unscrupulous. She is a tyrant in disguise: she subtly forces everyone to dance to her tune. 

Robin Jarvis’s Whitby Witches: Rowena Cooper

When I first started to get my thoughts about modern-day fictional witches down on paper, I made a list of books from the past to re-read and mine for information and ideas. 

Although I enjoyed renewing my acquaintance with some old friends, the stories were incidental this time around. I wanted examples of various types of witch; I was looking for patterns and features in common in the witches’ lives, personalities and eventual fates; I was looking for fictional characters who reminded me of real people I had known or encountered along the way.

I remembered some relevant scenes and characters from Robin Jarvis’s wonderful Whitby Witches trilogy. The first book in the series is The Whitby Witches. 

Jennet and her little brother Ben, two children who are core characters, remind me of Gwendolen Chant and her little brother Cat in Charmed Life. They too are orphans whose parents died in an accident and they are much the same ages.

The villain of the story is a middle-aged woman who first appears under the name of Rowena Cooper. Just like some of the other witches I have written about, she is desperately and obsessively looking for something and will do whatever it takes to get it. She is the most ruthless of the bunch: anything or anyone who stands in her way will be removed. 

She attempts to manipulate people with threats and promises. She is described as having a black and rotten heart and being full of evil. She is eaten away with her lust for greater power. 

Diana Wynne Jones’s witch: Gwendolen Chant

I am very interested in fictional witches whose attitudes, characteristics and behaviour remind me of people I have encountered in real life, including energy vampires, horrible stepmothers, unpleasant teachers and negative colleagues.

Not only that, but I also have an unpleasant and unwelcome suspicion that some of these witches show and embody something of what I might have become by default if I had taken the path of least resistance and not faced reality, escaped the clutches of energy vampires, fought my fate, defeated my destiny and overcome many unseen influences.

Gwendolen Chant, who appears in Diana Wynne Jones’s Charmed Life, is yet another witch of interest. There are some scenes in this book that make me feel very uncomfortable, not only because of how I was treated but because of how I felt and behaved – or wanted to behave – when I was much younger than I am now.

Gwendolen’s life before Chrestomanci 
Gwendolen Chant is around 12 years old; she is a very pretty and charming young girl, a golden-haired, blue-eyed princess; she has much innate magical ability; she is convinced that she has great talents and will achieve future fame; she displays queenly behaviour, feels destined for great things and expects to rule the world. 

A coincidence involving Levelers and Huguenots

A good example of a ‘coincidence’ happened to me this week. 

It all began when I saw a TV programme about the New Forest. I started to think about The Children of the New Forest, a children’s classic written by Captain Frederick Marryat in 1847; it was one of the first historical novels written for young people. 

Such books never gripped me the way that fantasy and science fiction did, but I learned a lot of history from reading them. I had not read, seen or even thought about this book since I was at school, but suddenly some fragments of dialogue popped up in my mind:

“Levelers, to horse!” and, “What’s a Leveler?” (Levelers or Levellers were radical supporters of the Parliamentarian cause at the time of the Civil War). I tried to remember what I had learned about them from this book at the time.

I had also decided recently to learn more about the Huguenots, persecuted French Protestants many of whom took refuge in England. 

I went out for the day to a town of great historic interest but decided to cut my losses and come back early as it was a bit of a disappointment. 

There were some people on the train on the way home whose conversation was very loud and very boring. 

Nicholas Stuart Gray’s witch: Huddle

Nicholas Stuart Gray wrote a wonderful fantasy book for children called Over the Hills to Fabylon. I remember reading it when I was very young. It is out of print now; I have tried to find a copy from time to time without success. Even if it did come on the market, I probably wouldn’t be able to afford it.

I searched for it again recently just in case and found another of Stuart Gray’s books, one that I hadn’t read. The price was reasonable so I bought The Edge of Evening, which is a book of short stories. 

It begins with The Sky-blue Whistling Spark, in which the main character is a witch called Huddle. The story is very light and only 13 pages long, but it contains and confirms some interesting and important points about witches.

The demons arrive

Huddle is a typical fairy tale witch, a skinny old woman with grey hair who lives in a damp, squalid cottage in a wood. She is bad tempered, proud and conceited. Most of her time is spent trying to bring off strong, black, interesting, successful magic: she wants to be a great and evil witch, one that people are afraid of. 

Unfortunately, although she has enough innate ability to work small spells that bring minor misfortunes to her neighbours, she has not got what it takes to perform the really big stuff i.e. strong Black Magic. This level of spell casting is beyond her powers: her best efforts bring unexpected or no results. 

Her failures make her crosser and crosser; she eventually decides that she needs a demon to be her slave and instruct her in the performance of sorcery. Then she will be able to take her rightful place in the world.