Chat about... Among Others by Jo Walton

Did you love Among Others by Jo Walton? Hated it? Seen an interesting article about the book? Felt the book was a victim to superfluous commas? Loved the book, hated the cover?

Discuss it all here! Spoilers abound, enter at your own risk...

And there is a Scalzi's Big Idea post by Jo Walton about the book.

I thought this was a very fine book, but I didn't personally enjoy it. However, my reasons for not enjoying it are so specific to me that I would still recommend it to other people.

Jo Walton describes things very accurately - what it's like to love SF&F (which is why it's been nominated for everything, including the Hugo), and apparently what English boarding schools and the Welsh hills are like. And, as someone who lived with chronic pain as a teenager, I can confirm she wrote that very accurately too. And that's why I didn't enjoy it. I read books for escapism, not flashbacks.

But... it still a good book, even if I didn't enjoy reading it.

So i finally read this book, as part of My hugo reading. Well i read it a few weeks ago now, but am only getting around to writing up my thoughts.

First:
Is it all the fantasy of a young girl, one that would have faded away with time, but with the loss of her sister has become something she needs to hold onto? Because of the nature of the storytelling, i.e it is all from the narrators point of view, we either accept all that she is saying is based on the truth, or that she is lying.

To a certain extent, it does not matter. if you think that the magic is her coping mechanism, but that all of the events she is conveying happened in the way she is describing, without the filter of magic, then it is similar enough to the story if magic were in play!

The narrator lies on at least one occasion, this is the only one i noted. When she introduces herself to the people in her new school she claims that herself and her sister had the same Nickname, however later it becomes clear that she only started using the same nickname as her sister, after her sisters death.

She did not lie to the diary, as she was reporting the converstation as she recalled it, and was aware that the diary knew the truth, so she did not clarify the matter.

From this point on i am assuming that the magic was real, i just liked to point out that it could have all been in her head!

Second:
I loved the magic. it was mysterious, and at no point did was it easy to understand what it did. If you wanted outcome Y the magic went of and did X sometime in the past. so to a certain extent Effect preceeded cause in a glorious piece of Quantum Mechanics and chaos theory. The section where she is trying to decide if she should magic up a Bus is great. It also explains why she is so afraid to do magic, as she has no idea what impact it might have.

Hell she is afraid that the whole book club only came into existance because of her magic, which is either Hubris, or a fantastically powerful piece of magic.

Third:
Her relationships with the people around her are strained! mostly because she is unwilling to reach out. she suspects her aunts of witchcraft, when any magic they do seems to be accidental, at least that was my thoughts until the whole ear piercing incident, (which if you take the unreliable narrator path is rather an intresting incident in relatation to the narrators mental health.)

I truly enjoyed reading this book, and seems to have knocked me back into reading mode, if the last few weeks of reading are anything to go by.