Conrad's Fate

Maybe I should just turn this blog into a Diana Wynne Jones fan blog with how much I’ve been reading her lately–her books are just so good and perfect! Conrad’s Fate continues the Chronicles of Chrestomanci series. I really like this series because each book has a different feel to it, since they all have different main characters and take place in different universes. In this book, Conrad’s uncle tells him that he has bad karma and a terrible fate, so he must go up to the castle and get a job as a servant to find the person responsible for his bad karma and kill him. Conrad discovers, however, that things are a lot more complicated in the castle than he previously thought.

I love that we get Christopher in the story right off show more the bat. You know something more is going on because he’s poking around in it, but you’re stuck in Conrad’s point of view and completely clueless. Jones is a master at creating suspenseful, intriguing plot lines that seem like they’re all separately going somewhere else until everything magically weaves together at the end and becomes a cohesive story, which I absolutely love. She also has a wicked sense of humor, making her books pure enjoyment. While this is book five in the series, this takes place rather early in Christopher’s training, and it’s so much fun to see him make mistakes and not really know what to do.

I really enjoyed this one; it’s a wildly fun story that kept me on my toes.

Also posted on Purple People Readers. show less

The long-awaited answer to "what was Christopher like as a teenager?". (The answer: A bit insufferable at times, but well-motivated at heart and very charming). The book is a delight to read. Some of the funniest bits are the offhand details. I loved the notion of saving a horrible yellow moth-eaten dress to wear to embarrass people, for example. The upstairs/belowstairs dichotomy was well-portrayed and entertaining to see through the eyes of two adventurous and impudent boys.

Reread, obviously. Every time I revisit this book I like it more. The details of life as a servant in a Victorian-ish House---the weird rules, the behind-the-scenes personalities and occasional mayhem---are one of the highlights. My only complaint is that the exposition is a bit thick at the end, but it was a lot to wrap up.

Also, every time I reread the theme of Conrad's family dynamics comes out more strongly. He goes through some hard realizations. I didn't notice before that Christopher supports him at one point after he talks to his mother, saying "I went through something very similar once." He did, didn't he? I also love Anthea so much, even though she amounts to being a minor character, and I feel for her when she apologizes for show more not taking Conrad away with her. (Conrad doesn't understand why at that moment, but the reader does.) show less

This is a new Chrestomanci novel, this time set in a Series Seven world where Christopher Chant has, for various good and sufficient reasons of his own, gone in defiance of his guardian and teacher, Gabriel de Witt.

But this is really the story of Conrad Tesdinic, who has grown up in a bookstore with an inattentive mother who spends all her time writing; an uncle who generously allows his sister and her family to live with him after her husband sold his share of the bookstore to her brother, gambled away the money, and then killed himself; and a sister who is intent on her own very sensible agenda of completing her education and getting out of the house before her magician-uncle realizes what she's doing and takes steps to keep her there show more permanently.

Conrad, who has his own plans to continue his education and move out, is horrified when his uncle tells him he has bad karma from an important deed left undone in a previous life, and if he doesn't take the opportunity to complete the task immediately in this life, he'll soon die and be forced to start over in his next life. And in order to do this, he has to leave school now, take a job as a servant in Stallery Mansion (home of the local Count), find the person he didn't deal with in the last life, and kill him.

Conrad would almost rather die than leave school and take a job as a servant at the Stallery—but not quite, and he reluctantly boards the tram, armed only with a false name—Conrad Grant—and wine cork and a spell to summon a Walker and get "what he needs" when he's identified the villain and is ready to do the job. Almost the first person he meets, of course, is Christopher Chant, who's looking for his missing and possibly trapped friend Millie, and has also come to take a job at the Stallery in order to look for. From there things get delightfully strange, as Conrad and Christopher attempt to sort out who's who, and who's putting what over on who, and not get caught or killed in the process.

Great fun. show less

One one hand, this is a fun book--great characters (familiar and new), interesting social and magical interactions, another interesting glimpse of Christopher and Millie, a pleasure to read. On the other hand, it's not nearly as good as Charmed Life or The Lives of Christopher Chant. Now, that's a high bar, but I was still rather disappointed. I was never able to get fully behind the decision to use first-person narration here--why is Conrad telling us (or whom?) this story, and when? I didn't find the final pages satisfying, even though the resolution of the story proper was pretty cool. So: worth reading, as part of the Chrestomani cycle, but not mind-blowingly awesome as I've come to expect of Jones.

Also, what's with all the weird show more jabs at Conrad (and Althea's) mother's feminism? I'm just not sure what those are meant to do in the story. show less

I've read or re-read four of the book in the Chrestomanci series, and three of them have almost the same general plot: a boy or girl is taken advantage of by elders and persuaded that they are mostly powerless. At the conclusion of the book, things change, and the character escapes their bad situation and misapprehension about themselves. Jones really had this concept on the brain. Within this overall plot, though, Jones works in a great deal of variety. In many ways, this book was a bit lighter than the others with the same plot. It is set in a stately home and grounds, and I felt convinced that it was a satire on "Downton Abbey", but it was published about five years before the show was broadcast. So, again, Diana Wynne Jones was a show more bit ahead of a phenomenon, but in the best way.

This tale is told in the first person, which is also an enjoyable change, and we get to meet the teenage Christopher Chant, which is fun. show less

This is my favorite of the Chrestomanci books by Diana Wynne Jones. I really enjoy the ever increasing chaos at Stallery Mansion, and it has a typically satisfactory ending.