Jones, Diana Wynne - The Power of Three

This is one of Diana Wynne Jones' earlier books. A fun romp, not quite up there with the Chrestomanci books or with my favorite, Fire and Hemlock, but still good. Sometimes I feel like DWJ is just pulling elements together and being more clever and funny than going for depth, but she does it so lightly and so enjoyably that it's hard to be put out. I particularly liked the narrative tone of this book, with a more traditional opening for the first two chapters, in which you know you are being told a tale. It's not quite like the Victorian chapter headings Patricia C. Wrede put on her Dealing with Dragons books or that Neil Gaiman used for Season of Mists ("In which blah blah"), but it lends a nice weight to the story.

Then, of course, the voice the story is actually told in is quite different from the more traditional tale one might expect. I love how prosaic the prose is, deceptively simple. Everything is quite matter of fact (reminds me a bit of Dark Lord of Derkholm, especially the bit where Blade is thinking about his reaction to battle), and the tone serves as an interesting counterpoint to the tragedy that happens early on in the book. It's enough to make the reader realize the weight of the act, yet, not enough to terrify kids out of their minds.

I really liked Adara from the first chapter, and I was a little sad when we switched to Gair, her son. But Gair has an interesting, straight forward thought process, and it's particularly enjoyable listening to him think about his relationship with his father. Well, not enjoyable, since he's not too happy, but clear. I remember OSC once said people would complain Ender's Game wasn't very literary because it was perfectly understandable, but he said that was exactly what he was going for. I feel DWJ does the same.

I also liked the interplay between the siblings and later one with the other two races that they lived with. I particularly enjoyed it when the present day made itself heard, and several preconceptions largely due to fantasy stereotypes were overturned.

Fun book.

(no subject)

Things that remind me of winter in Taiwan: the smell of oranges, and of course, eating two or three oranges a day, big as or bigger than apples, with loose, thin skin easily peeled off. Not a hint of the sourness of oranges here, the only disappointment is when they are too dry. Some are too watery. Every so often, I get a perfect orange, sometimes eaten little by little, nibbling on all the little sacs. I always peel oranges the same way -- pinky finger pokes a hole in the center bottom, then spiral-peeling until I've peeled half the orange. The other half of the peel is carefully loosened until I can detach the stem part, which is where all the fibrous white things stick, forming a nice little bowl to put seeds and/or white outside stuff in. Taiwan's oranges, technically tangerines, have less of the white stuff -- it's thinner and more delicate, like clementines or satsumas, except big. I can smell them on my hands hours after eating them, and it's too hard eating just one because the next one is always going to taste even better.

Also, buying roasted chestnuts off a street vendor and holding the bag with cold fingers, because the concrete walls and tile floors of the apartment trap cold like you can't imagine. The chestnuts are sticky, sometimes burnt and cracked. Bits of coal or charcoal are stuck to the shells since they've been turned over and over in them in the vendor's wok. The best is eating them hot, getting my fingers sticky and grimy, eating so many that my tongue starts feeling strange and tingly and the finger I use for peeling begins to hurt. There's always a balancing act involved because I peel with both hands, which makes it very hard to read a paperback. Chestnuts are best eaten while watching TV or a movie I've already seen, so I can spend an adequate amount of time making sure all the skin is off the chestnut. Sometimes, near the end of the bag, I save the perfect chestnut, dry and yellow and sweet or damp and wonderfully creamy so I don't have to end the bag with a burnt one, or worse, one of the wet cold ones that taste more of ash then chestnut.

Ling jiao, these horned nuts, also bought from street vendors. Apparently also called water caltrops or horned water chestnuts (link, picture at the very bottom. Google is cool). Saltier than chestnuts, and usually boiled so that the black skin comes off when I bite them. My mom taught me how to eat them -- bite them in half, putting one entire horn in your mouth and crunching down with your molars. Sometimes the white nut inside comes right out; sometimes they have to be picked out with toothpicks. Sometimes the nut is too dry and crumbles, sometimes they're very wet and saltier, sometimes they hit the perfect consistency.

Hot pot, sitting around the table with my family and dipping thinly sliced pieces of meat into the boiling pot in the middle of the table. The meat and cooked veggies and tofu and noodles can then be dipped into a sauce made from raw egg and sa cha sauce, slightly spicey. I have no idea what it's made of. My jar in the pantry says soybean oil and brill fish, with onions and garlic and other nice stuff. The egg makes the mixture nice and goopy and kind of slimy. The dipping sauce recipe varies from family to family, so it's always fun eating hot pot at someone else's house.

Things that remind me of winter in the US: apple cider, so hot it almost burns my tongue, murky with apple pulp and spices. The most standard winter thing and the one I love best. Hot chocolate is sometimes too milky, but apple cider is fruity and refreshing and hot and sweet. There's a place back where I went to college that makes it so strongly spiced I can only take a few sips at a time. In coffee cups, it's hard to drink because their kind has actual apple chunks included, but that's part of the fun.

Ice cream from the local creamery where I went to college. I never eat it in the summer because it's always too crowded, with lines running out of the door. Our class government would every so often get us certificates for a free cone or blend-in around finals or midterms, usually in the dead of winter (because back East, it's always the dead of winter), and we'd make the long, cold, bitter walk over around 10:30 to get a cone and walk back, fingers freezing off because we were holding the ice cream. Good times ^_^.

Wa mac and cheese, best at two in the morning after a bout at the Street. Soft and cheesy and utterly processed, it's hot in the container, providing good insulation for the hands. I try to get back to the room as fast as possible so it's not lukewarm when I eat it.

Strangely, it's always winter in college in my head.