Random Musing
Midnight googling can lead to some rather lovely discoveries.

Long-time readers are probably aware that Diana Wynne Jones passed away in March of 2011 - I wrote a pretty harebrained blog post about it. She's one of my favorite authors and wrote some truly wonderful fantasy novels and short stories. This might be news - I tend to post mostly about poetry and literary fiction on this blog - but I really really love fantasy.

I grew up a part of the Harry Potter Generation, and I had to fill my fantasy quotient with something while waiting for new J.K. Rowling to come out. Enter Diana Wynne Jones (among other authors of course, but she was definitely the most important). I stumbled on Howl's Moving Castle while wandering Borders' Fantasy Section (how depressing is it that no stories post 2011 can involve the phrase "wandering Borders"?). There was a blurb on the cover saying "Mad about Harry? Try Diana," which was a pretty solid recommendation for someone deep in Hogwarts withdrawal. The book is just fantastic (and way better than the movie - I feel the need to point that out because so many people seem to have seen the movie and liked it but never bothered to read the novel) and I quickly started making my way through Jones' canon. She was definitely not a one-hit wonder; the Chrestomanci series, the Dalemark Quartet, Dark Lord of Derkholm, The Merlin Conspiracy, and so many other of her novels are just loverly. They're funny and incredibly clever and honestly, they give J.K. Rowling a run for her money. If you're at all a fantasy fan, you need to go out and get your hands on her books.

So when Jones passed away on March 26, 2011, it felt like the end of a wonderful ride. There was only so much more of her writing that I hadn't yet read, and it was depressing to know that I'd soon be through with it all. I've gotten pretty close - out of over 50 publications, I have her very first obscure non-fantasy novel, an essay collection she compiled, and two collections of short stories (that I suspect I've actually mostly read since a lot of the stories were included in other anthologies) to go. I haven't been looking forward to getting through it all actually - I've been kind of dreading it in fact - and so when some chance googling informed me that a new Jones' novel (co-authored with her sister) is coming out in 2014, I was ecstatic. New whimsical and wonderful fantasy to look forward to! Yes! Yay!

It's titled the Islands of Chaldea, and while I'm aware that it's probably not going to be classic Jones - the co-authorship basically makes that a done deal - it's still very exciting. Now I just have to wait at least seven months for it to come out (I suspect the UK release date is significantly earlier than the US one). I'm going to be plenty busy in between now and then - working on my thesis, teaching those precocious freshmen, assistant editing - but I'm still impatient. Commence counting down the many many days to go.

I wanted to share the excitement and new novel news for those of you who are also Diana Wynne Jones fans. As for the rest of you, take this as encouragement (or a sign) to start reading her. Just dewit. I recommend starting with Howl's Moving Castle. It's a classic.

Quotations
"'Dead?' said Sophie. She had a silly impulse to add, But she was alive an hour ago! And she stopped herself, because death is like that: people are alive until they die." -Diana Wynne Jones, Howl's Moving Castle

"'Among the tortures and devastations of life is this then — our friends are not able to finish their stories.'" -Virginia Woolf, The Waves

Random Musing
And once again, I find that Diana Wynne Jones' quote about death is spot on and sadly appropriate for the times. Chip Switzer, another Novi High School alum, passed away yesterday. He died peacefully in his sleep. He was twenty years old. He wasn't my friend, but he was an unfailingly kind person, and his passing away so suddenly is yet another (and at this point unnecessary) reminder of this world's constant, torturous transience. My thoughts and prayers are with his friends and family.

Quotation
"'Dead?' said Sophie. She had a silly impulse to add, But she was alive an hour ago! And she stopped herself, because death is like that: people are alive until they die." -Diana Wynne Jones, Howl's Moving Castle

Random Musing
The above quote just keeps on being relevant. And it's sadly more than suited for this particular post.

I'm up writing a paper for my American Adolescence class. It's supposed to be 6-7 pages long and I'm only starting on page 4. Woo-hoo. I've just had coffee for the first time in months. Insomniacs don't generally need coffee. But tonight I did. So now I can be awake to fully process the horror of the discovery that Diana Wynne Jones passed away on March 26, 2011 and I only just found out.

She was my favorite fantasy author - responsible for the brilliance that is Howl's Moving Castle and Dark Lord of Derkholm, not to mention so many other wonderful books. She was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2009. Knowing this I've actually been checking her wiki page and searching the news every so often to see how she's been doing. I swear I just wiki-d her a few weeks ago and she hadn't passed away yet. It must have been just days before she did.

So of course now, in the midst of essay-writing procrastination, I discover that she died two weeks ago. Ugh. I'm sad. And I feel like a bad fan for only finding out now. Sigh. Irrational? Maybe...

Now there's nothing literary that I'm all excited about looking forward to. (Well, it'd be really awesome if they published all of the work J.D. Salinger'd been hoarding, but who knows when that's going to happen.) I don't want her to be dead. Yeah, mature thought, I know. I don't care. This year is stupid. (Lesson: Nazifa gets less and less sophisticated as the night hours pass by. Bodes well for my essay.) So many people have passed away. I didn't post about it in light of what happened with Erica Teevens, but Brian Jacques died on February 5th. So I guess 2011 is the Year of Beloved-Childhood-Authors-Biting-the-Dust. Or maybe it's just the Year of Beloved-People-Biting-the-Dust. Who knows.

Back to essay writing. I am so not in the mood for this.

Quotations
"…she was one of those happily created beings who please without effort, make friends everywhere, and take life so gracefully and easily that less fortunate souls are tempted to believe that such are born under a lucky star." -Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

"'She looks just as music sounds, I think,' answered Anne." -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea

"'Dead?' said Sophie. She had a silly impulse to add, But she was alive an hour ago! And she stopped herself, because death is like that: people are alive until they die."
-Diana Wynne Jones, Howl's Moving Castle

Random Musing
Erica Teevens passed away on February 8, 2011. It's almost too ridiculous and horrible to believe.