"I am the molten heart of the world..."

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

I just found an article online that complains about the lack of critical attention to Duane's books, and attempts to remedy the situation. Unfortunately, it's $5 to download the full article, so I haven't read the whole thing. Here's a bit from the online extract:

This essay examines the relationship of speech and metamorphosis within the work of Diane Duane. In Duane's Young Wizards books, magic is constructed through language, and her central protagonists--two sisters, Nita and Dairine--undergo a variety of amazing transformations as a result of their linguistic (and ethical) choices. Language, in fact, becomes the purest expression of their ethics, as they strive to encounter their others (both cosmic and contingent) in that crucial meeting of faith that Levinas describes as the very core of ethical life. I want to argue that, just as magic and shapeshifting often represent the violent transitions of adolescence within children's literature, physical transformation in Duane's work is also an expression of gender transgression and sexual rebellion. The Speech, the language of wizards, both human and non, remains the key to these transformations, and language itself becomes the battlefield upon which Duane's characters fight for control of their own identities.

[Poliester]

When I read this, I literally screamed with joy. I think it's awesome that someone is analysing Diane Duane's writing and I'm very excited to read this essay! I wonder if any, if not all, of the points in the essay were actual goals for DD?

I wonder if this Jes Battis is on this forum? I think it would be exciting to speak to him (or her?). It would be easier to speak to him than to Duane, perhaps, and we could discuss the points in his essay that we might not agree with.

Is anyone else excited as much as I am about this?

[dorotheia]

That's a real pity, the money. It seems really interesting... I'd like to hear their take on it. And particularly why they focus on Dairine and Nita when there's so much more to it. How'd you find it, Garrett? I always wonder.

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

If I remember correctly, I was Googling on "wizards words" to try to find the quote from SYWtBaW about how wizards and words got along. This article popped up first and caught my interest, and I figured the rest of you might feel the same way. :-)

[Emi]

I have to admit the article is very interesting. Too bad about the money though. I wish it was open to the public, I wanted to read more about that!! It's cool that someone wrote an article about these books.

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

If you don't want to pay to read it, see if Mosaic is available at your local college/university library. You never know...

[Ash78]

OMW! That is soo cool. I mean, I'm literally like, speechless, which doesn't happen very often. Is the entire essay as deep and intriguing as hat? It really stinks that you have to pay to read it, even though it would probably be totally worth it.

Anyway, that last part about language becoming the battlefield on which they fight, is very, very intense, and really true. I was surprised because most essays and other papers written on books are not so true to the books and barely graze the surface of the deeper meaning of the books, but this is soo amazing.
WOW. Um, that was alot for me to get out as I'm still very, very speechless.(then again, I'm typing, not speaking, and for those of you wondering, my jaw is hanging open and my voice is no, not working.)
Garrett, thanks for finding and posting this, it's really, really cool.

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

I just found the full article through my Bangor Public Library account: you might want to check your local libraries to see if they have partnerships that allow you to access the article, like "MARVEL!, Maine's Virtual Library".

This quote from later in the article explains what he's focusing on:

There are three instances of language-driven transformation in Duane's novels that I will examine in detail. The first is Life's "I Am," a magical performative with very real consequences, and the triumphant speech-act that allows Nita Callahan to reexamine her world as a place of both fragile wizardries and surprisingly durable humanities. The second instance is Nita's transformation in Deep Wizardry, when, through the power of imagination alone, she metamorphoses into a whale. My final example will be Dairine's transformation in High Wizardry, her miraculous leap from shy and withdrawn techno-geek (and she was a techno-geek long before Willow Rosenberg arrived on Buffy) to a near-beatific defender of life in the universe. All three of these shapeshifting events occur within the relations of gender and genre--they cannot escape the literary constraints of children's literature as a marketed mode of writing, but they also provide spaces of unique defiance and revision.

[Dragon Writer]

The article sounds good. *would read it, if not for the money, and current time restraint* Express library computer. *grumbles*

[mysss]

It's cool to see that critical attention of this sort is being focused on the books...it's this type of thing that makes English class so exciting. I still might need to reread the books to really look at them, but I'll add this to my reading list.

Heh, this could also be an interesting test of whether authors mean half the things readers, students, and teachers pull out of their work.

[Tuttle]

So people know, this is in the September 2007 issue. I had to go looking through multiple months to find it and I don't want others to have to.

That said,there are definitely some interesting points made.
Of course the comparison to other fantasy of being armed with words and only words is an important one. I hadn't really thought about the fact that the fact that its _only_ words stresses the point further that, this is what you have, use it wisely. The importance of things like not lying in the speech on its own make statements about our own lives, but taking into account that they're fighting with words, like what we could do, stresses this importance further and I hadn't thought about that before.

In general the focus is interesting, on the language. The going into how it changes Nita and Dairine isn't as interesting as the general stuff for me, but that's partially because of how I am in general.

A line that means a lot to me that I think I should share is

To Nita, all ethical speech is binding, and every performative is a magical contract.

This is what this whole thing is about to me, not the transformation that's being discussed, but the importance to us as well. The importance of our words even when in English, or whatever language we speak. The fact that life itself is what the magic is. This is something from YW as a whole that seems to be the point to me, which comes out here. It's not just the lessons that they learn, its the lessons we learn because of their language, and through DD's language, about our own.

Oh, also, I blame the boyfriend, but I'm totally comparing the Speech to Lisp now (/off topic technoramblings) .

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

If it's the Speech, it's not off-topic. :-) Pray continue. :-)