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Witch Week: an Anti-Witch School Story

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Witch Week: an Anti-Witch School Story chapter 7 Witch Week: An Anti-Witch School Story In contrast to the school stories that we have encountered so far Diana Wynne Jones’ Witch Week (1982) is not an independent school story, but a part of her Chrestomanci series that started with Charmed Life in 1977. Chrestomanci is the title given to an enchanter who prevents the abuse of witchcraft in the various universes of the Twelve Related Worlds. The books in this series all deal with the current Chrestomanci Christopher Chant, although they are set in dif- ferent times.1 Witch Week, like The Magicians of Caprona, is linked to the series mainly by the character of Chrestomanci and can thus be read independently. Nevertheless, although it is the only school story in the series, it is not the only book of the series that deals with boarding schools. Boarding schools are also mentioned in The Lives of Christopher Chant and Conrad’s Fate. Diana Wynne Jones’ attitude towards boarding schools and school stories in those two novels is ambiguous. In The Lives of Christopher Chant attending boarding school is viewed favourably by the protagonist, as Christopher has grown up a single child with neglectful parents who have handed him to the care of nurses and governesses: “School had its drawbacks, of course …, but those were nothing beside the sheer fun of being with a lot of boys your own age and having two real friends of your own.”2 Still, “apart from cricket and friendship, [school] has little to offer but boredom”. School stories, or rather schoolgirl stories, are ridiculed.3 This becomes clear when we look at the char- acter of the Goddess. Like Christopher, she has no companions of her own age. Thus, she devours the schoolgirl stories Christopher brings her, taking them for real and longing for the companionship of other girls her age. Already the titles and the cover description show that those Millie schoolgirl stories are very much in the vein of Angela Brazil and Enid Blyton: 1 Charmed Life (1977), The Magicians of Caprona (1980), Witch Week (1982), The Pinhoe Egg (2006), as well as the short stories “Warlock at the Wheel” (1984), “Stealer of Souls” (2000), “Carol Oneir’s Hundredth Dream” (1986) and “The Sage of Theare” (1982), published together in Mixed Magics (2000) are set while Christopher Chant holds the office of Chrestomanci, whereas The Lives of Christopher Chant (1988) and Conrad’s Fate (2005) are set earlier, during Christopher’s childhood and teenage years respectively. 2 Diana Wynne Jones, The Lives of Christopher Chant, London: HarperCollins: 2000, 80–81. 3 Sarah Fiona Winters, “Good and Evil in the Works of Diana Wynne Jones and J.K. Rowling”, in Diana Wynne Jones: An Exciting and Exacting Wisdom, 81. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi �0.��63/978900434�7��_009 <UN> 150 chapter 7 Millie Goes to School, … Millie of Lowood House, Millie Plays the Game. He picked up one called Millie’s Finest Hour. It had some very brightly- coloured schoolgirls on the front and in small print: “Another moral and uplifting story about your favourite schoolgirl. You will weep with Millie, rejoice with Millie, and meet all your friends from Lowood House School again ….”4 At a later point he even brings her some Angela Brazil novels from the library of Chrestomanci Castle.5 The Goddess loves these school stories so much that she even wants to attend boarding school in series Twelve A. However, she has to realize that boarding schools hardly resemble those in her books, as we learn in Conrad’s Fate. She is disappointed by her Swiss finishing school where she only learns “dancing and deportment and embroidery and how to make con- versation with an ambassador”.6 Considering the Millie books, additional irony is provided by the school’s name, Lowood, the name of the very unhealthy institution in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. A similar attitude towards school stories is also shown in Witch Week, when Charles Morgan is punished for not finding his spikes. He has to copy five-hundred lines from a school story book called The Pluckiest Boy in School, a book that seems to come from the Tom Brown or Eric tradition, and is laughed at by the pupils. Although there are only a few lines given, it becomes clear that here the traditional boys’ school story is ridiculed as well: “What ripping fun!” exclaimed Watts Minor. “I’m down for scrum half this afternoon!”.… Swelling with pride, Watts Minor gazed into the eyes of his one true friend. Here was a boy above all, straight alike in body and mind.7 In these lines we can already distinguish some of the features of the tradi- tional school story: the protagonist is called Watts Minor, meaning he is the younger of two brothers as we have already seen in Tom Brown’s Schooldays and Stalky & Co., we have a reference to school slang and even a hint at the 4 Jones, The Lives of Christopher Chant, 84. 5 See ibid., 171. In World 12A Angela Brazil’s school stories are considered to be valuable and rare. 6 Diana Wynne Jones, Conrad’s Fate, London: HarperCollins, 2005, 307. 7 Diana Wynne Jones, Witch Week, London: HarperCollins, 2000, 110–11 (all subsequent quota- tions are taken from this edition and marked with the abbreviation ww). <UN>.
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