Minor Arcana

by Diana Wynne Jones

The six short stories and a novella in this collection all show a degree of offbeat quirkiness, from an author well-renowned as a writer of children's fantasy fiction.

Genres: Fantasy, Short Stories, Fiction, Magic, Young Adult, Anthologies, Childrens

287 pages, Hardcover

First published November 7, 1996

About the author

Diana Wynne Jones was a celebrated British writer best known for her inventive and influential works of fantasy for children and young adults. Her stories often combined magical worlds with science fiction elements, parallel universes, and a sharp sense of humor. Among her most beloved books are Howl's Moving Castle, the Chrestomanci series, The Dalemark Quartet, Dark Lord of Derkholm, and the satirical The Tough Guide to Fantasyland. Her work gained renewed attention and readership with the popularity of the Harry Potter series, to which her books have frequently been compared.

Admired by authors such as Neil Gaiman, Philip Pullman, and J.K. Rowling, Jones was a major influence on the landscape of modern fantasy. She received numerous accolades throughout her career, including the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, two Mythopoeic Awards, the Karl Edward Wagner Award, and the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement. In 2004, Howl's Moving Castle was adapted into an acclaimed animated film by Hayao Miyazaki, further expanding her global audience.

Jones studied at Oxford, where she attended lectures by both C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. She began writing professionally in the 1960s and remained active until her death in 2011. Her final novel, The Islands of Chaldea, was completed posthumously by her sister Ursula Jones.

Reviews

[Melanie Pieper · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's been a while since I've read something I haven't read before from Diana Wynne Jones. For many years I searched libraries and managed to read all of her books except Changeover and... this one. All of the stories in this were reprinted in the anthology Unexpected Magic: Collected Stories except the final one in this volume "The True State of Affairs," so I actually purchased this book just so I could read that one story. It takes up half of this volume by the way, so it is much longer than I had expected, practically a novella. I expect its length is the reason it hasn't been republished in any other collections.

I'd heard about "The True State of Affairs" for a while, and have been wanting to read it for over ten years, probably. My favorite of Diana Wynne Jones's books are The Dalemark Quartet and Everard's Ride, and hearing that this story was set in a prototype version of Dalemark made me extremely interested in reading it. So little of her work was written in that style. However, a lot of information about it was mixed, as many people do not seem to like this story. It's definitely targeted at adults, and was actually among some of the earlier things written by Diana Wynne Jones, although it was never published until the 1990s. It doesn't really feel like the kind of fantasy being written at the time, so I can definitely understand why her publisher didn't like it.

It has a strong historical-like fantasy setting, with evocative details and enigmatic characters who have many bad qualities (but are hard not to like, somehow). It's much darker in tone and a bit pessimistic regarding humanity compared to the majority of her work. It doesn't have much of a plot either--I think it's intended to evoke a feeling rather than tell a story. The story it does tell is quite subtle and comes out in a kind of convoluted way. Not in a bad way, though. I enjoyed it a lot, though I was quite surprised at the directions this story went in. Somewhere about half-way through, I began to think "This is the sort of thing I was looking for!" I would definitely recommend it to those who can enjoy a book for mood and setting. It's written for adults, but still has the kind of unconstrained feeling most of her children's books have.

The plot of this story is quite simple. A woman from our world (Kent, to be precise) named Emily is sent to a strange alternate universe to a more "Anglo-Saxon" version of England, called Dalemark. She first meets people from one side of an ongoing civil war, but her companions used her as a decoy so they could get away, and she has been imprisoned in their place and is being interrogated. On the other side of her prison's courtyard, Emily can see the courtyard of another prisoner. She becomes intrigued by him, and they soon find a way to pass messages to each other. Emily eventually learns that her new admirer is involved in the ongoing turmoil as well, and as their relationship progresses, so does the war.

I thought the ending was perfect, somber and without much hope. It suited the tone of the story very well. I anticipated the ending as I was reading, but if you expect happy endings you may be disappointed. With a theme about placing intangible hopes in other people, it couldn't really be otherwise, could it?

It also had quite a bit of development for side characters like Edwin and Wolfram. Emily thought they were disgusting at first, but, like her, I kind of came to like them even though they never became less disgusting. Diana Wynne Jones didn't write many characters like them, as this whole story is full of shades of gray and not much light and dark. I think most of her children's books have a stronger light/dark dichotomy.

I think if I re-read "The True State of Affairs" I might notice more than I did the first time. I'm sure I'll want to read it again soon.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am still not sure how I came to be locked up here, but things are coming clearer. I shall find out in the end. — ‘The True State of Affairs’.

Almost exactly half of this collection is taken up by The True State of Affairs, and so I will devote the lion’s share of this review to a exploration of it; the other six pieces, all included in other collections (notably the author’s Unexpected Magic, Mixed Magics and Hidden Turnings) will get brief notices, especially as I’ve discussed two of them elsewhere.

But first, a word about the title. Minor Arcana is evidently a reference to the ordinary cards in the Tarot pack: when used in divination they offer advice on day-to-day matters, as opposed to the twenty-two cards in the Major Arcana which address more universal matters. In Latin arcanum (plural arcana) means something hidden or concealed, sharing its root with arcere (meaning to close up or enclose, to contain) and with arca, cognate with ‘ark’, meaning a box, a chest, or somewhere for safe-keeping.

Here then is a selection of stories about mysteries and secrets, things hidden from view or even people locked up. As readers we may well be called on to ponder obscure questions, wonder at mysteries and perhaps unlock some boxes to reveal what secrets might lie within.

‘The Sage of Theare‘ (1982), which opens the collection, is an outlier in the miscellany of tales associated with the wizard Chrestomanci. It centres on the notion that gods need human beings in order to be gods: would they exist if people didn’t believe in them? This is followed by a rumination on precognition –’The Master’ (1989), which first appeared in Hidden Turnings, a collection she’d edited – in which a vet finds herself in a recurring nightmare scenario where she seems to be a modern equivalent of Red Riding Hood, though the tale also has echoes of other tales like Beauty and the Beast and even Frankenstein.

‘The Girl Who Loved the Sun’ (1990) is an Ovidian tale with mythical overtones set in the modern Boars Hill village, long favoured by Oxford worthies and literary types; the author doubtless knew the place from her Oxford undergraduate days and subsequent marriage to the academic John Burrows. Despite sounding like a football result being announced, the next story ‘Dragon Reserve, Home Eight’ (1984) is a fantasy about a world which feels almost Nordic, where witches (here called hegs) can be – and are – persecuted and where dragons actually exist.

With all these stories there is a weirdness about them that at first encounter is very confusing although the reader soon becomes aware that there is a rich hinterland surrounding them, making them eligible for deeper consideration than I’m giving them here. ‘What the Cat Told Me‘ (1993) is one of the more straightforward pieces, drawing on multiple fairytale tropes such an attractive girl called Princess, a library of arcane books, and an object that contains a soul, plus a running gag about food and an acknowledgement by the feline narrator that teenage boys are not only always hungry but soon outgrow their clothes.

Finally, ‘nad and Dan adn Quaffy’ (1990) is focused on Candy, a single mother who’s also SF writer FC Stone and who despite help from her son Dan struggles with her new word processor, especially in the days before autocorrect came in. Here, one soon realises, is an only slightly exaggerated self portrait of the author finding herself drawn into the worlds she thought she’d invented.

And now we come to The True State of Affairs, a fragment of a novella or novel composed in 1966, though not published until 1995 when it appeared in a collection produced for Boskone, the annual conference of the New England Science Fiction Association, where Jones was the guest of honour. This piece is a first person account by somebody called Emily, who says she’s from Kent; she finds herself locked up, Rapunzel-like, in a medieval stronghold located elsewhere than in her familiar world. How did she get to be here and why is she imprisoned?

Despite assertions that ‘The True State of Affairs’ is set in the author’s fully formed world of Dalemark this is not the case, though it’s clear that aspects of it – the late medieval / early modern feel, the similarity of names for people and places, and mythic resonances for example – suggest that represents her early exploration of themes of individuals caught up in times of political unrest, and whether one acts for reasons of expediency or principle.

Little by little her account reveals details – but then more mysteries present themselves; some are gradually revealed but many remain unresolved in this unfinished narrative which begins in medias res. We discover there are warring factions from various polities called the Mark, Hathriver, Widmark and the Lowlands, with ‘the North’ not involved; are they somehow like Mercia, Cambridge, the Welsh Marches and parts of Lincolnshire or East Anglia? We learn that Emily was believed to be a spy for Asgrim of Hathriver, that the gaolers she generally comes into contact with are Edwin and Wolfram, with Wolfram’s brother Hriddle prominent in the ruling regime. And we find out that a young man, a ‘thrall’ called Hobby, becomes the go-between for a covert correspondence that Emily and Asgrim embark on.

But beware, for not everything can be taken at face value, much as Emily was tricked into being mistaken for Hilda, Asgrim’s betrothed. The phrase from a poem quoted here, ‘Truth, which is another thing | Aside from laws or words or time’ perhaps indicates the true state of affairs in the world in which the 20th-century Emily finds herself trapped. This world is a heathen world akin to that of Anglo-Saxon and Nordic culture. Names like Hilda, Wolfram and Edwin underline this, even Asgrim asserts it: in Old Norse the god Óðinn was known as Grímr, related to the word gríma ‘mask’, from the fact that the one-eyed god often went about in disguise. Is Asgrim other than he appears? Is Hobby named after his hobnailed boots or the falcon? Why is Wolfram so creepy and yet pathetic? And is Emily being entirely honest with either herself or us?

In the introduction to the collection Jones explicitly says she was influenced by The Kingis Quair (‘The King’s quire or book’), a poem attributed to James I of Scotland. Born in 1394, as an 11-year-old he was imprisoned by the English in 1406, shortly before succeeding to the throne as King of Scots. He would remain captive but uncrowned for eighteen years until released in 1424, marrying Joan Beaufort the woman he’d apparently fallen in love with when imprisoned variously in the Tower, Nottingham Castle and Windsor. Unfortunately, back in Scotland his rule was unpopular, and he was finally assassinated in 1437.

The poem the educated monarch is generally assumed to have written itself references the story (told by both Bocaccio and Chaucer) of imprisoned friends Palamon and Arcite who both fall in love with Emelye when they spot her from their cell; tales of heroic rivals in love of course abound in medieval literature, such as the rivalry between Palomides and Tristan for the hand of Iseult. The True State of Affairs then takes elements from all these narratives – the name Emily most obviously, but also the poems written in captivity and the romance conducted at a distance – but determinedly adopts the female protagonist’s perspective. As Jones made clear in her introduction, ‘It occurred to me to wonder what the girl felt about it, so I wrote the story.’

For a world familiar with the concept of ‘lockdown’ there is much that’s recognisable in this tale of Emily’s confinement – the tedium, the rumours, the niggles that come from close association with limited company. Like her medieval model Jones’s prose also conveys the minutiae that ties us up in mental knots; in Emily’s case Asgrim’s notes prompt her to philosophise and consider virtue, wealth and – in Asgrim’s case – leadership.

I think ‘splendour’ is an important word. For, to be worthwhile, and to feel worthwhile, you must have a sense of splendour – of ultimate, forceful goodness – which serves you both as yardstick and mainspring.

Incidentally The Kingis Quair is known to employ a Chaucerian rhyme scheme for its stanzas, the ‘rhyme royal’ using the pattern ABABBCC; rather than merely aping this Jones chooses to introduce her own variation of the nine-line Spenserian stanza, using the rhyme scheme ABBCCACBA for a couple of the verses Asgrim writes to Emily.

Given that this incomplete and unresolved narrative was an early attempt by the author to write an adult fantasy we can sense that she hadn’t yet got into her stride or found quite the right genre to pursue. Nevertheless there is much to admire here – the confidence in her ability to write expressively, to place herself in her characters’ minds, to make use of her wide familiarity with literature, to reflect on philosophical matters much as the king did with Boethius’ The Consolations of Philosophy, to even pen original poetry.

‘Truth is the fire that fetches thunder,
Kindled of itself, and only mine
In the heart that had its fashioning.’

It’s not just completists like me who will get much out of Jones’s musings on truth, virtue and good governance; but hopefully we won’t have to do it under lock and key.

[Vehka Kurjenmiekka · Rating 5 out of 5]

Edit 25.8.2024: Still thinking about "The True State of Affairs" a couple of times every week, and it fills me with bittersweet longing. I want to write something as powerful as this story.

Okay, so, let's be honest for a second: this collection contains mostly three star stories. Those are fun and light-hearted and standard DWJ shenanigans, and the first one is a lovely treat for the people like me who love Chrestomanci stories. "The Girl Who Loved the Sun" was great too – with some surprising body horror, uh oh –, but mostly the stories were read-it-once-and-never-think-about-it-again -kind of stuff.

The last one, novella called "The True State of Affairs", was another matter entirely. I haven't read The Dalemark Quartet yet, but apparently this story is set in the same world. No foreknowledge is needed, though, and this is more of a retelling of a part of "Kingis Quair", as DWJ tells in the fireword.

It is a sad novella – so brace yourself, there won't be a happy ending – about falling in love, tending hope, seeing things only partly through some cracks in the walls of your prison. I loved it, because it is quite unconventional, and because the mood of the story is very unique. Emily, the narrator, is an interesting character on her own, but "the love interest", Asgrim, is also portrayed as intriguing and cunning, and it is difficult not to get invested in this story about love. (But not a love story.)

It reminded me of "Till We Have Faces" by C. S. Lewis and "Fire and Hemlock", both of which I love dearly. I am kind of angry that this wasn't published in the 70s, when it was first written, but then again: if it was, maybe DWJ would have gone in totally different direction as a writer, and wouldn't have gotten all the magical stories we got.

However, I am happy I got to spend these 150 pages or so in the prison with Emily and Asgrim, because I've never read anything quite like this.

[Pam Baddeley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of mainly short fiction with one novella. The introduction by DWJ tells about the genesis of the stories and some at least were written to explore how a character in a traditional tale might feel; hence 'The Girl who Loved the Sun' is written to explore why characters in mythology are turned into trees or animals - which she felt must be because at some level they wanted to be.

I had read two of the stories before and wasn't that taken with them especially with 'The Master' which just reads like the account of a dream and has no real conclusion. 'The Sage of Theare' is a minor puzzle set in the Chrestomanci worlds featuring him as a minor character and with a somewhat inconclusive ending.

'Dragon Reserve, Home Eight' could again be set in the multiverse of Chrestomanci as a group of worlds are defended by punitive rulers who execute anyone who has psychic abilities - but it then turns out that those abilities - which include being able to communicate with dragons - are the only thing that can defend them against aliens who run amok and capture the population as slaves.

'What the Cat told me' is an odd story told from a cat's POV, said cat having been used as a tool by a black magician - so this is the tale of how it helped a boy in its own self satisfied cat way and the outcome. 'nad and Dan adn Quafly' is a daft story about a writer whose word processor becomes a conduit to a male rebellion against a female space faring dictatorship. I actually disliked that one whereas the others were so-so.

The best item in the collection, though I still won't be keeping it, is the novella which concludes it - 'The True State of Affairs'. This, DWJ's introduction reveals, was a story for adults inspired by reading the account by James I of Scotland of how he wiled away his time while imprisoned by watching a young woman who he always saw in the distance and never spoke to and afterwards never considered again. DWJ wrote this as an exploration of how the recipient might have felt. So the ending is sort of given away in the intro. But the interest in the story is its character development as the female prisoner writes down her feelings and experience on paper that is granted her by her jailors.

We soon learn that she should not be locked in a turret room in a fortress with only a small yard outside for exercise because she was arrested in the mistaken belief that she was someone else called Hilda. When it became clear that she wasn't, she remained in prison because it was felt that she must be a supporter of Hilda's although they seem to think she is from 'the north'. Gradually it becomes clear that the country in which she finds herself is a fantasy one split into different regions and that there is rebellion by oppressed areas against a couple of tyrants.

The prisoner, Emily, who is from Kent in our world, soon realises that there is a male prisoner across the way on the far side of a deep drop - a man she can only see by standing in a certain area of her exercise yard and he also has to appear within a narrow area to be seen. His bearing and appearance make a deep impression on her and she ends up having a secret correspondence with him on scraps of paper carried by an oblidging serf, against a background of the continuing conflict outside their jail and the other man's role in it. For it becomes clear that he is an important leader of the resistence.

The characterisation is interesting: despite Emily's loathing of the chief of her jailors, Wolfram, who is related to one of the tyrants, she eventually comes to see that he is a deeply unhappy man and even to have sympathy for him although this is almost her undoing. The small cast of characters are well delineated and all the various vissitudes of confinement. The only thing that I found a bit of a let down is that the ending, although 'obvious', lacks a real sense of closure: we are left not knowing not only how Emily has got to this world but also how she can get home. And because it is slipped in very late in the tale that this is Dalemark (but I think probably quite different to the Dalemark series written much later - for a start, these people worship Norse gods) it also raises the question of whether Dalemark also forms part of the multiverse that features so much in a lot of DWJ's other fiction. Anyway, I enjoyed that story much more than anything else in the book and it was an interesting insight into the kind of thing that DWJ could have written more of if there had been receptive publishers/agents - in the intro, she tells how an agent she sent it to told her some years later that she hadn't bothered to read it as no one wanted to read this fantasy stuff and DWJ should really give up writing!

Overall this rates at 3 stars.

[Zach Sparks · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had already read all of the other short stories in this collection, and I picked it up just so that I could read "The True State of Affairs." I went into it expecting something very different from what I actually found. It is set in the same world as "The Dalemark Quartet," so I thought I was going to get a story that felt adolescent with maturing overtones, since kids being thrown into adult situations like murder, theft, conspiracy, and plot seems to me to be a major theme of the series. I should have known I was in for meatier fare when the introduction lists "The Kingis Quair" as DWJ's inspiration for this story. Parts of this story are definitely geared towards adults. DWJ's word choices in particular kept me close to Merriam-Webster, much like her novel Changeover did. A lot of her chosen words here were archaic in usage, and were absolutely perfect for conveying that sense of being lost in time as well as space. I loved how philosophical the story is, particularly on law and how we place a monetary value on too many things.

*Spoilers Follow*


Emily, the woman telling the story, is 27 years old and has no idea how she found her way into Dalemark. Through a case of mistaken identity, she is arrested and locked in the same castle where the leader of part of the resistance is being held. They fall in love with each other even though they can only see each other from the courtyards of their cells and send scraps of paper with notes jotted on them. In the end though, the story proves that she fell in true love with him, and he only fell into a sort of courtly love with her. He eventually escapes and is free, uniting the country under one government while she whiles away the hours wondering where their relationship went wrong and how she misread the signs. If you enjoyed Dalemark, but are looking for something that provides a greater idea of how people in this world think, I can recommend this short story/novella.

[Mel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not sure why I keep picking up short story collections when I don't really LIKE short stories lol.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a little torn on this one. I bought this collection specifically to read "The True State of Affairs," which I was REALLY excited about because it was set in Dalemark. I was surprised to find out from the introduction that the novella was actually written in the early 70s, before the first Dalemark book. While I enjoyed the story - I think - I was also a bit nonplussed that it wasn't strictly part of the Dalemark chronology.

Anyway, "The True State of Affairs!" I loved reading this story. I could have easily read 100 more pages of captivity and minor plot advancements. But the ending threw me! It wasn't so much that Asgrim wasn't actually in love with Emily, but that the ending felt so rushed compared to the rest of the story. I was also a little shocked that he didn't attempt to get her out of the Mark; perhaps that was part of the point, that Emily could never have known Asgrim as a person, as much as she might have wanted to. It leaves the fate of Emily herself up in the air, too. I wasn't bothered by the fact that Emily was inexplicably a modern English girl from Kent in Dalemark until the end of the book, when there's no real ending for her and it's unclear if she'll get home or not.

I'm also rusty on Dalemark - which means that it's probably time for a reread - but I'd love to match up some of these initial place names and people to the Dalemark history that appears in the books. I don't remember any Regans or Hrinkles, and I forget how Hugh and Hilda are actually related.

I was a bit disconcerted by "The Master," too, which I hadn't read before. DWJ mentions in the introduction that it was the first genesis of what would become Fire and Hemlock. I can see that, sideways, but am not entirely convinced that the story was complete. It reads like the author's dream, not the character's.

This collection definitely deserves the "minor arcana" name. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who isn't already a DWJ fan. The stories are more esoteric and will probably only appeal to people who have already read stories in her multiverse. I'm just always excited to get more "new" material.

[Jodie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dragon Reserve, Home Eight should have been a full novel in my opinion. The True State Of Things was very depressing. All in all, excellent collection of magical stories

[Roslyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

2020 reread

[Wallflowering · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The True State of Affairs", a short story included in Everard's Ride, by Diana Wynne Jones

[Annette McIntyre · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most of the stories in this book are published in other anthologies, and the only new story was one I disliked intensely because the heroine is just so ... clingy and needy and seeing what she wants when it isn't actually there. I tried to cut her slack, as she'd been kidnapped and was in a world she knew nothing about but after pages and pages and pages of her whining and seeing love where it wasn't and her romancing over the prisoner in the courtyard next door (who wasn't close enough to talk to, but she could see the colour of his eyes - unbelievable) just irritated me beyond belief. I disliked that story so much I didn't finish it, and I won't be keeping the book as I've got others with the other stories in that I did like.

[Duncan · Rating 2 out of 5]

A few quite light-hearted short stories to package with a grindingly dull novella.

The short stories are largely whimsical, probably worth a three.

The novella, True State of Affairs, was a real battle to get through. And there is very little reward in the ending. A collection of uninspiring characters exchanging slips of paper filled with inanities. Not to mention a rather glaring and awkward example of how not to depict a homosexual attraction (adult male toward a 14 yr old boy, who apparently comes on to him and then dismisses him in a knowing way).

Very little to recommend this collection. No new ideas, nor much entertainment in the old ideas.

[Anna Hepworth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to love this book. Short stories have such potential, and Jones has such power in her writing as a general rule. But I found that these typically fell flat - that they weren't the stories that she necessarily wanted told, but that they need writing so that she could get on to the next thing. Or maybe they were the indulgences that she allowed herself between writing semi-successful populist literature.

Either way, I struggled. I struggled with most of the stories, and the very last (novella length, I'm guessing) I struggled the most. A tedious story, with no obvious redeeming features, and characters that it seemed the author fell more in love with as the story progressed, as I came more and more to have no sympathy for any other than the viewpoint character.

Having said that, there are some interesting conceits. 'What the Cat Told Me' has a great underlying idea, and the denouement wouldn't work without the rambling that happens before. "The Sage Of Theare', for all that it has metaphysical underpinnings, and a setting in the world of Chrestomanci just irritated me, and the weird tech hate/gender hate of 'nad and Dan adn Quaffy' just about had me rehoming the book unfinished.

This one quite likely to be rehomed.

[Julie Davis · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a collection of short stories and a novella. The plots and style are widely varied although all the stories are easily identifiable as being those of Diana Wynne Jones. I appreciate all of them, although I'm about halfway through and have only read one that I really liked a lot. All thus far are worth reading though.

Final: As I mentioned, some of these were fine and others didn't grab me. Par for the course for short stories. I really didn't like the novella at the end which was written for adults. In fact, I couldn't make my self finish reading it. I never thought I'd say this author could be boring but that novella was.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

120-some pages is not a short story, especially when the entire book is only 280 pages long. Also didn't think the ending of said story (The Truth of the Matter) was up to standard DWJ level, but the other short stories were great.

[Jenny Burridge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent.

[Serena W. Sorrell · Rating 3 out of 5]

The last story so blackened my review it lost a star. I like sad love stories, but NO! Bad Diana! That is not ok, especially since THAT one story took up half the book.

The rest of the short stories ranged from mediocre to incredible... and had that final story ended ANY other way it'd be a 4-stair review.