Diana Wynne Jones

I'm reading Diana Wynne Jones's Charmed Life, and I want to say that Jones is, in my professional opinion (I say that because it sounds funny), one of the most under rated contemporary writers for young adults. She is inventive; she is a good writer. Why aren't more people reading and talking about her novels? I totally recommend her to anyone who is interested in YA fantasy, my current fixation. Jones seems to understand the experience of being a child in the late 20th century; there's something authentic about the perspective from which she writes. And I love it! If anyone's really interested Patricia Wrede is OK, and Jane Yolen can be good, both writing in the same vein. I wish there were something more academic or at least smart-sounding that I could say about Jones's work. In Charmed Life she writes a world parallel to ours where magic is fairly common. What's the theory? Where one posits that for each event (or maybe each major event) that occurs, there's some alternate world where that event turned out differently? If anyone knows the term for this theory, rather common in fantasy, let me know. I should know this. Anyhow, the characters find ways to travel between these parallel worlds, and it's all interesting, a fun read. But more than that, I think Jones has her finger on something about the selfishness of human nature. J.R.R. Tolkien would say that the great thing about fantasy is that it allows us to see truth about ourself in a clearer way by putting human nature in a different setting. (If anyone's really interested, read his "On Faerie." Now I really sound like an academic. I don't know if I can help it; I read, even think, through the lens of Tolkien and Lewis. Sometimes I feel silly about it; other times I just accept it.)

Anyway, I realiz that none of this is too profound. I think I'm writing to begin to collect my thoughts about Jones as much as anything.