Jo Walton: Among Others

I've tried for awhile to try to describe Among Others. It's an epistolary novel, composed of Morwenna Phelps' journal entries as, in 1979, she leaves her home in Wales to a boarding school in England. By doing so, she's escaping her witch mother but becoming reliant upon her formerly-estranged father and his relatives, and she's also going from a place where she's cut off from--well--magic. And throughout all this she is still dealing with the death of her twin sister, Morganna, who died while foiling their mother.

Magic in Among Others is neither showy nor fantastical nor ordered; it has plausible deniability. A skeptic would have no problems disproving magic, because there's no solid proof. This magic is set against the magic of books instead. In the accident that killed Morwenna's sister, Morwenna is injured; in the sports-heavy boarding school, Morwenna is excluded straight off by being unable to participate in any sort of sport. Instead, she spends her time in the library, reading science fiction. And in this way, Among Others is a novel not about Wales or England or magic or boarding school (magic or otherwise) or ostracization or family--although it is about all these things--but almost a homage to science fiction novels. Mori is a voracious reader, and sprinkled throughout her accounts in her journal are her opinions on books she's just read--Le Guin and Heinlein, Delany and Zelazny, even some fantasy like C.S. Lewis and Susan Cooper.

All this isn't getting across the feeling of the book, which is a remarkably understated but powerful nonetheless. It's written clearly, without any sort of tricks or elaborate constructions; except for the narrative structure that ties everything together, Mori's entries could have come out of any well-read person's personal journal. Mori's voice is direct and matter of fact, and it gives the reader somewhere to stand when strange or even conventional things happen--she's level-headed throughout, which helps also merge the magical/fantastical elements with the more conventionally-historical-fiction parts. There is no grandstanding, no showy magic. As Publishers Weekly's little comment says, it's an inversion of the magical boarding school trope, but it's not really about boarding school. Mori's stay at the boarding school's just a way of highlighting the other parts of the story; Mori's not really 'part' of the boarding school like her classmates are. She's kind of detached.

But yes--if you get a chance, this is a fantastic novel. I loved it.
I see that it won a Hugo and a Nebula, and both are absolutely well-deserved, holy cow. Also, once you get Ursula K LeGuin's review in The Guardian--oh my god what am I saying, read this book. And I think the more books you've read and the more you love books, the more you'll like this book. 10/10