Raised by a half-mad mother who dabbled in magic, Morwenna Phelps
found refuge in two worlds. As a child growing up in Wales, she played
among the spirits who made their homes in industrial ruins. But her mind
found freedom and promise in the science fiction novels that were her
closest companions. Then her mother tried to bend the spirits to dark
ends, and Mori was forced to confront her in a magical battle that left
her crippled--and her twin sister dead.
Fleeing to her father
whom she barely knew, Mori was sent to boarding school in England-a
place all but devoid of true magic. There, outcast and alone, she
tempted fate by doing magic herself, in an attempt to find a circle of
like-minded friends. But her magic also drew the attention of her
mother, bringing about a reckoning that could no longer be put off...
298 pages
Published January 18, 2011
If there's something I've learned about myself over the years, it's that I really enjoy stories that centre around the concept of magical realism. The smooth blending of mundane reality with the fantastical in such a way that the supernatural elements don't feel like invaders of realism's space, nor like some hidden subculture filled with vampires and werewolves and nightclubs where mages meet up or any such thing. When I encounter stories where people have to deal not only with the unreal but also keeping their grades up in school or managing to not get fired from their office job, it gets my attention.
I also have a weakness for stories involving boarding schools, and where characters love books as much as I do. So with all of that in mind, I was already prepared to really enjoy Among Others. It has all the right elements to make me love it.
While I can't say anything about the accuracy of the setting - I wasn't a teen in 1970s Wales, for a start - I can say that the way this story was told brought everything to life for me, and made me feel like I was looking at an actual snapshot in time. Among Others is told through Mori's journal entries, giving readers insight into not just her circumstances but also her inner monologue, without the awkwardness that I find often comes with first-person narratives. We don't have scenes of Mori describing her appearance while standing in front of a mirror, for instance, though we do get a sense of what she looks like when she muses on how she thinks others see her. Scenes aren't written in a way that would translate easily to a visual medium, but are just descriptions of what happens during her days, from the books she's reading to the magic she uses to keep herself safe to how uncomfortable she finds her family situation or her disability. It makes even the novel's few action scenes feel both subtle and understated while also being portentous. I really love the balance that was struck here.
I also really like the system of magic that Among Others employs. It's sympathetic magic in the way that it uses connections (turning the pages of books back into trees, as paper comes from wood and still holds the memory, so to speak, of being in that form), but it also employs chains of coincidence that transcend the linearity of time. Mori once gives the example of using magic to make a bus come a bit sooner, but hesitates because what seems like a small act could have ripple effects going back in time, changing the bus timetable, which might mean changing the comings and goings of who knows how many people since that timetable was established. It's a fantastic thought experiment even when you don't bring magic into the equation. Pick an event in your life, change one element of it, and try to figure out what else might have needed to change in order to bring about that difference. It's a system of magic that fits so well into the real world, because it's so easily deniable to anyone who doesn't want to see it, but also because it acts on reality itself, making small changes that bring about big changes, but everything is still so grounded in reality that it seems strange to think that this isn't how the world really works.
Good books get you thinking.
Mori isn't some perfect protagonist, either. True to the manner of most teens, she's startling ignorant about some things but believes herself to be right more often than not. She's arrogant, and sometimes that arrogance is earned, but other times it's just that she's convinced nobody could know something better than she does. I will give some leniency in this, since it's not like she could just hop online and learn about things, as we can today. Comparative ignorance is just part of historical fiction. Doesn't make it less frustrating to read, though, however realistic it may be.
I still can't fully get over how much I loved Among Others. It's so believable and tightly written that even Mori talking about things that happen in school or chatting with her father about books they both enjoy feels essential to the story. Nothing feels like filler. At worst, some more mundane bits feel like a short break from heavier story elements. It's a coming-of-age story mixed with historical fiction and magical realism, and it's absolutely brilliant. There's a magic to this story that makes me sad I hadn't read it before, because yes, it really is that good. No fan of speculative fiction should pass it by.
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