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The Time of the Ghost
There's been an accident!
Something's wrong! She doesn't know who she is, and doesn't know why she's invisibly floating through the buildings and grounds of a half-remembered boarding school. Then, to her horror, she encounters the ancient evil that four peculiar sisters have unwittingly woken -- and learns she is their only hope against a deadly danger.
Something's wrong! She doesn't know who she is, and doesn't know why she's invisibly floating through the buildings and grounds of a half-remembered boarding school. Then, to her horror, she encounters the ancient evil that four peculiar sisters have unwittingly woken -- and learns she is their only hope against a deadly danger.
304 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1981
67 people are currently reading
2560 people want to read
About the author
Diana Wynne Jones
149 books12k followersDiana 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.
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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 258 reviews
May 17, 2013
Is it just coincidence that Diana Wynne Jones's creepiest book is also her 13th published?
The unnamed, bodiless narrator knows only two things: that she is one of four sisters, and that there's been a terrible accident. She follows the sisters around, trying to discover which one she is, and finds more questions than answers. Where is middle sister Sally? What does the Worship of Monigan--a funny game Cart, the oldest sister, made up that has sinister undertones--have to do with her present condition? How is she ever going to get back to her body? And how can she warn the girls about the terrible accident that's coming?
DWJ drew heavily on her own childhood to create the four sisters; when someone once objected that the girls' terrible living conditions was too extreme, she said that she'd had to tone down the truth or no one would have believed her. The squalor and parental indifference the girls live in makes me squirm inside. The ghost first observes them making their environment worse just to see if their parents will notice. (They don't.) What's more, these girls seem so real, so believable, are drawn in such detail that they come close to eclipsing everyone in DWJ's previous novels. They certainly overshadow the other characters in the book, though these secondary characters are as solid as anything else DWJ wrote.
And it is a profoundly creepy book, not just because the evil is centered in a mildewy, decrepit doll. (Dolls are really creepy if you have the right soundtrack.) The Worship of Monigan begins as a game, but provides an outlet for something truly evil to enter the world. Monigan herself is cold, menacing, and completely heartless. She accepts sacrifices even if they have no meaning to her, and everyone involved loses something important they didn't realize they were giving up. Other occult elements, like the ghost's use of a Ouija board to communicate and the use of blood to give the ghost substance to talk, give the whole novel a sinister tone.
As with many of DWJ's novels, the ending is complex and satisfying, and the solution to the problem of Monigan's hold over the ghost is brilliant. The introduction of the very adult element of abusive relationships may seem out of place in a young adult novel, but I think it adds to its dark and sinister nature. Once again, it's the relationship between the sisters that really makes the whole thing work. The Time of the Ghost is an excellent novel in which Diana Wynne Jones again proves her mastery of the fantasy genre.
The unnamed, bodiless narrator knows only two things: that she is one of four sisters, and that there's been a terrible accident. She follows the sisters around, trying to discover which one she is, and finds more questions than answers. Where is middle sister Sally? What does the Worship of Monigan--a funny game Cart, the oldest sister, made up that has sinister undertones--have to do with her present condition? How is she ever going to get back to her body? And how can she warn the girls about the terrible accident that's coming?
DWJ drew heavily on her own childhood to create the four sisters; when someone once objected that the girls' terrible living conditions was too extreme, she said that she'd had to tone down the truth or no one would have believed her. The squalor and parental indifference the girls live in makes me squirm inside. The ghost first observes them making their environment worse just to see if their parents will notice. (They don't.) What's more, these girls seem so real, so believable, are drawn in such detail that they come close to eclipsing everyone in DWJ's previous novels. They certainly overshadow the other characters in the book, though these secondary characters are as solid as anything else DWJ wrote.
And it is a profoundly creepy book, not just because the evil is centered in a mildewy, decrepit doll. (Dolls are really creepy if you have the right soundtrack.) The Worship of Monigan begins as a game, but provides an outlet for something truly evil to enter the world. Monigan herself is cold, menacing, and completely heartless. She accepts sacrifices even if they have no meaning to her, and everyone involved loses something important they didn't realize they were giving up. Other occult elements, like the ghost's use of a Ouija board to communicate and the use of blood to give the ghost substance to talk, give the whole novel a sinister tone.
As with many of DWJ's novels, the ending is complex and satisfying, and the solution to the problem of Monigan's hold over the ghost is brilliant. The introduction of the very adult element of abusive relationships may seem out of place in a young adult novel, but I think it adds to its dark and sinister nature. Once again, it's the relationship between the sisters that really makes the whole thing work. The Time of the Ghost is an excellent novel in which Diana Wynne Jones again proves her mastery of the fantasy genre.
November 9, 2012
It's quite strange reading this after reading the Reflections collection, knowing how autobiographical this happens to be. And how things that really happened to Diana Wynne Jones had to be toned down to be at all believable in the story. Of course, it still has that expansive, slightly breakneck pace of most of Jones' work -- there's something a little, well, mad about it. Colourful. I don't know how to describe it -- it's a swirl of colours and impressions. A child's imagination.
I read this all in one go; the biggest hook is the confused narrator, the way you can't quite get things straight. The plot itself -- I don't know, I wasn't so keen on the whole Monigan thing. (Intentional closeness to Morrigan?) I suppose that's my adult way of demanding explanations, though: as a child I'd probably just have accepted that an evil goddess clung to the land and somehow possessed a doll.
(The last bit of this review is a reaction to Diana Wynne Jones' thoughts on the differences between writing for children and writing for adults. Children, she found, make the connections much more readily and instinctively than adults. She had to do more explanation when she wrote for adults.)
I read this all in one go; the biggest hook is the confused narrator, the way you can't quite get things straight. The plot itself -- I don't know, I wasn't so keen on the whole Monigan thing. (Intentional closeness to Morrigan?) I suppose that's my adult way of demanding explanations, though: as a child I'd probably just have accepted that an evil goddess clung to the land and somehow possessed a doll.
(The last bit of this review is a reaction to Diana Wynne Jones' thoughts on the differences between writing for children and writing for adults. Children, she found, make the connections much more readily and instinctively than adults. She had to do more explanation when she wrote for adults.)
January 28, 2022
This is the Diana Wynne Jones book with all the Melford sisters (four total), and it's hard not to read the author's own bio into Ghost's family dynamics. Especially since it's so much fun speculating which sister(s) Wynne Jones based on herself.
The plot gets a little muddled in this one, but don't let that stop you!
Standalone, first published in 1981, the same year as The Homeward Bounders, and between the Chrestomanci books The Magicians of Caprona and Witch Week. (And five years before Howl’s Moving Castle).
The plot gets a little muddled in this one, but don't let that stop you!
Standalone, first published in 1981, the same year as The Homeward Bounders, and between the Chrestomanci books The Magicians of Caprona and Witch Week. (And five years before Howl’s Moving Castle).
June 23, 2017
This is a walk on the darker side for the usually light-hearted Diana Wynne Jones. The titular ghost is one of a family of four sisters - only she doesn't know which one. As the ghost observes her family (richly characterized by Jones), she slowly figures out which sisters she is and what happened to her, and she discovers that she has the power to prevent something terrible from happening: the fulfillment of a bargain the sisters made with the mysterious goddess Monigan, whom the sisters thought they imagined but who is terribly real.
The Time of the Ghost is distinctly more grim in tone than most of Jones's other work. The sisters are neglected (and occasionally abused) by their parents, one of them ends up with an abusive boyfriend, and the Monigan parts are very creepy. I read this first a couple of years ago and was put off by the tone; upon rereading, expecting it to be a little darker, I liked it more.
The story is skillfully woven together, as the reader and the ghost pick up clues about what's happening, and it's alloyed with Jones's usual wit, even as she deals with some disturbing issues. Don't expect the lighthearted charm of the Chrestomanci or Howl books, but read it anyway: it's well worth it.
The Time of the Ghost is distinctly more grim in tone than most of Jones's other work. The sisters are neglected (and occasionally abused) by their parents, one of them ends up with an abusive boyfriend, and the Monigan parts are very creepy. I read this first a couple of years ago and was put off by the tone; upon rereading, expecting it to be a little darker, I liked it more.
The story is skillfully woven together, as the reader and the ghost pick up clues about what's happening, and it's alloyed with Jones's usual wit, even as she deals with some disturbing issues. Don't expect the lighthearted charm of the Chrestomanci or Howl books, but read it anyway: it's well worth it.
October 15, 2019
Regular reminder that Diana was a genius, thanks
May 13, 2019
An interesting short novel of Jones' which I had not read before. This takes the idea of the unreliable narrator to a new level by starting in the (third person) viewpoint of a character walking down a country lane and unable to remember what has happened apart from a strong sense of there having been a serious accident - and then realising that she no longer has a body. From there the 'ghost' finds her way to a boys' school run by the parents of four young girls and where she has an increasing sense that she is one of them. But apart from the family dog, no one can see or hear her.
Despite the ghost's confusion she gradually learns that the girls, fed up with the gross neglect of their parents - which during the course of the book descends into downright abuse - have hit on the idea that one of them should disappear for a while (staying at a friend's in the area) and they will force the parents to notice and acknowledge that absence.
The ghost decides she must be the missing girl and that she is dead after an accident - but then it transpires that nothing has happened to the fourth girl. And from there develops the complexity of the novel, with its shifts in time and its involvement with the worship of a supposedly imaginary being which has had the undesired effect of stirring up something powerful, ancient and evil ....
The real strength of this book is in the characters of the girls and to a lesser extent of the parents, some of the boys with whom the girls have formed an alliance, and the ghastly cook from whom the girls are forced to "steal" food which has otherwise been denied them. The dynamics between the sisters, their love/hate relationships, and their mutual dependence in adversity is what drives the book forward. I only felt it flagged a bit towards the fairly rushed ending . But there are some creepy sections and this story is quite dark given the parental abuse. My only real problem is that the way the girls turn out is not quite consistent with their younger selves. So an enjoyable read but not quite a 4 star for me.
Despite the ghost's confusion she gradually learns that the girls, fed up with the gross neglect of their parents - which during the course of the book descends into downright abuse - have hit on the idea that one of them should disappear for a while (staying at a friend's in the area) and they will force the parents to notice and acknowledge that absence.
The ghost decides she must be the missing girl and that she is dead after an accident - but then it transpires that nothing has happened to the fourth girl. And from there develops the complexity of the novel, with its shifts in time and its involvement with the worship of a supposedly imaginary being which has had the undesired effect of stirring up something powerful, ancient and evil ....
The real strength of this book is in the characters of the girls and to a lesser extent of the parents, some of the boys with whom the girls have formed an alliance, and the ghastly cook from whom the girls are forced to "steal" food which has otherwise been denied them. The dynamics between the sisters, their love/hate relationships, and their mutual dependence in adversity is what drives the book forward. I only felt it flagged a bit towards the fairly rushed ending . But there are some creepy sections and this story is quite dark given the parental abuse. My only real problem is that the way the girls turn out is not quite consistent with their younger selves. So an enjoyable read but not quite a 4 star for me.
May 25, 2025
DWJ is so good at writing childhood. She nails the peculiar powerlessness of being a child, and the compensatory power of imagination (which DWJ, unlike most of us, never lost), as well as the sense of a rigid and incomprehensible set of rules at work.
She's also brilliant at writing people who are people, not just characters. All of the sisters are fully formed, even Cart, whom ghost-Sally initially repeatedly describes as "blurred": "There was about her, blurred and vast, the feeling of powerful personality, which, like her lumping body, had somehow got itself cased in the mind of a little girl." The inversion of the expected here - a body encased in a mind, rather than vice versa - is typical Jones.
I'm not sure what to make of Cart's transformation at the end of the book into "one of the prettiest girls [Sally] had ever seen. It was not only that she was slim and fair and young - and she looked younger now than she had looked as a bolster - she had a clear, glowing, confident look. She looked as if she felt as lovely as she looked." It feels a bit like DWJ meting out her own version of karmic justice - Cart is the most intelligent and imaginative of the sisters and is given an appearance to match - but I don't know if it's necessary. I suppose I don't see why Cart couldn't have gone off to Girton and stayed a bolster. (I'm trying to remember if DWJ ever wrote plain heroines - Nan Pilgrim in Witch Week, but I can't think of any others. Possibly one reason I like WW so much).
The book reminds me, tonally and in content, of The Ocean at the End of the Lane, another of my favourite reads. I likes what I likes, I suppose.
She's also brilliant at writing people who are people, not just characters. All of the sisters are fully formed, even Cart, whom ghost-Sally initially repeatedly describes as "blurred": "There was about her, blurred and vast, the feeling of powerful personality, which, like her lumping body, had somehow got itself cased in the mind of a little girl." The inversion of the expected here - a body encased in a mind, rather than vice versa - is typical Jones.
I'm not sure what to make of Cart's transformation at the end of the book into "one of the prettiest girls [Sally] had ever seen. It was not only that she was slim and fair and young - and she looked younger now than she had looked as a bolster - she had a clear, glowing, confident look. She looked as if she felt as lovely as she looked." It feels a bit like DWJ meting out her own version of karmic justice - Cart is the most intelligent and imaginative of the sisters and is given an appearance to match - but I don't know if it's necessary. I suppose I don't see why Cart couldn't have gone off to Girton and stayed a bolster. (I'm trying to remember if DWJ ever wrote plain heroines - Nan Pilgrim in Witch Week, but I can't think of any others. Possibly one reason I like WW so much).
The book reminds me, tonally and in content, of The Ocean at the End of the Lane, another of my favourite reads. I likes what I likes, I suppose.
June 15, 2022
“There's been an accident!”
She doesn't remember much - but she is one of four sisters and something terrible will happen that put her into this ghost-like state. Between neglecting parents who run a boys boarding school and four very unlike sisters, the ghost tries to unravel who she is and what has or will befall her. It also begs the question - Who is responsible? Was it one of the sisters, was it related to their game of worship of the goddess Monigan, was it one of the schoolboys or someone else entirely?
I set out reading to The Time of the Ghost with mixed expectations. I love Diana Wynne Jones' books for her clever fantasy stories and would generally pick a fantasy book over a mystery one any day. That being said, ghost-stories can be a great read when executed well. Although the first chapters took a while to get into, things became more and more interesting and in the end, I could hardly put down the book for want of knowing how it all ends. Suffice to say, Diana Wynne Jones did write a well-crafted mystery.
The author did a most wonderful job with keeping the ghost's identity a secret. We are introduced to all four sisters and they all have such different temperaments - it is hard to imagine the ghost as being either of them as she seems yet an entirely different person altogether. There are clues along the way that lead from to one sister to the other until finally, I even found myself wondering whether she is any of them at all.
The question about what the accident is and who is behind it is just as well hidden - for most of the book I thought it could be anyone or no one. While there are some characters who seem more villainous than others, I knew it would have been too easy and too obvious for it to be them. This book just keeps you guessing right to the end.
Apart from the main mystery of the who's and what's, there are some interesting themes that at times struck me as more relevant than the mystery itself. The sisters' parents are phenomenally negligent - the Dursleys are perfectly loving compared to these two. While the mother isn't quite as bad, the father - who is always referred to as Himself - is an utter nightmare. The treatment of their four daughters was possibly the most horrifying aspect of this book - and I mean, there was blood drinking and the like involved. I did wonder why the father was referred to as Himself but the more I saw of him, the more I could feel that it was quite befitting of him.
There were a few moments where I didn't enjoy the book as much - especially during the earlier chapters which I found hard to get into. The sisters are quite horrible to each other and I found it hard to sympathise with any of them. But perhaps this was intended so, as I certainly felt more for them as the story advanced. There certainly were some very dynamic scenes between them all. There were also some scenes which I found disturbing and grotesque - again, we're talking about kids drinking blood - and I could have done without. The story was solid and thrilling enough and would have had the same suspenseful atmosphere without those gross things.
So for a book from a genre I seldom read, this was a fantastic and engrossing story and not to be missed by any who enjoy Diana Wynne Jones' complex and intertwining plotlines!
May 2, 2013
I first read this one back in high school, if I remember correctly, but I think I was too stupid to understand it properly. I picked it up again because I have en endless faith in Diana Wynne Jones...and I mostly just wanted to prove to myself that she can write, after the totally yawn-inducing Merlin Conspiracy.
I like this a lot better now than I did as a kid. I can keep up with the time jumps better and I'm less emotionally dependent on the characters, which allows me to keep an eye out for their flaws as well.
For starters, I can truly appreciate the concept of having an unreliable narrator! This isn't spoilery, she is openly unreliable from the start. She is not only confused about who she is and what her purpose is, but she's also confused about whether she's actually there or where she actually wants to go. When I was a stupid teenager, I never appreciated the beautiful complexity of post-traumatic thinking, but I guess being a ghost really puts life into perspective. Sally is pretty easy-going I guess, but I never really had an open emotional attachment to her alone. I like her other three sisters equally, and ditto the boys (except Julian, but we'll get to him). Each of the characters is well-defined and come complete with their own flaws and strengths, making for very three-dimensional and believable characters.
Julian Addiman, however, is a downright snot. This is unusual, because I tend to have a positive experience with Julians in literature in general. I've known two Julians in my lifetime and they're both been absolute darlings. Julian Addiman, however, is a manipulative, self-indulgent ratbag without a positive quality to him. Again, this isn't a spoiler. He is openly manipulative and cruel from the start. While Sally's view is unreliable and we may think we can't trust her, Julian is the one person she doesn't doubt her judgement on. He perpetually yearns to make everything work out in his favour to the cost of all others and is generally the most dislikeable character in the series. That said, it doesn't automatically make him the bad guy.
Having finally read into Jones's background a little bit, I finally know how abusive and neglectful her parents were. So it's no surprise that neglect is mentioned a lot in this story. Abusive relatives appear often in her stories, come to think of it. There are parts in this novel where it comes across as nearly autobiographical.
At one point, for example, Fenella says that she's going to wear her hair in two knots over her face for as long as it takes her mum to notice, and if it doesn't work she'll try to pretend to be sick (even though her mother says all sicknesses are 'psychological'). In real life, it was Jones's sister who kept her hair in buns to get attention, and Jones suffered from measles and appendicitis without her mother realizing. Once the doctor insisted that she was really ill and she got the appendix out, she kept it in a jar just to spite her mother. This is entirely something Fenella would do.
What Jones has done is what Stephen King would call 'writing what you know'. Adding experience and reality to fiction only makes it more believable. So it's no surprise that these four girls are so realistic, when they've been modelled after the experience she and her sisters had growing up.
Sally's parents are awful people. When her sister almost chokes to death when a trapeze-act goes wrong, the girls try to alert their parents. Their mom and dad get pissed off at being disturbed! What?! Apparently that's based on a real life occurrence too! What kind of parents are these?
Jesus. Someone restore my faith in humanity.
Her grammar, as always, is flawless. It's consistently that way and the book, despite being fantasy fiction, comes with 200 pages less fluff than your modern YA fiction book. This, my friends, is what we call good editing. All the unnecessaries are cut in favour of allowing the plot and character development to shine. The only complaint I have is that the concept seemed a little too deep for a kid's book, so Jones seemed torn between writing for kids the way she always does and writing for adults as this book so wanted. Personally, I think this may have been a little better if written with a bit more length and depth and marketed as a book for adults, but I may just be biased because I love this woman and wouldn't mind reading a library of her works. Honestly, this story isn't lacking anything that makes for a great read.
The ending is well-thought out and surprising literally down to the last page, so you'll be left with that good-book-with-a-twist-gave-me-whiplash feeling that makes you want to go back and read it all over again just to make sure that you read it right. It's surprising and well-written and beautifully cohesive. More than anything, it's a reminder of why I wanted to join the publishing industry in the first place - to make sure that gems like these reach the mass market. If I can ever ensure that even one writer like Jones reaches publication, I can die happy.
Go pick up this book, but Google her biography first. It makes reading this book so, SO much better.
I like this a lot better now than I did as a kid. I can keep up with the time jumps better and I'm less emotionally dependent on the characters, which allows me to keep an eye out for their flaws as well.
For starters, I can truly appreciate the concept of having an unreliable narrator! This isn't spoilery, she is openly unreliable from the start. She is not only confused about who she is and what her purpose is, but she's also confused about whether she's actually there or where she actually wants to go. When I was a stupid teenager, I never appreciated the beautiful complexity of post-traumatic thinking, but I guess being a ghost really puts life into perspective. Sally is pretty easy-going I guess, but I never really had an open emotional attachment to her alone. I like her other three sisters equally, and ditto the boys (except Julian, but we'll get to him). Each of the characters is well-defined and come complete with their own flaws and strengths, making for very three-dimensional and believable characters.
Julian Addiman, however, is a downright snot. This is unusual, because I tend to have a positive experience with Julians in literature in general. I've known two Julians in my lifetime and they're both been absolute darlings. Julian Addiman, however, is a manipulative, self-indulgent ratbag without a positive quality to him. Again, this isn't a spoiler. He is openly manipulative and cruel from the start. While Sally's view is unreliable and we may think we can't trust her, Julian is the one person she doesn't doubt her judgement on. He perpetually yearns to make everything work out in his favour to the cost of all others and is generally the most dislikeable character in the series. That said, it doesn't automatically make him the bad guy.
Having finally read into Jones's background a little bit, I finally know how abusive and neglectful her parents were. So it's no surprise that neglect is mentioned a lot in this story. Abusive relatives appear often in her stories, come to think of it. There are parts in this novel where it comes across as nearly autobiographical.
At one point, for example, Fenella says that she's going to wear her hair in two knots over her face for as long as it takes her mum to notice, and if it doesn't work she'll try to pretend to be sick (even though her mother says all sicknesses are 'psychological'). In real life, it was Jones's sister who kept her hair in buns to get attention, and Jones suffered from measles and appendicitis without her mother realizing. Once the doctor insisted that she was really ill and she got the appendix out, she kept it in a jar just to spite her mother. This is entirely something Fenella would do.
What Jones has done is what Stephen King would call 'writing what you know'. Adding experience and reality to fiction only makes it more believable. So it's no surprise that these four girls are so realistic, when they've been modelled after the experience she and her sisters had growing up.
Sally's parents are awful people. When her sister almost chokes to death when a trapeze-act goes wrong, the girls try to alert their parents. Their mom and dad get pissed off at being disturbed! What?! Apparently that's based on a real life occurrence too! What kind of parents are these?
Jesus. Someone restore my faith in humanity.
Her grammar, as always, is flawless. It's consistently that way and the book, despite being fantasy fiction, comes with 200 pages less fluff than your modern YA fiction book. This, my friends, is what we call good editing. All the unnecessaries are cut in favour of allowing the plot and character development to shine. The only complaint I have is that the concept seemed a little too deep for a kid's book, so Jones seemed torn between writing for kids the way she always does and writing for adults as this book so wanted. Personally, I think this may have been a little better if written with a bit more length and depth and marketed as a book for adults, but I may just be biased because I love this woman and wouldn't mind reading a library of her works. Honestly, this story isn't lacking anything that makes for a great read.
The ending is well-thought out and surprising literally down to the last page, so you'll be left with that good-book-with-a-twist-gave-me-whiplash feeling that makes you want to go back and read it all over again just to make sure that you read it right. It's surprising and well-written and beautifully cohesive. More than anything, it's a reminder of why I wanted to join the publishing industry in the first place - to make sure that gems like these reach the mass market. If I can ever ensure that even one writer like Jones reaches publication, I can die happy.
Go pick up this book, but Google her biography first. It makes reading this book so, SO much better.
March 27, 2021
Corn yellow and running, came past me just now, the one bearing within her the power to give life in the realms of death.
As with so many of Diana Wynne Jones's fantasies she weaves in so many strands -- autobiographical, literary, supernatural and more -- that it becomes almost like an ancient artefact or artwork, an object that mystifies as much as it magnetically draws one in, a magical narrative that repays a second read or more, and then a hefty bit of research and recall.
For example, the ghost of the title hears a voice from a longbarrow, the speaker mistaking a sister called Imogen for his long-dead daughter. This must surely be the Cunobelinus who was transformed in Shakespeare's play into Cymbeline, who had a daughter called Imogen who was presumed to have been killed. And though the novel is set in North Hampshire the author draws from her childhood in Essex, the area with which Cymbeline and his family is associated.
So already we are seeing autobiographical and literary details being drawn together, but for the innocent reader what comes through most is a mystery story concerning a very strange family and a ghost who doesn't know who she is.
Though told in the third person we see everything from the ghost's viewpoint. She knows there has been an accident, and she knows she is one of four sisters, but which one is she -- Charlotte, Selina, Imogen or Fenella? She thinks she is Selina or Sally, but is she really? As she assembles her memories she finds herself moving around in past events, in a situation that involves distant parents, a boys school, a shambling wolfhound and four sisters left to their own devices. And somehow connected with her sense of alarm is an evil entity called Monigan, conjured up by the sisters in thoughtless ritual play and embodied in a decaying mildewy rag doll.
The ghost tries to convey her fears during a séance with Scrabble tiles, and later through automatic writing:
I'M ONE MELFORD GIRL DON'T KNOW WHICH 7 YEARS OFF NEED HELP MONIGAN HELP
I found I remembered little from my first encounter with this novel several years ago except the author's strong evocation of a basket of moods -- anxiety, yes, but also mystery, humour and sisterhood. In her collection of writings Reflections she tells how she toned down her own childhood experiences and that of her sisters Isobel and Ursula to convey their own dysfunctional upbringing in the peculiar lives of the four Melford siblings, but it's clear that the amelioration is half-hearted: Phyllis Melford sounds to have been just as ineffectual as Diana's mother, while Himself (as the father is referred to) is every bit as irascible and tyrannical as Aneurin Jones had been, a father who would have given Lear with his three daughters a run for his money.
The imperative for resolving the ghost's predicament comes with a sister in hospital seven years into the future, for at that moment Monigan is due to claim that sister's life. Jones skilfully builds up the tension by constantly distracting with moments of humour and apparent exaggeration and leaving the solution to the ghost's identity to the very last. There is a very small cast which includes a chain-smoking cook, a couple of friendly schoolboys and a thoroughly unlikeable older lad always referred to in full as Julian Addiman. I suspect this last was based on someone the author thoroughly despised, so viciously does she characterise him.
Who then was the sister who'd become a ghost? Was it the youngest, brave Fenella with the booming voice? Was it doleful Imogen who had ambitions of becoming a concert pianist? Perhaps it was Selena whose name, derived from Selene the Greek goddess of the moon, was the counterpart of Diana, the Roman moon goddess? Or maybe it was Charlotte, like the author herself the eldest of the sisters? There are dangers of course in fictionalising one's own life but it does at least ground the novel in reality, preventing it becoming unlikely because simply too incredible. Even the story of a ghost is grounded in the story of one seen by a cleaner in the establishment the author's parents ran during and after the war in Thaxted, Essex.
And Monigan herself? She seems to be compounded of two mythical or legendary beings. The first is the Morrigan, the great Irish triple divinity of war and death, her name translatable as the Nightmare Queen and thus an apt figure for the sisters to invoke. The second is a phantom personage: that Celtic King Cunobelinus who later became Cymbeline also transformed into the Welsh Beli Mawr, or Beli "the Great". And who was the father of Beli? A pseudohistorical figure called Manogan.
There proves to be just one person who truly has the power to give life in the realms of death, but to find out the answer to who that is, and how they accomplish it, one has to read this bewitching novel.
January 10, 2021
Wow! Reading this short novel is a completely captivating experience. The story begins with an unnamed character alone on a road. It's summer. She doesn't know how she got there. She's not sure who she is or what her name is. Gradually, she's drawn to a house, in which she discovers three sisters. She begins to think that there has been a terrible accident -- and that she may be the ghost of a fourth sister. Tightly woven, this novel manages to cover many different themes and ideas. We meet the sisters, who are alternately abused and neglected by their parents, and are constantly distressed and angry. Neglectful parents are a theme in Jones' work, but the squalor and neglect these sisters live in is particularly extreme, although a reflection on Jones' own childhood. Their world becomes penetrated by a subtle, unexpected evil presence: it is drawn in through a game they play together, but comes to demand a high price of them all. The unnamed narrator gradually discovers she can have agency over what she does, and her world, which has for so long been a place of self-hatred and loss, begins to expand. I found the way the novel unfolds to be completely surprising, and I think that it's good to read without too many spoilers, but it's a fantastic and satisfying ghost story. It's dark, emotionally convincing, imaginative and yet palpably real. Highly recommended.
January 31, 2025
this is like top tier diana for me and it’s SO underrated and doesn’t gets mentioned enough!!!!!!!! thank you to taz for saying this was absolutely my vibes and it happened to be one my rare DWJ blind spots……..I actually can’t convey how much I love this book in words. It’s diana’s darkest book (CHILD ABUSE AND BLOOD SACRIFICE) but also one of the funniest (the way the kids end up getting the blood had me howling at how silly it was). she has such a deep, true understanding of children and their psychology — in all their weirdness, innocence, vivid imagination, casual cruelty, neediness for love and care. this was especially such a good read for me after reading stephen king’s It: the sequence where all these brave kids are biking through a frightening psychedelic landscape while every adult in their lives turns away from them once again made me want to cry!!!!!!
like most DWJ books, the last act is whirling and ambitious then ends on a note of anticlimax — but it really worked for me here. It felt so profound when she matched the unearthly evil of a cruel goddess with the mundane evil of parent who simply doesn’t give a shit about her kids, but that they feel bound to anyway. probably the most vividly drawn cast diana has ever had too: cart, imogen, sally and fenella felt completely real to me as people, and I’ll love them forever. a gorgeous story about sisters who love each other……MY LITTLE WOMEN!!!!!!
like most DWJ books, the last act is whirling and ambitious then ends on a note of anticlimax — but it really worked for me here. It felt so profound when she matched the unearthly evil of a cruel goddess with the mundane evil of parent who simply doesn’t give a shit about her kids, but that they feel bound to anyway. probably the most vividly drawn cast diana has ever had too: cart, imogen, sally and fenella felt completely real to me as people, and I’ll love them forever. a gorgeous story about sisters who love each other……MY LITTLE WOMEN!!!!!!
October 28, 2008
All of Diana Wynne Jones's books annoy me in some way. This is apparently a cosmological law. They are all flawed, most of them are disjointed, and while reading them I am constantly distracted as I rewrite the plotting and characterization in my head. But all of her books are intriguing and inventive, and they are all distinctively "Wynne-Jonesian."
The Time of the Ghost is no exception to any of these rules. It's part mystery, part ghost story, part growing-up tale, part dark fantasy, and when it is being any one of these it works fairly well. Unfortunately, Wynne Jones does not meld these separate elements as well as I would have hoped, and the plot is uneven and bewildering.
In the end, even the occasional flashes of brilliance do not save this from being a strange, lumpy porridge of a book.
The Time of the Ghost is no exception to any of these rules. It's part mystery, part ghost story, part growing-up tale, part dark fantasy, and when it is being any one of these it works fairly well. Unfortunately, Wynne Jones does not meld these separate elements as well as I would have hoped, and the plot is uneven and bewildering.
In the end, even the occasional flashes of brilliance do not save this from being a strange, lumpy porridge of a book.
March 11, 2011
Very strange YA fiction, with a typically DWJ complex plot, and an unreliable narrator (not spoilerish, she is openly confused from the start).
But what makes this truly remarkable is the portrayal of the parents, some of the most appalling incompetent evil by neglect parents I ever read about in fiction - though truth being stranger and far more appalling than fiction it echoes media account of real life cases and DWJ´s recollections of her own, and her sisters´s childhoods.
Not sure how good it is, but it is very interesting. As well as odd, and creepy. Though nothing quite so repulsive as that oh-too-real horrible parents.
But what makes this truly remarkable is the portrayal of the parents, some of the most appalling incompetent evil by neglect parents I ever read about in fiction - though truth being stranger and far more appalling than fiction it echoes media account of real life cases and DWJ´s recollections of her own, and her sisters´s childhoods.
Not sure how good it is, but it is very interesting. As well as odd, and creepy. Though nothing quite so repulsive as that oh-too-real horrible parents.
January 1, 2015
I need to reread this one, I think it confused me when I was a kid. There were some sisters whose parents ran a boarding school and didn't take care of them. And a witch? A ghost? The ghost of witch? Something evil and scary, anyhow.
April 5, 2021
This was a delightfully creepy read! I've read about ten books by Diana Wynne Jones before, but most of them have been light and adventurous and funny (and then there is "Fire and Hemlock", of course). This, however, was something else entirely.
There were some signature DWJ humour, of course, and it balanced out the darker themes very well, but overall this book was not all that light. The plot worked very well and — surprisingly — the ending didn't feel rushed and messy (which is very typical with DWJ's books). The overall themes and twists reminded me of "Fire and Hemlock", which is my favourite of her books, although this one didn't really have any (pleasant) romance in it.
The characters and their lives are pretty sad, but there are some redeeming moments and hope, and the protagonist is very interesting and well-rounded. I found myself really rooting for her.
If you like ghost stories, surprises, intricate plots, menacing goddesses and a bit darker themes, this is definitely a book for you. (And probably a book that stays with you for a long time, just like "Fire and Hemlock" does.)
There were some signature DWJ humour, of course, and it balanced out the darker themes very well, but overall this book was not all that light. The plot worked very well and — surprisingly — the ending didn't feel rushed and messy (which is very typical with DWJ's books). The overall themes and twists reminded me of "Fire and Hemlock", which is my favourite of her books, although this one didn't really have any (pleasant) romance in it.
The characters and their lives are pretty sad, but there are some redeeming moments and hope, and the protagonist is very interesting and well-rounded. I found myself really rooting for her.
If you like ghost stories, surprises, intricate plots, menacing goddesses and a bit darker themes, this is definitely a book for you. (And probably a book that stays with you for a long time, just like "Fire and Hemlock" does.)
January 11, 2020
This may be my least favorite book by Diana Wynne Jones. I hadn't thought I'd read it before, but as soon as I started page one I got such a strong sense of déjà vu that I know I must've read it a long time ago. Definitely pre-Goodreads days because I have no record of it. I bet I read it once, and then blocked it from my memory because I disliked it even then.
It's about a girl who finds herself suddenly a ghost. Confused, she lurks around her sisters and friends trying to figure out why or if she's dead, and what her purpose for haunting them is. She figured out that they'd all been participating in a game of worshipping a moldy old doll as if it were an actual deity (I'm reminded of "The Egypt Game"), and it seems as if they actually did awaken some kind of malevolent demon or goddess or something. Did they go too far?
This isn't magical or whimsical like the Moving Castle books or the Chrestomanci series. It's just kind of....creepy. But not creepy in a deliciously eerie ghostly way, but more like creepy in the same way as flipping over a rock and finding pale crawly things underneath. Like, objectively you know that you shouldn't be bothered, but you shudder anyway. My mouth is twisting in distaste even now as I'm trying to think of how to describe the feeling this book gives me. I don't know if it's the moldy, maggoty way that the demon/goddess being named Monigan is described. Maybe it's the slightly barbaric way these sisters talk and behave? Their parents are neglectful when absent and emotionally abusive when around (though this isn't really addressed in the book. Their father calling his daughters little bitches is very matter-of-fact). My understanding is that this aspect of this book is toned-down autobiographical, which makes it even more alarming. The sisters, left to their own devices, get up to some games that just feel very "wtf". Like hanging a jump rope around a rafter so that one of them can tie the rope around her chest and pretend to be flying in a pantomime....except that obviously the rope digs into her skin terribly and she nearly loses consciousness from the rope getting tighter and tighter. They have to cut her out of the rope to restore her color. But then they move on, no big deal. I don't know why but this scene and the way it's described is very unsettling for some reason.
That's a good word for most of this book: unsettling. I ended up skimming the last third because I just wanted it to be over. Maybe the fact that this book made me feel so icky is a sign of it's quality , but since I read for enjoyment, I'm giving this one a lower rating. It's probably objectively good, but I disliked it.
Definitely won't be adding this to my DWJ collection, and now that I've got a Goodreads record of it I can save myself the discomfort of accidentally reading it again.
It's about a girl who finds herself suddenly a ghost. Confused, she lurks around her sisters and friends trying to figure out why or if she's dead, and what her purpose for haunting them is. She figured out that they'd all been participating in a game of worshipping a moldy old doll as if it were an actual deity (I'm reminded of "The Egypt Game"), and it seems as if they actually did awaken some kind of malevolent demon or goddess or something. Did they go too far?
This isn't magical or whimsical like the Moving Castle books or the Chrestomanci series. It's just kind of....creepy. But not creepy in a deliciously eerie ghostly way, but more like creepy in the same way as flipping over a rock and finding pale crawly things underneath. Like, objectively you know that you shouldn't be bothered, but you shudder anyway. My mouth is twisting in distaste even now as I'm trying to think of how to describe the feeling this book gives me. I don't know if it's the moldy, maggoty way that the demon/goddess being named Monigan is described. Maybe it's the slightly barbaric way these sisters talk and behave? Their parents are neglectful when absent and emotionally abusive when around (though this isn't really addressed in the book. Their father calling his daughters little bitches is very matter-of-fact). My understanding is that this aspect of this book is toned-down autobiographical, which makes it even more alarming. The sisters, left to their own devices, get up to some games that just feel very "wtf". Like hanging a jump rope around a rafter so that one of them can tie the rope around her chest and pretend to be flying in a pantomime....except that obviously the rope digs into her skin terribly and she nearly loses consciousness from the rope getting tighter and tighter. They have to cut her out of the rope to restore her color. But then they move on, no big deal. I don't know why but this scene and the way it's described is very unsettling for some reason.
That's a good word for most of this book: unsettling. I ended up skimming the last third because I just wanted it to be over. Maybe the fact that this book made me feel so icky is a sign of it's quality , but since I read for enjoyment, I'm giving this one a lower rating. It's probably objectively good, but I disliked it.
Definitely won't be adding this to my DWJ collection, and now that I've got a Goodreads record of it I can save myself the discomfort of accidentally reading it again.
November 8, 2010
Anyone who has read a couple of books by Diana Wynne Jones knows that anything can happen and the explanation in the end is almost never the one you expected it to be in the beginning. This is true for Time of the Ghost, too, and although it certainly is not Diana Wynne Jones' best book, it was nonetheless great fun to watch the story unfold and find out what's behind all the strange goings-on.
I agree that it is to a certain amount darker than her other books, a little more disturbing, too. I've always felt that she doesn't shy away from darker themes or ideas, and I've always liked that, actually. I think even (or especially!) if you write children's or YA books, it's a good thing to admit to at least the potential for cruelty and violence in humans. (That said, this book is neither cruel nor violent and I wouldn't have any doubts about giving it to my 10 year old nephew.)
Confusion-wise I felt it is roughly on a level with Hexwood (which I love dearly), and it has a similar twist in the middle that leaves you with a bunch of question marks floating over your head. But, as usual with DWJ, things get cleared up in the end (and rather quickly). At no point in the book it felt exasperating to me, it only added to the need to read on!
What fascinated me was the great characterization, as DWJ leaves enough room for interpretation, change and imperfections in the characters to make them thoroughly real in their strangeness (Fenella must be one of the coolest characters I've come across in a while). Due to the nature of the protagonist it was a bit difficult to follow through with the old relatin', but it didn't stop me from enjoying the book and offered a refreshing change of method to explore the story. The ending was a bit rushed, as Mrs Jones tends to wrap up things quickly, but personally I don't mind - it's as if she's saying "here's my explanation, now think about it yourself".
I agree that it is to a certain amount darker than her other books, a little more disturbing, too. I've always felt that she doesn't shy away from darker themes or ideas, and I've always liked that, actually. I think even (or especially!) if you write children's or YA books, it's a good thing to admit to at least the potential for cruelty and violence in humans. (That said, this book is neither cruel nor violent and I wouldn't have any doubts about giving it to my 10 year old nephew.)
Confusion-wise I felt it is roughly on a level with Hexwood (which I love dearly), and it has a similar twist in the middle that leaves you with a bunch of question marks floating over your head. But, as usual with DWJ, things get cleared up in the end (and rather quickly). At no point in the book it felt exasperating to me, it only added to the need to read on!
What fascinated me was the great characterization, as DWJ leaves enough room for interpretation, change and imperfections in the characters to make them thoroughly real in their strangeness (Fenella must be one of the coolest characters I've come across in a while). Due to the nature of the protagonist it was a bit difficult to follow through with the old relatin', but it didn't stop me from enjoying the book and offered a refreshing change of method to explore the story. The ending was a bit rushed, as Mrs Jones tends to wrap up things quickly, but personally I don't mind - it's as if she's saying "here's my explanation, now think about it yourself".
December 11, 2017
3.5/5
Reread (after many years therefore I had very vague recollections of it)
Well..! Mixed feelings. The whole book was very grey and drab and dreary. If this was a movie it would be mostly sepia I think.
Not to say that the book dragged on or that I got bored certainly not.
But the horror was not horrible. It was very dreamlike and dusty as if nothing was sharp and clear rather like the ghost herself.
The characters were all interesting and I would have liked a clearer picture.
The ending was like when you fall into a sitting position with a THUD. -_-
Reread (after many years therefore I had very vague recollections of it)
Well..! Mixed feelings. The whole book was very grey and drab and dreary. If this was a movie it would be mostly sepia I think.
Not to say that the book dragged on or that I got bored certainly not.
But the horror was not horrible. It was very dreamlike and dusty as if nothing was sharp and clear rather like the ghost herself.
The characters were all interesting and I would have liked a clearer picture.
The ending was like when you fall into a sitting position with a THUD. -_-
February 17, 2025
This was a lot of fun. It simultaneously reminds me of Little Women, with the quick quippy banter of a group of sisters growing up and occasionally putting each other in mortal danger, as one does, and of course the great adventure game Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, what with the ghost main character literally puzzle solving their way through a supernatural mystery plot. You'd be surprised how much Ghost Trick there actually is here, in fact. It really feels like something that should've been adapted into a video game or movie by now. As I said, it's a lot of fun and other than a slightly rushed ending I enjoyed it a whole lot.
April 7, 2021
“We may call it Monigan and think it’s a game, but I don’t think it is. I know there really is a dark old female Something, and whatever it is we’ve woken it up and brought it stalking closer. And we mustn’t go on. It’s not safe.” [loc. 1464]
Reread: I can't remember the last time I read this novel, and it's not one of my favourite works by Diana Wynne Jones, but I recalled the queasy, panicky feeling, and the ghost-speaking. I'd forgotten enough that the twists of plot -- and especially the ghost's identity -- were fresh and surprising.
The ghost spends a lot of time working out who she is and trying to reconstruct the elements of her life. She's one of four sisters, who are left more or less to their own devices while their parents run a school. I was quite shocked by just how unpleasant their father ('Himself') is; he calls his daughters 'bitches', refuses them money for essentials, can't remember their names, and almost definitely hits them. (His wife, Phyllis, is sweet but ineffectual, though she does come into her own later in the book. On the whole, though, she's as neglectful as their father, though in a less brutal way.) This is worthy of comment because when I first read the book -- probably some time in the 1980s -- I think I regarded Himself's behaviour as fairly normal: not common or usual, by any means, but on the bell-curve of parental styles. This is certainly not how I read it now.
Appalling parenting aside, this is a dark story about 'inventing' the worship of a made-up deity, which turns out not to be invented at all, and which is accustomed to sacrifice. Whoever the ghost is -- and for a long time she can't be sure which of the sisters she is, or was -- she owes a debt, and it's being called in ...But the Melford sisters, however much they squabble and rage among themselves, are a force to be reckoned with, both in the 'now' of the ghost, and the time seven years later when the debt falls due. (The sisters are much nicer people as adults. I blame the parents.)
As usual for DWJ, there are lots of excellent characters, not only the sisters but the boys at the school; there are echoes of a mythic past debased into folklore and superstition; and there is a loveable animal -- Oliver, the dog, who can sense the ghost.
The Time of the Ghost ends abruptly, perhaps too abruptly: there is closure, but there's no sense of anything getting back to normal, or of what the ghost might do next now that she's learnt a few things about herself. Still, this is one of Diana Wynne Jones' more unsettling novels, and a sweet light epilogue wouldn't suit the mood.
June 27, 2013
Re-read 24 June 2013: A book to be enjoyed in great big vacuuming gulps. I read this one a few times in my teens - my favourites were always the ones that fell on the list 'For older readers' (see also Fire and Hemlock and Hexwood).
A spooky, endearing, bite-sized story of four neglected sisters who live at a boy's school that is run by their parents (telling this story now, in a post-Twilight boy-obsessed world, would be a very different beast...), with genuinely terrifying undertones. Monigan fills the reader's vision when she is on the page, a creeping, bloated presence older than time, expecting sacrifices in exchange for being woken from dormancy.
On top of this, however, are all the trademarks of a DWJ story that make you want to gather it up in your arms and squeeze it, hard. The sisters are messy, rude, individual and infuriating, and their relationships with one another, their parents and the boys they befriend are so well painted that you know them all inside out by the end. After recently finishing her book of essays and speeches Reflections: On the Magic of Writing and realising that this book was loosely based on her own memories of childhood (this should horrify you, by the way, as it did me when I read that), I just had to grab it off my shelf and sink back into it again.
On this reading, probably the first for bordering on ten years (it can't be that long, surely?), I had a delightful moment of illumination. I realised how much I relied on these books to tell me that I was going to turn out OK. All the tween and teen girls in her books begin ugly and unsure - at least in their own heads - and grow slowly into totally normal, vibrant, headstrong human beings. I had no idea how much of an impact this had on me until I read about the Melford sisters - fat, shrill, bony, loud and brash - and then met them seven years later as pretty, confident, independent students visiting one sister in hospital, and had this moment of 'oh!'. This is the kind of thing no one else can tell you. I was lucky to have these books as a teenager.
A favourite, always.
A spooky, endearing, bite-sized story of four neglected sisters who live at a boy's school that is run by their parents (telling this story now, in a post-Twilight boy-obsessed world, would be a very different beast...), with genuinely terrifying undertones. Monigan fills the reader's vision when she is on the page, a creeping, bloated presence older than time, expecting sacrifices in exchange for being woken from dormancy.
On top of this, however, are all the trademarks of a DWJ story that make you want to gather it up in your arms and squeeze it, hard. The sisters are messy, rude, individual and infuriating, and their relationships with one another, their parents and the boys they befriend are so well painted that you know them all inside out by the end. After recently finishing her book of essays and speeches Reflections: On the Magic of Writing and realising that this book was loosely based on her own memories of childhood (this should horrify you, by the way, as it did me when I read that), I just had to grab it off my shelf and sink back into it again.
On this reading, probably the first for bordering on ten years (it can't be that long, surely?), I had a delightful moment of illumination. I realised how much I relied on these books to tell me that I was going to turn out OK. All the tween and teen girls in her books begin ugly and unsure - at least in their own heads - and grow slowly into totally normal, vibrant, headstrong human beings. I had no idea how much of an impact this had on me until I read about the Melford sisters - fat, shrill, bony, loud and brash - and then met them seven years later as pretty, confident, independent students visiting one sister in hospital, and had this moment of 'oh!'. This is the kind of thing no one else can tell you. I was lucky to have these books as a teenager.
A favourite, always.
June 16, 2011
This is my earliest Jones book and I remember liking it very much. Not as much as I loved the author's other works though (i.e. Howl's Moving Castle and Hexwood). I always have a penchant for deliciously dark tales, especially the kind that confuses the readers in a good way and in so many levels.
The Time of the Ghost is a perplexing story, the main reason being the unreliability of the narrator who is a ghost. She doesn't know who she is. The only things that she's sure of are 1) an accident has happened to her and 2) she's one of the Melford sisters: Cart, Imogen, Sally, and Fenella. The ghost is strikingly different from the sisters so the readers couldn't guess easily who the ghost really is; the ghost thinks she's Sally though, since the said girl is absent for a good two quarters of the book. Apparently there's been a "plan", and the ghost thinks that this scheme involves killing her. In attempts to uncover what really happened that precipitated in her being a ghost, she does some "detective" hovering and fluttering around (haha) and finds out that the sisters has unwittingly woken an ancient evil in the form of a mildewy rag doll called Monigan. Feeling its unnerving power, the ghost readily suspects that it has something to do with her present condition.
It's a decent and lovely book, I guess. Twisted, morbid, and dark maybe, but lovely just the same. The well thought out and sinister characters seem to pop out of the book; the setting eerily feels real with just the effortless descriptions that Jones is using. :)
It's probably not the best Jones book, but it's definitely worth the read.
The Time of the Ghost is a perplexing story, the main reason being the unreliability of the narrator who is a ghost. She doesn't know who she is. The only things that she's sure of are 1) an accident has happened to her and 2) she's one of the Melford sisters: Cart, Imogen, Sally, and Fenella. The ghost is strikingly different from the sisters so the readers couldn't guess easily who the ghost really is; the ghost thinks she's Sally though, since the said girl is absent for a good two quarters of the book. Apparently there's been a "plan", and the ghost thinks that this scheme involves killing her. In attempts to uncover what really happened that precipitated in her being a ghost, she does some "detective" hovering and fluttering around (haha) and finds out that the sisters has unwittingly woken an ancient evil in the form of a mildewy rag doll called Monigan. Feeling its unnerving power, the ghost readily suspects that it has something to do with her present condition.
It's a decent and lovely book, I guess. Twisted, morbid, and dark maybe, but lovely just the same. The well thought out and sinister characters seem to pop out of the book; the setting eerily feels real with just the effortless descriptions that Jones is using. :)
It's probably not the best Jones book, but it's definitely worth the read.
July 24, 2021
« 2.5 stars »
There was in fact a dark goddess of war and death in Irish / Celtic mythology called the Morrigan; I knew this thanks to Marvel comic books X-Factor of all sources lol. So I think it's pretty neat that DWJ incorporated actual mythology in her story even if it might be too obscure for some readers to make the connection.
For a horror story I think it is more a miss than a hit. I rarely felt creeped out by Monigan throughout the book. The doll Monigan didn't feel like much of a threat though the evil goddess Monigan did at times. Most of the horror actually came from the gross neglect by the Melford parents and mentions of physical punishment inflicted on the four sisters. As I've commented in another review for a Chrestomanci book, DWJ excelled at describing child abuse. Sometimes too much. But it shows that she understood childhood trauma really well; her own experiences must have endured within her as an adult and she brought all the personal insight into her writings that involve complex family relationships. Like how three of the Melford sisters had some form of eating disorder: Fenella didn't eat and subconsciously starved herself, Cart was overweight, Imogen would binge when she was upset. Sally described herself as the only normal one yet she placed herself in danger with her life choices. Basically all four sisters grew up with some issues or another.
There was in fact a dark goddess of war and death in Irish / Celtic mythology called the Morrigan; I knew this thanks to Marvel comic books X-Factor of all sources lol. So I think it's pretty neat that DWJ incorporated actual mythology in her story even if it might be too obscure for some readers to make the connection.
For a horror story I think it is more a miss than a hit. I rarely felt creeped out by Monigan throughout the book. The doll Monigan didn't feel like much of a threat though the evil goddess Monigan did at times. Most of the horror actually came from the gross neglect by the Melford parents and mentions of physical punishment inflicted on the four sisters. As I've commented in another review for a Chrestomanci book, DWJ excelled at describing child abuse. Sometimes too much. But it shows that she understood childhood trauma really well; her own experiences must have endured within her as an adult and she brought all the personal insight into her writings that involve complex family relationships. Like how three of the Melford sisters had some form of eating disorder: Fenella didn't eat and subconsciously starved herself, Cart was overweight, Imogen would binge when she was upset. Sally described herself as the only normal one yet she placed herself in danger with her life choices. Basically all four sisters grew up with some issues or another.
February 2, 2011
Another one of my all-time childhood favourites by Dianna Wynne Jones. I've forgotten how many times I read this story as a child, but I will never forgetten certain descriptions which have stayed with me since the first reading - and I definitely won't forget how terrified I was as a young reader, afraid to go to sleep before reaching the end. I remember even the cover art kept me awake at night!
March 13, 2022
brilliant, very creepy, perfect ambiguous 80s YA, more the changeover than howl's moving castle. it's not quite the formal masterpiece that, say, hexwood is but i feel like her mastery of tension and interweaving narrative feels effortless here, i generally prefer her more fantasy/folklore-tilted stories anyway but i particularly loved the sisterly relationships underpinning the story here which i gather are fairly autobiographical and feel really true as a result
August 6, 2021
A little grown-up for my kiddo (themes, the hen sacrifice, atmosphere). A great example of a story that is incredibly disorienting at first and sorts itself out soon enough. DWJ does not hold hands with her books, and I appreciate that.
February 21, 2022
Rewarding short book
I love the writer, some of her books I read over and over again. This was new one for me. An original ghost story, with a cast of women growing up in a difficult situation and finding in their way to help each other and thrive...
I love the writer, some of her books I read over and over again. This was new one for me. An original ghost story, with a cast of women growing up in a difficult situation and finding in their way to help each other and thrive...
April 12, 2018
Creepy and enthralling. I'll definitely reread it in a few years.
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May 23, 2023Man was this dark!!!!
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