So, as promised, a new (to me) book review. Or more accurately, a review of the first part of a series. Or perhaps the first two-thirds of a trilogy, and we just don't have the third book. Either way, we only have the first two books of Robin Jarvis's Whitby series. And I can't be arsed to look up more on the series right now.
The Whitby Witches was published in 1991, and the second book, A Warlock in Whitby came out in 1992. I give the timeframe, because for me at least, it's somewhat relevant. Unfairly, perhaps, but not uncommonly, I compare most children's/young adult literature to the Harry Potter series. Why? Because despite some of the faults in the HP series, it's probably the best children's series to be published in the last 10-15 years. I can think of some individual children's/YA books that are superb, but as a series with an overarching theme, I can't think of anything recent that is better. I’ve read Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials and I enjoyed it overall, but like C.S. Lewis and his Narnia series, it gets a little weary with the religious/anti-religious themes (admittedly, I like Pullman better). I love Susan Cooper’s Dark is Rising series, although it is before my timeframe, and I enjoyed Cornelia Funke’s Inkheart trilogy (though it is a bit overly long at times), but Harry Potter has probably the best balance of all things. And, I know it the best, having read it more times than you have (seriously. Don’t try me on that one).
But, as I so often do (and say), I digress. Not only do I compare them to when HP was published (first one in 1997), but they are both set in essentially the current timeline. Robin Jarvis is a bit earlier, pre-major cell phone usage and pre-internet in every home, but it does have an essentially modern feel, and even with our current internet and cell phone use, it works when two of your main characters are 8 and 12, and the other is 92. But the real reason it works is because Robin Jarvis captures the essence of the town the series is set in, Whitby. For those who don’t know, Whitby is a real place in North Yorkshire, a fishing village set along and on top of a cliff along the North Sea. I’ve actually been there (day trip) and it’s popular with tourists. It has a quaint, old feel (which I’m sure is partially maintained for the tourist trade), and the ruins of an old Abbey at the very top of the cliff—199 steps to get up to the top. I’m sure Whitby is very lovely when it’s not chucking down rain or trying to blow you off the cliff. Sadly, I wouldn’t know.
Whitby is the real star of these books. I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy them, and I loves me a good children’s/YA fantasy novel, but the stories and the characters, while not flat, just didn’t engage me like Philip Pullman, Cornelia Funke, Susan Cooper, or, yes, J.K. Rowling. Jarvis’s writing is fine, but it’s not exceptional for the most part.
I believe that part of my problem with her storytelling is that the two parts of her world feel disconnected. We have the world that you and I and the residents of Whitby know, and then we have the other world. I’m not sure why this doesn’t work, but it just doesn’t ring true for me. Ben, the 8-year-old protagonist, can “see” dead people, and also can see the “fisherfolk”. The dead people part works well enough for me, although in hindsight, it seems that Jarvis dropped that partway through the series—not that he can no longer see dead people, just that she didn’t need that construct to further her plot anymore, so she didn’t work to maintain it. The fisherfolk, however, remain major characters, so he still interacts with them. And it’s this group of characters that don’t ring true for me. They seem like a child’s fantasy (which is good, actually), but they are real. The problem is, they don’t feel real to me. Instead, they feel like a child’s fantasy that wasn’t really fleshed out. Specifically, they are invisible to most people, and only a few, like Ben, have the ability to see and communicate with them. Though Jarvis attempts to explain the reason for this, it felt to me as though the reason was “they can’t be seen by other people because they can’t.” Compare this to why Hogwarts Castle can’t be seen/found: disguised as a dangerous, crumbling ruin to muggles, made “unplottable” on maps, muggle repelling spells on it. Rowling’s writing makes that seem real and natural and possible (with only the slightest glimmer of question in my mind—namely, since when to people listen to signs that say “Keep Out: Dangerous” when they can explore ruins and such?). Jarvis, on the other hand, falls flat with her lack of description and her pat answers.
While I can go on and name a multitude of other things I can find fault with, I won’t. Because I don’t want to make it sound like I hated the books. I didn’t. I thought they were average (first was better than the second, but that’s often the case in trilogies, and longer series as well), but they weren’t a bad read, and I did mostly enjoy them. Standard good vs. evil fare, with good winning (for the moment), and complex in that she’s running two different storylines, though both are fairly straightforward. This is probably good for younger readers, i.e. complexity made simpler. A first step toward Tolkien (how many different characters/storylines do you have to keep track of at any given point?) or, God help you, Robert Jordan. Generally speaking, if you spot Robin Jarvis’s Whitby series somewhere and you’re looking for a light, easy read, go for it. I do not encourage starting in the middle though, because she does pick right up where the previous one left off, and you will be lost.
That’s all I have for this week, seeing as how Word tells me I’m over 1000 words. Next week, if I can’t find something else to write on (though Pullman comes to mind), I may do an assessment of children’s fantasy literature. Or possibly the incompetence of Word’s spelling and grammar check.
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