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Book review: The Changes by Peter Dickinson
Today was quite warm in the sun, at least during the afternoon, so I did some reading outside and finished Peter Dickinson’s The Changes. Not much of that story actually stayed with me from my read through as a teen. I remembered the basic framework of the changes in England and the young girl who becomes the “canary” for a nomadic Sikh extended family, who interestingly are not affected by the madness that takes over the native English. It becomes Nicky’s job to tell them when she becomes upset by any ‘evil machinery’ which, if the Sikhs use it, is going to bring down the yelling medieval peasantry [20th century model] upon them.
I didn’t remember anything about the middle book, Heartsease, not even that that was the name of a tugboat, but its story was not particularly memorable. The overall framework concerns those few people who have some memory of what life was like before these second Dark Ages descended. The point of view characters are children; Nicky [girl] in the first book, who is 12, Jonathan and Margaret, two 14-year-old cousins in the second and Geoffrey and Sally, 16 and 11, a brother and sister pair who end the Changes.
Each one features a journey. First in time is that of the extended Sikh family, who are initially considering a journey over to France and hopefully away from the suddenly medieval England. They then eventually settle near a village with whom they make peace and which becomes the most prosperous and healthy in the country, thanks to the care of a Sikh medical student in the family who becomes everyone’s doctor.
In the second book, a spy from America is caught and stoned by, again, crazy medieval peasants, but rescued by the two cousins, who must learn/relearn the operation of an engine-driven tugboat to get this “witch” out of the country.
And in the third, the brother and sister escape to France but come back as the spearhead [read expendables] of a foreign-based resistance trying to discover wtf has happened to England.
The books predate the ‘YA’ era, when books were divided into books for adults and books for children. The word “teenager” appears nowhere; anyone under 18 is a child. I guess that fits in stories where almost no one remembers that the 20th century even happened. My copy has two copyright dates given for each book; 1970 and 1986 for The Devil’s Children, 1969 and 1986 for Heartsease, even though it’s second in the omnibus and 1968 and 1986 for The Weathermonger, which is listed third. Each book has an introduction with a date of 1975. Go figure.
I didn’t realise the dates were backwards until I looked, but chronologically it makes sense.
There’s not much background for the characters and not much fleshing out, though I'd say they do behave appropriately for the ages that are given. I found Nicky rather dislikeable. She wants the protection [and feeding] by the family but stubbornly refuses to obey any of the rules for the Sikh children and is happy to break and enter wherever, though the adults are disapproving of this. She makes friends among the SIkh children but seems to leave them without much thought when the Sikh adults insist she goes to France to try to find her parents, since many people had fled England when the Changes happen.
The farm cousins in Heartsease aren’t that memorable and in the last book, Geoffrey is only so because he’s a weathermonger, someone who can ensure good weather for harvest and snow for Christmas! Conveniently he suffers amnesia at the start of the book, so there’s a good deal of explanation of the whole situation for his benefit.
I did remember that the changes were magical, caused by someone accidentally digging/waking up Merlin from his spelled sleep. He then sends forth the effect to return England to how it was in his time. There’s talk about him being a mutant; he’s a hairy, superintelligent, Latin-speaking giant but this is only the supposition of an adult character who has been forced to become Merlin’s servant and has no idea that the effects have spread beyond the impossible ancient forest that appeared around Merlin’s equally impossible tower. Merlin's presented as a real historical character but detail about just when he's from is absent. Hand-waving vagueness.
So there wasn’t much of a try to make this appear any more than a fantasy, somewhat reminiscent of The Dark Is Rising, the dates of which series overlap those of these books. But yes, mostly free of the effects of the suck fairy, which I was pleased to discover and found a spot for the book in my permanent library.
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The one with Merlin seemed - I don't know - to have more fantastical elements than the others. Obvious magic powers and magic usage, for one, bringing an 'ancient' forest into existence, not to mention a sorcerer who seems to have dementia problems. Its reference to the Arthur myths was very sketchy indeed; the two kids hear sounds of fighting and voices inside the tower and someone screaming "Mordred!" with no explanation as to who that is. If you didn't know the myths you'd be very confused. Not to mention just why this powerful sorcerer was even buried. I didn't really buy the "servant" saying perhaps he got bored and put himself to sleep.
So even kids were expected to know their mythology back then. These days you'd get chapters of infodump. I rather liked how this book handled its subject.
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