Conrad’s Fate by Diana Wynne Jones.
HarperCollinsChildrensBooks, 2006 (2005).
In the English Alps
Conrad tries to change his fate.
Unsuccessfully.
Conrad’s Fate is a first-person narrative by the eponymous Conrad Tesdinic, a boy who lives in a world where England is geologically still attached to continental Europe, in an alpine town called Stallery dominated by the slightly sinister Stallery Mansion. Ironic, really, when it’s possible that the author may have derived the name via St Allery (of possible French origin, a variant of St Hilaire) from Latin hilaris meaning cheerful: Stallery is anything but a happy place.
Like many a traditional fairytale hero Conrad is thrust into a magical adventure where he has to balance his innate gifts with the usual resourcefulness required of such a hero. These gifts aren’t really identified till the end, but his other talents seem to include getting into trouble.
When he goes to Stallery Mansion to try to resolve what is said to be his “fate”, his troubles are compounded by meeting the 15-year-old Christopher, who has his own problems to solve, not least in trying to find his young lost friend Millie.
Continue reading “Master of his own fates”
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