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    The Magicians of Caprona
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    The Magicians of Caprona
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    The Magicians of Caprona
    Audiobook (abridged)2 hours

    The Magicians of Caprona

    Written by Diana Wynne Jones

    Narrated by Nickolas Grace

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Discover Diana Wynne Jones’ Magicians of Caprona – the second title in the Chrestomanci series, read by Nickolas Grace.

    In the worlds of Chrestomanci, anything can happen. This adventure takes place in the Italian Dukedom of Caprona, where spells are as slippery and as tricksy as spaghetti!

    Casa Montana and Casa Petrocchi look after the magical business in the Dukedom of Caprona, watched over by its magnificent guardian statue, the Angel. The families have been feuding for years, so when all the spells start going wrong, each naturally blames the other.

    Then young Tonino Montana and Angelica Petrocchi disappear. Could the terrible rumours of a White Devil who threatens Caprona be true after all?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateDec 6, 2012
    ISBN9780007509133
    Author

    Diana Wynne Jones

    DIANA WYNNE JONES was born in August 1934 in London, where she had a chaotic and unsettled childhood against the background of World War II. The family moved around a lot, finally settling in rural Essex. As children, Diana and her two sisters were deprived of a good, steady supply of books by a father, ‘who could beat Scrooge in a meanness contest’. So, armed with a vivid imagination and an insatiable quest for good books to read, she decided that she would have to write them herself.

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    Reviews for The Magicians of Caprona

    4/5

    32 ratings12 reviews

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    • 4/5
      First things first: I wondered why Diana Wynne Jones had chosen the name Caprona to use in the title of this children’s book. Was it from the Latin caprona ‘forelock’? Or from a type of butterfly? Or perhaps in homage to an island featuring in Edgar Rice Burroughs’ The Land that Time Forgot? None of these notions really convinced.It seems most likely that she borrowed the name from a village in the Arno valley in Tuscany, upriver from Pisa and to the west of Florence. While relatively insignificant now, in the Middle Ages Caprona was of enough importance to feature in Dante’s Inferno when its castle was squabbled over by the opposing armies of Pisa and Florence. In this book the town is besieged by the 20th-century armies of Pisa, Florence and Sienna, city-states all bordering the unfortunate Dukedom of Caprona which, in this alternate world fantasy, retains a mix of medieval and early 20th-century customs and technology, not to mention magic. So we perhaps have to imagine an anachronistically prosperous Caprona in the valley of the Voltava (a witty conflation of words derived from the Italian voltare ‘to turn’ and the Czech river Vltava, ‘wild water’) based on the grander ground plans of Florence and other Tuscan cities.I’d forgotten how well Jones can sometimes draw you into a story before you're aware of it, even on a second reading. Borrowing from the familiar trope in Romeo and Juliet, with its two noble but feuding families alike in dignity, The Magicians of Caprona is narrated from the viewpoints of young Tonino and Paolo in the Montana family, which suspects arch-rivals the Petrocchi family of plotting the downfall of their state. Needless to say, the Petrocchi clan believe the same of the Montanas. The whole is complicated by the secret romance between two members of the opposing families.Interweaving this trope are other strands: the White Devil, Punch and Judy, and the Angel of Camprona. The first obviously draws its inspiration from Webster’s revenge tragedy The White Devil, itself based on a Jacobean proverb which declared that "the white devil is worse than the black," the White Devil of Jones’ story dissembling in just such a way. The second thread concerns the Punch and Judy puppet theatre. Originally the show was based on Italian Commedia dell’Arte marionettes, but in England evolved into the glove puppet version; in Jones’ alternate world fiction the glove puppets have become familiar in Italy, and the Duke of Caprona’s childish obsession with this miniature world is employed to great effect, both in the plot and in its metaphorical guises.Another thing I loved about the book's plot was the concept of the song ‘The Angel of Caprona’ which, true to the root of the word ‘enchant’, had the power to effect magic. The Latin text was concocted by Diana’s husband John (to whom the book is dedicated), helped by another academic the late Basil Cottle (one of whose lectures I remember attending when I lived in Bristol, Diana's home). The words conveniently fit to the Medieval Latin hymn Tantum Ergo Sacramentum (which I used to sing when I was an angelic Catholic schoolboy; alas now I am neither angelic, Catholic, nor a schoolboy). Even the English 'translation' earlier in the book fits to the tune. (It would be interesting to know if the words in I maghi di Caprona, the 2002 Italian translation, also scanned the words to fit.) Like the appearance of the figure of Chrestomanci, the Angel of Caprona itself functions as an expected deus ex machine (though its existence sits uncomfortably with Jones’ professed atheism) in the climax of the story. On one visit to Tuscany I remember being impressed by the giant angel at the top of Lucca’s cathedral facade, and that may have been an inspiration for Caprona's angel. Or it could have been the gilded angel on the spire of Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy. Or, closer to home, the massive bronze angel on the facade of Coventry Cathedral in the West Midlands. I wouldn’t want to give the impression, however, that, wonderfully rich though the book is in its diverse cultural references, that these were essential for its appreciation as a work of fiction. Especially for its young target audience The Magicians of Caprona has to work on its own merits, drawing the reader in with its sympathetic characters, its narrative power and its language. On the basis of these alone I’m confident that it does succeed for young readers of all ages.PostscriptMy edition has a cover illustration which is inaccurate and misleading. It presumably shows the duel between the heads of the two magical households, Casa Montana and Casa Petrocchi but in such a way that displays the influence of the Harry Potter books: the duellists wear hoods and use wands, familiar from Rowling's wizarding world but entirely inappropriate for the Chrestomanci tales where wands are significantly absent. Earlier and later British editions don't make the same mistake, revealing that the cover artists had actually read the book carefully.
    • 2/5
      It was really predictable, but it was still quaint.
    • 4/5
      A retelling (with a few good twists, and a much more light-hearted attitude) of Romeo and Juliet.... the feuding families are Italy's most renowned magical clans, and even the fact that their city is under immediate threat of attack doesn't seem to be enough to cause them to join together... the only hope may rest in the families' children - and their very special cats. (A definite must for cat lovers!!!)
    • 5/5
      My favorite of the first four Chrestomanci books. Charming, funny, heartwarming.
    • 3/5
      A less complex Chrestomanci book. It seems like "The Pinhoe Egg" synthesisizes themes from the previous book. This book's theme is the pointless quarrel that just goes on and on under its own momentum because of some unknown thing that happens in the past and that causes plenty of harm in the present. Jones shoves a good satire of war into the mix. Jones doesn't think "Punch and Judy" is terribly funny; I'm sure she is correct.
    • 4/5
      A fun read.
    • 5/5
      great read for a kid, still a great read for an adult. The story is good, the premise is wonderful, the imagery there. I loved it when I was a kid, I love it again on a reread now.
    • 5/5
      My favorite of the first four Chrestomanci books. Charming, funny, heartwarming.
    • 2/5
      I try to like this book but I just don't enjoy it as much as the rest of the series.
    • 4/5
      It's pretty good, not wonderful. The story - the rivalry between the two magicians' houses, how it's been whipped up and how it eventually ends - isn't bad; I quite like Tonino and Angelica, and Paolo and Renata, and Marco and Rosa... It's also nice to see Chrestomanci again, though he doesn't play a large part (a little bit of cavalry-over-the-hill, but only a little). Still, somehow, there's not much to the story. Especially after the adventure starts, it's a little bit dream-like, or fairy-tale style - they do the obvious thing and it's the right thing, over and over. The only time it (they) really came alive for me in the Palace was when they were clinging on the back of the drawer. Then when they got up to the dome, that was more or less real. But for large parts of the rest, including the early bits where the Montanas are being established as characters, the story felt rather rote - actually, like puppets reciting their lines! So. Fun story, nice-ish characters, nothing that really draws me in or makes me care about anybody there. And a very fairy-tale ending - heavy moral. Good but not wonderful.
    • 4/5
      For some reason, this novel felt a lot shorter than the other titles in the series, although I'm pretty sure that page-wise it's not any shorter than The Lives of Christopher Chant. Anyway, it's a well-written story in a thoroughly realized magical world, and I enjoyed it hugely.
    • 5/5
      This one's set in an alternate-world Italy – all the Chrestomanic books are set in a kind of quasi-steampunk parallel universe, and someone is going to yell at me now for misusing the word 'steampunk', but never mind – with two feuding families of enchanters, a city under magical siege, a Duke who's obsessed with Punch and Judy, of all the terrifying things, and two sets of children from either side who need to join forces to help save the day.