Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones, 1977.

This is the first book in the Chrestomanci series.  There are many different dimensions with duplicate worlds, and in each of those duplicate worlds, there is a copy of every person.  People’s lives can differ dramatically between the different worlds, but there is one person in each generation who has no duplicates in any of the other dimensions or worlds.  This person is called the Chrestomanci.  All of the talents, abilities, and lives that would have been spread among the duplicates across the other worlds are now centered on that one person, giving that person, literally, nine lives.  Very often, the Chrestomanci doesn’t realize that he’s a Chrestomanci until he actually dies . . . and fails to die because he uses up one of his spare lives and continues living with the others.

When young Eric Chant’s older sister Gwendolyn gives him the nickname Cat at a young age, saying that he has nine lives, he doesn’t understand that it’s literally true.  Then, he and Gwendolyn are unexpectedly orphaned during a boat accident.  Their parents drown.  Gwendolyn doesn’t because she’s a witch, and the water rejected her.  Cat thought that he was saved because he grabbed hold of Gwendolyn.  Gwendolyn knows differently.

After their parents’ deaths, Cat and Gwendolyn live with their downstairs neighbor for a time, receiving support from the town. Their neighbor, Mrs. Sharp, is also a witch, and she recognizes Gwendolyn’s talent. When she goes through the children’s parents’ things, she finds three letters from someone called Chrestomanci, and she recognizes immediately that they are important. Cat doesn’t fully understand who Chrestomanci is, but everyone regards him as an important person, so much so that they even hesitate to say his name out loud. His signature is valuable, and Mrs. Sharp offers the letters as payment for witchcraft lessons for Gwendolyn from the best tutor in the area, Mr. Nostrum. Gwendolyn breezes through the early lessons easily, and everyone in the neighborhood recognizes her talents. They are sure that Gwendolyn is destined for great things, and they are all eager to ingratiate themselves with her. A local fortune-teller even says that Gwendolyn will be famous and may be able to rule the world if she goes about it in the right way. The fortune-teller also tells Cat’s fortune, but his fortune is a warning that he is in danger from two sides. Cat is frightened and unsure what to think of it.

However, there is still the question about how the children’s parents knew Chrestomanci and what their father argued about with him in their letters to each other. Mr. Nostrum is particularly curious to know what the children know about Chrestomanci, having apparently tried to learn things about him through his signature and failing, but neither of the children can tell him much. Cat still isn’t sure exactly who Chrestomanci is, so he suggests that Mr. Nostrum just write to Chrestomanci himself to ask. It’s such a straightforward approach that it never occurred to either Mr. Nostrum or Gwendolyn to do that before. Gwendolyn ends up writing the letter to Chrestomanci herself, exaggerating her plight as an orphan to gain sympathy, and implying that Cat also drowned in the boat accident. When Chrestomanci arrives to see Gwendolyn, he is initially surprised to see Cat.

Although their relationship to Chrestomanci isn’t explained at first, Chrestomanci takes custody of the children and brings them to live at his castle with his own wife and children, Julia and Roger. Everyone tells the children how lucky they are because living with someone as important as Chrestomanci means hob-nobbing with other important people. Cat realizes that the reason why Gwendolyn wants to go to Chrestomanci is that she is serious about becoming famous and ruling the world. She sees life with Chrestomanci as the first step. Cat is more intimidated and homesick.

Life in Chrestomanci’s castle is quite different from what Gwendolyn expected, though. There is some kind of enchantment over the castle that muffles Gwendolyn’s powers, and that drives her crazy. Gwendolyn is contemptuous of Julia and Roger for being plain and fat, but both of them turn out to be better at magic than she is and are fully capable of standing up to her magical tricks and bullying. Worst of all, nobody seems impressed by Gwendolyn or thinks that she’s special, and Gwendolyn is accustomed to people thinking that she’s special and impressive.

Chrestomanci makes it clear that none of the children are supposed to be practicing magic unless they are under the supervision of their tutor, Michael Saunders. When Gwendolyn and Cat begin having lessons with Michael Saunders along with Julia and Roger, it becomes apparent that Gwendolyn is far behind in her normal subjects, like math and history, even behind Cat, who is younger. Gwendolyn airily tells the tutor that she never paid attention to such things at their old school because she was concentrating more on learning witchcraft. Michael Saunders tells her that she won’t have any more magical lessons until she catches up in her normal studies, and Chrestomanci backs up the tutor. Gwendolyn is infuriated because, not only is nobody treating her like she’s special and impressive, for the first time in her life, they are treating her like what she really is: a spoiled and naughty child.

Gwendolyn’s parents didn’t fully have the ability to impose consequences on Gwendolyn when they were alive, although they were a restraining influence. After they died, nobody tried to restrain Gwendolyn, only trying to ingratiate themselves so she would help them or they could use her for their own purposes. Although Cat has idolized his older sister, there are dark sides to her personality that he has never realized before, and he soon discovers that she has sinister intentions that involve him.

One day, Gwendolyn vanishes and is replaced by one of her duplicates from another world, where magic doesn’t exist.  This other version of Gwendolyn, who is called Janet, has no idea where she is or how she got there.  It is from her that Cat learns that there is no duplicate of himself in her world.  While Cat struggles to figure out what is happening, he helps the new girl to pretend that she is the usual Gwendolyn, although she actually has a very different, much nicer, personality. The more Cat tells Janet about Gwendolyn, the less Janet likes her or the idea of being her, which makes Cat nervous.

When Cat and the new Gwendolyn realize what Cat’s Gwendolyn intends to do, they will need the Chrestomanci’s help to stop her and for Cat to claim his true destiny, the one that Gwendolyn has been attempting to conceal from him all along.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive (multiple copies).

My Reaction and Spoilers

One of the best parts of the book for me was the setting at Chrestomanci Castle. The idea of living in a castle with magical playmates who can make toy soldiers move on their own is exciting! Cat and Gwendolyn’s rooms in the castle sound like the kind of bedrooms that any kid might imagine having. Even though the castle is strange and sinister things are happening, there is also a kind of coziness to the atmosphere. The children have hot cocoa every morning in the nursery. (I’m not sure why Cat, Gwendolyn, and Janet don’t like hot cocoa. Having hot chocolate for breakfast every morning would have made me happy as a kid, although I admit that, if Chrestomanci and Millie are concerned about their children’s weight issues enough to limit their marmalade intake, that’s not really the best morning drink they could have. I would have suggested tea instead. While we’re on the subject, I didn’t like the way they kept going on about the kids’ weight issues.) They have their own old-fashioned schoolroom in the castle with their own private tutor. When they get allowance money, they can walk to the charming, old-fashioned town nearby and buy candy and other small items. Millie is a doting magical mother, and even though Chrestomanci can be a little intimidating and fussy about appearances, he seems to genuinely care about the children and isn’t above sticking his well-dressed head into the nursery to say good morning and check on them.

During his time at Chrestomanci Castle, Cat learns things about his parents and his sister that he never knew before. His parents were actually cousins, and marriages between cousins in magical families are frequently dangerous, especially when they have children. Chrestomanci is also their parents’ cousin, and the argument he had with their father through their letters was about preventing the couple from having children any children with magical abilities, a suggestion that insulted and angered their father. Their father later came to regret that when young Gwendolyn first started using her powers, and even her parents started to see that she was dangerous. They weren’t quite sure how she was using Cat, but they had the sense that she was using him to do her magic somehow. Nobody thought to take Cat’s nickname seriously until Janet started questioning the reason why Gwendolyn started calling him that.

The truth is that Cat is a nine-lived enchanter. Gwendolyn realized this when he died at birth but didn’t actually die, and even though she was young herself, she found a way to hijack his powers. From the time when he was a baby, she’s been using his powers as if they were her own. That is how Gwendolyn appears to be unusually powerful for her age, even though she’s never really had the patience to go through any of her lessons by the numbers, just glossing over the beginning parts. Cat has been unable to use his own magical abilities because Gwendolyn has been keeping them all for herself, so for a long time, he assumes that he doesn’t have any magic at all. Since Gwendolyn has been doing this for his whole life, Cat has grown accustomed to how it feels and doesn’t notice it until Janet puts together the clues and realizes what’s been happening. When Gwendolyn does particularly powerful magic, she even sacrifices one of Cat’s extra lives, which she placed in a little matchbook for easy use.

Cat is appalled when he finds out about it, and he doesn’t want to believe it at first. However, when he tries to light one of the matches and instantly catches fire, he is convinced. What is even worse is that Gwendolyn and her magic tutor are planning to use him as a human sacrifice to open the gateway to other worlds so that they and the other evil magicians can use their powers to control these other worlds. Gwendolyn is a malevolent narcissist and always has been. Cat is devastated when he learns how little Gwendolyn cares about him, but he manages to finally summon enough anger to stand up to Gwendolyn and take his powers back from her. Like other victims of narcissists, he has always been the stronger and more powerful of the two of them, but he needed some help to see it.

Unlike Gwendolyn, Janet is not a narcissist and is capable of feeling empathy and caring for others. She’s even capable of selfless acts and personal sacrifices for the sake of others when necessary. When Gwendolyn escapes and permanently seals herself in another world where she is a queen, Janet is stuck in Cat’s world, unable to return to her own. It’s a terrible blow for her to be separated from her parents, who are alive in her world. However, when Chrestomanci asks her if she will be okay and if she wants him to try to return her to her own world, she refuses the offer because she has discovered that the double who replaced her in her world is an orphan who badly needs a family. While Gwendolyn was even going to volunteer Janet, one of her other selves as a sacrifice if Cat wouldn’t do, Janet is willing to sacrifice her former life in her world for the sake of one of her other selves. Janet is really the kind of sister that Cat has needed all along. She says that she was supposed to have a younger brother in her world but that he died at birth, and she is fascinated to find Eric/Cat alive in this new world and get to know the brother she lost. Janet learns to love her new brother and to get along with Julia and Roger, becoming the kind of girl Gwendolyn really should have been to her family. She doesn’t have any magical abilities, but she discovers that she can help help her new family because life in her usual world (which is supposed to be our world) has given her a different perspective from theirs. She is the one who suggests to Chrestomanci that he stop using silverware made of actual silver, which impedes his powers, and use stainless steel instead. When Gwendolyn played magical tricks at dinner, Chrestomanci always had trouble dealing with it because he was holding silver, but if he uses stainless steel, he won’t have that problem again. Chrestomanci and Millie admit that they never thought of that because stainless steel cutlery isn’t common in their world.

I remember finding this story fascinating the first time I read it as a kid. There are some dark themes with Gwendolyn’s narcissism, the threats to the children’s lives, and even Cat losing a few more lives. Cat’s growth is central to the story. Once Gwendolyn’s toxic influence is removed from his life, he begins to see the truth about himself and how Gwendolyn has treated him. Cat had always looked to her for comfort as his sister and his last living relative (so he thought), but all along, she was the one who was most dangerous to him, and that’s a terrible betrayal. Once Cat starts to understand the situation, he begins to see his own potential, and he also has some new people in his life who show him better treatment. The castle is charming, the world is fascinating, and the story is thought-provoking about the different ways a person’s life can go in different circumstances. Other books in the series go into more detail about how the different worlds in this universe function and how they split off from each other in different series, based on the outcomes of important events.