Because I Would Not Stop to Think, Thinking Kindly Stopped for Me

So I'm reading Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos right now since, y'know, that's how I roll. And I get to thinking about the time period and the setting. The book basically takes place in pre-WWI England with a kid whose parents are continually bringing back and examining a host of nasty Egyptian artifacts. So naturally, I get to wondering how the author is going to tackle the tricky question of British nationalism. The idea of Egyptian independence is popping up left and right in this book and having finished Larklight by Philip Reeve (more on that later) I'm seeing a small but distinct increase in British fantasies that tackle their nation's thorny past with big, beautiful, magical metaphors. There is, to my mind, no better time then to read J.L. Bell's recent post Bartimaeus and the British Empire. Concentrating primarily on Jonathan Stroud's magnificent trilogy, Bell points out how colonialism and conjurings intertwine perfectly within Stroud's alternate England.