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Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
Feb. 4th, 2013 08:33 amI've been hearing good things about Diana Wynnes Jones for decades, but hadn't read any of her books until now. What got me to pick one up was, of course, a movie. I finally watched Miyazaki's adaptation of Howl's Moving Castle last year, and I've watched it twice more since. If I loved the movie so much, it was obviously time to read the book.
Well, the movie is quite a bit different from the book! The basic set-up is the same: a 17-year-old girl named Sophie is placed under a spell by the Witch of the Waste, which turns her into an old crone. She runs away from her family and ends up in the mobile castle of a wizard named Howl, where she also finds an apprentice named Michael and a fire demon named Calcifer. Sophie insinuates herself into the life of the castle and is soon swept up in various threads of magical and romantic intrigue.
This is fundamentally a love story, of that sort that looks like a hate story on the surface. Sophie is always trying to run away from the castle because she's angry at Howl. Howl is constantly bemoaning her nosiness and ingratitude. Howl has the reputation of being a horrible womanizer, and he appears to have his eyes set on Sophie's sister, Lettie. Sophie believes that as the eldest sister of three who lives in a fairy tale, she's doomed to failure in life and love. And so on.
It's a somewhat meandering story, but a lot of things that seem irrelevant at first take on meaning later. Jones has a wonderful sense of humor, and her sense of magic is very strong as well (and is tied explicitly to poetry in this book). The characters have character, and Sophie can be quite annoying even to the reader. The world of the book is full of strange nooks and crannies, and Howl seems to come from contemporary Wales, which is treated as an exotic wonderland in the eyes of the other characters. There is a great sense of wonder and freshness and beauty, but almost everyone is also suffering under a spell that leaves them lost and confused and helplessly dependent on outside intervention.
The differences between book and film are too numerous to recount, although you can start with the fact that Sophie has two sisters in the book and only one in the movie and that the film is a war story where there is no war (although the mild threat of one) in the book. Jones herself, in a interview included at the back of the book, says that Miyazaki's versions of Sophie and Howl are gentler and more noble than hers. They are still recognizably the same characters, however. Sophie still promises to free Calcifer from his contract with Howl if Calcifer will free her from the old age spell. Both book and movie are beautiful stories in their different ways.
Jones wrote two sequels to Howl's Moving Castle. The next one is Castle in the Air, which oddly sounds like Miyazaki's Laputa: Castle in the Sky. I think I'll give it a try. Or maybe not. It doesn't get a lot of love, so maybe I'll move on to Fire and Hemlock instead.
Well, the movie is quite a bit different from the book! The basic set-up is the same: a 17-year-old girl named Sophie is placed under a spell by the Witch of the Waste, which turns her into an old crone. She runs away from her family and ends up in the mobile castle of a wizard named Howl, where she also finds an apprentice named Michael and a fire demon named Calcifer. Sophie insinuates herself into the life of the castle and is soon swept up in various threads of magical and romantic intrigue.
This is fundamentally a love story, of that sort that looks like a hate story on the surface. Sophie is always trying to run away from the castle because she's angry at Howl. Howl is constantly bemoaning her nosiness and ingratitude. Howl has the reputation of being a horrible womanizer, and he appears to have his eyes set on Sophie's sister, Lettie. Sophie believes that as the eldest sister of three who lives in a fairy tale, she's doomed to failure in life and love. And so on.
It's a somewhat meandering story, but a lot of things that seem irrelevant at first take on meaning later. Jones has a wonderful sense of humor, and her sense of magic is very strong as well (and is tied explicitly to poetry in this book). The characters have character, and Sophie can be quite annoying even to the reader. The world of the book is full of strange nooks and crannies, and Howl seems to come from contemporary Wales, which is treated as an exotic wonderland in the eyes of the other characters. There is a great sense of wonder and freshness and beauty, but almost everyone is also suffering under a spell that leaves them lost and confused and helplessly dependent on outside intervention.
The differences between book and film are too numerous to recount, although you can start with the fact that Sophie has two sisters in the book and only one in the movie and that the film is a war story where there is no war (although the mild threat of one) in the book. Jones herself, in a interview included at the back of the book, says that Miyazaki's versions of Sophie and Howl are gentler and more noble than hers. They are still recognizably the same characters, however. Sophie still promises to free Calcifer from his contract with Howl if Calcifer will free her from the old age spell. Both book and movie are beautiful stories in their different ways.
Jones wrote two sequels to Howl's Moving Castle. The next one is Castle in the Air, which oddly sounds like Miyazaki's Laputa: Castle in the Sky. I think I'll give it a try. Or maybe not. It doesn't get a lot of love, so maybe I'll move on to Fire and Hemlock instead.
