attackfish (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
attackfish) wrote2009-04-24 03:36 am
attackfish) wrote2009-04-24 03:36 am
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It's a Series, Damn It: Howl's Moving Castle and sequels by Diana Wynne Jones
How on earth did two of these end up packed away? Had everything between my ears rotted away, leaving me an empty skull and a grayish puddle seeping into my chest cavity? I was so misguided to pack away my fine YA friends and keep out my adult fantasy. Before I cut open the boxes, I was so desperate to reread these books that I kept checking them out of the local library. Ah, but those days are over.
Howl's Moving Castle takes place in Ingary, where being the oldest of three is a Very Bad Thing. Unwilling to suffer the inevitable failure that would result if she tried, Sophie decides to leave fortune seeking to her younger sisters. Instead, she works in the family hat shop and talks to the hats. Trouble comes to her, however, when the feared Witch of the Waste comes into the shop and turns her into an old woman. Afraid of being seen that way, she hobbles away and becomes the house keeper for Howl, a handsome wizard, famed for eating the hearts of young maidens. In exchange for taking off the Witch of the Waste's curse, Sophie agrees to help Calcifer, Howl's fire demon break his bargain with Howl. Not of course that he'll tell her what that bargain is, that would be too easy. I should probably note for anyone worried, that the cuts hide content only about as spoilery as the novels' back covers.
This is a wonderful send up of all the best loved fairy tale motifs, starting from the first page when Sophie's stepmother chooses to keep her at home rather than see her fail at seeking her fortunes. Somehow, Jones manages to write within the tropes and subvert them at the same time, or maybe subvert is the wrong word. She pokes delighted, indulgent fun at them. This book is the medieval fantasy equivilent of comfort food, the sort of comfort food that makes me laugh every time at all the same lines. Jones is an old hand at loving parodies of her genre, but she always manages to transcend the parody to make her novels into fantastic examples of the genre as well. The way she does this is characters. Sophie, cranky, fatalistic, stubborn Sophie, Howl with all his preening and charming cowardice, Calcifer's cryptic resentment, Michael's haplessness, and everyone else make me feel like I'm at a really crazy family dinner.
As funny and fun, and thrilling as Howl's Moving Castle is, it does show Jones' weakness for wrapping things up too fast. Everyone has to be in love with their soulmate at the end, not just the main characters but all of the secondary ones as well. Characters that the reader has never seen interacting suddenly reveal their deathless love. Still, I almost can't make myself care, because I liked getting there so much..
In Castle in the Air, there is a lot of alliteration. Abdullah, a carpet merchant from Rashpuht has been prophesied to be raised above all others in the land. When he buys a magic carpet from a person of suspicious countenance, he rises literally above everyone else and flies over a palace wall and meets a princess with a prophesy of her own.
She must marry the first man other than her father that she sees, so when her father finds out about Abdullah just after she disappears, he decides to marry them and then kill the bridegroom so that his daughter will be free to marry the prince of Ingry (who by the way knows nothing about this, poor man). Abdullah escapes the Sultan's dungeon and makes his way to Ingry, to find and rescue his princess and all the others who have vanished with her in an instant. Oh, and somehow Sophie, Howl, and the rest are mixed up in all this.
I love this book. I love seeing the insights into the world's politics, because let's face it, I'm a polisci major, and that's what I do all day. I loved seeing more of Prince Justin and how his mind works. In a lot of ways, I like him as well as I like Howl. He's the Sophie of the second book.
Jones once more ends the story with everyone shipped up, but this time, it meshes better and doesn't set my teeth on edge. This time, the weaknesses come more from somewhat silly portrayals of the Middle East. The portrayals aren't negative, just flat, and silly. Admittedly, it's a send up of One Thousand and One Arabian Nights just as Howl's Moving Castle is a send up of Western European fairy tales, but that doesn't excuse Abdullah's wine drinking in a society where alcohol is forbidden, or the main character having only half a name. Abdullah means "servant of" or "slave of" and it's always followed by one of the names of Allah. Also, I just couldn't make myself interested in Abdullah. I cared so much more about Justin and Flower of the Night that I wanted the story to follow one of them instead.
I still laughed so much while reading this though. Sometimes, however, I think I was laughing at different things from what Jones meant me to.
House of Many Ways, the third and most recent book in the series, and the only one I didn't pack away, seeing as it came out after I finished the packing, is about a young gently reared girl, sent to look after the house of a distant wizard relative. Charmain though, doesn't know anything about magic, and really, she doesn't care. She just wants to get back to her books. When the wizard's apprentice shows up, she starts to wonder if she'll ever get back to her books at all.
So Charmain takes matters into her own hands. When the letter she wrote to the king asking to work in his library is answered, she sets off for the palace as soon as she can. There, a sinister force, centering around the dangerous Lubbock in the hills and a handful of the king's less savory relatives.
Sophie, her son, and a mysterious spectacularly beautiful and charming toddler name Twinkle (which had me going "Oh Howl! Sophie should drown you!" as soon as I met him) show up at the request of the princess to the rescue.
This book is classic Jones, but it doesn't feel like a Howl's Moving Castle sequel, if that makes any sense whatsoever. Partly this is because I can't figure out what it's a send up of, and partly because it feels more modern. I love it though. It has a dog just like Yo-yo only a girl, and she lives past the end, so it's a girl and her dog story. This dog isn't human smart or telepathic, just a dog, if an important one. I also couldn't help myself but love Howl's shenanigans and Sophie's exasperation.
In some ways, this is the weakest not only of this series, but also of Jones' recent writing. Firstly, it's roundabout, rambling, and lacking in the strong plot of the first two novels. The ending here is likewise too pat, not because it ships everyone, but because all of a sudden previously unmentioned family ties are restored. This gets by on characterization and humor alone. Also, the Lubbockin, the always evil children of Lubbocks and human women? Jones manages to get the evil race and evil mixed breed cliches, and offensive cliches at that, in there at the same time. Not good.
Anyway, I get so annoyed that no one seems to realize that Howl's Moving Castle has two sequels. According to Cass (also known as![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
eatenbyfangirls) she once was supposed to be on a panel comparing the book and the movie, and none of the other panelists knew about the sequels. Well, something just has to be done, because they rock! And well, I only pick at them because I love them.
Howl's Moving Castle takes place in Ingary, where being the oldest of three is a Very Bad Thing. Unwilling to suffer the inevitable failure that would result if she tried, Sophie decides to leave fortune seeking to her younger sisters. Instead, she works in the family hat shop and talks to the hats. Trouble comes to her, however, when the feared Witch of the Waste comes into the shop and turns her into an old woman. Afraid of being seen that way, she hobbles away and becomes the house keeper for Howl, a handsome wizard, famed for eating the hearts of young maidens. In exchange for taking off the Witch of the Waste's curse, Sophie agrees to help Calcifer, Howl's fire demon break his bargain with Howl. Not of course that he'll tell her what that bargain is, that would be too easy. I should probably note for anyone worried, that the cuts hide content only about as spoilery as the novels' back covers.
This is a wonderful send up of all the best loved fairy tale motifs, starting from the first page when Sophie's stepmother chooses to keep her at home rather than see her fail at seeking her fortunes. Somehow, Jones manages to write within the tropes and subvert them at the same time, or maybe subvert is the wrong word. She pokes delighted, indulgent fun at them. This book is the medieval fantasy equivilent of comfort food, the sort of comfort food that makes me laugh every time at all the same lines. Jones is an old hand at loving parodies of her genre, but she always manages to transcend the parody to make her novels into fantastic examples of the genre as well. The way she does this is characters. Sophie, cranky, fatalistic, stubborn Sophie, Howl with all his preening and charming cowardice, Calcifer's cryptic resentment, Michael's haplessness, and everyone else make me feel like I'm at a really crazy family dinner.
As funny and fun, and thrilling as Howl's Moving Castle is, it does show Jones' weakness for wrapping things up too fast. Everyone has to be in love with their soulmate at the end, not just the main characters but all of the secondary ones as well. Characters that the reader has never seen interacting suddenly reveal their deathless love. Still, I almost can't make myself care, because I liked getting there so much..
In Castle in the Air, there is a lot of alliteration. Abdullah, a carpet merchant from Rashpuht has been prophesied to be raised above all others in the land. When he buys a magic carpet from a person of suspicious countenance, he rises literally above everyone else and flies over a palace wall and meets a princess with a prophesy of her own.
She must marry the first man other than her father that she sees, so when her father finds out about Abdullah just after she disappears, he decides to marry them and then kill the bridegroom so that his daughter will be free to marry the prince of Ingry (who by the way knows nothing about this, poor man). Abdullah escapes the Sultan's dungeon and makes his way to Ingry, to find and rescue his princess and all the others who have vanished with her in an instant. Oh, and somehow Sophie, Howl, and the rest are mixed up in all this.
I love this book. I love seeing the insights into the world's politics, because let's face it, I'm a polisci major, and that's what I do all day. I loved seeing more of Prince Justin and how his mind works. In a lot of ways, I like him as well as I like Howl. He's the Sophie of the second book.
Jones once more ends the story with everyone shipped up, but this time, it meshes better and doesn't set my teeth on edge. This time, the weaknesses come more from somewhat silly portrayals of the Middle East. The portrayals aren't negative, just flat, and silly. Admittedly, it's a send up of One Thousand and One Arabian Nights just as Howl's Moving Castle is a send up of Western European fairy tales, but that doesn't excuse Abdullah's wine drinking in a society where alcohol is forbidden, or the main character having only half a name. Abdullah means "servant of" or "slave of" and it's always followed by one of the names of Allah. Also, I just couldn't make myself interested in Abdullah. I cared so much more about Justin and Flower of the Night that I wanted the story to follow one of them instead.
I still laughed so much while reading this though. Sometimes, however, I think I was laughing at different things from what Jones meant me to.
House of Many Ways, the third and most recent book in the series, and the only one I didn't pack away, seeing as it came out after I finished the packing, is about a young gently reared girl, sent to look after the house of a distant wizard relative. Charmain though, doesn't know anything about magic, and really, she doesn't care. She just wants to get back to her books. When the wizard's apprentice shows up, she starts to wonder if she'll ever get back to her books at all.
So Charmain takes matters into her own hands. When the letter she wrote to the king asking to work in his library is answered, she sets off for the palace as soon as she can. There, a sinister force, centering around the dangerous Lubbock in the hills and a handful of the king's less savory relatives.
Sophie, her son, and a mysterious spectacularly beautiful and charming toddler name Twinkle (which had me going "Oh Howl! Sophie should drown you!" as soon as I met him) show up at the request of the princess to the rescue.
This book is classic Jones, but it doesn't feel like a Howl's Moving Castle sequel, if that makes any sense whatsoever. Partly this is because I can't figure out what it's a send up of, and partly because it feels more modern. I love it though. It has a dog just like Yo-yo only a girl, and she lives past the end, so it's a girl and her dog story. This dog isn't human smart or telepathic, just a dog, if an important one. I also couldn't help myself but love Howl's shenanigans and Sophie's exasperation.
In some ways, this is the weakest not only of this series, but also of Jones' recent writing. Firstly, it's roundabout, rambling, and lacking in the strong plot of the first two novels. The ending here is likewise too pat, not because it ships everyone, but because all of a sudden previously unmentioned family ties are restored. This gets by on characterization and humor alone. Also, the Lubbockin, the always evil children of Lubbocks and human women? Jones manages to get the evil race and evil mixed breed cliches, and offensive cliches at that, in there at the same time. Not good.
Anyway, I get so annoyed that no one seems to realize that Howl's Moving Castle has two sequels. According to Cass (also known as
eatenbyfangirls) she once was supposed to be on a panel comparing the book and the movie, and none of the other panelists knew about the sequels. Well, something just has to be done, because they rock! And well, I only pick at them because I love them.
no subject
I love Howl as a toddler! If I were Sophie, I'd have thrown him over my lap and spanked his horrible little backside. You're right, it was fanservice, but, the first time through, I couldn't make myself mind. it was only upon reflection that I got annoyed at DWJ.
Howl's backstory would be hilarious, and likely utterly lacking in coherent plot.