Book Review and Writing Lessons: Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynn Jones

Sophie has the great misfortune of being the eldest of three daughters, destined to fail miserably should she ever leave home to seek her fate. But when she unwittingly attracts the ire of the Witch of the Waste, Sophie finds herself under a horrid spell that transforms her into an old lady. Her only chance at breaking it lies in the ever-moving castle in the hills: the Wizard Howl’s castle. To untangle the enchantment, Sophie must handle the heartless Howl, strike a bargain with a fire demon, and meet the Witch of the Waste head-on. Along the way, she discovers that there’s far more to Howl—and herself—than first meets the eye.

In this giant jigsaw puzzle of a fantasy, people and things are never quite what they seem. Destinies are intertwined, identities exchanged, lovers confused. The Witch has placed a spell on Howl. Does the clue to breaking it lie in a famous poem? And what will happen to Sophie Hatter when she enters Howl’s castle?

Series: Howl’s Castle (Book 1)
Genre: YA Fantasy
Publisher: Greenwillow Books (US), Methuen (November 1986)
Page Count: 448 pages

Howl’s Moving Castle is one of my favorite Studio Ghibli movies and I had so many friends praise the book that I had to give the source material a shot! I’m going to be doing a lot of comparisons to the movie since it’s so famous.

The Plot

The book and the movie are very similar in the beginning and then about halfway through the movie, it strays from the book’s plot. There are similar elements but it takes a different turn especially in the climax. Honestly, I’m not sure which I like better because it’s almost like the book and the movie are from parallel universes. Similar but different in their own unique ways. And I did listen to the movie’s soundtrack while reading the book, especially “Merry Go Round of Life” because that song is king.

This is an older book so it’s an older style of writing with third-person omniscient and lots of POVs. But I chuckled at a lot of the writing like how Sophie was described when she was cleaning the castle as a “natural disaster” and an “elderly avenging cleaning angel.” Also, there is no war going on in the book, so the main plot focuses more on the Witch of the Waste and Howl’s curse.

The Characters

Sophie is very similar in both versions to me. Spunky, a bit of temper, clever, and adorkable. I found myself relating to her more in the book because as the eldest kid I could empathize with a lot of her inner struggles. Howl is very similar except his backstory is wildly different. It took me a minute to process his backstory because it’s so jarringly different than the film. Calsifer is pretty similar except his appearance is described differently in the book. Though it brought me so much joy that “I hope your bacon burns” originated from the book. XD

This is when things start getting different. Firstly, Markl’s name is Michael in the book. I’m guessing perhaps Miyazaki changed this because Markl may be easier to pronounce in Japanese. He’s also older, which took me a bit to get used to. Then Madame Sulliman in the book is Wizard Sulliman and presumed dead, so that’s a big ol’ change.

There are also even more characters in the book than in the movie. Sophie has two sisters, two more witches are involved in the plot, and Howl has a whole family involved!

The Setting

The atmosphere is very similar to the movie though admittedly I think Studio Ghibli brought the world a little more to life since it isn’t described in as vivid detail as shown in the film. The castle isn’t described in great detail from the outside so Miyazaki’s creative license was really cool. In the book, I liked the vivid description of the hot springs helping a wide variety of flowers grow.

Part of the book even takes place in modern Cardiff, Wales, which is a long story. XD And there Howl is known as Howell. Hee hee. My last name.

The Epic Things

I found myself giggling at the Seven League Boots scene when Sophie tries on boots that allow you to walk a few miles per step and it goes terribly wrong when she loses her balance. XD

There’s also a really epic battle between Howl and the Witch of the Waste that didn’t make it into the film.

The Theme

Determination and endurance I’d say are big themes. Sophie has a pretty good attitude for someone who just got age 80 years or so and despite all of the obstacles she keeps going to pursue her goal.

The Content

There’s hardly any content at all. A character said d*** perhaps once. There’s no blood or gore. There’s a lot of magic, so I know some religious readers may have hesitations, but that’s the only thing of note.

The Writing Lessons

Don’t Forget to Let Your Readers Laugh – Howl’s Moving Castle has its serious moments but it also has its scenes that just make you smile or laugh and they’re so delightful that they become one of the best parts of the book!

How this applies to writing: Even if your book is serious, it’s never a bad thing to make your reader laugh. In the show Death Note, which is serious 90% of the time the moments when Ryuk is addicted to apples or the famous like “I’m going to take this chip and EAT IT!” Really helped endear viewers to the show.

The Conclusion

Overall, I enjoyed it. It was great to have a few gaps filled into the story!

In a career spanning four decades, award-winning author Diana Wynne Jones wrote more than forty books of fantasy for young readers. Characterized by magic, multiple universes, witches and wizards—and a charismatic nine-lived enchanter—her books were filled with unlimited imagination, dazzling plots, and an effervescent sense of humor that earned her legendary status in the world of fantasy. From the very beginning, Diana Wynne Jones’s books garnered literary accolades: her novel Dogsbody was a runner-up for the 1975 Carnegie Medal, and Charmed Life won the esteemed Guardian children’s fiction prize in 1977. Since then, in addition to being translated into more than twenty languages, her books have earned a wide array of honors—including two Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honors—and appeared on countless best-of-the-year lists. Her work also found commercial success: in 1992 the BBC adapted her novel Archer’s Goon into a six-part miniseries, and her best-selling Howl’s Moving Castle was made into an animated film by Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki in 2004. The film was nominated for an Academy Award in 2006, and became one of the most financially successful Japanese films in history. The author herself has also been honored with many prestigious awards for the body of her work. She was given the British Fantasy Society’s Karl Edward Wagner Award in 1999 for having made a significant impact on fantasy, received a D.Lit from Bristol University in 2006, and won the Lifetime Achievement Award at the World Fantasy Convention in 2007.

Born just outside London in 1934, Diana Wynne Jones had a childhood that was “very vivid and often very distressing”—one that became the fertile ground where her tremendous imagination took root. When the raids of World War II reached London in 1939, the five-year-old girl and her two younger sisters were torn from their suburban life and sent to Wales to live with their grandparents. This was to be the first of many migrations, one of which brought her family to Lane Head, a large manor in the author-populated Lake District and former residence of John Ruskin’s secretary, W.G. Collingwood. This time marked an important moment in Diana Wynne Jones’s life, where her writing ambitions were magnified by, in her own words, “early marginal contacts with the Great.” She confesses to having “offending Arthur Ransome by making a noise on the shore beside his houseboat,” erasing a stack of drawings by the late Ruskin himself in order to reuse the paper, and causing Beatrix Potter (who also lived nearby) to complain about her and her sister’s behavior. “It struck me,” Jones said, “that the Great were remarkably touchy and unpleasant, and I thought I would like to be the same, without the unpleasantness.” Prompted by her penny-pinching father’s refusal to buy the children any books, Diana Wynne Jones wrote her first novel at age twelve and entertained her sisters with readings of her stories. Those early stories—and much of her future work—were inspired by a limited but crucial foundation of classics: Malory’s Morte D’Arthur, The Arabian Nights, and Epics and Romances of the Middle Ages. Fantasy was Jones’s passion from the start, despite receiving little support from her often neglectful parents. This passion was fueled further during her tenure at St. Anne’s College in Oxford, where lectures by J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis increased her fascination with myth and legend. She married Medievalist John Burrow in 1956; the couple have three sons and six grandchildren.

After a decade of rejections, Diana Wynne Jones’s first novel, Changeover, was published in 1970. In 1973, she joined forces with her lifelong literary agent, Laura Cecil, and in the four decades to follow, Diana Wynne Jones wrote prodigiously, sometimes completing three titles in a single year. Along the way she gained a fiercely loyal following; many of her admirers became successful authors themselves, including Newbery Award winners Robin McKinley and Neil Gaiman, and Newbery Honor Book author Megan Whalen Turner. A conference dedicated solely to her work was held at the University of West England, Bristol, in 2009. Diana Wynne Jones continued to write during her battle with lung cancer, which ultimately took her life in March 2011. Her last book, Earwig and the Witch, will be published by Greenwillow Books in 2012.

Have you read this book? Have you read any other books by Diana Wynn Jones? Have you seen the Howl’s Moving Castle movie? Which do you like better? Book or movie?