Book Review: Howl’s Moving Castle (1986) by Diana Wynne Jones #MarchMagics2024

For #MarchMagics2024, I finally picked up my very first Diana Wynne Jones and what an absolute delight it was from start to finish—so much so that I didn’t want to put it down once I started. It luckily being a weekend when I read it, I could do just that!

While using a fairy-tale structure and several fairy-tale tropes, Howl’s Moving Castle breaks many stereotypes, weaves together fantasy and real-life spaces, and mixes in several elements of its own (including a John Donne poem) to give readers a thoroughly entertaining and wonderful tale. In the land of Ingary, live the Hatter family, with three daughters of which Sophie, our heroine is the eldest, and though she and her sister Lettie lost their mother as babies and have a step-mother Fanny, Fanny is nothing like your fairy-tale stepmother and loves Sophie, Lettie and her own daughter Martha equally (in fact, if anything, Martha least of all). Not only that, when Sophie’s father dies, it isn’t Sophie and Lettie who are turned out of the house (and the hat shop the family runs) to fend for themselves, but Lettie and Martha—not turned out really but sent as apprentices to train in Baking and Magic while Sophie is apprentice in the family hat shop which she will eventually inherit. Sophie though is more of a typical heroine, lacking confidence in herself and believing that as eldest, she can achieve nothing.

But while stepmothers in Wynne Jones’ tale do break stereotypes, witches do not and one fine day as Sophie is leading a lacklustre (though busy) life in the hat shop, the Witch of the Waste suddenly walks in and curses her, leading her to immediately grow old. Worried about how she would explain this to her family, Sophie decides to leave home, without the least idea where she will go. Around their prosperous little town of Market Chipping, the magical castle of the Wizard Howl has been seen floating around—a moving castle, it shifts location all the time—and rumours abound that he eats the hearts and sucks out the souls of beautiful young women. Wandering in the cold and tired, Sophie ends up at this castle and decides to push her way in (for why would Howl want the heart of a shrivelled up old woman).

Nothing there or thereafter, however, is as expected. Neither is Howl the terrifying old wizard she was expecting nor is his castle a den of wickedness. Soon befriending Howl’s young apprentice Micheal and even striking up a deal with his magic fire demon Calcifer, Sophie instals herself as cleaning lady in the castle while Howl simply doesn’t react or only unsuccessfully makes known his displeasure. She experiences the castle’s many wonders and with Micheal, Calcifer and indeed, Howl himself, has many adventures, ones that will change her life forever.

This cover seems from the Ghibli film; not the one I have but it was pretty so I used it

While this is a story of fantasy, magic, adventure and even romance, most of all it is a story full of fun—be it in the characters themselves (Sophie whose mousy personality undergoes a 180-degree change when she turns into an old woman—reminding me a little of L.M. Montgomery’s Valency Stirling—or the somewhat supercilious Calcifer who is rather a nice chap or even the rather melodramatic and vain Howl himself, constantly absorbed in his own appearance and given to throwing tantrums—all likeable but none flawless), the gentle fun poked at stereotypes and even in the adventures themselves. One can’t help being absorbed in the charm of it all and having fun the way Wynne Jones herself must have had when writing it.

Yet for all the stereotypes and tropes it incorporates, this is a highly original story, whimsical and crazy, where the reader doesn’t quite know where they are headed and even though we may know ‘how’ things might (will?) eventually turn out, the path to that happening is an adventure all the way and full of surprises, for instance, suddenly finding oneself in real-life Wales with children playing computer games just as one has settled into Wynne Jones’ fantasy world. Even though much of every day life and its doings are involved, the action remains constant, if not always fast paced, moving between Sophie defiantly cleaning the not-very-well-kept castle (much to Howl’s annoyance) or selling real (Howl’s) and concocted (her own) spells to eager customers to whom she is ‘Mrs Witch’, to taking off with Micheal in Howl’s seven league boots, sometimes to look out for her sisters’ welfare and at others even to catch a shooting star, while a creepy scarecrow is often on their trail and a dog-man (a man turned into a dog, that is) too makes himself at home in the castle. Nothing is as it seems or as one imagines, and both Sophie and us readers learn that as things progress.

The romance thread stays a bit understated but it is pretty much (almost) apparent which way things will go—I say almost because there was one element I expected would resolve differently till another surprise at the end. But this wasn’t an aspect that bothered me much; I found the conclusion satisfying since the explanations that came forth as all the characters gathered together, before that final flourish of drama/melodrama, were once again contrary to expectation and all the more enjoyable for it.

This made for an absolutely wonderful introduction to the world and work of Diana Wynne Jones and I can’t wait to pick up another.

(p.s. I am perhaps one of the few, if not the only one, who has not yet seen the Ghibli film, thus the lack of comparison/mention).