Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones is one of those acclaimed works of juvenile fantasy that I’d missed when I was a kid and have spent years meaning to circle back to. And as this year’s fantasy Bingo board felt like a two-handed shove in its direction, I finally pulled it off the shelf and gave it a try.
Howl’s Moving Castle stars one of three sisters, doomed by being the oldest to a mundane life with no grand quests or romances. But an unexpected run-in with an infamous witch leaves her cursed with old age and sets off a chain of events that brings her to the titular castle of the evil wizard Howl, who is plenty vain but perhaps not as evil as all that. What follows is a lot of cleaning, a fair bit of running interference for loved ones, and eventually another encounter with the witch who started it all.
Howl’s Moving Castle is dripping with whimsy, opening with winks at the genre and reveling in a freshly old busybody living amidst impossible magic and giving the wizard as many pieces of her mind as he’ll take. It’s wildly fantastical and a whole lot of fun, making it easy to see how the book acquired such a tremendous reputation.
The book’s star is truly the lead, who revels in the changes of social expectations even as she laments the aches and pains that come with a new old body. The titular setting infuses her story with magic, and Howl’s preternatural ability to avoid being pinned down on anything leaves gaping holes in her understanding for her to fill in with her wildest assumptions, both keeping the entertainment value high and kick-starting a fair bit of plot.
Unfortunately, the plot is probably the book’s biggest weakness. Trying to keep in front of Howl’s various efforts to slip away from responsibility generally stays pretty fun, but it’s clear from the get-go that the whole thing is building to a final confrontation with the witch who had started it all. And while that main arc promises tension and delivers a satisfying conclusion, it’s a bit too intricate to mesh with the whimsical setup. The novel is never especially fast-paced, as a lot of the fun derives from seeing the lead bustle through everyday tasks in a way that may or may not break magics unknown to her. But the plot intricacy slows it down in a different way, reducing the focus on the everyday foibles of a nosy lead and a wizard who doesn’t want to be pinned down and shifting it to an accounting of the various backstories of new secondary characters and the way in which they affect the larger plot. It’s not that it’s especially poorly done, it’s just that the major plot arc lacks some of the magic of the setting and the interpersonal dynamics in the set-up.
Overall, it’s easy to see how Howl’s Moving Castle became a classic. While the main plot doesn’t quite have the life to put it on my own list of favorite books for juvenile audiences, the lead character is a riot and her interactions with the wizard and his impossible dwelling make it a book well worth reading.
Recommended if you like: whimsical fantasy for younger audiences. nosy old ladies.
Can I use it for Bingo? It’s hard mode for High Fashion and Impossible Places. It’s also a Book Club book that’s Published in the 80s.
Overall rating: 15 of Tar Vol’s 20. Four stars on Goodreads.