Howl's Moving Castle

Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

To be perfectly honest with you all, this is one of my favorite favorite favorite books EVAR, so my opinion is skewed -- but then again this is a blog and the reason people like blogs more than traditional media outlets is bloggers are (generally) upfront about their prejudices.

ANYROAD . . .

You really have to make a choice when coming up against this story, and that choice is if you want to watch the movie by Hayao Miyazaki or read the book by Diana Wynne Jones. I’ll do my opinions on the movie in another post and just tell you about the book here, but make no mistake they have completely different meanings.

The main undercurrent of Howl’s is the real reason I’ve read it so many times the spine is permanently creased and I freak out when I don’t remember where I put it. It’s a story that takes all the tropes of fairy tales and puts them through the ringer asking the hard questing of “Why?” Why must the oldest always fail? Why must our fate be sealed by forces out of our control and choices we were never given. Why should you never risk anything just because you’ve been told you are not allowed to believe in it?

Sophie Hatter’s fate is sealed because she believes it is, and through the book and the adventures she experiences within its pages she learned to overcome the limits that are only holding her back because she allows them. As Eleanor Roosevelt said “A person can only make you feel inferior if you allow it,” or something along those lines.

In short it’s a wonderful, heart-warming tale that ends in a whirlwind of self discovery and revelation and to this day I cannot get enough of it.