Howl's Moving Castle: Book Discussion

     

            Recently, I found out that the animated movie Howl's Moving Castle by Studio Ghibli was first a book written by Diana Wynne Jones. It is pretty embarrassing to admit that I was completely unaware of the book; which inspired one of my favorite movies. The book was first published in 1984 by Greenwillow Books of New York. It is sold as a children's novel at Barnes and Noble but classified as a YA novel on Wikipedia. In my personal opinion the book can fall in either category, similar to that of Harry Potter. In the following Book Review, I will be comparing the differences between the movie and the book. There will be plenty of spoilers, but since the movie has been out since 2004 and the book has been out since 1984.....its fair game in my opinion. 
           The basic synopses of the book and film, is of a young woman of the age of 17 who works at a hat shop. Sophie, the young woman, often comments as having an old soul. Then one day she gets cursed by the Witch of the Waste for relatively for no reason. The curse turns Sophie into an old woman, and she quickly leaves her home and wanders the country side. After wandering for sometime she frees a magical scarecrow and wanders into Howl's moving castle. She quickly discovers that the fire is in fact a demon; but doesn't seem phased nor does the demon seemed phased either. A apprentice to Howl discovers Sophie and the Demon quickly claims Sophie is the new cleaning lady. We find out the Witch is hunting down Howl and Howl is breaking hearts for fun. Eventually, Howl is forced to move the castle portal to the hat shop Sophie used to work at. Eventually Sophie's curse is broken. Of course in both the book and the movie there is a missing prince, and a scene with the king. 
         The beginning of the book goes into detail on Sophie's life. She is the eldest of three, with her youngest sister being her half-sister. The step-mother, Fanny, gains control of the hat shop but is forced to have her two youngest daughters work as apprentices. Since Sophie is the oldest she has to work at the hat shop. Lettie, middle child, is sent to work at a bakery; she has dark hair and eyes. While the youngest is sent to work under a witch to learn the trade and hopefully be the most successful. Pretty soon Sophie's hat work starts to become the talk of the town, as each time a woman wears a hat something good happens. We later find out that Sophie has the power to talk things into being. Being beaten down by the constant work Fanny is giving her, Sophie leaves the shop on a holiday to visit her sister Lettie. While on her way to the bakery she is hounded by a good looking solider,she is able to escape his harassment. We learn later that this harassing solider was in fact Howl. At the bakery she quickly learns Martha and Lettie have switched places by using a charm to make Martha look like Lettie and Lettie look like Martha.
         In the book there is mention of Howl's castle moving closer to the town Sophie lives in. As well, it a mentions the Witch of the Waste. However, unlike the movie there is no war elements in the book; I was surprise that I preferred it that way, since the Witch of the Waste is given a far darker role. In the book Sophie's sisters actually play a minor role in the story line. While in movie, she is only mentioned to have the sister Lettie. Lettie is depicted as a beautiful blonde with blue eyes, while in the book she has black hair and blue eyes. There is also no more mention of Lettie or the fact she is indeed Martha in disguise. In the book we learn that Howl is "trying" to seduce the real Lettie but is in fact trying to get information about Sophie. 
       Sophie is cursed by the Witch of Waste, who confuses her for Lettie. In the book we are not revealed this information until later. Sophie just assumes she upset her and was cursed by the wicked women. She looks at her hands and at her reflection in the mirror to find she has aged terribly, instead of sticking around she just leaves and walks her way out of town. This is the same in the movie as well. I actually am a fan of how well Sophie takes bad things. She is described as having a pushover attitude, so presumably she just accepts her fate. However, I do hate Sophie's weird tantrums she has towards the end of the book. The reader is left to assume her anger outburst are for her confused feelings on Howl. Howl and Sophie do not have a romantic love relationship, as they do in the movie. Even though its obvious Howl cares for her and she him, it is left as more of a budding adult relationship. 
      One of the fantastic things Howl's magical castle can do is portal hop to various towns in the kingdom. Each one is labeled a different color on the door, in which one simply changes the color depending which portal they need. There is a black color in which Sophie is not told about. When Howl is questioned about what's behind the black door, he quickly takes her in. Now what hides behind the black door? Wales....yes, Wales the country hides behind the magic door. We learn that Howl is actually from our world and so is a missing wizard to the king. In Whales, Howl has his sister and her family that he often visits and sends gifts too.
        The most wonderful thing about this book is the evil character, the witch. While in the movie she is eventually turned to a frail weak woman after Howls heart but somehow ends up looking like my grandmother. She isn't the main protagonist, actually the true evil is Howls old magic teacher. Who turned the prince into a scarecrow, which causes a brutal war. While yes, the prince does turn into scarecrow in the book,the story is far more deep. We also learn that the king's court wizard is missing and Howl is actually sent to find the prince and the wizard.......now are you ready....drumroll....it turns out the witch has literally cut up both the prince and wizards bodies and stitched her favorite parts together. The only thing she is missing from her Frankenstein is Howl's head. Now the messed up part isn't over. The demon who took the witch's heart and traded power, was pretending to be a school teacher in Wales. She was actually after Howl's heart and wanted to kill Calcifer (the fire demon/ falling star) so she could live; because it turns out the witch's heart is dying. 
       I don't know about you but this witch is already better than the one in the movie. I do appreciate that the author basically created a happy ending for all the characters but for the witch and her demon. There is a lack of emotion by all the characters. It seems Sophie is literally okay just going to the evil ladies lair to get what she thinks is a school teacher back. She's not even that disturbed by the pieced together corpse in the corner. This is coming from a character who literally was scared of a moving scarecrow. It really is hard to pin point Sophie's attitude at times, at some points she irrationally snaps at people and other times she seems her age. While in the movie they swap out the anger with sadness.
     I think both the book and movie are great in their own right. If you are looking for more of a love story and better relationship development between the characters, I recommend the movie. If you are wanting a interesting, quick read with strong family ties I recommend the book. I honestly tried to think of negative things to point out in this particular book but I just couldn't think of that many examples. There is a reason that this book inspired a whole generation of people.