Trutharchivist

So. I've just reread one of my favourite books by one of my favourite authors ever which got lost in adaptation, and I want to talk about it. It's not my first time mentioning this book in relation to its adaptation, so this part shouldn't be news to most anybody, but I intend to elaborate on it a bit more. And the book is... Trupmpets, please...

Howl's Moving Castle!

Howl's Moving Castle is a Children Fantasy book written by Diana Wynne Jones - a criminally underrated author, in my personal opinion. It was written in 1986, and was adapted to a Japanese animated film by Hayao Miyazaki in 2004. The author herself liked the movie while acknowledging the differences between it and the book - saying, among other things, that she and Miyazaki seem to have reacted in opposite ways to being children during WW2.

By now I don't remember if I watched the movie before reading the book or vice versa - both happened somewhere around my middle school years, more or less. My reading Howl's Moving Castle probably followed my Percy Jackson period - due to promotion choices by publishers in Israel, mostly - and may or may not have caused my Miyazaki period. Or was caused by it, though I don't think it was (for chronology's sake I'd remark that my PJO period was during elementary school, while the Miyazaki one was definitely at around middle school). All that is kind of pointless exposition, but who knows? Maybe my background there will provide insight to my views.

I'm probably going to spoil the book (and potentially the film too) in the rest of this SU. I greatly reccomend the book, and know people who'll reccomend the film, so... please read the book before reading this? Pretty please? I would like it very much. On the other hand, maybe reading this SU will persuade you to read it.

So, recap: the book follows Sophie Hatter, who is the eldest of three daughters - and thus, in the fairy-tale land of Ingary, she is doomed to fail when she goes to look for her fortune. So she resigns herself to working in her father's hat shop, while her two sisters go to apprenticeship at a bakery and with a witch. Without even having gone to look for her fortune, though, Sophie is cursed by the dreaded Witch of the Waste (and no, she won't melt if you pour a bucket of water on her) to become an old woman - which, oddly enough, prompts her to go look for her fortune. On her way to who-knows-where she has three encounters - one with a scarecrow she frees from the bushed (and does not tell her he lacks brains), one with a nearly strangled dog - which runs away ungratefully when she frees him, but leaves her a walking stick, and one with a shepherd who thinks she's a witch. All encounters will return eventually - except for the shepherd, he was just an idiot. She then stumbles upon the eponymous moving castle of Howl - a dreaded wizard who is said to be eating the hearts of young maidens. Since it's nearly dark Sophie enters the castle anyway (she's otherwise in the middle of nowhere), and there she enters a bargain with Howl's fire demon, Calcifer, to undo his contract with Howl. She becomes Howl's cleaning lady to stay there while she figures out he contract, and many hijinks ensue. Included: Howl, who has a tendency to court young girls until they fall in love with him and then leave them, starts dating Sophie's sister Lettie, prompting Sophie to get involved in things; Howl's apprentice, Michael dating Sophie's other sister, Martha, but knowing her as Lettie because they switched places; Howl being hired to find a missing prince (and possibly the royal wizard, too); Sophie and Michael trying to ponder how to cast a spell that is actually Song by John Donne; Howl turning out to be from our world's Wales; the Witch of the Waste catching Howl with a curse, possibly (at least partially) due to him having broken up with her, possibly for her own nefarious purposes; the moving castle being relocated to run away from Howl's troubles - mostly ones involving the Witch of the Waste; quite a few subplots I've neglected to mention because I can't tell you the whole book, though I just did; Howl being vain and a drama queen, Sophie being a nosy old woman... By the end everything comes together in a weird mess, the Witch is being rid of, Howl and Calcifer's contract is broken, Sophie is freed from her curse and gets together with Howl and they live happily ever after - which, since those people are who they are, isn't very peaceful at all.

Honestly, I probably elaborated to much. This includes many spoilers for the book - some worse than others. Well, I hope you've read it already, or at least will go to read it. I think there are enough unspoiled twists around here, and some of the things I've said could be somewhat predictable. Not the Wales part, though - I just ruined an amazingly funny moment, though I think you'll still be able to enjoy it even if you've read this before reading the book. There are some differences you might note between this description and that of the movie (assuming you've watched it) - there's hardly any war mentioned in the book (I mean, there is, but it's mentioned offhandedly), Howl refuses to serve the king for completely unrelated reasons, the royal wizard is a far cry from being the Witch of the Waste's superior in the magical arts, did I say Howl was a vain dramaqueen in the book? Well, he was also a coward, and let's not forget all the girls he breaks the hearts of (he's described as heartless a couple of times). He's definitely not the noble wizard presented in the film. But what I really wanted to focus on, surprisngly, is the absence of the fairy-tale parts.

The thing is, Howl's Moving Castle is many things. For one, it was inspired by a young boy in a school somewhere asking DWJ if she wrote a book called the Moving Castle. For another, this book is full of funny scenes of all sorts - I guess it depends on your sense of humor, in addition to your preexistent knowledge. I still wonder what it's like to get to the aforementioned mistaking Song for a spell when you actually recognize it, for example. But for another, it's an exploration of a fairy tale world - and one thankfully lacking any kind of retelling in it, as far as I saw. It used some age-old fairy tale tropes, some of them only to avert or subvert, like Sophie being the eldest of three and thus destined to fail. I'm also a bit surprised by the comparisons I've succesfully made to the Wizard of Oz, but it remains to be seen if there's anything to it. All those are absent in the movie.

Gone are the three sisters - two of them are merged into one, and considering they were called by the same name for half the book I can hardly blame anyone, but still. Gone are the seven league boots - which weren't that important to the plot, but the book literally starts by saying those things exist. If one fairy tale thing is in the movie, it's the true love's kiss - that one trope that wasn't in the book, and made the ending of the movie just a tad awkward when you think about it. The movie hits a few plot bits, misses others, but most of all, IMO, it lacks the atmosphere of the original. This most of all is wht makes those two separate things in my opinion. And due to that... well...

Some of you may remember that time I posted about good movies that are bad adaptations. I think I've said it back then, but it deserves repeating now: my main problem is not that those exist - I love some of them - but the fact their existence stands in the way of an actually loyal adaptation - one that could also be good. There's never going to be another interpretation of HMC to the big screen (or to the litle one, either). If there will ever be another movie, chances are it'll use the animated film as a reference instead of the book. It's he same with the Black Cauldron, BTW - while this movie wasn' very succesful, when I hear that Disney might make a remake I dread it - since it'll obviously be based on the movie and not the book. The very same thing happened to Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland, has it not?

In addition to that, great many people know the story only from the movie, and I think they are missing a funny and deeply interesting story. It's really, truly, too bad. I also don't want to get into all the one star reviews of "this is not enough like the movie". It's not DWJ's fault if you got a misleading impression from a good movie that isn't much on the side of an adaptation!

Sorry, I think I've got too far. I actually intended to write a piece about the book's representation of Fairy-Tales, but I'm honestly not sure I understand all this well enough, so it degraded into a rant about disloyal adaptations. I do think this is a fair example of exploring fairy-tale themes without making this a retelling of a story we already know or building on a character we've heard stories about over and over. I loved my visits and revisits in the land of Ingary, where such things as invisibility cloaks and seven-league boots really exist, and I hope this post was interesting, or at least convinced those of you who never read this book to go visit there yourselves.

Thank you for reading, and have a magical day!

(Next up: my quasi obsession with Jewish representation in books and how one of my favourite authors butchered it.)