Howl's Moving Castle

A good friend of mine has suggested both the film and the BBC 4 radio adaptations to me also multiple times, I finally I got round to it. I got so round to it that I listened to the radio play – not on BBC Sounds any more but can still be found on YouTube – and downloaded the audiobook so I could switch between that and the kindle edition. I still haven't seen the movie, but I'm sure it won't be long! 

I'm sure since I am very late to the party with this one that everyone already knows what it's about, but just in case anyone else also lives under a rock, the story is set in the world of Ingary. Our main character is Sophie, who is the eldest daughter and being very genre-savvy has resigned herself to a fate where nothing much of note ever happens to her, as she is the eldest, and if she goes out to make her fortune she will fail first and fail the worst. However, one day she gets cursed by a wicked witch and transformed into an elderly woman. Deciding that she can't continue to live her life like this, she immediately sets off to make her way in the world and ends up on the doorstep of Howl's literally moving about the landscape castle, where she's hoping the curse can be broken. 

I fell headfirst in love with this story. It very much reminds me of the magical feeling of being drawn into and entranced by Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and filled me with the sense of whimsy and magic which that book also does, which probably accounts for how much I love it. The brilliant cast of characters certainly helps, the gentle inherent humour that suffuses the entire narrative, the charm and quirkiness. It was a delight. I found myself wanting to go get my kids to read it to them (currently they aren't interested as it's not Minecraft, but I will make them come to the light) just because I wanted to share my delight in it with them. 

The way that Sophie completely embraced being an elderly woman was very endearing. Howl could easily have been annoying considering how vain and spoilt he is, but he doesn't come across that way at all. There is a great sense of found-family affection between the residents of the moving castle that is just a pleasure. I loved how the curse, while ostensibly a bad thing, freed Sophie from what she felt was her role in life and enabled her to become more her than she had ever been.