Howl's Moving Castle is a children's fantasy novel, but one that self-consciously makes fun of the typical fantasy tropes. In the beginning, for instance, the novel matter-of-factly notes that Sophie Hatter, as the eldest of three daughters, is unlikely to achieve anything significant in the magic land of Ingary. Moreover, the novel helpfully adds, although Sophie's mother died young, and her father remarried, her stepmother Fanny turned out to be a wonderful woman who favored none of the children (even her own) but instead loved them all equally.

In other words, Howl's Moving Castle tries hard from the very beginning to distance itself from the typical fantasy novel. In doing so, however, the book sometimes becomes a little off-putting. It's very hard for me to express this feeling. The best I can do is to say that, whereas other books are like movies, with a seamless combination of narrative, characters, and background, Howl's Moving Castle felt more like a play, with lots of obviously artificial elements that were nonetheless somehow blended sensibly into the overall story. At one point, to take one example, a character seems to cross into this world, complete with automobiles, computers, and electric guitars. The dialogue between characters also sometimes feels curious. And the characters themselves, and their actions, are just weird.

Sophie, for instance, at first settles into a life of ordinariness, before she angers an evil sorceress who transforms Sophie into an old hag. At that point, Sophie decides to go trekking out in search of the sorceress, only to encounter the mythical flying castle of the dread wizard Howl. Quite randomly, Sophie decides to barge into the castle despite its evil reputation, then starts cleaning it, argues with the fire elemental who powers the castle (!), and terrorizes the young assistant who tries to get her out. When Howl comes in, he turns out to be a young man as well, but he just natters away at Sophie absent-mindedly, froofs around with his own stuff, takes very long showers (!), sings modern songs, and then darts away.

I'm not sure if this summary accurately conveys what I'm trying to express, but there's something very strange about all of these different elements clashing together. For the longest time this book has a vaguely unsettled and incoherent feel to it: people with curious habits do strange things for no reason, then bizarre events occur without explanation (a living scarecrow?!). Perhaps more disarmingly, the mood of the novel shifts often and rapidly, from comedy to horror to drama to melodrama etc. It's all very discomfiting.

For young readers, Howl's Moving Castle is likely to produce one of two reactions: utter confusion, or utter rapture. That's because the book is just unusual enough that it will either put off a young reader or become lodged in that reader's mind forever. (The Phantom Tollbooth, which is equally weird but somehow seems warmer, had a similar effect on me in my youth.)

That being said, however, Howl's Moving Castle is undeniably charming, and the characters, however weird they all are (and they really are weird--nobody is normal in this book), slowly grow on you. I actually found myself reading the terribly silly conclusion of the book with a big grin on my face. Sure, the endings are all a little pat and convenient, and perhaps the book ends up tumbling into the same fantasy tropes that it so emphatically rejected in the beginning--but, no matter how meta you get, there's still no ending like a "happily ever after."

Copyright © 2004 Steven Wu