I'd forgotten how fun it could be to read a book collectively.
A few friends of friends, friends and I met as a book club tonight to talk about Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones, a truly charming children's book, my friends, that should not be judged by its cover or cinematic adaptation. So charming, its magic was lost on me at first.
I went to it last month, wanting to lose myself in it. I love Wynne Jones' Charmed Life. I like love stories. How could I not love Howl's Moving Castle, a love story by Wynne Jones? But I did not and it was a disappointment. I was in denial, however, and when anyone asked me, I would still say, "It was nice."
Then I met up last week with my friend, Ms N. A really alert reader, she once observed of a sentence in AS Byatt's Possession about a male character's sexy smile that it seemed out of place. We later learnt Byatt had added the sentence to the American edition to sex up the character for American readers. So Ms N had read Howl's Moving Castle and as we talked about it, it was as if we had read different books.
In my book, there is a girl, Sophie, who has aged decades because of a curse. She goes to the castle of a wizard, Howl - who might or might not be an evil eater of girls' hearts and who was born in Wales - and comes to be his cleaning lady. There is a fire demon, Calcifer, who is bound to Howl's hearth by contract. Calcifer sometimes sings what is known as the saucepan song.
There is much more in Ms N's book: "The saucepan song is a real Welsh rugby song...Calcifer must have heard Howl sing it...so Howl is a man who sings when he cooks, he's adorable."
Wynne Jones, you see, does not so much write as sprinkle her story all around, as if it were magic dust; you have to read between the lines to connect the dots; I realised, after my meeting with Ms N, I had to reread Howl's Moving Castle.
At the book club tonight, as more of us talked about Howl's Moving Castle, more of it came to light - to life. Someone asked how a girl like Sophie could love a guy like Howl. I forget what I answered but it was enough to made Ms N turn to me and say, "You're a romantic."
Maybe - then what you have heard is the tale of how I fell for a book.
7 comments:
About Byatt, was it sexy smile or sexy dragon on kimono?
yes you're right. it was both. she added two sentences, one on the smile and the other on the kimono...
I think the question was why Howl would fall for Sophie, and you said "I suspect he fell for her the minute he saw her on May Day."
I expect Howl falls for plenty of girls at first sight ;). And he thoroughly likes himself when he's doing it. Go read the bit again when he's mooning over Lettie - doesn't he say something almost moving, like "many years will pass before I stop loving Lettie"? Of course, when I'm in a generous mood, I imagine that's a veiled confession of love for Sophie (since Lettie reminds him of her).
you remember! and yes he must mean sophie when he says lettie. ok... am rereading it right now. he says that after sophie saw him with lettie, and we know that by the time she saw them, he was already asking lettie about sophie, no?
please please can i borrow the book? i loved the movie except the part where calcifer and howl are released from each other which was one great big mess and nobody knew what was going on.
precious, yes, by the time Sophie sees him with Lettie, he had already been asking about Sophie, but we don't know if he had linked Lettie with Sophie from the minute he saw Lettie, or only after he had been wooing Lettie for some time, and the old Sophie popped up.
I'm assuming that Howl met the young Sophie before he met the real Lettie. Otherwise on May Day he'd have been pestering Lettie instead of gadding about the streets bumping into Sophie. The same goes for the bakery Lettie (aka Martha) because if he had met her first, he'd have been nailed to the counter with all the other young men (including Michael) instead. Yes, I believe even a fake Lettie is that beautiful and Howl is that susceptible.
So...was Howl ever interested in Lettie herself, even for a moment? Or had he been pursuing the shadow of "that lovely girl" he had met on May Day, all along?
...Wanna read the book again? Hurhurhurhurhur...(echo)
i might, i might read it all over again. (after kallaboo borrows then returns it, yes?)
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