One day I was watching Hayao Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle, and I had heard that there was also the book by Diana Wynne Jones, which the movie was based on. I thought that it would be interesting to compare and contrast the two because I hadn’t read the book yet at the time. My sister told me that the book was a bit different, so I wanted to read it and see for myself.
The story is about a girl named Sophie who gets cursed by the witch of the waste and immediately turns into an old lady because the witch was jealous of her. As Sophie wanders to find a way to break the spell, she comes upon a moving castle. She meets a wizard named Howl, who is the owner of the castle and is also looking for the witch, and stays in the castle with him and his apprentice Michael. To break the spell, Sophie has to go and defeat the witch.
The movie and the book are very similar in the plot and characters. They both feature the main characters: Sophie, Howl, Calcifer, the Witch of the Waste, Michael. In the book, there were a few more characters that were not included in the movie, like Fanny, Miss Angorian, and Mrs. Fairfax. In the movie, Fanny is renamed Honey, but the other two characters are nowhere to be seen. If Miss Angorian were in the movie, I think that there would have been more drama because Sophie did not like her because she was jealous that Howl was giving her more attention. Mrs. Fairfax was more of a passive character, so it probably would not have made much of a difference regardless of whether she was added or not.
The book tends to be more detailed, while the movie tends to only focus on certain parts of the story, like Howl and Sophie’s relationship and making it more of a romance while still following the basic storyline. The book starts off with some details about Sophie’s backstory while the movie opens with beautiful scenery, which lasts for about a minute or so. There were a few parts that get completely left out of the movie, like details about how Howl has been trying to woo over women, How Howl, Sophie, and Michael went to see Howl’s family in Wales, and how Howl was somewhat of a wreck for most of the book. Although I liked the movie as it is, I think that it would have been interesting to see how those parts could have been portrayed in the movie. I thought that parts, in particular, were quite funny and could have been a nice addition to the movie.
There is definitely a different dynamic between Howl and Sophie in the book than in the movie. In the book, Howl seems to live up to his description of being heartless and wicked, considering that his heart is outside of his body and is with Calcifer keeping the castle moving. Even he himself admits it. He is also picky when it comes to choosing love interests and won’t stop trying until he reciprocates his feelings once a girl tells him that she loves him and then he leaves them because he can’t bring himself to be committed. Midway into the book, Sophie does catch feelings for Howl and he does for her. In the book, they are often shown bickering. In the movie, Howl is much nicer to Sophie. In one of the scenes a few minutes into the movie, Sophie is stopped by a pair of guards that don’t leave her alone and want to take her somewhere, but Howl stops them and flies her back to her family’s hat shop. Even without a heart, he still manages to treat her well, which I found sweet.
Although I would recommend both the movie and the book, I think I preferred the movie a bit more than the book because it tended to portray more of the relationship between Howl and Sophie and I liked that a lot compared to most of what was happening in the book, but then the book had some parts that I really liked as well, especially one part where Sophie throws a weedkiller at Howl as an attempt to tell him how she feels because she was so jealous of Miss Angorian and disliked her so much Overall, reading the book was fun and I would give it a 5 out of 5 stars for its entertaining plot, humor, and interesting characters.
The story is about a girl named Sophie who gets cursed by the witch of the waste and immediately turns into an old lady because the witch was jealous of her. As Sophie wanders to find a way to break the spell, she comes upon a moving castle. She meets a wizard named Howl, who is the owner of the castle and is also looking for the witch, and stays in the castle with him and his apprentice Michael. To break the spell, Sophie has to go and defeat the witch.
The movie and the book are very similar in the plot and characters. They both feature the main characters: Sophie, Howl, Calcifer, the Witch of the Waste, Michael. In the book, there were a few more characters that were not included in the movie, like Fanny, Miss Angorian, and Mrs. Fairfax. In the movie, Fanny is renamed Honey, but the other two characters are nowhere to be seen. If Miss Angorian were in the movie, I think that there would have been more drama because Sophie did not like her because she was jealous that Howl was giving her more attention. Mrs. Fairfax was more of a passive character, so it probably would not have made much of a difference regardless of whether she was added or not.
The book tends to be more detailed, while the movie tends to only focus on certain parts of the story, like Howl and Sophie’s relationship and making it more of a romance while still following the basic storyline. The book starts off with some details about Sophie’s backstory while the movie opens with beautiful scenery, which lasts for about a minute or so. There were a few parts that get completely left out of the movie, like details about how Howl has been trying to woo over women, How Howl, Sophie, and Michael went to see Howl’s family in Wales, and how Howl was somewhat of a wreck for most of the book. Although I liked the movie as it is, I think that it would have been interesting to see how those parts could have been portrayed in the movie. I thought that parts, in particular, were quite funny and could have been a nice addition to the movie.
There is definitely a different dynamic between Howl and Sophie in the book than in the movie. In the book, Howl seems to live up to his description of being heartless and wicked, considering that his heart is outside of his body and is with Calcifer keeping the castle moving. Even he himself admits it. He is also picky when it comes to choosing love interests and won’t stop trying until he reciprocates his feelings once a girl tells him that she loves him and then he leaves them because he can’t bring himself to be committed. Midway into the book, Sophie does catch feelings for Howl and he does for her. In the book, they are often shown bickering. In the movie, Howl is much nicer to Sophie. In one of the scenes a few minutes into the movie, Sophie is stopped by a pair of guards that don’t leave her alone and want to take her somewhere, but Howl stops them and flies her back to her family’s hat shop. Even without a heart, he still manages to treat her well, which I found sweet.
Although I would recommend both the movie and the book, I think I preferred the movie a bit more than the book because it tended to portray more of the relationship between Howl and Sophie and I liked that a lot compared to most of what was happening in the book, but then the book had some parts that I really liked as well, especially one part where Sophie throws a weedkiller at Howl as an attempt to tell him how she feels because she was so jealous of Miss Angorian and disliked her so much Overall, reading the book was fun and I would give it a 5 out of 5 stars for its entertaining plot, humor, and interesting characters.
--- Xenia
Thanks for this post! I like this movie a lot so it's interesting to see the differences between it and the book.
ReplyDeleteHaving enjoyed the movie a lot, I think I'll check out the book, especially if it's as good as you make it out to be.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know an original book existed so this post was pretty interesting to read. Books and Movies always tend to be different but this sounds much more different than Harry Potter or something like that. I get the feeling that the movie is more geared to a younger audience while the book seems to show more complicated emotions.
ReplyDeleteNice post! The plot and drama sound really interesting. You did a really nice job with your comparison. The examples are nice to help illustrate your points, and you outlined the differences and similarities quite clearly. I also like that you included something like a frame story for your book review at the beginning.
ReplyDelete