[merylsilverburg]

Originally Posted by Psychopu

Jones' book is... funny. Yes. It plays well with average fairy tales commonplaces, and the characters are comedians, mostly. There are some fancy parts and inventions in it, but for the greatest part the best aspect is how characters interact. The plot is a mess at some points, so very confusing, but I doubt it's intentionally like that. Anyway I had a good time with it. Which means the book is ok, but the Miyazaki movie is on a completely different level.

Sorry for this late comment, I never got around to posting a reply to this. I read Howl's Moving Castle last year or so and I feel the book is good on certain levels but also somewhat unmemorable. I don't know why but I never got the impression that Sophie considered herself plain or ugly nor did I feel that she actually fell in love with Howl. The conversations between all of the characters were good and I enjoyed some of the unique story elements like the whole our real world considered as the fantasy world twist in the book. This was funny and clever. And there are other stuff not included in Miyazaki's film that were quite good too.

But, I think I enjoyed Miyazaki's adaptation more for these reasons:

Spoiler: show

I like how the mom was heartless in the film version because it lended better to the plot rather than the book where everyone was just so happy and no one was "evil." I like how Sophie's sisters switching roles were left out too. It was amusing in the book but was unnecessary in the film. I also think Miyazaki's vision of Howl's castle was much better than the crickety, dark, thin-towered castle that was described in the book. I know it's the original and I shouldn't be so mean but Miyazaki's heart-shaped castle lended more symbolism to the overall story since it was all about Howl's heart.

There are more reasons but since the book was a bit unmemorable to me, I've forgotten them now.

I haven't read books at all lately and the only books I managed were children's books (because they're quick and not too long-winded). So, I finished reading a few months ago this lovely story called The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo. Just a simple story of a snooty, vain china rabbit who was lovingly cared for by a little girl when he suddenly gets lost at sea one day. He undergoes a journey that changes his personality forever. Yes, this doll has a soul. No, the story is not as strange as it sounds.

I'm currently reading Alice in Wonderland, hooray! I hope I can manage through it without having no time to read it thus losing interest and forgetting what I read earlier thus attempting to re-read it again or abandoning it like so many of my other books.