House of Many Ways
House of Many Ways is a children's book, written
by Diana Wynne Jones. The intended audience is nine year olds, not
twenty-four year olds. So why would I choose to read it? Simple. It's
a sequel to Howl's Moving Castle.
I first saw Howl's Moving Castle, directed by Hiayo Miyazaki, sometime during college. It's my favorite of the movies that he has directed and I have seen (which includes Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Kiki's Delivery Service, and My Neighbor Totoro). Howl himself is insufferable and arrogant, but Sophie is awesome. She's not one to sit around and mope. When she gets turned into a ninety year old woman, she ventures out to find a way to lift the curse. She spends almost no time complaining about her lot in life and all her time actively trying do something about it.
I recently found out that this story was not the mind-child of Hiyao Miyazaki, but of the Welsh author Diana Wynne Jones. Not only was the story available in book form, it had sequels! This is where House of Many Ways comes in. It takes place several years after the events of Howl's Moving Castle in the same world. There's also a book called Castle in the Sky that takes place between these two, but the bookstore didn't have it.
In House of Many Ways, Howl and Sophie show up to help save the day, but the book isn't really about them. I was only mildly disappointed by this because I fell in love with the main character, Charmain, almost immediately. Here, read her introduction:
It turns out that reading is just about the only thing Charmain can do. She is sent to take care of her great-uncle's house (the eponymous house of many ways) while he's being cured of some mystery ailment by a group of elves. It quickly becomes apparent that Charmain can't cook or clean or follow instructions. Her uncle very clearly states that he has left instructions for her in a suitcase next to the sitting chair, which she completely ignores. He seems to have anticipated this, as he leaves a note in the library telling her to help herself to any of the books except for a few specific volumes that contain advanced and dangerous magic spells. Naturally, the first thing Charmain does is open up the most advanced book of all and cast the first spell she finds.
Charmain doesn't particularly want to look after her great-uncle's house for an indeterminate amount of time, so she writes to the king to ask if she can help him archive his library. Being a strangely benevolent and generous king, he accepts her offer. Luckily, the new apprentice, Peter, shows up at the house around the same time as Charmain. He's only slightly less useless than she is, but he at least tries to cook (by throwing a steak, three turnips, and an onion into a cauldron of water and letting it boil for a few hours) and clean (flooding the house in the process). Any time he attempts to get Charmain to help she gets all huffy and reads a book instead. It's pretty annoying and I spent half the book wanting to smack her. But she does eventually realize what a brat she is and starts trying to be nicer to Peter. She even helps with the laundry, which turns into a fiasco when she throws a red robe in with a load of white shirts.
In the background of all this, the kingdom is slowly losing money. The taxes that the king levees on his subjects are all disappearing mysteriously and he seems to have misplaced the Elfgift. Apparently the Elfgift was supposed to act as a ward against this very problem, though no one seems to know exactly what it is.
Also there's a weird, purple, insect-like creature called a Lubbock trying to take over the kingdom.
Sophie and Howl are called in to help. They show up with their son (!) and Calcifer and hijinks ensue. Of course they eventually save the day and tie up all the plot lines with a nice, big bow. The last scene involves all of the characters we've encountered over the course of the book crashing into the King's sitting room one by one to explain their bits of the story. I kept picturing it as a middle school play.
The book is fun, but it is definitely children's literature. I mostly read it to find out how things work out with Howl and Sophie, and I was certainly pleased on that front. Charmain is a (mostly) fun protagonist, but she really doesn't hold a candle to Sophie's awesomeness. And Peter spends a lot of time lost in the house, which distorts space-time and is rather labyrinth like. I'd probably get lost, too.
And now House of Many Ways will find its place on my bookshelf next to Little House on the Prairie and Alice in wonderland, waiting for the daughter I will eventually have.
I first saw Howl's Moving Castle, directed by Hiayo Miyazaki, sometime during college. It's my favorite of the movies that he has directed and I have seen (which includes Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Kiki's Delivery Service, and My Neighbor Totoro). Howl himself is insufferable and arrogant, but Sophie is awesome. She's not one to sit around and mope. When she gets turned into a ninety year old woman, she ventures out to find a way to lift the curse. She spends almost no time complaining about her lot in life and all her time actively trying do something about it.
I recently found out that this story was not the mind-child of Hiyao Miyazaki, but of the Welsh author Diana Wynne Jones. Not only was the story available in book form, it had sequels! This is where House of Many Ways comes in. It takes place several years after the events of Howl's Moving Castle in the same world. There's also a book called Castle in the Sky that takes place between these two, but the bookstore didn't have it.
In House of Many Ways, Howl and Sophie show up to help save the day, but the book isn't really about them. I was only mildly disappointed by this because I fell in love with the main character, Charmain, almost immediately. Here, read her introduction:
They both looked across the parlor to where Mrs. Baker's daughter sat, deep in a book, as usual, with her long, thin body bent into what sunlight came in past Mrs. Baker's geraniums, her red hair pinned up in a sort of birds' nest, and her glasses perched on the end of her nose. She held one of her father's hug, juicy pasties in one hand and munched it as she read. Crumbs kept falling on her book, and she brushed them off with the pasty when they fell on the page she was reading.It was love at first sight for me. But it was mostly downhill from there
It turns out that reading is just about the only thing Charmain can do. She is sent to take care of her great-uncle's house (the eponymous house of many ways) while he's being cured of some mystery ailment by a group of elves. It quickly becomes apparent that Charmain can't cook or clean or follow instructions. Her uncle very clearly states that he has left instructions for her in a suitcase next to the sitting chair, which she completely ignores. He seems to have anticipated this, as he leaves a note in the library telling her to help herself to any of the books except for a few specific volumes that contain advanced and dangerous magic spells. Naturally, the first thing Charmain does is open up the most advanced book of all and cast the first spell she finds.
Charmain doesn't particularly want to look after her great-uncle's house for an indeterminate amount of time, so she writes to the king to ask if she can help him archive his library. Being a strangely benevolent and generous king, he accepts her offer. Luckily, the new apprentice, Peter, shows up at the house around the same time as Charmain. He's only slightly less useless than she is, but he at least tries to cook (by throwing a steak, three turnips, and an onion into a cauldron of water and letting it boil for a few hours) and clean (flooding the house in the process). Any time he attempts to get Charmain to help she gets all huffy and reads a book instead. It's pretty annoying and I spent half the book wanting to smack her. But she does eventually realize what a brat she is and starts trying to be nicer to Peter. She even helps with the laundry, which turns into a fiasco when she throws a red robe in with a load of white shirts.
In the background of all this, the kingdom is slowly losing money. The taxes that the king levees on his subjects are all disappearing mysteriously and he seems to have misplaced the Elfgift. Apparently the Elfgift was supposed to act as a ward against this very problem, though no one seems to know exactly what it is.
Also there's a weird, purple, insect-like creature called a Lubbock trying to take over the kingdom.
Sophie and Howl are called in to help. They show up with their son (!) and Calcifer and hijinks ensue. Of course they eventually save the day and tie up all the plot lines with a nice, big bow. The last scene involves all of the characters we've encountered over the course of the book crashing into the King's sitting room one by one to explain their bits of the story. I kept picturing it as a middle school play.
The book is fun, but it is definitely children's literature. I mostly read it to find out how things work out with Howl and Sophie, and I was certainly pleased on that front. Charmain is a (mostly) fun protagonist, but she really doesn't hold a candle to Sophie's awesomeness. And Peter spends a lot of time lost in the house, which distorts space-time and is rather labyrinth like. I'd probably get lost, too.
And now House of Many Ways will find its place on my bookshelf next to Little House on the Prairie and Alice in wonderland, waiting for the daughter I will eventually have.
Comments
Post a Comment