![]() ![]() The rules where the poor youngest child is the fortunate traveller, trailing along in the wake of the two elder, richer, and probably ugly siblings, and picking up the golden goose or whatever, have been stated and dismissed by over-statement in one deft move. In these first two sentences she has also, with the poise reminiscent of a slightly more whimsical Jane Austen, burst right through the fairy tale conventions and out the other side. And so in this story anything can happen. The author has made it quite clear in these opening sentences that Howl’s Moving Castle is a fairy tale, or at least a tale that happily contains magical elements within it. But before you hurry away in your plain old size nines, pause to glance behind you at what you might be overstepping in your haste to catch up with reality. And invisibility cloaks are, granted, slightly old-hat post JK Rowling. If your Greatest Welsh Novel has to be set in a land where seven-league boots don’t really exist, then it’s quite possible Howl’s Moving Castle isn’t the contender for you. Everyone knows you are the one who will fail first, and worst, if the three of you set out to seek your fortunes.’ ‘In the land of Ingaray, where such things as seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist, it is quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of three. ![]() Penny Thomas loses herself in the mysterious wonders of Diana Wynne Jones’ Howls’ Moving Castle, another unconventional nomination for the Greatest Welsh Novel. ![]()
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