(no subject)

[flemmings]

Spring melancholy. The 20-somethings squeeing over Peter and Harriet make me feel old. I too squeed once. Then I reread the books twenty years later and thought 'what an odious unlikable pair.' Nothing comes as it came before, and everything looks worse second time around...

Groping back to bed after a piss
I part thick curtains, and am startled by
The rapid clouds, the moon's cleanliness.

Four o'clock: wedge-shadowed gardens lie
Under a cavernous, a wind-picked sky.
There's something laughable about this,

The way the moon dashes through clouds that blow
Loosely as cannon-smoke to stand apart
(Stone-coloured light sharpening the roofs below)

High and preposterous and separate -
Lozenge of love! Medallion of art!
O wolves of memory! Immensements! No,

One shivers slightly, looking up there.
The hardness and the brightness and the plain
Far-reaching singleness of that wide stare

Is a reminder of the strength and pain
Of being young; that it can't come again,
But is for others undiminished somewhere.

-Phillip Larkin

Everything looks worse second time around except for Miyazaki maybe. I finally watched Howl in a decent copy, not pirated with crappy sound and surrreal subtitles. Followed it with a reread of the book. I like the Miyazaki better than before, naturally, but I'm surprised to find it edging the book out as well. Miyazaki's WTF interpolations- the war, the bird, that disconcertingly story-book disguised prince- who gave me the creeps BTW- are on balance no more WTF than Jones' own trademark and casual WTFs- like the dog man who's actually two people, that I still can't figure out precisely what happened to him where, and what was going on between Howl and the Witch and why, and all that stuff in the last quarter of the book that's just there, deal with it. There's a lot of thready loose-endedness in Jones, which is doubtless a change from the common run with every last blessed detail explicated into the dust, but it does annoy the tidy-minded, like me.

And of course Miyazaki has his landscapes, straight out of 1920's children's books with the colours intact. This is no fair because he's a master of landscapes and wins with them over just about anyone I can think of.

Comments

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

What is nails-down-the-chalkboard for you about Peter and Harriet? I love _Gaudy Night_, so I'm curious.

[tammylee.livejournal.com]

The only expectation I had of the movie was Howl's narcissistic snit fit; which was admirably handled. I have a weakness for men who love themselves. ^_^

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

That can be a drawback in RL, you know...

[tammylee.livejournal.com]

Ahhahahha! Come to think of it...

^_~

[mikeneko.livejournal.com]

Like Bingley, I would not be so fastidious as you are for a kingdom. Y'know? ^^ I don't think they're odious and unlikely so much as prickly, like unto the porcupines. Perhaps your prickles have begun to poking at one another?

(The one I like, actually, is "Have His Carcase," wherein the two argue a fair amount, and talk past each other, and walk down the beach picking up strange objects, and solve codes and such. It's not very romantical, but it's fairly companionable.)

Jones' own trademark and casual WTFs

She does dive into the WTF often, doesn't she? It's one of things that you're either okay with or you're not, and I fall largely on the yay-okay! side.

like the dog man who's actually two people, that I still can't figure out precisely what happened to him where

Well, lessee. Prince Justin and Ben Suliman wound up parceled into pieces and recombined in odd ways, comprising a) dog-guy, b) scarecrow, d) skull on the shelf, d) guitar, and e) headless corpse sitting in the witch's castle. Many pieces. The guitar was also tied to the Witch of the Waste's fire demon, aka Miss Angorian.

The goal was to make a new guy who wouldn't be an utter flake, plus Howl's head so he'd be Good-looking Yet Not a Flake (GYNF). Doomed to failure, that.

Oh, also, GYNF would be new home for Witch of the Waste's fire demon after chucking Calcifer. (She/it was really the evil overlord there.)

and what was going on between Howl and the Witch and why

Inferred was that Witch of the Waste was one of Howl's (many) past conquests, whom he'd discarded in search of other maidenly hearts to devour. She didn't take it well.

and all that stuff in the last quarter of the book that's just there, deal with it.

She always ends that way. ^^;;;

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Damn. Just deleted to edit without saving text.

Refer to the concert in Gaudy Night for everything I dislike about Peter and Harriet. Intellectual Pharisaism and pointless chatter chatter chatter.

Reply the second

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Inferred was that Witch of the Waste was one of Howl's (many) past conquests, whom he'd discarded in search of other maidenly hearts to devour. She didn't take it well.

But she's not a maiden at all. (And here Miyazaki's image comes in again to pre-empt Jones': she's old, grossly obese, and overdressed.) At this point the infer function gives up and I fretfully demand a little explanation- what was going on there anyway? Which I'm not going to be told. Has anyone else noticed that Jones here behaves like a mangaka? I've always assumed she doesn't just toss things in randomly for the fun of it, but I only assumed it because she's British. If she were Japanese I think I'd be sure she does exactly that.

Re: Reply the second

[mikeneko.livejournal.com]

Ho. I must discuss both of these in GRISLY DETAIL. Unfortunately, my copy of Howl's has wandered astray, so it's all from memory. (But I'm fairly certain the Witch of the Waste was skinny not unlike consumption.)

But I am not finished with work. I shall return . . .

Re: Reply the second

[shiny-monkey.livejournal.com]

My memory is a sieve, but I'm pretty sure the Witch-in-the-book wasn't unattractive, just evil. The movie version doesn't feel like fanfic to me at all, it just... feels like one of those movie adaptations that they can only say is "based on an idea by [author]". Sort of like the movie version of "I, Robot", with Will Smith in it.

Re: Reply the second

[mvrdrk.livejournal.com]

Yes, the witch was this elegant thin thing in the book. I don't know whether she was a conquest of Howl's or not. I believe he alludes to it when they move out to the edge the garden/waste, so I'd say yes he'd had a fling with her at one point. That's why she cursed Sophie, because she thought Sophie was Howl's current fling.

In any case, she took what she considered the best parts of Suliman and the prince and wanted Howl for the pretty. The dog was made of bits left over. The scarecrow had been tasked with finding the bits left over so Suliman/Prince could try to put themselves back together. I can't blame her for wanting to build the perfect man ... I'm sure many of us have done it in our heads.

Re: Reply the second

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

That's why she cursed Sophie, because she thought Sophie was Howl's current fling.

But she knows about a Miss Hatter at the hatshop because the prince keeps thinking of Lettie. Why does she decide that Sophie is *Howl's* currnet choice? (I seem to recall conversations like this about other books. There's a limit to 'never explain, never apologize' and I think DWJ occasionally goes over mine. Not to mention that not releasing all the information to your readers often resembles carelessness. Did you just not tell us or did you fail to think it through?)

Re: Reply the second

[mvrdrk.livejournal.com]

Dang. I may be conflating the book and the movie. I'll have to go find the text ...

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Jones is on a particularly mhhh what's the word? I call it British wavelength, though certain American writers have it too. Quirky and sideways with lots of stuff left out, and always with the strong possibility that you're dealing with an unreliable narrator. The Chrestomanci ones I find perfectly straightforward, though they also have the diminuendo endings. So no, don't read the book; you're fairly sure not to like it.

(You find HP characters engaging? Oh dear. I read the books for the plot, I suppose, more than anything, but find the charas so cardboard stock and so badly handled I just kind of ignore them. Less so with the adult ones, maybe, but sheesh- here's Snape being a bully one more time, what is this, a manga where everyone has their Identifying Dialogue Schtick? 'Twenty points from Gryffindor!"

No, you didn't gush about the fic. ^_^ Gouen becomes a bottom and at once thinks how this can be used to advantage. I think now that he always wanted to be a romantic but couldn't stop being a politician long enough. Really, he should have been a sheltered and benignly overlooked middle son with no need to keep the balance in his family.

[mvrdrk.livejournal.com]

After having read several of Jone's books, I feel it's safe to say that Howl's is probably the best of the bunch. I loved it. I'm sure, on the other hand, that you're right. N, don't read it.

But political is part of what I find engaging about Gouen.