Earn Castle In The Air (Howls Moving Castle, #2) Written By Diana Wynne Jones Offered As Audio Books
you read and enjoyed sitelinkHowl's Moving Castle and have yet to read this, what are you waiting for Come on now, go read it, At once.
I liked Castle in the Air better than its predecessor, surprisingly, There are several reasons for this:
, The plot makes more sense on a first read there's a clear mission from the getgo, and the reveals at the end aren't at all confusing,
. It's not exactly a retelling, . . but there are clear, surely intended parallels to the story of Aladdin, I really liked the setting, which was a fantasy version of Arabia,
. The biggest plus factor of all was the protagonist, Abdullah, Oh, ABDULLAH! He was the icing on the cake, the apple of my eye, etc etc, I feel both giddy and lucky to have read this book and it was an honor to experiencepages of pure Abdullah goodness, To know Abdullah is to love him, I adored his way of speaking, the manners of his psuedoArabian upbringing which led to delightful passages like:
"O most excellent of carpets," he said, "O brightestcolored and most delicately woven, whose lovely textile is so cunningly enhanced with magic, I fear I have not treated you hitherto with proper respect.
I have snapped commands and even shouted at you, where I now see that your gentle nature requires only the mildest of requests, Forgive, oh, forgive!"
Oh, yeah, that's right, In case the Aladdin thing didn't clue you in, there is a MAGIC CARPET, And a GENIE. If this doesn't appeal to you, I can't even begin to understand your strange, strange mind, MAGIC CARPET! GENIE!
Castle in the Air might confuse some readers at first if you go in expecting another book full of Sophie, Howl, and Calcifer, you're in for a surprise.
They don't come into the narrative until close to the very end, But Abdullah more than makes up for their absence, don't fret!
It's hard to think of anything negative to say about this one, There were a couple typos I guess the reason it didn't get five from me is that, I'm stubbornly miserly in giving away my precious, precious, and, Even though I enjoyed every second of it Every, Single. Second. , the writing style was a tad detached, so I didn't quite get the emotional depth that I require for five,
I will most definitely be purchasing this book at some point, Highly recommended! Endlich, der lang ersehnte zweite Band der Howl Saga,
Ich habe mich sehr darauf gefreut,
Die Geschichte spielt in derselben Welt wie auch schon Band eins und
einige der altbekannten und geliebten Figuren kommen auch stellenweise wieder vor, Für meinen Geschmack etwas zu wenig, Leider. Denn ich mochte Howl, Calcifer und Sophie sehr, sehr gerne,
Dafür bekommen wir den Teppichhändler Abdulah, Ich fand ihn einen wirklich gelungenen Protagonisten und musste des Öfteren ab seiner blumigen Wortwahl und Sprechweise schmunzeln,
Die Geschichte geht gemächlich voran, ohne grossartige Höhen oder tiefen, Wie halt auch schon im ersten Buch, Ich fand es sehr angenehm und flüssig zu lesen und es hat mich sehr gut unterhalten, Ich mochte den Humor und die Schrulligkeit der Figuren sehr,
Mir gefiel auch dasNacht angehauchte Märchenhafte der Geschichte,
Der einzige Punkt den ich wirklich zu bemängeln habe, ist, wie über die zwei übergewichtigen Verlobten von Abdullah gesprochen wurde, Dies zwar wirklich nur in zwei kleinen und sehr knappen Szenen, aber da hab ich mich schon sehr über die Wortwahl gewundert, Zwar stammt das Original von, aber ich hätte mir hier irgendwie in der Neuübersetzung eine angepasstere Wortwahl gewünscht,
Nichtsdestotrotz freue ich mich jetzt schon super fest auf den dritten und finalen Band der Reihe und bin schon sehr gespannt, welche Abenteuer wir dort erleben,
Going back to reread one of favourite childhood authors has opened my eyes to some of the problematic aspects of Jones' writing,
First of all, I tried to understand the story through Abdullah's narration, There is a possibility that he was not a reliable narrator, so FlowerintheNight's beauty could have been greatly exaggerated, Still, every chance he gets, he describes her astounding beautyoh, and she's also clever to boot, so that's a bonus, but definitely not needed, It irritated me that they could fall in love so quicklythey knew each other for less than three days before they were married in a double weddingunder false pretenses.
Abdullah only loved Flower for her beauty Flower only loved Abdullah because he was the first man besides her father with whom she had made contact, Both of them were incredibly naive, having had no chance to get to know each other before they were married, When Flower was acting coldly towards Abdullah, I thought, "Great, the other princesses have educated her about her plans for a hasty elopement, Now she knows that Abdullah only valued her for her beauty and, while it was nice of him to come to her rescue, she certainly didn't need him, " But, what happens instead She acts all haughty because he didn't kiss her, Of all the things to get mad at him forthis scene was truly a giant facepalm,
Speaking of hasty marriages, what was that scene between the soldier/Prince Justin and Princess Beatrice He only chose her because she was one of the least attractive people in the room and she "looked like she could mend his clothes" Who agrees to this kind of marriage proposal Oh, Princess Beatrice of course.
Again, two characters who do not know each other at all somehow end up together because the woman is naive enough to comply,
I guess what I'm working towards is that the females in this world are so weakly written that they become part of the landscape rather than characters themselves.
The women do nothing but clean Sophie in the first book, cook Martha, sew Princess Beatrice, and have babies almost all of the Hatters immediately after the events of Howl's Moving Castle.
While there's nothing wrong to choose these lives for themselves, I felt it a great injustice to have their heroism taken away by men with magic, Sophie, a great magician herself, must rely on the Wizard Sulliman, Howl, Abdullah, the soldier, etc, to save her. Clever and logical Flower had to wait around for Abdullah to rescue her, Even Lettie, Sophie's strongwilled sister, was made to kept her powers secret because "Ben doesn't like people to know that I can do magic", The only thing worse than their constantly getting overshadowed is the fact that the men view nothing wrong with this, Abdullah doesn't like Sophie for being strongwilled, He views this traitas well as other traits like being fatto be undesirable in women, And, of course, he is right, for the two "fat, ugly girls" that he was nearly "forced" into marrying are vain and stupidjust as he predictedand have no problem spending the rest of eternity in exile with an immature and spoiled djinn.
Great. What an strong message for young girls who read this story,
While I certainly haven't lost my awe for Jones' vivid imagery and her descriptive writing of these faroff magical kingdoms, it seems that I have lost respect for her characters.
"Castle in the Air" is Diana Wynne Jones' sequel to her amazingly awesome novel "Howl's Moving Castle, " It was originally published infour years after "Howl's Moving Castle", At first glance, this novel doesn't sound like a sequelit sounds more like a companion book at bestbut I promise it does explain more about Howl and Sophie, just not right away and not, perhaps, in the most obvious way.
That said, this story is set in the Sultanates of Rashpuht a land far to the south of Ingary where Howl and Sophie make their home, Instead of a land akin to King Arthur and Merlin, Rashpuht is much more likely to harbor Aladdin and other desertdwellers, This change in setting, along with a new protagonist, make for the most dramatic differences between "Castle in the Air" and its predecessor,
Abdullah works as a carpet merchant in the city of Zanzib, Abdullah's stall may not be as prosperous as his father's first wife's relatives would like, but Abdullah can't stand most of them so he doesn't worry too much, What really bothers Abdullah is the fact that he's selling carpets at all, Abdullah is convinced there is more to life and spends a good deal of his time daydreaming about what his life could be like if, say, he were a prince who had escaped bandits and disguised himself as a carpet merchant before he found his true love.
All in all, the young man doesn't give his daydreams much thought until he is sold a mysterious carpet, With the carpet, Abdullah finds that all of his dreams seem to be coming true with alarming accuracy, Whisked to a magical garden, Abdullah meets and falls in love with the beautiful and intelligent FlowerintheNight only to have her abducted by an evil djinn, So begins Abdullah's adventure as he and his carpet set off to rescue his true love,
This being a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, the plot is filled with charming twists and enjoyable characters throughout, The other great thing about this novel is how much Jones fleshes out the world she introduced in "Howl's Moving Castle, " As the novel progresses, readers learn more about the relations between Ingary, Rashpuht, and Strangia a land that becomes important later, trust me, At the same time, Jones also creates a completely new set of customs and even a new diction for her Rashpuhtian characters which gives the novel an impressive depth.
I don't know if this was the intended effect but, even though both novels are written in English, this change in diction also creates the effect that the characters here speak a different language and that, on some level, their customs would be very foreign to those found in Ingary.
One of Jones' best inventions is that buyers and sellers in Zanzib always speak to each other "in the most formal and flowery way, " This habit creates a lot of conversations that function on a variety of levels much in the same way body language can add to an exchange, For example:
"It is possible that my low and squalid establishment might provide that which you seek, O pearl of wanderers," he said, and cast his eye critically over the stranger's dirty desert robe, the corroded stud in the side of the man's nose, and his tattered headcloth as he said it.
"It is worse than squalid, mighty seller of floor coverings," the stranger agreed,
Exchanges like this appear throughout the novel and make it really enjoyable to read, At the same time this type of double talk suggests that Abdullah is a shrewder narrator than Sophie might have been at the start of the novel, Abdullah doesn't always know exactly what's going on during the novel, but he always tries to make sure he comes out on top or at least not on a forty foot pole.
On its own, "Castle in the Air" is a lot of fun as far as fantasies go, Read in combination with "sitelinkHowl's Moving Castle" and "House of Many Ways" Jones' latest novel featuring Howl and Sophie due out in Junethis book is excellent,
You can find this review and more on my blog sitelinkMiss Print "You cannot rob robbers with a kitten in your hat!"
In this story full of magic, wishes and One Thousand and One Nights reminiscence it is very similar to Aladdin's tale, we follow characters who look absolutely different from the first book.
. . It almost seems that this story is not about Howl and Sophie at all, . . Or is it
I enjoyed this book quite a lot and, I must admit, maybe even more than Howl's Moving Castle, I found it more cohesive, and the story, although very different from the first book, was equally, if not more, enchanting, I love the author's writing style, and since I think it is very suitable for fairy tales, this second book which is more of a fairy tale felt absolutely perfect for her way of writing.
Very enjoyable read! Now I am even more curious of what I'm going to find in book three!
Castle in the Air is indeed a companion to sitelinkHowl's Moving Castle, but the first thing to accept is that you won't be seeing much of Howl and Sophie.
Once I did that, I was able to relax and enjoy this entirely different book,
Abdullah is from Rashpuht, and this is where the story begins, As the names suggest, there's a definite "Arabian Nights" flavor to the narrative, Abdullah finds himself with a magic carpet, that he doesn't know how to control, exactly, and meets with the princess FlowersintheNight, Who is kidnapped right in front of him by an evil djinn, And so Abdullah goes on a quest to rescue his beloved, which eventually brings him to Ingary, and into contact with characters from the previous book,
There's some really fantastic characters in here, Abdullah himself, who is a smooth talker but quite sincere in his love for FlowersintheNight, FlowersintheNight herself, who isn't content to be in distress and who is as intelligent as she is beautiful, And Princess Beatrice in particular, though she isn't in much of the book,
The plot has a traditional fairy tale feel to it, with some twists, It also has the same sort of chaotic ending that Howl's Moving Castle had, which I liked, I'm very eager to continue the series now, .