Castle in the Air

Title: Castle in the Air
Author: Diana Wynne Jones
(C)1990
Publisher: A Greenwillow Book (an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers)
ISBN: 978-0-06-147877-2
383 pp.

I first saw Howl's Moving Castle and fell in love with the characters. Hayao Miyazaki has produced some of the most beautiful animated films ever. That one is my particular favorite. I didn't realize at the time that it was a book by Diana Wynne Jones. It took me years to read the book. I was afraid they would be too different. They are similar and yet drastically different, but they are both wonderful. I'm thankful that I finally sat down and read it. If I hadn't, I might never have discovered the two other books Howl, Sophie, Calcifer and many other amazing characters appear in.

Castle in the Air is the second book. It stars Abdullah, a carpet merchant from Zanzib. As you might suspect from his name, Abdullah is from a place I imagine would be similar to the realms of the Arabian Knights. He comes into possession of a threadbare magic carpet and there his whole life changes. He meets a beautiful princess, he finds a genie...one would think his tale is just like Aladdin and all his troubles are over. But in typical Wynne Jones fashion, his troubles are just beginning.

I'll warn you now that those dearly loved characters, including the fantastic moving castle, don't seem to appear until the last few chapters of the book. I hope you are not disappointed in the twisted ending the author has fashioned for us. I thought it was rather ingenious.

Something I love about Diana Wynne Jones, is her use of a character's speech. Abdullah has the most magnificent phrases (not just one or two, but page after page of them). Here's an example:

"O sapphire among sorcerous beings," he said, "flame of festivity and candle among carpets, magnificent more by a hundred times in your true form than ever you were as treasured tapestry -" (p. 371)

And there's just something so...realistic about her characters. I adore Sophie's description of Howl. Those two are the kinds of characters I truly love.

"He's the best wizard in Ingary or anywhere else. If he'd only had time, he would have defeated that djinn. And he's sly and selfish and vain as a peacock and cowardly, and you can't pin him down to anything." (p. 283)

Well, I will leave you with that, and I think that I will search through the stacks for that third book. I know I put it somewhere.