(no subject)

[skygiants]

So as those of you who have had the misfortune to be stuck with me late in chat the past couple nights probably know extensively from my constant babbling about the book, I've been having massive amounts of fun playing Sophie Hatter (talkstohats) from Diana Wynne Jones' Howl's Moving Castle in Milliways.

To spare you all, therefore, I am going to concentrate my thoughts on why I love Diana Wynne Jones so much in a post here. (I cannot guarantee that it will lessen my babbling glee, but I will make the effort.)



So . . . basically, Diana Wynne Jones is who I want to be as an author.

I do not know if this is a chicken or an egg thing - i.e., whether I read too much of her when I was young and therefore decided that this was what writing should be, or her writing originally appealed to me because of ideas I already had. (It probably doesn't matter.) I'm not really talking about her style here; I do love it her way of phrasing things, but I don't want to copy it and I'm not sure if I could - though I know it's influenced mine. What I'm talking about is her way of writing characters. Someone, somewhere - I can't recall if it was an Official Quotething or a random fanquote - said that the thing about Diana Wynne Jones' characters was that even in the middle of whatever dramatic events were going on, you could always picture them fighting over the last brownie.

While obviously not every character ever written is going to be the type of person who is going to fight over the last brownie, I think this sort of sums up what I feel about fantasy. Epicness is great. I'm occasionally a sucker for epic. But half the appeal of fantasy, for me, is seeing believable characters placed in these fantastic situations; is in knowing that these people could just as easily have been born into an everyday life, and knowing that while their situation may be life-and-death right now, there will also be petty, brownie-fighting situations in there too.

DWJ is fantastic about putting those situations in, and I love her for it. Her characters often wield impressive power and usually save the world, or at least a section of it, or sometimes just themselves in what are often her best books of all - but they also cut up other people's suits because they're cranky, or spend two hours in the bathroom in the morning, or sneakily hide their trash because they don't want to be caught littering, or write horrible fanfiction involving sweaty backs and rippling muscles, or dream about becoming world-famous cricket players. Even if they happen to be the most powerful magic-worker in nine worlds, they really are, to quote W.H. Auden (I had Auden class today) "silly like us".

I'm not saying that her books are uniformly fantastic, because they're not; there are definitely several that fall flat, and her style is, I know, not for everyone. But when she's good, she's good. And her - character aesthetic, I guess - not only appeals to me, but really is the way I would like to write my own characters. With that sort of completeness and ordinariness; not in a way that precludes them being special, but in a way that would allow them to exist in an ordinary world as well as the special one they live in.

So there it is: my worship of Diana Wynne Jones, out in the open. I freely confess it.

In other news, tomorrow I get a kenovay! :D!!!

Comments

[the_croupier]

I heard Miyazaki made quite a few changes to Howl. I saw the movie and liked it, but it made me curious about what the original book was like. Do you think the book is better, or are the movie and book just different?

[skygiants]

I am biased by having read it first, but . . . I'd definitely say the book was better.

I mean, I liked the movie, and there's a lot of fairly complicated plot in the book that's easy enough to follow through text, but would be difficult to get across on film - so while I miss it (for example, Michael's romance with one of Sophie's sisters) I understand while they cut it.

What really makes the book better than the movie, I think, is Howl's character; he's much more . . . heroic in the movie, and it bothers me a little, because Howl in the book is so wonderfully unheroic. I mean, he is when he has to be, but - *finds quote* "I'm a coward. Only way I can do something this frightening is to tell myself I'm not doing it!" is what Howl tells Sophie in Time of Greatest Crisis. He's very flawed, and so is Sophie, which is why they work together. The movie smooths out a lot of those flaws, which makes the story weaker, in my opinion.

[in-the-blue.livejournal.com]

I agree with Becca: the book is better. Don't get me wrong: I'm a huge Miyazaki fan and the movie is beautiful. But it's not the book, and the script (even DWJ made some comment somewhere about how the movie was loosely based on the story, I'm paraphrasing) takes some rather minor plot points and turns them into major sociological things.

One of the beautiful things about her writing and books is that they're so... small. They're really all about the minutiae of everyday life, even while huge global things go on around the characters. It's their thoughts and the way they react (or not) to the greater goings-on that make her work so priceless.

Read the book, and then you can decide for yourself. And then, when you realize you breezed through it in a day or two and didn't get nearly enough, you can read Castle in the Air for Round 2. I bet you'll enjoy them both.

[the_croupier]

Yup, definitely going to have to read the book.

But, wait a minute. Castle in the Air? Is that the same as Miyazaki's Castle in the Sky? Because that's pretty much my favorite Miyazaki movie.

[in-the-blue.livejournal.com]

No. It has nothing to do with the book, sadly. Because it's a fantastic book, but I don't know if it's Miyazaki material. Becca?

[skygiants]

I . . have never actually seen Castle in the Sky. *confesses*

Castle in the Air is a whooole lot of fun, but half the fun, for me, is from having read Howl's Moving Castle, and then getting the othercultural perspective on the characters and scoeity. So . . . I'm not sure.

On the other hand, the visual effects would be pretty awesome.

[in-the-blue.livejournal.com]

I love her style, I love her attention to detail, I love her sense of humor, I love the ease with which she writes, I love the characters and characterizations. She manages to create worlds where no two characters are ever alike, no matter how alike circumstance dictates they should be.

For instance, let's take our two characters: they squabble. They do it better than almost any other couple since Maddie and David in Moonlighting, and all the while they manage to keep track of the things going on around them... in a way. But still, they're concerned with themselves -- they're both selfish -- and have this grudging disrespect for one another. That grudging disrespect colors and shadows everything they do, even though they're both laboring under some pretty significant misinformation.

But she does this all the time, in all the books of hers I've read. The characters are so rich, but with so little internalization from them. Her writing style is easy; she can take any of them and shake them up and make them alternately sympathetic or diabolic (think Hasruel). Or think Kit in the Derkholm books: you never know what she's going to do with a character, but she always manages to make it believable within the constraints of their universes.

And the universes themselves are so full.

Man, I could go on and on and on. You want me to?

[skygiants]

Of course I do! *beams* I always love hearing what other people have to say about her. Especially because I agree totally with everything you've said so far.

I'm always incredibly impressed with how much she manages to say about the characters with so little. A lot of their characterization is tied up in dialogue, or in what they notice, or how they notice it, and she never needs a lot to do it. There's nothing wasted. The descriptions of the King of Ingary, for example, tell you as much about Sophie's character as they do about the King himself - or Elda's perception of her professor, or Vierran/Anne's reactions to Mordion in Hexwood.

(And I think I've only noticed how much that opinion of each other shadows everything that they do since playing Sophie - because when playing her, something always comes back to her opinion of Howl. Her actions are always, at least in part, coming from that, even when I don't plan it that way. It's kind of fascinating.)

[in-the-blue.livejournal.com]

And I always wonder exactly how much Howl knows about Sophie, and at what point in canon he realizes what he realizes about her. He's a terribly lazy and heroic antihero, isn't he? And Sophie, who learns both so much and so little from her ordeal. I think the bottom line is that a person's fundamental nature never changes, despite what they go through... and she's so good at demonstrating that. But she does let them grow into their situations in these minute little ways that are just so masterful.

Of course, that brings up an incredible challenge for me as a roleplayer, because to stay true to the character, I have to challenge myself to think about writing Howl the way she does: no more, no less. It would be the easiest thing in the world to give him more, but that would detract from his maddening, perfectly charming character. I imagine it's the same with Sophie: it would be so nice to infuse her with some hugely empathetic streak, but you don't and I applaud you for that.

But back to the books. I haven't read all of her stuff by any means, but I'm such a big fan of the ones I have read. And I really think that I can boil my favorite statement about why I love her work so much down to this in essence: the stories she weaves are so complex, but the characters are pretty damn simple. It doesn't mean they're not oozing with characterization, but they all have one or two simple and fundamental wants.

And it all works when it's thrown together in a big jumble.

[skygiants]

*giggles* He rather is. Although Sophie does - well, what she does is grow into herself, I think, which is why I love her. She lets herself be walked all over in the beginning, and she grows into a healthy selfishness, which is the only thing that makes it possible that she and Howl could manage to stay together.

I would agree a little, in that her characters do change . . . but never unrecognizably. They learn, I think. But they really are the same person.

(And oh, yes. Sophie's got empathy, but a lot of it is more tied up in her own feelings of guilt when things go wrong than anything else. Which . . . hah, I can relate to, so.)

I've read pretty much all of her stuff I can get my hands on, and . . yes, you're definitely right. The characters are - I would almost say deceptively simple. You think they're easy to sum up (look at the way Sophie sums up Howl all the time!) but when you throw them into the mix of the world they really do turn out to be a mess at the same time.

[in-the-blue.livejournal.com]

Another thing I like about her characters is that they're so human (even when they're not). Human and flawed, and I'm a sucker for flawed characters.

And now I'm running out of stuff to say, so I'll stop.

[skygiants]

Definitely flawed characters. *hugs them*

(Also, on a faintly unrelated side note: did you see the morals meme in the back room? I filled it out for Sophie here, because I thought it would be helpful to think about some of the things she might encounter in-bar, but I wanted to see what you thought about the assumptions I made about, uh, Ingarian culture - DWJ doesn't necessarily give us a whole lot of social mores for them.)

[in-the-blue.livejournal.com]

Mind if I let Howl fill it out for himself as a comment to that one? I think it will be interesting to have them both in the same place, as a kind of reference?

[skygiants]

Of course not! *grins* I am fascinated to see what Howl's answers will be.

[ashen_key]

Oooh. And that, my dear, is the best way to get me to read someone. To tell me that the characters are belieable.

Espeically like THAT.

Maybe I should actually read her...

[skygiants]

:D!!!

You really should. Although, like I said, I'd recommend some of her books more than others - for complexity, especially.

Hexwood I think you'd really like, if you can find it; it's the most awesome combination of fantasy and sci-fi I've ever read. It's even got some Arthurian stuff thrown in for good measure. It starts out a little confusing, but it all resolves itself into sense!

Fire and Hemlock is, I think, one of her most gorgeous books. Black Maria is great just for the villainness, especially. And the Chrestomanci books are just bouncy fun.

[ashen_key]

Sounds iiiiiiiinteresting! Fantasty and sci-fi together sounds especially cool. I shall keep my eye out!

[adiva_calandia]

"Sense" is arguable. :P Hexwood and Fire and Hemlock and A Tale of Time City . . . I don't know how many times I've reread all those, and I'm still not sure what happens at the endings.

But that's okay, because it's so much fun getting to the end.

[skygiants]

. . . okay, valid point. (For Fire and Hemlock, at least. Hexwood is not as confusing! Maybe . . .)

And now that I'm thinking of Hexwood, I can't get the image of Merriman as Hume out of my mind and it makes me laugh.

[jothra]

:D

I think you know that I really like her too. And I agree that some of her books fall flat, but when she is good, she is good. I need to read a bunch of them again.

Also, Sophie-Elda sometime again?

[skygiants]

Definitely. I was going to ask you for that soon too. *giggles* (She should be in again fairly soon; lots of opportunities to bring her in worried and grumpy while Howl is ill.)

*curious* Which are your other favorites, other than the Derkholm ones?