Fandom: Maddening Howl

From the Greenwillow Blog, a comment from the late Diana Wynne Jones on reader response to one of her, uh, best-loved characters:

The one big, strange fact about Howl is that almost every young woman who reads about him wants to marry him. They began wanting to before the book was even published and they all confess their wish quite openly. Yesterday I was doing a question-and-answer session in a London theatre and a teenage girl put her hand up and said -- without any embarrassment at all -- that she had long wanted to marry Howl and would I mind. I wondered whether to ask her if she would mind everywhere being covered with green slime when Howl’s hair went wrong; or if she minded coping with a man who had head colds like a drama queen; or being twisted round Howl’s little finger; or would it worry her that the man was a terrible coward; or always falling in love with other women; or ... But I could see she regarded these facts as a challenge. So I sat with my mouth open for a second and then told her that she had now joined the end of a very long line that stretches at least once around the world.

This didn’t appear to trouble her unduly.

Paging Cleolinda Jones for a psychological consult! (Actually, I'd love to read a Cleolinda Jones review of Howl's Moving Castle for all kinds of reasons, not just this one.) But this quotation piqued my interest because (in addition to being amusing) it ties in to an issue I'm trying to work out in my massive effort of discipline: ( Read more... )

In short, characterization is HARD.

Phew. It's nice to have that off my chest. :-)