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Howl's Moving Castle (audiobook)
(Right now my brain is 90% uni assignments, 9% panic about a job interview I have next week and 1% anything else, but I have a few shower thoughts I wanted to share.)
The other night I just could. not. sleep. so I had the bright idea to put on the Howl's Moving Castle audiobook I'd acquired a couple of months earlier. It's a book I've read a lot, I thought. That means I can listen to the familiar words and just drift off to sleep.
This was not what happened, of course. Although I'm not entirely sure I can blame the book - eventually I switched it off and put on my sleeping playlist* and that didn't work either.
Spoilers for the book and audio rendition follow:
The narrator, Kristin Atherton, does a great job with all the characters, but the most notable thing to me that she does is give Howl a strong Welsh accent. This is, of course, completely supported by canon! But I was amazed at the difference it made, and had a lot of thoughts about accents as class markers and Howl as a proud Welshman and what he means when he says he loves Wales but it doesn't love him. Perhaps he likes being in Ingary where his accent is just interesting and not going to invite comments about how everyone in Wales is either a coal miner or sheep farmer. (Rugby and musicality is, of course, addressed in-canon.)
Edit: Also, I disclaim, I do not have the ability to judge the accuracy of Atherton's rendition of a Welsh accent, nor it's appropriateness for whatever part of Wales Howl is from (not that I think we have that information).
I was also given to wonder a) where Howl is getting these games he gives to his nephew, and b) do you think in 20 years Neil is on some retro gaming forum and suddenly realises that he's literally the only person in the world who has these games?
(Does he just magic them up? I never get a good sense of what kind of limits magic has in that world. Do we think he has a little computer in his bedroom and programs them in his copious amounts of free time? Does he get them from another world entirely? This last seems most likely, except that the game mentioned in the book bears a strange resemblance to Howl's castle.)
Also, nobody tells Sophie anything and she doesn't tell them anything in return and everything would have gone a lot better if nobody kept secrets (but where's the fun in that?).
Incidentally, was Miss Angorian always the fire demon? If it knew enough about Howl to set itself up as his nephew's teacher how did it take so long for the Witch to find Howl's family?
The audiobook is available in the usual places audiobooks are sold/rented. I recommend it!
*Currently consists entirely of music from the soundtrack of Gris.
The other night I just could. not. sleep. so I had the bright idea to put on the Howl's Moving Castle audiobook I'd acquired a couple of months earlier. It's a book I've read a lot, I thought. That means I can listen to the familiar words and just drift off to sleep.
This was not what happened, of course. Although I'm not entirely sure I can blame the book - eventually I switched it off and put on my sleeping playlist* and that didn't work either.
Spoilers for the book and audio rendition follow:
The narrator, Kristin Atherton, does a great job with all the characters, but the most notable thing to me that she does is give Howl a strong Welsh accent. This is, of course, completely supported by canon! But I was amazed at the difference it made, and had a lot of thoughts about accents as class markers and Howl as a proud Welshman and what he means when he says he loves Wales but it doesn't love him. Perhaps he likes being in Ingary where his accent is just interesting and not going to invite comments about how everyone in Wales is either a coal miner or sheep farmer. (Rugby and musicality is, of course, addressed in-canon.)
Edit: Also, I disclaim, I do not have the ability to judge the accuracy of Atherton's rendition of a Welsh accent, nor it's appropriateness for whatever part of Wales Howl is from (not that I think we have that information).
I was also given to wonder a) where Howl is getting these games he gives to his nephew, and b) do you think in 20 years Neil is on some retro gaming forum and suddenly realises that he's literally the only person in the world who has these games?
(Does he just magic them up? I never get a good sense of what kind of limits magic has in that world. Do we think he has a little computer in his bedroom and programs them in his copious amounts of free time? Does he get them from another world entirely? This last seems most likely, except that the game mentioned in the book bears a strange resemblance to Howl's castle.)
Also, nobody tells Sophie anything and she doesn't tell them anything in return and everything would have gone a lot better if nobody kept secrets (but where's the fun in that?).
Incidentally, was Miss Angorian always the fire demon? If it knew enough about Howl to set itself up as his nephew's teacher how did it take so long for the Witch to find Howl's family?
The audiobook is available in the usual places audiobooks are sold/rented. I recommend it!
*Currently consists entirely of music from the soundtrack of Gris.
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