She’s inspired other contemporary fantasy authors, particularly Neil Gaiman ( The Graveyard Book, The Ocean at the End of the Lane)-he dedicated one of his books to her. Tolkien ( The Lord of the Rings), and she was inspired by their work-though she also made a name for herself by parodying and making fun of traditional fantasy tropes in The Tough Guide to Fantasyland. Lewis ( The Chronicles of Narnia series) and J. As a college student, Jones attended lectures given by C. Jones has written more than 40 other novels for children and young adults. Howl’s Moving Castle is the first of what’s known as the Howl Series it’s followed by Castle in the Air and House of Many Ways, which take place in the same fictional world but follow different protagonists. Calcifer’s “silly saucepan song,” meanwhile, is likely “Sosban Fach,” a Welsh folk song that Welsh rugby fans often sing. Neil is engrossed in computer games, which were becoming increasingly popular-especially ones with high fantasy settings and storylines, such as The Legend of Zelda (it was released in 1986, the same year Howl’s Moving Castle was published). The Wales that Jones portrays reflects life in the mid-1980s, when the novel was written. The fact that Howl originally came to Ingary from 1980s Wales is a prime example of Jones combining elements of more modern, Tolkien-esque fantasy with earlier fantasy tropes. However, Jones was known for subverting tropes like this. Tolkien popularized in The Lord of the Rings. Setting a novel entirely in a pseudo-medieval fantasy world, for instance (rather than having characters enter a fantasy world and then return to the real world, as in a novel like J. Her sister Ursula Jones, who’s also a children’s author, finished the novel Jones was writing when she died, The Islands of Chaldea, in 2014.Īs a fantasy novel that takes place in a fictional world, Howl’s Moving Castle draws heavily on traditional fantasy tropes. Jones continued to write and publish up until her death in 2011 of lung cancer. Following this her profile rose throughout the 2000s, particularly after Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki adapted Howl’s Moving Castle into a critically acclaimed animated film in 2004. Rowling’s Harry Potter books spurred a new push for children’s fantasy. However, they were revived and republished once J. Despite publishing prolifically, Jones never became a household name, and by the 1990s, several of her novels were out of print. Jones is best known for her fantasy books for young readers, particularly for Howl’s Moving Castle, the Chronicles of Chrestomanci series, and her tongue-in-cheek exploration of fantasy tropes, The Tough Guide to Fantasyland. She went on to publish nearly a book per year until her death. Around the time her third child was born, Jones began writing, first plays, then an adult novel, and finally, children’s and young adult novels. The same year she graduated, Jones married her husband, a scholar of medieval literature. However, her parents were neglectful-so to help her younger sisters cope, Jones began writing stories as a young child. Jones was born in London, England, the first child of two schoolteachers.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |