Howl's Moving Castle [マスマーケット]

   インガリーの国では呪文や見えないコートや7リーグ靴は日常のこと。といっても、「荒地の魔女」とくれば話は別だ。

   この50年は何ごともなく過ぎた。しかし、魔女が再びこの国に災いをもたらそうとしているというウワサがあった。だから、動く黒いお城や4つの細い小塔から黒っぽい煙が地平線に現れたとき、誰もが、魔女がやってきたのだと思った。ところが、そのお城は魔法使いハウルのものだった。ハウルは若い女の子の心を吸い取るのが好きだという。ソフィア、レティ、マーサのハッター姉妹はもちろん、女の子たちはみな、危ないから1人で街を出歩かないようにと注意される。だが、それはほんの始まりにすぎなかった。

   この壮大なファンタジーのジグソーパズルの中では、見た目とは違って、人も物も平穏ではない。運命はもつれ合い、自分が誰かもわからなくなり、恋人たちは大混乱。「魔女」がハウルに魔法をかけたのだ。はたして、その魔法を解くカギは有名な詩の中にあるのか？ ハウルのお城に入るソフィー・ハッターの身に何が起こるのか？

   ダイアナ・ウィン・ジョーンズのうっとりするようなファンタジーはいつも驚きでいっぱいだが、魔法使いどうしの激しい最後の闘いが終わると、魔法のように何もかも元のさやに収まる。

'In the land of Ingary, where seven league boots and cloaks of invisibility do exist, Sophie Hatter catches the unwelcome attention of the Witch of the Waste and is put under a spell.' Deciding she has nothing more to lose she makes her way to the moving castle that hovers on the hills above Market Chipping. But the castle belongs to the dreaded Wizard Howl whose appetite, they say, is satisfied only by the souls of young girls! There she meets Michael, Howl's apprentice, and Calcifer the Fire Demon, with whom she agrees a pact. But Sophie isn't the only one under a curse -- her entanglements with Calcifer, Howl, and Michael, and her quest to break her curse is both gripping -- and 'howlingly' funny! --このテキストは、 カセット 版に関連付けられています。

魔法が本当に存在する国、インガリーに生まれたソフィーは、魔女に呪いをかけられ、90歳の老婆の姿になってしまう。うぬぼれ屋で移り気な若い魔法使いハウルの城に移り住んだソフィーは、ハウルに魔力を提供している火の悪魔と取引をする。やがてソフィーとハウルが力をあわせ魔女と戦う時が…？　スタジオジブリ宮崎駿監督次回作の原作。 --このテキストは、 単行本 版に関連付けられています。

魔法が本当に存在する国インガリーで、三人姉妹の長女に生まれたソフィー。「長女は何をやってもうまくいかない」という昔話のパターンが実現したかのように、ある日ソフィーは、『荒地の魔女』に呪いをかけられ、九十歳の老婆に変身させられてしまう。家族を驚かせたくないと家出したソフィーは空中の城に住む、うぬぼれ屋で移り気な若い魔法使いハウルのもとに、掃除婦として住み込んだ。ハウルに魔力を提供している火の悪魔とこっそり取引したり、ハウルの弟子と、七リーグ靴をはいて流れ星を追いかけたり。謎のかかしや、犬人間も現れて…?やがて、ハウルの意外な素顔を知ったソフィーは、力を合わせて魔女と闘おうとするが…?イギリスの人気作家ジョーンズが描く、読み出したらやめられない魅力的なファンタジー。10代~。 --このテキストは、 単行本 版に関連付けられています。

荒地の魔女の呪いで90歳の老婆にされたソフィーは、家族を驚かせたくないと家出して空中の城に掃除婦として住み込む。城の主の魔法使いや弟子、火の悪魔たちと一緒に魔女と闘おうとするが…。熱気に溢れた冒険ファンタジー。 --このテキストは、 単行本 版に関連付けられています。

In the land of Ingary, such things as spells, invisible cloaks, and seven-league boots were everyday things. The Witch of the Waste was another matter.

After fifty years of quiet, it was rumored that the Witch was about to terrorize the country again. So when a moving black castle, blowing dark smoke from its four thin turrets, appeared on the horizon, everyone thought it was the Witch. The castle, however, belonged to Wizard Howl, who, it was said, liked to suck the souls of young girls.

The Hatter sisters--Sophie, Lettie, and Martha--and all the other girls were warned not to venture into the streets alone. But that was only the beginning.

In this giant jigsaw puzzle of a fantasy, people and things are never quite what they seem. Destinies are intertwined, identities exchanged, lovers confused. The Witch has placed a spell on Howl. Does the clue to breaking it lie in a famous poem? And what will happen to Sophie Hatter when she enters Howl's castle?

Diana Wynne Jones's entrancing fantasy is filled with surprises at every turn, but when the final stormy duel between the Witch and the Wizard is finished, all the pieces fall magically into place.

About the Author

Diana Wynne Jones has been writing outstanding fantasy novels for more than thirty years and is one of the most distinguished writers in this field. With unlimited imagination, she combines dazzling plots, an effervescent sense of humor, and emotional truths in stories that delight readers of all ages. Her books, published to international acclaim, have earned a wide array of honors, including two Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honors and the British Fantasy Society's Karl Edward Wagner Award for having made a significant impact on fantasy. Acclaimed director and animator Hayao Miyazaki adapted Howl's Moving Castle into a major motion picture, which was nominated for an Academy Award.

Diana Wynne Jones lives in Bristol, England, with her husband, a professor emeritus of English literature at Bristol University. They have three sons.

In a career spanning four decades, award-winning author Diana Wynne Jones wrote more than forty books of fantasy for young readers. Characterized by magic, multiple universes, witches and wizards—and a charismatic nine-lived enchanter—her books were filled with unlimited imagination, dazzling plots, and an effervescent sense of humor that earned her legendary status in the world of fantasy. From the very beginning, Diana Wynne Jones’s books garnered literary accolades: her novel Dogsbody was a runner-up for the 1975 Carnegie Medal, and Charmed Life won the esteemed Guardian children’s fiction prize in 1977. Since then, in addition to being translated into more than twenty languages, her books have earned a wide array of honors—including two Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honors—and appeared on countless best-of-the-year lists.

Her work also found commercial success: In 1992 the BBC adapted her novel Archer’s Goon into a six-part miniseries, and her bestselling Howl’s Moving Castle was made into an animated film by Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki in 2004. The film was nominated for an Academy Award in 2006, and became one of the most financially successful Japanese films in history.

Diana Wynne Jones has also been honored with many prestigious awards for the body of her work. She was given the British Fantasy Society’s Karl Edward Wagner Award in 1999 for having made a significant impact on fantasy, received a D.Lit from Bristol University in 2006, and won the Lifetime Achievement Award at the World Fantasy Convention in 2007.

Born just outside London in 1934, Diana Wynne Jones had a childhood that was “very vivid and often very distressing”—one that became the fertile ground where her tremendous imagination took root. When the raids of World War II reached London in 1939, the five-year-old girl and her two younger sisters were torn from their suburban life and sent to Wales to live with their grandparents. This was to be the first of many migrations, one of which brought her family to Lane Head, a large manor in the author-populated Lake District and former residence of John Ruskin’s secretary, W.G . Collingwood. This time marked an important moment in Diana Wynne Jones’s life, where her writing ambitions were magnified by, in her own words, “early marginal contacts with the Great.” She confesses to having “offending Arthur Ransome by making a noise on the shore beside his houseboat,” erasing a stack of drawings by the late Ruskin himself in order to reuse the paper, and causing Beatrix Potter (who also lived nearby) to complain about her and her sister’s behavior. “It struck me,” Jones said, “that the Great were remarkably touchy and unpleasant, and I thought I would like to be the same, without the unpleasantness.” Prompted by her penny-pinching father’s refusal to buy the children any books, Diana Wynne Jones wrote her first novel at age twelve and entertained her sisters with readings of her stories. Those early stories—and much of her future work—were inspired by a limited but crucial foundation of classics: Malory’s Morte D’Arthur, The Arabian Nights, and Epics and Romances of the Middle Ages.

Fantasy was Jones’s passion from the start, despite receiving little support from her often neglectful parents. This passion was fueled further during her tenure at St. Anne’s College in Oxford, where lectures by J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis increased her fascination with myth and legend. She married Medievalist John Burrow in 1956; the couple have three sons and six grandchildren.

After a decade of rejections, Diana Wynne Jones’s first novel, Changeover, was published in 1970. In 1973, she joined forces with her lifelong literary agent, Laura Cecil, and in the four decades to follow, Diana Wynne Jones wrote prodigiously, sometimes completing three titles in a single year. Along the way she gained a fiercely loyal following; many of her admirers became successful authors themselves, including Newbery Award winners Robin McKinley and Neil Gaiman, and Newbery Honor Book author Megan Whalen Turner. A conference dedicated solely to her work was held at the University of West England, Bristol, in 2009. Diana Wynne Jones continued to write during her battle with lung cancer, which ultimately took her life in March 2011. Her last book, Earwig and the Witch, was published by Greenwillow Books in 2012.