This year of course has brought domestic labor to the forefront of popular consciousness. As my wife and I talk over and divvy up the never-ending series of domestic tasks-I do the cooking, she does the meal planning, I sweep the floors, she scrubs the sinks-it’s refreshing to encounter a fantasy novel that actually validates that people can’t just cast spells all day, but have to shop for food and clean. Not only is it delightful and psychologically complex, but it focuses on a topic that dominates our contemporary lives: housework. The claustrophobic quest of Howl’s Moving Castle is a perfect read for this pandemic year, when many of us are trapped inside, or when the outside world that we need to navigate is historically perilous. Indeed, whenever Sophie, exasperated by the selfish Howl, resolves to leave permanently, she is prevented, whether by a magical scarecrow, by the arrival of guests, or by her own self-doubt.

There are quick excursions outside-the castle has a magical door to four different locations-but Sophie and the novel always return to the castle, and mostly just its one main room. But rather than serving as the initial trial in a grand quest, as it might for Frodo or Bilbo, the castle becomes Sophie’s new home. Sophie’s first encounter is with the castle of the supposedly wicked wizard Howl, which is lurching across the countryside near Sophie’s town. Tolkien and Lloyd Alexander, albeit with a female protagonist and a lot more hat-trimming. Jones seems initially to adhere closely to the traditional arc of the fantasy genre established before her by writers like J.R.R. As a result, she decides to leave home to seek her destiny. In the novel first published in 1986, Sophie Hatter, a young woman growing up in the fairy tale land of Ingary, is turned into an old woman by the villainous Witch of the Waste.

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