Howl's Moving Castle is a rousing fantasy adventure romance with a Chinese puzzle-like plot. Much of the richness and complexity of the book is derived from its reliance on the reader's recognition of its fairy tale conventions, which the author then goes on to joyously subvert so that the story and the characters will follow a direction completely unanticipated. This aspect, like the hidden door which connects the real world with a fantastic, topsyturvy one, reveals the novel's affinity to Lewis Carroll's classic Alice in Wonderland (1865). Jones's novel does not have the arbitrary or irrational quality of Carroll's, however, for in it everything has its own rhyme and reason, as is revealed in the neat resolution of the book's conclusion.

In addition, the novel also depends heavily on the reader's familiarity with cultural traditions and characters associated with magic. The mysterious pact between Howl and Calcifer...