Diana Wynne Jones is a wonderful storyteller. Just read the beginning of Howl’s Moving Castle:
“In the land of Ingary, where such things as seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist, it is quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of three. Everyone knows you are the one who will fail first and worst if the three of you set out to seek your fortunes. Sophie Hatter was the eldest of three sisters. She was not even the child of a poor woodcutter, which might have given her some chance of success.”
Sophie gets turned into an old woman by the Witch of the Waste and meets up with Howl, a “slitherer-outer” kind of wizard who has the dirtiest house she has ever seen. She becomes his new housekeeper and cleans—and cleans, but when she starts in on his room, Howl accuses her of being “a dreadfully nosy, horribly bossy, appallingly clean old woman.’
The whole story is delightfully light in the midst of so many dark, dark, double-dark fantasies. I love books that make me laugh out loud. They brighten my spirits!
“’I feel ill,’ Howl announced. ‘I’m going to bed, where I may die.’ He tottered piteously to the stairs. ..His voice was presently heard shouting weakly, ‘Help me, someone! I’m dying from neglect up here!’ … Sophie snorted. In the time it took her to sew ten more blue triangles, Michael ran upstairs with lemon and honey, with a particular book, with cough mixture, with a spoon to take the cough mixture with, and then with nose drops, throat pastilles, gargle, pen, paper, three more books, and an infusion of willow bark…
Meanwhile a certain amount of moaning and groaning was coming from upstairs. Sophie kept muttering to the dog and ignored it. A loud, hollow coughing followed, dying away into more moaning. Sophie ignored that too. Crashing sneezes followed the coughing, each one rattling the window and all the doors. Sophie found those harder to ignore, but she managed. Pooot-pooooot! went a blown nose, like a bassoon in a tunnel. The coughing started again, mingled with moans. Sneezes mixed with the moans and the coughs, and the sounds rose to a crescendo in which Howl seemed to be managing to cough, groan, blow his nose, sneeze, and wail gently all at the same time….
(Finally) Sophie climbed the stairs, muttering loudly, ‘Really, these wizards! You’d think no one had ever had a cold before! Well, what is it?’ she asked hobbling through the bedroom door onto the filthy carpet.
‘I’m dying of boredom,’ Howl said pathetically. ‘Or maybe just dying.…Spots are crawling before my eyes.’
‘Those are spiders,’ said Sophie. ‘Why can’t you cure yourself with a spell?’
‘Because there is no cure for a cold,’ Howl said dolefully.