How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Does garlic keep off envy? I could cut a star out of paper and drop it. Could we tell it to Howl? Howl would like mermaids better than Calcifer. Do not think Howl's mind honest. Is Calcifer's? Where are past years anyway? Does it mean one of those dry roots must bear fruit? Plant it? Next to dock leaf? In seashell? Cloven hoof, most things but horses. Shoe a horse with a clove of garlic? Wind? Smell? Wind of seven-league boots? Is Howl devil? Cloven toes in seven-league boots? Mermaids in boots?
As Sophie wrote this, Michael asked equally desperately, "Could the 'wind' be some sort of pulley? An honest man being hanged? That's black magic, though." (9.47-48)
In this passage, as Sophie writes up her notes on Michael's spell, we get to see what some possible spell analysis looks like. And honestly, it's a bit hilarious: she's clearly in over her head because she doesn't realize that she is reading a poem and not a spell, and poems are almost never literal. Do you think Jones intends to imply anything by drawing this comparison between poetic and magic language? Is there anything that seems magical to you in John Donne's "Song"?
Quote #8
But Sophie was not sure the two boys crouched over the various magic boxes on a big table by the window would have looked up even for an army with a brass band. The main magic box had a glass front like the one downstairs, but it seemed to be showing writing and diagrams more than pictures. All the boxes grew on long, floppy white stalks that appeared to be rooted in the wall at one side of the room.
"Neil!" said Howl.
"Don't interrupt," one of the boys said. "He'll lose his life."
Seeing it was a matter of life and death, Sophie and Michael backed toward the door. But Howl, quite unperturbed at killing his nephew, strode over to the wall and pulled the boxes up by the roots. The picture on the box vanished. (11.20-23)
When Sophie and Michael follow Howl into Wales, they look at our world with completely unfamiliar eyes, so the things that we take for granted appear supernatural (and possibly lethal) to Sophie and Michael. Here Howl walks in as his nephew and some friends are playing a video game. We know that the kid in danger of losing his life is only going to die in the game, but Michael and Sophie worry that it is actually "a matter of life and death."
Quote #9
Howl was on the tossing, nearly sinking ship below. He was a tiny black figure now, leaning against the bucking mainmast. He let the Witch know she had missed by waving at her cheekily. The Witch saw him the instant he waved. Cloud, Witch, and all at once became a savagely swooping red bird, diving at the ship.
The ship vanished. The mermaids sang a doleful scream. There was nothing but sulkily tossing water where the ship had been. But the diving bird was going too fast to stop. It plunged into the sea with a huge splash.
Everyone on the quayside cheered. (16.20-22)
There are real lives at stake here: the Witch of the Waste could kill Howl, and vice versa. But for the people of Porthaven, who are more used to magic than we are, this magic battle comes across as a spectator sport. It's like watching Mixed Martial Arts or something: brutal, painful for the participants, but fun to look at from the stands.