Harry Potter 7
So last Saturday, I got an email from rushumble w/ the subject header, "Finished yet?" Somehow I went into this complete stream-of-consciousnessy blathery reply, but I doubt I could improve on it without using a lot of time and concentration to focus my MS-addled brain, so if you're interested, I'm afraid blathering will have to do b/c I'm going to post it here.
Needless to say, it is TRES SPOILERIFICHE and that applies to the entire book, cover to cover, so my incoherent ravings will be where they belong: Behind a cut. So if you haven't finished the book, don't say I didn't warn ya.
rushumble: So, have you finished the Harry Potter book yet?
MOI: Yep. On Monday morning. I thought it was completely and utterly sublime. BUT I hated the epilog. I wanted to know what the grownups were doing. I wanted Hermione to be a professor at Hogwarts. Even Harry--like in a permanent DADA post b/c there will never be a world w/out dark wizards. I wanted Ron to be a Wizard Chess Chessmaster and design the absolute coolest Wizard Chess sets in his free time. I wanted to know what Ginny did besides raise children. And what the fuck was it w/ Ron's kids' names? The boy should have been Fred, and I figured Dora for the girl (tribute to Tonks).
It was nice to see the full circle and all, but it (the epilog) was too conventional and predictable. [Addition: I swear, did they all fire up the barbecue the night before the kids left for school and make steaks with the guys in BBQ aprons each claiming the superiority of his own recipe and flipping the steaks by pointing their wands? What would be the Latin word for: Flip!]
The rest was marvelous! I love how Neville came into his own and when he beheaded the evil snake. (And yes, I know, most snakes are very nice. [Added comment: rushumble has a very lovely snake named Nigel, and of course there are several other snake-lovers out there, so I wanted to make clear that I'm not prejudiced against snakes in general. :-) ] I love Dumbledore with all my heart and was so glad to learn that he was a three-dimensional person with flaws and a lust for power to go along with his immense talents and how he stayed at Hogwarts. Anyway, he was a brilliant teacher who really understood kids, and I love his relationship w/ Harry.
That whole plot thing about how Dumbledore hurt his hand and had maybe a year to live. I LOVED Snape berating him and yelling at him: "What the FUCK did you think you were doing, you stupid git?" That's kinda a paraphrase. :-)
The duel b/t Ron's mom and Belletrix. Fuckin' awesome. I could see it totally. I loved this middle-aged housewife type absolutely slamming this crazed dark witch. Great touch.
Draco? (Back to the epilog) What kind of name is Scorpius? Is he setting up the kid to be teased?
The book is so well-written. This is my favorite passage, and I can't read it aloud w/out crying (but then I cry a lot anyway):
Harry's mind wandered a long way from the marquee, back to afternoons spent alone with Ginny in lonely parts of the school grounds. They seemed so long ago; they had always seemed too good to be true, as though he had been stealing shining hours from a normal person's life, a person without a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead. . . .
Seriously, I'm crying again. It just totally gets me.
-------------
Well, that's the end of my blathering from my email to rushumble. But, natch, there's more to blather about.
It's interesting w/ Rowling's showing Dumbledore's flaws is that they aren't just exhibited in his youth. After all, he tried the ring on and fried his hand and drastically decreased his lifespan out of the same desire for power that messed up his youth and set up the death of his sister (or killed her himself directly). It's like he knew enough that he should never ever ever be in the kind of position of power that the Minister of Magic has (and who would want to anyway?), but he still, when he should have been much older and wiser, fucked up again. I think that's meant to be reassuring to all of Rowling's readers who are middle-aged yet still repeat some of the mistakes of their foolish youths. Or maybe it's just a standard comment on addiction and recovery.
Man, all the legalistic working out about who was the true owner of the Elder Wand. OK, so A didn't conquer B, and he can't be the rightful owner, but actually C conquered B, but then later D conquered C (with an entirely different wand), so b/c D is the hero of the series, he turns out to be the rightful owner. OK, magic always has rules in stories, or every single magic character would be invincible, and the story would be really boring. So, yeah, rules. And all genre fiction has rules (you can't transport at warp speed; oh wait! you can transport at warp speed if you're going the same speed as the other ship), which are always bendable if nec. for the plot. But JKR probably had to do a fair amount of pondering to work that one out. Clearly, even fantasy writing is not all inspiration. (Duh. I knew that.)
Did I mention I realllllllllly thought Hermione should have become a professor at Hogwarts? Oh, and I wanted McGonagall to become Headmistress. And I was also curious, was the year of Dark Wizardry cancelled in the books, and everyone had to take that year over, thereby giving the heroic trio a chance to have their last year. And Harry could engage in snogging w/ Ginny w/out feeling like it's all about to be ripped away from him. Would make the population of first years a bit crowded, but it's Hogwarts. I'm sure they could add a few more dorms to each House w/out too much effort.
Clever of JKR to kill Harry and bring him back to life. It could be sort of like the required epic visit to the Underworld. I did love that chapter and that conversation b/t Harry and Dumbledore. Harry, like some young people in his age group (I wouldn't know any of such people personally or in my house or anything) tend to be stubborn and black and white in their worldview. It was good for Harry to learn (in HP5?) that his dad could be an asshole while a teenager and that Dumbledore had heavy duty flaws.
What I'm really in awe about is that JKR created this magical, intriguing, fascinating, dark and light, extremely detailed world and blended it so well with familiar elements of readers' lives. I loved how she did this w/ Harry's shopping list for school supplies in Book 1 and the brilliant creation of the ultimate sport, Quidditch, with the competition b/t the houses and teenagers screaming for their teams. It was a great touch in Book 1 that the really really boring teacher was a ghost who had just kept on teaching. We've all had that teacher, except he/she was disturbingly still alive. Again, that blend of magic and familiar. Even as the books grow darker, there are familar elements combined with magic: the evil stupid bureaucrats. Umbridge with her "cute" yowling kitten plates. I'm just glad the teachers and administrators I knew like her didn't have the ability to inflict magical punishments. And of course her magical world has plenty of lessons about prejudice and judging people for something totally out of their own control--just as in the world of the kids reading.
Besides maintaining this world, she had not just three main characters, but their friends and enemies to develop as they grew up from year to year. It was brilliant starting the series when Harry was 11, b/c, at least w/ my kids, it's around 9-11 that they start developing their own ideas of right and wrong and seeing the inconsistencies in the rules they have to follow. (When my son was in 4th grade at a public school w/ uniforms, he once said that at school they're always teaching the kids to "be themselves" and "be individuals," but they make them all wear the same thing. I agreed that was a very good point and it didn't make much sense. My daughter at 10, who was trying to get her grandmother to STOP buying her dresses (poor woman--she had five sons, and has, I think, five grandsons out of six total grandchildren, and the one girl was just not girlie in her tastes), explained about dresses, "It's not that they're uncomfortable. They're just not me.") So 11 is a great age, and they're just developing they're sense of who they are and what they believe. And then to bring them up to 17, with the attendant issues of each age. In HP1 we see Harry deliberately break school rules for a larger moral good--from rescuing Hermione from the troll to flying to get Neville's Rememberall back from Malfoy to going after the sorcerer's stone.
I loved how different the three heroes were. And I loved how they influenced each other as best friends will. Harry has a bit of a martyr complex, but he keeps having drummed into his head that he has to fight the Big Bad, but along the way, he's going to need plenty of help from Ron's chess game in Book 1 to Hermione's skill with spells and magical devices (even handbags) throughout. She's the one of Muggle origin, but she keeps surprising just about everyone w/ her magical knowledge.
(Did you ever wonder how Muggle parents reacted to that invite to Hogwarts for their soon-to-be 11 year olds? It seems like most of them are cool with it, but perhaps they've been noticing unusual abilities of their kids all along, and encouraged them?)
And Snape is a magnificent creation, but I'll never be able to separate him from Alan Rickman's utterly perfect performance. That goes for all the characters, pretty much, which is a disadvantage of movies, but wrt to the principal actors in the HP films, I'm not complaining that they've become my vision (and voices) of the characters in the books. I really liked the actress who played Luna in the film of HP5. She wasn't an exact replica of the character, but her interpretation was excellent--so fey and otherworldly and yet just as knowledgeable and capable in the "real world" when necessary. But AR simply IS Snape; he's such a good actor. He's marvelous in "Dogma," where he's a jerk for most of the film and then we see him switch modes completely to gentle and serious. He can do anything with that voice.
This series of books is an obsession of my whole family, including my usually not-interested-in-reading son. Everyone has their own copies. Mine actually arrived w/ a torn dust cover (seriously, I was about to cry), and I actually talked to Amazon on the phone. Yes, it's possible. And the very friendly cust. service rep told me that Amazon had ordered a bunch of extra dust covers from the publisher, and my new perfect one arrived in the mail today in a mailing tube. Ah, service. :-)
I pretty much put everything aside when my book arrived, and spent many hours in a very large comfy chair (one of a pair inherited from my parents) reading between naps. And I realized that's how I naively envisioned a good chunk of my retirement when I was trying to get used to the idea. Sitting and reading books, mostly science fiction, in that chair. But of course, I got tremendously behind on all the other things I like to do and things I had to do. I can actually read fiction for a few hours at a time (unlike the cosmology book I'm currently reading), but again, if I do that, I don't answer email, or I don't do any of the other LJ and and fannish things I like. Just a small whine: Several years ago, post MS-dx, but long before any real decline, I can remember teaching four classes, writing and reading fanfic, being a parent of considerably younger children, reading the occasional book (that was always hard to manage during a semester), being on several mailing lists and keeping up email correspondences w/ long-distance friends, and carrying on a passionate LDR that involved daily and nightly emailing and IMing and too-frequent (for our phone bills) phone calls. And I got tired, but I was able to do it all w/out feeling like every activity I did was preventing me from doing something else just as important to me.
And, phooey, I taught HP1 in my Children's Lit class back when I did teach. I want to teach; I want not to have stopped teaching. MS Sucks.
But J. K. Rowling rocks (one crappy epilog in seven books does not diminish her achievement). And to all the academics and book snobs and bloggers who go on and on about how terrible her writing is, and how bad the books are, I just want to say: Pllllffffbbbttt!!!! And of course, you're entitled to your opinion. :-)
Needless to say, it is TRES SPOILERIFICHE and that applies to the entire book, cover to cover, so my incoherent ravings will be where they belong: Behind a cut. So if you haven't finished the book, don't say I didn't warn ya.
rushumble: So, have you finished the Harry Potter book yet?
MOI: Yep. On Monday morning. I thought it was completely and utterly sublime. BUT I hated the epilog. I wanted to know what the grownups were doing. I wanted Hermione to be a professor at Hogwarts. Even Harry--like in a permanent DADA post b/c there will never be a world w/out dark wizards. I wanted Ron to be a Wizard Chess Chessmaster and design the absolute coolest Wizard Chess sets in his free time. I wanted to know what Ginny did besides raise children. And what the fuck was it w/ Ron's kids' names? The boy should have been Fred, and I figured Dora for the girl (tribute to Tonks).
It was nice to see the full circle and all, but it (the epilog) was too conventional and predictable. [Addition: I swear, did they all fire up the barbecue the night before the kids left for school and make steaks with the guys in BBQ aprons each claiming the superiority of his own recipe and flipping the steaks by pointing their wands? What would be the Latin word for: Flip!]
The rest was marvelous! I love how Neville came into his own and when he beheaded the evil snake. (And yes, I know, most snakes are very nice. [Added comment: rushumble has a very lovely snake named Nigel, and of course there are several other snake-lovers out there, so I wanted to make clear that I'm not prejudiced against snakes in general. :-) ] I love Dumbledore with all my heart and was so glad to learn that he was a three-dimensional person with flaws and a lust for power to go along with his immense talents and how he stayed at Hogwarts. Anyway, he was a brilliant teacher who really understood kids, and I love his relationship w/ Harry.
That whole plot thing about how Dumbledore hurt his hand and had maybe a year to live. I LOVED Snape berating him and yelling at him: "What the FUCK did you think you were doing, you stupid git?" That's kinda a paraphrase. :-)
The duel b/t Ron's mom and Belletrix. Fuckin' awesome. I could see it totally. I loved this middle-aged housewife type absolutely slamming this crazed dark witch. Great touch.
Draco? (Back to the epilog) What kind of name is Scorpius? Is he setting up the kid to be teased?
The book is so well-written. This is my favorite passage, and I can't read it aloud w/out crying (but then I cry a lot anyway):
Harry's mind wandered a long way from the marquee, back to afternoons spent alone with Ginny in lonely parts of the school grounds. They seemed so long ago; they had always seemed too good to be true, as though he had been stealing shining hours from a normal person's life, a person without a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead. . . .
Seriously, I'm crying again. It just totally gets me.
-------------
Well, that's the end of my blathering from my email to rushumble. But, natch, there's more to blather about.
It's interesting w/ Rowling's showing Dumbledore's flaws is that they aren't just exhibited in his youth. After all, he tried the ring on and fried his hand and drastically decreased his lifespan out of the same desire for power that messed up his youth and set up the death of his sister (or killed her himself directly). It's like he knew enough that he should never ever ever be in the kind of position of power that the Minister of Magic has (and who would want to anyway?), but he still, when he should have been much older and wiser, fucked up again. I think that's meant to be reassuring to all of Rowling's readers who are middle-aged yet still repeat some of the mistakes of their foolish youths. Or maybe it's just a standard comment on addiction and recovery.
Man, all the legalistic working out about who was the true owner of the Elder Wand. OK, so A didn't conquer B, and he can't be the rightful owner, but actually C conquered B, but then later D conquered C (with an entirely different wand), so b/c D is the hero of the series, he turns out to be the rightful owner. OK, magic always has rules in stories, or every single magic character would be invincible, and the story would be really boring. So, yeah, rules. And all genre fiction has rules (you can't transport at warp speed; oh wait! you can transport at warp speed if you're going the same speed as the other ship), which are always bendable if nec. for the plot. But JKR probably had to do a fair amount of pondering to work that one out. Clearly, even fantasy writing is not all inspiration. (Duh. I knew that.)
Did I mention I realllllllllly thought Hermione should have become a professor at Hogwarts? Oh, and I wanted McGonagall to become Headmistress. And I was also curious, was the year of Dark Wizardry cancelled in the books, and everyone had to take that year over, thereby giving the heroic trio a chance to have their last year. And Harry could engage in snogging w/ Ginny w/out feeling like it's all about to be ripped away from him. Would make the population of first years a bit crowded, but it's Hogwarts. I'm sure they could add a few more dorms to each House w/out too much effort.
Clever of JKR to kill Harry and bring him back to life. It could be sort of like the required epic visit to the Underworld. I did love that chapter and that conversation b/t Harry and Dumbledore. Harry, like some young people in his age group (I wouldn't know any of such people personally or in my house or anything) tend to be stubborn and black and white in their worldview. It was good for Harry to learn (in HP5?) that his dad could be an asshole while a teenager and that Dumbledore had heavy duty flaws.
What I'm really in awe about is that JKR created this magical, intriguing, fascinating, dark and light, extremely detailed world and blended it so well with familiar elements of readers' lives. I loved how she did this w/ Harry's shopping list for school supplies in Book 1 and the brilliant creation of the ultimate sport, Quidditch, with the competition b/t the houses and teenagers screaming for their teams. It was a great touch in Book 1 that the really really boring teacher was a ghost who had just kept on teaching. We've all had that teacher, except he/she was disturbingly still alive. Again, that blend of magic and familiar. Even as the books grow darker, there are familar elements combined with magic: the evil stupid bureaucrats. Umbridge with her "cute" yowling kitten plates. I'm just glad the teachers and administrators I knew like her didn't have the ability to inflict magical punishments. And of course her magical world has plenty of lessons about prejudice and judging people for something totally out of their own control--just as in the world of the kids reading.
Besides maintaining this world, she had not just three main characters, but their friends and enemies to develop as they grew up from year to year. It was brilliant starting the series when Harry was 11, b/c, at least w/ my kids, it's around 9-11 that they start developing their own ideas of right and wrong and seeing the inconsistencies in the rules they have to follow. (When my son was in 4th grade at a public school w/ uniforms, he once said that at school they're always teaching the kids to "be themselves" and "be individuals," but they make them all wear the same thing. I agreed that was a very good point and it didn't make much sense. My daughter at 10, who was trying to get her grandmother to STOP buying her dresses (poor woman--she had five sons, and has, I think, five grandsons out of six total grandchildren, and the one girl was just not girlie in her tastes), explained about dresses, "It's not that they're uncomfortable. They're just not me.") So 11 is a great age, and they're just developing they're sense of who they are and what they believe. And then to bring them up to 17, with the attendant issues of each age. In HP1 we see Harry deliberately break school rules for a larger moral good--from rescuing Hermione from the troll to flying to get Neville's Rememberall back from Malfoy to going after the sorcerer's stone.
I loved how different the three heroes were. And I loved how they influenced each other as best friends will. Harry has a bit of a martyr complex, but he keeps having drummed into his head that he has to fight the Big Bad, but along the way, he's going to need plenty of help from Ron's chess game in Book 1 to Hermione's skill with spells and magical devices (even handbags) throughout. She's the one of Muggle origin, but she keeps surprising just about everyone w/ her magical knowledge.
(Did you ever wonder how Muggle parents reacted to that invite to Hogwarts for their soon-to-be 11 year olds? It seems like most of them are cool with it, but perhaps they've been noticing unusual abilities of their kids all along, and encouraged them?)
And Snape is a magnificent creation, but I'll never be able to separate him from Alan Rickman's utterly perfect performance. That goes for all the characters, pretty much, which is a disadvantage of movies, but wrt to the principal actors in the HP films, I'm not complaining that they've become my vision (and voices) of the characters in the books. I really liked the actress who played Luna in the film of HP5. She wasn't an exact replica of the character, but her interpretation was excellent--so fey and otherworldly and yet just as knowledgeable and capable in the "real world" when necessary. But AR simply IS Snape; he's such a good actor. He's marvelous in "Dogma," where he's a jerk for most of the film and then we see him switch modes completely to gentle and serious. He can do anything with that voice.
This series of books is an obsession of my whole family, including my usually not-interested-in-reading son. Everyone has their own copies. Mine actually arrived w/ a torn dust cover (seriously, I was about to cry), and I actually talked to Amazon on the phone. Yes, it's possible. And the very friendly cust. service rep told me that Amazon had ordered a bunch of extra dust covers from the publisher, and my new perfect one arrived in the mail today in a mailing tube. Ah, service. :-)
I pretty much put everything aside when my book arrived, and spent many hours in a very large comfy chair (one of a pair inherited from my parents) reading between naps. And I realized that's how I naively envisioned a good chunk of my retirement when I was trying to get used to the idea. Sitting and reading books, mostly science fiction, in that chair. But of course, I got tremendously behind on all the other things I like to do and things I had to do. I can actually read fiction for a few hours at a time (unlike the cosmology book I'm currently reading), but again, if I do that, I don't answer email, or I don't do any of the other LJ and and fannish things I like. Just a small whine: Several years ago, post MS-dx, but long before any real decline, I can remember teaching four classes, writing and reading fanfic, being a parent of considerably younger children, reading the occasional book (that was always hard to manage during a semester), being on several mailing lists and keeping up email correspondences w/ long-distance friends, and carrying on a passionate LDR that involved daily and nightly emailing and IMing and too-frequent (for our phone bills) phone calls. And I got tired, but I was able to do it all w/out feeling like every activity I did was preventing me from doing something else just as important to me.
And, phooey, I taught HP1 in my Children's Lit class back when I did teach. I want to teach; I want not to have stopped teaching. MS Sucks.
But J. K. Rowling rocks (one crappy epilog in seven books does not diminish her achievement). And to all the academics and book snobs and bloggers who go on and on about how terrible her writing is, and how bad the books are, I just want to say: Pllllffffbbbttt!!!! And of course, you're entitled to your opinion. :-)