(no subject)
I was looking for a book today. It's Patricia A. McKillip's "The Riddle-Master of Hed." I would have sworn that I bought it, but I couldn't find it on my bookshelves. I still have a couple of boxes to search. I'm leaving those for the light and sanity of daytime.
During my search, I realized that I don't own that many hardcover books (fiction and short stories, that is) but I still have over 30 that I've never read. I own many more paperbacks (thus the boxes) and I'm certain that a lot more than 30 are unread.
Why do I keep going to libraries and bookstores? It's like an addiction.
So, instead of reading the dozens of books I already own, I went through the entire Harry Potter series (books and movies) in one summer.
I saw the 1st Harry Potter movie when it was a new theater release; it underwhelmed me. I couldn't stay awake long enough during the 2nd movie to form an opinion, despite trying to watch it a few times - first on the big screen, later on TV. I didn't bother with the series after that.
Then I saw the trailer for "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix". While geared towards a youthful audience, as expected, the hints of darkness intrigued me. Add to that the media hype around the upcoming Deathly Hallows and I had enough motivation to dive into this world.
The Good of the series: Owls, Floo Network, moving pictures, Thestrals, Snape, Luna, Neville, and, from the movie, Sirius' chest tattoos. Several times, in the 1st 4 books, I laughed and smiled at the kids' antics and wry observations. I enjoyed the author's take on a magical world hidden in the 'real' world. I do wish there had been much more of the grownups (e.g. Snape, Remus) because their stories were interesting, sometimes more than the children's.
The Bad: Will someone please think of the poor, overworked adverbs? They almost drove me away. Sometimes (often) I had to stop the story to breathe and talk myself through it because the many, many (often pointless) adverbs were just tapdancing on my 2nd to last nerve. There were other examples of clumsy writing (too much telling, too much repetition, unwieldly and noncontributory subplots, cheesy romance) but the adverbs were my pet peeve.
I was describing to my brother, the various and sundry deaths in the last book. His eyes boggled as did mine because wow, that was a lot of death. Expected in war, I know, but some of the deaths were mentioned in such an off-handed fashion that they didn't have the impact they deserved.
The Ugly: The epilogue depressed me, truly. I wanted progress in the treatment of non-human magical creatures (e.g. House Elves, Centaurs, et cetera). JKR pretty much dropped that storyline in the last book. I hoped for abolition or major reform in the Hogwarts sorting process. Instead, at the end, we got the status quo, as if Voldemort was the only problem in the wizarding world. While I liked the origin tale of of the hallows, that subplot distracted from the Horcruxes and the aforementioned missing subplot. The last book had so much potential that it saddens me that it wasn't realized.
The 2nd ugly was the literary borrowings. It would be near impossible to come up with something wholly original in any story, but the similarities to The Lord of the Rings were nowhere more obvious and painful than here, when the children are carrying around the Horcrux that exudes an evil force and brings out the worst in them. As I read the book, I had the irresistible urge to stop and watch the LoTR movies.... which I did. It reminded me that while JKR did show a great deal of invention and her series has its charms, the HP books aren't ones I'm likely to reread. I'm glad I borrowed them from the library.
The Silver Screen: In the movies, Emma's eyebrows are still as hyperactive as ever, but Daniel's acting is really improving. And the portrayal of Dolores Umbridge was deliciously malevolent. I still like PoA best, that oddly fragile werewolf notwithstanding, but OoTP is a close 2nd. Harry's nightmares made me uneasy; Sirius' house was dark and oppressive, just like I pictured and the final battle was glorious. The breaking of a hundreds of prophecies was overkill, but everything after was awesome. It made up for the anti-climactic prophecy (which was just as anti-climactic in the book).
I still can't stop wishing that Richard Harris were still with us to play Dumbledore. The only other person I can think of who would be perfect is Ian McKellen. The only downside of Sir Ian is that his presence would have highlighted the similarities of the HP series to LoTR and of Dumbledore to Gandalf.
Despite the problems, I'll probably see the last 2 movies because I hope that trimming the story for the big screen will show it at its best.
Addendum: I actually 'read' most of the HP books as audiobooks, as read by Jim Dale. It was a great way to pass my commuting time and I thought his reading was more fun and lively than the movies.
During my search, I realized that I don't own that many hardcover books (fiction and short stories, that is) but I still have over 30 that I've never read. I own many more paperbacks (thus the boxes) and I'm certain that a lot more than 30 are unread.
Why do I keep going to libraries and bookstores? It's like an addiction.
So, instead of reading the dozens of books I already own, I went through the entire Harry Potter series (books and movies) in one summer.
I saw the 1st Harry Potter movie when it was a new theater release; it underwhelmed me. I couldn't stay awake long enough during the 2nd movie to form an opinion, despite trying to watch it a few times - first on the big screen, later on TV. I didn't bother with the series after that.
Then I saw the trailer for "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix". While geared towards a youthful audience, as expected, the hints of darkness intrigued me. Add to that the media hype around the upcoming Deathly Hallows and I had enough motivation to dive into this world.
The Good of the series: Owls, Floo Network, moving pictures, Thestrals, Snape, Luna, Neville, and, from the movie, Sirius' chest tattoos. Several times, in the 1st 4 books, I laughed and smiled at the kids' antics and wry observations. I enjoyed the author's take on a magical world hidden in the 'real' world. I do wish there had been much more of the grownups (e.g. Snape, Remus) because their stories were interesting, sometimes more than the children's.
The Bad: Will someone please think of the poor, overworked adverbs? They almost drove me away. Sometimes (often) I had to stop the story to breathe and talk myself through it because the many, many (often pointless) adverbs were just tapdancing on my 2nd to last nerve. There were other examples of clumsy writing (too much telling, too much repetition, unwieldly and noncontributory subplots, cheesy romance) but the adverbs were my pet peeve.
I was describing to my brother, the various and sundry deaths in the last book. His eyes boggled as did mine because wow, that was a lot of death. Expected in war, I know, but some of the deaths were mentioned in such an off-handed fashion that they didn't have the impact they deserved.
The Ugly: The epilogue depressed me, truly. I wanted progress in the treatment of non-human magical creatures (e.g. House Elves, Centaurs, et cetera). JKR pretty much dropped that storyline in the last book. I hoped for abolition or major reform in the Hogwarts sorting process. Instead, at the end, we got the status quo, as if Voldemort was the only problem in the wizarding world. While I liked the origin tale of of the hallows, that subplot distracted from the Horcruxes and the aforementioned missing subplot. The last book had so much potential that it saddens me that it wasn't realized.
The 2nd ugly was the literary borrowings. It would be near impossible to come up with something wholly original in any story, but the similarities to The Lord of the Rings were nowhere more obvious and painful than here, when the children are carrying around the Horcrux that exudes an evil force and brings out the worst in them. As I read the book, I had the irresistible urge to stop and watch the LoTR movies.... which I did. It reminded me that while JKR did show a great deal of invention and her series has its charms, the HP books aren't ones I'm likely to reread. I'm glad I borrowed them from the library.
The Silver Screen: In the movies, Emma's eyebrows are still as hyperactive as ever, but Daniel's acting is really improving. And the portrayal of Dolores Umbridge was deliciously malevolent. I still like PoA best, that oddly fragile werewolf notwithstanding, but OoTP is a close 2nd. Harry's nightmares made me uneasy; Sirius' house was dark and oppressive, just like I pictured and the final battle was glorious. The breaking of a hundreds of prophecies was overkill, but everything after was awesome. It made up for the anti-climactic prophecy (which was just as anti-climactic in the book).
I still can't stop wishing that Richard Harris were still with us to play Dumbledore. The only other person I can think of who would be perfect is Ian McKellen. The only downside of Sir Ian is that his presence would have highlighted the similarities of the HP series to LoTR and of Dumbledore to Gandalf.
Despite the problems, I'll probably see the last 2 movies because I hope that trimming the story for the big screen will show it at its best.
Addendum: I actually 'read' most of the HP books as audiobooks, as read by Jim Dale. It was a great way to pass my commuting time and I thought his reading was more fun and lively than the movies.