Harry Potter Overheard
I am probably twice as old as most of you; I began reading the Harry Potter books after I was 40. At the moment, though, I am working at a University and am happily surrounded by much younger people.
As I ate my lunch today in the Third Floor lobby of the funky-cool Gates Center, the comfy chairs crammed together because of work being being done at one end of the room, I was party to the conversation of five students hanging out together before class. I was busy taking notes for my NaNo novel, so I'm not sure what they had been talking about before my brain caught "...but that's the one Dumbledore dies..." and I realized I was the uninvited guest of a conversation that interested me very much. Four young men and one young woman all had read the books, loving them more or less until the final volumes. A chubby Neville-ish boy was the only one who liked the Epilogue; few of them were enthusiastic about the last two books. It was a high-level discussion really, a good deal above some of the muck I read on various forums around the 'Net.
Two things were plain to me: First, that the Harry Potter experience was ubiquitous to their group, and second, that it was still important to all of them, enough so that three years after its conclusion, they still wanted to discuss plot, genre, author options, and such reader expectations as surprise and a need (or not) for closure. No ship discussion at all.
The conversation segued to Roald Dahl, grade school book reports, odd roommates and Sir Francis Drake. I had to get back to work.
I love working at a University.
As I ate my lunch today in the Third Floor lobby of the funky-cool Gates Center, the comfy chairs crammed together because of work being being done at one end of the room, I was party to the conversation of five students hanging out together before class. I was busy taking notes for my NaNo novel, so I'm not sure what they had been talking about before my brain caught "...but that's the one Dumbledore dies..." and I realized I was the uninvited guest of a conversation that interested me very much. Four young men and one young woman all had read the books, loving them more or less until the final volumes. A chubby Neville-ish boy was the only one who liked the Epilogue; few of them were enthusiastic about the last two books. It was a high-level discussion really, a good deal above some of the muck I read on various forums around the 'Net.
Two things were plain to me: First, that the Harry Potter experience was ubiquitous to their group, and second, that it was still important to all of them, enough so that three years after its conclusion, they still wanted to discuss plot, genre, author options, and such reader expectations as surprise and a need (or not) for closure. No ship discussion at all.
The conversation segued to Roald Dahl, grade school book reports, odd roommates and Sir Francis Drake. I had to get back to work.
I love working at a University.