Sprained ankle and Harry Potter
Somehow in my revelings yesterday I managed to sprain my ankle, or rather my foot - I say "somehow" but actually I know exactly when it happened: my ankle rolled rather dramatically when I was carrying the books up to mending at the library. The only thing puzzling about it is that it didn't start to hurt until a few hours later, and in the meantime I had felt perfectly fine and taken a walk to the ice cream parlor.
So I spent the yesterday evening icing my foot and rereading the first Harry Potter book, which I still remember in surprising detail despite the fact that I haven't reread it in at least ten years. Although even though I remember most of the actual events, it's fascinating to reread it as an adult: the Dursleys feel much more menacing than when I was a kid (it's really a miracle that Harry is as well-adjusted as he is), while Voldemort - who seemed menacing as all get out to my eleven-year-old self - feels a little cartoonish.
Also I appreciate Neville much more now. <3 <3 <3 Not that I was ever anti-Neville, but I think the first time around he seemed like something of an incompetent non-entity to me, as indeed he does to Harry and Ron. POOR NEVILLE, he tries so hard and yet he's always getting everything wrong.
The scene where he talks about bouncing after his uncle dropped him out of a second-story window is so heart-breaking: he talks about how everyone was crying afterward and he's so sure that it's because the bouncing shows he has magic, not because they're happy he's, you know, ALIVE.
(No wonder Argus Filch is such a nasty human being who hates all Hogwarts students. It must be absolute hell growing up in the wizarding world without being able to use magic.)
And Neville seems so isolated! Does he have any friends? I like to think he has friends, perhaps from the other houses?, and Harry doesn't notice because he's a bit distracted by the whole Sorcerer's Stone thing.
So I spent the yesterday evening icing my foot and rereading the first Harry Potter book, which I still remember in surprising detail despite the fact that I haven't reread it in at least ten years. Although even though I remember most of the actual events, it's fascinating to reread it as an adult: the Dursleys feel much more menacing than when I was a kid (it's really a miracle that Harry is as well-adjusted as he is), while Voldemort - who seemed menacing as all get out to my eleven-year-old self - feels a little cartoonish.
Also I appreciate Neville much more now. <3 <3 <3 Not that I was ever anti-Neville, but I think the first time around he seemed like something of an incompetent non-entity to me, as indeed he does to Harry and Ron. POOR NEVILLE, he tries so hard and yet he's always getting everything wrong.
The scene where he talks about bouncing after his uncle dropped him out of a second-story window is so heart-breaking: he talks about how everyone was crying afterward and he's so sure that it's because the bouncing shows he has magic, not because they're happy he's, you know, ALIVE.
(No wonder Argus Filch is such a nasty human being who hates all Hogwarts students. It must be absolute hell growing up in the wizarding world without being able to use magic.)
And Neville seems so isolated! Does he have any friends? I like to think he has friends, perhaps from the other houses?, and Harry doesn't notice because he's a bit distracted by the whole Sorcerer's Stone thing.