Harry Potter reactions (1)
Well, I'm only in Ch. 6 right now, where Harry is meeting Ron while on the train to Hogwarts. But already there are a few things that have caught my attention.
- It seems to me that Rowlings correlation with Voldemort and his story is remarkably similar to the Biblical story behind the fall of Lucifer: someone who started out great, rose in greatness above all his peers...and then fell into greed and power and darkness. It seems to me a very clear distinction is already being made between good and eveil, and already within the first couple chapters. (seriously, do critics of the series even read the books?)
- I'm really interested in how Rowling portrays the Dursleys, commenting frequently at how they are a type of people who dislike anything that is impractical or illogical or in any way fanciful. They want everything to be completely and absolutely explainable. It actually reminds me of something C.S. Lewis wrote (a person Rowling admittedly admires) after being repeatedly asked why he, an Oxford scholar, would stoop to such a level as to write such fanciful things for children. His open response:
"I thought I saw how stories of this kind could steal past a certain inhibition which had paralyzed much of my own religion since childhood. Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about God or about the sufferings of Christ? I thought the chief reason was that one was told one ought to. An obligation to feel can freeze feeelings. And reverence itself did harm. The whole subject was associated with lowered voices; almost as if it were something medical. But suppose by casting all these things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their stained-glass and Sunday school associations, one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency? Could one not thus steal past those watchful dragons? I thought one could."
- It seems to me that Rowlings correlation with Voldemort and his story is remarkably similar to the Biblical story behind the fall of Lucifer: someone who started out great, rose in greatness above all his peers...and then fell into greed and power and darkness. It seems to me a very clear distinction is already being made between good and eveil, and already within the first couple chapters. (seriously, do critics of the series even read the books?)
- I'm really interested in how Rowling portrays the Dursleys, commenting frequently at how they are a type of people who dislike anything that is impractical or illogical or in any way fanciful. They want everything to be completely and absolutely explainable. It actually reminds me of something C.S. Lewis wrote (a person Rowling admittedly admires) after being repeatedly asked why he, an Oxford scholar, would stoop to such a level as to write such fanciful things for children. His open response:
"I thought I saw how stories of this kind could steal past a certain inhibition which had paralyzed much of my own religion since childhood. Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about God or about the sufferings of Christ? I thought the chief reason was that one was told one ought to. An obligation to feel can freeze feeelings. And reverence itself did harm. The whole subject was associated with lowered voices; almost as if it were something medical. But suppose by casting all these things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their stained-glass and Sunday school associations, one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency? Could one not thus steal past those watchful dragons? I thought one could."