Harry Potter (no spoilers I hope)
Jul. 23rd, 2007 04:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hafoc
I've followed the Boy Wizard, yes, I admit it. I started late. You can tell that because I have a boxed set of the first four novels, then the last three individually purchased.
On Friday night I went downtown to our local Potter Party. Unlike last time, I didn't show up at 10:30 and watch the whole thing. But I had to put in my appearance to prove to myself that in spite of the indifference with which the world greets my efforts (which, after all, may not be as good as I think they are) books can still matter. Even in a world of electronic instant gratification, books can still matter.
And in honor of the Books Still Matter theme, I did manage to have Deathly Hallows finished by Sunday.
So... that's the end of the whole Harry Potter experience. I doubt I'll see the like again. There probably hasn't been such interest and suspense about a book since Dickens and the others were publishing their novels as serials back in the Victorian era, and readers would find themselves halfway through a book with no real idea where it would end and no way to find out. In fact, I suspect a lot of the writers back then had little more idea how it would all end than their readers did.
Without the suspense, I wonder how Harry will fare? Well enough, I guess. But with future readers presumably knowing something about how it ends before they even start, they may wonder what all the fuss is about.
And indeed, I found the last book a little forced and hollow. It felt to me as if Rowling was finishing it because she had to.
But perhaps there was no other way she could have done it. Because it seems to me that one theme of the whole book is that children grow up, become comfortable and complacent about their world, and in one way or another become part of, often cogs in, their world.
In the final analysis a world where you talk to your friends through a fireplace, fly on brooms, and worry about dark magic is pretty much the same as a world where you talk to your friends through cellphones, drive in cars, and worry about Al Quaeda. It seemed to me that the more Harry mastered the magic, the less magic his world had, until it was just a variation on the everyday world that has me trapped. Your mileage may vary, of course, but in the end I found Harry's world to be just ordinary. And I found that sad.
On Friday night I went downtown to our local Potter Party. Unlike last time, I didn't show up at 10:30 and watch the whole thing. But I had to put in my appearance to prove to myself that in spite of the indifference with which the world greets my efforts (which, after all, may not be as good as I think they are) books can still matter. Even in a world of electronic instant gratification, books can still matter.
And in honor of the Books Still Matter theme, I did manage to have Deathly Hallows finished by Sunday.
So... that's the end of the whole Harry Potter experience. I doubt I'll see the like again. There probably hasn't been such interest and suspense about a book since Dickens and the others were publishing their novels as serials back in the Victorian era, and readers would find themselves halfway through a book with no real idea where it would end and no way to find out. In fact, I suspect a lot of the writers back then had little more idea how it would all end than their readers did.
Without the suspense, I wonder how Harry will fare? Well enough, I guess. But with future readers presumably knowing something about how it ends before they even start, they may wonder what all the fuss is about.
And indeed, I found the last book a little forced and hollow. It felt to me as if Rowling was finishing it because she had to.
But perhaps there was no other way she could have done it. Because it seems to me that one theme of the whole book is that children grow up, become comfortable and complacent about their world, and in one way or another become part of, often cogs in, their world.
In the final analysis a world where you talk to your friends through a fireplace, fly on brooms, and worry about dark magic is pretty much the same as a world where you talk to your friends through cellphones, drive in cars, and worry about Al Quaeda. It seemed to me that the more Harry mastered the magic, the less magic his world had, until it was just a variation on the everyday world that has me trapped. Your mileage may vary, of course, but in the end I found Harry's world to be just ordinary. And I found that sad.
