more harry....
am not a critic. at least when I read a book. i believe you need to completely immerse yourself in the art, experience it, be a part of it. and then you can come back to your world and see how you feel about it. so when i say the things i do, its not as a third person commentator - though at times the pseudo-intellectual in me struggles to be let loose. :)
so did i hate the book? no way! but i was disappointed. you see, though the book was written for children, it captured the imagination of a wide section of adults too - who doesn't love magic? This time round, Rowling did have a difficult task - to write about a 16 yr old (hitherto stuck in child hero mould) in a way that appeals to both sub-16 and super-25, while moving the story forward all the way. She does a good job. But she plays safe. There was the possibility of greatness, but she has chosen to trod risk-free avenues.
Yeah Deepak, the phoenix would live on. (thank god for that :) ) but the whole thing was rather sudden, and the after effect was so subdued - in the way people take the news... the dialogues post the death... I dont know... The 2 romances were also rather sudden... there was a definite overdose of snogging in ron's case - it could have been built up beautifully and her readers would have loved it! same's with harry - rather sudden, inexplicable. Its not *what* happens but the *how* of it... I wish she had taken time over all that... which is why I hold my theory that this book more than all the previous ones, was written with the big screen in mind.
but hey, this is all just technical... chewing the cud so to speak... reliving the experience! extending the story beyond the actual reading of the book... the bottomline is the story is bigger than rowling - its in public imagination now. however much i may crib about style n technique, i'd still pre-order the next harry potter book and still read it in one sitting on day one. thats because i love harry n ron n dumbledore n snape n voldemort (ha, i can say the name after all!), draco malfoy (yes him too) n hagrid n quidditch n fred n george (why werent they my bros) n most of all hermione (yeahyeahyeah) - i wish i were at hogwarts, i wish i cd walk thru platform 9 and 3/4ths and i wish i cd make potions n do transformations - i wish i cd ride a firebolt, look in the mirror of erised, pay invisible night visits to a giant's cottage - i love that world. I love it. after all, who can resist magic?
so did i hate the book? no way! but i was disappointed. you see, though the book was written for children, it captured the imagination of a wide section of adults too - who doesn't love magic? This time round, Rowling did have a difficult task - to write about a 16 yr old (hitherto stuck in child hero mould) in a way that appeals to both sub-16 and super-25, while moving the story forward all the way. She does a good job. But she plays safe. There was the possibility of greatness, but she has chosen to trod risk-free avenues.
Yeah Deepak, the phoenix would live on. (thank god for that :) ) but the whole thing was rather sudden, and the after effect was so subdued - in the way people take the news... the dialogues post the death... I dont know... The 2 romances were also rather sudden... there was a definite overdose of snogging in ron's case - it could have been built up beautifully and her readers would have loved it! same's with harry - rather sudden, inexplicable. Its not *what* happens but the *how* of it... I wish she had taken time over all that... which is why I hold my theory that this book more than all the previous ones, was written with the big screen in mind.
but hey, this is all just technical... chewing the cud so to speak... reliving the experience! extending the story beyond the actual reading of the book... the bottomline is the story is bigger than rowling - its in public imagination now. however much i may crib about style n technique, i'd still pre-order the next harry potter book and still read it in one sitting on day one. thats because i love harry n ron n dumbledore n snape n voldemort (ha, i can say the name after all!), draco malfoy (yes him too) n hagrid n quidditch n fred n george (why werent they my bros) n most of all hermione (yeahyeahyeah) - i wish i were at hogwarts, i wish i cd walk thru platform 9 and 3/4ths and i wish i cd make potions n do transformations - i wish i cd ride a firebolt, look in the mirror of erised, pay invisible night visits to a giant's cottage - i love that world. I love it. after all, who can resist magic?
Comments
Long long ago, the world was a much nicer place. Not because the people were better, but because I didnt know or care about the way they were. I could ride a broom when I felt like it, I could shoot someone if I felt like it, it was a world without worries. [Yeah, thats what nostalgia should sound like, but when I sit down and think about it, I remember that I was pretty much freaked out about not having done my homework and being late to school and that sort of stuff, but anyway, thats besides the point]. I guess the reason the books strike a chord with most people is because you end up immersing yourself in the book. Rowling does an amazing job of first making you identify with the characters and then sweeping you smoothly off into a dream world where you would like to identify with the characters. There are two things that I associate with this feeling. The first one is Enid Blyton and her magical lands that were so innocent and fun to spend rainy evenings in. The second is the computer game Doom (yeah I am old) where you could shoot "bad people" and squish them and blow them up and come out feeling very happy about yourself. The Rowling books somehow manage to seamlessly join both of these feelings and elevate you to a level where you feel pretty good about things in general. In a sense it has a Ramayana like quality of pure goodness and pure evil pitted against each other.
Thinking about the "snogging" bit, did you ever follow a serial called "Wonder Years", it used to be on TV in the early 90s. It was about a boy, Kevin Arnold and how he grows up. When you think about it, teenage years are quite sudden and jump on you out of the blue. The two romances did not really happpen too suddenly, its actually been building up over the previous books, probably from the second one itself. Yes, Lavender was rather sudden and then it ended pretty abruptly too, with a lot of snogging in between, but I think that suddenness conveys exactly the point it was supposed to convey. And if you ask me if that behaviour is appropriate for the age, I can only respond that I strongly feel I went to all the wrong schools :-)