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shadowkatJust finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. (Yes, I know, practically everyone else out there finished it over three or four weeks ago. Which reminds me, if you have posted a review or an analysis of Harry Potter on your lj - could you please provide me with a link to it? Pretty please? I don't think lj will let me scroll back six weeks to see everyone's reviews. Thanks in advance!!)
Overall? I agree with Stephen King's review of it in Entertainment Weekly, which I also just read. He doesn't go into detail on theme, character or plot, so much as talk about it as a general reading experience, highlighting what worked and didn't work for him and why he considers it a quality read or lasting.
The book, simply put, is magical - it takes you into another world and you enjoy being there. It also has a warm endearing message at its heart. And is what I'd call a "happy book" or for the "child" in all of us, regardless of our age. A point King makes in his review - which you can find online at EW.com.
What impressed me most about the book was the underlying thematic structure. Rowlings explores some old and interesting themes in a new way, highlighting points without preaching or talking down to her audience, or telling us what to think - so much as showing with dry wit and humor.
And, she manages in my view at least, to get at the root of an age-old issue that has been discussed quite a bit on lj of late - racism or more aptly put racial discrimination and does it through metaphor and analogy. Fantasy and sci-fi writers can often get away with discussing and exploring these issues in greater depth than literary or mainstream writers can. Why? Because we have the nifty layer of metaphor shielding us from some hard truths about ourselves and our society. As Mary Poppins used to say, it's always easier to take one's medicine with a spoonful of sugar.
The main theme of the Potter books of course is love over power or advancement/superiority. The characters who seek fame, glory, superiority and power pay dearly for their actions. While those who sacrifice these things for love are rewarded. Power isn't necessarily a bad thing, Rowlings states, but when it is sought after or desired over everything else it certainly can be. Hardly a new theme - other writers, such as Joss Whedon, CS Lewis, Tolkien, and Phillip Pullman have discussed this issue and came up with similar results. Whedon went so far as to create two tv shows - one where the heroine much like Potter does not want power, and attempts to shirk it or push it aside, seeing it as more of a burden than a gift and the other, where the hero desires power, yearns for it, and pays dearly for it once he obtains it.
But what distinguishes Rowlings novels from Tolkein, Lewis, and Pullman, as well as from Whedon's tv shows...is the underlying exploration of racism or how the power her villian seeks is often at the expense or the control and domination of those he believes have hurt him or are beneath him.
In Rowlings world or the World of Harry Potter - the dominant class or the class with the privilege are the Wizards. Yet, it depends on your point of veiw doesn't it? From the Muggles point of view, Wizards don't exist or are mere freaks to be frowned upon. It's only amongst the Wizards that Muggles are considered silly and beneath them - or even given the name - Muggle. Almost as if the two are different species - one is Wizard, one is Muggle.
And a Mudblood is a combination of the two. It's a deft exploration of group dynamics. And how those dynamics can be be counter-productive at times, isolating people who don't fit in, glorifying others, and encouraging the development of prejudicial and racist views and to a degree a feeling of superiority. Harry Potter and his two friends, Ron and Hermoine not only fight the villianous Voldemort in the books, they fight the prevailing attitudes of the society in which they live and in which they are being taught - discovering an increasing area of gray.
When if comes to fun villians, Snape is painted as a mustache twirling candidate. Complete with stringy black hair, a white face, hooked nose, and black cap. Throughout the books he appears from Harry and his co-horts point of view Harry's nemesis and Voldemort's ally. Yet - if you read the books closely, Snape is clearly not the villain they believe him to be. At the end of the books, it is finally revealed to Harry how complicated the man was, and how brave. Snape in fact, poses as a neat counter-point to both Harry and Tom Riddle (Voldemort) - a lost abandoned boy, who chose neither Harry nor Voldemort's paths.
Unlike Harry who had his friends to support him throughout, Snape was more or less alone with only Dumbledore as a confident - a confident who rarely told Snape everything and did not always provide him with love. If anything Dumbledore is a bit of reluctant and distrustful friend, who only over time begins to respect and admire Snape. Snape has the unlovable exterior, is snide, and sarcastic. To all intents and purposes - unworthy of love. He pushes everyone away from him, including the one person he loves the most, Lily Evans. Socially inept, he struggles throughout the books to make a difference. And often puts himself in danger trying to save lives, yet allows no one to know. Always hidden. Always behind the scenes. But if you pay close attention, you realize - it was Severus Snape who protected Harry from Quirrell at the start of Sorcerer's Stone, and Severus Snape who ensured the Aurors got to the Ministry in time to help Harry in Order of the Phoenix, and it was Severus Snape who prevented the death eaters from killing Harry in HalfBlood Prince. It is hard to like Severus Snape, but he may be the most admirable and courageous character in the books. Even more courageous than Harry Potter. Why? He saves lives without the benefit of glory, love, or acceptance. He does it knowing full well he will get nothing in return. No reward. No peace. And no clear trophy. He does not march off with his true love at the end. And he does not have anyone clearly mourn him. His last act - is to tell Harry what he's done, not so much so Harry will respect him - for he clearly did not want that, but so that Harry will be able to carry out Dumbledore's plan, a plan he remains uncertain of himself.
Snape's villiany is suggested never proven - suggested by the house he belongs to, how he's seen. It's a heavy theme in the novels - what we see is not always what is true. IT is warped by the point of view or the lenses that we see it in, as Harry grows up, the lens change, his vision grows clearer, he begins to see people as they are, not as he thinks or wants them to be and learns to forgive and accept them. Rowlings, as Stephen King states in his own review, does something many childrens writers do not - she allows her characters to grow up, to change, to evolve and with them so do her readers.
Another heavy theme in the novel, as I mentioned above, is group dynamics or how we are taught at an early age who to like and who not to much like that song in South Pacific, entitled Carefully, Carefully Taught. The children who go to Hogwarts are sorted into houses - four to be precise. Each house is pitted against the other - to win a prize at the end of the term. They are not encouraged to inter-mix and there is animosity between houses. Each representing a different value - Ravenclaw - brains or mental acuity, Hufflepuff - friendship, Gryffindore - courage, Slytherine - nobility and cleverness - reminding me alot of sororities and fraternities in college. The Slytherin's hate Griffyndors and vice-versa. And more than once in the books - kids chide one another - "any house but Slytherin" or "any house but Griffindor" - as if one is better than the other. Snakes are bad. Griffins are good. And the Slytherine's are indeed ostracized by the other houses, deservedly so by their behavor towards those houses throughout the books. In fact at the end of each of the first three books - a huge deal is made out of which house has won the cup and gotten the most points...it's not until the later books that this whole idea is dropped, were the houses start to merge and it is more difficult to tell who came from which one - with the possible of except of Syltherine - which are always the enemies.
Then, in the final book, Rowlings does an interesting thing. Instead of ending her novel with Harry's triumphe over Voldemore or a wedding or any number of ways. She writes an epilogue that takes place 19 years later - at Kings Cross Station, with Harry, Ron, Ginny, and Hermoine seeing their own children off to Hogwarts. The epilogue does not focus on the friendship or relationships amongst the adults and kid nor does it really focus on Hogwarts. No - the focus is instead on the sorting hat and which house the kids will get into. Ron teases his daughter that if she doesn't get into Griffindore, he'll disown her - reminiscent of Ron's own views about which house was the best in the first book and also reminiscent of a similar conversation between James Potter, Lily Evans, Sirus Black, and Severus Snape that Harry sees via Severus' point of view. Harry takes his own son, Albus, aside, away from the others. Albus is clearly terrified of ending up Slytherine much as Harry had been in Socerer's Stone. And Harry tells the boy, who we find out is called Albus Severus - that he "is named after two great headmasters - one of whom, Severus, was a member of Slytherine and the most courageous man, Harry has ever known." And the boy will be given a choice - the hat had given him, Harry one. It is not pre-ordained. And overall - does not matter, especially not to Harry. Harry's emphasis of this point to his youngest son, who in many ways reminds Harry more of himself - separate from the others, demonstrates two points - 1) Harry is aware of and still to a degree under the societal pressure of the class system or need to be *sorted* into classes, and 2) Harry does not agree with it and quietly stands against it, tolerating Ron and the others views - much as Harry's mother once did. He understands the need for it, but cautions his son to rise above it. While his other son, the one who reminds me more of Harry's father James, makes a big deal of which house the boy gets into. Just as Ron teasingly does. The fact that Rowlings ends her novel with this reference - which is one that was also made in Harry's trot through Severus' memories...reiterates the core message of her work. Rowlings remember was a welfare Mom when she wrote Socerer's Stone, an outcast.
It's a theme throughout Rowlings novels...being sorted, categorized, placed into boxes or classes based on ability, talent, money, looks, heritage, or race. And how murky the lines between the distinctions become. That people are treated as groups more than individuals, as classifications - whether it be mudbloods, purebloods, wizards, muggles, goblins, elves, giants, werewolves, witches, or English and French. Of all the characters, Harry may be the only one who realizes these categories only have as much importance as we choose to give them. That loving everyone despite which category or class or group they've been sorted into by fate, is how we survive.
This is how she closes her story. Not with Harry's triumphe over Voldemort or even with a wedding or with all the characters rejoicing, but with this little exchange at the very end.
Another question, Rowlings asks is Have we in fact, created our own monsters? Rowlings leaves the answer to that question up to us. Reiterating that we always have a choice in who or what we become. Abuse does not excuse an abuser.
She presents numerous examples. Dumbledore, Grindelwald, Harry, Lily Evans, Ariana, Luna Lovegood, Snape, Tom Riddle, and even Hagrid. All people who have in some way shape or form dealt with abuse or ridicule. Some were driven insane by it, like Arians. Some believed in punishing everyone who ever did - of being superior like Riddle and Grindelwald (although we are never really told why Grindelwald does what he does). Some like Dumbledore and Snape head done that horrid road, only to lose the person or persons they loved most and quickly switch paths as a result. And others like Harry, are never tempted. Rowlings demonstrates through these characters that our environment does not make us who we are. Nor do genetics.
We choose who we become.
Tom Riddle, Voldemort, who received abuse from both Muggles and Wizards, becomes a monster -but Harry who equally received abuse from Muggles and Wizards, who equally struggles - does not - he finds friends, where Riddle pushes them away. Riddle remains Harry's Shadow or vice versa. Riddle is who Harry could have become and Harry is who Riddle might have been. Same with Severus Snape who like Riddle came from a Wizard and A Muggle and was abused. Like Riddle pursued the Dark Arts, but Snape unlike Riddle knew love. He loved someone, even though it was not really requited love, it was love all the same. All three are, as Harry notes, abandoned boys, with no home but Hogwarts. All three are powerful and clever, but of the three - Harry alone is uninterested in power or prestige. He aches for the love of family. Then of course we have Dumbledore, another orphaned boy, another boy with bad Muggle experiences. And Dumbledore, we learn, like Snape and Voldemort - first sought glory and power. It's the loss of his sister that changes his path.
Voldemort and Dumbledore both seek immortality. Voldemort in horcruxes - splitting off peices of his soul into objects. Dumbledore in the Deathly Hallows - three magical objects.
Both pay for their obsessions with death, they desire for immortality. It's an old theme, the hero must die to live. Which is what Harry does, he dies in order to live. When Harry sacrifices himself to Voldemort - he does several things - he lets go of the fear of death or the desire to survive no matter the cost, he kills Voldemort's seventh horcrux (the one inside him), and he creates the ability to shield all those that he died to protect from Voldemort's evil. He falls from the tower of adolescence to reach adulthood.
There is an interlude, where Harry and Voldemort are both unconscious and both souls are at King's Cross station. There they meet Dumbledore. But it is only Harry who speaks to Dumbledore, while Voldemort lies a stunted, repulsive, whimpering naked and flayed child discarded beneath a seat that neither can help and neither address by name. Rowlings doesn't tell us this is Voldemort, so much as hint at it. His soul has been so torn apart, Dumbledore remarks, there is little left. All that is left is the creature beneath the bench - and Voldemort did it to himself in order to achieve immortality - a goal that he clearly would sell his soul for. Harry on the other hand achieves it through love and compassion - even when Harry dies, he will be loved.
Immortality, staying forever young, eternal life - are not goals Rowlings treasures. There, she seems to write, lies destruction.
As much as I liked the last novel, I found the ending a little sad. Snape's end tragic. The charismatic charming pretty boy gets the girl. Harry really isn't an outcast, he's popular in the novels. Well-loved. And he gets the girl and family in the end. A neat fairy tale, and a fitting ending for a group of children's books. It is a minor quibble and to be fair, I'm not sure I'd want it to end differently. For, in the end, these books are for kids not adults, even if adults adore them just as much.
If I were to rank the books? I'd say my favorites are Prisoner of Azkaban, Deathly Hollows, HalfBlood Prince, and Sorcer's Stone.
Now? I'm reading something quite different yet oddly similar, Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami (a Japanese novelist). It is about a lonely and friendless fifteen year old boy, who lives mostly inside his own head, and his journey to find his mother and sister who left when he was quite young. He runs away from his father on his fifteenth birthday and the story unrolls from there. A friend recommended it to me, it is magical realism and told in the first person. Very different writing style than Rowlings, more literary and far more descriptive.
Overall? I agree with Stephen King's review of it in Entertainment Weekly, which I also just read. He doesn't go into detail on theme, character or plot, so much as talk about it as a general reading experience, highlighting what worked and didn't work for him and why he considers it a quality read or lasting.
The book, simply put, is magical - it takes you into another world and you enjoy being there. It also has a warm endearing message at its heart. And is what I'd call a "happy book" or for the "child" in all of us, regardless of our age. A point King makes in his review - which you can find online at EW.com.
What impressed me most about the book was the underlying thematic structure. Rowlings explores some old and interesting themes in a new way, highlighting points without preaching or talking down to her audience, or telling us what to think - so much as showing with dry wit and humor.
And, she manages in my view at least, to get at the root of an age-old issue that has been discussed quite a bit on lj of late - racism or more aptly put racial discrimination and does it through metaphor and analogy. Fantasy and sci-fi writers can often get away with discussing and exploring these issues in greater depth than literary or mainstream writers can. Why? Because we have the nifty layer of metaphor shielding us from some hard truths about ourselves and our society. As Mary Poppins used to say, it's always easier to take one's medicine with a spoonful of sugar.
The main theme of the Potter books of course is love over power or advancement/superiority. The characters who seek fame, glory, superiority and power pay dearly for their actions. While those who sacrifice these things for love are rewarded. Power isn't necessarily a bad thing, Rowlings states, but when it is sought after or desired over everything else it certainly can be. Hardly a new theme - other writers, such as Joss Whedon, CS Lewis, Tolkien, and Phillip Pullman have discussed this issue and came up with similar results. Whedon went so far as to create two tv shows - one where the heroine much like Potter does not want power, and attempts to shirk it or push it aside, seeing it as more of a burden than a gift and the other, where the hero desires power, yearns for it, and pays dearly for it once he obtains it.
But what distinguishes Rowlings novels from Tolkein, Lewis, and Pullman, as well as from Whedon's tv shows...is the underlying exploration of racism or how the power her villian seeks is often at the expense or the control and domination of those he believes have hurt him or are beneath him.
In Rowlings world or the World of Harry Potter - the dominant class or the class with the privilege are the Wizards. Yet, it depends on your point of veiw doesn't it? From the Muggles point of view, Wizards don't exist or are mere freaks to be frowned upon. It's only amongst the Wizards that Muggles are considered silly and beneath them - or even given the name - Muggle. Almost as if the two are different species - one is Wizard, one is Muggle.
And a Mudblood is a combination of the two. It's a deft exploration of group dynamics. And how those dynamics can be be counter-productive at times, isolating people who don't fit in, glorifying others, and encouraging the development of prejudicial and racist views and to a degree a feeling of superiority. Harry Potter and his two friends, Ron and Hermoine not only fight the villianous Voldemort in the books, they fight the prevailing attitudes of the society in which they live and in which they are being taught - discovering an increasing area of gray.
When if comes to fun villians, Snape is painted as a mustache twirling candidate. Complete with stringy black hair, a white face, hooked nose, and black cap. Throughout the books he appears from Harry and his co-horts point of view Harry's nemesis and Voldemort's ally. Yet - if you read the books closely, Snape is clearly not the villain they believe him to be. At the end of the books, it is finally revealed to Harry how complicated the man was, and how brave. Snape in fact, poses as a neat counter-point to both Harry and Tom Riddle (Voldemort) - a lost abandoned boy, who chose neither Harry nor Voldemort's paths.
Unlike Harry who had his friends to support him throughout, Snape was more or less alone with only Dumbledore as a confident - a confident who rarely told Snape everything and did not always provide him with love. If anything Dumbledore is a bit of reluctant and distrustful friend, who only over time begins to respect and admire Snape. Snape has the unlovable exterior, is snide, and sarcastic. To all intents and purposes - unworthy of love. He pushes everyone away from him, including the one person he loves the most, Lily Evans. Socially inept, he struggles throughout the books to make a difference. And often puts himself in danger trying to save lives, yet allows no one to know. Always hidden. Always behind the scenes. But if you pay close attention, you realize - it was Severus Snape who protected Harry from Quirrell at the start of Sorcerer's Stone, and Severus Snape who ensured the Aurors got to the Ministry in time to help Harry in Order of the Phoenix, and it was Severus Snape who prevented the death eaters from killing Harry in HalfBlood Prince. It is hard to like Severus Snape, but he may be the most admirable and courageous character in the books. Even more courageous than Harry Potter. Why? He saves lives without the benefit of glory, love, or acceptance. He does it knowing full well he will get nothing in return. No reward. No peace. And no clear trophy. He does not march off with his true love at the end. And he does not have anyone clearly mourn him. His last act - is to tell Harry what he's done, not so much so Harry will respect him - for he clearly did not want that, but so that Harry will be able to carry out Dumbledore's plan, a plan he remains uncertain of himself.
Snape's villiany is suggested never proven - suggested by the house he belongs to, how he's seen. It's a heavy theme in the novels - what we see is not always what is true. IT is warped by the point of view or the lenses that we see it in, as Harry grows up, the lens change, his vision grows clearer, he begins to see people as they are, not as he thinks or wants them to be and learns to forgive and accept them. Rowlings, as Stephen King states in his own review, does something many childrens writers do not - she allows her characters to grow up, to change, to evolve and with them so do her readers.
Another heavy theme in the novel, as I mentioned above, is group dynamics or how we are taught at an early age who to like and who not to much like that song in South Pacific, entitled Carefully, Carefully Taught. The children who go to Hogwarts are sorted into houses - four to be precise. Each house is pitted against the other - to win a prize at the end of the term. They are not encouraged to inter-mix and there is animosity between houses. Each representing a different value - Ravenclaw - brains or mental acuity, Hufflepuff - friendship, Gryffindore - courage, Slytherine - nobility and cleverness - reminding me alot of sororities and fraternities in college. The Slytherin's hate Griffyndors and vice-versa. And more than once in the books - kids chide one another - "any house but Slytherin" or "any house but Griffindor" - as if one is better than the other. Snakes are bad. Griffins are good. And the Slytherine's are indeed ostracized by the other houses, deservedly so by their behavor towards those houses throughout the books. In fact at the end of each of the first three books - a huge deal is made out of which house has won the cup and gotten the most points...it's not until the later books that this whole idea is dropped, were the houses start to merge and it is more difficult to tell who came from which one - with the possible of except of Syltherine - which are always the enemies.
Then, in the final book, Rowlings does an interesting thing. Instead of ending her novel with Harry's triumphe over Voldemore or a wedding or any number of ways. She writes an epilogue that takes place 19 years later - at Kings Cross Station, with Harry, Ron, Ginny, and Hermoine seeing their own children off to Hogwarts. The epilogue does not focus on the friendship or relationships amongst the adults and kid nor does it really focus on Hogwarts. No - the focus is instead on the sorting hat and which house the kids will get into. Ron teases his daughter that if she doesn't get into Griffindore, he'll disown her - reminiscent of Ron's own views about which house was the best in the first book and also reminiscent of a similar conversation between James Potter, Lily Evans, Sirus Black, and Severus Snape that Harry sees via Severus' point of view. Harry takes his own son, Albus, aside, away from the others. Albus is clearly terrified of ending up Slytherine much as Harry had been in Socerer's Stone. And Harry tells the boy, who we find out is called Albus Severus - that he "is named after two great headmasters - one of whom, Severus, was a member of Slytherine and the most courageous man, Harry has ever known." And the boy will be given a choice - the hat had given him, Harry one. It is not pre-ordained. And overall - does not matter, especially not to Harry. Harry's emphasis of this point to his youngest son, who in many ways reminds Harry more of himself - separate from the others, demonstrates two points - 1) Harry is aware of and still to a degree under the societal pressure of the class system or need to be *sorted* into classes, and 2) Harry does not agree with it and quietly stands against it, tolerating Ron and the others views - much as Harry's mother once did. He understands the need for it, but cautions his son to rise above it. While his other son, the one who reminds me more of Harry's father James, makes a big deal of which house the boy gets into. Just as Ron teasingly does. The fact that Rowlings ends her novel with this reference - which is one that was also made in Harry's trot through Severus' memories...reiterates the core message of her work. Rowlings remember was a welfare Mom when she wrote Socerer's Stone, an outcast.
It's a theme throughout Rowlings novels...being sorted, categorized, placed into boxes or classes based on ability, talent, money, looks, heritage, or race. And how murky the lines between the distinctions become. That people are treated as groups more than individuals, as classifications - whether it be mudbloods, purebloods, wizards, muggles, goblins, elves, giants, werewolves, witches, or English and French. Of all the characters, Harry may be the only one who realizes these categories only have as much importance as we choose to give them. That loving everyone despite which category or class or group they've been sorted into by fate, is how we survive.
This is how she closes her story. Not with Harry's triumphe over Voldemort or even with a wedding or with all the characters rejoicing, but with this little exchange at the very end.
Another question, Rowlings asks is Have we in fact, created our own monsters? Rowlings leaves the answer to that question up to us. Reiterating that we always have a choice in who or what we become. Abuse does not excuse an abuser.
She presents numerous examples. Dumbledore, Grindelwald, Harry, Lily Evans, Ariana, Luna Lovegood, Snape, Tom Riddle, and even Hagrid. All people who have in some way shape or form dealt with abuse or ridicule. Some were driven insane by it, like Arians. Some believed in punishing everyone who ever did - of being superior like Riddle and Grindelwald (although we are never really told why Grindelwald does what he does). Some like Dumbledore and Snape head done that horrid road, only to lose the person or persons they loved most and quickly switch paths as a result. And others like Harry, are never tempted. Rowlings demonstrates through these characters that our environment does not make us who we are. Nor do genetics.
We choose who we become.
Tom Riddle, Voldemort, who received abuse from both Muggles and Wizards, becomes a monster -but Harry who equally received abuse from Muggles and Wizards, who equally struggles - does not - he finds friends, where Riddle pushes them away. Riddle remains Harry's Shadow or vice versa. Riddle is who Harry could have become and Harry is who Riddle might have been. Same with Severus Snape who like Riddle came from a Wizard and A Muggle and was abused. Like Riddle pursued the Dark Arts, but Snape unlike Riddle knew love. He loved someone, even though it was not really requited love, it was love all the same. All three are, as Harry notes, abandoned boys, with no home but Hogwarts. All three are powerful and clever, but of the three - Harry alone is uninterested in power or prestige. He aches for the love of family. Then of course we have Dumbledore, another orphaned boy, another boy with bad Muggle experiences. And Dumbledore, we learn, like Snape and Voldemort - first sought glory and power. It's the loss of his sister that changes his path.
Voldemort and Dumbledore both seek immortality. Voldemort in horcruxes - splitting off peices of his soul into objects. Dumbledore in the Deathly Hallows - three magical objects.
Both pay for their obsessions with death, they desire for immortality. It's an old theme, the hero must die to live. Which is what Harry does, he dies in order to live. When Harry sacrifices himself to Voldemort - he does several things - he lets go of the fear of death or the desire to survive no matter the cost, he kills Voldemort's seventh horcrux (the one inside him), and he creates the ability to shield all those that he died to protect from Voldemort's evil. He falls from the tower of adolescence to reach adulthood.
There is an interlude, where Harry and Voldemort are both unconscious and both souls are at King's Cross station. There they meet Dumbledore. But it is only Harry who speaks to Dumbledore, while Voldemort lies a stunted, repulsive, whimpering naked and flayed child discarded beneath a seat that neither can help and neither address by name. Rowlings doesn't tell us this is Voldemort, so much as hint at it. His soul has been so torn apart, Dumbledore remarks, there is little left. All that is left is the creature beneath the bench - and Voldemort did it to himself in order to achieve immortality - a goal that he clearly would sell his soul for. Harry on the other hand achieves it through love and compassion - even when Harry dies, he will be loved.
Immortality, staying forever young, eternal life - are not goals Rowlings treasures. There, she seems to write, lies destruction.
As much as I liked the last novel, I found the ending a little sad. Snape's end tragic. The charismatic charming pretty boy gets the girl. Harry really isn't an outcast, he's popular in the novels. Well-loved. And he gets the girl and family in the end. A neat fairy tale, and a fitting ending for a group of children's books. It is a minor quibble and to be fair, I'm not sure I'd want it to end differently. For, in the end, these books are for kids not adults, even if adults adore them just as much.
If I were to rank the books? I'd say my favorites are Prisoner of Azkaban, Deathly Hollows, HalfBlood Prince, and Sorcer's Stone.
Now? I'm reading something quite different yet oddly similar, Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami (a Japanese novelist). It is about a lonely and friendless fifteen year old boy, who lives mostly inside his own head, and his journey to find his mother and sister who left when he was quite young. He runs away from his father on his fifteenth birthday and the story unrolls from there. A friend recommended it to me, it is magical realism and told in the first person. Very different writing style than Rowlings, more literary and far more descriptive.
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Date: 2007-08-14 02:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-14 05:41 am (UTC)http://embers-log.livejournal.com/165915.html
but what I didn't post about, and have been thinking about:
I really loved the deconstruction of Dumbledore, when Dumbledore dies in book 6 he is still very much the all knowing all powerful wizard (like Gandolf, Merlin, or even Aslan) and it is kind of extraordinary that Dumbledore is brought down to this fallible human level.
What really annoyed me is that in the final battle she allowed quite a few beloved characters to die without any comment about how they died or how they were missed, not even in her epilogue does she give us any information about how George handles Fred's death. And personally I had a lot more interest in what kinds of jobs Harry, Ginny, Ron, and Hermione ended up having than how many kids they had. But the part that really is annoying me?
JKR has been adding to the book in interviews! Things she didn't think worth while putting in the final book she is now giving out in dribs and drabs in interviews: yes, she knows who killed Tonks and Lupin, and if you find the right interview you can know that too.... And yes, she knows where Ron and Harry are working, but there again you'll only find that interview by luck. Frankly if she didn't think it was worth putting in the book then I don't think she should talk about it at all. As it is we'll need someone to compile a book of collected interviews so we can all learn the stuff that JKR says is true but didn't put into her opus.
I do appreciate your comments about the sorting at Hogwarts and what that means in terms of categorizing people (class, caste, whatever), but frankly I was a little disappointed in that too: in the 5th book, The Goblet of Fire, the sorting hat sings about how it is going to be necessary for all the students of Hogwarts to learn to work together. But in the end, no so much, the Slytherins remain separate, and everyone else lets Griffyndor to take all the leadership... I guess I had wanted some kind of unity and growth to come about, and not a perpetuation of the same divisions forever.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-14 01:04 pm (UTC)In my view if they aren't in the book, they don't matter. It's just the author's musings. Same with Whedon - the comics aren't canon - different medium. His musings on what or who his characters are outside of the series? Just musings. IF it was important to the writer - they'd have put it in the work.
Not unlike painting actually - you leave things out when you paint a picture, not everything is put in. You blur certain details and focus on other ones. Once it is done? Open to interpretation. You can go back and add stuff. And you can't change stuff. You can however do another painting.
I guess I had wanted some kind of unity and growth to come about, and not a perpetuation of the same divisions forever.
Yes, but that would have been a bit, I want to say unrealistic, but that's the wrong word. It would have gone against the moral message of the work. Rowlings was making a point about our society. There's a reason Voldemort and his death eaters came into being - and that reason is never really resolved. Not even when the sorting hat sings about it. It's not something that can be easily resolved. Rowlings points out that Harry is trying in a quiet way to change it, but he can't do much - not when Ron and the others don't see it as being a problem, any more than we do. Think about those quiz memes we take - which house are you? Or how we classify and categorize one another?
Yes, Voldemort was defeated, Rowlings states, but the underlying problems, the atmosphere that allowed him to come into being? That will take a lot more time and may never completely change. Note Ron states in the end - "Marry anyone but a pureblood and no one from Malfoys" - he may be teasing, but we aren't sure. It's a kind of reverse prejudice.
And personally I had a lot more interest in what kinds of jobs Harry, Ginny, Ron, and Hermione ended up having than how many kids they had.
So was I, to be honest. But I had to take a step back - the writer isn't and the writer is not writing the books for me or for you. She could care less what we want, heck she doesn't even know us. She's writing the books to express her own fears, fantasies, frustrations and desires and ultimately those of her children.
Rowlings was to some degree a victim of the British class system. She's seen what it does to people first hand. Welfare Mom. Struggled. Wrote Socerer's Stone on napkins in a diner allegedly. And her story is principally about family or the desire for a family.
Harry cares most about family - having one like the Weasley's. What he does for a living doesn't matter to him or much to the writer (it wouldn't, the writer hasn't had a career outside of writing - it's not her focus, and she makes little of what people do, tells us, but doesn't go into it.) And remember we are in Harry's pov. We only see what Harry is focused on. Nothing else. While Harry would care about George and Fred, he is also overwhelmed at that point - he's lost too many people. And think Rowlings is getting that across.He's too overwhelmed to be focused on the details and again we are in his pov.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-14 01:07 pm (UTC)That should be:
You can't go back and change stuff.
Not
You can go back and change stuff.
I make serious typos when I try to respond to entries at work for some reason.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-14 06:24 am (UTC)Long ago, I think after abuot the 2nd or 3rd book, I started to get a different idea baout Snape and how he's writtne in such a way that was a mislead if you didn't read carefully. And that's what hooked me. And to know his past more clearly now? Not to be all melodramatic, but it made go all soft on him. Well, the snarky helps, too.
no subject
Date: 2007-08-14 01:18 pm (UTC)I knew she'd reveal her hand in the last book eventually, but I'd been hoping for a less tragic and sad ending for the character. A less futile one. But I can see why she made the choice she did - it was to demonstrate how vile and pathetic Voldemart had become. That he truly would just kill his most trusted lieutenant to get more power. And that he was incapable of understanding or realizing that Snape was a spy, because he could not understand love. Also, in a way Snape's death was a fitting one - by poison, snake venom. Not grand.
I think that was another theme in the book - that there is no such thing as a glorious death. Of the death's Harry's is the most glorious and Harry's mother's - both die to save others. To die trying to kill someone else? Or to die to keep yourself from pain, is not great. And death itself, the writer seems to state is just an inevitable part of life, and far more painful for those left behind. She really seems to go out of her way not to glorify fighting or death at times.
Also, I think she had Snape die the way he did, because we are in Harry's pov. Harry must think he had a fitting yet tragic end, before he sees what is in the Pensieve and realizes that it wasn't fitting at all, just deeply tragic and very brave - realizing this, empowers Harry to go face his own death.