I find these Q&As good fun to watch from beginning to end, but since this is my blog, I'll highlight my question:
The "is Dumbledore really gay?" controversy. Or, in other words, can authors add in extra details about their characters in interviews and announcements, or do the authors have to put it in the actual books for it to be canonical?
Steve says, "You must know where I stand on this subject," and indeed, I was 90% sure what his answer would be.
Personally though, I find the question a bit more interesting. To me, it feels like a convention to say that the author has no authority in the interpretation of her books. I can easily imagine another culture in which the convention is to treat the author's announcements as authoritative.
To me, this question is further complicated when the author is still living, and the books in question are a series. J.K. Rowling could easily write another Harry Potter book. (I know she's said she won't, but she could easily go back on that.) So since she has the power to write anything she wants to into future books, we've got to at least take notice of her pronouncements, right?
I didn't mention this in the question, but in my mind I was also thinking about some of the discussion about Pale Fire. Via Wikipedia:
In an interview, Nabokov later claimed that Kinbote killed himself after finishing the book.[14] The critic Michael Wood has stated, "This is authorial trespassing, and we don't have to pay attention to it",[15]
...I don't know. Again, the concept of "authorial trespassing" feels like a convention, doesn't it? Like it's something all the smart literary people have agreed upon, but I feel like you could just as easily say the author has broader authority.
I was too old for Harry Potter when it first came out. I was already in college when this book hit the shelves. (Although my youngest sister was the perfect age for these books, and was the representative Potter fan in our family.)
Initially I wanted nothing to do with these books. Early adulthood was the age where I scorned children's literature, and wanted to be seen as a serious reader of serious books.
But, as you know, the phenomenon of Harry Potter kept growing and growing until it was impossible not to become curious about the whole thing. I had several adult friends who read the books and would tell me about them.
And then the movies started coming out. I saw the first movie as a VHS rental while in Japan (and also listened to my friend Ryan compare the movie with the book.)
Eventually, despite my apprehensions about wasting time with children's literature, curiosity got the better of me, and I decided to check it out.
I did the first book as an audio book. In the English section of a Japanese bookstore, I found the audio book of The Philosopher's Stone and decided that this would be the perfect way to absorb Harry Potter. I'd get to find out what all the fuss was behind these books, and I wouldn't have to waste any time physically reading the thing. (*1)
I had already seen the movie by this time, so everything was spoiled ahead of time. And, as you know, Harry Potter famously started the trend of movies that were slavishly faithful to the books. So there were very little surprises in the book. Every plot point I already knew from the movie. But some of the extra little details were nice. This was sometime around 2005, before I had started my book review project, and so I never reviewed The Philosopher's Stone on this blog.
In fact, the first 3 Harry Potter books I listened to (*2) before starting up this book review project, and so my Harry Potter book reviews start with book four.
For years on this blog, I had a policy that I would only review new reads, and not books that I re-read (or re-listened to, as the case may be). And so I never reviewed Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone, even though I kept it on regular rotation in my apartment during all the years I lived in Japan (*3). So I listened to it periodically all through 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009. Once I left Japan in 2009, Harry Potter fell out of rotation. (*4)
Why I'm Re-Reading It and Reviewing it Now
If you've been following this blog lately, you know that recently my wife has been practicing her English by reading classic children's books, and I've been taking the opportunity to re-read these classic children's books once my wife is finished with them. So far I've re-read (after my wife has finished them) Charlotte's Web, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. My reasons for this are two-fold. The first is to re-visit childhood classics that I haven't read in years, only barely remember, and am long overdue to re-read. The second reason is to just challenge myself to keep up with my wife's reading. (If she's doing all this reading as a non-native speaker, surely I should be able to keep pace, right?)
But in the case of The Philosopher's Stone, the first reason no longer applies. For me, at least, this isn't a book that is lost in the mists of early childhood memories. This is something I listened to, multiple times, during my 20s, and remember fairly well.
So the remaining rationale for re-reading this book was only the second reason--just to challenge myself to read more by keeping up with my wife's reading. (Given how many unread classic books are sitting on my shelves, I did have some mixed feelings about re-reading a book that I didn't really need to re-read. But at least it was a short and quick read.)
That, and because I never reviewed this book on my blog, so this was an opportunity to plug a hole in my book reviewing project. (Starting with the Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, which I re-read and then reviewed last year, I've changed the rules on m book reviewing project. Books that I re-read now get full reviews as well.)
The Review
Right, so what is left to say about these Harry Potter books that hasn't already been said, huh?
There's a temptation to talk about these books in superlative or polemical terms. When they first came out, these books were over-praised by their fans. And, perhaps as a result of that over-praise, there then came a backlash against these books that over-criticized them. When in fact these books are neither the best thing ever nor the worst thing ever. They are kids books, that do a perfectly fine job of entertaining their target audience, and that's how they should be viewed.
It's also hard to cut out all the extra cultural baggage when reading a book like this--the legacy of the sequels, the movie franchise, and of course, J.K. Rowling's' own recent political controversies. But I did my best. I tried to read this book as if I was a 12 year-old child when it first came out in 1997.
There are some problems that develop later in the sequels with tone, continuity, and repetitive plot devices. But I tried to forget what I knew about the sequels, and just read this book on its own.
The first 6 chapters (pages 1-120) are absolutely brilliant.
Harry Potter is living with the abusive Dursley family. (Oh, spoilers by the way. But you know the story as well as I do, so let's start talking about plot points.) The Dursley's are ridiculous caricatures right out of a Roald Dahl novel, and indeed, this whole beginning section has a very much Roald Dahl type feel. (Think the aunts in James in the Giant Peach, or Trunchbull in Matilda, or the orphanage in The BFG). It's pure silliness. The reader neither expects nor is given realistic characters. It is just buffoonish bullies whose cruelty and stupidity is exaggerated solely so that the reader can derive satisfaction when they eventually get their comeuppance.
But it is (dare I say it?) Dahl done better than Dahl. J.K. Rowling is able to make these scenes really really funny--the frustration of the Dursley's, who get so annoyed by anything magical, and the way that they always try so hard to avoid magic disrupting their lives, and then the way that magic inevitably always does disrupt their lives, and then the way they get so angry that they can't speak properly--it had me laughing as I read it. (Even though it was a re-read for me.) If you ask me, J.K. Rowling doesn't get enough credit for these sections.
In later books, the increasing seriousness of the series is going to create a tonal inconsistency with the cartoonishness of these early sections. But like I said, I'm not reviewing the whole series here. I'm going to try to stick to just this one book. And in this first book, the tonal shift is still there, but it's not as dramatic as it will get in later books.
Once Hagrid arrives to pick up Harry, we lose the buffoonish Dursley's, but fortunately we don't lose the silly whimsical tone as Hagrid takes Harry to places like Diagon Alley and Gringrotts bank. There's an interesting combination of epic fantasy worldbuilding with silliness. We are being introduced to the world of wizards and witches, and learning the rules of the world and its institutions, but everything is also being played for comic effect. Logic, in this world, is clearly taking a backseat to spectacle and jokes.
(It's strange how many things in the wizarding world seem to be deliberately designed to make the wizards as miserable as possible--Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, for example. But then, that's the whole joke, isn't it?)
Where the book started to lose me was at chapter 7, where the silliness started to take a back seat to the plot. And then from here on out it was all about which house at Hogwarts was winning the trophy, Quidditch tournaments, feuding with Malfoy, and of course the MacGuffin of the philosopher's stone. I found it a bit tiresome, but then, I found it tiresome partially because I already knew where it was going. (And also because I knew that all these plot points would be repeated ad nauseum in subsequent books.)
I will admit to being hooked on the mystery when I first saw the movie in 2001 (*5). And I will also admit to being surprised when the movie revealed Snape wasn't the bad guy all along. (A good old-fashioned twist ending--well, it certainly got me on my first viewing.) And had I read the book first instead of seeing the movie first, I imagine that I would have been more interested in those climatic chapters.
The big appeal of these books was trying to marry this very funny and silly story about strange wizards and cartoonish Dursleys with an epic high fantasy story about a battle between good and evil. You can see where this combination would draw kids in--you get all the fun of a comedic story, but you also get all the excitement of the good wizards versus the evil wizards. It does create a bit of tonal inconsistency, but sometimes a changing tone can make the book more interesting--it keeps the reader guessing as to what to expect next.
(The tone will be more of a problem in the sequels, but like I said, we're not reviewing the sequels here.)
One last note on the characters:
Now that the movies are so iconic, it is impossible to imagine these characters without thinking of the actors who portray them in the movies. Admit it--when you picture in your head Snape or Hagrid or Malfoy, you're picturing the actor from the movie.
It's interesting to go back and read the book and realize how much the movie characters match the book. Now admittedly I'm biased, because I saw the movie first, so I was already pre-disposed to imagine Hagrid as Robbie Coltrane and Snape as Alan Rickman, etc. But still, I think most people would agree that the portrayal of the characters in the book and in the movies sync up very well. The movie producers deserve a lot of credit for the excellent casting but that they did, but J.K. Rowling deserves credit for creating such colorful characters in the first place. The characters are just as vibrant in J.K. Rowling's book as they are in the movie.
Some fantasy books have a cast of characters that are difficult to distinguish from each other, but J.K. Rowling definitely does not have this problem. J.K. Rowling knows how to write distinctive, memorable characters.
The flip-side, though, is in exchange for being memorable, her characters sometimes become caricatures. Over the course of the 7 books, many of these characters never grow or develop at all. Malfoy's development over the series is a perfect example of a static character. But here I am criticizing the whole series again! I told myself I would only limit myself to this one book. And for this one book, they work great.
(*1) If memory serves, I got it from a bookstore in Nagoya city when I was living in Gifu. And I think I paid a pretty penny for it back then. It was back in the days when people actually bought audiobooks on physical media, and it was a set of around 10 CDs.
Although the actual production cost of a single CD is only pennies, there was a popular illusion back in those days that a single CD had to cost at least $15 each, because that's how much you paid for a CD when you bought a new music album. So audiobooks were often priced accordingly--the price was often about $15 per CD, as if you were buying multiple music albums instead of just one audiobook.
(I haven't actually paid money for an audiobook in years now. Does anyone know how much they currently cost? Has the cost of physical media gone down any?)
Part of the reason I parted with the money to buy the audiobook was because in my view it was more than just entertainment. After several years of living in the Japanese countryside, and speaking either Japanese or a very simplified form of English, I noticed that my productive vocabulary was becoming very simple. When I got together with other foreigners, and tried to speak English, I often had the feeling of not being able to find the words I wanted. It was a phenomenon that the other foreigners observed as well. We were able to communicate our meaning well enough, but we often had the feeling that there were more sophisticated words then the ones we were using, but the words didn't come to us readily.
Having had some - literary - ambitions, I was worried about losing my language ability in English, so I started playing audiobooks in my apartment or in my car to keep up my literary vocabulary.
I've since then become disenchanted with audiobooks, because I've come to realize that there are some books I didn't fully absorb when listening to by audio. Particularly books with complicated plots or subtle prose. But Harry Potter was not one of those books. In this particular case, I feel like I absorbed Harry Potter just as well by audiobook as if I had physically read the whole thing.
(*2) I actually only paid full retail price for the first Harry Potter book. For books 2 through 6, a friend of mine who was big into pirating everything off of torrent sites on the Internet downloaded the audiobooks, and burned them all onto a CD-ROM for me. (This was back in 2005, so book 7 still hadn't come out yet.) Back in those days, I didn't even have a computer at home, and I couldn't play the CD-ROM on my normal CD player. So on weekends when I spent a couple hours at Internet Cafes, I would just bring the CD-ROM with me, put on the headphones, and play it on the computers at the Internet Cafe. At the end of every Internet Cafe session, I would write down what chapter I was on on the CD-ROM jacket, and then pick up from there the next time I came in. And in this way I worked my way through Harry Potter books 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. Book 7 I actually bought in hardcover and read when it came out.
(*3) During my time in Japan, I viewed listening to English audiobooks as a way to keep up my literary skills as much as entertainment. See footnote (*1). So the audiobooks that I had in my apartment were played again and again and again in the hopes that I would absorb all their literary language.
(*4) During the period when I was toying with the idea of going back to school for a history degree, my audiobook listening time switched to a lot of history related books and radio shows. That, plus as time went on, audio material became so freely available online and to download that there really seemed little point carrying around physical copies of audio books. If memory serves, I left my physical CDs in my old room at my parents' house one year in between moves to different countries. And on a recent trip back to the U.S., at my mother's urging, I gave away or threw away everything in my old room that I wasn't going to use again. I think that's when I parted company with my audiobook copy of The Philosopher's Stone.
(*5) According to Wikipedia, the movie came out in 2001. Although since I first saw it as a VHS rental, it may have been 2002 when I first saw it. Who can remember?
As for this
movie, I suppose the first thing that needs discussing is:
The Controversial Decision to Split it into
Two Parts
Much ink
has already been spilled over the decision to split the last Harry Potter movie
into two halves.More probably does not
need to be said on the subject, but since this is my blog, I’m going to go
ahead add my two cents anyway.
From a
story telling perspective, it would have made much more sense to split the
fifth or sixth book into two parts instead.These were the stories that really suffered in their abridgement to the
big screen.
The seventh
book wasn’t actually as long as the 5th or 6th book.And, although the beginning of the book
started out with a bang, and although it ended with a bang, the middle really
lagged. Harry, Ron and Hermione just go
camping and spend several pages arguing with each other.
In
Deathly Hallows, for instance, there’s an awful lot of wandering around
and camping in that tent; it starts to feel like Ms. Rowling running
out the clock on the school year to fit the format of the previous six
books.
In
Deathly Hallows, for instance, there’s an awful lot of wandering around
and camping in that tent; it starts to feel like Ms. Rowling running
out the clock on the school year to fit the format of the previous six
books.
So,
ironically the 7th book is the one that least deserves the double
movie treatment.
All that
being said, I understand that from a marketing perspective you can’t really
split the 5th installment into two parts, but you can get away with
milking the climax.
But let’s
change the question.Putting aside the
fact that arguably “The Order of the Phoenix”
or “The Half-Blood Prince,” should have been two parters instead, and judging
this movie solely on its own merits, do I think it benefits from being in two
parts?
Yeah a
bit.All the previous 6 movies have felt
so rushed, so it’s nice that at least one book in the series gets a more
relaxed pace in its transition onto the big screen.
I know a
lot of people were upset at what they saw as a blatant attempt to keep milking
the Harry Potter cash cow, but from the perspective of a viewer I don’t mind.
The Review
I thought
the movie worked alright as an adaptation of the book.
The problem
with all of these Harry Potter movies is that they never really come into their
own as movies in their own right, and feel just like abridged versions of the
book.And that’s true of this one as
well.But by this point in the series, I’ve
come to accept that.
And so I
wasn’t surprised when characters were introduced briefly on the screen, had a
couple lines of dialogue, and the promptly disappeared again.We all know who they are from the books, and
so it’s okay if the movie doesn’t have time to develop half of the characters
it introduces. I also wasn’t surprised
when the movie never really reached a satisfying climax before ending.
The Harry
Potter Universe has a lot of colorful supporting characters, but in this book
they are unfortunately neglected as the trio of Harry Potter, Ron and Hermione
go off on their own.And that’s
reflected in this movie as well.There’s
one brief scene when the baddies board the train heading to Hogwarts, but for
this movie that’s all we see of most of Harry’s classmates.
Hopefully
they’ll get some screen time in the next movie.
The action
scenes in this movie are decent, but nothing special.
Although many
different directors have taken their turn at Harry Potter, in all the movies,
action scenes have never been the director’s strong point.Nobody has yet figured out anything more
exciting to do in these scenes than have the characters point wands and yell
spells.
I’ll be
interested to see what they do with the big climatic battle at the end of the
book (which will no doubt be in the second movie) but my expectations are going
to be low going into it.
The very
beginning action scene was also disappointing. It was set at night, which (at least on my tv)
made it dark and confusing to follow.(If I’m not mistaken, the same scene happened in daylight in the
book.Am I remembering that right?)
Plus most
of the action occurred off screen and was only referenced later by the
characters.Unless I missed something,
Mad-Eye Moody got killed off-screen (which was a bit of
an ignoble send off to one of the more colorful characters) and George also lost his ear off-screen.
Also during
certain scenes I wasn’t exactly sure why sometimes the characters used their
magic powers to teleport themselves, and sometimes they ran.During that chase scene in the woods, I
thought it would have made much more sense for the characters to teleport
instead as they had in previous scenes.(Again, with the caveat of unless I
missed something.Was there some
reason why they couldn’t teleport in that scene?)
Oh well,
onto the last movie in the series next.Stay tuned, I’ll get around to it eventually.
Other Thoughts
Given how everything
in Hollywood
gets re-made eventually, it’s not inconceivable that in 50 years time someone
will try and remake the Harry Potter
series.
When that
happens, I recommend Harry Potter get
the Game of Thrones, and turned into
a TV show instead.Each book could be
converted into one season.This way
things won’t have to be so rushed or have so much cut out.
Although now that I've gone to the trouble of linking to all my past reviews, I have to admit upon re-reading them that none of them are really all that great. Well, they were first impressions, straight off the cuff, and you can take them for what they are worth. As with this review.
At the risk of repeating myself too much from my previous reviews, the whole "Harry Potter" franchise is a bit of an interesting cultural phenomenon.
The movies make enormously huge money for the Hollywood studios, (this one broke records (W)). Which is quite a feat when you consider that none of the movies are really all that good--at least standing alone.
Don't misunderstand me, they're very faithful adaptations of the books, and act as a nice tribute to them. But if you compare them to block-buster movies of the past, "Star Wars" or "Indiana Jones" or what have you, then it's obvious by comparison that in the Harry Potter movies the pacing is all wrong, the plot isn't streamlined enough, and the climaxes are in all the wrong places.
The experience of watching these movies is a lot different than, say, "Star Wars", which was deliberately designed as a tour-de-force of cinematic story telling.
In other words, these are movies that are based on books, and they feel like movies that are based on books. But even though they're not great movies, the books have become such a cultural phenomenon that even non Harry Potter fans feel obliged to see the movie just to find out what all the fuss is about.
As I did with the first 4 movies, until I finally got curious enough to check out the books.
So the buzz from the books brings people to the movies, the movies convert new people to the books, the buzz behind the books gets greater, and the cycle continues.
[Speaking of the books, I've been re-listening to a couple of Harry Potter audio books this past week. It strikes me that the brilliance of this series is that takes many elements usually reserved for adult literature and makes them accessible for younger readers, such as careful plotting, character development, and an eye for detail. And perhaps most importantly, conversations that flow naturally, and the major plot points of the story are always revealed in dialogue rather told through the narrators voice. This is a big difference than a lot of the children's books I remember from my youth, where the narrator's omnipresent voice always directed everything.
Of course the movie doesn't have the luxury of spending time on all these things.]
All that being said, I liked this movie. It did a good job of condensing the story, and bringing it to the screen.
At 2 and a half hours, it felt a little long to sit through, and yet when it ended I couldn't help but feel sorry for all the things they cut out. (Well, such is always the case with movies based on books.)
For example:
These Harry Potter movies have assembled a very impressive cast of actors, it's a shame that as the story progresses each of them get so little screen time. The child actors who portray the Hogwarts students (now almost all grown into adults, but still passable as teenagers) do such a good job, but many of them have just been reduced to brief cameos as the story progresses.
The adult actors are even more brilliant, and even more criminally underused. Alan Rickman is perfect as Snape (and in fact, I believe he manages to bring more life to the character than is in the book) but it seems that in the past few movies we only get to see brief glimpses of him, even as he becomes more and more important to the plot.
Robbie Coltran, Ralph Fiennes, Helen Bonham Carter, and so on, all do such a great job it's a pity we get to see so little of them.
As for the plot and pacing:
The beginning of this movie did a good job of setting the tone, reintroducing us to all the characters, and establishing the story. Even though they had a lot of material to cover, they did this in a way that didn't feel rushed.
Unfortunately, it's the end of the movie that suffers as a result of this, where key plot points that should have had a more dramatic reveal are just rushed through. (I know movies are written in advance and then typically shot out of order, but one almost gets the impression watching this thing of the production staff saying "Oh no, we only have 30 minutes left to conclude this thing. Quick, rush through everything else!")
There were also a few missed notes.
The destruction of the bridge at the beginning of the movie was an event whose significance was explained in the book, but not in the movie. In the movie we just see the bridge being destroyed, and then it's on to the next scene. I know this provided a bit of excitement for the opening, but it's probably something they should have cut out since it had no relation to the rest of the movie.
Other events are underplayed.
The identity of the "Half Blood Prince" was a reveal that was a dramatic point in the book, but ended up being just mentioned in an off hand way at the end of the movie.
The action sequences in these Harry Potter movies always seem to suffer a bit, and in the last couple movies at least have just consisted of people firing wands back and forth at each other. I know it's a movie about wizards, but with a little bit of creativity in the choreographing I think they could have made these a lot more exciting.
The battle between Harry and Malfoy in the bathroom, for example, was rather lackluster. Along the same lines, the ending of this scene, in which Harry, experimenting with a new spell, horribly injured Malfoy, was a dramatic point in the book, but seemed underplayed in the movie.
The climax of this movie is a rather bizarre scene in which Dumbledore has to drink an entire potion. It is straight out of the book, but the first time I read the book I remember thinking, "That's a bit of an odd scene. It may work in a book, but it's going to seem strange in a movie. They should probably try and down play this when they film it."
On the other hand, the book describes a huge battle at the end which the movie completely cuts out.
I know these movies have a lot of ground to cover, but you would think a movie that is aiming for a summer block-buster crowd would want to include more of these spectacular action sequences, not cut them out.
I suppose it's to the credit of the story telling power that these Harry Potter movies have turned into such a huge franchise without even needing a big action finish at the end. But personally, I felt the ending was a bit boring, and I would have gladly put up with another 10 minutes or so to get a better climax.
After Spiderman 3 and Shrek 3, I'm now continuing my way through the summer blockbusters as they come out on video on account of having been stuck out in the Japanese countryside when they were in the theater. (This film however is one I wish I would have seen on the big screen. There's just too much going on in several of these scenes that's hard to catch on my little television screen.)
So now I can finally assume the position of moral superiority and complain about how the movie isn't near as good as the book.
Actually generally speaking, I think these movies do a great job adapting the huge books into something watchable. It's not a job I would want to have. Especially with "Order of the Phoenix" which was one of the thicker tomes of the Harry Potter series. Not only do you have to cut everything down to the bare bones, but you have to take care not to offend all the rabid fans out there, and you have an increasing amount of characters that you have to juggle and make sure all of them get a little bit of screen time. And finally you have to make the movie something that will stand up on its own.
The trick with any movie adaptation is that you have to make a movie based on a book that feels like an independent work and doesn't feel like its a movie based on a book. And as much as I recognize the tremendous task faced by the film makers, I don't think any of the Harry Potter films have ever quite pulled this off. All of the Harry Potter films feel like you're just skimming the surface of a much larger story (which in fact you are).
In fact often I wonder if these films were not such great cultural phenomenons, with the legions of built in fans from the book (and the rest of us who are just curious to see what all the fuss is about) if this whole series wouldn't have been a commercial flop.
However viewed as tributes to the books, I think these movies work out quite nicely.
My big criticism however, (and again this extends to the entire series) is that the one place where these movies should shine the most is where they drop the ball. By which I mean the action sequences.
The movie of course can't be expected to compete with the book in terms of exposition or character development. But people go to these big budget Hollywood movies expecting a little razzle dazzle in the action sequences. Instead they're often confusing, poorly choreographed, and just not all that exciting when it comes down to it.
For example, although it was a short scene, I think it was a particularly bad choice to include Voldermort's possession of Harry Potter, and Harry's inner struggle to defeat him. That's the kind of thing that works in a book, but not on a big screen. (Although come to think of it, I don't even remember that part in the book. Did they just add that for the movie, or does anyone else remember it?) On the big screen we want to see the outer battle between wizards and witches. The scene in the book battling the giant brains, for example, would have made an excellent movie sequence if they had decided to film it.
Still, all in all these movies have done a tremendous job of staying faithful to the main parts of the books, bringing in a larger audience, and, perhaps most impressive of all, keeping together a huge cast for 5 movies running.
Yeah I know, me and the rest of Western Civilization, right?
Actually given how popular Harry Potter is in Japan, I should probably amend that to the whole world. But the Japanese translation isn't due to come out for another year. So I have one year's time to gloat over my students that I already know the ending.
Unless you've been living under a rock you probably already know from the media blitz that the final fate of Harry and Voldermort is revealed, several characters die, and we finally learn the true loyalties of Severius Snape. Aside from that, I'll try not to spoil anything. (I've got a bad history of giving away the endings to Harry Potter).
This book starts off with a real bang, and it finishes with a bang, but in the middle it lags a bit as the mystery stews and the usual quarrels between Ron, Hermoine and Harry pop up again for yet the 7th time. Also unlike all of the previous books, most of the action takes place away from Hogwarts and is not tied to the school year calendar. So we lose all the usual house rivalries, quidditch matches, Malfoy's mischief, and bumbling teachers which in the past books were used to flesh out the story.
Typical of most Harry Potter books, instead of answering questions from the previous book, this book starts out with raising new and previously unthought of questions first. But all the questions, both new and old, are answered before the end.
As is typical with most books about fantasy and magic, I suspect that if you went over this series with a fine tooth comb not everything would be consistent. There were several times when I found myself wondering, "but if they had the power to do that in this case, why didn't they use that before?" But you can't worry about these things too much.
There is an unusually high body count. Several minor characters, and even a couple major characters, bite the big one. Some of these deaths seem a bit superfluous, but I guess J.K. Rowling was determined to go out on a bang.
Update: A couple more added thoughts since I originally posted
1). Like many books in the Fantasy Genre, this has a plot that is a bit too similar to a video game for my tastes. (The characters are on a quest to find and destroy a number of magical objects hidden in various places). These quest type stories, as opposed to character or plot driven stories, can be a major flaw in the genre, and I think part of the reason why the middle of the book drags a bit much.
2). I thought some of the language in the book was a bit funny, particularly the use of the exclamation "effing" which I assume (and wikitionary backs me up) is a sanitized version of the f-bomb. Maybe this is more common in Britain than in America, but we always used to use this word as a joke among my old gang. ("Ah, F!") It's such a funny word. If you're going to go for the F-word, just say it. And if not, just use another exclamation. So I found myself smiling every time that word popped up.
As regular readers of this blog might recall, I ruined the ending of this book for myself a long time ago. Truth be told, even before I linked to the ifilm clip I had asked a friend to tell me the ending. “I’m never going to read the book anyway,” I told him. “Just tell me what happens at the end.” He obliged, and then a few months later I got addicted to the Harry Potter Audio books.
The shocking ending aside, there are a number of other thread plots that kept my interest while listening to this book. More teenage romance, quidditch matches, mysterious potion books, et cetera.
*I get more and more addicted as these books progress. The author does a good job of juggling several subplots at once, and the characters are some of the most vibrant literary creations I’ve come across in a long time. They seem like real people to me instead of just fictional characters, and I don’t think that’s easy to pull off.
* That being said, I think a few of the plot lines are getting recycled from book to book. I suppose this is inevitable in a 7 book series, especially one that revolves around school life. After all, what is school but the same things happening year after year?
Someone once said of “The Lord of the Rings” Trilogy that the whole world is divided into two camps, those who have read the trilogy, and those who intend to. These days I think you could truthfully say the same thing about Harry Potter. Half of you have already read this book, and probably don’t need me to review it for you. The other half doesn’t want me to spoil the ending. (I understand I caused a little trouble in Brett and Sarah’s family with the link I included in this post. Heh heh heh…I mean, sorry about that.)
I’ll try and talk in general terms:
Of the series I have read so far, I enjoyed this book the most. I’m somewhat reluctant to trust my own objectivity, because this was the first book I read without having seen the movie first. So I guess it’s only natural I’d enjoy it the most. And yet I suspect this would be true regardless. There’s a lot more action in this book, and the stakes the characters are fighting for are also increased. The genius of these books is that despite a common setting, none of the books feel repetitive. Each book takes us to new ground.
I enjoyed the flashback segment that allowed us to see Harry’s parents and the childhood versions of Snape, Lupin, and Sirius. It added a lot more depth to Snape’s character.
Also Rowling also does a good job of blending teenage romance with the sword and sorcerer story line.
And this book also has a really great villain, which really adds to the overall enjoyment.
It’ll be interesting to see how this is adopted to a movie. I’m glad I don’t have the job of adopting a book this long into a screenplay.
I don’t know if it is fair to bring this up years later, but when we were children my sister and I used to debate whether books are better than movies. My sister argued that books are always better than the movie, no matter what, even if it is the crappy “novelization based on the screenplay”. I argued that people have a fondness for whatever medium they first encountered the story in. If you see the book first you like the book, if you see the movie first you often like the movie better.
I’m going to get myself in trouble with a lot of Harry Potter fans (or at least I would, if they read this blog), but I think in a lot of ways the movies are better than the books.
Both the characters of Snape and Malfoy come off better and more 3 dimensional in the movies. In the books, they’re just jerks. Flat stock characters, as if J.K. Rowlings had said to herself, “Now I need to insert an antagonist to Harry here. Someone who just wants to just make his life miserable for no apparent reason, and can always be counted on to act like a jerk no matter what the circumstances.”
Alan Rickman is one of the greatest under-rated actors, and he does an excellent job with the character that makes the movie Snape a lot more appealing than the book Snape. Even Malfoy seems more real in the movies, if for no other reason than having a real face on the character makes him seem human.
Obviously the movie can’t compare to the book in terms of length. But given the time limitations of the movie, I think they did an excellent job of fitting all the important stuff in. And I actually liked a lot of the cuts. I know the whole “House-Elf” sub-plot got cut from the movie, but those House-Elves were pretty annoying characters anyway. They were annoying in the books and they were annoying in second movie, and I thought it was a good move to give those parts to Neville Longbottom because he otherwise wouldn’t get a lot of face time in this story.
Of course in the end, the movie doesn’t have as much time to get into detail as the book. And in this way I guess maybe the book is always superior. After all in the movie you get only the smallest of glimpses of the Quiddich world cup, or the wizard’s consul, or many of the minor characters like Karkaroff. I didn’t even realize who Karkaroff was the first time I watched the movie, nor caught on to all his significance to the plot. It just goes to fast. As with the sub-plot about Barney Crouch and his son. It’s mentioned so briefly in the movie, the significance of it doesn’t sink in. In the book you get to know the whole history of the family, and understand what’s happening a lot better. So I’ll concede those points. In those respects, the book is vastly superior.
But I still have a fondness in my hearts for the movies.
Because I’ve been in Japan for the past five years, I’m a bit out of touch with American junior high school students. But I can vouch that in Japan Harry Potter is huge. In every junior high school classroom there are several copies of Harry Potter scattered around (in Japanese translation of course), and often two or three students will try and read it during my lesson. I’ve also been asked by female students to proof read their English fan letters to young Daniel Radcliff.
So it was not surprising that opening night for the movie would be packed. I usually try and avoid these crowds, but my friend wanted to see the movie and so we went opening night.
I went to buy tickets while my friend got popcorn. The lady at the counter was friendly as always. “Okay,” she said, “I assume you want tickets for the subtitled version instead of the dubbed. Is it okay to sit in the front?”
“Are there any seats in the back?”
“No, it’s very crowded.”
“Well, how far in the front?” I asked.
“The seats aren’t decided,” she said. “It’s an open ticket.”
“Oh. Okay that’s all right then,” I answered.
I then found my friend and advised him that we better find a seat quickly. “I didn’t really understand what she was saying to me,” I answered. “Something about seats near the front, but then she said we could sit anywhere.”
Then we saw what she meant. The theater, even 15 minutes before the movie even started, was packed. The only seats open were in the front row directly beneath the movie screen, and even then there weren’t two of them together. “Let’s just change our tickets to a later showing,” I suggested.
So we went back to the front desk. “Hopefully this won’t be a lot of trouble,” I said.
“I don’t know,” my friend replied. “This is Japan. They’re not famous for being flexible.”
Sure enough, despite the fact that the movie hadn’t even started yet, the lady refused to change our tickets. “You can’t change your tickets after you buy them,” she said. “It’s the theater’s policy.”
In Japan, when you get an answer that you don’t want, a good policy is just to pretend you don’t understand. Sometimes they get so tired of trying to explain it to you that they just give in. So we just gave our best “stupid foreigner smile” and acted like we just couldn’t understand the concept of a non-changeable ticket, and thought the problem was all in our phrasing.
“No, you don’t understand. We’d like to change the ticket to 9:30.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Change the ticket.”
“The theater doesn’t let you do that.”
“We…want…9:30…ticket…please.”
The lady became more and more exasperated. “I asked you if it was okay to sit in the front, and you said yes,” she replied.
“Yes, but I didn’t understand what you meant. When I asked how far in the front you told me it was an open ticket.”
She checked with the manager, and he said something, and with a few punches of the keyboard she gave us two new tickets. It was as easy as that once they decided to do it.
“Well we got what we wanted,” my friend said. “But I feel bad about how much we upset that ticket lady. I wonder if there was a better way we could have handled that.”
We batted ideas back and forth about different things we could have done, but in the end I think that sometimes you just have to be a jerk to get what you want. The only reason we had gotten the tickets changed was because we just refused to accept no.
I felt a bit like the ugly American. I barely do any work at my job in Japan, I get paid through taxpayer money, and then I complain about my movie tickets. Sometimes it feels like all I do in this country is take. But on the other hand, there was no way I was going to sit through a 3 hour movie with my neck craned backwards to see the screen.
After the movie, my friend, who was English, commented on all the spoken “Britishisms" in the film, and how unusual that was for an American movie. I thought this was unusual as well, especially since the books themselves had been translated into “American” for their stateside distribution.
I know I’m not the first person to raise these issues (and several years after the first book has been released, I’m jumping on the train a little late), but I think it is absolutely appalling that these books were altered for the American audience. I’m always complaining about the ignorance of Japanese people in this blog, but we Americans have got to be the stupidest people in the world. We have to have everything tailored exactly to our American tastes or we can’t absorb it.
As I've mentioned before on this weblog, I’m a big fan of audiobooks, because it allows me to get through a lot of books I wouldn't otherwise take the time to read.
For instance, I don’t think I would ever sit down and read the “Harry Potter” series, but I've really been enjoying listening to it. Harry Potter is the perfect kind of book to listen to. I would almost feel guilty for taking the time to read a children’s book like this, but if I’m listening to it while I’m doing other things it really is a delight.
The only problem with audiobooks is they are expensive. In good old Grand Rapids, I was a big fan of the library. In Japan, the options are a bit limited. A friend did me a huge favor and illegally downloaded all the Harry Potter books off the internet for me. (Shhh! Don’t tell anyone). The only big problem is that they are Window files, so I can’t listen to them on my CD player. Instead I have just been taking them with me into the internetcafé to accompany my internet surfing, but unfortunately that does cut into my “NPR time”.
It is of course the prerogative of every politician to write self-serving autobiographies. So I don’t begrudge Reagan the fact that he continually harps on his belief in the importance of cutting government programs, without presenting the other side that a lot of those programs provide helpful services to those in need. After all it’s Reagan’s autobiography, and it’s his chance to toast his own platform.
What gets me more is the blatant lying. Like when he talks about Nicaragua. Much as he did during his presidency, he portrays the Contras as freedom fighters, and the Sandinistas as ruthless dictators. And he claims anyone who disagreed with him during the 80s was proven wrong by the election of 1990.
Right, so the fact that the Sandinistas voluntarily left power after losing a democratic election proves that they were ruthless dictators? Those ruthless bastards! How dare they lose an election! That proves Reagan was right about them the whole time. I would hate to imagine what Reagan would have said about them if they won the election. “See, they still have their strangle hold on power. It just proves they're dictators.”
And of course the autobiography has a lot of noticeable omissions. Like the complete absence of any mention of Iran-Contra, or Reagan’s opposition to the Civil Rights Act.
The same friend who loaned me Reagan’s autobiography recently bought “How to think like a billionaire” by Donald Trump, and “How to find joy and meaning in your work” by the Dali Lama. He asked me which one I would be interested in borrowing first.
“What does the Dali Lama know about a hard day's work?” I asked. “I’ll borrow the Donald Trump one.” I don’t want to be a billionaire necessarily (well, I do I guess, but I don’t want to work for it), but I've been reading a lot of books on finance recently, (I’m trying to do better on managing my money, something that has never been a strong point of mine), and I figured the Donald Trump book would fit right in.
Boy, is that Donald Trump guy an asshole! I didn't learn a single useful thing from his book. The whole thing is just him talking about how great he is. And I mean the whole book is like that.
In fact, almost every paragraph contains in it something that evokes the memory of Monty Burns writing his autobiography. “In closing, dear reader, I would like to thank you. ‘What’s that?’ you say. A misprint? Me thank you? Yes, for you see, I have enjoyed writing this book almost as much as you have enjoyed reading it.” I’m quoting from memory, but it’s something like that, isn't it?
That, added to the fact that the guy who they got to read the book for the CD sounds amazingly like Troy McClure, makes the book an excellent parody of itself. Once I clued into that, I really enjoyed it a lot more.
(Donald Trump talks about “The Apprentice” a lot, which I've never seen, because I've been in Japan the past four years. Maybe I would have gotten more out of the book if I had seen “The Apprentice”.)
Link of the Day
Let’s get really geeky here for a minute by talking about “Star Trek” in depth. Star Trek actually has a strong fan following in Japan. Justin and Chris, if either of you are reading this, might remember the long conversation we had with Issei about Star Trek, at the close of which he remarked how glad he was that he had finally gotten the chance to talk about Star Trek with a foreigner.
And of course, there is the Japanese tie-in with Ensign Sulu from the original series.
The problem, and in all my years of being a Trekkie I never realized this until I came to Japan, is that there is no “L” in the Japanese alphabet. So “Sulu” cannot possibly be a Japanese name.
It turns out, according to this website, that the character Sulu is actually a Japanese-Filipino person who was raised in the San Francisco, hence the name. I guess, given my years of watching “Star Trek”, it’s kind of embarrassing that I didn't know that. Then again, maybe it would have been more embarrassing if I knew it.
Of course, given Japan’s historic antagonism with virtually every other Asian country, you can imagine that the idea of a Filipino-Japanese pan-Asian sort of character would not be too popular in Japan during the 60s. So they renamed the character “Kato” for the Japanese version. (Again, referencing the same website as above). This explains why Issei could talk to me about Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock, but would just give me blank looks whenever I mentioned Sulu.
So there. Use that little tidbit at your next cocktail party.
Typhoons, Earthquakes, and Going to Church
The weekend was a bit on the quiet side, as I'm still newly arrived in this town and don't have a lot of friends yet. Saturday night I went to the movie theater by myself. Somewhat pathetic perhaps, but whilst I lived in Ajimu the nearest movie theater was an hour away. Here the movie theater is practically within walking distance, and the movies here are cheaper than they are in Oita Prefecture. So with a movie theater so close, and so cheap, and with nothing else to do, it seemed like a forgone conclusion. I ended up seeing "Harry Potter 3" which I viewed as somewhat research for my job, since so many of my students are avid Harry Potter fans.
On Sunday I found a Church to join. I had started going to a Japanese Church in Oita Prefecture after being invited by a Japanese friend (who just assumed I was Christian because I was an American). I found it to be a positive experience, and was interested in finding a Church in the new area as well.
After getting in the car and driving around, I was able to find a church in the neighboring town of Ogaki. The people there were extremely welcoming and friendly. I had barely even walked in the door and they were encouraging me to join the choir. The invitation was extended again after the service. I thought that it might be a good experience, if for no other reason than to say I had been a member of a Japanese Church choir. We had a brief choir practice after church, and then we had lunch together. After lunch, the church went down to a retirement community (or old people's home) to perform a skit based on "The Prodigal Son" and sing a song for the old people. I was invited to come along. Since I had never been to a retirement community in Japan, I thought it would be interesting to come.
Obviously I had not practiced the skit or the song before, but I was a big hit with the old people there. They all wanted to shake my hand. Actually, it was somewhat similar to my job at the elementary schools.
Funny story actually. And this may well fall under the category of "You just had to be there" but I'm going to give it a go anyway. For the song we sang "Father Abraham." I was familiar with the song from my Sunday School days, and it turns out they have it in Japanese as well. I don't know how many of you know the song. It's pretty simple, but after every verse a new motion is added. First you have to swing your right arm, then your left arm, and then your legs are added, next your head, then you swing your hips, and finally you have to do all the motions while turning around in a circle.
It's a great song for kids. Probably not such a good song for old people. These were really old people at this retirement community. Many of them could barely stand. Most of them were permanently hunched over as a result of working in the rice fields all their lives. So picture this: we're standing in front, and the song leader says to the old people, "Now for this song, everyone stand up. Okay, everyone who can stand, please stand up. Actually, you can sit down if you like." And we go through the song, and try and get the old people to participate, and the whole time I'm just thinking to myself, "Whose idea was this?"
EarthQuakes and Typhoon
I experienced my first earthquake on Sunday. Somehow I managed to make it through three years in Japan with out ever being in an earthquake until know.
That I know of anyway. Apparently some of these earthquakes can be pretty subtle. For instance on Sunday we actually had two earthquakes, one at 7 and one at midnight. I didn't even find out about the one at 7 until the next day.
I was driving my car at around 7 o'clock. I don't know where I was when the earthquake struck, although I do remember at one point being stuck at a traffic light and thinking to myself, "This car sure shakes a lot when it is in park. Maybe I should have it looked at." In retrospect, I'm thinking that may have been the earthquake. And now I'm wondering how many other earthquakes I might have been oblivious to over my time here.
But the earthquake at midnight was unmistakably. I was sleeping at the time, and woke up when my apartment started shaking. I was somewhat stupid from sleep at first, and it took me a while to realize what was going on. But it lasted close to a minute, and finally I realized, "Hey, this is an earthquake. I can't wait to tell everyone back home I experienced my first earthquake." And then I went back to sleep.
There was a lot of talk about earthquakes the next day at school. Apparently geologists are predicting that the area of Japan I'm now in is due for a major earthquake in the near future. The principle told me if there was ever a major earthquake, I should get out of my apartment. He joked, "Keep your shoes ready in case you have to get out quickly." I tried to one up him. "Maybe I should sleep with my shoes on." He became serious. "This is Japan. We don't wear our shoes inside the house."
I was giving my self-introduction to a class today at the Junior High School. The Lights started shaking and the Japanese teacher yelled out, "It's another Earthquake." Turned out of course that the lights were just shaking because of the strong winds, which the students (who were somewhat more aware) corrected him on quickly, but you can imagine it was not a great learning environment in school this morning. Probably just as well the students went home at noon.
