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| Saturday, August 29, 2009 05:23 PM |
| (Last updated on Tuesday, September 1, 2009 03:17 PM) | | Re-Potterizing: Progress Report |
 by Fëanor |
I've just reached the chapter of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire where Harry, Hermione, and the Weasleys all go to the Quidditch World Cup. And right now I'm really glad I decided to reread these books. There are so many wonderful details that didn't make it into the movies. The scenes at the Weasley's Burrow in particular are so lively and funny, and so full of characters and creatures. I love the de-gnoming of the garden, and the ghoul in the attic. And Rowling is so excellent at devising big, complex plots where all the tiny pieces fit together like a clock, or a jigsaw puzzle. She's quite excellent, too, at the art of misdirection - at leading you off carefully in another direction and then revealing at the last moment that something completely different is actually going on. I remember the first time I read these that I never saw the solutions to her mysteries coming. In fact, the first time I read Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, I was so thrown off by the shocking revelations at the end that I remained confused and disturbed even after I'd finished. I had really liked Scabbers as a character and it took me a while to get used to the idea that he had actually been a hateful and terrible villain in disguise all along. It was only reading the book through the second time that I really enjoyed it. In fact, Azkaban is my favorite of the books so far, at least on this read-through. It's a great story, full of brilliant ideas, exciting action, and moving drama. I was particularly impressed by the way Rowling built up the tension in the run-up to the Quidditch final, and how exciting it was when Harry won the cup. The Marauder's Map is such a wonderful invention, and the glimpses we get at the friendship between Lupin, Peter, James, and Sirius are really fun.
I happened to catch part of Cinderella this afternoon, and I was struck by some basic similarities between the plot of that story and this one. It's less that these two particular stories are alike, and more that they're both built on a sort of archetypal story skeleton: the idea of a child who grows up in pain and obscurity only to find him/herself thrust suddenly into a fantastic world of beauty and magic and power - a world he/she was fated to enter. It's just the kind of fantasy wish-fulfillment text I've loved since I was a child.
All of which is just to say, I'm very much looking forward to working my way through the rest of the series again! |
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