I feel I have neglected to write about my one constant and solace in this blog, and as the title of this blog shows their time to shine has arrived... yes, indeed it is the multi-million or rather billion pound character: HARRY POTTER.
Now, I had only just begun to get into reading through the 'Babysitters' books and the Judy Blume young teen reads at around the time the first Harry Potter book became famous (Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone for those of you who don't know). I was given it by my best mate who I had known since I was three years old at dance and went to both primary and secondary school with. At that time I didn't know that she would later be the bane of my existence at school whilst she and my group of mates decided they didn't like me anymore on a whim and as childish behaviour goes made my life hell. With all my friends 'turned to the dark side' as it were, I was left alone. (By the way, please no heartstring violins, this is just a true account of events from my rather biased and probably still slightly bitter opinion!!)
Now Harry had entered my life and I was grateful. I sat reading in the library devouring each word, the witty repartee between the three main characters, the tussle with Draco Malfoy and the adventures they experienced rather wishing I could be at Hogwarts rather than my school. Now it was here that I met a fellow 'reject', who sat in the library avoiding those who are far too cool to ever enter the library even to pick on the wimps!! Now, we bonded in our mutual geekiness and our new founded love of reading Harry Potter. She loved to criticise it and I loved to praise it! We rocked around the school in our own world, okay so it was mainly hanging out in the library with Mrs Lord, the generally hated librarian, who gave us the newest books she had just bought and recommended some of the best books in the world I have ever read. (Well they were poignant at the time!!)
I missed out the second book for some reason and I read the third book first, then when my brother got the second one for Christmas and I saw it was being abused i.e. being used to prop up his various piles of junk in his room, I stole it and read it! It was amazing! Even better than the first I thought! The adventure was getting even more dangerous!! But I am not entirely sure that was what captured my heart. I held a bias for this book because it beat being me hands down! True, I didn't have a psychopathic wizarding killer after me but sometimes I thought at least I knew what I was fighting if I was in Harry Potter land.
It was the Christmas 2000 I received the fourth Harry Potter book as a present the following day my parents split up. The book was my comfort. It amazes me now how I can set my life against the publishing of the Harry Potter novels. In 2003 I believe the fifth book was published alongside this event, almost to the date, my parents got back together. Now I realise that it was just a coincidence, but believe me it was comforting to know that a fictional character though he might have been was having ups and downs of his own. In the meantime I learnt to almost memorise these four books with scarily accurate precision! thankfully now I have moved on to read other things and become slightly less obsessive!
Now I am rereading the Harry Potter series again for the umpteenth time and believe me I doubt it will be for the last time. I have worked out that they are still very much a part of me and I can see what I saw in them and I am still finding new bits out, discovering pieces that make me laugh and make me cry that hadn't before. Today, however, I read it for fun not for escapism (though arguably reading is escapism). I can set store my life by these books and I have been every character within them, starting with the bullied Neville Longbottom, to the comic and most insensitive of characters Ron Weasley, to Harry himself the head of the group, the troubled one and most prized, to feeling like Hermione, clever but not amazingly brave like Harry, or funny like Ron, to today where I know resemble a mix between Dumbledore and Snape. It is an awkward mix I should probably explain more but for the fear of exposing myself too readily on the internet I shall just say I have the ounce of badness that was in Snape, mixed with the warped pure desire to have what he loved, and then Dumbledore the quiet noble hero with somewhat of a blind spot, a habit to make grave mistakes and perhaps thinking he was too smart for his own good but otherwise is a good judge of character. It goes deeper... but let's leave it there tonight folks!
Overall, Harry Potter has been praised for its mastery in bringing kids literature back too life, for getting kids to read again and for mingling adult and children fiction in one. On the other hand, it has been damned in America for its heathen manners (hum... mebbe another blog is due on this!!) and by others for its poor literary quality and banal plotting etc etc. Either way you can't claim that all those millions of copies of books sold in many different languages, with the popularity it has made in book, film, game and merchandise that it cannot be a poor read. Something must draw the masses... perhaps each of us a personal attachment to the books and for that they should be praised and JK too for reaching to the child and adult alike!!
Signing off... Night XXX
2 comments:
NSS - It's so good to have something you were brought up on that you can always go back to for comfort or remembrance and which is so strong inside you that it is immune from all criticism. Mine is "The Memoirs of George Sherston" by Siegfried Sassoon. Whatever its faults it is faultless to me. It's so part of me that when I read it now it's not just me reading, but me alongside all the other mes that have read it before. So is HP to you. I haven't read it, but my suspicion is that it is timeless and that every re-reading will give you something new. Long Live Harry Potter!
OF
:D Thanks! tis too true!! XX
Post a Comment