Wednesday 4 July 2007

7 Books You Will Have Heard About And Have Probably Read (Most Of)


Never let it be said that I am out of touch with the populus. In a year where I've read more Middle English than your average preteen, I've also just finished a book nearly all of 'em will have read. Yup, having reached page 766, have completed my third read of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. The film's coming out soon, and I wanted to refresh my memory...

In the early days, when JK Rowling was producing one of the series a year, Harry Potter was the same age as me. I've had the opportunity to overtake him now, but even so, I wasn't there from the outset. The first time our paths crossed was when I helped out on the school's Carnegie Prize Panel (which didn't have any effect on the actual procedure, but was rather fun) and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter III) was one of the choices. This was when Harry was big, but not huge. And I was hooked - part of me wanted to loath the book, but... no, I was hooked. I've yet to meet anyone who has read any of the series, and still dislikes it.


So what is it about JKR's writing? Well, if I knew that, I'd probably be a millionaire by now. But we did have a lecture on Harry Potter at Oxford once, in the first week that I was at university, and the lecturer pointed out that JKR rarely used descriptive language, or anything which veered from the action-action-action. This, said Dr. Purkiss (herself, with her son Michael, an author under the pseudonym Tobias Druitt), was either incredibly clever writing, or incredibly bad writing. True, take any chunk of prose and Virginia Woolf it ain't - but Rowling's ability to make you read on is
unparalleled. Who would have thought children would willingly read 700+ pages? And I read it over a single weekend, so that I wouldn't have the ending spoilt by friends at school on Monday. Perhaps I'm not the best example of someone who needed persuasion to read, but you get the idea.

So. Where do my musings point? Nowhere, to be honest, except to demonstrate myself not quite the literary snob I might seem, and to hope lots of others hold up their hands in solidarity.
No reason why one can't enjoy Woolf and wizards; Shakespeare and Sirius Black; Austen and Aurors... you get the picture. Speaking of pictures, there must be a thousand sketches I could have done to accompany a post on Harry Potter. But I'm tired... so I've copied this one, which is hopefully the way things are heading for the next generation. Fingers crossed.

4 comments:

  1. Well, I won't date myself too much, but I was an adult when these first starting coming out. I've read them all, look forward to the upcoming movie, and more so the book. My copy is on reserve at my neighborhood Barnes and Noble and I wish to get to the end before hearing about it someplace else. It's just good entertainment and I hold my hand high with you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. All in this house are big fans of the books. We've done the midnight queueing to snap up our copies on release, and the faster - and more reckless - readers amongst us have stayed up all night to finish by (late) breakfast time, only to begin all over again. I like to take my time with them, but I think they're great stories.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have lots of theories about how the whole series is going to end along with half the nation and am SO looking forward to getting my hands on the final book.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I think I am the only person on the planet who has not read a single Harry Potter book! I don't have anything against them, it's just that there are so many other books out there I would rather read first! I will get to them eventually...

    ReplyDelete

I've now moved to www.stuckinabook.com, and all my old posts are over there too - do come and say hello :)

I probably won't see your comment here, I'm afraid, but all my archive posts can also be found at www.stuckinabook.com.