March 28, 2007 at 6:27 pm (Harry Potter, Religion and Popular Culture)
Get all the details and see other images (including the UK covers with blurbs) at The Leaky Cauldron.
I am certainly looking forward to the release of this book. I bought a “Trust Snape” shirt to wear a few times during the next few months and for when I go to the midnight opening at Barnes & Noble (and probably at the Order of the Phoenix movie opening as well). That random people will understand the shirt’s meaning more clearly than most political slogans I could slap onto a t-shirt is a testament to the cultural significance that this story has.
One of the things that we often forget about the stories that are taking on a mythological significance in contemporary popular culture is that the current generation is mostly used to adapted stories. Anyone born after the original Star Wars trilogy will have been teenagers during the rise of comic-book adaptation films, The Lord of the Rings films, the disappointing return of Star Wars, etc. There are very few big mythic event films and stories that are original. The Matrix came close, but the overblown sequels squelched whatever power it had. When we went to see the Rings films, we did not need to ask “Will Frodo destroy the ring?” We knew. And if we didn’t know, we could read the book or ask someone who had. The big deal was seeing how Jackson could bring the story to life. The same thing with movies like Batman Begins, the Spiderman films, and the X-Men films. And even though the Star Wars prequels were original stories, we knew where everything was headed; the question was, again, “how?”
Not so with Harry Potter. Read the rest of this entry »
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March 27, 2007 at 1:10 pm (Harry Potter)
I find it truly fascinating how much expectations regarding the final Harry Potter book are hinging on opinions about the intentions of Snape’s character. Like Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, Snape is the most interestingly “complex” character in Potter. So it will be worth seeing how Rowling deals with him, and how readers of the final book react to his role.
Here is a recent article concerning the interest in Snape’s fate and the legions of fans who fervently believe in Snape’s loyalty to Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix. Called “Under his spell” , it was written by Jamie Smith Hopkins for The Baltimore Sun and published on March 20, 2007:
Under his spell
Undercover good guy or pure evil? Either way, Harry Potter nemesis Severus Snape has fans obsessing over his fate in the final book
By Jamie Smith Hopkins
Sun reporter
March 20, 2007
When J.K. Rowling’s publishers announced that the final book in the Harry Potter series would hit stores this July, the agonizing began in earnest. Would she kill him? Could she kill him? Was there any point in reading if she did?
No, not Harry Potter.
Severus Snape.
For a surprisingly large number of Potter fans, mostly adult ones, the fate of the intrepid boy wizard – you know, the one the books are ostensibly about – isn’t nearly as interesting as what will happen to his ex-professor. The double-crossing Death Eater. Murderer of the beloved Headmaster Dumbledore. Greasy-haired, yellow-toothed, cuttingly sarcastic and, in the words of his creator, “deeply horrible.”
So why on earth do people love him? Why are apparently otherwise sane adults obsessing about him to the point that they run Snape Web sites, write Snape fan fiction, buy Snape paraphernalia (or make it themselves, because there really isn’t much of it out there) and craft essays with the care they might give to a doctoral thesis to prove that the murder is a clever diversion, and he’s actually good?
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July 15, 2006 at 11:16 am (Harry Potter)
Never Snitch: The Mythology of Harry Potter
by Wendy Doniger
Link
Young Harry Potter’s parents are dead. So far, so good: many of the heroes and heroines of the classics of children’s literature are orphans, while others have invisible, unmentionable or irrelevant parents. The sorrow of grieving, not to mention the terror of helplessness, is quickly glossed over in favor of the joy of a fantasized freedom. (A particularly sharp 13-year-old patiently explained to me that if Harry’s parents weren’t dead, there would be no point in writing the book; it wouldn’t be interesting, no matter how many creative details there were.) The problem, for Harry Potter as for most orphans in children’s storybooks, is not the absence of parents but the presence of stepparents. From infancy, Harry has been raised by his horrid Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia Dursley, who hate him and dote upon their own cruel and stupid son, Dudley Dursley; they starve Harry and, when he is forced to spend summer vacations with them, they intercept his mail from his school friends, his only link with the world of people who care for him.
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November 26, 2005 at 1:47 pm (Children's Literature and Film, Film and Myth, Harry Potter, Narnia, Star Wars)
Published in “The Age”
Harry Potter and the censors of doom
November 26, 2005
Dark films for children are responding to the harsh times in which we live. Richard Jinman examines the evidence for and against strict film ratings.
IT’S NOT EASY being a teenager dealing with pimples and ping-ponging emotions but being a teenage wizard is even harder. Just ask Harry Potter, who finds himself up to his neck in blood, slime and monsters in his latest adventure, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
Directed by Englishman Mike Newell, the fourth Potter film has been described as the darkest, scariest yet. It has attracted a stronger classification than any of its predecessors and looks certain to have some younger fans squirming in their seats.
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November 26, 2005 at 1:42 pm (Children's Literature and Film, Harry Potter, Narnia, Star Wars)
Sydney Morning Herald Article
A twist in the tale
By Richard Jinman
November 26, 2005
It’s not easy being a teenager dealing with pimples and ping-ponging emotions, but being a teenage wizard is even harder. Harry Potter finds himself up to his neck in blood, slime and monsters in his latest adventure, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
Directed by Englishman Mike Newell, the fourth Potter film has been described as the darkest, scariest yet. It has attracted a stronger classification than any of its predecessors and looks certain to have some younger fans squirming in their seats.
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September 23, 2005 at 3:35 pm (Children's Literature and Film, Harry Potter)
A Harry Potter fan has spent her summer holidays writing out the latest book because she couldn’t afford to buy it.
Sandra Luchian, 15, from Moldova, borrowed a copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince from a friend and wrote down the story word for word.
The book isn’t available to buy in Moldova, and her family couldn’t afford to get the book sent over from the UK.
So Sandra filled five notebooks with Harry’s latest wizard adventures so she could add the book to her collection.
She even wrote dialogue in black, and narration in blue, to make the story easier to read.
Excellent English
“In Moldova this book didn’t appear and I really liked to have it in my own library and I decided to write by hand and that’s why I did what I did,” said Sandra.
Although the book is in English, Sandra only took two days to read it.
But copying down the 607 pages took just over a month.
Link
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August 28, 2005 at 8:57 am (Children's Literature and Film, Harry Potter)
From the Leaky Cauldron:
le NouvelObs on HP Fanfic
French magazine le NouvelObs has published an article about HP fanfic that quotes from TLC editor Heidi Tandy:
“Heidi Tandy explains this popularity by the ease with which people can participate: “More than an litterary ambition, Harry’s adventures drive its readers to write. They are so fascinating, that it is impossible to just read them—you must also actively take part in them.”
TLC reader Jérémie Lumbroso has graciously translated the article, which you can read by clicking below!
HARRY POTTER AND HIS FOLLOWERS
[The adventures of the young wizard apprentice have elicited hundreds of thousands of "sequels", with varying degrees of success, all available on the Net. And has perhaps revealed some future writers.]
July was ending, and emotions ran high with the Harry Potter fans. Less than fifteen days after the sixth book–”Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince”–made its way in stores and libraries of the UK and the USA, an american newspaper, the Watley Review, was announcing the release of a corrected version of this book. A disappointed fan, Mary Sue Pembroke, would have rewritten the book to include an american exchange student romantic interest for Harry.
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August 11, 2005 at 4:19 pm (Children's Literature and Film, Harry Potter)
Harry Potter and the analyst’s couch
August 11, 2005
Literature, like life, is about family, say two visiting academics. Alexa Moses reports.
Psychotherapist’s notes on patient: On examination, HP presented with psychotic tendencies, including hallucinations about a school of wizardry, and delusions of grandeur (believing he possessed magic powers). HP also exhibited paranoid ideation about an evil wizard “bent on annihilating him”. On further questioning, HP became acutely agitated, and refused to speak the wizard’s name. Possible attachment issues caused by premature separation from parents? Does scar on forehead suggest self-mutilation?
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August 6, 2005 at 4:38 pm (Children's Literature and Film, Harry Potter)
Dumbledore Toast UPDATE
Posted by Bean on 31 Jul 2005 – comments: 6
eBay has some pretty incredible items for bid sometimes, and this item is no exception. It’s a piece of toast with an image that auctioner says is Dumbledore, and the current bid is at $ 71. The auctioner said that as he took his toast out one morning he noticed that Dumbledore’s face was on it. He wants winners to continue posting him on eBay, so to:”…give him a chance to travel some more! He must continue to look for the remaining horcruxes, and help Harry Potter defeat He-who-must-not-be-named once and for all!”
You can see the item at the link above, but beware of spoilers, and be sure to place certain caution when dealing with items like these!
UPDATE: This item has since been removed from e-bay.
Link
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