Birthdays, Lemony Snicket, and the Ring of Power
I recently celebrated my 19th birthday, and as usual, it was somewhat depressing. If you think that’s weird, then I have to say I agree with you. No one my age has any right to be depressed about getting older. They have to wait until they turn 30 or so. (At least, that’s about how it sounds if you listen to people 30 and older).
Here’s a question for you: when you were a little kid, say, 4 to 9 years old, could you not wait to grow up, or were you happy with things staying as they were? Did time seem to pass quickly for you, or did weeks, weekends, summers, last forever?. (Yes, I know that’s two questions).
I’ll answer my own questions. Life has always seemed to go by fast to me, and I never really wanted to grow up. I get a little depressed on my birthdays because it feels like I just had one recently.
And I have a theory about why I feel this way.
I read. A lot. Both books and comic books. Many of the books are long, drawn out fantasy series. (Yes, I’m well aware that I am a total nerd). In many of these series, such as Harry Potter, A Song of Ice and Fire, A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Inheritance Trilogy, and The Wheel of Time, consecutive books often come out years apart, and yet, for the characters, sometimes only a few weeks, days or minutes have passed. They’re exactly as I left them when I finished the last book. In one way this is very reassuring because it makes it feel to me as though no time has passed. After going through a year’s worth of stuff, I come back to the series and there’s Rand al’Thor or Arya Stark, or Violet, Klaus, and Sunny, right where I left them. (Incidentally, I’m currently awaiting The Elves of Cintra, the second book in Terry Brooks’ “Genesis of Shannara” trilogy, due out August 28, according to Wikipedia.) I had a similar experience with “The Lord of the Rings” films. I walk in to see “The Return of the King” and Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli are just now partying about winning the battle of Helms Deep, which I saw a year ago. And of course, with comics, the characters practically never age.
The point is that when I focus on the books or characters, time seems to move slowly, and that’s what I did for years. But on my birthday, I focus on me, and the feelings that no time has passed – which I believe are compounded by the books, movies, etc. – backfire on me. These feelings are made worse by the fact that, while the books may alter my perception of time, they also consume real time.
I love reading. It’s probably my favorite activity. But I also know that when I’m 50, I won’t look back on all my reading and think, “Gosh, those were the days. Good times.” Of course, the same applies to video games, television, commuting, jail, and drug-induced stupors. But you get the point. Although reading is enjoyable and self-improving, it is not fulfilling.
Which just makes it even more obvious how much I need a Time-Turner. Although I’m not sure that would solve the aging problem.
The Requisite Harry Potter Post (Part 4)
Spoiler Warning: Don’t say I didn’t warn you, because you just read it.
I finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on Monday night, just under 36 hours after I obtained my copy.
I originally intended this final post in my little series to be kind of look back encompassing all seven volumes in the series. But around the time Harry was plunging into the Pensieve to observe Snape’s memories it became obvious that much consideration would be required on my part before I could do the series justice. That said, I’ve decided to make this post something more along the lines of a simple review, Hopefully at some point in the future I’ll have time to write the paper Harry so richly deserves.
Deathly Hallows was, of course, far off the beaten path of the preceding HP books, with Harry not returning to Hogwarts until the book’s – and series’ – climax was beginning. By sequestering Harry, Ron, and Hermione away by themselves, Rowling gave us several hundred pages of intense friendship study. That makes sense, because that’s really the last of it that we’re going to get.
Personally, I was disappointed with the first hundred pages or so. Everything up until the Bill and Fleur’s wedding just didn’t seem to fit. The best part of this section, obviously, was Harry’s escape from Number 4 Privet Drive, which amounted to the first magical high-speed chase that I’ve encountered.
Hallows may honestly be my favorite HP book, most likely because it is the most adult, which is really Rowling’s genius. In my opinion, these books should never be read, at least for the first time, all at once. Each book escalates in seriousness and maturity. Properly read, a teenager can follow along as Harry ages, so that he is sharing similar experiences at the same time. Obviously, because these are children’s books, Rowling came nowhere close to depicting the relationship situations accurately, because many 17 year olds do a heck of a lot more than kiss. She captures the tone and attitudes extremely well though, in my opinion.
The epilogue was melancholy, which is to be expected, but Rowling did something there that seemed very unusual. Epilogues are usually either important situations, or all-revealing. Rowling chose a suitably mundane situation for her epilogue that reveals everything we expected about the characters without telling us too much.
Finis
The Requisite Harry Potter Post (Part 2)
I’m all but too late in posting this, because Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows comes at midnight tonight. I wanted to have a trio or perhaps a full quartet of posts on this topic, but events have conspired against me and I just haven’t had any time until now.
The subject of Part 1 was essentially a timeline of my reading of the books, which I admit is hardly an engaging read. Part 2, however, is about the Harry Potter movies and I hope that I can make it a little more interesting.
I actually didn’t see “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” when it was released in theaters, and was forced to rent it at a later date. I’ve seen all of the subsequent films on the big screen, however, and have been pleased, if not bowled over, each time. At the time of my last post I actually had not yet been able to see the fifth film, but that problem has now been happily remedied.
Most people who have read the books will tell you that they also love the movies. The thing they usually dislike is that the movies stray so far from the book. I can understand this, but I also have to tell these people: get over it. Film is a different artistic medium than the novel. Each has its strengths over the other. Books are excellent for explaining systems, such as the rules of how magic works in a particular fictional world. Explaining this is a film would be both tedious and confusing. Books are also better, most of the time, if the author wants to tell what a character is thinking. Movies, on the other hand, are excellent for depicting action sequences. They can show a complicated maneuver that would be boring when read. For example, a gymnastics routine or a sword fight is much more fun to watch than to read.
In short, movies are objective for the audience, while books are subjective. These simple facts effectively control the media and dictate what can be accomplished through them from an artistic viewpoint. There are, of course, other parameters. Readers are willing to invest hours upon hours in a book, something an audience will never do in the case of a movie. Movies also require massive amounts of money and coordination among individuals working on the whole. Money is usually not paid for a book until it is finished. If it doesn’t work out up to that point, only the author is affected. That’s really all there is to it.
What makes the Harry Potter films interesting, artistically, is that we actually see a group of child stars growing up from one film to the next. That has never happened before, at least as far as I know, on this scale. What’s sad about that is that the previous films look progressively more outdated. Not only are the kids older, but the special effects are better too. Why should we watch “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” with its scratchy CGI and poorly acting 11 year olds when “Order of the Phoenix” is new and improved with smooth graphics and fewer cracking voices? Another drawback with the films is that the various directors seem almost to operate on the assumption that their audience has already read the books, which is usually, but not universally, the case. This leads them to poorly explain things. Readers of the books may not even notice these skips because they were expecting the unexplained thing to happen anyway.
Spoiler Warning: Don’t say I didn’t tell you because you just read it.
That said, I’ll admit that “Order” didn’t quite agree with me. I thought too many liberties were taken with the story and too many events left unexplained. It was clunky for Cho to have betrayed to D.A under the influence of veritaserum and then Harry not forgive her for it. Also, Ron and Hermione didn’t become prefects, Ron wasn’t attacked by a brain, a Death Eater didn’t have his head turned to a baby’s, we never saw St. Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, and Helena Bonham Carter, who could have been an excellent, sinister Bellatrix Lestrange, just acted like a female Jack Sparrow, with her hair in a big wad on top of her head. Additionally, we saw extensive use of montages, which, while sometimes useful, is something I hate.
On the other hand (which is a phrase I use far too much) I particularly enjoyed the Patronus scene in the Room of Requirement and Evanna Lynch was a great choice for Luna Lovegood. She was amusing and sympathetic at the same time, which is difficult to pull off.
All that said about the most recent film, my favorite so far would probably be “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” which also diverted from the book, but in all the right ways. This would probably be followed a near three-way tie between “Chamber”, “Goblet”, and “Order”, with the first film being a definite last. I also don’t care for Gary Oldman as Sirius. When I read the books now, I still don’t see him as Sirius. He just doesn’t fit the illustrations or the descriptions. He’s too old. However, Maggie Smith is good as McGonagall and Fiennes is decent as Voldemort. Another plus for the first three films was John Williams’ music. It’s unfortunate that he couldn’t or wouldn’t continue for the entire series.
Alright, that is pretty much it for Part 2. Part 3 will hopefully appear later today and will cover my thoughts and predictions for Book 7, which will be here in a matter of hours.
To Be Continued…
The Requisite Harry Potter Post
Just about everyone, me included, is eagerly awaiting the release of the seventh and final Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. With just under a week to go, I decided to post my thoughts on the series.
I love the Harry Potter books, which is the case with about 98% of the people who read them. Either that, or about two-thirds like them and the other 33.33% who don’t like them or don’t care have the sense to shut up. The problem with place Harry Potter at the top of the list of your favorite books is that it almost looks like you’re just jumping on the bandwagon, which may be exactly right. I finally discovered Facebook a few months ago, and I’m actually finding the statistics pages to be fairly interesting and useful. True, it’s hardly official, but it’s there for everyone to check. The point is, everyone puts Harry Potter on their favorite books list. It’s the most popular series on Facebook. This is like saying the “The Lord of the Rings” is your favorite series of movies or that vanilla is your favorite flavor of ice-cream or that…oh, I don’t know…“American Idol” is your favorite television show. Practically everyone likes all of these things. It doesn’t say anything about you when you say you like the Harry Potter books. People have never read a book, including the Harry Potter books, like the Harry Potter books. (For the record, “The Lord of the Rings” is my favorite series of movies, vanilla is my favorite ice-cream, and I have never once watched a single episode of “American Idol”.)
I know that there are mixe. d emotions about the final book coming out. I was in the sixth grade when I first read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, and I was kind of behind the times at that; Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban had been out for some time and Goblet of Fire was just around the corner. I read the first two books and then got scared off on account of one of my teacher’s reading us an article about how the books were evil and full of witchcraft. Before you call names or get angry or guffaw, I’ll say this: I went to a Christian school for five years, fourth through eighth grades. I didn’t agree with everything they told us, but I understand where they were coming from and, for 98% of what they were saying, I agreed, which is quite a bit more than I agreed with what I learned in the eight years I attended public school (kindergarten through third grade and all four years of high school). I’m glad I attended a private Christian school.
But I digress. I got scared off of Harry Potter for about a year, until I reached the conclusion that it was okay to read them, provided I kept in mind that I was reading a fantasy book. I still believe that it is very dangerous to get involved in witchcraft of any kind. However, the Harry Potter series is hardly realistic in terms of witchcraft. (For goodness sake, I’m pretty sure real witches don’t cast “cheering charms” on people. Incidently, someone used a new Facebook application for casting spells form the books on people to cast exactly that spell on me. I don’t need artificial cheering up! Besides, a “cheering charm” just sounds druggy.)
Anyway, in a move that is unprecedented (for me) I actually read a series of books out of order. I bought Goblet of Fire the day it came out, not having read Prisoner of Azkaban. Consequentially, I had no idea who Sirius was, but I remedied that quickly enough.
to be continued…
