Gushy Harry Potter Post

Warning: expect mush and attempted profoundness.

For no real reason, I've spent a lot of time over the past couple of days watching various JK Rowling interviews / documentaries. I've got no idea what triggered it, but last night I watched A Conversation with Daniel Radcliffe and JK Rowling (filmed shortly before the release of the final Harry Potter film), and today I watched JK Rowling: A Year in the Life (filmed over the course of the year leading up to the publication of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows). I've had tears in my eyes on about eight different occasions, and was a watery, gibbering mess by the end of the latter.

I can't explain, even to myself, why my reaction was so overly emotional. Harry Potter is hardly my little secret; it's become a cliche to say that Harry Potter got you into reading (which it didn't, for me), to say it inspired you to write (which it partially did), to say it defined your childhood (which it certainly had a hand in). And it bothers me that I feel the need to justify my personal relationship with Harry Potter because it means so much to so many people. I don't really believe that there are degrees of loving something - it's not something you can measure.

I read Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone when I was six or seven, I think, and the final Harry Potter film was released two weeks after my eighteenth birthday - so the world of Hogwarts was my imaginary playground throughout my childhood. Sure, I may have shared that world with God only knows how many other kids, but one of my favourite things about reading is that it's a solo activity. For however long or short a time, it is just you, and the characters, and an adventure; and bloody hell, what an adventure.

There are so many things I could talk about, in relation to JK Rowling's books, but it was actually hearing Rowling talk about them that I think has got me feeling so nostalgic. Being so young when I was first introduced to Harry Potter, JK Rowling was a name to me a long time before she was a person, and when I first became aware of the person I wasn't sure what to think. For someone with an imagination so clearly extraordinary, JK Rowling seemed kind of...boring. And I think it's only in the past 48 hours that I've really understood how wrong that kind of judgement was.

It's a pretty astonishing realisation, when it hits you that the phenomenon (and I don't think that word is ever more appropriately used than when in relation to Potter) that is Harry Potter stemmed from the mind of one woman, and all the personal experiences, memories and tragedies that went towards forming that woman. Hearing her talk out loud about these characters, created by her but adopted by SO many others, and the directions she almost took their stories (there's a bit where she admitted to nearly killing off Ron - this blog post would not be waxing quite so lyrical if she'd followed that through) made me realise how much the work of one person's creativity can affect others. I have absolutely no doubt that there are people in the world whose lives were saved by Harry Potter, that there are people who found hope, happiness, friendship, escape, confidence, strength, imagination and who knows what else in those 17 zillion pages.

But for me, Harry Potter is a part of the foundation on which I built my aspirations, and I think I sometimes forget that. It felt nice to be reminded.

Uglies series - Scott Westerfeld

Right, so I know I haven't reviewed a book in over a month, and I know I'm supposed to be a Literature student, and I know that's terrible blah blah blah. But I have actually read four books in the intervening time - now alright, so the Uglies series isn't exactly Dostoyevsky (you know, I spelt that right first time. I should definitely get points for that), but I have been working full time, and the resulting self pity eats up my time. Anywho....

Uglies
One of the things I liked the most about this series, but this book in particular, was the character of Tally, who is one of the most convincing teenage heroines I've read in a YA fantasy book. There are three really interesting blogs on Bookish Blather about how Tally is actually much more of a 'feminist' heroine than The Hunger Games' Katniss Everdeen, despite generally kicking less ass. Anyway, the pacing was also really good - it kept you interested without throwing too much at you too fast, and I think the idea (see the TV Tropes or goodreads page for full details) is fascinating, particularly with the current societal attitude towards femininity in relation to beauty, and falsity.

Sorry, that went a bit pretentious. I'm going to have one more moment of snobbery, then get a little perspective - just bear with me. I couldn't point to specific examples of why, but the friendship between Tally and Shay was just missing something. Also, what is it with YA fantasy protagonists and whining?

***/*

Pretties - goodreads
I  found the friendship element better in this book, and I also found the whole trading-in-for-a-new-love-interest thing a lot less irritating than it usually is (in fact, this series plays the love-triangle theme with less oh-for-Christ's-sakes than most of the other YA series which feel the need to chuck one in). I also thought the Cutters were a skilful navigation of a very touchy subject in a fantasy context - similarly to the theme of the series generally.

What I did find slightly annoying was that it seemed to back up on the message of Uglies. I know that's kind of deliberate, I just didn't feel like we'd got very far. Also, the whole Andrew Simpson Smith caveman bit was kind of out-of-left-field (at the time I thought it might become relevant, and therefore less random, as the series went on, but...it didn't).

***

Specials - goodreads
I preferred this to Pretties, I think, because it pulled back some of the excitement from the first book. Of course, apocalyptic storylines will do that. The romantic subplot in this is also much more underplayed, which showed how much better the stories work focusing just on Tally. She also whines less in this book, which was a welcome relief.

I thought the navigation of the Cutters was much less subtle than in Pretties, and the brainwashing thing was starting to get a bit repetitive by now. Again, that was sort of the point, but there was a lot more trekking through the wild, a lot more angst, a lot more internal dialogue that you're reading thinking 'Oh you stupid twerp' etc...

***

Extras - goodreads

This book wreaked of dammit-why-did-I-finish-that-really-successful-series-I-wrote regrets, but for all that was actually not bad - or at least, as good as the second and third books. I appreciated the fact that this wasn't set in Futuristic America, mainly because apparently it's now very weird to set a book of this nature somewhere other than Futuristic America. Again, I thought the idea was great - an interestingly bizarre way to analyse current popular obsessions and phases. I liked the more ensemble cast of characters, rather than the one-man-show of the first three books.

I did, however, find the character of Frizz - who was supposed to be the romantic interest - a massive sap. Eye-rollingly so, all the way through the book - he had no purpose whatsoever other than to make life more difficult for everybody else. I also thought the section of the plot with the Sly Girls was really interesting, and I wished it had been explored more, rather than diving straight back into the end-of-the-world thing.

***

Don't I come off as up myself when I'm talking about books? Even when it's young adult dystopian mush, apparently.