Concussions can lead to good things

A recent severe concussion left me warned off reading, watching TV, listening to music... thinking for two weeks. After that, I was permitted to read but only very simple books, only children's literature.

For some people, that restriction would be an absolute curse but, when you're a huge Harry Potter fan, it's more like a blessing. I was basically told that I couldn't go to work, I couldn't do any work around the house; I just had to sit around and read Harry Potter. What a nightmare!

So, in the next four weeks, I read the entire seven-novel series over once again, from Philosopher's Stone to Deathly Hallows.

An amazing experience. A testament to the greatness of these seven books and their author.

And I noticed some things this time around (I have read each of the seven books at least 20 if not 30 times), things about which I will have to write future Potter Thoughts posts:

1. J.K. does an amazing job of creating voices for her different characters -- this leapt out at me while re-reading The Chamber of Secrets with the newly introduced Gilderoy Lockhart and Colin Creevey especially;
2. The books have some laugh-out-loud moments -- the scene where the Weasleys get trapped behind the fireplace insert at 4 Privet Drive, for example, and many others;
3. Albus Dumbledore is unfailingly polite in all situations, a practice I would do well to imitate, even if his politeness sometimes hides humour;
4. I'm not sure if Rowling remembered how she designed Number Twelve Grimmauld Place in The Order of the Phoenix by the time she came to write The Deathly Hallows -- there seem to be too many inconsistencies and discrepancies.

 I also picked up the third of the illustrated versions of the novels -- The Prisoner of Azkaban. Like the first two in this fabulous series, this one is fantastic. Beautiful. Gorgeous. Surprising!

A worthy home for Harry Potter

Wand on top, movies, books, special books

If you are like me, your Harry Potter collection is getting a little bit out of hand. Even if you limit yourself to the original seven novels (and eight movies), even if you refuse to purchase each new edition of the books as they are released, your probably are starting to amass quite a pile of Harry Potter related stuff.

What do you do?

Naturally, you choose a book shelf some where in your house and put all of your HP books there. You might even put your DVDs or Blu Rays there. But it doesn't seem enough, does it?

Are you really showing your allegiance to Harry and the wondrous Rowling World by shelving her books beside your copies of The Hunger Games? No way.

Feeling that I was doing a disservice to my Harry Potter passion and realizing that I wasn't showing my collection to advantage, I decided to commission a carpenter friend Robb to build me a custom-made, carefully measured Harry Potter book shelf.

It's oak, stained dark to look like the wood from which the Nimbus 2000's handle is made, and it has beautifully carved accents: the glasses and lightning scar at the top, the HP on the sides and even the Nimbus 2000 logo hidden on the right of the bottom shelf.

I just got the final product yesterday and, as you can see by the photos, it is spectacular.

Note the HP carved on the sides

My official HP wand holds the place of honour, on the top shelf, just below the inscribed glasses and lightning scar. On the second shelf, you'll find the Blu Ray movies and all of the Jim Dale audio books on CD. Below that, the books themselves: seven novels in English (plus a second copy of The Deathly Hallows that I literally read to pieces), the seven novels in Menard's wonderful French translations, and finally the ancillary canonical books from Rowling herself, accompanied by a couple of other odd Potter-related works.

The bottom shelf is still a work in progress. On the left, a limited special edition hard cover copy of The Philosopher's Stone that I picked up at the Studio Tour in England. In the centre, the first of the illustrated versions of the Harry Potter novels (the shelf is scaled for this book -- I can only trust that the next six will be the same dimensions) and finally my studio tour guide book. I plan to add my hand-knit Gryffindor scarf (thanks Lynn) to the bottom shelf as well, at least until the other illustrated books join the collection.

I have to admit, I'm arguing with myself as to whether or not I should add my copy of The Cursed Child to the shelf. It was such an awful piece of work, it wasn't written by J.K. herself and I don't consider it canonical so I probably won't honour it by placing it here.

That leaves the question: do I add the script for Fantastic Beasts when it comes out? It was written by Rowling so it should probably be considered both canonical and worthy of inclusion on my shelf. But I'll have to think about that.

To be honest, I'm not even sure the film versions deserve to be there but many HP fans might consider their exclusion to be nothing short of heretical.

Nicholas Flamel was a real guy

I haven't had the chance to do much Harry Potter reading lately, what with the release of my own new book of children's stories and the reading requirements of my alt-sci-fi-fantasy book club, but that doesn't mean I'm not thinking about J.K.'s magical world.


In fact, sometimes I am disturbed at how deeply Harry Potter and his pals have penetrated my psyche.


Names that come up in general conversation are immediately mapped back to the characters of the seven books. If I hear or read "Hermione" or "Peverell" or even something as common as "Harry", I immediately think of the novels.


Places I encounter in my daily life get referred back to the Rowling books: Charing Cross Road? Oh, that's where Hermione apparated them in The Deathly Hallows, for example.


So imagine my reaction when I came across the following book at the local library's book sale: The Alchemyst: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel, written by Michael Scott and published in 2007. Nicholas Flamel?? NICHOLAS FLAMEL????


I know that name. That's the guy in The Philosopher's Stone who had the last known Stone and who was good friends with Dumbledore. He had to permit the Stone to be destroyed in order to thwart Voldemort's efforts to steal it -- in essence, he had to sacrifice himself to stop the Dark Lord.


The Scott book referred to Nicholas Flamel as an "alchemyst" and said he had lived for hundreds of years. "Wow," I thought, "this Scott guy is borrowing liberally from Rowling. I trust he has credited her properly."


I scanned the book but found no mention anywhere of J.K. Rowling or the Harry Potter books. Scandalised, I put the offending book back on the shelf and returned to my office.


And did some research.


And discovered that Rowling hadn't invented Flamel and his story -- like Michael Scott, she had incorporated a real life person from centuries ago into her own story.


So I owe Michael Scott and apology. At least for what I was thinking.


And I come away even more impressed with J.K. Rowling (and Scott too) for the depth of their research and the scope of their creativity. In my own books, I have worked hard to mix historical fact with fiction, to mingle real people with my imaginary characters.


It's nice to see the Rowling and Scott have done the same, with such wonderful results.

First step: Acknowledge the addiction

HP and the DH... again

Ok. I admit it. I'm addicted. Harry Potter has become an addiction.

You want evidence?

Check out my new copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, in paperback. My third copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Why did I buy it?

Because it was in the library book sale, it was in perfect condition, it has a cover that I don't already own and it was just ONE DOLLAR.

That's why I bought it.

And then what did I do immediately after I bought it? I started reading it. Again. And enjoying it. Again. And thinking... my goodness, this first chapter is remarkably well written, considering the pressure J.K. must have been under to produce this seventh and final book.

Again.

I have to accept that I am now officially addicted to Harry Potter. The novels. Not the movies. Oh no, never the movies. I tolerate the movies. I am addicted to the books. I am currently reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in French (Harry Potter a l'ecole des sorciers [insert accents where appropriate]) and, now, apparently, the Deathly Hallows as well.

And I am enjoying every word of each. Even the ones I am not sure I fully understand without looking them up in a French dictionary.

If you are reading this and nodding your head, thinking, "What's so crazy about that?" -- get help.

And enjoy the greatest series of books every written. In English and French!

Dale, Frye and the American idiom

As part of my recent birthday extravaganza, I received as a gift a complete set of the audio books of the Harry Potter novels. This is something I have coveted for some time so I was completely thrilled to open the box and find them all smiling up at me.

100 compacts discs. More than 117 hours worth of recordings. All seven of J.K. Rowling's novels, unabridged, recorded specially by Jim Dale. Since I already own The Deathly Hallows in this format, I am well acquainted with Mr. Dale and his vocal stylings and I am very much looking forward to listening to the books, in order, at times when I can really focus.

Two things of interest have emerged immediately upon my opening this gift.

First, my partner described to me the adventure she went on in trying to decide which of the two sets of recordings that have been made of these books (the Jim Dale version or the Stephen Frye version) she should purchase for me and then, once the decision had been made, to purchase them.

I learned a great deal from her story. My partner said she had gone online and listened to sections from each version and had decided, based on her comparison, that she preferred the Frye version. So that's the one she attempted to buy.

It was only then that she learnt that the Dale version is for North American (read, "American") audiences and that the Frye version was made for sale in the United Kingdom but not here. So she decided to wait until we travelled to England for my birthday, determined to acquire it then. Before we left, however, she found out that the Frye version is no longer available, not even in England, for reasons no one has been able to explain to her. She was told that she might be lucky enough to find one in an out-of-the-way bookstore somewhere in Britain but it was unlikely.

So she ordered the Dale version before she left, in case she could not find the Frye version on our trip, then used any opportunity while we were in England to see if she could find Frye's collection. No luck. Not even at the Warner Brothers Harry Potter Studio Tour. The Frye collection of CDs is simply not available, at least not new, and she didn't have the time nor the resources to try to track down a used set.

The result is that the Dale version is still available for sale in North America but the Frye version does not appear to be available anywhere. Strange.

Second, when I started to listen to the first book on CD, I noticed something else I had never known before.

Because it was made for the American audience, the story is called Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, the title used in the US, and not Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, as was used in the UK and Canada.

That much was not a surprise to me. I was well aware that the American version of the first book had a different name (because, according to legend, the US Publishers at Scholastic Books had such a low opinion of the American child that they thought the US kids would not want to read a book about some boring old philosopher and his stone... a sorcerer, however: whiz bang, let me at it!).

What has surprised me, however, is the fact that they didn't stop at changing the title. All through the book, the American publishers replaced British word usages with American ones.

Here are some examples from the first three chapters:

"sellotape" becomes "scotch tape";
"cine-camera" becomes "video camera";
"fringe" (of hair) becomes "bangs"; and
"local comprehensive school" becomes "local public school".

It's quite disconcerting and a little bit ridiculous, in my mind. Especially when you have Jim Dale reading the book to you in a set of thoroughly British accents, using American idioms throughout.

Kind of makes you wonder what would have happened if the bright minds at Scholastic had been the first to publish Shakespeare, Milton, Dickens, Austen or Woolf in the United States...

Rowling's working on something New(t)

I think it's quite fitting that, on the day J.K. announces she will be writing the screenplay for the new Newt Scamander movie -- okay, let that phrase roll around in your brain for a minute -- I have made the decision to abandon my recently announced "read every book in the house" challenge and return to Harry Potter.

I'm not sure how I feel about the Scamander announcement. One, I really didn't think much of the actual book and, two, Rowling seems to think that the fact that she witnessed the writing of the screenplays for the Potter movies was sufficient training for her to take on this task as her first screen writing effort.

I guess I'll just have to keep an open mind. I am interested in the plot J.K. has come up with for the movie and I'm interested in seeing how she integrates the magical world into the real world of New York in the 1930s and '40s. I have a deep admiration for Rowling's imagination and her skills as a creator of characters and situations. So I'll wait things out and see how it turns out.

Meanwhile, I get to go back, after a break of several months, to reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. It will be neat to see how I respond to it after being away for so long.

The Weasley Homestead

I'm trying to figure out what screen-writer Steven Kloves and director David Yates have against the Weasley homestead, commonly known as "The Burrow".

First, in a completely invented scene in the film version of The Half-Blood Prince, they have Bellatrix and her pals burn the place down. If that's not bad enough, in the movie Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1, they have several characters (like Mad-Eye Moody) call the place "The Burrows", plural.

In an interesting contradiction, some characters call it by its singular name and others by its new plural name, both in the film and in the special features that come with the Blu-Ray version of the movie.

Strange. J.K. refers to it, consistently and without exception, as "The Burrow" across all six books in which it is mentioned (I don't find any mention of the Weasley home, at least not be name, in The Philosopher's Stone). Why change it in the film?

Oh, which reminds me, from what I understand, the first novel in the series is called Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in just about every English-speaking country in the world except the United States: so why do the British producers refer to it constantly as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (the American title) in the Blu-Ray extras?

By the way, I recently picked up the French version of the first novel and I think the direct translation of the French title is Harry Potter at the School for Magic. Neat.