What's behind a name?

I know that there is probably a website out there that traces the source of all of the character names in the Harry Potter series but I haven't looked at it.

That's why I was amazed to find the name "Mundungus" in a book I am reading: Laurence Sterne's 18th Century comic travelogue, A Sentimental Journey. The notes to Penguin Classics version of this book explains that "Mundungus" is the author's nickname for Dr. Samuel Sharp, a travelogue writer from the 1760s.

Is it possible that this is where J.K. came up with the wonderfully descriptive name for the sneak thief Mundungus Fletcher? What a great source of names!

This experience, of course, reminded me of the fact that I also found the name Hermione used in another 18th-Century work of fiction. To be honest, I can't remember if it was in Charlotte Lennox's The Female Quixote or one of the Anne Radcliffe novels I just read but I was pleased to see it anyway.

As I said, for many readers of this blog, this may come as no surprise but, for me, it's a joyful discovery. And it doesn't surprise me that Ms. Rowling is well-versed in the rich history of women's writing in England.

"R" has a lot of good stuff to say about my last post

I recently had the good fortune to receive a number of comments on my last post, "Rowling and the art of the family", by a reader who identified him or herself only as "R".

I seem to have struck a nerve with R in some of the things I said in that post and R's response is fantastic. This is a person who really knows the Harry Potter books well and obviously loves them. Since the comments R created were broken into five parts (Blogspot limits how long each comment can be), I have taken the liberty of copying them all into a single entry into the blog itself.

I have also taken the liberty of replacing a couple of swear words with "[*]" since young people read this blog and I have deleted the half sentences at the end of some paragraphs that got cut off by the comment function. Other than that, what follows are R's words. Thanks, R, for taking the time to read and to respond. You might not always agree with me but I'm glad you're willing to explain to me where you feel I've gone wrong. I hope you will find stuff in other entries on this blog that you find more acceptable (or that prompt more fantastic responses).

That being said, here is R's response to my blog entry:

What I think? I think that this post is pretty stupid. No offense but what are you trying to say? That J.K. Rowling is a horrible family hater? First thing first, only because you write about something doesn't mean you think about it the same way. But since you didn't get the point during any of the seven books: HP is very pro family. James died so save Lily and Harry. Lily died so save her son. Sirius died to save Harry. Molly and Arthur would have died for their children and for Harry and Molly's biggest fear was to lose them. What says more about love and family than "I'd die for my family."

Just because some characters aren't in a relationship or have children doesn't mean they don't worship families or don't know how to love. But it's also one of the greatest things about Harry Potter and the difference between HP and Twilight. “Harry Potter is about confronting fears, finding inner strength and doing what is right in the face of adversity."

           

But to the next part of your text: "Think about that: Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape, Sprout, Hagrid, Lupin, Lockhart, Flitwick, Trelawny, Moody, Slughorn, Quirrell, Pomfrey, even Umbridge... They're in live-in positions and yet not one of them is shown with a spouse and not one of them mentions a spouse. Sure, Lupin eventually marries Tonks but, at the time they're teaching, they are single. No matter their age."

First thing first: Dumbledore is gay. Do you really expect him to find a wife? Next thing: Snape is still in love with Lily. He would have married her some day if she required his love but she didn't. Poor Snape but that doesn't say anything about family. Quirrell traveled after his 7th year and was possessed by Voldemort ever since ... But I guess Voldemort would have been a great daddy. To Lupin: He marries Tonks so where is the problem? Oh because he wasn't married right after he left school? Excuse me, I forgot that people aren't allowed to live their own lives.

           

"And then ask yourself the question: how many of the families in the Harry Potter series have more than one child?" More than you named. You forgot Fleur for example. Also you forgot the "Next generation". Harry has three kids. Ron and Hermoine have two kids. George has two children. But to the characters without siblings:

Harry: I'm sure his parents would have been were happy to have more than one kid. A shame they [*] died when their first born was a year old.

Neville: I'm sure his parents would have been were happy to have more than one kid. A shame they [*] went insane when their first born was a year old.

Voldemort: I don't know if his mother would have wanted another child after the heartbreak with Tom Riddle Sr but we will never know because she died during [*] childbirth.

Luna: I'm sure her parents would have loved another child. To bad her mother died when Luna was still a kid.

Hagrid: Nope, Hagrid DOES have a brother. Only a halfsibling but still.

"Of the five main child characters in the novels (Harry, Hermione, Ron, Neville and Voldemort), three are parentless, one abandons her parents to join the magical world and the fifth is Ron of the massive family." There are reasons for three of them being parentless and this reason is not Rowling’s hate towards families. Hermoine also didn't abandon her parents to join the magical world, you [*] idiot. The deleted their memories of her so they wouldn't get killed during Voldemort War II. It was said from the very beginning of their journey in book seven that as soon as Voldemort was defeated, Hermoine would give her parents their memories back. Hermoine did this to save them and it did break her heart. And "Ron's massive family"? There is no way to please you, is there? Either there aren't enough kids or there are too many. And again: The book isn't supposed to be lovey-dovey no-one dies everybody's happy and has a perfect family with 2.5 children.

PS: "Your comment will be visible after approval." There is no way in hell you're going to approve of my comment, is there? So I really wasted one hour of my life. Yippie-Ya-Yeah.

J.K. and the art of the family

I'm on a bit of a break from Harry Potter, to be honest. Not for lack of interest, just too many other projects and priorities getting in the way.

I can't say I'm lamenting having to leave HP on the shelf for a while: it should mean that, when I finally come back to him, I'll be coming to him fresh again.

Of course, the simple fact that I'm not reading Harry right now doesn't mean I'm not thinking about Rowling's world. I have... and I've been having some interesting thoughts.

For example, I've been wondering about J.K. Rowling's relationship to families and her representation of family relationships in her books.

It started when I realised that, despite the fact that we meet and get to know a number of Harry's teachers pretty well in the novels, we never actually meet any of their spouses or partners. In fact, not one of the teachers we know pretty well even has a spouse or partner.

Think about that: Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape, Sprout, Hagrid, Lupin, Lockhart, Flitwick, Trelawny, Moody, Slughorn, Quirrell, Pomfrey, even Umbridge... they're in live-in positions and yet not one of them is shown with a spouse and not one of them mentions a spouse. Sure, Lupin eventually marries Tonks but, at the time they're teaching, they are single. No matter their age.

So what does that say about Rowling and her thoughts about family and longterm relationships?

Now let's count how many actual couples exist in the books. Yes, we have the Weasleys. And the Durlseys, the Malfoys, the Lestranges, the Grangers, the Longbottoms, and the Potters. Who else? Ted Tonks and his wife. Lupin and Tonks.

How many lead normal lives to natural deaths?

The Potters were killed as a young couple. The Longbottoms were tortured into insanity also as a young couple. Lupin and Tonks die just after having their first child.

And then ask yourself the question: how many of the families in the Harry Potter series have more than one child?

The characters who have no siblings include: Harry, Dudley, Hermione, Neville, Voldemort, Draco, Hagrid, Luna. The only multi-children family we see are the Weasleys, the Blacks, the Dumbledores, the Creeveys and the Patil twins. Oh, and Lily and Petunia.

Do you not think of this as strange? Do you not wonder about Rowling and her attitudes toward families based on this incredible under-representation of even moderately normal families in her books?

The average family in the magical world of Harry Potter is a single parent, single child family. Of the five main child characters in the novels (Harry, Hermione, Ron, Neville and Voldemort), three are parentless, one abandons her parents to join the magical world and the fifth is Ron of the massive family.

I don't really know what this all says about J.K. but I just find it strange. And telling. What do you think?

How long does it take to produce a portrait?

I'm confused by the portraits that hang in the Hogwarts headmaster's office.

Okay, maybe I'm not confused by the portraits themselves but I'm confused by the process by which they are created.

And especially how long it takes after the death of a headmaster for his or her portrait to appear.

As we all know (I won't give a 'spoiler alert' since anyone who has read this far into this entry must have read all the Harry Potter books at least once), Dumbledore dies near the end of The Half-Blood Prince.

If I understand the 'Avada Kedavra' curse properly, it kills the instant it strikes its victim. So Dumbledore was dead even as his body was "blasted into the air" by Snape's curse, before it disappears over the battlements and ends up lying at the foot of the tower.

By the time Harry makes his way with now Headmistress McGonagall to the Headmistress' office just 27 pages later (in my paperback edition), Dumbledore's portrait is already hanging on the wall behind the desk. I take it that the position directly above/behind the desk is the place of honour for the last Headmaster but I may be wrong about that.

In those 27 pages, Harry fought his way out of the castle in pursuit of Snape, engaged in several duels with Snape and others, helped Hagrid put out the fire that was engulfing his house, returned to the crowd surrounding Dumbledore's body, then made his way up to the hospital wing to see poor Bill and sat with the Weasley family through Fleur's revelation of the true depth of her love for Bill.

Let's say that entire process took, what, two hours at most? Perhaps not even that long since Rowling says that the office, when Harry and McGonagall enter it, "looked exactly as it had done when he and Dumbledore had left it mere hours previously" and those "mere hours" also included the fateful trip to the cave for the locket.

Okay, so the process of creating a portrait of a headmaster takes at most two hours from the moment of death to the appearance of the portrait in the office. Right?

Now let's move forward to The Deathly Hallows and (no spoiler alert) the death of Headmaster Snape.

Snape dies of wounds he receives from Nagini.  Immediately thereafter, Voldemort calls for a cease-fire in the battle and gives Harry one hour two join him in the Forbidden Forest, or else the Dark Lord will join the battle himself.

Harry goes almost directly to the Headmaster's office to use the Pensieve. When he gets there, he finds every portrait absent, every frame empty. Harry "glances hopeless at Dumbledore's deserted frame, which hung directly behind the Headmaster's chair". So it hasn't moved to make room for a new portrait, one of Snape. And there's no mention of a new frame, even an empty one, where Snape might have hung.

Okay, so Harry takes a full hour to view Snape's memories, gird himself and walk into the Forest to face his death. He confronts Voldemort just as the hour expires. It would appear that the scene at King's Cross with Dumbledore takes no time whatsoever, since Harry returns to the Forest mere seconds after his duel with Voldemort.

So we're still at an hour. But then there follow a series of scenes that take some time. In fact, when Harry finally defeats Voldemort, the victory occurs just as the rising sun bursts into the Great Hall. So it's morning.

And Rowling then writes that "[t]he sun rose steadily over Hogwarts, and the Great Hall blazed with light and life." News comes in from every corner "as the morning drew on".

So, by the time that Harry, Ron and Hermione finally make their way to the Headmaster's Office for their final chat with Dumbledore's portrait, anywhere from three to say 12 hours have passed since Snape's death.

And yet... no sign of Snape's portrait. Dumbledore still sits in the "largest portrait directly behind the Headmaster's chair".

If Dumbledore's portrait can appear in two hours or less, why does it take so long for Snape's to appear?

Four possibilities: 1) Snape's portrait is there but Harry simply does not notice it and Snape chooses to say nothing; 2) Snape's portrait is delayed because the portrait painter is otherwise occupied (in the battle and the celebration that follows, perhaps): 3) Snape will never get a portrait because he was not a true Hogwart's headmaster; or 4) Snape isn't dead.

With regard to 1), I doubt it. Harry would notice it or at least Snape would not be able to stay quiet. I would also think that Harry, having seen all that Snape had done for him, would have taken the opportunity to thank him at the end of the book.

As to 2), I guess it's possible. I always thought that the portraits were produced by some magic of Hogwarts itself, not by an individual witch or wizard. But it is possible it was delayed.

I don't buy 3) because Harry himself, in the epilogue, tells little Albus Severus: "you were named for two headmasters of Hogwarts. One of them was a Slytherin and he was probably the bravest man I ever knew." So Snape was, indeed, a Headmaster.

As for 4), hmmm.... In describing Snape's death earlier, Rowling wrote: "after a second something in the depths of the dark pair seemed to vanish, leaving them fixed, blank and empty. The hand holding Harry thudded to the floor, and Snape moved no more." Snape sounds pretty dead to me.

So I guess it must be 3) after all. What do you think?

Rowling is still Rowling in The Casual Vacancy

I have finally gotten around to reading J.K. Rowling's first adult novel, The Casual Vacancy. I am only about 100 pages in so far so I'm in no position to make any sweeping conclusions about it but I will say this: Rowling is still a wonderful writer.

Alright, maybe that's a sweeping conclusion.

But, whatever one might think about this down-and-dirty adult novel, you have to admit that J.K. Rowling writes beautiful sentences, crafts memorable descriptions and creates effective and affecting characters.

With that being said, I have two very early comments to make about this book and, sorry Joanne, but both involve me comparing The Casual Vacancy to your Harry Potter books. I can't help it. I'm a HP fan and can't help but to hear the echoes of your earlier works in this latest one.

First, at the beginning of Chapter Monday X of TCV, Rowling writes the following in the wake of Barry Fairbrother's death and its announcement on the Parish Council's website: "little knots of pedestrians kept congregating on the narrow pavements to check, in shocked tones, the exactness of their information."

Doesn't that remind you, just a little, of Rowling's descriptions of the way the wizarding world reacted to Voldemort's disappearance at the start of the Harry Potter series?

Early in The Philosopher's Stone, she wrote: "there seemed to be a lot of strangely dressed people about. People in cloaks...They were whispering excitedly together." And later, Professor McGonagall complains that, in the aftermath of Voldemort's historic first encounter with Harry Potter, "People are being downright careless, out on the streets in broad daylight, not even dressed in Muggle clothes, swapping rumours."

Not the same words, sure, but the exact same effect, don't you think? For me, it's kind of neat to see this kind of pattern in Rowling's thinking and writing.

So far, my favourite character in TCV is Krystal Weedon, the misery-hardened teen who feels her chance of escape has disappeared with Mr. Fairbrother's death. As I said, I'm only about 100 pages into this book and already I've developed a deep-seated empathy for this character.

Rowling is at her evocative best in chapter Wednesday I, the first that really takes up Krystal's point of view. And what a heart-rending chapter it is, as Rowling subtly, carefully allows us to see how devastating her coach and teacher's death is to this seemingly callous, hardened young woman.

As I read it, I can't help but thinking of Snape when he was young, a lost, lonely boy living a loveless life, with no real hope of something better.

It is a credit to Rowling that she is able to create such empathy for these apparently distasteful characters, that she can capture so effectively the devastating impact of poverty and abandonment on a young life. If Weedon (and what a great name that is for this character) is brutal and nasty and offensive, it is life that has made her that way. But that doesn't mean that she's not human, that she doesn't at some level of her soul recognise what she is and what she has become and hope for something better.

I'm quite enjoying The Casual Vacancy. I'll probably write more on it as I work my way through it.

The voice of the Dark Duke

What a strange feeling!

The other day, I found myself flipping through the television channels and I came across a film called The Duchess, starring Keira Knightley and Ralph Fiennes.

Yes, that Ralph Fiennes. The Voldemort Ralph Fiennes.

I think it's the first time I've seen a film with Fiennes in it since The Deathly Hallows Part 2 came out. And how strange it was to hear that voice again! Scary.

Fiennes plays the Duke, controlling and emotionally inaccessible husband to Knightley's title character. In some ways, his character here is almost as evil as the Dark Lord, using and abusing the people around him for his own purposes, never caring what they might want out of their lives.

But it was the voice that got me. That was Voldemort's voice Fiennes was using in the worst of the scenes and it sent a shiver through me. No, not the ridiculous voice of the cavorting Dark Lord in Part 2; the evil whisper of the earlier Voldemort, from The Goblet of Fire and The Order of the Phoenix.

As strange as it was, however, it was a lot more welcome than seeing Daniel "Harry Potter" Radcliffe doing a soft shoe on last night's Oscar telecast. Ugh.

Harry Potter and The Rebound

Just a quick note on something interesting that happened today.

We decided to pop in a movie this morning and chose from our collection a film called The Rebound, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Justin Bartha. It's a romantic comedy from 2009 and, frankly, I had never even heard of it when I picked it up for really cheap ($3.33) at a local video store.

Written and directed by Bart Freundlich, The Rebound is a surprisingly good rom com with just the right amount of heart. It tells the tale of a 40-year-old divorcing mother of two (Jones) who hires a sweet 25-year-old man (Bartha) to be the full-time nanny to her kids while she re-starts her career.

One of the key challenges facing their romance is the difference in their ages. Jones does a nice job in it and Bartha brings a convincing innocence to his role. We really enjoyed the film.

Why write about it on a Harry Potter blog?

Because it's really the first movie I've seen where a character is seen reading J.K. Rowling's novels on screen. First, we see Bartha holding Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (it is an American movie, after all) while babysitting Jone's children. I guess we're supposed to understand that he had been reading the book to them.

In a later scene, Bartha is seen reading The Deathly Hallows in bed. Knowing that his youth is already being held against him, Bartha argues that, while his choice of reading materials might seem juvenile, a lot of adults also enjoy these books.

I couldn't agree more.

And it's really fun to see these books I love so much appearing in this film. It made me wonder, however: I know that a lot of films and TV shows make Harry Potter references but how many so far have actually shown the books onscreen?