At last, my Hogwarts acceptance letter

I have been accepted to Hogwarts School, the best school of witchcraft and wizardry in the world. That's what the letter I received today says. It's about four decades too late but at least it got here.

 In fact, I got the whole Hogwarts acceptance package: the letter, the list of supplies and books, the train ticket. Very very exciting. I even tweeted to J.K. Rowling to ask her help in finding the Leaky Cauldron and the entrance to Diagon Alley -- I have a lot to buy and I'm not sure Canada has its own magical mall.

I believe that my sister Lynn created these exquisite reproductions (because, let's face it, they're not real... unfortunately) and they have instantly become one of my favourite Harry Potter items, alongside my Gryffindor scarf (also hand-crafted by Lynn), my Grim tea cup and my Harry Potter shelf, all hand-made, one-of-a-kind items.

And these are perfect reproductions. Gorgeous and perfect in every way. The envelope came tied with a string, with the red Hogwarts seal on the back. And, if I'm not mistaken, the letter is perfect, right down to the signatures, while nothing is missed from the supply list enclosed.

I especially love the train ticket, which is plasticised slightly, to keep it firm and clean. I'm not sure everyone in the world would be as enthralled by this little package as I am but I guess that's the nature of presents: they are intended to please and delight the receiver. And, if my sister's excited anticipation of my opening the gift over the past two weeks is any indication, she's as delighted by this as I am!

At last, a tiny impact of films on novels

I have often wondered if, in writing the later books, J.K. Rowling was at all influenced by the film versions of the earlier novels.

As the chart below shows, Rowling must have been in the process of writing The Order of the Phoenix at the time the first two films were released. Four films were already out by the time she was writing The Half-Blood Prince and The Deathly Hallows. The possibility of influence definitely existed.

Volume	Book Release	Film Release
1 – The Philosopher’s Stone	1997	2001
2 – The Chamber of Secrets	1998	2002
3 – The Prisoner of Azkaban	1999	2004
4 – The Goblet of Fire	2000	2005
5 – The Order of the Phoenix	2003	2007
6 – The Half-Blood Prince	2005	2009
7 – The Deathly Hallows	2007	2010
8 – The Deathly Hallows (2)		2011

To be honest, I have re-read the books several times with this question in mind and, until I listened to the audio books, I could find no evidence that she was influenced at all by the movies. I find that fact both remarkable and impressive. Jo must have had a very clear, unshakeable vision of her characters, her settings, her magical world to be able to resist adapting that vision to match the very vivid, very imaginative presentation offered by the films.

I say, "until I listened to the audio books", however, because, as Jim Dale read to me the chapter called "Gringott's" in the seventh book, I heard it... a very small, very minor bit of evidence that Rowling might just have been influenced, however slightly, by the films as she wrote the later books.

Don't get too excited. It really is a very minor example. And if it is the only example, it is practically meaningless. But interesting nonetheless.

It involves the presentation of the gateway to Diagon Alley located at the back of the yard of the Leaky Cauldron. Here is how Rowling describes the movement of the bricks and the formation of the gateway in The Philosopher's Stone (1997):

The brick he had touched quivered -- it wriggled -- in the middle, a small hole appeared -- it grew wider and wider -- a second later they were facing an archway...

Now imagine how this same scene was depicted in the first film in 2001. Hagrid touches the brick with his umbrella/wand and the bricks begin to spin and rotate out of sight. The archway takes several seconds to form as the bricks twirl. It's a wonderfully visual event and a brilliant way to introduce the splendours of Diagon Alley.

Now fast forward five years to 2006 as Rowling is in the process of writing the final novel. Harry, Hermione and Ron arrive at the Leaky Cauldron (suitably disguised, of course), on their way to breaking into the Lestrange vault at Gringott's, and Jo describes the opening of the gateway to Diagon Alley as follows:

Hermione... tapped a brick in the nondescript wall in front of them. At once the bricks began to whirl and spin; a hole appeared in the middle of them, which grew wider and wider, finally forming an archway...

In her initial description of the formation of the gateway, Rowling says that the brick "quivered" and "wriggled"; the film presents the bricks as spinning out of sight; in her final description of the formation of the gateway, Rowling says that the bricks "whirl" and "spin".

I know. I know. I know. It's nothing huge but... doesn't it seem like the filmic version of the event changed, however slightly, Rowling's description of the way the archway changed.

For some reason, this discovery delights me to no end.

new moon takes things too far

I haven't posted in a while, mainly because I've had other reading obligations drawing my attention away from Harry and the gang.

The latest novel on my list, however, is the second entry in the twilight series, new moon. I'm not liking it half so much as I did twilight itself and that got me to thinking about why that might be.

I think I've figured it out. And I think it shines some light on a question faced by all writers of these kinds of books, including J.K. Rowling when she sat down to start writing Harry Potter.

The question is this: how closely do I plan to align the invented, magical parts of my novel's world with the "real" parts of that world? If I don't wish to write novels of pure fantasy but to maintain some level of connection between my stories and the real world of the reader, how do I balance the novel's "real" world with its magical counterpart?

It appears to me that writers have to decide either to create some barrier between to the two worlds, which allows the magical world to grow and develop, or to integrate the two worlds together, which requries that the magical aspects remain limited in depth and scope.

J.K Rowling decided to go the former route: using Diagon Alley as the doorway and the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy as the wall, she has created two seperate worlds that exist in parallel, rarely if ever meeting directly. She asks the readers to accept that Harry and Hermione, for example, can be born and raised in the real world, then invited to join the magical world when they reach age 11. In order to enjoy her novels, we must suspend our disbelief and accept that the magical world could possibly co-exist with our own. The limited interaction between the two and the efforts made by the wizards and witches to erase any trace of such interactions make it easier for us to go along with the fiction.

C.S. Lewis' Narnia series, the Peter Pan stories, the Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland are all examples of authors who took similar approaches. They all involve a magical world that exists in parallel with our own, connected only by a single doorway through which the human characters travel.

Stephenie Meyer's twilight series, on the other hand, takes the other route: instead of creating a completely independent magical world, Meyer asks us to accept that vampies walk among us, that they have their own society, culture and history that exists in our own reality. There is no doorway between the worlds because there is only one world: the world the reader lives in.

In order for this approach to be effective, the writer must be very careful not to ask us to accept too much and I think that's where Meyer goes off the rails in new moon. I was able to accept that vampires exist and that a star-struck romance like that between Edward, the vampire, and Bella, the human, was possible. So I enjoyed twilight. But I'm having a lot more trouble now accepting the expansion of that magical world to include werewolves in new moon, and further that our unfortunate Bella could possibly end up with two perfect, wonderful star struck lovers, one a vampire, the other a werewolf and each the mortal enemy of the other.

Meyer appears to wish to "have her cake and eat it too" in that she wants her readers to accept that her books take place entirely in the real world and yet she wants to be allowed to add layer upon layer to the magical world she develops.

At some point, she has stretched reality so far that it actually breaks. And I think that happens in new moon.

Because she wants to set her stories in the real world, she can only add so many magical elements and expect her reader to accept them.

And,a t this point, I can't.

I would compare the effect to the horror genre. In order to be truly scary, a horror novel or movie must be based in the real world. We are not going to be afraid unless we identify the the character who is in danger or we fear that the scary stuff could happen to us. Either way, the characters and their world must be close enough to us and our world to make the story effective.

When the horror story strays too far from reality, it loses its effect. Sure, there's an entire branch of horror (the British call it "Hammer horror") that prides itself on being so ridiculous as to be funny but the really good horror movies and books are scary because they don't stray too far from reality.

In new moon, Meyer is starting to stray a little too far. And she doesn't have the protection of the seperate-world trope that makes Rowling's books so good.

"Diagon Alley' is a breathtaking introduction to so many important things

Having taken a brief break to read some Jane Austen (which I thoroughly enjoyed, by the way), I am back to Harry Potter again and reading Book 1, The Philosopher's Stone, for the umteenth time.

I love coming back to this book after some time away from the whole Harry Potter world. It's so fresh and lively and exciting. I even find myself getting a slight taste of how it felt to read it for the very first time, when everything was completely new, but in some ways re-reading is an even more satisfying experience.

Chapter Five, 'Diagon Alley', is a particular gem in this book, especially when the reader knows what's to come in the entire series of novels. That's not to say that this first glimpse of the magical world wasn't enthralling on first reading! I felt just like Harry way back then: I wished I had eight extra eyes to take it all in.

Now that I know the rest of the books so well, however, I can appreciate how important this first visit to the Leaky Cauldron and the world beyond it is to the development not just of this first novel but of the entire Harry Potter saga.

Any number of characters who would play ongoing and even important roles are introduced in this chapter: Tom, the barman, Dedalus Diggle, Ollivander, Madam Malkin and, of course, Draco Malfoy all make their first appearances as Harry discovers his own magical world and his importance to its people.

Interestingly, we don't learn Draco's name until later, just as we have to wait to find out what Harry plans to call his new snowy owl, a birthday gift from Hagrid.

J.K. also uses this chapter to lay down several important (and perhaps not so important) rules for the magical world, rules which would have particular resonance in later books and particularly in Book Seven, The Deathly Hallows:

• from Hagrid, Harry learns that toads are no longer considered to be cool pets by the students at Hogwarts, which later gives us a very quick insight into the character and circumstances of Neville Longbottom, owner of the infamous toad Trevor;
• from our visit to Gringott's bank, we learn how dangerous it would be to attempt to break in, something Hagrid reinforces on several occasions in the chapter; isn't it ironic that, as the saga comes to a close, Harry and his friends actually do try to break into Gringott's and, with a little help from a freedom-seeking dragon, actually survive to tell the tale; and
• from Ollivander, we learn four important lessons which will play key roles in later novels: first, that the wand chooses the wizard; second, that a borrowed wand will never perform so well as a wizard's own wand; third, that the holly wand that chooses Harry has, as its core, a tail feather from the same Phoenix that provided the tail feather inside Voldemort's wand; and fourth, that the Phoenix in question (which turns out to be Fawkes, Dumbledore's own bird) gave up only those two tail feathers.

And, as I've mentioned before on this blog, we get a wonderfully written opportunity to understand a little bit more about the characters of Harry Potter and the pale, pointed face boy he encounters in Madam Malkin's robe shop. The unnamed Draco introduces us to the division within the wizarding community over the issue of pure blood versus "Mudblood", while displaying a conceited, haughty character that immediately turns Harry off.

In just 17 short pages, 'Diagon Alley' sets the stage for what is to come, both in the novel itself and across the entire series. It's no wonder we readers almost fail to notice that Rowling has also introduced us, and Harry, to the villain of that first book, Professor Quirrell, who comes across merely as another Harry Potter fan in the Leaky Cauldron.

I found this chapter so impressive that I had to stop and read it again. Great writing. Fabulous introduction to so many important things!

The first book is an action-packed ride

As I read The Philosopher's Stone through in French, I find myself amazed at how much actually happens in this book. There's action on almost every page.

First, the zoo and the Dursleys. Then the letter and the flight to the rock in the sea. Then Hagrid, Diagon Alley and the Hogwarts Express.

Harry arrives at school and is sorted. Neville and the Rememberall. Quidditch. Nicholas Flamel and the Stone. Late night duels. Fluffy. It just goes on and on.

I've just gotten to the scene where Norbert hatches from his egg. There are only 50 pages left in the book and it's amazing how much has happened, yet also how much still has to happen before the book draws to a close.

An amazingly busy novel!