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...

Sharing the excitement of the Studio Tour

The Gates of Hogwarts

As I said in my last post, my 50th Birthday visit to the Harry Potter Studio Tour was made even more exciting and enjoyable by the fact that a birthday party of young people adopted me and allowed me to share in their excitement.

This is a photo of me at the Hogwarts Gates with several of these happy young people -- published with permission. Note the fabulous robes on two of them and the big smiles on the faces of all of us.

Every once in a while during the tour, I'd run into them again and they'd shout "hello" and wish me "Happy Birthday" and they would point with excitement at the nearest display and asked "Did you see...?"

They told me that they had all been on the tour at least once before. One of the girls said she already owns at least 12 wands (!!!!) so I was very happy when the Studio permitted us all a sneak preview of the Hogwarts Express display. At least the kids got the chance to see something new!

Harry Potter Studio Tour - An indescribable experience

Me with our friend Pollie, outside the Studio

As a wonderful surprise, my partner took me to England for a ten-day visit in honour of my 50th birthday. As an even more wonderful surprise, she booked tickets for the Warner Brothers Harry Potter Studio Tour in Watford Junction, north of London, on the actual day of my birthday.

To say that this tour was "magical" would be a terrible pun but very true. To say that it was "amazing" would be the understatement of the year. The Warner Brothers Harry Potter Studio Tour was quite probably the best major attraction I have ever visited. It offers an incredible amount to see and do and it is designed and presented in a remarkably visitor-friendly way.

Dementors lurk

If you don't believe me, as my partner Patti and our friend Pollie, who joined us for the tour, neither of whom are Harry Potter fans of any description. They loved the entire experience, even though I turned what is supposed to be a three-hour tour into a six-hour exploration of as many of the displays and presentations as I could take in before I became completely overwhelmed.

And that's one of the beauties of this tour: the first half hour is scripted, with staff leading you through a brief video and your entrance into the Hogwarts Great Hall, but after that you are left to your own devices, to wander the exhibits at your own speed, to spend as much time as you like examining the set for the Burrow, or Dumbledore's Office or Malfoy Manor, or watching the many explanatory videos or trying out the amazing interactive opportunities (spell casting lesson anyone?). You are not "guided" through at a particular speed so you can take your time. And, if you opt to rent a digital tour guide, you can listen to the interviews with directors and crew members, watch the videos, take it all in at your own pace.

My favourite set, the Headmaster's Office

Remember, this is a tour of the studios in which the Harry Potter films were made. You visit the actual sets that were used in the movies; you see the actual costumes and the actual models that were transformed, through the magic of film-making, into the many creatures that come to life on screen. There is so much detail there that a massive Harry Potter fan like me can become completely overwhelmed with just a single display (my favourite was Dumbledore's Office, I think).

You don't have to be a fan to enjoy it, though. Patti and Pollie loved the entire thing, learning as much about film making as about Harry Potter himself.

Because it was my birthday, I received a special badge and, as a result, was wished a "Happy Birthday" by the friendly staff throughout the tour. This also mean that I was befriended by a wonderful group of girls who were there for a birthday party. Two of them were sporting Hogwarts robes for the tour and one admitted to me later that she already owns 12 wands (!!!!). We kept encountering these young women all over the studio and their enthusiasm and excitement served to add to the thrill of my visit.

I don't plan to post all 400 photos (and 60-minutes of video) that I took on the tour in this one blog entry but I will finish with a final, very special shot. Our visit to the Studio Tour had been booked over a year ago so it was quite ironic (and slightly disappointing) when we found out, the day before we attended, that the Hogwarts Express display was about to open... four days after our visit.

Our sneak peek at the Hogwarts Express display!

Imagine how excited we were when we found out that the Studio had decided to hold a "soft opening" of the display on the very day of our visit, for just a half hour or so, to test it out with real visitors. So we got to see it, before just about any other member of the public had the chance. Awesome!!!

Turning over a new Page

In case you have missed it, we've added a new "Page" to Potter Thoughts: you can find it under the heading "Fan Fiction" to the right of the main text box.

About four years ago, you see, I began working on my own Rowling-world novel which I titled, The Way Forward. This creative effort of fan fiction focuses on some of the secondary characters from the Harry Potter novels, in particular George Weasley, Minerva McGonagall and Aberforth Dumbledore as each tries to deal with the emotional aftermath of the war against Voldemort and the Death Eaters.

It's not a particularly upbeat novel but I very much enjoyed writing it. I never did finish it but, when I found it again the other week, I thought: why don't I share this on my Harry Potter blog?

I'd love it if you would read my work and give me feedback, good or bad. Just remember: I read the seven Harry Potter novels but I do NOT pay particular attention to the thoughts and comments of J.K. Rowling that she has made public since the last novel came out.

In other words, I don't really know what she has said about where each of her characters is intended to end up. So, it is entirely possible that I have some of them say and do things that don't jive with what Rowling has said since she finished writing the books.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy my little effort. I'll be adding more and more every week.

Harry Potter and my day-to-day life

I know, I know, I know. It's been a very long time since I wrote a new entry for this blog. I apologize. I have been so caught up in other projects that I haven't had the chance to read, or write, about Harry and his friends in quite some time.

That doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about J.K.'s magical world. No, that world never drifts far from my mind. It just means I haven't been actively reading the books, watching the films or writing this blog of late.

And Harry Potter keeps popping up in my day-to-day life. It's in some ways amazing how these books and films that are now several years in the past continue to have life, continue to influence the world in which we live.

Three examples:

1. Did you see the articles on the various new websites about how scientists are working on developing an Invisibility Cloak, similar to that "seen in Harry Potter"? Awesome. I have gotten used to seeing articles of this kind that talk about scientific developments that bring to life technology that was first seen in Star Trek but this is the first article that referred to Harry Potter. What's next, the development of flying brooms? a flue network? a deluminator?

2. I watched the Jim Carrey film Yes Man on Netflix the other day and was pleased to see Harry Potter play a significant role. Now, this is not a great movie. It starts well and seems to be promising some interesting stuff but, unfortunately, it starts to fall apart about half way through and degenerates into silliness by the end. Be that as it may, it was a lot of fun to see Jim Carrey (dressed as Harry) and Zooey Deschanel (dressed as Hermione) attend a Harry Potter party, complete with an awesome Dobby in attendance.

3. I was chatting with my boss the other day about my holiday plans. My partner, you see, is preparing a big trip for us to celebrate my upcoming birthday and she has kept our destination a secret from me. This makes the whole thing very fun, exciting and mysterious. It also leads to a lot of questions, both from me and from other people in my life. My boss asked where I thought I might end up going. I said I can think of a variety of possibilities, all of them fantastic: England, France, Italy, Prague, the Netherlands, California, Victoria BC, even Florida so that we can go to Harry Potter World. When I mentioned the last option, my boss, the last person in the world I would have thought to have read Harry Potter not to mention to have gone to Harry Potter World, smiled, nodded and said: "We waited in line for three hours to get a wand!"

Awesome.

I wonder where I'm going to go.

Defending Rowling's first post-Potter novel

Let's talk about A Casual Vacancy for a minute, shall we?

When J.K. Rowling's first big after-Potter book came out several years ago, I resisted buying it. I am a fan of Harry Potter, not necessarily of Joanne Rowling. I recognize that we would have no H.P. without J.K., of course, and I think the books are beautifully written, but I am not regularly in the habit of following authors no matter what they write.

I then found a mint condition hard cover copy of A Casual Vacancy at a local book sale for just two dollars and I thought, "Why not?"

I read it and I enjoyed it and, even if the subject matter was not necessarily my cup of tea, I recognized that it was extremely well written. Sometimes I think the quality of Rowling's writing gets lost in the excitement and pace of the Potter novels but, in ACV, it comes shining through.

So I was surprised when a friend from work brought up the subject of the book the other day and complained that he felt that Rowling was "trying too hard" in her first big non-Potter novel. "Trying too hard" were his exact words, implying that Rowling overdid the emotion, the complexity, the maturity of ACV in an effort to prove to the world that she is not just a writer of Young Adult fiction.

I'm not sure how I'm reacting to this criticism. I don't agree with it, to be certain, but why am I so angry about it?

If I had to take guess, I'd say that the criticism is unfair to Rowling because the problem is in the reader not in the writing. Since my friend knew J.K. only as a YA writer, he was likely hyper-sensitive to the adult themes of ACV. If he had come into the new novel not knowing who had written it, he probably would have liked it a lot more; because he knew it was Rowling who wrote it, and he associated Rowling with writing for young people, he felt the impact of the mature themes of the new book much more strongly, perhaps too strongly.

Does that make sense?

I'll have to continue to think about it. I do know that I appreciate in ACV the sincere effort Rowling made to do something different, the impressive complexity of her plot and character roster in this book and the strength of the emotional impact of the book.

I also know that, like Dick Francis, Rowling displays an effortless command of the language, of grammar and punctuation, of plot construction and character development.

She is a remarkably polished writer and someone like me, who considers himself to be something of a writer himself, can learn a great deal, must by reading Rowling's books.

Pottermore posts not on my radar

So J.K. has put up some more "essays" on Pottermore, offering further information on various aspects of the Harry Potter world. I understand that one of them involves giving a history of Hogwarts and its headmasters, for example.

Note my use of "understand". I say "I understand" because, to be honest, I don't really know on account of the fact that I have not bothered to go read these new pieces of Potterana.

I'm not sure how I feel about them, to be honest.

I think my apathy is real and not driven by some nasty side of my personality, like jealousy, envy or spite. I think I really really don't care about these extra bits Ms. Rowling keeps throwing out into the world.

This is coming from someone who has read each volume in the Harry Potter series of novels at least 20 times. This is from someone who has already owned the eight movies both in DVD and Blu-Ray format and yet still will stop to watch them whenever they appear on regular TV. This is from someone who has become something of a resource in the lives of the Harry Potter fans among his friends and acquaintances.

In some ways, it makes me feel kind of sad that J.K. is still tossing bits of bread out onto the waters with regard to Harry Potter and hoping we will all snap them up.

I wonder why she can't either:

1. "let it go" and accept that her Harry Potter days are over and she should now focus on her really quite wonderful Galbraith novels; or
2. "suck it up", admit that she, like us, is addicted to Harry Potter and sit down to write another full length novel. I have no doubt that she could write some exciting books detailing Harry's adventures as an Auror, supplemented by plots involving Ron, Hermione and the others as they attempt to find their way in a post-Voldemort world.

The little tidbits she keeps offering seem pathetic, to be honest. Indecisive and sad.

And so I will choose not to read them anymore. And still treasure the seven spectacular Harry Potter novels I do read.