Harry Potter

Being in the United States and 18, I hadn't heard of Harry Potter when the first book was released (September 1998, the beginning of my freshman year), and wouldn't have heard of it until the first movie was close to coming out, had I not participated in Toys for Tots my freshman year in college. I had a choice of a book and a toy to buy from a prescribed list, and when I went to the bookstore, the clerk recommended the first book. So I took the advice, and didn't think of Harry Potter until the first movie came out, and people started to compare it to The Fellowship of the Ring. Being a huge nerd (but not one remotely familiar with the book, but with Chris Columbus's history of filmmaking), I came out very clearly on the Tolkien side. After seeing the film in college, I was even more sure. From the lost blog on March 25, 2002: "I went to see "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" last night. I know that this is going, at least, to annoy some of the readers of this, but that movie was 2.5 hours of the biggest crappy-ness that Hollywood could throw at me. I am positive that it's a combination of Chris Columbus's no-talent directing and J.K. Rowling's derivative book. And what's with the Deus Ex Machina ending? It apparently wasn't in the book, but they decided to include so much of the book, and then change the ending to something that pissed me off more than the entire crappy CGI of the Quidditch match? The movie was complete tripe. At least I didn't completely piss Brady off by being too vocal in my scorn in front of her brother. I think that the book is probably a little better than the movie, but not much, as it's so derivative of the Star Wars trilogy and LOTR that I hated it. I mean, I really like the cast (as it's English), but dear god, that was 2.5 hours long. I remember sitting there looking at my watch and saying, "Dear god, there's 45 more minutes of this crap?"" So you can see, umm, I really didn't like it. Even with that horrible reaction to the first film and quite a few more screeds against Harry Potter when the second movie and the fifth book came out, when I saw Mean Girls in May of 2004, I wrote this: "I was actually hoping that the new Cinderella story was the new Harry Potter trailer. I'm tempted to see it, because Cuarón is a very talented director. Oh well." Cleary, my mind had changed.

In 2005, I finally saw Chamber of Secrets, as I am a huge fan of Alfonso Cuarón, and will see anything he's done (A Little Princess and Great Expectations are gorgeous films, even if not as good as Y Tu Mama Tambien), so his directing the third one made me need to have some background. And yes, I enjoyed Prisoner of Azkaban. So clearly, after watching the second and third ones (and accurately predicting the release of the 7th book in 2007), I was planning on reading the books. I watched Goblet of Fire in the theater with my family later in 2005, again hoping for faster writing of the last book. I finally saw the fifth one (in HD on my fancy TV, which is so awesome, by the way) in the midst of reading the others, and man, if my nerdiness didn't make me get a little annoyed at all the changes made, even though I had only read the books once and that was in the two weeks right before watching the film. And still, the thing that annoyed me most was making Cho Chang's role smaller, because I want more attractive Asians with accents, please. Anyway, seeing the movie was a little ahead of where I was in my story.

So back in late June, I was unceremoniously dumped by email late on a Friday when I was at work. I went home, and instead of sulking like I normally do when this occurs (some of my sulks are better than others), I started to read Harry Potter. I made it through the first one in a day, the second one in a couple more, the third by the end of the first week, the fourth over that second weekend, the fifth over the next week (it's long and I can't read all day when I'm at work), and the sixth one made it a little over a day (I had to watch the fifth movie first). And somewhere after I started to read I noticed that Tweaks (it's a long post but you got mentioned), had two copies of the fifth book but no copy of the seventh. And those two Order of the Phoenixes were the English version (so no pictures at the chapter headings, boo! but I liked reading the English version anyway). So I really tried to hold off on the sixth one, but I was into it and epic fail. And everyone else in DC I knew who read it didn't have their copies of the books, and so I had to wait for four days to get to start reading the seventh book. Which is nothing compared to the two years for everyone who read it when the books came out, but I was getting a little antsy anyway. And I finished the seventh by staying up until almost 3 am after Tweaks's birthday party and 2 am the next night (couldn't stop reading with so little left). So I was a little less social than I would have been over the last few weeks, and now you know why I haven't actually posted too many movie reviews lately.

Now to the actual books: I liked them. Certainly not the deepest or best written books I've ever read, but they're extremely enjoyable, and probably quite good for an early teen. Not being an early teen, the bits of self-censoring and willful ignorance (you're putting a whole bunch of boys and girls, ages 11-17, in rooms without any kind of watching besides some kind of charm that makes a noise when a guy tries to enter the girls dorm, and there's no sex? Really?) made me question how realistic it really is, but then again, it's a story for youngsters, and as much as I know that sex happens among those under 18, encouraging it probably isn't the best social policy. Now that I've gone off on that tangent... well, I knew that the books would end with some bad things happening, but with an ultimate happy ending, because man, you can't give a story with a down ending to kids. So my major problems with the books were that I was too old for them, which makes sense. A little more depth for some of the characters, and possibly less sullen Potter in the last few books, and I would have been even happier. If you haven't read them, I recommend them, but the movies are basically the same: suffer through the sort of basic first two, and then they get better. I was sort of surprised how much of the books were set up in the first one, although some of that was due to the almost constant repetition of the important plot points from the previous books when necessary near the beginning of the book. So again, my problems with the books were more about the fact it wasn't written for someone my age.

So I want to thank Tweaks (for the first six books), Vermonstrous (for the last), and all my other friends who suggested I read them (going all the way back to this Alicia in college telling me that they weren't crappy kids books and told me to give them a chance). I can, without a doubt, say that Harry Potter are good books, and worth reading.