Scholar's Blog Book Discussion Group Reminder

This is just a quick reminder that the Scholar's Blog Spoiler Zone discussion of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Sheila of Wands and Worlds posted two lengthy comments overnight which are thoughtful and invite further discussion, so if you have the chance (and I realise most are busy with school about to or already starting up again for the new term), please stop by, and read and comment !

* * * * * *

And yes, I am still here - still reading others' Blogs, though not posting much on my own. Sorry - the fiction writing bug that gripped me mid-July (to write Tenth Doctor/Martha stories) simply hasn't let go of me yet, so I'm still busy writing lots of shorter stories for them. I presume the pair's death-grip on my brain will lessen eventually and then I'll actually get back to writing other things...

Scholar's Blog Book Discussion Group

This month (and next) we're discussing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows so please head on over and add your tuppence or two cents' worth - that's assuming you're not already all talked-out about this one...

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J K Rowling

No, this is not a review - I'm saving that for the forthcoming HP7 discussion over on the Scholar's Blog Spoiler Zone in early August.

I have finished it though. It took me around seven hours in total - and I'm actually relieved to say I enjoyed it. I wasn't sure I would as I'd been resenting the prospect of reading it so much since rading it would be taking me out of the Whoniverse for several hours - the longest period I've spent *out* of the Whoniverse since I became immersed in it back in January. But once I started reading, the story tugged me along...

It was interesting reading this book from a fiction writer's point of view. This is the first HP book I've read since I began writing fiction myself and it was intriguing. I think I've mentioned here before that I have the facility to read on more than one level at the same time: I read as a child - wanting to get to the end of the story, hoping for a good ending, and I also read as a "critic" - looking at the structure, themes, language style, etc. And since I took up writing fiction I've been reading books at the level of someone who's also producing fiction - it's given me an extra awareness that I didn't possess when reading as a critic - sometimes that merely means thinking "Hmm, not sure I'd have written/structured that like that..." Sometimes it means a flare of admiring envy at the way something has been expressed and the desire to have that kind of mastery myself.

What it means for my reading of Harry Potter is that I've an extra appreciation of how bloody hard it is to tie up all the loose ends of a seven book series in a satisfying way that also gives readers at least a half-way decent story. And I think Rowling achieved that in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Oh and I don't totally hate the children's cover any longer - I still prefer the adult one, though ! But seeing it on book it seemed a little less morbid than in the photos (go figure !) And now that I know to what the UK cover relates, I'm impressed that it actually *fits* the story so well !

J K Rowling Tour of the US

This just in from Publishers Weekly:

The last time J.K. Rowling did a U.S. book tour, many of the people who are now her biggest fans either weren't born or hadn't learned to read yet. But to promote Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the notoriously publicity-shy author will be coming to the U.S. in October for the J K Rowling Open Book Tour. The brief tour, her first in eight years, will include four events: two in New York, one in New Orleans and another in Los Angeles. Three of the events will be expressly for students while the final one, slated for Carnegie Hall in New York, will be open to 1,000 fans who win tickets through a sweepstakes sponsored by Scholastic.

Article on J K Rowling

There was a lengthy piece by Killian Fox on J K Rowling in the Guardian on Sunday. These two paragraphs, in particular, interested me:

AS Byatt has weighed in against the oeuvre, arguing that: 'Ms Rowling's magic world has no place for the numinous. It is written for people whose imaginative lives are confined to TV cartoons and the exaggerated [more exciting, not threatening] mirror-worlds of soaps, reality TV and celebrity gossip.' Critic Harold Bloom lamented that: 'Harry Potter will not lead our children on to Kipling's Just So Stories or his Jungle Book. It will not lead them to Thurber's Thirteen Clocks or Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows or Lewis Carroll's Alice.'

Both criticisms fall short of the mark. The Potter series does become progressively darker and more serious in tone, and in response to certain religious groups which have marked the books out as unsuitable reading material for children, Rowling has emphasised the importance of confronting fear early on: 'That's a very important part of growing up, I think.' One might concede that Harry Potter is not great literature. But to witness the sheer pervasiveness of its appeal, which pays no attention to age, gender, language or cultural differences, and still to claim that it has little merit seems hugely wrong-headed.

I can't help wondering how Harold Bloom knows that Harry Potter won't lead children to Kipling, Carroll, Grahame or Thurber - has he checked ?!

* * * * * *

I confess that I'm feeling rather burnt-out by the Cybils and as a consequence I'm going to be taking things a little easier during January. I'm not stopping reading (not until I die !), but I'm not going to try to read so much. I started reading James Shapiro's 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare some time ago, after it was recommended as a good book to accompany Susan Cooper's King of Shadows, and I want to finish it before the library starts asking for it back again...

I also started Laurie Frost's The Elements of His Dark Materials some time ago and have yet to finish it, owing to deadlines beating my calendar to bits. Since Laurie kindly sent me a copy from the US, as The Elements of His Dark Materials isn't out in the UK until March, I'd quite like to get it finished before then !

And finally, I got the Doctor Who Season 2 box set of DVDs for Christmas, so I'm indulging myself in some viewing pleasure.

However, I'll still be around the Blogosphere reading other people's Blogs - and I'll still be writing for The Edge of the Forest and Write Away. I'll also post book news, etc. here as and when I hear it...