(no subject)
I realized that over the past few months I've piled up a few books that analyze various aspects of the Harry Potter phenomenon, so I decided to read them before the last book comes out. I've reviewed some such books (like BenBella Books' anthology Mapping The World of Harry Potter( favorably in the past. Here's how the three I read recently stack up:
The End of Harry Potter? by David Langford. 196 pages, softcover, TOR, isbn 9780765319340.
If you have time to read only one book analyzing the world of Harry Potter before "Deathly Hallows" comes out --- DON'T read this one. The tone is condescending, the humor rings hollow, and the book's stated purpose -- discussing the possibilities of what might happen in Deathly Hallows -- takes up a whopping 10 or so pages at the very end of the book. The rest of the time, Langford (apparently a multiple Hugo Award winner) serves up regurgitated commentary, old jokes, and virtually no new insights or interesting ways of looking at the Potter canon. Even what he has to say about the potential events of "Deathly Hallows" is bland -- he spends a good number of pages imagining resolutions in the style of scenes from The Lord of The Rings, Star Wars, Gone With The Wind and others I've already mercifully forgotten. These are meant to be uproariously funny -- the author obviously thinks they are -- and come across as at best mildly humorous and at worst downright boring. It would be almost palatable if he followed these scenarios up with anything approaching a cogent theory on where Rowling might be headed, but that theory never really comes.
Langford also seems to think that because his book is "unauthorized" by the Potter publishers, producers and author that he is not allowed to use any direct quotes from the books, and that in fact this means he has to hint around the actual plots of the books. It gives every chapter an air of shoddy research -- like he's read the books a couple of times but couldn't be bothered to go back and check his memory against the actual material. I'm not saying he makes any flat out mistakes (I've only read each book twice myself and have been known to forget facts and mix up timelines), but his tone comes across as that of someone who is afraid he's going to get caught playing with the bigger kids' toys and then he's going to be in real trouble -- which lends the whole proceeding a kind of smarmy "just trust me" attitude that left me cold.
In the end, I found this one to be a waste of reading time, because Langford didn't make the effort to find something original to say and didn't back up anything he did say with evidence from the source material.
Then there's
The Great Snape Debate by Amy Berner, Orson Scott Card & Joyce Millman 185 pages, softcover, Borders Books, isbn 9780979233111.
One of several "unauthorized" books commissioned by Borders in the ramp-up to the release of "Deathly Hallows." I enjoyed this because it took one major concept that everyone wants to see resolved in book seven and analyzed the hell out of it from both sides. Literally ... it's a flip book, with one side devoted to the case for Snape being an ally of Harry's, and the other devoted to Snape being a bad guy. The essays are witty, thoughtful, deeply analytical without being cold, with some original thoughts and plenty of supporting quotes. What's more impressive is that Berner and Millman put themselves firmly into each mindset and argue as though they truly believe Snape is a good guy or a bad guy. And they do it very even-handedly, never attacking the opposing point of view as a way of making the case for the point of view they're writing in at that moment. They are not wishy-washy no matter which side they take, and they don't obviously favor one theory over the other. Card only weighs in on the Snape-is-a-good-guy front, but his chapter is so convincing you can't help but believe he's right, and for the right reasons.
And even though the book is "unauthorized," as the authors make clear in the opening notes, there are plenty of direct quotes to provide evidence for their case, whichever case it is. It's interesting to see the same scenes replayed with different line readings emphasized in order to support the Good Guy or Bad Guy cases.
All three authors approach the material with a light touch -- there are plenty of side-bars with topics like "Ten Reasons We Love To Hate Snape," and plenty of snarky parenthetical asides that Potter know-it-alls will appreciate. The authors aren't out to insult anyone or come across as knowing something the rest of us don't. They're simply Potter fans having fun making the case for or against Snape being Harry's friend or foe.
This one is worth the read, and it's a quick read. It's a lot of fun because it's not all over the map like most other analyses.
And finally, we have
The Unauthorized Harry Potter: Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About The Harry Potter Series, by Adam-Troy Castro, 191 pages, softcover, BenBella Books for Borders Books, isbn 9780979233104.
Where Langford tries to be funny and fails miserably, Casto succeeds. Castro is one of my favorite writers from the various BenBella SmartPop anthologies; no matter what pop culture phenomena he's writing on, his essays are always well thought out and humorous. I think it primarily has to do with his timing. He's not afraid to leave a sentence on its own to increase its effectiveness as a punchline; he's not afraid to repeat things until the repetition itself is both expected and funny (kind of like a written version of "Who's On First?"
In this book, Castro doesn't claim to be predicting where Rowling will go in book seven. He's more interested in casting a fresh eye at what we already know and pointing out character flaws and positives by making connections that may not be as obvious. He does give some refreshing new ideas to mull over, even if he admits that by writing about them he's really just playing Devil's Advocate and doesn't really think its the way things will go. He spends a fair amount of time on each major character: Harry, Ron, Hermione, Hagrid, Dumbledore and Snape all get two chapters each, while Voldemort gets three (only because one chapter is really about his followers more than him), and Neville gets a chapter as well. He talks about Ron's role as the classic sidekick, why Hagrid was the perfect choice for the character who introduced Harry to the wizarding world, and how in a way the books are really all about Neville (he has a point -- Harry may be the focal point, but his baseline personality has not changed in 6 books despite getting older -- while Neville has gone through enormous change.). He also engages in a lot of interesting "what if" scenarios, at one point spending a whole chapter talking about how different Harry as a character would be if Voldemort had not existed. Another key difference between Castro and Langford: Castro's what ifs, whether they're about book seven or alternate histories where key characters didn't exist or key moments didn't happen, are original, not just rehashed pastiches of pop culture icons. He ends the book with a short list of "Three of the Stupidest Elements of the Potter Novels" (think Time Turners and Voldemort's "cunning plan" to get Harry in Goblet of Fire), some thoughts on whether Rowling and Potter will fade from popular conscioussness the way Alfred Hitchcock's Three Investigators did or remain well known as Twain's Tom and Huck (guess which side Castro is on), and a list of 84 questions he hopes Rowling will answer in the last book.
There are plenty of books out there analyzing the Potterverse, and after book seven comes out the number of books will likely triple -- there will be plenty of updated reissues,I'm sure. And yet, I think Castro's book is one of the few I will come back to and enjoy rereading.
The End of Harry Potter? by David Langford. 196 pages, softcover, TOR, isbn 9780765319340.
If you have time to read only one book analyzing the world of Harry Potter before "Deathly Hallows" comes out --- DON'T read this one. The tone is condescending, the humor rings hollow, and the book's stated purpose -- discussing the possibilities of what might happen in Deathly Hallows -- takes up a whopping 10 or so pages at the very end of the book. The rest of the time, Langford (apparently a multiple Hugo Award winner) serves up regurgitated commentary, old jokes, and virtually no new insights or interesting ways of looking at the Potter canon. Even what he has to say about the potential events of "Deathly Hallows" is bland -- he spends a good number of pages imagining resolutions in the style of scenes from The Lord of The Rings, Star Wars, Gone With The Wind and others I've already mercifully forgotten. These are meant to be uproariously funny -- the author obviously thinks they are -- and come across as at best mildly humorous and at worst downright boring. It would be almost palatable if he followed these scenarios up with anything approaching a cogent theory on where Rowling might be headed, but that theory never really comes.
Langford also seems to think that because his book is "unauthorized" by the Potter publishers, producers and author that he is not allowed to use any direct quotes from the books, and that in fact this means he has to hint around the actual plots of the books. It gives every chapter an air of shoddy research -- like he's read the books a couple of times but couldn't be bothered to go back and check his memory against the actual material. I'm not saying he makes any flat out mistakes (I've only read each book twice myself and have been known to forget facts and mix up timelines), but his tone comes across as that of someone who is afraid he's going to get caught playing with the bigger kids' toys and then he's going to be in real trouble -- which lends the whole proceeding a kind of smarmy "just trust me" attitude that left me cold.
In the end, I found this one to be a waste of reading time, because Langford didn't make the effort to find something original to say and didn't back up anything he did say with evidence from the source material.
Then there's
The Great Snape Debate by Amy Berner, Orson Scott Card & Joyce Millman 185 pages, softcover, Borders Books, isbn 9780979233111.
One of several "unauthorized" books commissioned by Borders in the ramp-up to the release of "Deathly Hallows." I enjoyed this because it took one major concept that everyone wants to see resolved in book seven and analyzed the hell out of it from both sides. Literally ... it's a flip book, with one side devoted to the case for Snape being an ally of Harry's, and the other devoted to Snape being a bad guy. The essays are witty, thoughtful, deeply analytical without being cold, with some original thoughts and plenty of supporting quotes. What's more impressive is that Berner and Millman put themselves firmly into each mindset and argue as though they truly believe Snape is a good guy or a bad guy. And they do it very even-handedly, never attacking the opposing point of view as a way of making the case for the point of view they're writing in at that moment. They are not wishy-washy no matter which side they take, and they don't obviously favor one theory over the other. Card only weighs in on the Snape-is-a-good-guy front, but his chapter is so convincing you can't help but believe he's right, and for the right reasons.
And even though the book is "unauthorized," as the authors make clear in the opening notes, there are plenty of direct quotes to provide evidence for their case, whichever case it is. It's interesting to see the same scenes replayed with different line readings emphasized in order to support the Good Guy or Bad Guy cases.
All three authors approach the material with a light touch -- there are plenty of side-bars with topics like "Ten Reasons We Love To Hate Snape," and plenty of snarky parenthetical asides that Potter know-it-alls will appreciate. The authors aren't out to insult anyone or come across as knowing something the rest of us don't. They're simply Potter fans having fun making the case for or against Snape being Harry's friend or foe.
This one is worth the read, and it's a quick read. It's a lot of fun because it's not all over the map like most other analyses.
And finally, we have
The Unauthorized Harry Potter: Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About The Harry Potter Series, by Adam-Troy Castro, 191 pages, softcover, BenBella Books for Borders Books, isbn 9780979233104.
Where Langford tries to be funny and fails miserably, Casto succeeds. Castro is one of my favorite writers from the various BenBella SmartPop anthologies; no matter what pop culture phenomena he's writing on, his essays are always well thought out and humorous. I think it primarily has to do with his timing. He's not afraid to leave a sentence on its own to increase its effectiveness as a punchline; he's not afraid to repeat things until the repetition itself is both expected and funny (kind of like a written version of "Who's On First?"
In this book, Castro doesn't claim to be predicting where Rowling will go in book seven. He's more interested in casting a fresh eye at what we already know and pointing out character flaws and positives by making connections that may not be as obvious. He does give some refreshing new ideas to mull over, even if he admits that by writing about them he's really just playing Devil's Advocate and doesn't really think its the way things will go. He spends a fair amount of time on each major character: Harry, Ron, Hermione, Hagrid, Dumbledore and Snape all get two chapters each, while Voldemort gets three (only because one chapter is really about his followers more than him), and Neville gets a chapter as well. He talks about Ron's role as the classic sidekick, why Hagrid was the perfect choice for the character who introduced Harry to the wizarding world, and how in a way the books are really all about Neville (he has a point -- Harry may be the focal point, but his baseline personality has not changed in 6 books despite getting older -- while Neville has gone through enormous change.). He also engages in a lot of interesting "what if" scenarios, at one point spending a whole chapter talking about how different Harry as a character would be if Voldemort had not existed. Another key difference between Castro and Langford: Castro's what ifs, whether they're about book seven or alternate histories where key characters didn't exist or key moments didn't happen, are original, not just rehashed pastiches of pop culture icons. He ends the book with a short list of "Three of the Stupidest Elements of the Potter Novels" (think Time Turners and Voldemort's "cunning plan" to get Harry in Goblet of Fire), some thoughts on whether Rowling and Potter will fade from popular conscioussness the way Alfred Hitchcock's Three Investigators did or remain well known as Twain's Tom and Huck (guess which side Castro is on), and a list of 84 questions he hopes Rowling will answer in the last book.
There are plenty of books out there analyzing the Potterverse, and after book seven comes out the number of books will likely triple -- there will be plenty of updated reissues,I'm sure. And yet, I think Castro's book is one of the few I will come back to and enjoy rereading.