More HP Stuff (including another quiz)
(1) Concerning Book 7:
...(a) JKR's comments on the release date:
JKR, in the "Rumours" section of her website, comments that the release date was set for July 21, rather than July 7, because "An earlier date ... would have meant that either the writing or editing was rushed."
The reasoning isn't entirely obvious here. Counting from the Balmoral Room 652 completion date of January 11, she's given herself and her editors 191 days to do the job. This contrasts with the draft-completion-to-publication times of 104 (apparently), 157, and 208 days on the three previous really big HP books (GoF, OotP, and HBP, respectively; see my discussion here). It's clear that 104 days (if that's what GoF was) was too short (remember the wand-order mixup); but I don't recall that OotP had any major editing problems with 157 days to work with, nor do I see any reason why 191 days would be enough for HPDH but 177 days (to July 7) would not.
What I tend to guess happened here is that one or both of her editors drafted out a schedule of what they thought would work for the successful completion of the job, that JKR accepted it as they recommended, and that none of them was particularly concerned with the symbolism of having Book 7 released on 7/7/07 ("the most powerfully magical number," indeed!).
I suspect that they (JKR, Emma Matthewson from Bloomsbury, and Arthur Levine) could probably have compressed the schedule to do a 7/7/07 release if they had so chosen; maybe there are reasons why they couldn't repeat OotP's 157-day schedule, but if so I don't know what they'd be. It would have been fun if JKR and the editors had liked the 7/7/07 idea as much as we do; but evidently it's no big deal to them. Such is life. They're the ones giving us the book, so I guess we can't complain! :-)
...(b) $34.99?
There has been some discussion of whether the higher price (US $34.99, when even OotP was $29.99) indicates that this will be the longest book yet. I think that this is possible, but not certain; according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' CPI Inflation Calculator, $29.99 four years ago is worth $33.61 now (using 2002 vs. 2006 for the comparison, as 2007 CPI data aren't out yet). So in terms of "real" (inflation-discounted) value, the HPDH price is only slightly higher than that of OotP-- the difference is slight enough that other factors besides page count (including "rounding off to the nearest $5") could account for the difference.
Nevertheless I am now tentatively expecting a book of length comparable to OotP's, and with a chapter count exceeding 40; as I commented here, Book 7 will have more natural turning points in the plot (due to the successive Horcrux pursuits) than OotP did, and is therefore likely to have a shorter average chapter length.
...(c) JKR's Favorite
I was pleased to see JKR's comment that "Deathly Hallows is my favourite." I'm not surprised that this is true, but it's reassuring to see her say so in print (which tells us that she's pretty emphatic in holding that opinion). It's not a guarantee that it will be my favorite also, of course-- in the past she's identified CoS and GoF as particular favorites, when it's always seemed obvious to me that PoA is the most natural favorite to have. But it does at least increase my level of hope that HPDH will be really, really good.
It also tends to further confirm that Harry will indeed survive the final battle with Voldemort. Yes, it's technically possible that JKR could write a tragic ending and still have the book be, not just a favorite, but an emphatic favorite (so that she'd make a point of telling us so). But, from what we know about JKR, I think it's true that she likes happiness, and that she'd get the most joy from writing a mostly-happy ending. I must add "mostly-," of course, since some characters we really like will die, and some plot threads that we had hoped would get nicely wrapped up will get cut off instead (kind of like how, before OotP, I had hoped that Sirius and Snape would eventually manage to get beyond their old school rivalry). But still, I expect that we'll come away from the book thinking, "Yeah, this was a great (and fun) book!", even in spite of whatever horrors Voldemort manages to unleash within its pages.
(I still hold the expectations described here; see especially the "Reading Fun Meter" chart. I can see how prettyannamoon would say of PoA (in the comments thread to that post) that "I think it's not only my favorite, but probably always will be. There's a great innocence and simplicity to it that the later books (as good as they may be) can't possibly replicate." True enough; that'll have to be a matter of taste, reflecting one's generally preference between kids' books and young adult books. For myself, though, I'm still hopeful that HPDH will end up as my overall favorite of the series.)
(2) Whither Fawkes?
I don't think I've commented on this before, but: It seems to me odd that JKR heavily hinted, in the post-HBP Cub Reporters interview, that Fawkes would return in Book 7 ("I am not going to answer about the role in the next book, which probably gives you a big clue"), even though HBP says that after Fawkes' lament for Dumbledore, Harry "knew... that the phoenix had gone, had left Hogwarts for good" (HBP, p. My best guess is that Fawkes will appear in the final battle with Voldemort. But we'll see.
(3) Blinky and Weatherby
One interesting feature of the books is the way JKR uses certain characters' inattention to people's names, to draw attention to those characters' inattention to people. The first example of this is in CoS, where Prof. Binns calls Hermione "Miss Grant" and Seamus "O'Flaherty"; and it comes up again in HBP with Prof. Slughorn ("your poor friend Rupert"; which, by the way, I thought was perhaps the funniest line in the book, so that it quite disappointed me that Arthur Levine had to explain it to people).
This also comes up twice in GoF; first with Mr. Crouch's mangling of Percy's last name (much to Fred and George's delight, of course)-- which makes it heavily ironic that the second instance is when Percy remarks that "Mr. Crouch suffered a huge personal shock with the misbehavior of that house-elf of his, Blinky, or whatever she was called."
(Of course it's not certain that JKR intended the irony; but I tend to guess that she probably did.)
(And incidentally: Percy's is one of the subplots about which I'm moderately pessimistic for Book 7. But we'll see.)
(4) And finally: Here's another quiz. As before, this involves putting chapter excerpts in order. This time, I'm giving you the beginning of each chapter of PS/SS, and asking you to put them in order, 1 through 17.
At this point I'm not giving you chapter titles; if I did it would be way too easy. (That's a hint, by the way: If you can remember at least a few chapter titles and which chapter number they go with, that will help.) If it turns out to be too hard for people, I'll come in and start giving titles of appropriately selected chapters, and see if that helps.
Your chapter titles to sort out are:
(a) Harry woke early the next morning. Although he could tell it was daylight, he kept his eyes shut tight. "It was a dream," he told himself firmly.
(b) Things couldn't have been worse.
(c) Quirrell, however, must have been braver than they'd thought. In the weeks that followed he did seem to be getting paler and thinner, but it didn't look as though he'd cracked yet.
(d) As they entered November, the weather turned very cold.
(e) The door swung open at once. A tall, black-haired witch in emerald-green robes stood there.
(f) Harry's last month with the Dursleys wasn't fun.
(g) Harry had never believed he would meet a boy he hated more than Dudley, but that was before he met Draco Malfoy.
(h) Dumbledore had convinced Harry not to go looking for the Mirror of Erised again, and for the rest of the Christmas holidays the invisibility cloak stayed folded at the bottom of his trunk.
(i) In years to come, Harry would never quite remember how he had managed to get through his exams when he half expected Voldemort to come bursting through the door at any moment.
(j) BOOM. They knocked again. Dudley jerked awake. "Where's the cannon?" he said stupidly.
(k) Malfoy couldn't believe his eyes when he saw that Harry and Ron were still at Hogwarts the next day, looking tired but perfectly cheerful.
(l) Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.
(m) The escape of the Brazilian boa constrictor earned Harry his longest-ever punishment.
(n) It was Quirrell.
(o) Nearly ten years had passed since the Dursleys had woken up to find their nephew on the front step, but Privet Drive had hardly changed at all.
(p) Christmas was coming. One morning in mid-December, Hogwarts awoke to find itself covered in several feet of snow.
(q) "There, look." "Where?" "Next to the tall kid with the red hair." "Wearing the glasses?" "Did you see his face?" "Did you see his scar?"
(By the way, top honors last time went to alphielj, with honorable mentions to prettyannamoon [a full-marks paper turned in shortly after Alphie's], and to tartanboxers [first to respond, with only one pair of chapters transposed]. Good luck, everybody!) :-)
ETA: I guess this was easier than I thought it would be! Top honors to tartanboxers, with alphielj also receiving full marks, and peachespig and lilac_bearry having one mistake each. Nice job!
...(a) JKR's comments on the release date:
JKR, in the "Rumours" section of her website, comments that the release date was set for July 21, rather than July 7, because "An earlier date ... would have meant that either the writing or editing was rushed."
The reasoning isn't entirely obvious here. Counting from the Balmoral Room 652 completion date of January 11, she's given herself and her editors 191 days to do the job. This contrasts with the draft-completion-to-publication times of 104 (apparently), 157, and 208 days on the three previous really big HP books (GoF, OotP, and HBP, respectively; see my discussion here). It's clear that 104 days (if that's what GoF was) was too short (remember the wand-order mixup); but I don't recall that OotP had any major editing problems with 157 days to work with, nor do I see any reason why 191 days would be enough for HPDH but 177 days (to July 7) would not.
What I tend to guess happened here is that one or both of her editors drafted out a schedule of what they thought would work for the successful completion of the job, that JKR accepted it as they recommended, and that none of them was particularly concerned with the symbolism of having Book 7 released on 7/7/07 ("the most powerfully magical number," indeed!).
I suspect that they (JKR, Emma Matthewson from Bloomsbury, and Arthur Levine) could probably have compressed the schedule to do a 7/7/07 release if they had so chosen; maybe there are reasons why they couldn't repeat OotP's 157-day schedule, but if so I don't know what they'd be. It would have been fun if JKR and the editors had liked the 7/7/07 idea as much as we do; but evidently it's no big deal to them. Such is life. They're the ones giving us the book, so I guess we can't complain! :-)
...(b) $34.99?
There has been some discussion of whether the higher price (US $34.99, when even OotP was $29.99) indicates that this will be the longest book yet. I think that this is possible, but not certain; according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' CPI Inflation Calculator, $29.99 four years ago is worth $33.61 now (using 2002 vs. 2006 for the comparison, as 2007 CPI data aren't out yet). So in terms of "real" (inflation-discounted) value, the HPDH price is only slightly higher than that of OotP-- the difference is slight enough that other factors besides page count (including "rounding off to the nearest $5") could account for the difference.
Nevertheless I am now tentatively expecting a book of length comparable to OotP's, and with a chapter count exceeding 40; as I commented here, Book 7 will have more natural turning points in the plot (due to the successive Horcrux pursuits) than OotP did, and is therefore likely to have a shorter average chapter length.
...(c) JKR's Favorite
I was pleased to see JKR's comment that "Deathly Hallows is my favourite." I'm not surprised that this is true, but it's reassuring to see her say so in print (which tells us that she's pretty emphatic in holding that opinion). It's not a guarantee that it will be my favorite also, of course-- in the past she's identified CoS and GoF as particular favorites, when it's always seemed obvious to me that PoA is the most natural favorite to have. But it does at least increase my level of hope that HPDH will be really, really good.
It also tends to further confirm that Harry will indeed survive the final battle with Voldemort. Yes, it's technically possible that JKR could write a tragic ending and still have the book be, not just a favorite, but an emphatic favorite (so that she'd make a point of telling us so). But, from what we know about JKR, I think it's true that she likes happiness, and that she'd get the most joy from writing a mostly-happy ending. I must add "mostly-," of course, since some characters we really like will die, and some plot threads that we had hoped would get nicely wrapped up will get cut off instead (kind of like how, before OotP, I had hoped that Sirius and Snape would eventually manage to get beyond their old school rivalry). But still, I expect that we'll come away from the book thinking, "Yeah, this was a great (and fun) book!", even in spite of whatever horrors Voldemort manages to unleash within its pages.
(I still hold the expectations described here; see especially the "Reading Fun Meter" chart. I can see how prettyannamoon would say of PoA (in the comments thread to that post) that "I think it's not only my favorite, but probably always will be. There's a great innocence and simplicity to it that the later books (as good as they may be) can't possibly replicate." True enough; that'll have to be a matter of taste, reflecting one's generally preference between kids' books and young adult books. For myself, though, I'm still hopeful that HPDH will end up as my overall favorite of the series.)
(2) Whither Fawkes?
I don't think I've commented on this before, but: It seems to me odd that JKR heavily hinted, in the post-HBP Cub Reporters interview, that Fawkes would return in Book 7 ("I am not going to answer about the role in the next book, which probably gives you a big clue"), even though HBP says that after Fawkes' lament for Dumbledore, Harry "knew... that the phoenix had gone, had left Hogwarts for good" (HBP, p. My best guess is that Fawkes will appear in the final battle with Voldemort. But we'll see.
(3) Blinky and Weatherby
One interesting feature of the books is the way JKR uses certain characters' inattention to people's names, to draw attention to those characters' inattention to people. The first example of this is in CoS, where Prof. Binns calls Hermione "Miss Grant" and Seamus "O'Flaherty"; and it comes up again in HBP with Prof. Slughorn ("your poor friend Rupert"; which, by the way, I thought was perhaps the funniest line in the book, so that it quite disappointed me that Arthur Levine had to explain it to people).
This also comes up twice in GoF; first with Mr. Crouch's mangling of Percy's last name (much to Fred and George's delight, of course)-- which makes it heavily ironic that the second instance is when Percy remarks that "Mr. Crouch suffered a huge personal shock with the misbehavior of that house-elf of his, Blinky, or whatever she was called."
(Of course it's not certain that JKR intended the irony; but I tend to guess that she probably did.)
(And incidentally: Percy's is one of the subplots about which I'm moderately pessimistic for Book 7. But we'll see.)
(4) And finally: Here's another quiz. As before, this involves putting chapter excerpts in order. This time, I'm giving you the beginning of each chapter of PS/SS, and asking you to put them in order, 1 through 17.
At this point I'm not giving you chapter titles; if I did it would be way too easy. (That's a hint, by the way: If you can remember at least a few chapter titles and which chapter number they go with, that will help.) If it turns out to be too hard for people, I'll come in and start giving titles of appropriately selected chapters, and see if that helps.
Your chapter titles to sort out are:
(a) Harry woke early the next morning. Although he could tell it was daylight, he kept his eyes shut tight. "It was a dream," he told himself firmly.
(b) Things couldn't have been worse.
(c) Quirrell, however, must have been braver than they'd thought. In the weeks that followed he did seem to be getting paler and thinner, but it didn't look as though he'd cracked yet.
(d) As they entered November, the weather turned very cold.
(e) The door swung open at once. A tall, black-haired witch in emerald-green robes stood there.
(f) Harry's last month with the Dursleys wasn't fun.
(g) Harry had never believed he would meet a boy he hated more than Dudley, but that was before he met Draco Malfoy.
(h) Dumbledore had convinced Harry not to go looking for the Mirror of Erised again, and for the rest of the Christmas holidays the invisibility cloak stayed folded at the bottom of his trunk.
(i) In years to come, Harry would never quite remember how he had managed to get through his exams when he half expected Voldemort to come bursting through the door at any moment.
(j) BOOM. They knocked again. Dudley jerked awake. "Where's the cannon?" he said stupidly.
(k) Malfoy couldn't believe his eyes when he saw that Harry and Ron were still at Hogwarts the next day, looking tired but perfectly cheerful.
(l) Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.
(m) The escape of the Brazilian boa constrictor earned Harry his longest-ever punishment.
(n) It was Quirrell.
(o) Nearly ten years had passed since the Dursleys had woken up to find their nephew on the front step, but Privet Drive had hardly changed at all.
(p) Christmas was coming. One morning in mid-December, Hogwarts awoke to find itself covered in several feet of snow.
(q) "There, look." "Where?" "Next to the tall kid with the red hair." "Wearing the glasses?" "Did you see his face?" "Did you see his scar?"
(By the way, top honors last time went to alphielj, with honorable mentions to prettyannamoon [a full-marks paper turned in shortly after Alphie's], and to tartanboxers [first to respond, with only one pair of chapters transposed]. Good luck, everybody!) :-)
ETA: I guess this was easier than I thought it would be! Top honors to tartanboxers, with alphielj also receiving full marks, and peachespig and lilac_bearry having one mistake each. Nice job!