Introducing...Flippant Fridays
Jul. 22nd, 2005 05:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabbyAs you all know, I spend much of my time pondering serious issues, like left-wing sectarianism, how to take down Washington's neo-cons, and what the prevalence of xenon headlights says about us as a culture. You've also probably guessed that I go through periods where I just Don't. Want to. Deal. and thus blather on about pop culture and fauxhawks, etc. Hence, in the great tradition of better bloggers than I, I'm joining in on Flippant Fridays, whereupon one does one's memes, cat-blogging, reviews of books without a lot of big words in them, and fashion critiques.
Also, a few people mentioned wanting (for whatever reason) to know what I thought of The Book That Shall Not Be Named.
First off, let me say that people who like Harry Potter books are just as insane as people who buy the books just to throw in big, fundangelical Christian bonfires. I don't get either end of the spectrum. I did see an interesting wank over a certain mailing list that surprised me, though -- not the content (a guy claimed that, as a Christian, he believed that the magic depicted in Harry Potter was real, and therefore felt that the books were dangerous), but the fact that it was on a Canadian list comprised, theoretically, of relatively intelligent, literate, and educated people. It's as befuddling to me as adults who obsess over the romantic entanglements of fictional teenagers. I don't understand.
Anyway, I did enjoy it. I know I'm not Rowling's target audience (that was made abundantly clear in the last book), but I was the type of child who would have been, and I like books that channel my inner 10-year-old. I still think the first three books are the strongest; the fourth is a spectacular and gorgeous mess, and the fifth is, well, just a mess. This one felt far less sloppy (and as I've said so many times that you're probably sick of hearing it by now, yay for the person who fixed Rowling's shift key!) and felt, despite its heft, too short rather than bloated.
What worked
Well, we're really in the War on Terror now, aren't we? See, crackdowns on civil liberties don't work; you can still smugglebombs on subways evil necklaces and Death Eaters into your school. Seriously, though, I did like the decidedly darker tone. One of the things that bothered me about the last two books was it was all squee! and silliness! and then death! and angst!, the latter of which Rowling does not do very well. She did better here. It was Grawp-free (insert dance of joy) and much more consistent.
I liked the hints that this was Increasingly Not a Children's Book. We went from carefully avoiding any death, even when it stretched the limits of disbelief, in Chamber of Secrets, to "Oh, yes, and thepedophile werewolf just ate a 5-year-old!" My inner 10-year-old may have been a little shocked, but -- oh, who am I fooling? I was obsessed with Roald Dahl as a kid. My inner 10-year-old is a sick fuck.
I was spoiled for the ending like everyone else, but to me the question is not "who dies?" or even "who killed him?" but "how do we get there in a believable fashion?" And I found it believable, albeit probably for the wrong reasons. I can't help it: I identify with the sadistic, snarky guy who can't be bothered with all of the happy twinkliness around him. I'm not saying that's a good motivation for murder (although I'm going to throw my bet in with the lot who are theorizing that Snape did it because Dumbledore asked him to...more speculation later), but how much self-righteousness can someone take, anyway?
I loved the divided-soul thing. It worked as a plot device, and it worked as a metaphor. I also love that Voldemort is the kind of arrogant wanker who would hide little bits of his soul in very obvious objects instead of sticking them in a shoe or something like a non-megalomaniacal evil overlord would do. Someone needs to brush up on his skills.
What didn't
I'm turning into a cranky old cat lady as I type this, but I could have done with more school and less snogging. (This is likely another reminder that I'm not the target audience.) I figure that Ron and Hermione hooking up, eventually, is a no-brainer. Had the books been written 50 years ago, he'd have been dipping her pigtails in his inkwell, and perhaps it's a side effect of reading too much L.M. Montgomery at some point in my life, but I'm a sucker for that kind of thing.
The other pairings, though, came out of the blue, and it irritated me that everyone had to be paired off. Harry and Ginny makes sense from Ginny's point of view. But to take a page from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
limyaael's book, if a character is repeatedly thinking "I don't know why I feel this way all of a sudden," it means that the author needs to flesh out the motivations a bit more. Given the events of the other books, that shouldn't be impossible; it just felt clumsy to me. Not nearly as clumsy as Lupin and Tonks, though. I don't like Tonks anyway -- or rather, I don't like how she's used in the books -- and the hooking-up seemed a bit out-of-the-blue. Of course, in my demented head, it's only because he knows he can get her to look like Sirius in the sack. Part of it is probably that it takes place almost entirely off-stage, but that's limited third-person POV for you.
The other major irritant was having to see This Is Your Life, Voldemort-style. He's a very uninteresting villain, made even less interesting by knowing about his psychotic childhood. The best Rowling could have done was to keep him mysterious.
What always set these books apart from other YA fantasy, for me, was the sense that all of the weird, exciting, magical things were happening just below the radar of the real world. That's lost to some degree in this book, and to a lesser degree in the last two, although it was certainly there in the first chapter. It's my whole "fairies in the garden" complex (see the big list of all the stuff I like in fiction), and I do hope she brings it back for the last book. The "one last visit to the Dursleys" line sounded promising.
OMG page 606 but not really!!!CXI!!
If you're wondering about what happens page 606 but not actually on page 606, go here and have the ending ruined for you in a silly-yet-oddly-compelling fashion.
Obviously, the main purpose of a Wise Old Mentor archetype is to die in front of the mentee, so I'm glad that Rowling didn't disappoint there. I will, however, be supremely irritated if Dumbledore pulls an Aslan/Gandalf in the next book. Anyway, I thought it was well done and sadder than I expected. It was far better than The Big and Sudden Death That We're Supposed to Care About in Goblet of Fire, and far more cathartic and visceral than the ambiguous dead-but-possibly-not-really thing in Order of the Phoenix.
Snape, in case you were wondering, is one of my three favourite characters (two, I suppose, given that Sirius is dead...ish. The other one I really like is McGonagall, who reminds me of a teacher I had in Montessori, and is a crazy cat lady besides). What makes me like him, besides the fact that he provides much-needed sarcasm, is the broader implication that there are people who fight for good in the world who aren't necessarily nice people themselves. Stories about people who do the right thing grudgingly are, I think, far more interesting than stories about people who do the right thing because they are shiny and happy and pure of heart. And the most irksome stories are the ones where the hero is always right; everyone who is good worships him, and everyone who is evil automatically hates him.
Rowling keeps trying to beat into our heads that we always have choices (yet another thing that made me dislike the last book -- just when we thought we weren't going to get a prophecy, we got a prophecy, and it was a doozy. I will be so happy if in the last book, we see Neville taking down Voldemort and saving the world. That'd be awesome.). So, just because your family is evil, or un-magical, or you tend to be cunning rather than brave or studious, you are not immediately destined for teh evil. She has done this so consistently (and mostly well) that there is no way that Snape won't turn out to have been following Dumbledore's orders. Of course, he'll probably die spectacularly saving Harry's life in the last book (archetypes, again), but that's been coming since the first book.
So, yes. Good, fluffy fun all around.
In other news,zingerella and I decided that the Reality-Based Community needs a militant wing, and that it should be called the Task Force of Reason (TM one of rackletang's friends, but we want it to be a real Task Force of Reason.) If we were to create, say, and LJ-community for this group, how many of you would be up for joining?
P.S. I suppose they could also be Frivolous Fridays or Friday Fluff. What do you think?
Also, a few people mentioned wanting (for whatever reason) to know what I thought of The Book That Shall Not Be Named.
First off, let me say that people who like Harry Potter books are just as insane as people who buy the books just to throw in big, fundangelical Christian bonfires. I don't get either end of the spectrum. I did see an interesting wank over a certain mailing list that surprised me, though -- not the content (a guy claimed that, as a Christian, he believed that the magic depicted in Harry Potter was real, and therefore felt that the books were dangerous), but the fact that it was on a Canadian list comprised, theoretically, of relatively intelligent, literate, and educated people. It's as befuddling to me as adults who obsess over the romantic entanglements of fictional teenagers. I don't understand.
Anyway, I did enjoy it. I know I'm not Rowling's target audience (that was made abundantly clear in the last book), but I was the type of child who would have been, and I like books that channel my inner 10-year-old. I still think the first three books are the strongest; the fourth is a spectacular and gorgeous mess, and the fifth is, well, just a mess. This one felt far less sloppy (and as I've said so many times that you're probably sick of hearing it by now, yay for the person who fixed Rowling's shift key!) and felt, despite its heft, too short rather than bloated.
What worked
Well, we're really in the War on Terror now, aren't we? See, crackdowns on civil liberties don't work; you can still smuggle
I liked the hints that this was Increasingly Not a Children's Book. We went from carefully avoiding any death, even when it stretched the limits of disbelief, in Chamber of Secrets, to "Oh, yes, and the
I was spoiled for the ending like everyone else, but to me the question is not "who dies?" or even "who killed him?" but "how do we get there in a believable fashion?" And I found it believable, albeit probably for the wrong reasons. I can't help it: I identify with the sadistic, snarky guy who can't be bothered with all of the happy twinkliness around him. I'm not saying that's a good motivation for murder (although I'm going to throw my bet in with the lot who are theorizing that Snape did it because Dumbledore asked him to...more speculation later), but how much self-righteousness can someone take, anyway?
I loved the divided-soul thing. It worked as a plot device, and it worked as a metaphor. I also love that Voldemort is the kind of arrogant wanker who would hide little bits of his soul in very obvious objects instead of sticking them in a shoe or something like a non-megalomaniacal evil overlord would do. Someone needs to brush up on his skills.
What didn't
I'm turning into a cranky old cat lady as I type this, but I could have done with more school and less snogging. (This is likely another reminder that I'm not the target audience.) I figure that Ron and Hermione hooking up, eventually, is a no-brainer. Had the books been written 50 years ago, he'd have been dipping her pigtails in his inkwell, and perhaps it's a side effect of reading too much L.M. Montgomery at some point in my life, but I'm a sucker for that kind of thing.
The other pairings, though, came out of the blue, and it irritated me that everyone had to be paired off. Harry and Ginny makes sense from Ginny's point of view. But to take a page from
limyaael's book, if a character is repeatedly thinking "I don't know why I feel this way all of a sudden," it means that the author needs to flesh out the motivations a bit more. Given the events of the other books, that shouldn't be impossible; it just felt clumsy to me. Not nearly as clumsy as Lupin and Tonks, though. I don't like Tonks anyway -- or rather, I don't like how she's used in the books -- and the hooking-up seemed a bit out-of-the-blue. The other major irritant was having to see This Is Your Life, Voldemort-style. He's a very uninteresting villain, made even less interesting by knowing about his psychotic childhood. The best Rowling could have done was to keep him mysterious.
What always set these books apart from other YA fantasy, for me, was the sense that all of the weird, exciting, magical things were happening just below the radar of the real world. That's lost to some degree in this book, and to a lesser degree in the last two, although it was certainly there in the first chapter. It's my whole "fairies in the garden" complex (see the big list of all the stuff I like in fiction), and I do hope she brings it back for the last book. The "one last visit to the Dursleys" line sounded promising.
OMG page 606 but not really!!!CXI!!
If you're wondering about what happens page 606 but not actually on page 606, go here and have the ending ruined for you in a silly-yet-oddly-compelling fashion.
Obviously, the main purpose of a Wise Old Mentor archetype is to die in front of the mentee, so I'm glad that Rowling didn't disappoint there. I will, however, be supremely irritated if Dumbledore pulls an Aslan/Gandalf in the next book. Anyway, I thought it was well done and sadder than I expected. It was far better than The Big and Sudden Death That We're Supposed to Care About in Goblet of Fire, and far more cathartic and visceral than the ambiguous dead-but-possibly-not-really thing in Order of the Phoenix.
Snape, in case you were wondering, is one of my three favourite characters (two, I suppose, given that Sirius is dead...ish. The other one I really like is McGonagall, who reminds me of a teacher I had in Montessori, and is a crazy cat lady besides). What makes me like him, besides the fact that he provides much-needed sarcasm, is the broader implication that there are people who fight for good in the world who aren't necessarily nice people themselves. Stories about people who do the right thing grudgingly are, I think, far more interesting than stories about people who do the right thing because they are shiny and happy and pure of heart. And the most irksome stories are the ones where the hero is always right; everyone who is good worships him, and everyone who is evil automatically hates him.
Rowling keeps trying to beat into our heads that we always have choices (yet another thing that made me dislike the last book -- just when we thought we weren't going to get a prophecy, we got a prophecy, and it was a doozy. I will be so happy if in the last book, we see Neville taking down Voldemort and saving the world. That'd be awesome.). So, just because your family is evil, or un-magical, or you tend to be cunning rather than brave or studious, you are not immediately destined for teh evil. She has done this so consistently (and mostly well) that there is no way that Snape won't turn out to have been following Dumbledore's orders. Of course, he'll probably die spectacularly saving Harry's life in the last book (archetypes, again), but that's been coming since the first book.
So, yes. Good, fluffy fun all around.
In other news,
zingerella and I decided that the Reality-Based Community needs a militant wing, and that it should be called the Task Force of Reason (TM one of rackletang's friends, but we want it to be a real Task Force of Reason.) If we were to create, say, and LJ-community for this group, how many of you would be up for joining?P.S. I suppose they could also be Frivolous Fridays or Friday Fluff. What do you think?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-07-23 12:12 am (UTC)Do I get to mock people who think they are rational? (Rationality is inapplicable in most human activities - people who claim to be rational outside those contexts (where rationality is usually directly demonstrable), are generally nuts.)
Reason is a completely different thing.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-23 01:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-23 03:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-23 03:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-23 03:58 am (UTC)It's not on the shelf with James Joyce, where I thought it was (OK, I use a non-standard organization method). I should be able to find it in a thorough search.
I'll check the used book stores here for a hard backed copy.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-23 05:35 am (UTC)Don't forget Reasoned Discussion, Gentle Irony, and Impeccable Sources.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-23 04:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-23 01:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-23 03:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-23 02:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-23 03:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-23 06:02 pm (UTC)Also, that community sounds like a good idea. I'm surprised there isn't one already.
no subject
Date: 2005-07-23 10:10 pm (UTC)It's a good idea for a community. It now likely won't happen for a bit because I'm in e-hiding. :(
no subject
Date: 2005-07-23 08:41 pm (UTC)Of course, in my demented head, it's only because he knows he can get her to look like Sirius in the sack.I am in complete agreement. Now I must read more Sirius/Remus fic.no subject
Date: 2005-07-23 10:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-23 10:51 pm (UTC)