Illustrated magic

So the last time I dipped my toe into the HP pool it was when I read The Cursed Child last year; The Chamber of Secrets dragged me into the fanfic hole in a much bigger way, though. I just felt like I needed it after being back in the universe - I wanted to stay but didn't want to reread the original series from start to finish so instead I found that my favorite fic site has died and ended up diving into AO3 for the first tiime.

But there be monsters so let's talk about Chamber of Secrets. This isn't my favorite book in the series - that's Prisoner of Azkaban, but I do love it because I think it may be the last book of the series where the characters are still really innocent. They're children for the majority of the series, of course, but this is the last book before the problems the trio face start to seem a little more grown-up. It's the last face-off with Voldemort before they're well into moody teen territory and before we see Harry facing challenges other than Voldemort and there's something sweet about that. He's afraid of the monster in the walls, and for a while the school thinks he's the heir of Slytherin, but there's less complexity in his challenges. Chamber of Secrets is a simple story full of lots of surprisingly clever elements.

Gilderoy Lockheart is one of the great, underappreciated characters in the Potterverse, and he's hilarious on every page. I particularly liked seeing him illustrated, and I think Jim Kay did a great job of capturing just how smarmy he reads.

The illustrations are totally worth it, by the way. I'd buy these books for the illustrations alone, they are stunning (the phoenix pages in this edition are also particularly wonderful).

Because I don't know what can be said that hasn't already been said about Harry Potter I'll stop here, but I do strongly recommend that you read the illustrated editions if you haven't yet.

Cheers,
     - Alli

Illustrated Chamber of Secrets on Amazon!

Of course I read it

I'm fairly sure I've made it clear that I'm not much for drama, that I prefer reading things that are meant to be read rather than watched. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has made that preference truly stark for me.

One of my major issues with drama is that what is said on stage has to be understood by everyone in the audience immediately. This leads to a lot of dialogue that sounds almost unspeakably unnatural. I'm sure it's easier to suspend disbelief if you're actually sitting in front of real people speaking on a stage than it is while you're sitting in a hot garage at four in the morning, but I don't have a stage with real people acting in front of me and so my disbelief went unsuspended. The dialogue in this play is really difficult to get behind.

I'm also pretty sure it took me less time to read this play than it would take me to watch this play (I read it in just under three hours) but even at that pace I found myself frustrated with the short-sightedness of basically every character and the frankly masturbatory conceits that peppered the plot.

***************SPOILERS*************but not major ones******just little spoilers**

Basically this felt like a piece of fanfic given the blessing of WoG. And I mean that up to and including the exploration of AUs, the needlessly complicated plot, and the closure with certain characters. It feels like it was supposed to be a feel good story.

I don't want to say much else, since it was released literally four hours ago, but I will say I'm disappointed. Of course it was never going to hold up to the originals, what the hell ever could? But even with my low expectations it felt trite and reaching. I didn't hate it, it may grow on me with time, but it is a totally unnecessary and self-indulgent addition to the Harry Potter series.

Cheers,
     - Alli

Tiffany, John. Jack Thorne, JK Rowling. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Scholastic.
     New York: New York. 2016.

A new dimension to a well-loved universe

 

When I first got married the only books I brought from my parents' house to my new home were 3-7 of the Harry Potter series. I didn't own one and two. It's not that I was intentionally setting myself up for privation - my parents' house is about half a mile from where I live now and I thought the stay here would be much shorter so I didn't want to move too much stuff only to have to move it again. So in the first six months of my marriage I read from Azkaban to the Deathly Hallows seven times. But it has been probably five years since the last time I read Sorcerer's Stone.

My sister got me the illustrated edition of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for Christmas, setting up what I'm sure will be a traditional gift for the next six years (excellent!). I finally got around to reading it in a single sitting this week. I had forgotten how quickly the first book in the series slips away - it's such a fun little jaunt, full of world-building and character creation and just getting to sink into the start of a story that feels like home to me.

The Sorcerer's Stone really is a true children's book - it's simply written and easy to digest. It moves at a breakneck pace and hauls you along for the ride, like a Gringott's goblin. It's hard to even write about - I feel like so much has already been said about the Potterverse that there's not much more ground to cover.

So I'll focus on the one new thing here: the illustrations. They're stunning and a wonderful addition to the series. The detailing of Diagon Alley, the heartbreaking sadness of the Mirror of Erised, Hagrid's upturned-ship hut, Minerva's impeccable style, Snape's jars of slimy things - it's all fantastic and adds a depth to the world that I wanted to see so vividly as an eleven-year-old reading along my first trip to Hogwarts.

If you haven't read Harry Potter I'd heartily enjoin you to do so - it's a good story and one that can easily become a part of you that you carry everywhere in your heart. If you don't want to that's fine, but I can't say I understand why you wouldn't. It is, simply, magical.

Cheers,
     - Alli

Rowling, JK. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Scholastic Press. New York: New York. 2015.