Harry Potter

[AdoreMyDogs]

I LOOOOVE the Harry Potter books! The movies are so-so compared to the books, but the books are just so fun! I've re-read the first 3, and I've read and I own them all.

[mrspunkysmom]

I think book three was already out and Potter ws the tlak fo the town when my mom mentioned them to me. I bought the first book and was hooked.

The first book is short and light. I suspect that JKR had the whole world in her head but was unwilling or unable to sell a large or long book as a first book. She went with what she could sell in the first few books.

I was disappointed in book 6, but I realize that 6 was the launch point for 7. I suspect she was tying up some loose ends in preparation to zapping us with the finale. If 6 was longer or more detailed she may have given away too much and 7th would be as big a surprise.

I am in my umpteenth re-reading of the series prior to reading the last book. Oddly enough, I haven't pre-ordered the book yet. I'm not sure where I'll be on the 21st of July.

Anne

[Christmas_Hamster]

I ahve read them all and I am going to re-read the 6th one again. I love these books. *bows down to books*

The movies do no justice to the books. You miss so much detail about the plot. They have taken out so much important information out of the movies that it is rediculous

[Flatcoatluver]

I've read two pages of the first book and havn't read anymore. That was about 5 years ago.

I have seen the first two movies, and I thought they were boring.

[SemaviLady]

I tend to be a heavy reader of nonFic so HP wasn't part of my usual fare. But I know many HP fans (adults) and when the DVD movies came out, I saw Prisoner and Goblet (I'm deaf so I need the captions/DVD). I loved the movies!

I have a lot of reading I'm behind on.. but I want to read all the HP books if I can ever find time.

[IRescue452]

No. The movies interest me, but I haven't picked up the book hype yet. I've read quite a bit of Harry Potter fan fic. I hear the director for the first two movies made them incredibly close to the book, but for the movies after that they changed a lot of info from the book. I think it would just annoy me to read it and see something different, as it does with lots of movies. Anyway, I prefer stuff that doesn't have a craze. I own both books and movies that are really good but never became popular. They are my forgotten treasures.

[Suki Wingy]

You mean how many times have you read the books! At least 3 times each. 20 more days to get my slytherin uniform together for the midnight release of DH!!!!!
I remember in 1997-8 in 3rd grade my teacher read the first book and I couldn't wait for my birthday to get my own copy to read along.
I have the US hard copy of S/P S and the US hard copy and the UK hard copy of CoS, the US paperback of PoH, the US paperback and the UK hard copy of GoF, the US paperback of OoP, and the US hard copy of HBP.

[crow_noir]

Yes I've read all of them so far. For the longest time i had NO interest in them. By the third book though i decided to see what all the "dam*" hype was about. To be honest i HATED the first book and thought it was horrible. Everyone thought it was sooooooo funny, but i was bored out of my mind! ...but darn it all I'm a plot vvh0r3 and got suckered in. 2 was better. 3 and 4 are my faves! and five... well it's OK. 6 *sigh* still better than one... in it's own way. I *might* like one better though. not sure.

NOT my fav series or even close, but i wouldn't call it a waste of time. I do think there are MUCH better series out there though. (like the Speaking to Dragons series. forget what it's called, but that's the title of one of the books in it.)

[Miss Z]

Yep, I've read all of them so far and I'll be reading the seventh for sure. I don't think that J.K Rowling is a particularly talented author as far as her writing style is concerned, but her idea was certainly one that appealed to millions, and may she continue to reap the rewards!

[shais_mom]

Its going to be so sad when the books are all done.
I'm not looking forward to that at all!

[Kirsten]

Its going to be so sad when the books are all done.
I'm not looking forward to that at all!

I know what you mean. For me, it was like that with the Lord of the Rings-movies. A part of me couldn't wait to finally see part 3, but I was also devastated when it was over. And I know it will also give me a sad feeling to read the last chapter of HP 7. At least there are still some more Harry Potter movies to look forward to...

Kirsten

[ChrisH]

Harry Potter's big con is the prose
Nicholas Lezard

A nine-year-old might feel quite pleased with the writing in the Harry Potter books. It's pretty embarrassing coming from an adult.

It is time to make a stand against Harry Potter. A futile stand, no death or glory involved: just popping my head over the trenches so it can be mowed off by the vast, unstoppable juggernaut of popular acclaim before I have begun to open my mouth.

Firstly: if you're going to buy her book, don't buy it for half price at a supermarket. As an example of a world gone mad, you couldn't do much better than this: a writer whose sales have actually fulfilled a publisher's wildest dreams is indirectly responsible for large-scale misery among independent bookstores. This is not JK Rowling's fault. It's a consequence of the deregulation of the book market.

Tesco, say, sells the new Potter for about the same price as two tins of beans, in the hope that the mug(gle)s who do so will be convinced that everything in the shop must be marvellous value. Meanwhile, Mrs Betty Cardigan who runs the Lovely Bookshop Round the Corner has to grit her teeth and lose money every time she sells a copy if she is to compete, without being able to sell toilet paper or sushi to make up the difference. If you must buy the book, go to Mrs Cardigan's and, even if it is at a discount, insist on paying full price.

But whether you should buy the book at all is another matter. For I have come, with some regret, to this conclusion: their style is toxic. And this is Rowling's fault. I know that I am anticipating what the style of the latest book will be in advance of actually seeing it, but really, I don't think I'm going out on a limb here. Of course, if she has turned into a first-class writer with her forthcoming Potter book, I will happily, no, joyously, eat my words.

But until then, we have to swallow hers. And for all that she is gifted enough in devising popular scenarios, the words on the page are flat. I think it was Verlaine who said that he could never write a novel because he would have to write, at some point, something like "the count walked into the drawing-room" - not a scruple that can have bothered JK Rowling, who is happy enough writing the most pedestrian descriptive prose.

Here, from page 324 of The Order of the Phoenix, to give you a typical example, are six consecutive descriptions of the way people speak. "...said Snape maliciously," "... said Harry furiously", " ... he said glumly", "... said Hermione severely", "... said Ron indignantly", " ... said Hermione loftily". Do I need to explain why that is such second-rate writing?

If I do, then that means you're one of the many adults who don't have a problem with the retreat into infantilism that your willing immersion in the Potter books represents. It doesn't make you a bad or silly person. But if you have the patience to read it without noticing how plodding it is, then you are self-evidently someone on whom the possibilities of the English language are largely lost.

This is the kind of prose that reasonably intelligent nine-year-olds consider pretty hot stuff, if they're producing it themselves; for a highly-educated woman like Rowling to knock out the same kind of material is, shall we say, somewhat disappointing.

Children exposed to this kind of writing aren't learning anything new about words, or being stretched in any way; as Harold Bloom said, they're not going to be inspired to go off and read the Alice books, or any other enduring classic.

People go hoopla because they're delighted that Rowling has got children reading books - big, fat books without pictures at that. Can't argue with that: and maybe they will learn something about sheer reading stamina in the process. But it's all too easy.

The popular writer whose style is most similar is, it suddenly occurs to me, Jeffrey Archer (all those dead adverbs). All that paper, all those trees felled, all those words ... surely Rowling could have chosen some better ones, or put them together in a more exciting way?

She has, in her grasp, the power to galvanise minds instead of reeling out cliché after cliché. Will The Deathly Hallows do this? I hope so. But I fear not.

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/20..._is_the_p.html

[Killearn Kitties]

That's a bit of a snotty review there from The Guardian.

I just can't believe this. I got home tonight and found a note behind the door from the Killearn Co-op. They are opening at midnight on Friday for the launch of the new and final Harry Potter novel. Staff will be wearing costumes, customers can join in the fun. There will be a Harry Potter tunnel which kids can enter (at midnight??), with great effects inside. After exiting the tunnel, there will be samples of witches brew and wizards treats!

Bear in mind that Killearn is a teeny place, and I can't help but feel that the staff will outnumber the customers!

[Miss Z]

Harry Potter's big con is the prose
Nicholas Lezard

A nine-year-old might feel quite pleased with the writing in the Harry Potter books. It's pretty embarrassing coming from an adult.

It is time to make a stand against Harry Potter. A futile stand, no death or glory involved: just popping my head over the trenches so it can be mowed off by the vast, unstoppable juggernaut of popular acclaim before I have begun to open my mouth.

Firstly: if you're going to buy her book, don't buy it for half price at a supermarket. As an example of a world gone mad, you couldn't do much better than this: a writer whose sales have actually fulfilled a publisher's wildest dreams is indirectly responsible for large-scale misery among independent bookstores. This is not JK Rowling's fault. It's a consequence of the deregulation of the book market.

Tesco, say, sells the new Potter for about the same price as two tins of beans, in the hope that the mug(gle)s who do so will be convinced that everything in the shop must be marvellous value. Meanwhile, Mrs Betty Cardigan who runs the Lovely Bookshop Round the Corner has to grit her teeth and lose money every time she sells a copy if she is to compete, without being able to sell toilet paper or sushi to make up the difference. If you must buy the book, go to Mrs Cardigan's and, even if it is at a discount, insist on paying full price.

But whether you should buy the book at all is another matter. For I have come, with some regret, to this conclusion: their style is toxic. And this is Rowling's fault. I know that I am anticipating what the style of the latest book will be in advance of actually seeing it, but really, I don't think I'm going out on a limb here. Of course, if she has turned into a first-class writer with her forthcoming Potter book, I will happily, no, joyously, eat my words.

But until then, we have to swallow hers. And for all that she is gifted enough in devising popular scenarios, the words on the page are flat. I think it was Verlaine who said that he could never write a novel because he would have to write, at some point, something like "the count walked into the drawing-room" - not a scruple that can have bothered JK Rowling, who is happy enough writing the most pedestrian descriptive prose.

Here, from page 324 of The Order of the Phoenix, to give you a typical example, are six consecutive descriptions of the way people speak. "...said Snape maliciously," "... said Harry furiously", " ... he said glumly", "... said Hermione severely", "... said Ron indignantly", " ... said Hermione loftily". Do I need to explain why that is such second-rate writing?

If I do, then that means you're one of the many adults who don't have a problem with the retreat into infantilism that your willing immersion in the Potter books represents. It doesn't make you a bad or silly person. But if you have the patience to read it without noticing how plodding it is, then you are self-evidently someone on whom the possibilities of the English language are largely lost.

This is the kind of prose that reasonably intelligent nine-year-olds consider pretty hot stuff, if they're producing it themselves; for a highly-educated woman like Rowling to knock out the same kind of material is, shall we say, somewhat disappointing.

Children exposed to this kind of writing aren't learning anything new about words, or being stretched in any way; as Harold Bloom said, they're not going to be inspired to go off and read the Alice books, or any other enduring classic.

People go hoopla because they're delighted that Rowling has got children reading books - big, fat books without pictures at that. Can't argue with that: and maybe they will learn something about sheer reading stamina in the process. But it's all too easy.

The popular writer whose style is most similar is, it suddenly occurs to me, Jeffrey Archer (all those dead adverbs). All that paper, all those trees felled, all those words ... surely Rowling could have chosen some better ones, or put them together in a more exciting way?

She has, in her grasp, the power to galvanise minds instead of reeling out cliché after cliché. Will The Deathly Hallows do this? I hope so. But I fear not.

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/20..._is_the_p.html

I do have to say I agree in a way. I love JKR's idea, but her literary techniques are nothing compared to that of the classic authors such as C.S Lewis, and even modern ones such as Philip Pullman. His 'Dark Materials' triology is so much more gripping and deep than all the HP books put together, and yet he still wrote them for a young audience. I will still read 'The Deathly Hallows' and will enjoy the plot, but NOT the way it is written.

Maybe I should become a book critic rather than a vet.

[mrspunkysmom]

Yep, I've read all of them so far and I'll be reading the seventh for sure. I don't think that J.K Rowling is a particularly talented author as far as her writing style is concerned, but her idea was certainly one that appealed to millions, and may she continue to reap the rewards!

I think she is a great children's author. Despite her wordly and mythical allusions, the books were written for children. Not too deep, even though I do have reference books on HP. The stories are enjoyable without the reference books, too.

It is so nice to read a book where I don't have to amp up the brain cells just to read the book.