Few things are more meaningful to a writer than a faithful reader.
Whether the writer is a blog author or a bestselling wunderkind, there is pleasure when one’s words are awaited.
Over the last three days I finally got to listen to “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” the seventh and final installment of J. K. Rowling’s magical epic.
After reading (listening to) the 3,361 pages of the first six books, I fought sleep day and night to finish the 759 pages of this last book – the end of Harry’s story.
Ms. Rowling is a writer so skilled as to render 4,120 total pages of a work with no minor characters – each so imbedded in the reader’s psyche as to never be forgotten.
I am her “faithful reader” and for that I am the recipient of one of the seven dedications in Rowling’s climatic tome.
While waiting for this “talking book for the blind or visually impaired,” I made every effort to dodge those who seemed intent on spoiling its outcome.
One well-read friend made a casual and innocent comparison to a Dickens book I had recently read. His clue, as subtle as it was, hit me like a “confundus charm” and colored every plot twist of this final experience. To his great credit, he’s still my friend.
No spoiler myself, I will sum up this final book in one word: intense - and, for me, made a thousand times more intense by the acting skills of the talking-book series’ narrator, Erik Sandvold, who brought each character to life with distinctive voice and gripping emotion. In the words of one reviewer, award-winner Sandvold is simply “masterful.”
My longtime friend Annelle, who read the seventh book, then immediately read all seven again, opines that it would be a grave mistake for adults to dismiss these as children’s books and deprive themselves of such an experience.
If you, faithful reader, have not read J. K. Rowling, you are missing arguably the greatest imagination ever put to print.
***
Once more:
• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, 26 June 1997, 309 pp. (UK title: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.)
• Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, 2 July 1998, 341 pp.
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, 8 July 1999, 435 pp.
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, 8 July 2000, 754 pp.
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, 21 June 2003, 870 pp.
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, 16 July 2005, 652 pp.
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, 21 July 2007, 759 pp.
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dreams
A warm welcome to the naturally curious, the politically engaged and constant learners. I am a retired newspaper editor with a fickle foe, retinitis pigmentosa, or RP. While my sense of sight is waning, my "vision" is not, and, by God, I can still see my dreams!
simply ...
- B.J.
- South Carolina, United States
- constant learner
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10 comments:
Frodo challenged himself to read at least one book by each of the great writers. Victor Hugo is an example of one to whom Frodo has not yet arrived. Now, Sir Cumspect wants me to do seven by one lady? Will you accept Frodo maybe catching two or three on cable?
Jan still hoping to get time to read her HPs. I'm a couple behind at this point. May get the audios so I can catch up quicker, then read when I have a bit more time. Glad you're back.
Mr. Frodo should not go near the first Harry Potter book, for then the spell will be cast, and he will know what he might have missed otherwise.
Thanks, Jan. Don’t think I’ll ever be fully back from Hogwarts, The Borough, Hagrid’s Cottage and No. 12 Grimmauld Street. I’m back in a world where there is no butterbeer and having to adjust!
BJ
"So, Bush wants to ‘fatten the old coffers’ on a post-presidency tour of the speakers’ circuit".
I wonder what he could possibly talk about that people would pay to hear? Perhaps he will talk about 'the power of positive thinking'. Hah, hah.
Another thing he can talk about is how much he cried on the yob: http://www.charlotte.com/nation/story/263361.html
Airth10: Jan wouldn't pay one copper cent to hear Bush say anything. If he cries, it's probably because no one likes his policies or believes a word he says. And he is just too stubborn to pick up his marbles, if he had any to begin with, and go home! Maybe Sir Cumspect can send one of the big bullies from Hogwarts to kick his--ummm--behind back to Texas. And do it before he starts dropping the big ones on Iran!
Or he might be crying because the tough-talking chain-saw slinging cowboy couldn't get his gun out of his holster and bring in the old "Dead or Alive bin Hidin." Bushie got way laid in Iraq!
Most people who are paid for talking generally are hired as motivational speakers. Bush might be hired to talk about how to destroy your political opponents with groundless accusations. He might also talk about how to destroy a government so as to ensure that nobody trusts it. He certainly has had successes in those areas.
Jan, wouldn't you pay a cent just to hear that? I certainly would, just to hear him trip over his tongue.
The man instead will probable go into a deep depression after he leaves office because no one will listen to him and he will no longer be the "Decider".
Just hope and pray that he does leave office.
So, that's where you've been. Once again, you remind me that these seven books will carry me away to another world, and I should go there.
Now that you're back, did you notice today on the news that a bomber mistakenly flew accross the US with 5 nuclear warheads. Or as George says, "Nucler." There isn't too much concern about the matter in Washington, but it is considered "important.""Important enough to tell the president," one person said. Eowyn
Hey Eowyn!
Yep, heard about the nuclear warheads over our friendly skies. Here we are worried about THE inevitable terrorist attack, and our government could have, as is well put in the musical “L’il Abner,” “blown our homes off the face of the Earth.”
Literature has always been the ultimate escapism from such grinding reality.
Jump on board the Hogwarts Express, lady, you will love it!
BJ
I read your blog and Frodo's comment. I've read Victor Hugo, and I like Harry better!!!
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