Very! Inspiring

Well, what do you know?  I disappear for nine months and win an award!  I should go MIA more often!

Gypsy from Once Upon a Blog nominated me for The Very Inspiring Blogger Award.  Thanks, Gypsy!  Now I'm supposed to list seven things my readers may or may not know about me.

1. You might have guessed at the significance of a nine month absence--that's right, I had another baby!  It takes me all nine to ten months (still not sure how that works) to make a baby, during which time I am dead to the world because of illness, fatigue, and otherwise disinterest in a will to live.  It's all worth it in the end.  My second child was born on January 14, a little boy!
2. His name is Roan Reuel, and yes, Reuel is for the family name inherited and passed along to the descendants of JRR Tolkien.  No, we're not related (alas!).
3. I have naturally curly hair, like a hobbit.
4. I once held human bones that I picked out of the dirt in an excavation site beneath a church in Rome--a fraction of a skull and a vertebrae.  May he (or she, or they) rest in peace!
5. My rival hobby to fairy tales and writing is photography, and I've started my own small business here.
6. I'm a loyal Catholic.  Astute readers might have picked up on this already.
7. My older son (4 years old) has Autism.  I'm just bumbling among and figuring things out, but if you want to talk or have any resources to share, I'm here.

Now I'm supposed to nominate other bloggers for the Award, of which there is absolutely no obligation for them to participate.  I nominate:

• A.L. Loveday of The Honey-Coloured View
• Masha of Cyganeria
• Jenna of A Light Inside
• Anna of Don't Forget the Avocados
• Kelly of The Middle Page

I hope this is the beginning of a more regular posting schedule in 2015.  Thanks for sticking with me!

Saint Walpurgis Eve

Saint Walpurga
source
(please note: accuracy of article questionable)

Hallowe'en is a popular modern holiday evolved from the medieval festival, with roots in pre-Christian Europe.  But the average person doesn't celebrate, let alone know about, Hallows Eve's opposite and counterpart, St. Walpurgis Eve, the night before May Day, whose ancient name is Beltane.

Here in Wales, the holy day of May 1st survives only as a disembodied bank holiday, floating around the days of the week depending on the calendar year.  But that wasn't always the case.  It used to be a night of bonfires and blessings, drinking and feasting, of ritualistic acknowledgement of the changing seasons, and a celebration to usher in the fullness of spring.

There are four seasonal festivals that have been celebrated, in some shape or form, for over 2,000 years in the west: Hallowe'en/All Souls Day and Christmas Eve/Christmas survived the test of time, but Saint Walpurgis/May Day and Midsummer's Eve/Day, for some reason, lost their potency.  Their remnants are found in our cultural traditions.  Midsummer's Night was fortunate to be memorialized by Shakespeare's play, but vintage pictures of maypoles and skimming literary references keep May Day buzzing in the back of our consciousnesses, like static low on the television.  Even still, they are better known than the all-but-forgotten Saint Brigid's Day and Lamas Day, celebrated on February 1st and August 1st, respectively.

Ida Waugh, source

Some of these holy days mark the middle of the seasons rather than the beginning of them.  The summer and winter solstices recognize the approximate time when the lengthening or shortening of the days reverse or, as we know now, when the earth stands still and pauses before it starts to tilt in reverse direction.  But the ancient Gaelic festivals were somewhere between the end of one season and the beginning of another; associated with transitions, in all their forms, as thresholds where one is neither in nor out, neither here nor there.

The difference in calendars and the reckoning of seasons is difficult to grasp; I can hardly get my bearings on them myself.  I grew up with the popular seasonal groupings of spring (March, April, May), summer (June, July, August), autumn (September, October, November), and winter (December, January, February), but the ancient holy days suggest a different kind of division--especially in the remaining Catholic tradition of a the vigil, in which a new day begins at nightfall rather than sunrise.  By celestial time-keeping, however, all the seasons are bumped forward about a month.  By this reckoning, autumn starts in October, winter in January, etc.  Look up the "first day of autumn" and "the first day of winter" in your calendar diary, and you'll see what I mean!*

neo-Pagan "wheel of the year," source

Awareness of the season and where one is in the calendar is integral to folklore and fairy tales.  Brushes with the otherworld were most likely to occur on the liminal days (equinoxes), and even Midsummer could mean trouble for maidens and wandering children.  We can see how the seasonal waxing and waning, dying and awakening of the earth inspired folk traditions and daily living.  The seasonal changes weren't just about the weather.  They were near--and sometimes dear--realities.  Just like fairy tales.



*Tolkien adapted and elaborated on the seasons and the folk traditions to engineer personalized calendars for the races populating Middle Earth--right down to the Leap Days!

HPP: Modernism vs. Magic

It's a good thing we've covered Book 2 so far in the Harry Potter book club, or I might accidentally mix some floo powder into my tea thinking it some sort of magical tonic.  I feel like Harry, Hermione, and Ron, lately: always headed for a bed in the hospital wing.  I wouldn't mind a Percy stand-in to bully me into some Pepperup Potion every now and again.

Fevers are appropriate, however, as we're back with Harry in the summer, under the hot blankets with a flashlight doing homework.  Chapter 1 of The Prisoner of Azkaban is a good, steady re-introduction.  The pace slowed noticeably from the first book to the second, and from the second to third it's slowed yet again.  Well, so there is something to the fact that each consecutive book gets larger and larger!  It makes sense.  Now that we are more familiar with the intricacies of the Potter universe, we can take our time and explore the back-roads . . . enjoy the scenery.

I like reading about owl post in action; and it's characteristic of the wizarding world, which seems to exist in an eternal crisis (if that's the right word) between the archaic and the modern.  You can throw some powder in the chimney, walk into the fireplace, and end up in another town altogether, but apparently it takes a Galleon prize drawing to be able to afford a trip to Egypt.  Of course, we Muggles see it as charming, but for the wizard-born-and-raised, wouldn't the e-mail and the text message seem more magical?  And what separates magic from science, in a universe where magic seems to lack all elements of spirituality and is a naturally found occurrence?  It reminds me of the passage in The Lord of the Rings when Lady Galadriel kindly tells Sam that what he considers "elf-magic" is for them art, skill, and science.

I'm also happy that, at last, Harry had a good birthday.

Jenna's conjuring pumpkin recipes over at Hagrid's.  Before she did that, though, I found a most extraordinary thing in a (non-magical) schoolroom the other day.

Though a trip to Universal Studios is not impossible, it is, monetarily speaking, and at this time, out of the question.  And so is the price tag for ordering online!  So we'll stick with Jenna's experiments for now.  At least, my roasted pumpkin seeds came out pretty tasty!

HPP: The Greatest of These*

Three is irrefutably a magic number; and there are three revelations at the end of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

The first revelation is the solution to Dumbledore's enchantment protecting the Philosopher's Stone.

Of the 17th and final chapter, Jenna writes, "Dumbledore has set his task up so that no one who actually wants to use the Philosopher's Stone can find it."  It's the perfect catch-22, and an old familiar paradox: that someone who desires the eternal life granted by the Elixir made from the Philosopher's Stone cannot have it; those who cling to their lives shall lose them.

I'm more than a little mystified as to how Dumbledore pulled this off.  Making it so that an inanimate, albeit magical, object senses the intention of the one mirror-gazing and withholds or deposits itself accordingly is impressive.  Although, I suppose, no more impressive than a mirror that looks into a person's soul and shows him back what he most desires.  The Stone would have to have some connection with the Mirror, and it makes most sense, to me, to believe it was hidden inside.  This is no charm to temporarily paralyze a person's nerve-endings or spell to unlock a door.  This is magic that looks into the heart of a man.  To have that kind of ability at lose in the world, whether naturally inherited or gained through secret knowledge, makes me uneasy.  Also, it shows Dumbledore to be on or above the level of Voldemort in skill and eerily similar in nature.

"With great power comes great responsibility."  Could it be that Voldemort and Dumbledore are of the same stuff, with the only difference being how they chose/choose to use their power and regard their responsibility?  Like Voldemort's feeding on the soul of Quirrell, Dumbeldore's task supersedes mere nature and passes into the realm of the spiritual.  Whenever and wherever that happens, questions of morality are sure to follow.

Masha feels the grandiose mirror task renders the previous ones superfluous.  I see her point.  If we're really trying to stop an evil madman from obtaining an object of power, one need only the one impenetrable shield.  Unless we assume that those less wily and wicked than Quirrell-Voldemort, and those less loyal and courageous than Hermione-Ron-Harry, would have had a harder time getting through and met a dead end (no pun inten--oh, what the hey, pun way, way intended!) at an earlier task.  There is also the lingering suspicion that Dumbledore foresaw, to a certain extent, the way in which events would unfold and allowed the tasks and their subsequent dangers for reasons undisclosed--perhaps to strengthen the friends and fortify Harry with their friendship before the greater test; or to weaken Quirrell and distract him, exasperate him, and catch him off guard by making him think his success was a given.

The second big reveal in this chapter is, of course, that Snape wasn't the one working for the cause of Voldemort.  There are little hints of this throughout, and it's hard to say how well it's disguised and how subtle the clues are.  I had long known the plot of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone the first time I read the book and so it didn't come as a surprise to me.  I'm curious about how those first early readers felt about it.

Ponyu, Severus Snape
(Disclaimer: I have no idea and take no responsibility for what he's saying!)

Still, Rowling avoids the elbow-elbow-wink-wink fictional plot-twist: Snape wasn't out to kill Harry, but he doesn't have a hidden heart of gold.

"But Snape always seemed to hate me so much." 

"Oh, he does," said Quirrell casually, "heavens, yes.  He was at Hogwarts with your father, didn't you know?  They loathed each other.  But he never wanted you dead."

So an uneasy truce is struck with the idea of Snape--not enemy . . . not exactly ally, either.

What is there to say about Voldemort being revealed underneath the turban on the back of Quirrell's head?  It speaks for itself.  The fact that the enemy was so near all along, within the very walls of the one place deemed safe--a place for children.  The horror of a man so enslaved by his "master" that he is willing to become an abomination of nature, housing a spiritual parasite.  It's shudder-inducing and hits too close to home.  We may not yet be the ones who have sold our souls, but we feast with, work with, and learn from those who have every day.  The stench is evident.

What follows, then, is surprising only inasmuch as the answer to the Mirror task is surprising: an inversion of the expected, even of the laws of nature, the creed of Darwinism.  The powerful magician cannot bare to lay hands on the helpless boy.  It burns his very skin.  He cannot defeat him.  And while Quirrell's skin burns, Harry's scar sears: clearly, the source of this incompatibility is in the event or act from which the scar was cut.

"But why couldn't Quirrell touch me?" 

"Your mother died to save you.  If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love.**  He didn't realize that love as powerful as your mother's for you leaves its own mark.  Not a scar, no visible sign . . . to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever.  It is in your very skin.  Quirrell, full of hatred, greed, ambition, sharing his soul with Voldemort, could not touch you for this reason.  It was agony to touch a person marked by something so good."  

It seems so simple and obvious, but it's a quite an idea.  In a realm where magic is power, something ordinary and universal like human love is super-magical, and has nothing to do with wizardry.

Or, as Jenna says, "It's interesting here that hatred leaves a scar [. . .] but love leaves an invisible mark with stunning powers."  This is the third significant revelation at the end of The Sorcerer's Stone.

Masha protests Dumbledore's practical use of his pupils, which, despite good intentions and good results, is use nonetheless.  After all, his explanations to Harry leave little doubt as to whether or not he had some shadowy idea of what was going on all along--things which he allowed and even instigated--such as with the cloak and Harry's first encounter with Erised.  We get the idea of a master hand in it all; and this I think is why, with Harry, I fall into a too-easy comfort with Dumbledore.  The concept of an authority figure, of a wise old man who has lived long enough--scrutinized the way of things hard enough--to have arrived at the Right Answers and Know Things.  Especially as a child, we are prone to put full trust into our parents and guardians, never suspecting them of ill, never dreaming of ever one day finding them mistaken.  It's a hard lesson, one that comes with growing pains.  I suspect Harry's going to have to learn it before his time at Hogwarts ends.

"The truth."  Dumbledore signed.  "It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution."

For now, I understand Harry's relief; his resignation to something--someone--greater than he is; who will look after them all, whom they can count on--even if, sometimes, he is called in faith by the one he trusts to do something he does not understand.

The friends from Gryffindor are recognized for their roles in averting disaster--Neville's sacrifice is given special attention by making it the last rewarded, consequently tipping Gryffindor House over the edge for points and out-scoring Slytherin.  It is the happiest moment in Harry's life.  And then the train pulls out, the enchanted realm falls behind, and the journey ends, metaphorically as well as literally, at the return to a train station.  It's a place of repose and nostalgia, and a part which no fairy tale is complete without; the coming home after a long and tiresome journey, the putting up of one's feet; the satisfied feeling of deeds well accomplished and unnamed wonders witnessed; and the trust in hope that this is only The End the way the final page of a good book is; that there are potentialities, shapeless and shimmering, just out of reach; and that the door of Faerie is not locked but only shut, ready to open again in a time and place appointed by the stars.




*  1 Corinthians 13:13
**  Similarly, the plot of JRR Tolkien's masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings, hangs on the gamble that Evil will not, cannot penetrate the vision of the Good.  It lacks imagination because it cannot possibly imagine a motive other than selfishness.  Thus, Frodo and Sam are able to slip through the treacherous borders of Mordor unnoticed, to destroy the One Ring, the object Sauron coveted above all else.  He could never have imagined someone putting the good of others before himself.  He could not have fathomed the love of friendship that carried two small, weak creatures over the waste land to accomplish the impossible.

HPP: Engaging the Critics, Part I

A few weeks ago, Masha shared a couple of links to commentaries about Harry Potter from renowned scholars, each in their own field--Harold Bloom of literary canon fame and Michael O'Brien from the classical Catholic educational background (think Tolkien and Lewis).  Both are the types (I think, in O'Brien's case) to rally behind the white Anglo-Saxon male dominated canon, and that's not necessarily a condemnation from me.  I just think it's interesting that we have two critics with similar tastes, who dislike Harry Potter for differing reasons, and worth mentioning.

Never one to shy away from stating the obvious, below I am going to examine their arguments in full, starting with Bloom.  At current writing, I do not know whether I "agree" or "disagree" with either Bloom or O'Brien.  Rather, I am writing this break-down as an examination, and we shall see where we stand when we arrive at the end.

Harold Bloom does not begin well when he likens the popularity of Harry Potter to that of Tolkien--something that is inexplicable and cheap, that will wane with time.  Then he makes the claim (as many have, I am told) that Harry Potter is not well written.

Harold Bloom and JRR Tolkien

Now, if he means that the lexicon is limited and the syntax straightforward, he is right.  It is a children's book, however, and the first of a series: it is to be expected that it will start simple to attract a young, wide audience.*  But fair enough, I'll give him that.

If he means in terms of plot, I'm not sure I follow (no pun intended).  The plot is engaging, grabbing the reader in from the first page and keeping the events fresh but relevant.  I suppose he is looking for something more cerebral, like a late Henry James?  A novel of manners, like Jane Austen?

As for the characterizations, I cannot see how they are simple or one-dimensional.  Quite the contrary.  There are layers there to Snape and Dumbledore that are communicated very well for the simpleness of the novel.

Rowling also draws from tried-and-true mythological traditions.  Perhaps Bloom is looking for something revolutionary?  But then, canon is a predictable cycle of action and reaction, each new literary movement a direct opposite from the one preceding it, so often the novelty of a novel (see the irony** there?) is overstated and over-represented by the juxtaposition, and truly "new" literary inventions are much rarer than first made out to be.  So is Bloom disapproving of Rowling's following of the (very successful) conventional literary formula?  (See * below.)  It seems this is the case, when he says that Harry Potter does not posses an "authentic imaginative vision."

I know his intentions are good, but after reading the HP essay,
it's such a presumptuous title!
source?

He writes

Rowling has taken 'Tom Brown's School Days' and re-seen it in the magical mirror of Tolkein (sic.).***  The resultant blend of a schoolboy ethos with a liberation from the constraints of reality-testing may read oddly to me, but is exactly what millions of children and their parents desire and welcome at this time.

Yes, okay.  Well . . . so?

In what follows, I may at times indicate some of the inadequacies of  "Harry Potter."  But I will keep in mind that a host are reading it who simply will not read superior fare, such as Kenneth Grahame's "The Wind in the Willows" or the "Alice" books of Lewis Carroll.  Is it better that they read Rowling than not read at all?  Will they advance from Rowling to more difficult pleasures?

Ah, now I see.  He's concerned for the youth.  c;

Rowling presents two Englands, mundane and magical, divided not by social classes, but by the distinction between the "perfectly normal" (mean and selfish) and the adherents of sorcery. The sorcerers indeed seem as middle-class as the Muggles, the name the witches and wizards give to the common sort, since those addicted to magic send their sons and daughters off to Hogwarts, a Rugby school where only witchcraft and wizardry are taught. Hogwarts is presided over by Albus Dumbeldore as Headmaster, he being Rowling's version of Tolkein's (sic.)**** Gandalf. The young future sorcerers are just like any other budding Britons, only more so, sports and food being primary preoccupations.

He's absolutely right about the two Englands, something I find delightful about Harry Potter, from the first time I picked up The Sorcerer's Stone years ago.  It's the typical set-up for a fairy tale, the mundane of everyday weighing heavily on the reader via the character; only too soon to disappear, we know, else we would probably put the book down and cease reading (or we'd have been reading Virginia Wolf to begin with).  And yes, there is a caricature of normal people as "mean and selfish," but I see parallels there to other children's authors such as Roald Dahl and Lemony Snickett.  Does the caricaturing make it unacceptable, but (and correct me if I'm wrong, really) doesn't Charles Dickins do a bit of that as well?  And is the flat-out, accurate-in-all its-ugliness depiction of human depravity in stories such as Heart of Darkness acceptable?*****

The statement about those "addicted to magic" seems inaccurate, as it is clearly shown that magic is an inherited trait and not something achieved by mere wishing.  Bloom says that the reasoning for Harry's being handed to the guardianship of his aunt and uncle is never disclosed by Rowling, but I've been told by those knowledgeable of the series that this is not the case.  So there's some inaccuracy about the books, which, if not undoing his points, certainly throws uncertainty on his credibility.  He goes on about Harry's upbringing for a while, and I gather that his issue so far has been with HP's conventionalism.  So Rowling's is a sin of unoriginality.

"A born survivor, Harry holds on until the sorcerers rescue him and send him off to Hogwarts, to enter upon the glory of his schooldays."  Point well made.

He admits the admirability of Harry in the climax [SPOILERS], then says, "Why read, if what you read will not enrich mind or spirit or personality?"

Now, as far as I have read, Harry Potter is not a challenging, game-changing story.  But I have to protest the implication that reading it will not at all enrich mind, spirit, and personality.  What is the anthropomorphic castle if not an introduction to the Gothic genre?  And the Flamels' longevity coupled with Voldemort's rabid lusting for the Stone (and the blood of innocents) if not a grammary to Paradise Lost?  On the contrary, I think Rowling's borrowing of these classic elements is essential to and accountable for, at the very least, some of the interest in Harry Potter, beyond action in the form of zipping brooms and hi-jinks with clever and uncomfortable spells.  To the meat of the story, those things are pink fluffy frosting; they give a temporary sugar-high, no doubt, that distracts from the more substantial substance (seewhatIdidthar?) of the story; but the ingredients for a good, sturdy recipe are present underneath, and they remain when the saccharine "tricks" and "spectacle" fade.  And yes, it is a recipe, in the sense that is a formula.  But we follow recipes and formulas because they work.

Finally, the zinger:

I hope that my discontent is not merely a highbrow snobbery, or a nostalgia for a more literate fantasy to beguile (shall we say) intelligent children of all ages.

So, there it is: literary fantasy beguiles.  It can't be worthwhile if it isn't true, or based in reality, or boring realism, or fantasy treated as realism (Henry James again?).  But the same doesn't stand for The Odyssey and the Arthurian romances . . . or did the people back then just not know any better, and so are excused from providing better fare for the literary canon?  Or is it only okay when it's satire, like Mark Twain?  Or when it's overwhelmingly dark like The Picture of Dorian Gray?

Is our lad Harry Potter on par with the greats, worthy to take his place alongside Shakespeare and James Joyce and The Canterbury Tales?  I don't think so, at least not at this point in the execution of my Harry Potter Project.  But I can't see how the reading of it is worthless and without merit entirely.

source

And I think "common" readers realize that.  As Chesterton would say, regarding the "awful authority of the masses," sometimes our humanity instinctively leads us to what is good and affirming.  Something unknown within us responds to truths never named: that friendship and self-sacrifice, and standing by what's right in the face of impossible pressure, is more than mere escape, but a glimpse toward that which the soul knows and misses, and not something to be swept up in the "dustbin of the ages."



*  The "stretching his legs" cliches he mentions on page 4 I happen to like, as it establishes the "this is just an ordinary story about an ordinary family" tone before jumping into the Shocking Reveal--this is more a sense of trite storytelling, as I am sure of the art and intelligence of Rowling enough to know that she could do better if she'd wanted to.  Then we wander into territory that asks, "Is using pre-established formula considered bad form for literature?"
**  I'm probably not using the correct definition of "irony" here!
***  You should see my expression as I acknowledge the glaring spelling error.  Let's hope it's a typo.
****  Still trying hard to believe it's a typo.
*****  Would Harold Bloom accuse me of peacocking by dropping my knowledge of literary canon?  Probably, but he'd be wrong about that, too.

Harry Potter Project: The Beginning

Welcome to the grand beginning of the Harry Potter Book Club!

The project has been in the works since late December when I announced my lofty goals for the year, one of which was to read the entire Harry Potter series and blog about my impressions.  The idea was met with considerable enthusiasm.

Almost five months later, here we are!  Jenna of A Light Inside is acting headmistress of the project, but you can find the discussions headquartered here and over at Cyganeria as well.  There promises to be a lot of fun and games in addition to serious scholarship and close reading, and there should be something for everyone.  I hope you'll join us.

Click on the spell bellow to begin at A Light Inside with a more thorough introduction and insights into Chapter 1 of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone:

Consider it your syllabus to this introductory course in magic.  Then hop back over here for my reflections on the first chapter.  And keep a look-out for the third and final introduction from Masha at Cyganeria toward the end of the week.

Before You Read

Please note that I am reading the American versions because those are the copies to which I have access.  Hence I'll be calling the first book The Sorcerer's Stone, though it's original title is The Philosopher's Stone.  I'd love it if a British reader could share significant differentiations as we go along, however.

Additionally, here are a few things you might like to have for the Harry Potter read-through:

• some used or cheap copies of the books that you don't mind jotting notes on and stashing into your purse or the glove compartment of your car
• a small notebook if you can't get access to the above
• candles for late-night castle reading
• a Latin-English dictionary for deciphering spells (and making up your own!)
• a cloak of invisibility for hiding from Muggles while reading
• wizarding music (soundtrack/playlist--compiled by yours truly--forthcoming)
• wizard recipes for delicious and subject-appropriate snacks (also forthcoming from Masha!)
• a mythology or Harry Potter reference book

If there's anything else you think should be on the list, let me know and I'll add it!  Now that that's covered, it's time for . . .

The Beginning

Minaali Haputantri Photography

A wise person once said somewhere that the best place to start is at the beginning.  It's impossible to read the first page, the first paragraph, the first sentence of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone without an inkling of what you're getting into:

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.

Methinks the lady dost protest too much.  Right away, we know this story is going to be out-of-the-ordinary.

"The Boy Who Lived" scores well in my book for first impressions.  It's characterization of a boring, straight-laced, rather self-centered English family is affectionately disapproving and puts me in mind of the children's  books of Roald Dahl and his successor Lemony Snicket.  I agree with Jenna that a children's story that only engages children is not a very good children's story, and this chapter engages the reader's curiosity and imagination.

Jenna mentioned that the wizardry in Harry Potter is a spoof, and this too may account for the immediate familiarity and the ease with which I slid into suspension of disbelief.  Short bearded men in cloaks and bespectacled, black-haired, tight-bunned ladies who turn into cats.  Who doesn't have some fond memory of such things, woven in the background of their childhood so intricately and seamlessly as to be almost invisible?  But it's more than that.  The confidence with which the narration is presented is conversational, a kind of "what you are about to hear are real events" tone of storytelling.  I love that, that awareness of story as story.

As someone trained in literature and an amateur writer myself, I noticed things like simple diction, trite turns of phrase, and tendency to rely on adverbs.  But I've never been a fan of the high-brow literary school of critics--why can't plain but clear writing, as much as beauteous writing, be an effective stylistic choice?--and when I try to imagine HP written in a florid post-modern voice, it looses an essential quality I can't quite put my finger on.  Perhaps because the subject of the story is already eccentric.  The simple writing presents what would otherwise be a fantastical account of events in a fairy tale-meets-the-evening-news mode.  It also gives us a sense of the narrator, of ourselves as readers--again, that story-as-a-story effect--that stronger writing would take away by making the characters too immediate and the story too immediately immersive.  Though, don't get me wrong, I expect to be drawn into it more and more as it moves along and I get to know the characters better.

Cory Godbey

Other first impressions:

This Dumbledore is a stand-up kind of guy.  He's not a Gandalf wizard by any stretch, which is refreshing in this age of copycats.  He reminds me more of your favorite high school teacher who pretended not to know what was going on in his classroom when his back was turned to write on the blackboard, but who would surprise you with a knowing and relevant comment in passing when you least expected it.  You sense depths of knowledge and emotions to which you have not yet been granted access in confidence.

While Dumbledore conjures distance under a reserved silliness, McGonagall keeps us at arm's length with her prickly manner.  One thing in particular I didn't like was her comment about even stupid humans noticing all the strange things going on.  Yet after giving it some thought, and Rowling the benefit of the doubt, I considered the following.

Perhaps we are meant to be drawn into the realm of wizardry from the world of the under-ordinary, in the sense that we readers are confidants--even artists.  Our art is in recognizing the mysteriousness and wonder of existence in a way that sets us apart from others.  It is what makes us readers, seekers of fiction, and friends of the imagination.  Our very act of reading initiates us in a sense, while the Muggles are those of us who fail to recognize and seize upon the type of magic in everyday living; who reject imagination and fiction as children's stories, invaluable to the real world; who go about day by day like Mr. Dursley, unable to fathom that perhaps the homeless man at the street corner is a wise and benevolent wizard, much less a dignified human being.

Maybe the wizards in the universe of Harry Potter are those of us who are not blind to the greater struggle going on, outside our self-satisfied, comfortable, and sometimes mundane lives.  I suspect anybody who can be open to the type of love-magic and truths spoken in Harry Potter, or any fairy tale, would be a wizard within its pages.

Last, you have "the boy who lived."  Jenna makes an astute distinction between "lived" and "survived."  That one word turns the meaning of the entire story.  And while I am worried, with Professor McGonagall, about poor Harry growing up among those atrocious relatives; and a bit distanced by the main character already being introduced as not-an-ordinary-person (how do I relate to that?); I feel a bubbling hope with its source in the little baby left on the front step of number four Privet Drive.  Who sleeps peacefully in the night not knowing how important he is or how his being in the world is a sign of hope to so many; and I am reminded of the dark of early Christmas morning, with dancing stars and strange learned men who show reverence in secret, when another little baby came quietly, unobtrusively, to change everything forever.

What I Mean by "Merrie England"

A lot has been said about why fairy tales take place "once upon a time."

The consensus, at least as I have seen it, is that the vagueness allows the fairy tale to take place at all times and any time, making it accessible to all people throughout the ages.

It also shows that the "once" and the "time" of the story are parallel places and times, a fantasy world where we are asked to suspend our disbelief and play along with the magical, absurd, and pure evil things that can and do happen.

The idyllic pastoral way of life depicted fancifully in fairy tales is hard to pinpoint historically, though research like scholar Ronald Hutton's shows that some aspects of Merrie England did exist before Puritanism.

While "real" life--as opposed to reality in fairy tales--is far more complex (those that  mean us harm are not clearly ugly; goodness does not shine through a benefactor; and justice is never quite as satisfying), fairy tales distill truths about our living world.

Skeptics scoff to call anything magical, but what is the birth of a child?  In this context, the word "magical" falls way short of the mark.  So in fairy tales, a train of fairies and angels attend a baby's christening.

Trees die and drop their leaves in the fall but resurrect in the spring, when blossoms appear on their branches.  So in fairy tales precious gems grow on trees and gardens bloom overnight.

Men kill other men without reason, and through violence and disease our loved ones are robbed from us before their time.  So in fairy tales, hideous trolls live under bridges and obstinately block the way, frustrating the crucial journey.

But I believe in the Merrie England of fairy tales in yet another way.  Its no-time-but-any-time-and-all-time suggests there is reality outside our senses.  If it isn't historical it is because it transcends history.  Something of this effect is tackled by Charles Williams in his Arthurian cycle, in which a Utopian Logres peaks for a time as part of a larger empire.  In The Lord of the Rings, the wisest and saddest of characters are always looking West, either for a sunken Atlantis or Blessed Realm with fragile ties to the physical world.

Boucher, Shepherd piping to a Shepherdess

Michael Moorcock critiques the worldview incarnate in Merrie England as having no place in modern fantasy.  On the contrary, I think fantasy in any other context is just pageantry, flashing magician's tricks and astounding colors, entertainment without substance.

Merrie England stirs in us two things: (1) the idea that common and everyday occurrences have deeper meanings and (2) that the reason we are restless is because there is an ideal world (whether it existed or not, whether it can be achieved or not) for which our hearts ache.

The Desire for Dragons

This post is a response to the Moveable Feast hosted by Terri Windling's Myth & Moor, and other contributors to the discussion can be found here.

Jessie Wilcox Smith, The Bed-time Book

J.R.R. Tolkien wrote, in words that have initiated those they have touched into a cult of wonder ever since,

I desired dragons with a profound desire.  Of course, I in my timid body did not wish to have them in the neighborhood.  But the world that contained even the imagination of Fafnir was richer and more beautiful, at whatever the cost of peril.

Ms. Windling goes on to write,

I chose this title because Tolkien's passionate desire for a world colored by myth and mystery is one familiar to all of us who create and love mythic arts.  [. . .]  What we're discussing here is the why.  Why are we drawn to stories and other art forms (both contemporary and historic) with their roots dug deep into the soil of myth?  [emphasis mine]

It's a good question, but one which an anthropologist is likely to muddle.  As is said in the charming, post-Confederacy version of Homer's Odyssey, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, "It's a fool what looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart."

But there is a logic in the longing for Faerie.  It's a different kind of logic.  The kind, G.K. Chesterton notes, that makes us instantly satisfied with the laws therein: don't go into the back room at midnight; always carry bread crumbs in your pocket; don't look a white stag in the eye; knock three times, no more, no less; if you take something back with you, be prepared to face the consequences; and never eat the food.

The anthropologist could say that our interest in wonder, in the unknown, in the unexplainable, arose as a survival mechanism to warn children of danger; or as a political move to keep tribal and religious leaders in power and to discourage questioning; it might have been a way of explaining the miracles of science at a time when people knew little about the workings of the world; maybe it was a way of comforting people and helping them deal with psychological hardships, a beautiful lie.

Why then do we still long for wonder, desire dragons "with a profound desire"?  If we have outgrown these primordial needs and they no longer serve a function; or if we are at least too sophisticated to fall into them, why do they linger?  As artifacts?  Is the desire nothing more than a vestigial organ?

skian-winterfyre of deviantART, Night Drake

Supposing it is a kind of organ.  The presence of such a thing suggests that it was once a need, and the above mechanisms of practicality do not sufficiently and satisfactorily explain it away.  For we have found other means of meeting those needs that don't require myth and fantasy.  Just look at nihilism.

So the need, or desire, is built in--not in some, as we might suspect by our tight-knit community, but in everyone.  Especially children.

As we grow older, we are discouraged from playing make believe, are told to prepare for the "real world," and forced to adapt by relegating wonder to the nursery, or, as is the case for many, to a private hobby (thanks, Richard Dawkins).  Those that don't appear to long for fantastical wonder find wonder in other ways: such as the baby-crazy teenager who ogles pictures of newborns; the devout widow who wears a veil at daily mass; the father and son who love to take apart machines and see how they work, or, if not quite so involved, at least marvel at their functioning.  This attraction to wonder is intrinsic.

If we occur, un-tampered, with a need for wonder, it logically follows that wonder is something we need to be complete.  We need it the way we need lunch, the way plants need sunshine, the way humans digest food and plants photosynthesize light.  We transform those things into our very substance.  They become an inseparable part of us.

Where is this wonder?  Why were we built without it, but wanting it, the way a plant needs photosynthesis but doesn't contain the means to photosynthesize within itself?

Such questions could easily dissolve into a tangle of religious and philosophical sophistries, but let us at least admit this: we were made for something other.  So much is that absence woven into the fiber of our being, that we know the other the minute we touch it.  It is what Edward Gardner so aptly called "familiar otherness."  Like setting foot in a real place we've only ever seen before in a dream.

Charles Santoso, source

So.  My answer to the question "why do we desire dragons?" is simple: because dragons were made for us.

This is the poverty of a society devoid of wonder, of the materialist world of men and women who say "this is all there is."  They are starving themselves, as a flower starves for sunshine.  Count yourself truly blessed, dear reader.  You are one of the few at the feast.

Please also see: The Nature of Conditions in Japanese Folk Tales, Longing for the Elves, The Domestication of Dwarfs, and What I Mean by "Merrie England"

What I Mean by "Merrie England"

A lot has been said about why fairy tales take place "once upon a time."

The consensus, at least as I have seen it, is that the vagueness allows the fairy tale to take place at all times and any time, making it accessible to all people throughout the ages.

It also shows that the "once" and the "time" of the story are parallel places and times, a fantasy world where we are asked to suspend our disbelief and play along with the magical, absurd, and pure evil things that can and do happen.

The idyllic pastoral way of life depicted fancifully in fairy tales is hard to pinpoint historically, though research like scholar Ronald Hutton's shows that some aspects of Merrie England did exist before Puritanism.

While "real" life--as opposed to reality in fairy tales--is far more complex (those that  mean us harm are not clearly ugly; goodness does not shine through a benefactor; and justice is never quite as satisfying), fairy tales distill truths about our living world.

Skeptics scoff to call anything magical, but what is the birth of a child?  In this context, the word "magical" falls way short of the mark.  So in fairy tales, a train of fairies and angels attend a baby's christening.

Trees die and drop their leaves in the fall but resurrect in the spring, when blossoms appear on their branches.  So in fairy tales precious gems grow on trees and gardens bloom overnight.

Men kill other men without reason, and through violence and disease our loved ones are robbed from us before their time.  So in fairy tales, hideous trolls live under bridges and obstinately block the way, frustrating the crucial journey.

But I believe in the Merrie England of fairy tales in yet another way.  Its no-time-but-any-time-and-all-time suggests there is reality outside our senses.  If it isn't historical it is because it transcends history.  Something of this effect is tackled by Charles Williams in his Arthurian cycle, in which a Utopian Logres peaks for a time as part of a larger empire.  In The Lord of the Rings, the wisest and saddest of characters are always looking West, either for a sunken Atlantis or Blessed Realm with fragile ties to the physical world.

Boucher, Shepherd piping to a Shepherdess

Michael Moorcock critiques the worldview incarnate in Merrie England as having no place in modern fantasy.  On the contrary, I think fantasy in any other context is just pageantry, flashing magician's tricks and astounding colors, entertainment without substance.

Merrie England stirs in us two things: (1) the idea that common and everyday occurrences have deeper meanings and (2) that the reason we are restless is because there is an ideal world (whether it existed or not, whether it can be achieved or not) for which our hearts ache.

Man the Maker

Ann Anderson, The Frog Prince

Although now long estranged,
Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.
Dis-graced he may be, yet is not de-throned,
and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned:
Man, Sub-creator, the refracted Light
through whom is splintered from a single White
to many hues, and endlessly combined
in living shapes that move from mind to mind.
Though all the crannies of the world we filled
with Elves and Goblins, though we dared to build
Gods and their houses out of dark and light,
and sowed the seed of dragons—'twas our right
(used or misused). That right has not decayed:
we make still by the law in which we're made.

--J.R.R. Tolkien

 

I'm planning on hosting a link-up in which I post a picture or a series of words or a phrase for people to take away and write a fairy tale with.  If that sounds like something that would interest you, please stick around.  It's going to be fun.