Weekend of a Harry Potter heathen

[annathepiper]

First off, everybody say hi to suzene and ravenlaughing, joining me out of the Two Moons MUSH crowd (and Great Big Sea fandom!) on the one hand, and courtesy of wingedelf on the other! Greetings and welcome!

And secondly, okay, I'll confess--I'm a Harry Potter heathen. I don't own any copies of the books, and while I've read books 1-3, I only got moderate enjoyment out of them. I have no particular plans to buy hardback editions of books I only moderately enjoy, and probably will not be buying my own copies until I can get hold of paperback copies of the UK editions. (The writer geek in me likes the idea of looking at the original words Rowling wrote, even if they are only passingly different in small details from the US editions.) I will likely be reading books 4-6 while I am recovering from thyroid surgery, most likely some time early next month. So not that I really think I need to say this to anyone on my Friends list, since I've seen you all be careful about this already--but just in case, do please be careful with your spoilers. Thanks in advance!

Next, highlights of the weekend! Friday, OMGBSGBBQ with spazzkat, mamishka, jessicac, kathrynt, llachglin, solarbird, and myself; I've already written up my reactions to the episode, but suffice to say loads of fun. Saturday was calling my brother Marc to wish him a happy birthday, a going away gathering-slash-birthday party at her place for jiapa who is moving to New York, and then video games, with many of the Friday folks plus a surprise visit from Danny, one of our former renters from 5026, who's struck up a bit of a friendship with us and who's pretty cool. Sunday, a nice walk down to the Farmer's Market, futzing around with my guitar, and a bit of writing. Good weekend all around.

No word yet out of Luna or from Nadia Cornier. Closing in on the two-month mark for the one and have just passed the one-month mark for the other.

Days without a rejection letter from Luna: 53
Days without a rejection letter from Nadia Cornier: 35
Friday miles: 2.25
Saturday miles: 2.0
Sunday miles: 2.0
Miles out of Hobbiton: 248.45
Miles to Rivendell: 209.55

Comments

[annathepiper]

I think y'all are getting the same editions that the UK is getting, yeah--and this was in fact my plan, since I realized I could go up to Vancouver to get 'em! I'm always happy to have another excuse to visit Vancouver. :)

[ravenlaughing.livejournal.com]

LOL Hi there! Wingedelf seemed to think we had a lot in common, and I found your interest list intriguing.

I like Harry potter too, but I usually restrain myself from buying hardbacks. I probably get it in a couple weeks so I have something to read on the plane when I move to Seattle.

[annathepiper]

Hiya! 'Intriguing', huh? Why thank you. It does indeed seem, just based on our interests lists, that we have some things in common.

I hardly ever buy hardbacks at all, even for authors I really love. I just find hardbacks unwieldy to read and unwieldy to carry--it's a lot easier to stick a paperback into a backpack than it is a hardback. And I don't have to worry as much about dropping a paperback in the bath water.

[me-fein.livejournal.com]

:) Too true about going up into Canada and getting the books there. I feel the same way and even though I would have bought the hardcover this time around, I really would have regretted it because I prefer softcovers for generally the same reasons you do.

I love the books because they are...well, brain-candy, really. Easy to digest and enjoy without having to think too hard or get depressed/emotional over. They are my equivalent to romance novels. :D

[annathepiper]

I do very much look forward to it being September, at which point I will have more book-buying disposable income. And since we won't be going to Worldcon this year, a jaunt up into Vancouver or Victoria at some point later in the year would be a nice little vacation and an opportunity to buy those books. :)

And yeah, 'brain candy' strikes me as about right for Harry Potter!

[cafiorello.livejournal.com]

Generally, I agree. But we got hardcover HPs for Derek because he had to have them right away! And because he has read each one about 20 times, it was a good thing they were so durable.

[ravenlaughing.livejournal.com]

very true. they also don't weigh as much when you pack 9 boxes of books, LOL.

[annathepiper]

I agree, that's most likely the better option for that scenario! :)

[gerimaple.livejournal.com]

maybe i'm just some weirdo with Too Many Personal Issues(tm), but I don't find HP to be brain candy at all. The emotional abuse and neglect Harry endures at the hands of his aunt and uncle makes my stomach knot and my hands want to throw the book, so i've never gotten past the first chapter of book 1. Oh, and I'm an ophiediaphobe - i.e. i DON'T cope well with snakes, even on TV or being discussed, which according to feste at the time made #2 Not a Maple Movie.

[gerimaple.livejournal.com]

ophidiophobe. comments either needs to get a spell check or let me edit myself :P

[starsongky.livejournal.com]

You're not the only HP heathen, Hon. A year or two ago (before Order of the Phoenix came out) I hadn't read any of them, so I started reading 'em back to back. Finished the first three okay, got somewhere in the middle of Goblet of Fire & got so sick of it I gave up. Tried to re-read a PDA (portable) version of Goblet of Fire shortly after Phoenix, got a few chapters in and got bored with it again.

I'll read them eventually, but I seriously doubt it will be any time soon.

[annathepiper]

Interesting. So what got you actively sick of/bored with the storyline, out of general curiosity?

[annathepiper]

That doesn't strike me as weird at all. Certainly I've had my share of abusive family history--though I think what allows me to have some distance from it in books like the Harry Potter ones is that I'm familiar with the archetype of a powerfully gifted young person having to suffer abuse and emotional neglect before he or she can come into full power. It happens all over fantasy novels; Mercedes Lackey certainly gave that archetype a workout all throughout the Valdemar books, for example. And it goes back further than that, too, with similar archetypes in myths and fairy tales; Cinderella comes to mind.

For me, that part of Harry Potter also gets a bit of distancing partly because I started watching the movies before I started reading the books--and in the movies, his aunt and uncle and their son are clearly portrayed as small-minded buffoons, and very little time is spent on their presence in the stories before Harry scampers off to Hogwarts and the real meat of the tale begins.

But I can respect that having a big emotional impact, too.

As for snakes--hey, if they squick you, they squick you. :) So yeah, don't go anywhere near Chamber of Secrets!

[starsongky.livejournal.com]

I honestly don't remember any more. It's probably been a year or more since I've even looked at the PDA version. And that wasn't the best translation, looked like someone used an OCR scanner and didn't bother proofreading it for typos.

[annathepiper]

Ah. Fan/pirate copy, then?

[starsongky.livejournal.com]

Goblet of Fire on PDA? Yep, it's basically just a huge text file, with a bookmark-type feature to it'll open back up to the same spot you last closed it. The first reading attempt was with the book (hardcover US edition), but that sucker's just too darn heavy to lug back and forth to work.

[annathepiper]

Gotcha.

[annathepiper]

Very true. Having just moved within the last year, I know whereof you speak! :)