summer and Potter

For me the last week or two have been kind of depressing. Some of that makes total sense given the string of tragedies around the world, the political situation here, but I think if I looked back on last summer, I'd see the same thing for mid-July.

There is the build up to the Solstice with summer lying ahead, days longer and longer; then summer is here, and instead of each day lengthening, they are slightly shortening. Not to say I don't enjoy the things that go with these hot, sultry days, but they are never quite as good as I had hoped they'd be. How could they be when anticipation and imagination almost always trump reality.

I bought Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling Saturday morning but decided to not start it until Monday morning. Sunday night, right before bedtime, I realized the cats in the living room had a new interest-- a beautiful, big, fast flying, get-caught-in-your-hair bat. The cats banged into things as they tried to catch mouse on wing, and as I congratulated myself on having their rabies shots up to date. They weren't actually trying too hard given a bat is something they don't see often since they spend their nights inside.

I wanted to get that bat outside hopefully still unhurt which meant opening outside doors. While the youngest cat raced out into the darkness to escape the mayhem, I locked the older two into a bedroom (where I might add they were relieved to be). Then the chase began in earnest as the bat flew desperately through the rooms, I kept trying to protect my hair (yes, I know them getting entangled in a woman's long hair is an old wives' tale, but I am an old wife), and my husband carried a big towel hopefully to scoop it up. All of this was not easy as bats depend on bat radar and don't actually see. What in their radar says-- open door to outside?

We lost sight of it for a bit, then looking at the rafter in the solarium, there it was-- doing its bat thing hanging upside down. Possibly it was taking a breather as well as hoping to remain unnoticed. We closed that area off to the house and opened its outside door. Bats cannot sense outside air evidently. The towel (wielded by my husband with less hair to worry about) swished through the air and eventually, the bat left. Then we only had to get back in the escaped cat.

In the middle of that same night I was awakened by the scream of an owl. Three screams to be exact from probably a screech or barn owl as it swept past the house. No, it didn't call my name but an owl's angry scream is an eerie thing whatever name it calls. Owls are creatures of the wild as well as have some mystical connotations-- as do bats.

Good start to a week where I planned to become immersed in Harry Potter's mystical world. I had enjoyed the series, got started with them after the first four had already become very popular because my adult daughter, who is a voracious reader, was a fan and loaned me #1 through #4. To be honest I would not have made it through #2 except for knowing she valued them so highly. I kept going until I too became mesmerized by the magical world and the questions of what would come next.

From then on whenever a book would come out, I didn't wait to borrow them-- especially given she usually reads them at least twice. Some were harder than others for me to keep reading. With #5, I put it down at around page 100 because I was so fed up with dark moods and teen-age angst. Everybody, who was a fan, said it got better and so finally after a few months, I picked it back up and they were right.

By the time #7 was due, I was as hooked as anybody as I eagerly awaited its arrival. Well not quite anybody as I didn't wait in lines, didn't pre-order it, no Potter parties, and did look for the best price-- ala Costco. I put off starting it until Monday because I remembered with the last one that they are the kind of book you don't want to put down. I read Deathly Hallows in two days (unlike some fans, I did sleep) and overall enjoyed it.

Rowling has some masterful aspects to her writing. Her prose is plain. There are no artistic paragraphs marked by me for rereading. Her writing carries along the action while dropping clues she almost always picks up later to reveal why they mattered. They are not books to skim. She has indeed created a mysterious, complex, and fantastic world. So what is not to like?

Spoiler to follow; so for those not yet having read Deathly Hallows, planning to do so, who don't want to know anything about the ending, stop here.

tra la la la

dum de dum de dum

Also don't read comments as someone who had read the book and had a different take on the ending, might give away something more.

Spoiler coming...

My biggest frustration with the ending involved Professor Severus Snape (portrayed wonderfully by Alan Rickman in the films). Snape was (other than Ron) my favorite character. Although Rowling has admitted in interviews that she didn't like him and is amazed anybody else did, in Deathly Hallows, he is finally revealed to have been Harry's savior time after time (which I had gathered from her many clues would be true).

Despite Rowling's dislike of him, her feeling he didn't deserve others to like him due to his nasty personality, she wrote about him in a way that didn't put forth her spoken vision. From my own experience in writing fiction, I have seen that happen. Characters kind of tend to take over and no matter what the author intends, that character will have their way. From her interviews, it sounds like that is what Snape did.

To me, Snape was the real hero, the character who nobody, except Dumbledore, liked or trusted, one who had loved and lost, a wizard who sacrificed everything on a lifelong mission, the one who became hard and yes, sometimes mean due to having been abused, and so often on the outside. Still time after time, he did the right thing without expecting glory for it. I was frustrated that he didn't get even one tiny moment of triumph. At a critical moment, through his murder, he was thrust out of the action by Rowling-- as she had allowed the other characters do throughout the book. I felt sad for him. Not that he was sacrificed, which perhaps was necessary, but it was how.

Snape was a complex character, one who the reader couldn't be totally certain of until the end. As one of those readers, I wanted a moment of fulfillment for him, a moment of someone caring about him. I wanted him to receive recognition, though as is true for the noblest of heroes, he never asked for it. He didn't, but I wanted an emotional resolution to Snape's sad story that I didn't get.

Maybe part of my dissatisfaction is that Harry never quite registered to me as the hero the author declared him to be. I felt he was a bit one-dimensional. Harry kept falsely assuming everyone who was murdered, in this long battle against evil, had been killed because of him (his ego problem) when in reality Voldemort was pure evil and obviously anyone who accepted his dictatorship was doomed to a brutal existence. According to the story, Harry was the possible salvation of the world, not the cause of the destruction which he often seemed to wallow in believing.

Harry did grow some, out of the teen-age brat stage, finally starting to trust, listen to others, not assume he knew it all, possibly on the road to having a realistic view of his own place in the world, and I was pleased whenever the author let someone else, like Ron, have their moment of saving the day.

I felt Harry's final triumph was somewhat forced and wasn't sure I bought it. It was almost anticlimactic after she had dispatched Snape so summarily and for no more purpose (in my view) than to give Harry his moment to totally be the victor. In the end, it was actually a false sense of ego that destroyed Voldemort and that's not a bad lesson for children (or anyone) to take away. I also had to remind myself, when something didn't suit me, this was a book intended for children, a world in which I was the outsider.

Despite those small objections, I did like the series. J. K. Rowling opened people to magic, created a complex and fascinating world which carried through from book to book. I will be interested in what she writes once she leaves these characters behind.

I still don't know how that bat got into the house...