Every time I check my e-mail, I get another Christmas or birthday gift: an e-mail or facebook message from someone who got Harry, A History for the holidays, read it, and wanted to tell me about their experience.
So I thought I'd open a thread so that all the newcomers can talk about the book or anything Harry they like. The New Year is just the beginning for Harry, so I'll see you then!
I hope you all have a safe and prosperous New Year!
Hey guys: If you live in the Boston area, meet me at 3 p.m. on Sunday, December 21, at the Harvard Co-op Bookstore (18 Palmer St, Cambridge, MA), for a discussion and signing of Harry, A History! Then at 5 p.m. join me a short ways away at the Middle East Downstairs for a Yule Ball with Harry and the Potters, Draco and the Malfoys, The Whomping Willows, Jason Anderson and the Best, The LeeVees and Dumbledore!
At the signing, we will also be giving out two free tickets to the Yule Ball! Don't miss it!
You can also RSVP for this event, and invite your friends, via Facebook.
Again, that's:
Harry, A History discussion and signing
Harvard Coop
18 Palmer Street (click here for map)
3 p.m., December 21
Free!
4th Annual Boston Yule Ball
Sunday, December 21, 2008
5 p.m.
Middle East Downstairs
480 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA
See you there!
As those who've read Harry know, Order of the Phoenix is not my favorite in the book series. I found it hard to enjoy it the same way I enjoyed all the others. Jo and I started talking about this during the interview, and in our get-off-topic-and-onto-canon habit, it turned into a longer discussion about the plot, pitfalls and quasi-resolution of that book. I hope you enjoy!
JKR: After that ending in [Goblet], what ending was going to come up to scratch on five? I knew what big endings I had for six and seven! [laughs.] That was another difficulty with five.MA: There's not a clear winner [in Phoenix].
JKR: There's not a neat resolution. There's not a neat resolution. For the first time you end on a real downer. I mean, Voldemort coming back is a horrible turn of events, but Harry gets back, Harry survives. In five, it's much murkier, really in keeping with the tone of the whole book. We won in as much as we stopped Voldemort getting all the information - but we lost Sirius. So for the first time we have, on balance - you do a cost-benefit analysis and it wasn't so good. The outcome really wasn't that good.
MA: Were you worried about how the readership would react?
JKR: I definitely knew. I think overall n the seres it's the darkest book, because of what Harry's going through internally. Because you always see the world through Harry's eyes even though it's not a first-person narrative. His mood, his internal climate affects everything. So once he comes out fighting in six, it's as though the sun comes out to an extent, and even though the world around him is tough, he's now imbued with this quite gung-ho spirit, so I think the mood lifts enormously.
I didn't worry, in as much as I never have let myself worry. That's one place where I'm really not locked down. I just think "I have to write what I want to write." You mustn't be affected by popularity and unpopularity in that sense. It's just wrong. You've got to write what you want to write, tell your story. And I always did want Harry to go through a phase where ... he had to question it, alone in the dark. Why me? Why does it have to be me? I would. Anyone would. Of course, in many respects it's incredibly implausible that he got as far as he did without having a total breakdown, and it's implausible that he didn't have a bigger breakdown.
I remember talking about this to Dan Radcliffe. We were talking about survivor's guilt and the messy, complicated feelings he's got about Cedric and the awfulness of isolation. Because Ron and Hermione are the people who can understand best, but they're not The One, they haven't got the scar. To be totally alone...
[laughs] Mayyyyyybe some of my feelings about my situation may have leaked into Harry at that point, hearing myself speak, but I'm not sure. I did always plan that he would have this slide into self-doubt and anger and that then he would come up again for six. Because six and seven are so closely related, I think you can see that now. You slide off the end of six and really you do go straight into seven. I don't think there's a big emotional change between Harry in six and Harry in seven. Would you agree?
MA: Until the final third of seven.
JKR: Yeah, then everything falls away absolutely and then Harry is lone warrior, which I think we expect in the tradition of that literature, don't we? We expect that there comes a point when everyone else has to fall away.
The other interesting thing in 5 is that it's the one book where Harry remains surrounded until the very end. That was deliberate because he feels so isolated throughout and then at the end - and they did that very well in the film - there comes this moment when he realises that these people will stick with him, so for the first time, the big fight scene is him surrounded by others. That was a deliberate inversion. Previously, he's been a much happier person and has gone on alone. This time he needed the support and he did get it. Again that may have slightly taken the edge off the ending, because it is so satisfying to see the hero do it alone.
Wow: There are currently 135 responses to this entry about how you got into the Harry Potter fandom. I'm still swearing to get through them and compose a post about some of the most interesting ones. Meanwhile let's get started on another topic, switching to the end:
What were the circumstances surrounding the way you finished reading the series? With whom did you read the book? Had your life changed at all? Was Harry part of the reason for that change? Anecdotes away!
Vault entry on the way.
I don't know what you're talking about when you say I haven't updated in three weeks. No idea.
Ehmm... photo!
Dug this one out of the archives! It represents one of those melds of things-I-love: Potter and Broadway. That's Chris Rankin (right), a.k.a. Percy Weasley, backstage at Wicked with Idina Menzel in... I want to say 2004. Chris Rankin has been a long friend to Leaky and the Potter fan community, even attending a conference in 2003. I interviewed Chris for Leaky the night this picture was taken, and we shamelessly used his Potter identity to get the tickets to, and backstage at, the show. Idina Menzel, some of you probably know, was Maureen Johnson in Rent before taking up the green makeup for Elphaba in Wicked, and I actually owe her quite a bit: She was the first person I ever interviewed. The article about her record that I had so much fun reporting and writing and then publishing in The Hoya was one of the first major reasons for me to pause on my expected road to med school. This picture wraps a lot of things together, come to think of it.
In other news! Harry, A History is about to spend its fourth week on the New York Times Bestseller List. You guys are incredible. Thank you.
I am finally sorting through the emails and messages (and that amazing memory post, which will start happening more frequently on Mondays) and have more vault entries for you this week. I'm getting a couple of repeat questions in emails, so I'm going to pull a David Ives and offer just a few answers.
1. 345
2. Yes! I have many ideas (and Caroline and Kevin have already started a group for whatever unnamed idea wins). Figuring out what to zoom in on first is the primary focus right now, but I'm also planning on spending a lot of time enjoying my friends and family this holiday season.
3. In the new year I hope to be doing more events about the book at bookstores and schools and libraries. I'll update here with all info. Meanwhile if you think your school or library would be interested in an event please contact David Buchalter at the Greater Talent Network.
4. For some strange reason, "The Warlock's Hairy Heart." Next runner up, "The Fountain of Fair Fortune."
5. Because we should do another YouTube thing soon, no?
More soon! I mean it!
All right. By now those of you who have read the book know what this vault entry will be about. I know there's been some gnashing of teeth among shippers (yeah, I'm looking at you, Perez Hilton :). So: in Harry, A History, Jo says something about the possibility of Harry/Hermione, which I won't repeat here because, well, it's in the book and that's not for copy/pasting onto the Internet. But here's some extended conversation around that topic. (Again, I've edited some of my comments out unless they directed the parts that are quoted.)
(Update: Someone has asked, "Who's Emerson?" I didn't think that question existed in fandom anymore! OK: Who is Emerson? Such a simple question, such a complicated answer... :) - well, Emerson owns and operates MuggleNet.com. He is a character in Harry, A History, and a character in general. We interviewed J.K. Rowling together on the day of HBP's release in Edinburgh, Scotland. During that interview J.K. Rowling confirmed the Ron/Hermione ship; Emerson called H/H shippers "delusional" and set off a major round of crazy/hilarious activity, depending on how you look at it, within the shipping community. Emerson is my friend and one of the most enterprising people I know, and despite Jo being 100 percent right about him liking a good fight, he happens also to be one of the most gentlemanly. And no. There was no such real thing as Memerson. Ever.)
Enjoy!:
JKR: The moment that Emerson said what he said [in the 2005 interview], on tape, I knew....
The fallout touched me, as well as Emerson. I had some pretty nasty letters but, you know, by that time I'd become used to the fact that people were so invested in this world, and felt such ownership of this world that I was not on a pedestal at all in their eyes, I was right in the thick of the fight. And it's uncomfortable on and off the pedestal, so you get used to it."
MA: You even joked about a shipper leading Emerson down a dark hallway.
[Laughing] Well yeah! I mean, he's totally unapologetic. Emerson enjoys a good fight. I'm not someone who goes looking for a fight, but I am someone who, if a fight comes to me, I will not duck it. So, if people want information on my characters, then they have to accept that I'm going to give them the information on the characters. And if they don't like it, that's the nature of fiction. You have to accept someone else's world because they made that world, so they probably know a little better than you do what goes on there.
I was not at all new to the concept of fan entitlement because that had now been going on since, I think, around 1999. As the Snape Debate hotted up, I would occasionally receive mail from fans that was instructing me on my characters. And you know what, that's very endearing when it comes from a younger person, and it's less endearing when it comes from an older person.
Do you know, it may have even been earlier. I remember getting a letter in the late 1990s, from an American woman who had heard me say on the radio when I had been in the States that I think it is a lie not to allow my characters, as they are plainly getting a year older with every book, not to allow my characters some sexual feelings. Although a fantasy series is not, I think, really the place, to explore issues of, for instance, the use of hard drugs or teenage pregnancy. To be ramming those social messages down people's throats when there are other social messages within the Harry Potter books, felt incongruous. But still, it was unrealistic that Harry was going to proceed from the age of 11 to the age of 17 never having kissed a girl, never having had any kind of romantic feelings towards girls, is as much as I said on this radio program. That was probably the first evidence I had, of that kind of fan entitlement: a very vehement letter from a mother saying, "Do not do this. I want your books as a refuge for my children, as a place of innocence and security." And I felt, well, listen: this series started with the knowledge of a double murder. I never promised that this a world of innocence and security. Quite the reverse. I announced it as a world of danger and corruption. So, probably, that was my very first introduction.
MA: The shipping debacle was...something else.
JKR: Did you get touched by that?
MA: I came out least scathed. I got touched, though; some people said some pretty vicious things.
JKR: You know what? I kind of got an overview of that, because right after we met, we went on holiday, and I came back to snail mail about it and you know what? You can normally tell by the snail mail what must have gone on online.
It is unhealthy for me to go online too much. I'm very aware that you could spend your life reading message boards, and that's a very unhealthy place to go. So I'm really quite sparing in how often I go and look. But just from what I had in front of me - and from fans saying to me "Please don't take to heart too much what was on the message boards!" [Laughter] So, you know, I knew what really must have happened on the message boards.
MA: Emerson got compared to a slave owner!
JKR: Oh, it's just ludicrous. I had a letter from a grown man, a very articulate letter, who said, "Well, pardon me for thinking that you're a better writer than you are." That's literally what he said. "I assumed you were giving us subtle hints about Harry and Hermione, but no. Turned out you were being really crass and obvious." What are you going to do? This is what I mean by 'slightly less endearing.' [Laughter]
MA: If that's slightly less endearing, I wonder what very less endearing is...
JKR: Yeah. We could go there, but I don't know.
MA: I don't think we have that kind of time.
The Harry, A History gallery, thanks to Sam, is now open! Sam will be uploading pictures of events and such as we go on, here. Thank you, Sam, and I hope you enjoy! There are pictures from the first two readings of the book; some might have been grabbed from Facebook, and we tried to source where appropriate. Please email with any objections! And enjoy! I'm so excited, because this took testing about six different gallery systems and modifying this one out the eyeballs! WOO HOO!
One of the most rewarding (and, to my trivia-prone mind, most amusing) things I discovered while while researching this book was this picture, of the back of the first-edition of Philosopher's Stone:
source
Dumbledore is one of the first people physically described in the book. This is what the book says:
"He was tall, thin, and very old, judging by the silver of his hair and beard, which were both long enough to tuck into his belt. He was wearing long robes, a purple cloak that swept the ground, and high-heeled, buckled boots. His blue eyes were light, bright and sparkling behind half-moon spectacles and his nose was very long and crooked, as though it had been broken at least twice."
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling
How did they get from that to this? Things I love about this drawing:
-The star on the book
-The book
-The pipe. A pipe!
-His red - red - hair.
-Circus pants!
-Tailor shoes!
-Scarf-like tie!
-No glasses!
Now, I know what you're thinking. Maybe this is not Dumbledore. Then give me ideas, fair fans. Who would this be besides Dumbledore? Who in book one smokes a pipe, wears purple, owns gold-and-red striped pants and a fluttery tie, has a handlebar mustache and a pentagrammed book? Is it Ollivander? Dedalus Diggle?
Update: Someone has suggested Nicholas Flamel. THIS IS ENTIRELY POSSIBLE. If still kinda strange.
The book and the pipe force me to think it's an attempt at Dumbledore: The wise wizard, the professor, the first instructor in magic we meet and clearly the most important. He is wearing a long purple coat, after all. And there's also this: very quickly, as in just a few editions later, this was on the back cover instead:
Much better, I think you'll agree. Notice the same underlying red-and-gold pants of the former Dumbledore, and the same cuffed sleeves, and slightly the same pattern on his tunic. just wonder who gave the illustrator the marching orders and what they contained. There is the possibility the illustrator hadn't read the text, but was just instructed to draw a wise wizard; then again, Harry Potter wasn't under wraps before publication then, so there's no reason not to pass on the text. Also the blurb on the back of the first edition is slightly amusing:
"Harry Potter thinks he is an ordinary boy - until he is rescued by an owl, taken to Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft, learns to play Quidditch and does battle in a deadly duel. The Reason: HARRY POTTER IS A WIZARD!"
I love the Hogwarts factual error, and that he is rescued by an owl. The back was then changed to read:
"Harry Potter thinks he is an ordinary boy - until he is rescued by a beetle-eyed giant of a man, enrols at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, learns to play Quidditch and does battle in a deadly duel. The Reason: HARRY POTTER IS A WIZARD!
Also, whereas the first edition contains quotes from known book people who had clearly been handed advanced reader's copies and asked for blurbs, the following editions contained quotes from the stellar reviews that began appearing almost immediately. Simply amazing, how quickly it all changed.
UPDATE #2: Man, I love the readers of this blog. I'm told it's at least 22 editions before this guy was taken off the back; the question remains, however, how long it took to get to the 22nd edition and whether they're up to something like the 50th edition now or the 500th edition, and how fast they got to 22. Of course the smart thing to do would be to ask Bloomsbury, so ask I shall. Had this guy ended up in my book I would have figured this out before then. I half want it to remain a mystery, though.
A mom and her four-year-old are reading Harry, A History together. I need to share.
Apparently a Gossip Girl character is looking for my book! I totally hope the fictional bookstore had it. Xoxo. :)
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