it's a marble bust at the Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh, and it says : "JK Rowling finished writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in this room (652) on 11th Jan 2007". It's been confirmed that she did write this, which means she finished the book THREE WEEKS AGO!
the countdown on my door!This post is for all ye ignorant Muggles out there who have yet to witness my, erm, ‘excitement’ yesterday.
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS WILL BE RELEASED ON SATURDAY 21 JULY, 2007 AT 00.01 (UK TIME) I.E. 07.01 SINGAPORE TIME I.E. 06.01 THAILAND TIME.
Yay! (This is a great understatement - if I were to transcribe my real reaction, your com would probably explode.)
July is such a happy, happy month! First, the Order of the Phoenix movie will come out on FRIDAY 13 JULY, and then book seven will be released on SATURDAY 21 JULY, and finally Harry and JKR’s birthdays will be on TUESDAY 31 JULY!
And yes, for all ye extremely ignorant Muggles, this book is the LAST BOOK. (hence the title of the post)
As the countdown starts, my mixed feelings start to intensify. I want to read it, but I don’t want to read it. Confused?
I desperately want to read it because I want to know how it all ends. I want the confirmation that Harry will live, Voldy will die, Snape will be good and Draco Malfoy will redeem himself.
But the problem is, I don’t want it to end. I’ve been part of the living phenomenon of Harry Potter for so long (7 years to date) that I feel reluctant to let it become ‘history’. Now that I’m left with the last few months, I’m starting to realise how hard it is to let go. I know it’s hard to believe, but I have never, ever cried while reading an HP book. Not when S_____ died. Not even when D_________ died. (Names not revealed for the benefit of those who, by some amazingly extraordinary chance, haven’t read the books. I hate being spoiled, so I try not to give other people spoilers, because I know exactly how it feels.) But somehow, I just know that I’ll cry when I finish the seventh book, even if Harry lives to kill Voldy, and Snape is truly loyal to Dumbledore and has been working for the Order all along and was in love with Lily Evans Potter, and Malfoy fights alongside Harry and becomes his blood brother (this is starting to sound like Draco Trilogy…). I’ll cry because it would be the end of one part of my life. Not that I’ll stop being an HP fanatic after the release of book seven. I’ll still continue to read, and re-read, and re-re-read the books even after the last movie come out, after all the hype has died off and HP becomes one of those obsolete books (if it ever does).
*laughs hysterically and sobs*
I don’t think you all would understand the feelings of a true HP fan. You may think me crazy to be fanatical over something completely fictional (yes, I’m not that far from sanity to realise that it’s not real), and you may laugh at my seemingly pointless and ‘unusual’ antics (HP hangman, anyone?) and my overrated reactions (like the one above). Except for maybe Yiting :) . But the truth is, I feel really sorry for those of you who haven’t taken the chance while you have it to enjoy such a wonderful series. HP is not just a set children’s books; it’s the story of a real person with a real life, but with fictionally-named characters and made-up places as the setting. It’s unnerving, really, how real it is. We can relate to almost everything in the HP world – the good, the bad and the in-the-middle people, the teachers in school, the tension between the different houses (or countries, in our case – the Thai-S’pore match totally proves this)… basically everything, expect for the magic of course. Don’t tell me you haven’t met a similarly stuck-up Percy whose blind love for authority and rules isolates himself from the rest, or a Neville who’s bullied because of his incompetence in all subjects save one, or a Malfoy who looks down on anyone who doesn’t belong to the same ‘class’, or a Diggory, the perfect and popular student who’s loved by everyone, or even a Ron, who can make you laugh no matter what, because I certainly have. The books deal with everything that we have to deal with. JKR explores the themes of life and death, and love, and friendship, and even the sometimes ineffective methods of the authority in controlling havoc, though in such a subtle and un-clichéd way that we don’t even realise it. The magic of HP is that it’s so unbelievable with all the wand-waving and flying broomsticks, yet so real at the same time. I can confidently say that there is no other book that we can relate to as much as HP. Of course, all ye non-readers out there would never believe me until you’ve read the books yourself.
Some of you may say that there are plenty of realistic books out there, and I absolutely agree. The greatest books of all time, be it the classics like Jane Austen’s, or epics like the Lord of the Rings, are stories that are as realistic as a story can get. Austen’s books reflect the lives of the middle-class of England in the nineteenth century, and while the characters are fictional, the experiences and struggles are real. Tolkien ingeniously created the whole of Middle Earth, whose history is so detailed and complete that we sometimes wonder whether they (the Shire and Gondor and the High Elves and pipe-weed etc etc) really did once exist. But no story in our time has captured our very existence into the living pages of a book, except for one. (Slight exaggeration here, I know.)
Our tastes and aspirations show in the choice of books we read. Mystery lovers long for a thrill in their comparatively dull lives, fantasy readers hope for a place where they can escape from the mundane and sometimes difficult world, and romance fans just want a little sweetness. HP appeals to readers of all different genres precisely because it’s a mixture of everything – mystery, thriller, comedy, drama, romance, angst, and of course, fantasy. I guess not many people realise this though. Terry Pratchett himself accused JKR of pretending that she did not know that she was writing fantasy ("I would have thought that the wizards, witches, trolls, unicorns, hidden worlds... would have given her a clue?"). I would whole-heartedly agree with him if he’d said that HP wasn’t pure fantasy – it’s not. But to say that she didn't know it is slightly too much - she didn't even mean it to be purely fantasy. I’d say that the reason he did so is that he’s merely jealous. He calls his own books 'fantasy', but the themes in his books don’t even qualify them as fantasy; heroism in them is a feeble sort of heroism, that arises from only compelling circumstances and not emotional and moral strength. The only reason I think he can call his books fantasy is that there are witches that stir cauldrons and fly on broomsticks in them, and that 'the world rides through space on the back of a turtle'.
Another reason why HP is way better and more popular than Discworld is that it is emotionally moving. Good books, in my opinion, are like good music. They can wrench your hearts out when they need to, they can shock and frighten you and then compensate for it by comforting you. When I read one of Pratchett’s books, the only thing I felt was indifference. Sure, it’s entertaining, but entertaining books aren’t necessarily what I think are good books. I know this is all very biased, since I haven’t read every single one of his books (there may still be a book that I’ll like), but trust me, I wouldn’t be attacking Pratchett if he hadn’t attacked JKR in the first place. I am just doing the job of a loyal HP fan, and he was wrong to accuse her so strongly. No offence to Pratchett fans out there!
I hate it when publishers advertise fantasy books using the tagline, “If you liked Harry Potter, try this!” These people don’t understand that it’s not because HP is ‘fantasy’ that it’s popular. I like fantasy, but that’s not why I like HP. I’ve tried countless of other fantasy books, but none of them have had me hooked me like the first 5 lines of Chamber of Secrets, the first HP book I read. JKR has the amazing ability to connect to readers and gain their trust – we know that she will not let us down, and that we won’t regret reading the books, regardless of the ending.
Being part of the HP phenomenon has totally been worth it, even if it means that I get people staring weirdly my way every now and then (though nowadays the frequency has been increased to every few minutes). There’s an essay on the-leaky-cauldron.org that completely and accurately reflects my experience. I was amazed when I read it. (If you read it and don’t understand the Gladys Gudgeon part, Gudgeon is a Gilderoy Lockhart fan who regularly sent fan mail to him. So if a cure for Obliviate isn’t found, Lockhart won’t get his memory back and will be unlikely to be answering his fan mail for quite some time, hence the unlikeliness that Gudgeon will be in book 7.) I get ecstatic when I meet another HP fan, because it means that someone, somewhere out there, encounters the same things that I encounter, has the same reactions that I have (therefore proving that I am NOT insane – or rather that I’m not the only insane one), and understands how completely magical the books are as I do.
So. Those of you who haven’t read the books, there’s still time left for you to catch up and be part of the anticipation leading up to the final release. You have only 5 months and 18 days left before the living legacy ends. ‘Use it wisely.’, as Dumbledore said (if you read the books you’ll know who Harry, Voldy, Snape, Draco, Lockhart, Diggory, Percy, Neville and Dumbledore are). I assure you that reading the books will NOT make you crazy like me, if that’s what’s preventing you from reading. My estimation of readers who have become HP fanatics (not fans – those are a completely different and much more mild species) is around 1 in every 100 people (I know only 3 people in school who are real fans – I mean fanatics). Extreme cases like mine, 1 in every 500 (I’ve yet to meet anyone with a severe a case as mine). So I’d say you’re quite safe. If you claim that reading the books will interfere with your studies, the total number of hours it would take to finish the first 6 books would be 3 + 3 + 4 + 8 + 10 + 8 = 36 hours, and 36/168 days = 13 minutes a day, which is quite reasonable in my opinion. I’m not doing this for the satisfaction of having persuaded people to read HP - I’m doing this so that the joy of reading HP is spread to as many people as possible. And since I don’t have a wand, and even if I did, I wouldn’t want to be chucked into Azkaban for using an Unforgivable Curse, I obviously cannot force you to read HP using ‘Imperio’. All I can do is strongly advise you to read it, and tell you that if you don’t, you’ll regret it the rest of your life. The choice is ultimately yours, after all – and what’s so hard about picking up a book and reading it?
On a different note, I have just finished another fanfic! It’s called Oblivious by Pallas, and it’s the best fic I’ve ever read. It’s even better than (gasp) DT, and it’s original. The plot is fantastic, but the characterization is even fantastic-er – there’s hardly anyone out-of-character, which is amazing! The story revolves around Lupin and his ‘furry little problem’. If you’re wondering why Dumbledore’s still walking around, and where Fenrir Greyback is, it’s pre-HBP. Highly recommended! (this is another one of the joys of being an HP fan)
I think I’ll end my post here. But before that…
THE HP QUOTE OF THE POST
“What’s comin’ will come, an’ we’ll meet it when it does.”
- Rubeus Hagrid, GoF page 623 UK edition, Chapter: The Beginning
This quote is SO fitting for the book release. Sigh…
And after all this rambling, I guess it’s sort of confirmed that I’m crazy.
:)
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