Thank you! I think I will go with the Captain's Oath!
So What Are you Reading?: Generations
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I'm now far enough along in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone to have met Hagrid. Rowling has an excellent ear for accents and dialect; I can hear his voice, and he sounds exactly like at least two people I know.
Rowling reminds me an awful lot of Dahl. And the opening chapters of this book bring back memories of the one time I read James and the Giant Peach.
And the Dursleys' suppression of Harry seems to presage the sort of attacks the book series itself has weathered.
Rowling reminds me an awful lot of Dahl. And the opening chapters of this book bring back memories of the one time I read James and the Giant Peach.
And the Dursleys' suppression of Harry seems to presage the sort of attacks the book series itself has weathered.
Not sure what you mean by that, but the tragic irony is that Harry Potter is, unrecognized by its author, an excellent metaphor for the transgender experience -- someone who's grown up living a lie about their identity comes to recognize who they really are and embraces it, but is met with intolerance and persecution by their relatives who refuse to understand. It's sad that Rowling doesn't recognize that she's become the Dursleys.
I know this isn't how you meant it, but looking at how they both are/were as people IRL... you're not wrong.
Almost since Philosopher's Stone was first imported into the U.S. (and long before it was retitled "Sorcerer's Stone," or made into a movie), Fundamentalist self-described "Christians"* have been denouncing the entire franchise as being Satanist, and calling for book bans against it.
And I would agree that it's an excellent metaphor for the transgender experience. Along with almost anything else that is the subject of fear-driven and/or hate-driven bigotry**. But how is it that Rowling has "become the Dursleys"?
Please elaborate. I haven't a clue.
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* I've said this many times before, and I'll undoubtedly say it again: Some of the most Christian people I know, whose lives most fully embody the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, have been Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Agnostics, and Atheists, while many who are the most vocal about claiming to be Christian seem to be completely and utterly clueless about those teachings.
** Something else I've said a number of times: when Norman Lear decided to produce an Americanized version of the British sitcom, Till Death Do Us Part (which was about the family life of a hate-driven bigot named Alf Garnett) as All in the Family, and tapped Carroll O'Connor for the part of Archie Bunker, O'Connor balked at the idea of simply duplicating the one-dimensional Garnett, and instead gave us a much more interesting character, a bigot whose bigotry was based on pure ignorance, and who was capable of learning.
Dahl was a racist and an antisemite.
Rowling is a transphobe who has seemingly made it her life's mission to make the lives of transgender people miserable. I would also say that some of her writing also reveals racist and antisemitic tendencies, but that seems to get largely overshadowed these days due to her ongoing war against transgender people.
Neither are/were good people.
Oh, that. That happens with every work of fantasy, though, so it's just baseline idiocy from my perspective. It happened with D&D back in the '80s -- heck, even the Smurfs were called Satanic because Gargamel drew a pentagram once or something.
I've been rereading Diane Duane's Young Wizards series, and first-time reading the more recent ones, and there's a background thread where the male teen wizard lead has problems with his big sister believing he's sold his soul to the Devil. But it's kept offscreen, and by the time she finally appears on the page during time off from college, she's decided her brother is actually a mutant and his wizardry is a superpower. I'm a little disappointed that Duane backed away from the potential for conflict. Although I guess in a weird way it reflects how people who go to college often unlearn their prejudices once they're finally exposed to a broader range of people and worldviews.
You often get a clearer perspective of a thing from the outside. At least, from outside, you can learn the whole of the religion's teachings, instead of just the censored and selective version that people with an agenda have taught.
Not quite what I mean. I mean that they live out the actual teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, without any direct knowledge of those teachings (authentic or distorted), more fully than people whose understanding of those teachings have been distorted by agenda-driven eisegesis.
Well, sure, because it basically boils down to "Be excellent to each other," and that's a universal idea until it gets co-opted by authority structures who use it to convince people to obey them and give them money.
Finished Tania James' Loot, and I highly recommend it. I have a fascination with automata, and so did the author, at least, with one particular automaton (Tipu's Tiger). It's in the V & A in London. I don't remember seeing it any of the times I was there, but if I go again, I am definitely going to look for it. The story centers on its fictional carver. See the automaton here: Tipu's Tiger
Currently reading I Think I Was Murdered by Colleen Coble and Rick Acker.
Summary:
Summary:
Moving along in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Harry has just arrived at Hogwart's, and I now understand the significance of "Platform 9 3/4" and "Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans." I wonder: aside from the title change, do U.S. editions also adjust to U.S. spelling and diction?
Oh, yes, extensively so in the first couple of novels, though my recollection is that they did it less in later volumes, and they probably stopped doing it in later releases of the early novels. I used to be aware of a site that listed all the differences between the UK and US editions, and it's probably still around somewhere.
I always kind of wanted to replace my mix of different US editions with unaltered UK editions, but these days I'm disinclined to spend any more money on Harry Potter than I already have.
I went out of my way to get a used British/Canadian PB on Alibris. And if it's an aversion to making JKR any richer (I have that same aversion to making Bill Gates any richer, because of M$'s HW/SW upgrade treadmill, and his tendency to either buy his competitors or force them out of business, and I also go out of my way to avoid any composition of Richard Wagner), I will point out that if you buy a used copy of one of her books, she gets exactly the same as what she'd get if you didn't buy any copy of it: absolutely nothing.
(I will also note that the only time I've ever bought a ST [or SW, for that matter] novel used, it was because it was either POP [e.g., finally getting a publisher first edition HC of ADF's Splinter], or because I was replacing a TPB I'd already bought with a SFBC HC [which, not being a SFBC member, I wouldn't have been able to get new]).
(I will also note that the only time I've ever bought a ST [or SW, for that matter] novel used, it was because it was either POP [e.g., finally getting a publisher first edition HC of ADF's Splinter], or because I was replacing a TPB I'd already bought with a SFBC HC [which, not being a SFBC member, I wouldn't have been able to get new]).
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It was Quirrel?!? And Snape was trying to protect Harry?!?
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