Another Post-Potter Hangover
Jul. 16th, 2005 03:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
transomwhiplassThere aren't any spoilers under the cut so don't worry. I just wrote a really long, dweeby reflection sort of thing. Rather than clog friend's pages or compel anyone to wallow through my weirdness - behold the cut.
So, I finished the book. I had to sleep a little around the 400th page. I woke up around noon and have been reading ever since. I slept about 6 hours yesterday in a 2-hour and 4-hour shift. I'm going to be a zombie this week.
I'm kind of really extremely pissed off that while idling through an LJ, some complete ASSHAT printed a spoiler page and underlined the damning line. I kind of hoped it was photoshopped, but, well. Jerk off.
It was a really good book though. After rereading 5, it occured to me how Rowling's style has evolved with Harry. She speaks through him with more sophistication and age, he sees things and talks about them in a way he never could in the first book. That's not the uncanny thing though - if Harry didn't look at the world with more insight than he did when he was 11, that would just make Rowling a terrible writer. I'm not quite sure how to phrase it but, honestly, I doubt I could have appreciated the last few books without a few years under my belt. I don't know how 12 year old would grasp the going-ons of the last few books. I'm sure they would understand the plot, but the depth? I doubt it.
I remember the first time I read the first book. I was alone in my bedroom (I was still living in what is Nora's room today), my mom had picked it up for my brother because she thought he might like it. I was around 12 at the time and he had just left it lying around - I pinched it and went to my room. That night I just poured over it. I had been such an avid reader as a kid but no book had ever captivated me more. I remember vividly lying in my bed reading the scene where Harry watches Voldemort drink the unicorn's blood and being so incredibly chilled to the core. I read the page over and over. My excitement could hardly be contained when I found out there was going to be a sequel. My mom ordered the book from Great Britain because in those days, the book came out a few weeks earlier. The same with the third, she had it sent to Ohio where we were staying for the summer. I was lying on my make shift bed next to my brother, Anthony, who was sleeping. As I lay, sprawled out on my stomach reading, I remember the front door of my Grandfather's house opening. I swore there was an intruder and there was only his scratchy yellow-olive couch seperating me from certain horror. My brother still laughs at me to this date and recalls the look on my face: wide-eyed in terror whispering for him to wake-up and to crawl into my parents room and wake-up my parents. I was on the verge of tears and trying to build up the courage to just peak over the couch and take a glimpse of the enemy. I finally did and there was nothing. My mom walked sleepily in to tell me that the door must have just blown up (it has done it a few times since that evening). Common sense wasn't something I was familiar with at the time but being wound so tightly in the plot of the "Prisoner of Azkaban" didn't really help my nerves much.
I remember doing a book report on PoA. I know it was a bag project where I brought items that to recall themes in the book. I don't remember what I brought, but I do remember standing in front of my 8th grade honors English class not at all ruffled to be presenting, what I thought, was the greatest book I'd ever read but what appealed to everyone else as, at most, a silly kid's book. I remember spending that and the next year telling people I know about the books. I got mostly blank stares and some people thought I was being stupid. I remember telling Analyn about them while crossing the dreaded Strake parking lot on the way to orchestra. Haha, I can remember when that was the most perilous part of each day -- worried about getting hit by a car or getting looked at by a boy. She was the one that acted like I was off my rocker, I always was a little bitter when she was raving about them many months later.
I remember reading the 4th book. We picked it up at the bookstore and I sat in the backseat with the light on. I immediately began tearing into it. I didn't leave the car for a good 10 minutes because I had just started the chapter and refused to be disturbed in between scenes. I went to my room (sharing with John at this point), Anthony had his copy and we both were reading furiously. Eventually went to sleep and I couldn't bear the feeling of being alone in the room. I turned on my radio to the Oldies station at a faint volume and continued to read. My most vivid memory of that evening was when dawn had just broken and the "Age of Aquarius" was playing. I just stopped for a moment and was overwhelmed with this chilling sensation. That song will always remind me of that night, and I think it's actually an interestingly appropriate companion to the book. I finished around 10 AM the next morning thoroughly pleased with myself.
The same ritual applied to the 5th book (now in the bedroom that I last occupied in Houston). I didn't finish till 3 PM the next day. It's funny because the proximity to this day is so much closer than those other nights alone in my bed, but I don't really remember anything about it. I hardly could recall the plot of the book just a few weeks ago.
I've never read one of the books in the same place: physically or mentally. It's so strange to think how much I've grown from that 12 year old scared and cowering from the outside world, afraid to be alone in an empty or otherwise lifeless room. It's been an amazing few years, an amazing series, and as much as I want to know about the next book - I anticipate, maybe even more, where I'll be for the next one. I'll be hitting my second decade. Wow, so scary. I look foward to the day, nonetheless.
So, I finished the book. I had to sleep a little around the 400th page. I woke up around noon and have been reading ever since. I slept about 6 hours yesterday in a 2-hour and 4-hour shift. I'm going to be a zombie this week.
I'm kind of really extremely pissed off that while idling through an LJ, some complete ASSHAT printed a spoiler page and underlined the damning line. I kind of hoped it was photoshopped, but, well. Jerk off.
It was a really good book though. After rereading 5, it occured to me how Rowling's style has evolved with Harry. She speaks through him with more sophistication and age, he sees things and talks about them in a way he never could in the first book. That's not the uncanny thing though - if Harry didn't look at the world with more insight than he did when he was 11, that would just make Rowling a terrible writer. I'm not quite sure how to phrase it but, honestly, I doubt I could have appreciated the last few books without a few years under my belt. I don't know how 12 year old would grasp the going-ons of the last few books. I'm sure they would understand the plot, but the depth? I doubt it.
I remember the first time I read the first book. I was alone in my bedroom (I was still living in what is Nora's room today), my mom had picked it up for my brother because she thought he might like it. I was around 12 at the time and he had just left it lying around - I pinched it and went to my room. That night I just poured over it. I had been such an avid reader as a kid but no book had ever captivated me more. I remember vividly lying in my bed reading the scene where Harry watches Voldemort drink the unicorn's blood and being so incredibly chilled to the core. I read the page over and over. My excitement could hardly be contained when I found out there was going to be a sequel. My mom ordered the book from Great Britain because in those days, the book came out a few weeks earlier. The same with the third, she had it sent to Ohio where we were staying for the summer. I was lying on my make shift bed next to my brother, Anthony, who was sleeping. As I lay, sprawled out on my stomach reading, I remember the front door of my Grandfather's house opening. I swore there was an intruder and there was only his scratchy yellow-olive couch seperating me from certain horror. My brother still laughs at me to this date and recalls the look on my face: wide-eyed in terror whispering for him to wake-up and to crawl into my parents room and wake-up my parents. I was on the verge of tears and trying to build up the courage to just peak over the couch and take a glimpse of the enemy. I finally did and there was nothing. My mom walked sleepily in to tell me that the door must have just blown up (it has done it a few times since that evening). Common sense wasn't something I was familiar with at the time but being wound so tightly in the plot of the "Prisoner of Azkaban" didn't really help my nerves much.
I remember doing a book report on PoA. I know it was a bag project where I brought items that to recall themes in the book. I don't remember what I brought, but I do remember standing in front of my 8th grade honors English class not at all ruffled to be presenting, what I thought, was the greatest book I'd ever read but what appealed to everyone else as, at most, a silly kid's book. I remember spending that and the next year telling people I know about the books. I got mostly blank stares and some people thought I was being stupid. I remember telling Analyn about them while crossing the dreaded Strake parking lot on the way to orchestra. Haha, I can remember when that was the most perilous part of each day -- worried about getting hit by a car or getting looked at by a boy. She was the one that acted like I was off my rocker, I always was a little bitter when she was raving about them many months later.
I remember reading the 4th book. We picked it up at the bookstore and I sat in the backseat with the light on. I immediately began tearing into it. I didn't leave the car for a good 10 minutes because I had just started the chapter and refused to be disturbed in between scenes. I went to my room (sharing with John at this point), Anthony had his copy and we both were reading furiously. Eventually went to sleep and I couldn't bear the feeling of being alone in the room. I turned on my radio to the Oldies station at a faint volume and continued to read. My most vivid memory of that evening was when dawn had just broken and the "Age of Aquarius" was playing. I just stopped for a moment and was overwhelmed with this chilling sensation. That song will always remind me of that night, and I think it's actually an interestingly appropriate companion to the book. I finished around 10 AM the next morning thoroughly pleased with myself.
The same ritual applied to the 5th book (now in the bedroom that I last occupied in Houston). I didn't finish till 3 PM the next day. It's funny because the proximity to this day is so much closer than those other nights alone in my bed, but I don't really remember anything about it. I hardly could recall the plot of the book just a few weeks ago.
I've never read one of the books in the same place: physically or mentally. It's so strange to think how much I've grown from that 12 year old scared and cowering from the outside world, afraid to be alone in an empty or otherwise lifeless room. It's been an amazing few years, an amazing series, and as much as I want to know about the next book - I anticipate, maybe even more, where I'll be for the next one. I'll be hitting my second decade. Wow, so scary. I look foward to the day, nonetheless.
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Date: 2005-07-16 10:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-07-17 12:33 am (UTC)