Saturday, July 21, 2007

It's almost over

The whole sorry Harry Potter saga that is. Yeah I know, I'm probably the only person in the western world who isn't dizzy with joy at the prospect of getting my grubby fingers on another volume.

I did try. When ones girlfriend of the time insists that it's a good read one lacks the moral courage to say no. Thus to a week of forcing myself to read about muggles and wizards and platform 8¾. There, you see, I have a vague aquaintance with the subject.

Unfortunately I found it all so damn arbitrary. Take that platform 8¾ for example. It just is with no narrative justification whatsoever. At least, in Being John Malkovich[^] they came up with a good reason for floor 6½.

The films were worse. I suffered through the first two. Yeah, John Cleese was excellent as Basil Fawlty but as a disembodied head floating around greeting schoolchildren he was just painful to behold. I reckon he must have needed the money. That or his agent insisted for the 'exposure'. On the other hand, the first film was worthwhile just for Zoe Wanamaker!

So I'm a curmudgeon on the subject of Harry Potter.

Thus came friday night, July 20 2007. Did America remember one of its greater achievements on this the 38th anniversary? Heck no. It queued up outside bookshops waiting for midnight so it could get a copy of the seventh volume. Sonya dutifully lined up at Frys supermarket, waiting for the fateful hour. Triumphantly she bore her copy of the volume home, and went straight to bed! It was, after all, an hour and a half after her usual bed time.

2 comments:

Guy Ellis said...

I think I went through the same HP experience as you. Read the first 2.5 books and watched the first 2 films and then decided that I must be different to the rest of the world.

Rob said...

Mate, you ARE different to the rest of the world! :-)