Like The Queen
Whatever happens to strike my fancy, but surely some sort of fiber content.

7 Comments:

I'm trying to decide if your repeated use of "Bumbledore" instead of "Dumbledore" is a freudian slip or a joke...

My general feeling of this book was what I feel almost everytime I enjoy a series and get to the second-to-last book. I feel like she went "Holy poop! I've only got one more book to get all this info out!" and dumped everything. She introduced an awful lot of new information, and did it in a very rushed way, I felt. It wasn't as natural a reveal as past books have been, but more a hurry to get it all said so she could tie up the ends in book seven.

Book 3 remains my favorite by a mile still....

By Blogger Amie, at 11:07 AM  

I had similar thoughts when I finished book 6. I think it's all a ruse to get Lord V to finally come out and try again.

And about your Sunday post, couldn't you be a little more cryptic?

By Blogger Larry, at 11:10 AM  

Idiot me! It's a total freudian slip - Goodness - I wish I hadn't posted it on KR OT. Teach me to venture where I don't belong!
:D!

By Blogger Bess, at 3:02 PM  

As God is my witness, I'll NEVER post on OT's again! I'll NEVER even LOOK at the OT's again.

By Blogger Bess, at 3:14 PM  

I know, sweetie, I'm pretty ticked off on your behalf. I'm sorry!

By Blogger Amie, at 4:48 PM  

I was almost ready to fire off a response in support when I saw that Amie had already done it - sorry for the mix-up on the name. I agree that the OT section is generally to be avoided for most of us, I've been sorry most times I post there and always think 2 or 3 times before I do these days.

By Blogger Shelia, at 8:30 AM  

And as for HP, this book definately seems like a set-up for the next one in many ways. My two favorites are the first and third books, the ideas are fresh and the interactions between characters seem more "real" to me.

By Blogger Shelia, at 8:32 AM  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]



Monday, August 08, 2005  

WARNING! Harry Potter spoilers at the end of this post.


Oh I love it when Blogger remembers my log-in info. Can’t tell you why this little convenience tickles me so, but it does. Alas, if I turn off the computer, blogger seems to forget. Probably a cookie issue. But though storms marched across the land to the north of us, they didn’t trigger any power blinks, so this a.m. the blogger screen opened up in my file.

And this morning delicious cool zephyrs are creeping over the windowsill, caressing the back of my arms and neck as I type. Even if the day degenerates into another August meltdown, we know, don’t we? Autumn is on the way. Sweaters. Colored leaves. Hot soup. Birthdays. Just around the corner, now. All we gotta do is hold on.

We had a pleasant surprise visit from K & Family, incl. dogs. It was half a doggie play-date and half just two families catching up with each other. K got her older lab about 3 weeks before we got Ike, The Dog - that stunningly amazing lab who came to live with us for 4 short years. Those two boys played together often. After Ike died they stopped bringing Echo up to see us and for the past few years their lives have gone in different directions from ours. We see each other in neutral places - after all, T-town has only 2,500 people in it - we see everybody sooner or later. But we haven’t really visited and they had yet to meet Capt. Jack, Dog of our Senior Years and Object of Total Slavish Devotion. Since their last visit another lab, Loki, has come to keep Echo company. This was his first visit to us.

Taking your dogs to someone else’s house is always an iffy proposition. I never take my dogs anywhere but the vets, because, for one thing, Priss runs away and doesn’t come back when you call her, but mostly because dogs are very territorial and it isn’t fair to take my puhfekt diddle puddy behbee doggies over to some other dog’s marked grounds, thank you please. Besides, we live on a farm, where our pets have fields and marshes and forests and the river. They don’t need a chance to run and sniff and wallow.

I don’t mind if others bring their dogs here, just so long as they understand that if the dogs don’t get on with my pets, their dogs have to go in the pen. Since K&all not only understand this, but subscribe to my dog-opinions, and they asked first, if they could bring their dogs, of course we said yes. And since we have only girl dogs and a very friendly pup, while they have boy dogs, the visit really turned out to be fun. Priss is such a slut she runs after every boy dog she sees and plays kissy face with them. Socks is utterly horrified by strangers and hid away the whole time. Jack was fascinated with the leg lifting lessons.

Later in the day the rugs all got Rx from the rented Rug Doctor, preparatory to weekend guests who may or may not come. Amazingly, I am cool with this - totally ready for all, some or nothing. Odd how I can get my knickers so twisted over some things and be totally cool with others. People really are crazy.

I did a bit of knitting on a sample for a Christmas Sock class I want to teach this fall. It’s in purple, pink and white - not Christmas colors, but it’s from stash yarn and otherwise I never get to knit with these colors, since I mostly only knit for myself. I’ll also make a red white and green Christmassy looking sock as a class demo - and it is just barely possible I will make one for me too - since I have an idea I’d like to try out, and besides, there is no holiday stocking in the house for moi. But that last thing is just an idea at the moment - time alone will tell if it ever becomes an object.

I finished HP last night - and had HP dreams afterwards. How about that. Okay - so. What do you think? Is Snape really bad? Who was he obeying? Did he murder the pleading Bumbledore, or did he put Bumbledore out of his misery. Was B actually begging S to finish him off, since all that poison he’d drunk was going to kill him slowly - and perhaps painfully - anyway? Was Snape’s grimace evidence of misery at having to kill an old friend or lust for the dark power? After all, he’d botched Voldemort’s plans by not letting Malfoy kill Bumbledore as M had been ordered to. And Snape didn’t do any fighting - at least, none that we heard about, after Bumbledore’s death. He also had known a good while that Harry had Snape’s own potion book. For that matter, he was fairly non-committal about his role within the Death Eaters, in the early chapter when he was talking with Malfoy’s mother and aunt and it took absolutely no persuasion by M’s mom to get Snape to swear the unbreakable vow. Sounds suspicious to me.

After Bumbledore’s abject admission of his doddering sentimentality at the end of book 5, ought we not to have expected him to reassess all his assumptions and come to the realization that Snape was a bad’un? I don’t buy Harry’s assumption that Snape’s "proof" of his reform was his admission to Bumbledore that he’d told Voldemort about the prophecy. That’s a logistical misfire. Besides, Snape has been such a rotter throughout the whole series, he rival’s Voldemort in evil. You can’t have two antagonists, any more than you can have two protagonists. All supporting characters have to be less interesting than those two adversaries. At least, in good fiction they do. Life isn’t like that, of course, but fiction is not life. It is Symbol of Life; Representation of Reality; it is Metaphor.

I have always thought Snape the most important character after Harry and that their relationship was the important one, too. So. We shall just have to wait a while to find out if I am asking more from the author than she is prepared to give. I give book 6 a C+ for entertainment. I had to slog through many of the chapters, but at least I was able to do so. Book 5 got a D from me, while books 1-4 all made the honor roll. OTOH, Rowling gets straight A’s from me for the artistry, craft, effort, and sheer work involved in putting such a fun story together for us all.

P.S. Don't you think Hermoine would make a great headmistress for Hogwarts some day?

posted by Bess | 7:02 AM
links
archives