The LOST folks are way more recap-happy than Rowling, and it makes pretty good sense for the show since it allows people who may not have seen all of the especialy relevant previous episodes to be somewhat up to speed. The highly recommended thing is to watch all the episodes, in order, but that can be really hard to manage (says the girl who just got caught up in January). Of course, it's also nice to have a little reminder, since some of the relevant stuff happened weeks ago.
But with Harry Potter, the previous books are readily available, and there have only been six, so I really wouldn't think that very many people would start on a later volume in the series. If you want to read Harry Potter, you start from the beginning. I'm thinking she doesn't do this much in the fifth and sixth books, but there's quite a bit of recapping in the first four, and most of it is basic stuff that seems to be there just for the purpose of readers starting with a later installment. We certainly aren't going to forget that Harry's an orphan, that he's been forced to live with his dreadful aunt, uncle and cousin, that he survived a direct attack by the evil Voldemort... and on and on. I can understand reading out of order with a lot series, especially that encompass many books or are mostly episodic and stand-alone, but practically from the beginning we have known that this was a seven-part series, that it was one massive saga broken down into seven years. So are there really that many people who pick up the series halfway through, or is all the recapping a little superfluous? I don't really mind, because it's still very well written, and it's not like it's written the exact same way time after time. I just wonder if it's really necessary...
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I meant to comment on this the other day, and now I can't remember all the things I wanted to say. :-) Oh well!
But I think my chief comment is that I tend to like the re-caps Rowling provides in the early chapters of each book, although they seem to be getting more brief as we progress through the series. I like them for two reasons:
1) They're comforting. They help me settle into the story...I know I am really and truly reading a new Harry Potter story when Rowling starts to revisit the major plot points of HP's history.
2) I think it's probably important for us to know what Rowling considers important enough to revisit in each book. Harry's back story is so crucial...and so mysterious...that those reminders of what he went through as a baby feel very foundational, both to the plot of the epic, and to our emotional grounding.
Hope some of this makes sense. I think it made more sense in my head the other day when I first started thinking about it...but never had time to come write it down! ;-)
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