You can check it out here at the Leaky Cauldron.
And we thought there was something ominous about the US cover...check this one out! The UK art has always been less subtle and "gives away" more of a story moment. It's interesting art too though, reminds me a bit of a comic book.
The details here are intriguing. We have our trio together, clearly fighting against the enemy. Harry's got a superhero look about him. There's what looks like a dragon's horde of treasure at their feet, and flying all around them. (Any horcruxes there? There are golden cups, anyway...) I get the sense they're being sucked into that circle behind them, like it's some sort of vortex, but that's just an idea.
And I am going to have to rescind my earlier first impressions of the US cover art :-) because I just saw the back cover, also posted at the Leaky Cauldron, which gives us an expanded view of the front cover image.
Harry is clearly on his feet, not flying. He and Voldemort appear to be having a rather public showdown (don't those look like shadowy people in the stands behind them?). Harry is clearly waiting for something -- my new guess is that he has "accio-ed" something and is waiting for it, or is waiting for Fawkes to swoop down with a weapon. I like the latter idea, but would bet it's the former -- note that Voldemort (and it's definitely Voldemort, you can see his long bony fingers and those red slits for eyes under his hood) is also gesturing like he's waiting for something or has accio-ed something.
And note: THEY'RE BOTH WANDLESS. Which could lead us to what seems like a predictable conclusion, that they're waiting for their wands. EXCEPT we know that they can't fight conventionally, with their brother wands -- unless they knowingly choose to deal with priori incantatem, which is a bit hard to believe. Or unless Voldemort has a new wand, and everybody knows about it, including Harry -- remember Ollivander had disappeared as of book 6, and no one really knew where he'd gone or whose side he was on. Even if you believe Ollivander to be a good guy, there is the possibility that he was coerced into tweaking Voldemort's wand or creating a new one altogether.
OK, I've ranged far afield from what's actually available in the cover art. Over to you, Erin -- eagerly awaiting your thoughts!
Edited to add: if you "click to expand" the US back cover image, there are other interesting details. The broken stone or wooden object -- some sort of dais or table? (Made me think of the Stone Table in Narnia, on a smaller scale.)
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Oh That Beautiful Cover!
I'm so glad Erin posted the cover to the seventh book! Thanks, Erin! :-) I've been a bit out of the news loop when it comes to the HP world in the past couple of weeks, so this is the first glimpse I've had of it. I was going to leave a comment, but it's been so long since I've had a chance to post here, I thought I'd go ahead and post and provide my first impressions.
Bear in mind these are *very* first impressions: my immediate thoughts upon looking at the cover. I haven't read anybody else's thoughts (except Erin's astute-as-always observations) and I've no clue yet whether or not most HP fans are reacting favorably. Though I confess I will probably treat myself to some time over at the HogPro boards later this week, just to hear the buzz!
My first impression was favorable. I didn't immediately think orange (though you're right, it's pretty orange!) I thought of gold. The first thought of gold, and the immediate first impression that Harry's arm was raised gave me a quick first thought of victory. So that was a positive reaction.
Upon a second look, I too thought the wall behind Harry looked like a coliseum or some sort of ruin. That gave me an ominous feeling, but perhaps it's because I've been reading some on ancient Christian martyrs (so my first thought was Harry against lions or other fearsome creatures, or dying like a martyr)...
But then I looked again. It *could* be a stadium, and I have a sense that Harry's arm is raised not so much in triumph as in seeking. There's something about this picture that has a major quidditch look about it. I agree with Erin -- it's hard to tell if he's standing or flying -- but this picture almost looks like Harry is poised to snatch the golden snitch.
Now that's interesting if it's at all accurate. All of the other Scholastic book covers have given us a glimpse of a scene, usually an important scene, in the story. It's hard to imagine any scenario where Harry could wind up playing Quidditch in book 7 -- and I don't think that they would just give us a symbolic cover (they never have before) although how symbolic that would be! Harry at the end of his quest! Harry snatching at victory! (We hope!)
Oh my. I am officially excited.
Bear in mind these are *very* first impressions: my immediate thoughts upon looking at the cover. I haven't read anybody else's thoughts (except Erin's astute-as-always observations) and I've no clue yet whether or not most HP fans are reacting favorably. Though I confess I will probably treat myself to some time over at the HogPro boards later this week, just to hear the buzz!
My first impression was favorable. I didn't immediately think orange (though you're right, it's pretty orange!) I thought of gold. The first thought of gold, and the immediate first impression that Harry's arm was raised gave me a quick first thought of victory. So that was a positive reaction.
Upon a second look, I too thought the wall behind Harry looked like a coliseum or some sort of ruin. That gave me an ominous feeling, but perhaps it's because I've been reading some on ancient Christian martyrs (so my first thought was Harry against lions or other fearsome creatures, or dying like a martyr)...
But then I looked again. It *could* be a stadium, and I have a sense that Harry's arm is raised not so much in triumph as in seeking. There's something about this picture that has a major quidditch look about it. I agree with Erin -- it's hard to tell if he's standing or flying -- but this picture almost looks like Harry is poised to snatch the golden snitch.
Now that's interesting if it's at all accurate. All of the other Scholastic book covers have given us a glimpse of a scene, usually an important scene, in the story. It's hard to imagine any scenario where Harry could wind up playing Quidditch in book 7 -- and I don't think that they would just give us a symbolic cover (they never have before) although how symbolic that would be! Harry at the end of his quest! Harry snatching at victory! (We hope!)
Oh my. I am officially excited.
The Seventh Cover Revealed!
So I was browsing around MSN today, and I happened upon an intriguing announcement. The cover of the long-awaited seventh Harry Potter book is no longer a mystery! It's orange, which I've always found to be an ominous color, associated with fire and dying grass and leaves and Halloween. Not that any of these are necessarily bad, but... I don't know, I've always gotten a rather unfriendly vibe from orange. So it seems like an appropriate color for a book in which a great many bad things are expected to happen. Otherwise, the cover reveals little. Harry looks like he's in some sort of colosseum or something, unless it's an odd angle of Hogwarts. We only get him from the waist up, so it's not entirely clear if he's walking or hovering high above the ground on a broomstick. I wonder if it might be the latter, since flying is probably Harry's most prominent skill, and maybe in the seventh book he will have an opportunity to use it for something much more important than Quidditch. I guess we'll just have to wait and see!
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Leprechauns!
Goodness, has it been a month already? That'll be amended soon. But for now... Hooray for leprechauns! They're such mischievous little blighters; their cheeky nature comes across at the Quidditch World Cup - "The leprechauns had risen into the air again, and this time, they formed a giant hand, which was making a very rude sign indeed at the veela across the field." - and later when their gold disappears before a disgruntled Ron's eyes. I'm trying to think of other mentions in the books and none are springing to mind, but I would think that the Weasleys might make a big deal out of St. Patrick's Day. I wonder how they would celebrate it...
Saturday, February 17, 2007
It's All Happening At the Zoo
In some ways chapter 2 of Sorcerer's Stone, The Vanishing Glass, almost feels like the real beginning of the series. Yes, I love chapter 1 and it's crucial to our understanding of Harry's back story and the two worlds Rowling is setting up side by side. But chapter 1 feels almost like a prologue. When we move to chapter 2, we move to Harry's point of view (not first person, but still very much his POV) and there we stay for much of the rest of the series thus far. It's always a notable exception when we venture outside of the realm of what Harry is seeing, thinking and doing. The beginning of Goblet of Fire is one example -- though even there we end up realizing we're experiencing the scene through Harry's dream/vision/scar connection. The beginning of Half-Blood Prince when we get to hang out in the Muggle Prime Minister's office is yet another instance. But for the most part, we travel through these books by dogging Harry's footsteps. We're privileged -- and limited -- to see what he sees and experience what he experiences.
The fairy-tale feel of the book increases with this chapter. We haven't gotten to the enchanted castle yet...that comes later! But we've already met a giant -- or at least someone giant-sized. In this chapter we get to see poor Harry at the hands of his wicked stepmother....er....wicked aunt and uncle. There really is a Cinderella-type feel to his environment -- he has to sleep in a cupboard under the stairs, his clothes are all hand-me-downs that don't fit, he's tormented by his cousin which puts him somewhere in the vicnity of the role of "younger brother," which is always an intriguing role in fairy tales.
If the cupboard feels a bit over the top, recall that we're being given a glimpse of two worlds or worldviews. The Dursleys live in a materialistic, naturalistic, non-imaginative world, and they'd like to keep Harry shut up in that world. It seems fitting that when he lives with them he lives in a tiny, cramped, dark environment with no windows. What amazes me is that it hasn't cramped Harry's spirit and heart more than it has. I put that down to the fact that, although he doesn't yet know it this early on, he's been shaped at a deep heart level by his mother's sacrifice.
There are so many wonderful moments in chapter 2 that I can't possibly recount them all. Here are just a few of my favorites. Many of them are foreshadowing moments, or moments where Harry is tapping deep into memories of a world he doesn't consciously remember:
--Harry dreams of the flying motorcycle (p. 19)
--Harry tells the Dursleys "I won't blow up the house" when they're worried about leaving him there alone all day when Mrs. Figg can't babysit for him (p. 23)
--"Dont' ask questions" (p. 20) the key to Harry's survival at the Dursleys', and a deeply-engrained habit that I think comes back to haunt Harry later
--Harry's first vague memories of the night of his parents' death, and the green light that we know came from the AK curse (p.29). It's interesting to note that Harry strained his memory to come up with even this little bit of the scene.
--Mrs. Figg!
--parseltongue! (and don't you just love the humour in the scene with the boa constrictor!)
The scene at the zoo is such a classic example of Rowling working on many levels at once. It's a ripping good scene -- enjoyable and funny. It's a scene that gives us major clues to some of Harry's magical qualities, qualities Harry himself isn't fully aware of. And it's a scene that works on a symbolic level too, with Harry as a melter of walls, a bringer down of partitions, a sympathetic person who roots for the underdog (or undersnake, in this case) and already has a bit of a "saving people thing" going on.
I'm really rambling tonight. But I have to mention one more thing I found interesting as I re-read this chapter: it begins and ends with photographs. Photos are clearly very important to Rowling, who views them as deeply connected with a person's identity/sense of belonging and family/and view of himself. At the beginning of chapter 2, Rowling shows us the passage of time since the end of chapter one. We're given a look around the Dursleys' living room where we see the awful photos of the now 10 year old Dudley, but not one single photo of Harry. It's as though he doesn't live there at all. The Dursleys don't want to acknowledge his existence, or his part in their family, with a single picture.
At the end of chapter 2, we're told that Harry doesn't remember his parents at all -- not only is he not allowed to ask questions or to talk about them, but there are no photographs of them in the house either. That absence of photos will be touched on again beautifully toward the end of the book when Hagrid makes a gift of a photograph album to Harry. But more than that, we see that photos, images, reflections are intimately connected to a person's knowledge about himself and his own story. The discovery of his own story and its significance is what most of the Harry Potter epic is about.
The fairy-tale feel of the book increases with this chapter. We haven't gotten to the enchanted castle yet...that comes later! But we've already met a giant -- or at least someone giant-sized. In this chapter we get to see poor Harry at the hands of his wicked stepmother....er....wicked aunt and uncle. There really is a Cinderella-type feel to his environment -- he has to sleep in a cupboard under the stairs, his clothes are all hand-me-downs that don't fit, he's tormented by his cousin which puts him somewhere in the vicnity of the role of "younger brother," which is always an intriguing role in fairy tales.
If the cupboard feels a bit over the top, recall that we're being given a glimpse of two worlds or worldviews. The Dursleys live in a materialistic, naturalistic, non-imaginative world, and they'd like to keep Harry shut up in that world. It seems fitting that when he lives with them he lives in a tiny, cramped, dark environment with no windows. What amazes me is that it hasn't cramped Harry's spirit and heart more than it has. I put that down to the fact that, although he doesn't yet know it this early on, he's been shaped at a deep heart level by his mother's sacrifice.
There are so many wonderful moments in chapter 2 that I can't possibly recount them all. Here are just a few of my favorites. Many of them are foreshadowing moments, or moments where Harry is tapping deep into memories of a world he doesn't consciously remember:
--Harry dreams of the flying motorcycle (p. 19)
--Harry tells the Dursleys "I won't blow up the house" when they're worried about leaving him there alone all day when Mrs. Figg can't babysit for him (p. 23)
--"Dont' ask questions" (p. 20) the key to Harry's survival at the Dursleys', and a deeply-engrained habit that I think comes back to haunt Harry later
--Harry's first vague memories of the night of his parents' death, and the green light that we know came from the AK curse (p.29). It's interesting to note that Harry strained his memory to come up with even this little bit of the scene.
--Mrs. Figg!
--parseltongue! (and don't you just love the humour in the scene with the boa constrictor!)
The scene at the zoo is such a classic example of Rowling working on many levels at once. It's a ripping good scene -- enjoyable and funny. It's a scene that gives us major clues to some of Harry's magical qualities, qualities Harry himself isn't fully aware of. And it's a scene that works on a symbolic level too, with Harry as a melter of walls, a bringer down of partitions, a sympathetic person who roots for the underdog (or undersnake, in this case) and already has a bit of a "saving people thing" going on.
I'm really rambling tonight. But I have to mention one more thing I found interesting as I re-read this chapter: it begins and ends with photographs. Photos are clearly very important to Rowling, who views them as deeply connected with a person's identity/sense of belonging and family/and view of himself. At the beginning of chapter 2, Rowling shows us the passage of time since the end of chapter one. We're given a look around the Dursleys' living room where we see the awful photos of the now 10 year old Dudley, but not one single photo of Harry. It's as though he doesn't live there at all. The Dursleys don't want to acknowledge his existence, or his part in their family, with a single picture.
At the end of chapter 2, we're told that Harry doesn't remember his parents at all -- not only is he not allowed to ask questions or to talk about them, but there are no photographs of them in the house either. That absence of photos will be touched on again beautifully toward the end of the book when Hagrid makes a gift of a photograph album to Harry. But more than that, we see that photos, images, reflections are intimately connected to a person's knowledge about himself and his own story. The discovery of his own story and its significance is what most of the Harry Potter epic is about.
Friday, February 16, 2007
The Million Dollar Question
I had one more thought on the very first chapter of Sorcerer's Stone. I LOVE how Rowling gives us the million dollar question, the key question, the question everybody desperately wants answered, right off the bat on p. 12.
"It's -- it's true?" faltered Professor McGonagall. "After all he's done...all the people he's killed...he couldn't kill a little boy? It's just astounding...of all the things to stop him...but how in the name of heaven did Harry survive?"
This is brilliant. First of all (if I can risk sounding like a broken record) it just shows such tremendous artistry. Rowling is putting this very important question right up front at the beginning of book one. It gives me great confidence to know that she's always known where she was going with this saga, and how she wanted to shape it. This question has always been one of the key questions at the heart of Harry Potter. And she's a savvy writer -- she puts it right out there from the get-go and makes us all intensely curious. We don't know the answer when we first hear it asked. Even Dumbledore doesn't know the answer (though he clearly has guesses).
Six books and hundreds if not thousands of pages later, we do know more than we did at the start. We know Harry survived because of his mother's love, his mother's choice to sacrifice herself to save her son. But we still don't know all the details about that night, and frankly we're just getting more and more curious as the story goes along. Harry's finally getting curious too, because he's finally planning a trip to Godric's Hollow at the beginning of Deathly Hallows.
I love the feeling of being strung along by a good story-teller who knows what she's doing!
I've got a long post coming on chapters 2 and 3, which are some of my favorites. Hopefully this weekend!
"It's -- it's true?" faltered Professor McGonagall. "After all he's done...all the people he's killed...he couldn't kill a little boy? It's just astounding...of all the things to stop him...but how in the name of heaven did Harry survive?"
This is brilliant. First of all (if I can risk sounding like a broken record) it just shows such tremendous artistry. Rowling is putting this very important question right up front at the beginning of book one. It gives me great confidence to know that she's always known where she was going with this saga, and how she wanted to shape it. This question has always been one of the key questions at the heart of Harry Potter. And she's a savvy writer -- she puts it right out there from the get-go and makes us all intensely curious. We don't know the answer when we first hear it asked. Even Dumbledore doesn't know the answer (though he clearly has guesses).
Six books and hundreds if not thousands of pages later, we do know more than we did at the start. We know Harry survived because of his mother's love, his mother's choice to sacrifice herself to save her son. But we still don't know all the details about that night, and frankly we're just getting more and more curious as the story goes along. Harry's finally getting curious too, because he's finally planning a trip to Godric's Hollow at the beginning of Deathly Hallows.
I love the feeling of being strung along by a good story-teller who knows what she's doing!
I've got a long post coming on chapters 2 and 3, which are some of my favorites. Hopefully this weekend!
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
"Daddy's Gone Mad, Hasn't He?"
I've been mulling over just how I ought to be rationing out the chapters with this re-reading of Harry Potter. I need to exercise restraint because it's hard to put Rowling's writing down, and I don't want to blaze through all the books in a couple of weeks. The way I figure it, we have about 18 weeks until Book 7. Maybe closer to 19, but it doesn't much matter. The point is that leaves about three weeks per book. Granted, the first and second books are vastly shorter than the fifth and sixth, so that's maybe not the best way to judge. But for now, I'll stick with this, and as Sorcerer's Stone has 17 chapters, I should be reading less than a chapter a day. I've already blown that by reading the second and third chapter, one right after the other. But then those two chapters go together so well...
It's in these two chapters that Rowling establishes the Roald Dahl-esque misery of Harry's home life. It's quite a Cinderella story, with this poor orphan boy spending his first ten years reviled by three relatives so repulsive, it's difficult to determine who is the worst of the bunch. No wonder he dreams of being whisked away, though until the letters begin to arrive, he has little reason to hope this could ever be the case.
Of the three relatives, Petunia probably has the least to do in these two chapters, as she is greatly overshadowed by her husband. Mostly, her purpose here is to indulge Dudley to a sickening degree, much like Mr. Salt does with the ill-fated, uber-obnoxious Veruca in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. She dotes on her son but is beginning to fear him, realizing that she has created a monster capable of temper tantrums whose effects would probably register on the Richter scale, though probably not attributing any blame for his behavior to herself. It is she who heads off his massive meltdown by offering to buy him two extra presents (21), after screeching at Harry to get up and make breakfast so everything will be perfect for Dudley's birthday (19), perhaps in anticipation of just such a tantrum if it isn't. After her simpering assurances that she won't let Harry ruin Dudley's birthday, she falls nearly out of sight for the chapter, and in the next, she's so mortified at the thought of associating with her sister's crowd and so intimidated by her husband's increasingly irrational behavior that she spends most of the time cowering.
Dudley has developed a striking personality now, having grown from "a large pink beach ball wearing different-colored bonnets" (18) to "a pig in a wig" (21). I'm struck first by his utter aggression. His favorite pastime is beating up on Harry, and his friend gleefully join him in picking on other unfortunates at school who happen to arouse his ire. Once he receives his Smeltings stick, Vernon actually encourages him to use it to whack Harry (33) (though he perhaps regrets this when he finds himself on the receiving end of more than one of its blows). Beyond Harry, in this short space of time, Rowling mentions Dudley whining for his dad to bang on the glass of the snake enclosure (27); mowing down old Mrs. Figg on his bike (31), though presumably this was an accident; running over a dog with a miniature tank (37). He seems to harbor no affection for anyone or anything, never showing any gratitude to his parents for all their indulgences.
He's also a couch potato who schedules his life around his television shows and gets woozy if he's separated from his computer for any length of time. (I fear I see a trace of myself in this description - harrowing indeed!) It's strange to see so much technology stuffed into these chapters since the bulk of the series is devoid of such modern implements, with Hogwarts students going about their daily business in much the same way as witches and wizards a thousand years ago would have. I think Rowling may have a bit of a Luddite streak. I think I do too - though you certainly wouldn't know it from the amount of time I spend glued to my computer!
We get hints of Mrs. Figg and Aunt Marge here. Of the first, we learn little except that she is evidently a stereotypical crazy cat lady. She doesn't seem so bad, just a bit musty and eccentric and certainly not the companion of choice for a ten-year-old boy. Still, her treatment of Harry appears to be better than the Dursleys'. Of Marge we see even less, but we can guess. We're told "she hates the boy" (22), though evidently she is fond of Dudley, as she has sent him a birthday gift. We also get some sense that Marge and Vernon are probably fairly fond of each other, since she bothers to send him a postcard (34), though its contents apparently consist of complaints (35). It's no great shock when we actually meet this Debbie Downer that she is as unpleasant as her brother.
But Vernon is the main focus here. You can see where Dudley's temper came from; Vernon always seems on the verge of popping a vein, his face rapidly changing colors, his voice conveying a low threat that could become an explosive bellow at any second, particularly if anyone hints at the existence of anything abnormal (as when Harry casually mentions his dream about the flying motorcycle (25)). He's a conundrum because in his desperation to keep everything nice and normal, he throws his house into a state of chaos. I love "He hummed 'Tiptoe Through the Tulips' as he worked, and jumped at small noises." (40) The more he tries to keep Harry's people out, the more frazzled he becomes. I'm rather surprised that he makes such an effort. If this boy has made them all so miserable for the past ten years, wouldn't it be nice to be rid of him for the bulk of the year? But I guess the fear that the neighbors will figure out what's going on and come to associate the Dursleys with all that magical nonsense far outweighs any satisfaction they would receive by getting Harry out of their hair. What did Vernon plan to do, though, after that miserable night in the shack? Even if they'd avoided the letters for that day, did he think that would be a permanent solution?
It's interesting that of all his physical characteristics - scrawniness, perpetually unkempt and magically shaggy hair, green eyes, round glasses with Scotch tape across the bridge of the nose - the only one he likes is his scar, the first indication that Dumbledore was right about it coming in handy (20). Harry has no idea how he got it, of course; the Dursleys frown heavily upon questions, so he is completely in the dark when it comes to his origins, and when strange things happen he doesn't know why. It's simply a part of who he is. We learn here that he's a Parselmouth (28), though we won't encounter that word for quite some time or realize the significance of that ability. But it's a nice moment; Harry sees a creature in captivity and empathizes, even though this is a large and potentially dangerous beast. This bodes well for his future interaction with Hagrid's menagerie!
And speaking of Hagrid, things are about to get really good...
It's in these two chapters that Rowling establishes the Roald Dahl-esque misery of Harry's home life. It's quite a Cinderella story, with this poor orphan boy spending his first ten years reviled by three relatives so repulsive, it's difficult to determine who is the worst of the bunch. No wonder he dreams of being whisked away, though until the letters begin to arrive, he has little reason to hope this could ever be the case.
Of the three relatives, Petunia probably has the least to do in these two chapters, as she is greatly overshadowed by her husband. Mostly, her purpose here is to indulge Dudley to a sickening degree, much like Mr. Salt does with the ill-fated, uber-obnoxious Veruca in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. She dotes on her son but is beginning to fear him, realizing that she has created a monster capable of temper tantrums whose effects would probably register on the Richter scale, though probably not attributing any blame for his behavior to herself. It is she who heads off his massive meltdown by offering to buy him two extra presents (21), after screeching at Harry to get up and make breakfast so everything will be perfect for Dudley's birthday (19), perhaps in anticipation of just such a tantrum if it isn't. After her simpering assurances that she won't let Harry ruin Dudley's birthday, she falls nearly out of sight for the chapter, and in the next, she's so mortified at the thought of associating with her sister's crowd and so intimidated by her husband's increasingly irrational behavior that she spends most of the time cowering.
Dudley has developed a striking personality now, having grown from "a large pink beach ball wearing different-colored bonnets" (18) to "a pig in a wig" (21). I'm struck first by his utter aggression. His favorite pastime is beating up on Harry, and his friend gleefully join him in picking on other unfortunates at school who happen to arouse his ire. Once he receives his Smeltings stick, Vernon actually encourages him to use it to whack Harry (33) (though he perhaps regrets this when he finds himself on the receiving end of more than one of its blows). Beyond Harry, in this short space of time, Rowling mentions Dudley whining for his dad to bang on the glass of the snake enclosure (27); mowing down old Mrs. Figg on his bike (31), though presumably this was an accident; running over a dog with a miniature tank (37). He seems to harbor no affection for anyone or anything, never showing any gratitude to his parents for all their indulgences.
He's also a couch potato who schedules his life around his television shows and gets woozy if he's separated from his computer for any length of time. (I fear I see a trace of myself in this description - harrowing indeed!) It's strange to see so much technology stuffed into these chapters since the bulk of the series is devoid of such modern implements, with Hogwarts students going about their daily business in much the same way as witches and wizards a thousand years ago would have. I think Rowling may have a bit of a Luddite streak. I think I do too - though you certainly wouldn't know it from the amount of time I spend glued to my computer!
We get hints of Mrs. Figg and Aunt Marge here. Of the first, we learn little except that she is evidently a stereotypical crazy cat lady. She doesn't seem so bad, just a bit musty and eccentric and certainly not the companion of choice for a ten-year-old boy. Still, her treatment of Harry appears to be better than the Dursleys'. Of Marge we see even less, but we can guess. We're told "she hates the boy" (22), though evidently she is fond of Dudley, as she has sent him a birthday gift. We also get some sense that Marge and Vernon are probably fairly fond of each other, since she bothers to send him a postcard (34), though its contents apparently consist of complaints (35). It's no great shock when we actually meet this Debbie Downer that she is as unpleasant as her brother.
But Vernon is the main focus here. You can see where Dudley's temper came from; Vernon always seems on the verge of popping a vein, his face rapidly changing colors, his voice conveying a low threat that could become an explosive bellow at any second, particularly if anyone hints at the existence of anything abnormal (as when Harry casually mentions his dream about the flying motorcycle (25)). He's a conundrum because in his desperation to keep everything nice and normal, he throws his house into a state of chaos. I love "He hummed 'Tiptoe Through the Tulips' as he worked, and jumped at small noises." (40) The more he tries to keep Harry's people out, the more frazzled he becomes. I'm rather surprised that he makes such an effort. If this boy has made them all so miserable for the past ten years, wouldn't it be nice to be rid of him for the bulk of the year? But I guess the fear that the neighbors will figure out what's going on and come to associate the Dursleys with all that magical nonsense far outweighs any satisfaction they would receive by getting Harry out of their hair. What did Vernon plan to do, though, after that miserable night in the shack? Even if they'd avoided the letters for that day, did he think that would be a permanent solution?
It's interesting that of all his physical characteristics - scrawniness, perpetually unkempt and magically shaggy hair, green eyes, round glasses with Scotch tape across the bridge of the nose - the only one he likes is his scar, the first indication that Dumbledore was right about it coming in handy (20). Harry has no idea how he got it, of course; the Dursleys frown heavily upon questions, so he is completely in the dark when it comes to his origins, and when strange things happen he doesn't know why. It's simply a part of who he is. We learn here that he's a Parselmouth (28), though we won't encounter that word for quite some time or realize the significance of that ability. But it's a nice moment; Harry sees a creature in captivity and empathizes, even though this is a large and potentially dangerous beast. This bodes well for his future interaction with Hagrid's menagerie!
And speaking of Hagrid, things are about to get really good...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)