I am Harry Potter

The new Harry Potter book is ... well the best so far. I was going to do updates as I read the book, you know to give it a live blogger feel, and so I could also give you my random thoughts on where I think the plot should go. However I obviously did not do that. I sat down at 9:00 am today thinking I would read only a chapter of two, and I read the whole thing. Luckily I didn't have to go to work today.

I am Harry Potter that, I think, should be the name of this book. For it's painting of high school student's hormones and "hookings up" (a term that Rowling uses) is eeriely like a book published late last year by Tom Wolfe. It is more innocent that his, of course, and it lacks the rut rut rut rut rut rut rut rut rut of that wonderful book. What it does have is a woman's touch. Rowling shows just how stupid men can be when they want revenge, and just how self-desructive women are when they are un-happily in love (you should know who I am talking about if you have read any of the previous ones). Of course she is not the first to do this, but she does make a needed addition to literature. And one I think that Jane Austin (the greatest of all novelists (Tolstoy & Dostoevsky are not novelists in the strictest sense (to back me up on this point see Tolstoy's Notes on War & Peace))) missed viz. Wizards. I am not suggesting that Emma should have ended with Emma Killing Lord Voldamort, but I think it would have been more interesting if she had. And than Chimmers might have read the book and not just watched Clueless.

I am off topic again. I was goint to only write about Harry Potter (I have had a few Gin on the Gins). This is the best so far, Rowling has become more than the competant writer that she was in the first few books, the lighthearted suff is more enjoyable than the usual Ron-jinxing-himself-stuff, and the acctual big plot twist is (for lack of a better word) sad. This follows in the tradition of the previous two, and end with a somber mode (Some one dies). On this toopic my sister said "I just want one of them to have a happy ending, I'm getting sick of them having some one die and then just ending" To which I respond, "well it is a good thing that this people have the good sense to die in June, a week before school ends". Joke as I might however this ending is just down right painful. After all Rowling really does kill of a beloved character, and if you have been reading the books it will be hard to be ramain unaffected. On the other hand the book has one of the best abstinence jokes ever. Also, to be enjoyed by all TACers is the new teacher at Hogwarts; he should bring back memories good old Dr. Hartman.

[Disclaimer: I bring this up because I consider every thing that is true to human life worth repeating, and I will never (I hope) turn my nose up to some one just because her name is Rowling and not Tolstoy or Dostoevsky.] I do not wish to add too somber of a tone, and if you don't want to read a long quote just ignore this, but this hit home for me.

A little tufty-haired man in plain black robes had got to his feet and stood in front of [his] body. Harry could not hear what he was saying. Odd words floated back to them over the hundereds of heads. "Nobility of spirit" ... "intellectual contribution" ... "greatness of heart" ... It did not mean very much. It had little to do with [him] as Harry had known him. ... And then, without warning, it swept over him, the dreadful truth, more completely and undeniably than it had until now. [He] was dead, gone. ... He clutched the cold locket in his hand so tightly it hurt, but he could not prevent hot tears spilling from his eyes.