Alec Peche's Blog - Posts Tagged "first-page"
The last adult to read Harry Potter
Recently I listened to the first book of the Harry Potter series. I feel like I’m the last adult on earth to have not read a Harry Potter book, or watched a movie or otherwise have been touched by the series. I’ve read and loved all three of JK Rowling’s mystery writer (penname -Robert Galbraith’s) books. I like the detective she created Cormoran Strike as a character. He has many layers and oddities, but yet is still believable and the mysteries are good.
I also add that I don’t as a rule read fantasy, vampires, or young adult books. There are so many good mystery, thriller, and frankly romance books, that I haven’t run out of the genre yet. I purchased the Sorcerer’s Stone as an audiobook and sat back awaiting to be amazed by a master storyteller. After listening to the first line and the first page, I wasn’t gripped by the story. It’s wasn’t bad, just mildly entertaining for me. In the mystery genre there is great pressure to open with an amazing first sentence and page.
Perhaps an hour into the seven hour audiobook, Harry arrived at the Hogwarts School, and then I begin to appreciate the foundation of the story. An eleven year old boy attending a magic school that sounded like one of those stiff upper lip British preparatory schools. The material the author had to create a rich story and indeed a series that could carry on exploded into my imagination. The icing on the cake for me was the game of Quidditch. I so admired the literary talent that it took to create that game and know that the story needed the game. To think that they would play a different game than mere mortals, but to then make it similar enough that you could grasp the game was brilliant on the part of Rowling. I want to see the movie just to watch that game come to life. In fact I’ve already watched a film clip on You Tube.
In an age of Disney and other children’s roles wherein children are separated from their parents, then reunited with family toward the end of the story, this was a story less about the traditional family and more about coming of age with one friends while being mentored by a larger family of witches and warlocks. The story gives Harry and his immediate friends a moral code from the start. They don’t use the invisible coat and the broomstick for greed, rather in Harry’s case at the end of this first story, he now had a means to fairly fight his bully cousin - not to beat him with magic, but rather to contain the damage the kid had done in the past.
I’ve never used my blog to review a book and that is not what this post is about. Rather I am admiring JK Rowling’s imagination and writing skills as the force behind what has now become the Harry Potter Empire. I know she discussed on Twitter in recent days the naming of Harry Potter’s child, so I’m looking forward to reading the next installation to enjoy the journey as Harry transforms from an eleven year old to a father and what adventures he’ll have along the way.
I know I have seven or eight more books to read to get to the end of the series and I’m looking forward to examining how Rowling expands her characters with the next book and perhaps have a glimpse as to why she ended the series. In my current series Jill Quint, MD, Forensic Pathologist, one of the things I’m thinking about is when is it time to end a series. I have six books complete and another in my head, so maybe Rowling as the Master writer, will help me understand when it’s time for a series to end.
I also add that I don’t as a rule read fantasy, vampires, or young adult books. There are so many good mystery, thriller, and frankly romance books, that I haven’t run out of the genre yet. I purchased the Sorcerer’s Stone as an audiobook and sat back awaiting to be amazed by a master storyteller. After listening to the first line and the first page, I wasn’t gripped by the story. It’s wasn’t bad, just mildly entertaining for me. In the mystery genre there is great pressure to open with an amazing first sentence and page.
Perhaps an hour into the seven hour audiobook, Harry arrived at the Hogwarts School, and then I begin to appreciate the foundation of the story. An eleven year old boy attending a magic school that sounded like one of those stiff upper lip British preparatory schools. The material the author had to create a rich story and indeed a series that could carry on exploded into my imagination. The icing on the cake for me was the game of Quidditch. I so admired the literary talent that it took to create that game and know that the story needed the game. To think that they would play a different game than mere mortals, but to then make it similar enough that you could grasp the game was brilliant on the part of Rowling. I want to see the movie just to watch that game come to life. In fact I’ve already watched a film clip on You Tube.
In an age of Disney and other children’s roles wherein children are separated from their parents, then reunited with family toward the end of the story, this was a story less about the traditional family and more about coming of age with one friends while being mentored by a larger family of witches and warlocks. The story gives Harry and his immediate friends a moral code from the start. They don’t use the invisible coat and the broomstick for greed, rather in Harry’s case at the end of this first story, he now had a means to fairly fight his bully cousin - not to beat him with magic, but rather to contain the damage the kid had done in the past.
I’ve never used my blog to review a book and that is not what this post is about. Rather I am admiring JK Rowling’s imagination and writing skills as the force behind what has now become the Harry Potter Empire. I know she discussed on Twitter in recent days the naming of Harry Potter’s child, so I’m looking forward to reading the next installation to enjoy the journey as Harry transforms from an eleven year old to a father and what adventures he’ll have along the way.
I know I have seven or eight more books to read to get to the end of the series and I’m looking forward to examining how Rowling expands her characters with the next book and perhaps have a glimpse as to why she ended the series. In my current series Jill Quint, MD, Forensic Pathologist, one of the things I’m thinking about is when is it time to end a series. I have six books complete and another in my head, so maybe Rowling as the Master writer, will help me understand when it’s time for a series to end.
