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Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
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August 2017 - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
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Yoly
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Jul 31, 2017 11:39AM
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Welp, I guess this thing winning the poll was kind of a forgone conclusion.... I say we have a "book two, round two" next time or in a few months or so that DOESN'T include one of the most popular novels of the era just so's the regular sized fish in the pond get some attention. I'd hate for those books (all of which are perfectly apt for this group) to have to wait upwards of a year or two to come back around just because JKR popped up like some literary T. Rex. Eventually, when we get around to "book 3 in a series" poll, maybe we should just say "OK, Harry Potter..." and save the voting for one of those littler fishies.All that said, I've been working my way through the HP series since the Girlz group took my Harry Potter virginity. I like 'em. I don't normally do a re-read as quickly as this, but I'll make an exception for this series which is, after all, something of a world-wide exception.
There's an interpretation that I read a while back—and one that I'm growing more sympathetic to as I go through the series—that Hermione is really the main character of the series and Harry is more of a mcguffin. That is, sure, you can't have the Harry Potter books without Harry Potter, but he's not really the protagonist any more than the Maltese Falcon is the main character in the Dashiell Hammett novel. So, for instance, as one goes through the series it becomes clear that Ron is really Hermione's sidekick not Harry's. The action centers around Harry in many situations, but the Sam Spade of the novel is Hermione not Harry. She does the lion's share of the investigating, asks the pertinent questions, draws the eventual conclusions. The character who develops most through the books is definitely Hermione not Harry. The character with the greatest moral compass is Hermione. The character who is more often right or who drives the plot forward Hermione (or one of the villains, but that's a whole 'nother issue.)
Considering how well known this book is (whether you love it or loathe it) I'm surprised this discussion only has a handful of posts. Now, I only stumbled across Harry Potter by the sheer force of that everyone and their cousin were talking about it when the first movie came out (I'd heard of it prior to that, but thought it was more of a 'children's tale' so didn't pick it up) - but I remember I tentatively ordered the first book after that and then the quickly the rest of those that had come out at the time.
CoS is a 'go to read' for when wanting to relax and just have a short escape into another world that doesn't demand committing complicated magical systems (etc) to memory (partly because there's a good chance that if you're re-reading it, you probably have done so already) with enjoyable characters, living settings and building further on 'that something' that's so hard to define but made this so loved by many.
Mae wrote: "Considering how well known this book is (whether you love it or loathe it) I'm surprised this discussion only has a handful of posts."It's been a couple of days, so it may take a bit before folks get tooled up. Personally, I haven't even had time to pick it up [(again) yet]....
The first one got some pretty healthy discussion in this group:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
I'm still a relative neophyte to the whole Harry Potter thing in that I've only read the first four, and given them just a standard, once-over type reading. I only picked up that first one when it became Girlz group pick last September. The series is so ubiquitous that I know the basic outline of the whole thing just from the ambient noise of the geek culture, but I'm still a little mystified as to the global success of the brand, as the wonks say. I get how the books might be, say, Lemony Snicket popular, but the HP series is up there with Star Wars and Star Trek. I read the other day (when looking up a bit of info regarding that amazingly stupid National Review article and the Bechdel Test, which I still find startling) that estimates put the income from the series around $25 buh-illions, which is pretty astounding.
In general, I think a huge factor is that they are just solid, approachable reads. They are long for YA/kids, and just challenging enough that younger readers get a nice endorphin rush of satisfaction while reading them and when finishing up. The protagonists are very relate-able to the target audience, and I suspect JKR and her publishers very purposefully timed their release to coincide with a demographic aging progression to suit that group. There's a concept in the fast food industry and those who sell soft drinks about getting customers young so as to associate their product with youth and nostalgia. This series appears to have tapped into that more by design than accident.
I'm still a relative neophyte to the whole Harry Potter thing in that I've only read the first four, and given them just a standard, once-over type reading. I'm kind of relieved I'm not the only one who came into this series late, lol.
Looking at how much it's earned is depressing, but it's definitely a good gauge of just how well it's done - and how big it is, today. Don't think anyone can put their finger on exactly 'why' that is so though (just like they can't pick out and define exactly the element that makes Star Wars as popular as it is) - but there's something in there that's got its potion ingredients (sorry, couldn't resist) 'just' right to make it appeal across a wide spectrum; everyone sees something different in them. Maybe that's the key. And this even applies to the same person when reading it at different ages - not many books can pull that off.
Not sure I'd agree that the series set out to do this intentionally (PS and CoS especially) but as the whole HP phenomenon has grown, it's definitely something a crafty publishing body would sit down and work out just how to tap into (this would then be when we first saw the release of paraphernalia, lots and lots of paraphernalia, though I for one have no idea of 'when' this exploded).
Hehe, they wouldn't even need to 'catch' their audience young (though that certainly doesn't hurt) but something that appeals to our inner-child works too. Things that can bring us back to our childhood even though they weren't actually, specifically, part of it.
Because we just got started, Mae.
Mae wrote: "Not sure I'd agree that the series set out to do this intentionally (PS and CoS especially) but as the whole HP phenomenon has grown, it's definitely something a crafty publishing body would sit down and work out just how to tap into (this would then be when we first saw the release of paraphernalia, lots and lots of paraphernalia, though I for one have no idea of 'when' this exploded).Hehe, they wouldn't even need to 'catch' their audience young (though that certainly doesn't hurt) but something that appeals to our inner-child works too. Things that can bring us back to our childhood even though they weren't actually, specifically, part of it."
Well, maybe I'm a bit jaded or skeptical, but I think it was very intentional on JKR's and her publisher's part. In fact, before HP came along a lot of projects have that kind of game plan established before the books come out. Publishing is a chancy business and they like to see a game plan. It makes them feel safe and it's the kind of thing they can take to the head of the department (who may not have read anything other than a ledger in decades) that s/he can wrap their heads around.
In fact, these days it's even more projected and planned. My understanding is that the little mini-franchise for the comic books Kick-Ass had the film rights sold before the comic books were even finished.
Whether that plan actually works out or not is a whole different thing. If plans always worked then we'd all be gazillionaires by next Tuesday. Generally, though, the plans are de rigor these days, and they project out to the DVD commentary.
Charlie Rose interview with a few publishing wonks when the fourth HP book came out.https://charlierose.com/videos/5485
Well, maybe I'm a bit jaded or skeptical, but I think it was very intentional on JKR's and her publisher's part. Oh, I have no doubt about that - not when it proved so successful. But very few (very sad) authors sit down to write a book, especially their first couple of books, solely because their game-plan says that's where they should start. That isn't saying most don't dream about where it might lead and getting caught up in everything once 'the phenomenon' takes off is all too easy, but CoS still has that 'innocence' about it that the first few books of a series tend to have.
It's a little early in this series to be talking about this particular situation, but I don't know if we'll get around to the later books in the series in anything like a timely fashion, and I don't really want to wait 2-4 years to mention it, so:I'm getting a lot more sympathetic to Draco Malfoy as I go through the books. He starts off as a pathetic little snobby toff, but as you go through the books (and I must reiterate that I'm very late to this party and haven't read them all) it starts to look like he's been raised and remains under the thumb of a truly horrifying parental situation. So, even where it seems he's acting of his own accord, at the very least he's got the thuggish sons of other Voldemort followers, Crabbe and Goyle, following him around. Are they friends or minders? The fear that we get from HP's perspective about their behavior is one thing, but it's not hard to see how that would also be an influence on Draco. Are we to believe that if he weren't openly hostile to HP and crew at every turn that would NOT get reported back to his father, and that Lucius, a much more powerful wizard who has embraced a philosophy of dominance and control, would not use his powers to torment or even destroy his own son's mind? Later we see exactly that happening to other characters... which is all covered in spoilers, and in later books, so I'll let it go at that.
My understanding is that Draco (view spoiler) later in the books/stories, which would make him the character who develops most in the series given his starting point.
I am really starting to hate Gilderoy Lockhart...again... .
I just started this one. I'm halfway through chapter 2, I have forgotten most of what happened in the first book, and while I have watched all the movies, some of them multiple times, this feels like a completely new story to me :D I'm enjoying it.I had to go to Wikipedia to read the plot for the first book because I had no idea what happened in that one.
Amber wrote: "I am really starting to hate Gilderoy Lockhart...again... ."It's funny, she (JKR, that is) really gloms onto the whole celebrity culture thing in this one and in later installments of the series what with the muckraking journalist, for instance. I can't help but wonder how much her own "instant fame" after the first book had to do with that. The story about the story, of course, is that she had the whole thing planned out in her notebooks before she even started to write, but I somehow doubt that's entirely true. Writing is just more organic than that. 50% nature, 50% nurture, if you will. It's not as if she were "outed" Steven King/Richard Bachman-style, and ultimately we can only speculate, but I can't help but think the attention she got and some of the personas (note: personas, not people, because little if any of that is real) she met at the echelons at which she entered the attention culture influenced her process.
Yoly wrote: "I had to go to Wikipedia to read the plot for the first book because I had no idea what happened in that one."
She does a lot of recapping of events in book 2. I've only read up to book 4, but it seems to me she does less recapping in later installments. That' only an impression, though.
I did notice in this reread something that I had been critical about after reading book 4. In that installment wizards use apparition to teleport around rather willy-nilly, and that read as a rather dramatic insert. That is, suddenly characters can do something that we haven't seen them do before, and why haven't they been doing that before? She does say that young wizards aren't allowed to learn how to do that because of the dangers involved, but that also seemed like a justification. The ability to "appear" figures prominently at the conclusion of book 4 for (view spoiler)
Another thing I find interesting in this series and which is, I think, JKR giving us just a hint of socio-political thinking is when she introduces house elves in this installment. That is, she's spoonfeeding ideas to her audience which in later installments would get more attention, but would never really rise to the heights of "realism" that would disturb the narrative. These are, after all, books meant for kids or young adults or whatever the current marketing term is.... So, house elves are slaves. We see in later installments that many house elves are "happy" in their work, and that's lead some readers to the impression that Hermione's objection to the way house elves are treated makes her something of a busybody at best. See, for instance, this thread:https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
Now, I'm confident many of the opinions there are mostly kids who I'm sure gave the book a somewhat "top level" reading if you will, so it's not the kind of thing I'd want to bash these folks for. However, it is interesting that the reaction would be so primed.... The real world reaction of some folks hints at a certain level of denial of the implications of the idea, and I can't help but see shades of it in the current nonsense going around about knocking down statues to Confederates or, as I like to think of them, monuments to American traitors built by our equivalent of Holocaust deniers to promote their sham ideology... but I digress. There's nothing quite like the intersection of privilege and denial to bring out the worst in people.
Amber wrote: "I am really starting to hate Gilderoy Lockhart...again... ." He's the kind of character you really 'want' to kick on the shins, not for being the kind of pure evil often found in fantasy but for being a complete and utter idiot (in more ways than one) - but that's also what makes him appealing to dislike. I love it when he appears so I can dislike him :)
I read Lockhart as something of a children's story parody of celebrity culture. That is, kind of a silly version, though I have to admit if you look around at the world today, he's pretty staid compared to what we're confronted with in real life. Lockhart is practically Lawrence Olivier compared to reality TV stars or the loons who come crawling out of the woodwork for UK general elections. If anything the character is a toned down version of the real thing when it comes to those people with more ambition than talent and integrity.You can't really know anything about any of these people in real life, of course. I read a thing a while back that I found very interesting, an article about Tom Cruise during the period when he was jumping on couches and such, which pointed out that there really is no Tom Cruise. There's an actor named Thomas Cruise Mapother IV who plays Tom Cruise, the celebrity, and sometimes that actor plays Tom Cruise, the movie star, who plays characters on camera. Tom Cruise the celebrity and Tom Cruise the movie star don't exist any more than "Maverick" or Jack Reacher do. It's all product. It's all a fiction. Thomas Mapother is only Thomas Mapother for those few moments a day when nobody is looking at him. It's like the Heisenberg Principle. You can't measure something at the subatomic level without influencing it. Celebrities are the same way. You can only get a read on who they are by observing them, and they change when observed, becoming the fictive creation of their own minds, their management, their PR people, the studio marketing departments, etc. That's what they've dedicated their lives to.
Of course, some are more transparent than others, and some more dedicated to the process than others. I don't think anyone has a great understanding of the actor who plays Sean Penn based on his public persona any more than we know who the performer who plays Madonna is based on hers because the characters they present don't exist any more than Lockhart in Harry Potter does. And, really, if you compare/contrast to some of those "real world" characters, Lockhart comes out pretty run-of-the-mill. He's probably the wizarding world equivalent of James Franco....
Lockhart is the one character she's admitted is based on a real person. (She says he's probably telling people he's the model for Dumbledore.)
Mae wrote: "Amber wrote: "I am really starting to hate Gilderoy Lockhart...again... ." He's the kind of character you really 'want' to kick on the shins, not for being the kind of pure evil often found in f..."
Except for the fact that he's a fantasy character and he at least knows HOW to read, plus doesn't mistreat women or veterans, I wish I could think of him as the Wizarding World's version of "President" Trump.
Mary: See my remark to Mae about Trump.
Gary wrote Of course, some are more transparent than others, and some more dedicated to the process than others. This is pretty much true for "anyone" - just the better known someone is, the larger discrepancy there might be between their persona and the actual person.
Amber: That's where the difference between dislikable characters we enjoy, dislikable characters we simply dislike, and dislikable characters that makes us throw the book out the window in frustration, comes in.
Gosh, that was a lot of "dislikeable" in one sentence...phew.
Yeah. Just like Trump, I think Gilderoy farts out of both his ass AND his mouth... .
Apparently, today (Sept. 1, 2017) is the day "Nineteen Years Later" that young Albus Potter heads off to Hogwarts.
Let the revels commence!
Mae wrote: "Hehe, they wouldn't even need to 'catch' their audience young (though that certainly doesn't hurt) but something that appeals to our inner-child works too. Things that can bring us back to our childhood even though they weren't actually, specifically, part of it. "That's what I love about these books. I've only read the first two and that is the feeling I get about them. It appeals to my inner-child even though it's not something that was available when I was one. I would have loved to read these as a kid.
I just finished Chamber of Secrets this morning, and like the first one, it left me with a feeling of happiness and "I wonder what would happen next year" which I think is kind of silly since I've watched all the movies, although honestly I can't remember the particular plot for each one. I don't remember particular details of the plot, but some things in the books seem kind of familiar to me.
I share the sentiment of wanting to kick Gilderoy Lockhart on the shins, every time that man said anything I noticed I rolled my eyes.
My favorite part in the book was Tom Riddle's diary. I thought that was very cool. I love it how with fantasy we can get to read things like this and when you try think "hey, how does that work?" you can just say "well, it's magic!" and it's OK. In sci-fi when something doesn't make any sense, you just think it was lazy writing.
Gary wrote: "And, really, if you compare/contrast to some of those "real world" characters, Lockhart comes out pretty run-of-the-mill. He's probably the wizarding world equivalent of James Franco...."LOL, what?
Gary wrote: "Apparently, today (Sept. 1, 2017) is the day "Nineteen Years Later" that young Albus Potter heads off to Hogwarts."Yesterday was a weird day on my Twitter feed, similarly to when it was Harry Potter's birthday. It makes you think for a second that these characters are real.
Yoly wrote: "Gary wrote: "And, really, if you compare/contrast to some of those "real world" characters, Lockhart comes out pretty run-of-the-mill. He's probably the wizarding world equivalent of James Franco...."LOL, what?"
Gary wrote: "Yoly wrote: "Gary wrote: "And, really, if you compare/contrast to some of those "real world" characters, Lockhart comes out pretty run-of-the-mill. He's probably the wizarding world equivalent of J..."Hahahaha. Ok... I wish I could unsee that...
