It has been a wonderful, mindboggling journey. One filled with happiness,sadness, joy ecstasy, hope and sorrow. I am talking about my journey with Harry Potter.
Now you might say ‘She is one of those delusional Potter maniacs who are crazy about all things Harry”.And I say “Yes!” A resounding yes. Our love for Potter extends beyond liking a well written book with an excellent plot. It has been an emotional and thrilling experience too.
How can a book, a mere book make you feel happy and sad at the same time? This one can. You’ve got to be reading Potter for a while for the experience to sink in.
I am going to confine myself to describing certain parts of the book for obvious reasons.
I first read Potter when I was in my eleventh standard. I enjoyed the first book but thought it was way too childish for my taste. However I loved the plot and Rowling’s way of bringing of the magical world of Hogwarts right in front of your eyes.This lady has tremendous imagination and creativity! Most of us Potter fans had imagined the Hogwarts castle complete with its revolving staircases and talking portraits even before the movies got released, thanks to Rowling’s beautiful descriptions.
The books started more like a beautiful fairytale and became more engaging, macabre and dark by each installment. Her last book “the Deathly Hallows” is hardly a children’s book, more to be read by teens and adults.
The best part of these books are the well fleshed out characters. Each character in the book have a three dimensional personality, a story of their own and black and white and shades of grey. This is one of the most important reason for the immense popularity of the books. There is such a variety of characters that everyone reading the book can identify with atleast one of them. Rowling highlights the positives and negatives of each character in a beautiful manner. Be it the motherly Mrs.weasley, the ever sarcastic Severus Snape or the benevolent Dumbledore each character has been brought out in its entirety. Mrs.Weasley is not only motherly but courageous, defiant and proud, Snape can also be caring and loving and Dumbledore of all people a powerhungry and cunning man.
The next best thing about the books are its plots and subplots. Rowling masterfully weaves a web of stories and and branches them out into delightful subplots with each character having a central space in the individual subplots. Her books contain heavy doses of foreshadowing and glib oneliners which become the predictions for the future books. She is also an expert at planting red herrings all the way to fool the unsuspecting readers to reach wrong conclusions which they realize only in the next book.
Her books also contain delightful little intricate details like the origin of the names of the different characters. There is also an entire family tree who have been named after stars and constellations!
A master storyteller Rowling has thrilled us like no other.
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2 comments:
Hi Rags,
Just came across your blog! If I may not sound too bossy, i would recommend 'The Mahabharata' to you. Try reading it not as a Hindu religious epic, but as a fantasy tale which happened in a far away land in a bygone era! You would find all shades of human characters, intriguing plots and sub-plots, well-etched incidents each having a cause and effect sometime in the past and the future!! But before you start reading it you got to shed ur prejudices against the book as a Hindu religious epic and start with an open mind!! Then I am sure you would appreciate it, perhaps even better than HP!!
Note: I hv read and thoroughly enjoyed the HP series. I am an avid HP fan, a shameless 25 year old who does not mind admitting that even my desktop wallpaper is from HP :D :D
Love,
A S/W Engger!
Hi!! another HP fan "hugs"!! I actually like the Mahabharatha as a tale and mythology. I haven't read it in its original version, only the abridged versions and I did like it a lot especially for its wide variety of characters. Karna is my fav. I got no problem with Hinduism or any of its texts, just the interpretations that people make from it.:)
Cheers.
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