July 15th, 2005
Harry Potter IS The Da Vinci Code Film
Ok, if you’re a fan of the Harry Potter books, you’re obviously all a-quiver at the thought of bookshops opening at midnight to sell the new book to Potter-starved fans (is HP book crack?) tonight.
Me? I’m a book fan and I couldn’t care less. I have no interest in the Potter books and the hype that surrounds them is really annoying. But then I’ve just had to wade through The Shadow of The Wind, hyped to the hilt by everyone from Richard and Judy to The Observer. If bad writing, repetition and cliches are your thing, then it’s the book for you.
But back to Harry. Over the last month, the PR folk have been lashing out press releases with laxative-inducing regularity. It even rivals those for the Da Vinci Code film. (”Tom Hanks farts in the Louvre!”, “Jean Reno eats ham sandwich on set!”) . It seems that every day for the last month, everyone from Yahoo Books to the BBC’s Art Page has been guilty of overdoing it on the HP stories. RTE must have been so bored with it that the sub-editors couldn’t be bothered coming with an interesting headline for yet another Harry story. Even The Guardian’s Culture Vulture blog has decided to have a Harry Potter ‘read-in’ throughout the night in an effort to produce the first review of the book.
However, I know I’m not alone in my Harry Potter fatique - our current poll on Sigla asks “JK Rowling has promised death in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Who do you most want to see killed?” Out of five character options, Harry is the runaway lead with 72%.
So please. No more mentions of Harry Potter - I’m sick of him. JK Rowling should call the next book ‘Harry Potter and The Big Bag of Crap’ or ‘Harry Potter & the Art of milking a pigeon-chested geek’s story to death’.
Any more suggestions anyone?
July 15th, 2005 at 2:25 pm
“The Curse of Harry Potter” or “The Death of Harry Potter”
July 15th, 2005 at 3:27 pm
Harry Potter and the Speccie Four Eyes?
July 15th, 2005 at 4:16 pm
harry potter and the big bag full of cheap low grade heroin.
July 15th, 2005 at 4:19 pm
Good suggestions all round I think. I especially like the Heroin one. It could be a whole new series. ‘Harry Potter and the Skaghead Junkies ‘
July 16th, 2005 at 3:47 pm
Am reading the sixth one right now and am having a jolly old time. And I refuse to be apologetic about liking the books.
I hope to see the seventh book go out with a Hamlet-style finish. That’d be way cool: Harry Potter & the Disgruntled Royals?
July 17th, 2005 at 4:06 pm
Sinead,
I’m starting to think that we probably have a very different collection of books. I loved The Shadow of the Wind. Loved it, loved the plot.
But there’s a point I have to raise about people criticising the writing of a novel which was originally written in a foreign language - Spanish in this case - namely what you’re getting in the way of writing is from a translator. Some of them are very good. Some of them are not. Some of them are unduly influenced by the grammatical structure of the source material.
I’ve direct experience of this - one example which springs immediately to mind is Inkheart by Cornelia Funke which was slightly disjointed in English but which was wonderful in German. That said, it was translated into English by one of the foremost translators of English children’s literature in the UK. Some of the translations of Franz Kafka were terrible and again, having read the Momo by Michael Ende in German, English and French, I’d have to say that yes, the translations left a certain amount to be desired in comparison with the source language version.
I can’t - for obvious reasons - state that everyone should read everything in its original language. But I will say that when reading literature in translation, it should be taken into account that there is an extra fence between what you are reading and what the author wrote.
October 17th, 2006 at 2:31 pm
I heard a rumor that Disney might be making a Harry Potter theme park? I imagine that it would do very well for a while, but in the long run it would flop.