the book was just a bystander
Jul. 16th, 2007 03:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rmI have written, at length and not infrequently, over the years about why the Harry Potter books mean something to me, but those statements have been almost entirely about the child I was and the actual content of the books -- characters, themes, etc.
But, at risk of repeating myself, it is also important to me to note that one of the big reasons I am so ticked about the spoiler thing isn't just because I want to experience certain events of the book contextually and in the moment, but because when that book comes out, a big chapter of my life comes to a close. And I don't even mean the Harry Potter chapter, really, since I'll be at Terminus and there will still be the movies and so forth.
But Michael introduced me to those books. I remember sitting in his apartment in Brooklyn the night Book 4 came out. Urban Fetch delivered it, and he said he wasn't going to talk to me until he finished it and handed me the first three.
When I finished the fourth one, I whined to Soren, that I had nothing to read and I was obsessed with Snape and I needed something to take my mind off of it. Soren gave me Swordspoint and said Alec reminded him a bit of me.
So the Harry Potter books have been with me through four apartments and many jobs. They've been with me from before I decided to be an actor. They are directly responsible for several of my romances, two of my most pivotal friendships, and an astounding writing partner. They are indirectly responsible for my life as a fencer, for Patty and I meeting (and she's not even into Harry Potter), and a number of other odd and lovely circumstances in my life.
So while I may grieve the conclusion of the series and the possible passing of characters who have essentially held my hand through a lot of the blinding stupidity I've engaged in in these last years, there is also the simple grieving of this particular story -- not the one about Harry and Ron, Hermione, and yes, Snape -- but the one about me.
It would be intense under any circumstances, but under the circumstances of getting my first credit in a major motion picture, under the circumstances of Patty moving in with me, under the circumstances of Rose's Turn closing, under the circumstances of my finally making real and solid progress with my novel, and under the circumstances of yes, Michael and I being able to exchange friendly emails about his family, it all feels very solid, important, circular. That all these things reach such points of demarcation at once is a little weird, you have to admit.
So when people say "how can these books mean so much to you, they suck for all these reasons?" my overwhelming feeling isn't that they don't get it, or that they're wrong, but that they've overlooked the way the weave of my world interests me so constantly in my own peculiar serendipitous brand of self-absorption.
Sure, I can't wait to read what happens. And the grief part, after tensing up for it for so long, will be a relief. But the secret is, I half expect to wake up on the afternoon of 21st, after having stayed up all night and into the morning reading, and discover that I finally look my age.
And that is probably my last word on that, at least until I've read the thing.
But, at risk of repeating myself, it is also important to me to note that one of the big reasons I am so ticked about the spoiler thing isn't just because I want to experience certain events of the book contextually and in the moment, but because when that book comes out, a big chapter of my life comes to a close. And I don't even mean the Harry Potter chapter, really, since I'll be at Terminus and there will still be the movies and so forth.
But Michael introduced me to those books. I remember sitting in his apartment in Brooklyn the night Book 4 came out. Urban Fetch delivered it, and he said he wasn't going to talk to me until he finished it and handed me the first three.
When I finished the fourth one, I whined to Soren, that I had nothing to read and I was obsessed with Snape and I needed something to take my mind off of it. Soren gave me Swordspoint and said Alec reminded him a bit of me.
So the Harry Potter books have been with me through four apartments and many jobs. They've been with me from before I decided to be an actor. They are directly responsible for several of my romances, two of my most pivotal friendships, and an astounding writing partner. They are indirectly responsible for my life as a fencer, for Patty and I meeting (and she's not even into Harry Potter), and a number of other odd and lovely circumstances in my life.
So while I may grieve the conclusion of the series and the possible passing of characters who have essentially held my hand through a lot of the blinding stupidity I've engaged in in these last years, there is also the simple grieving of this particular story -- not the one about Harry and Ron, Hermione, and yes, Snape -- but the one about me.
It would be intense under any circumstances, but under the circumstances of getting my first credit in a major motion picture, under the circumstances of Patty moving in with me, under the circumstances of Rose's Turn closing, under the circumstances of my finally making real and solid progress with my novel, and under the circumstances of yes, Michael and I being able to exchange friendly emails about his family, it all feels very solid, important, circular. That all these things reach such points of demarcation at once is a little weird, you have to admit.
So when people say "how can these books mean so much to you, they suck for all these reasons?" my overwhelming feeling isn't that they don't get it, or that they're wrong, but that they've overlooked the way the weave of my world interests me so constantly in my own peculiar serendipitous brand of self-absorption.
Sure, I can't wait to read what happens. And the grief part, after tensing up for it for so long, will be a relief. But the secret is, I half expect to wake up on the afternoon of 21st, after having stayed up all night and into the morning reading, and discover that I finally look my age.
And that is probably my last word on that, at least until I've read the thing.
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Date: 2007-07-17 05:14 am (UTC)Re: .
Date: 2007-07-17 01:34 pm (UTC)What has irked me in your comments in rm's journals, both here and in the past, is the tone of condescension and superiority. This conveys to me an utter lack of respect for both her intelligence and her ability to make reasoned, thoughtful decisions about where to place her time and talent.
Good writing is good writing, whatever genre it appears in. I do not write fanfic because I have not the skill for it, not because of any lack of respect for it as an art form or a genre.
Collage is an art. Teaching, which demands that I creatively open to my students the worlds of literature, art, nature, and history, is an art.
I respect your love for what you love. I honor your passion for the works that move you. This community, that is, LiveJournal, is not an academic exercise, where we are required to attack whatever we are studying and find all the ways in which it is wrong. Rather, it is an opportunity for connection with one another as human beings.
Also, I see no lack of literary biodiversity in the world. Nor is the fact that people are writing fanfic a symptom thereof. Fic has been around much longer than livejournal, or than the internet. How many novels are retellings of myth or fairy tale? Far too many to count, I would posit.
Fic is a conversation between the author and the reader, and it breaks the wall of the page by allowing the reader to participate actively in working out the author's suggestions.
The films based on books rarely hold with any tenacity to the author's work. therefore, I feel one must approach them as one would any interpretative work.
...
Date: 2007-07-17 02:05 pm (UTC)Re: ...
Date: 2007-07-17 02:15 pm (UTC)and believe me, I have no trouble with conflict. I just tend to try to work through it to resolution, rather than just letting it lie.