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.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Re: .
Date: 2007-07-17 05:35 pm (UTC)Part of it is that I expect really smart, sophisticated, well-educated adults to be passionate and engaged with stuff that's deeper than HP and the other usual subjects of fanfic. But part of it is is a creative kind of standards: "I will not glom on to someone's else work and copy it - I will produce something more original." When people throw that sort of standard away, when they struggle to loose its bonds, then I suspect we will see a decline in standards and a decline in culture. We are all influenced, but there is a line, I think, that's dangerous to cross. I sometimes think the fanfic stuff online is like the "pro-anorexia" stuff online - in that it encourages people to do what they shouldn't.
Part of the question here is whether or not you can ever say that a culture is in decline, or that artists and creative people are ever setting their sights too low. Many people are going to never make that assessment, but I think that the result of that choice to refrain from the criticism, or to go along and offer a kind of instinctual apology, is that the culture will just get worse and worse.
Re: .
Date: 2007-07-17 06:04 pm (UTC)I think you could view it differently: sometimes brilliant people do things for entertainment that you would not do. Those things don't entertain you, but they entertain them, and that's good enough in itself.
rm has mentioned before that she writes fanfic because she enjoys it, and if other people like it too that's just gravy (I am paraphrasing, of course). I don't think she's copying Rowling's work, but making her own work in her own imagining, which is inspired by Rowling's. Since I have indeed read her fanfic, and her journal, I know that the world she has imagined really is not the world that Rowling has imagined. It's rm's (and kali's) world. It's full of customs and ideas and events that are not in Rowling's world... for instance the Regency stuff she's put into it.
And rm is working on her own novel.