OT Stephen King Article
Justanotherfan
Thanks.
nafrehtonatsuJ<===
LouAnn
column for now. Entertainment Weekly I think They have a website but you
have to be an AOL member or subscribe to the mag to enter. Good Luck
"Justanotherfan" <snape...@melova.com> wrote in message
news:vlsg6di...@corp.supernews.com...
Sirius Kase
"LouAnn" <dca...@infoave.com> wrote:
He did a coouple of reviews for the New York Times, one for Goblet of
Fire and another when Order of the Phoenix came out. These are good and
available on the internet. In the second one (OotP review) he mentions
how doped up he was when he read the earlier books while recuperating,
but he still enjoyed them and enjoyed them later when he wasn't doped
up. He also mentions them in his book "On Writing" (my favorite Steven
King book, by the way, he's a fascinating person, but I don't care for
his novels) And he writes a regular column in EW where he has
mentioned HP several times, always favorably except he has a tendency to
criticize her overuse of adverbs, but the way he writes it, it seems
more like a gag than something to get upset about. Besides, it's the
truth.
Sirius Kase
Check this out: http://www.hogwarts-library.net/reference
Beta Aquilae
I vaguely remember seeing a link to it at www.hpana.com...
--
"Do you think Hagrid would notice if we fed Norbert to Fluffy?" asked Ron.
-- Scenes deleted from the Harry Potter books, by J. Marie
eggplant107
I read the first lnovel in the Harry Potter series, ''Harry Potter and
the Sorcerer's Stone,'' in April 1999 and was only moderately
impressed. But in April 1999 I was pretty much all right. Two months
later I was involved in a serious road accident that necessitated a
long and painful period of recuperation. During the early part of this
period I read Potters 2 and 3 (''Chamber of Secrets,'' ''Prisoner of
Azkaban'') and found myself a lot more than moderately wowed. In the
miserably hot summer of '99, the Harry Potters (and the superb
detective novels of Dennis Lehane) became a kind of lifeline for me.
During July and August I found myself getting through my unpleasant
days by aiming my expectations at evening, when I would drag my
hardware-encumbered leg into the kitchen, eat fresh fruit and ice
cream and read about Harry Potter's adventures at Hogwarts, a school
for young wizards (motto: ''Never tickle a sleeping dragon'').
For that reason, I awaited this summer's installment in J. K.
Rowling's magical saga with almost as much interest as any
Potter-besotted kid. I had enjoyed the first three, but had read the
latter two while taking enough painkillers to levitate a horse. This
summer, that's not the case.
I'm relieved to report that Potter 4 -- ''Harry Potter and the Goblet
of Fire'' -- is every bit as good as Potters 1 through 3. It's longer,
though. ''Goblet'' is as long as ''Chamber'' and ''Prisoner''
combined. Is it more textured than the first three? More
thought-provoking? Sorry, no. Are such things necessary in a
fantasy-adventure aimed primarily at children and published in the
lush green heart of summer vacation? Of course not. What kids on
summer vacation want -- and probably deserve -- is simple,
uncomplicated fun. ''Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire'' brings the
fun, and not just in stingy little buckets. At 734 pages, ''Goblet''
brings it by the lorry load.
The most remarkable thing about this book is that Rowling's punning,
one-eyebrow-cocked sense of humor goes the distance. At 700-plus
pages, one should eventually tire of Blast-Ended Skrewts, Swedish
Short-Snout dragons and devices like the Quick-Quotes Quill (a kind of
magical tape recorder employed by the satisfyingly repugnant Daily
Prophet reporter Rita Skeeter), but one never does. At the least this
reader did not. Perhaps that's because Rowling doesn't dwell for long
on such amusing inventions as the Quill, which floats in midair and
bursts out with florid bits of tabloid prose at odd moments. She gives
the reader a quick wink and a giggle before hustling him or her along
again, all the while telling her tale at top speed. We go with this
willingly enough, smiling bemusedly and waiting for the next nudge,
wink and raised eyebrow. Puns and giggles aside, the story happens to
be a good one. We may be a little tired of discovering Harry at home
with his horrible aunt and uncle (plus his even more horrible cousin,
Dudley, whose favorite PlayStation game is Mega-Mutilation Part 3),
but once Harry has attended the obligatory Quidditch match and
returned to Hogwarts, the tale picks up speed.
In a Newsweek interview with Malcolm Jones, Rowling admitted to
reading Tolkien rather late in the game, but it's hard to believe she
hasn't read her Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers. Although they
bear the trappings of fantasy, and the mingling of the real world and
the world of wizards and flying broomsticks is delightful, the Harry
Potter books are, at heart, satisfyingly shrewd mystery tales. Potter
3 (''Azkaban'') dealt with Harry's parents (like all good boy heroes,
Harry's an orphan) and cleared up the multiple mysteries of their
deaths in a way that would likely have pleased Ross Macdonald, that
longtime creator of hidden pasts and convoluted family trees.
Now, returning to Hogwarts after attending the Quidditch World Cup,
Harry and his friends are excited to learn that the Triwizard
Tournament is to be reintroduced after a hiatus of 100 years or so
(too many of the young contestants wound up dead, it seems). Aspiring
wizards from two other schools (Beauxbatons and the amusingly
fascistic Durmstrang Academy, location unknown) have been invited to
spend the year at Hogwarts and compete in the contest, which is
composed of three beautifully imagined tasks. These can only be
performed well by contestants who can solve the riddles that bear on
them; both children and students of Greek mythology will enjoy this
aspect of Rowling's tale.
Like the Sorting Hat, one of Rowling's early ingenious bits of
invention, the Goblet of Fire is essentially a choosing device. It's
supposed to spit out three flaming bits of parchment bearing the names
of the three contestants in the tournament, one entrant from each
school. In a vivid and marvelously tense scene, the Goblet of Fire
spits out four parchment fragments instead of three. The fourth, of
course, bears the name of Our Hero. Although Harry is supposedly too
young to compete in such a dangerous series of tilts, the Goblet has
spoken, and of course Harry must step into the arena. If you think
young readers won't lap this up, you never had one in your house (or
were one yourself). Adults are apt to be more interested in just how
Harry's name got into the Goblet in the first place. This is a mystery
Rowling works out with snap and verve. And, unlike the denouements I
remember from the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys mysteries of my youth,
where the culprit usually turned out to be some vile tramp of the
lower classes, the solution to the Goblet mystery, like the answers to
the Triwizard riddles, struck me as fair enough.
A long the way, Rowling gives us Harry's first date (not with the
alluring fifth-level dream girl Cho Chang, unfortunately), at least
one thought-provoking subplot (involving house-elves who rather enjoy
their status as kitchen slaves) and an extremely large dose of
adolescent humor (one mildly off-color joke, punning on the word
Uranus, will likely go over the heads of most grade-school readers and
amuse the brighter junior high school set). There's also a moderately
tiresome amount of adolescent squabbling. Adults can safely speed
through these bits; it's a teenage thing.
Can anyone wonder at the fabulous sales success of these books? The
Harry Potter series is a supernatural version of ''Tom Brown's
Schooldays,'' updated and given a hip this-is-how-kids-really-are
shine. And Harry is the kid most children feel themselves to be,
adrift in a world of unimaginative and often unpleasant adults --
Muggles, Rowling calls them -- who neither understand them nor care
to. Harry is, in fact, a male Cinderella, waiting for someone to
invite him to the ball. In Potter 1, his invitation comes first by owl
(in the magic world of J. K. Rowling, owls deliver the mail) and then
by Sorting Hat; in the current volume it comes from the Goblet of
Fire, smoldering and shedding glamorous sparks. How nice to be invited
to the ball! Even for a relatively old codger like me, it's still nice
to be invited to the ball.
It would be depressing to announce that the best-selling book in the
history of the world, a position this book will probably hold only
until Potter 5 comes along, is a stinker. ''Goblet of Fire'' is far
from that. Before Harry appeared on the scene, escape-hungry kids had
to make do with R. L. Stine, the uninspired but wildly successful
journeyman who inspired the ''Goosebumps'' phenomenon. Rowling's books
are better natured, better plotted and better written. They bulge with
the sort of playful details of which only British fantasists seem
capable: there's the Whomping Willow, which will smash hell out of
your car (and you) if you get too close to it, snack foods like
Cauldron Cakes and Licorice Wands and the satisfyingly evil Lord
Voldemort (so evil, in fact, that most of Rowling's characters will
only call him ''You-know-who''). The Dursleys, Harry's unpleasant
guardians, explain the boy's long absences by telling their friends
that Harry attends St. Brutus's Secure Center for Incurably Criminal
Boys. And the book opens with the murder (offstage, don't worry) of a
witch named Bertha Jorkins. Rowling doesn't exactly come out and say
it's what the unfortunate Bertha deserves for taking her vacation in
Albania, but she certainly implies it.
Is there more going on here than fun? Again, not much. In a good deal
of British fantasy fiction, the amusing inventions are balanced by
themes of increasing darkness -- Tolkien's ''Rings'' trilogy, for
instance, in which the fascism of Mordor begins as a distant bad smell
on the breeze and develops into a pervasive atmosphere of dread, or C.
S. Lewis's Narnia books, in which the writer's religious concerns
invest what begin as harmless make-believe adventures with a
significance that becomes, in the end, almost unbearable (and to this
reader, rather tiresome). Taken to its extreme, the id of British
fantasy produces a Richard Adams, where the unfortunate talking dogs
Snitter and Rowf suffer almost unspeakable hardships and the bear-god
Shardik comes to stand for all the promises religion ever made and
then broke; where every sunlit field of scampering rabbits conceals
its shining wire of death.
In Rowling's work, such shadows can be perceived, but they are thin
shadows, quickly dispelled. Harry's adventures remain for the most
part upbeat and sunny, despite the occasional cold pockets of gruel;
more Lewis Carroll than George Orwell. The British fantasy they may
actually be closest to is J. M. Barrie's ''Peter Pan.'' Like any
school, where the clientele is perpetually young and even the teachers
begin to assume the immature psychological characteristics of their
pupils, Hogwarts is a kind of Never-Never Land. Yet Harry and his
friends show some reassuring signs of growing up eventually. In the
current volume there is some discreet necking, and at least a few
sorrows and disappointments that need coping with.
The fantasy writer's job is to conduct the willing reader from
mundanity to magic. This is a feat of which only a superior
imagination is capable, and Rowling possesses such equipment. She has
said repeatedly that the Potter novels are not consciously aimed at
any particular audience or age. The reader may reasonably question
that assertion after reading the first book in the series, but by the
time he or she has reached ''Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,'' it
becomes increasingly clear that the lady means what she says. Nor can
there be any question that her stated refusal to dumb down the
language of the books (the current one is presented with such British
terms as petrol, pub and cuppa unchanged) has lent the stories an
attraction to adults that most children's novels simply don't have.
Not all the news is good. Harry Potter will soon be appearing at a
multiplex near you. The initial project is being helmed by Chris
Columbus, a filmmaker of no demonstrable ingenuity; one doubts if the
director of ''The Goonies,'' one of the loudest, dumbest and most
shriekingly annoying children's movies ever made, is up to bringing
Rowling's scatty wit and vibrant imagination to the screen. (I hope,
on behalf of the millions of children who love Harry, Hermione and Ron
Weasley, that Columbus will prove me wrong.) Fantasy, even that as
sturdy and uncomplicated as this Young Wizard's Progress, is difficult
to bring to film, where the wonders are all too often apt to shrink
and become banal. Perhaps Harry Potter's place is in the imaginations
of his readers. And if these millions of readers are awakened to the
wonders and rewards of fantasy at 11 or 12 . . . well, when they get
to age 16 or so, there's this guy named King.
================
STEPHEN KING'S REVIEW OF ORDER OF THE PHONIX
Volume 5 of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series finds our hero and his
friends cramming for (and agonizing over) their end-of-term exams,
known at Hogwarts School as O.W.L.s (Ordinary Wizarding Levels). Of
course, Harry has a few other things on his plate 末 the growing
menace of Voldemort, a.k.a. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and his serious
crush on the beautiful Cho Chang are only two of them 末 but here, in
the spirit of the exam motif, are some questions (and answers) of my
own. The first is the most important...and may, in the end, be only
one that matters in what is probably the most review-proof book to
come along since a little best-seller called the Bible.
1. Is Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix as good as the other
Harry Potter books?
No. This one is actually quite a bit better. The tone is darker, and
this has the unexpected 末 but very pleasing 末 effect of making
Rowling's wit and playful black humor shine all the brighter. Where
but in the world of Jo Rowling would one find deadly supernatural
beings and their frightening familiars existing side by side with
empty gloves that twiddle their thumbs impatiently, not to mention
enchanted interdepartmental memos that fly from floor to floor in the
Ministry of Magic as paper airplanes?
2. Are there spoilers in this review?
Spoilers from a novelist who thinks the best dust-jacket flap copy
ever written was "[Gore Vidal's] Duluth tears the lid off Dallas"?
Perish the thought! But even if there were spoilers, would it matter?
I'm betting that by the time this piece sees print, 90 percent of the
world's Potter maniacs will have finished the novel and will be
starting their letters to Ms. Rowling asking when volume 6 will be
ready.
3. You say this one's better than The Prisoner of Azkaban, better than
The Goblet of Fire, is there still room for improvement?
Heavens, yes. In terms of Ms. Rowling's imagination 末 which should be
insured by Lloyd's of London (or perhaps the Incubus Insurance
Company) for the 2 or 3 billion dollars it will ultimately be worth
over the span of her creative liftime, which should be long 末 she is
now at the absolute top of her game. As a writer, however, she is
often careless (characters never just put on their clothes; they
always get "dressed at top speed") and oddly, almost sweetly,
insecure. The part of speech that indicates insecurity ("Did you
really hear me? Do you really understand me?") is the adverb, and Ms.
Rowling seems to have never met one she didn't like, especially when
it comes to dialogue attribution. Harry's godfather, Sirius, speaks
"exasperatedly"; Mrs. Weasley (mother of Harry's best friend, Ron)
speaks "sharply"; Tonks (a clumsy which with punked-up, particolor
hair) speaks "earnestly." As for Harry himself, he speaks quietly,
automatically, nervously, slowly, and often 末 given his current case
of raving adolescence 末 ANGRILY.
These minor flaws in diction are endearing rather than annoying; they
are the logical side effect of a natural storyteller who is obviously
bursting with crazily vivid ideas and having the time of her life. Yet
Ms. Rowling could do better, and for the money, probably should. In
any case, there's no need for all those adverbs (he said firmly),
which pile up at the rate of 8 or 10 a page (over 870 pages, that
comes to almost a novella's length of -ly words). Because, really 末
we hear, we understand, we enjoy. If the sales figures show nothing
else, they show that. And if by the end of chapter 3 we don't know
that Harry Potter is one utterly, completely, and pervasively angry
young man, we haven't been paying attention.
4. There's been a lot of discussion 末 some of it pretty warm 末 about
whether or not kids, especially those under the age of 10, should be
reading these novels, which contain vivid scenes of grief, terror,
death, and even torture. What's your take on this?
My take on it is my mother's, actually. She used to say, "If they're
old enough to understand what they're reading and to enjoy what
they're understanding, leave 'em alone 末 it keeps 'em out from
underfoot." I also subscribe to her corollary: "If it gives 'em
nightmares, take it away."
The first couple of Potters were PGs. Azkaban and Goblet of Fire were
PG-13s, and Phoenix makes it under the PG-13 by the skin of its
teeth...or its fangs. Would I give these books to my own kids, were
they still 9, 7, and 5? Yes, and without hesitation. The suspense here
is never prurient; the scares are more than balanced off by the simple
decency of Harry, Ron, and Hermione. If teaching life lessons is one
of the jobs books do, then the Potter novels teach some fine ones
about how to behave under pressure. And Rowling never preaches. Harry
and his friends strike me as real children, not proto-Christian tin
gods out of a Sunday-school comic book. Hogwarts School is a long way
from Bob Jones University, which is one of the reasons right-wingers
decry the books.
A more interesting question is when did Ms. Rowling stop writing the
stories for chidren and start writing them for everyone, as Mark Twain
did when he moved from Tom Sawyer to Huckleberry Finn and Lews Carroll
did when he moved from Alice in Wonderland to Through the
Looking-Glass? I'm guessing it was a process 末 most subconscioius 末
that began with volume 3 (Azkaban) and hit warp speed in volume 4
(Goblet of Fire). By the time we finish The Order of the Phoenix, with
its extraordinary passages of fear and despair, the distinction
between "children's literature" and plain old "literature" has ceased
to exist. The latest Potter adventure could be The Cather in the Rye,
minus the dirty words and the drinking...or maybe just the dirty
words: Just what the hell is butterbeer, anyway?
5. What's the best thing about Harry Potter and the Order of the
Phoenix?
This one's a slam dunk. A great fantasy novel can't exist without a
great villain, and while You-Know-Who (sure we do: Lord Voldemort) is
a little too far out in the supernatural ozone to qualify, the new
Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts does just fine in
this regard. The gently smiling Dolores Umbridge, with her girlish
voice, toadlike face, and clutching, stubby fingers, is the greatest
make-believe villain to come along since Hannibal Lecter. One needn't
be a child to remember The Really Scary Teacher, the one who terrified
us so badly that we dreaded the walk to school in the morning, and we
turn the pages partly in fervent hopes that she will get her
comeuppance...but also in growing fear of what she will get up to
next. For surely a teacher capable of banning Harry Potter from
playing Quidditch is capable of anything.
Last, but not least, how good are these books? How good are they,
really?
One can only guess...assuming, that is, one doesn't have access to
Dumbledore's wonderful Pensieve Glass. My own feeling is that they are
much better than Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, which is
their only contemporary competitor. Will kids (and adults as well)
still be wild about Harry 100 years from now, or 200? My best guess is
that he will indeed stand time's test and wind up on a shelf where
only the best are kept; I think Harry will take his place with Alice,
Huck, Frodo, and Dorothy, and this is one series not just for the
decade, but for the ages.
Damon
> Justanotherfan wrote:
> > Where is it? The one where he talks about reading HP after his accident.
> > Thanks.
> >
> > nafrehtonatsuJ<===
> >
> >
>
> I vaguely remember seeing a link to it at www.hpana.com...
In Mr. King's own handwriting no less...
http://www.ew.com/ew/dynamic/imgs/030701/stephenking.pdf
enjoy.