on books i'm reading
*** HARRY POTTER SPOILERS AT THE END OF THE POST!!!!***
not quite here, but toward the end of the post. i'll put another warning banner in before i type them, i promise!
anyway, out of my last batch of books, the ones i most enjoyed were morgan llywelyn's 1921 and 1949. i have not read all of her ancient ireland books, and have yet to read the ones about brian boru, etc., but i've read a few and enjoyed them greatly, and the irish century novels top them all. even i didn't think i'd be more captivated by recent irish history than ancient, yet these were practically spellbinding, for someone with a totally irrational love of ireland. placing her fictional characters into history and telling their story so well is one thing, but the passion and detail with which she portrays the irish yearning and fight for freedom - for the right to be fully who they are or who they could become - is even more compelling. and it's just the icing on the cake to follow the character of henry mooney, a journalist bent on truth-telling and objectivity despite his own desires for freedom...
what else... oh, i finally got a copy of pamela dean's tam lin, part of terri windling's fairy tale series (of old fairy-tales retold in various ways). this is the second pamela dean book i've read, and i'm trying oh i really truly am, and i do think she writes beautifully, but... maybe i'm just too stupid for her? i was halfway through tam lin before i realized i was still waiting for the story to really start, for the fairy tale, really, and then i realized it wasn't like that at all, it's a beautifully told story of a bunch of slightly strange artsy college students out in the midwest... and that's all, even though the cover painting of a tall, russet-haired, otherworldly woman draped in flowing folds indicates something else entirely... i enjoy the occasionally oblique references to literature but many of them just leave me feeling dumb, like i ought to redo my english major (and master's!), though the tolkien references are liberally sprinkled in too... btw, i started this after i finished HP on sunday morning, but i stopped 3/4 of the way through to reread HP a second time, which i am almost finished doing...
i read john mcwhorter's doing our own thing: the degradation of language and music and why we should, like, care, because i am interested in the english language and i do respect it, but it was a little disappointing. the first third of the book or so i was moderately amused - he's certainly a witty writer - but i got tired of the repeated idea that if one were to use truly proper, eloquent english in, say, an email, one would be disowned by one's friends, or deported to a psychiatric facility, or taken for a martian, by way of attempting to describe just how outlandish the use of written-style, articulate english has become, in favor of conversational. i mean, i know i'm an oddity, but i wrote those kinds of emails all the time in college... and i actually did admire a couple of professors of mine for just how beautifully they used the english language... sure, i've been joshed (can that word be used that way?) for using big or archaic words here and there, but to be honest, it's been a while, and if you go and read my brother's blog (even though he's a lame-o loser and barely ever blogs) you'll see that i can't even match his articulation anymore, as my hubby so kindly pointed out to me last night :) even i remember, in middle school, the thrill of using freestyle versus formal, particularly in poetry classes, where i wrote unbridled nonsensical and very poetic free verse in lieu of bound because i didn't like strictures on my writing... wish i could do it now! so, i guess i can sort of see what he means by the change in americans' perception of authority (and by extension or association, formality) in the late 60's, what with the truths about vietnam being revealed, and other cultural changes going on, etc., but it doesn't resound like epiphany or anything. one thing i do completely agree with, however - if you don't use it, you lose it. i'm a living, languishing example...
and finally, ***ON TO THE HARRY POTTER SPOILERS!!!***
well, to my thoughts, which will include some spoilers.
so don't look below this if you haven't finished yet!
you have been warned!!
i like that snape's undying love for lily proves what dumbledore said from day one: that love is stronger than any other power. i like that harry's ultimate test of courage is one of allowing something to happen, rather than doing something. on my second reading, i almost couldn't wait to get to reread snape's ending, and harry going forth to meet voldemort, and then his final conversation with dumbledore...
i did think the whole dursley situation in the beginning was sort of abrupt - particularly dudley's "change of heart" - and especially with the tantalizing bits we hear about petunia later, in snape's memory, i would have liked for something more to be resolved with her, though i guess it wasn't that important to the story.
i felt like the trio's apparating treks through the countryside dragged on a little - never sure where they were or why - and it was a little disorienting to be shifting so much between episodes of great detail (godric's hollow, for instance) and sections in which entire weeks passed by within a paragraph or two. but i felt this less the second time around.
i think this will make a great movie... but i imagine they would like to show a little more of what is happening in hogwarts during the story, rather than only at the end. i did miss hogwarts while reading this book, though i didn't realize it until neville tottered out of that painting in the hog's head.
i am almost finished with my second reading, but i am still confused as to how harry was still alive after V hit him with the killing curse for the second time - unless it was just that he volunteered for the sacrifice? did voldemort only succeed in killing that part of himself that was inside harry - was that the snivelling, maimed child-figure that harry saw? i'm thinking that the prophecy meant harry had to "die" in order for voldemort to be able to die...
other things... i was sort of surprised that harry used two of the unforgivable curses - obviously not avada kedavra - though i realize the stakes were high and it probably saved the lives of the people around him as well as his own. i could understand his trying to use the cruciatus curse on bellatrix right after she killed sirius, but when he used it on alecto in the ravenclaw common room and mcgonagall said it was "gallant" of him... anyone else think that was a little weird? not a message i would want any kids reading it to take lightly...
anyway, i have other things to do, like write an article and change a poopy diaper, so, more on HP later!!! (yes, when i see or type HP, i do think of brown sauce before i think of harry...)
update: okay, finished second reread. two things: one, that child-being harry saw after he "died" was not the part of V that was inside him - it WAS voldemort, who also sort of temporarily "died" - when harry came to minutes later, he became aware of voldemort being tended to be his death eaters, and then getting up from the ground. and later he tells V - "i've seen what you'll become". remember the creature wormtail used to return V to a body at the end of Goblet of Fire? that raw-skinned, snake-faced, helpless, child-like creature? that is voldemort. and that is how he would - will - spend eternity, in what they're calling the Potterverse...
the other thing: anyone else out there feel like they wanted to know what harry would "be" when he grew up? he had wanted to be an auror, but i guess that field died out. i always thought he might end up taking dumbledore's place, but that didn't seem to happen either. i suppose it's enough to know he's happily married into the weasley family, but still... he's got to do SOMETHING with the rest of his life, and why not hogwarts?
musa is sleeping, my article was due two hours ago and i still haven't interviewed anyone (i tried starting tuesday and people kept telling me they would be there the next day and they weren't), i have to leave for dinner at someone's house at 4:30, which is just over two hours away, and before i do that i have to make potato salad and a dessert, and before i do THAT i have to go get some groceries... or maybe i'll just make do with what i've got??
not quite here, but toward the end of the post. i'll put another warning banner in before i type them, i promise!
anyway, out of my last batch of books, the ones i most enjoyed were morgan llywelyn's 1921 and 1949. i have not read all of her ancient ireland books, and have yet to read the ones about brian boru, etc., but i've read a few and enjoyed them greatly, and the irish century novels top them all. even i didn't think i'd be more captivated by recent irish history than ancient, yet these were practically spellbinding, for someone with a totally irrational love of ireland. placing her fictional characters into history and telling their story so well is one thing, but the passion and detail with which she portrays the irish yearning and fight for freedom - for the right to be fully who they are or who they could become - is even more compelling. and it's just the icing on the cake to follow the character of henry mooney, a journalist bent on truth-telling and objectivity despite his own desires for freedom...
what else... oh, i finally got a copy of pamela dean's tam lin, part of terri windling's fairy tale series (of old fairy-tales retold in various ways). this is the second pamela dean book i've read, and i'm trying oh i really truly am, and i do think she writes beautifully, but... maybe i'm just too stupid for her? i was halfway through tam lin before i realized i was still waiting for the story to really start, for the fairy tale, really, and then i realized it wasn't like that at all, it's a beautifully told story of a bunch of slightly strange artsy college students out in the midwest... and that's all, even though the cover painting of a tall, russet-haired, otherworldly woman draped in flowing folds indicates something else entirely... i enjoy the occasionally oblique references to literature but many of them just leave me feeling dumb, like i ought to redo my english major (and master's!), though the tolkien references are liberally sprinkled in too... btw, i started this after i finished HP on sunday morning, but i stopped 3/4 of the way through to reread HP a second time, which i am almost finished doing...
i read john mcwhorter's doing our own thing: the degradation of language and music and why we should, like, care, because i am interested in the english language and i do respect it, but it was a little disappointing. the first third of the book or so i was moderately amused - he's certainly a witty writer - but i got tired of the repeated idea that if one were to use truly proper, eloquent english in, say, an email, one would be disowned by one's friends, or deported to a psychiatric facility, or taken for a martian, by way of attempting to describe just how outlandish the use of written-style, articulate english has become, in favor of conversational. i mean, i know i'm an oddity, but i wrote those kinds of emails all the time in college... and i actually did admire a couple of professors of mine for just how beautifully they used the english language... sure, i've been joshed (can that word be used that way?) for using big or archaic words here and there, but to be honest, it's been a while, and if you go and read my brother's blog (even though he's a lame-o loser and barely ever blogs) you'll see that i can't even match his articulation anymore, as my hubby so kindly pointed out to me last night :) even i remember, in middle school, the thrill of using freestyle versus formal, particularly in poetry classes, where i wrote unbridled nonsensical and very poetic free verse in lieu of bound because i didn't like strictures on my writing... wish i could do it now! so, i guess i can sort of see what he means by the change in americans' perception of authority (and by extension or association, formality) in the late 60's, what with the truths about vietnam being revealed, and other cultural changes going on, etc., but it doesn't resound like epiphany or anything. one thing i do completely agree with, however - if you don't use it, you lose it. i'm a living, languishing example...
and finally, ***ON TO THE HARRY POTTER SPOILERS!!!***
well, to my thoughts, which will include some spoilers.
so don't look below this if you haven't finished yet!
you have been warned!!
i like that snape's undying love for lily proves what dumbledore said from day one: that love is stronger than any other power. i like that harry's ultimate test of courage is one of allowing something to happen, rather than doing something. on my second reading, i almost couldn't wait to get to reread snape's ending, and harry going forth to meet voldemort, and then his final conversation with dumbledore...
i did think the whole dursley situation in the beginning was sort of abrupt - particularly dudley's "change of heart" - and especially with the tantalizing bits we hear about petunia later, in snape's memory, i would have liked for something more to be resolved with her, though i guess it wasn't that important to the story.
i felt like the trio's apparating treks through the countryside dragged on a little - never sure where they were or why - and it was a little disorienting to be shifting so much between episodes of great detail (godric's hollow, for instance) and sections in which entire weeks passed by within a paragraph or two. but i felt this less the second time around.
i think this will make a great movie... but i imagine they would like to show a little more of what is happening in hogwarts during the story, rather than only at the end. i did miss hogwarts while reading this book, though i didn't realize it until neville tottered out of that painting in the hog's head.
i am almost finished with my second reading, but i am still confused as to how harry was still alive after V hit him with the killing curse for the second time - unless it was just that he volunteered for the sacrifice? did voldemort only succeed in killing that part of himself that was inside harry - was that the snivelling, maimed child-figure that harry saw? i'm thinking that the prophecy meant harry had to "die" in order for voldemort to be able to die...
other things... i was sort of surprised that harry used two of the unforgivable curses - obviously not avada kedavra - though i realize the stakes were high and it probably saved the lives of the people around him as well as his own. i could understand his trying to use the cruciatus curse on bellatrix right after she killed sirius, but when he used it on alecto in the ravenclaw common room and mcgonagall said it was "gallant" of him... anyone else think that was a little weird? not a message i would want any kids reading it to take lightly...
anyway, i have other things to do, like write an article and change a poopy diaper, so, more on HP later!!! (yes, when i see or type HP, i do think of brown sauce before i think of harry...)
update: okay, finished second reread. two things: one, that child-being harry saw after he "died" was not the part of V that was inside him - it WAS voldemort, who also sort of temporarily "died" - when harry came to minutes later, he became aware of voldemort being tended to be his death eaters, and then getting up from the ground. and later he tells V - "i've seen what you'll become". remember the creature wormtail used to return V to a body at the end of Goblet of Fire? that raw-skinned, snake-faced, helpless, child-like creature? that is voldemort. and that is how he would - will - spend eternity, in what they're calling the Potterverse...
the other thing: anyone else out there feel like they wanted to know what harry would "be" when he grew up? he had wanted to be an auror, but i guess that field died out. i always thought he might end up taking dumbledore's place, but that didn't seem to happen either. i suppose it's enough to know he's happily married into the weasley family, but still... he's got to do SOMETHING with the rest of his life, and why not hogwarts?
musa is sleeping, my article was due two hours ago and i still haven't interviewed anyone (i tried starting tuesday and people kept telling me they would be there the next day and they weren't), i have to leave for dinner at someone's house at 4:30, which is just over two hours away, and before i do that i have to make potato salad and a dessert, and before i do THAT i have to go get some groceries... or maybe i'll just make do with what i've got??
posted by Ayesha | 11:30 AM
2 Comments:
Congrats you finished the book! I'm still waiting for Mariam to finish reading Book 5 before I buy her the last two books.
About Potter first.
We had a 'Palestinian girl' who performed 'stand-up comedy' in our Annual Banquet in Niagra. When we were boarding the bus to the airport she was with us and I saw she had half- finished Just published Potter book in her hand.
On the airport when you were talkig to your mom I saw another woman holding a 'potter book but older one.. When I went to the mall, of course there were all those new potter books around everywhere.
Well, this is phenomenal but it still does not excite me at all to read fiction inspite of my Edinb. connection.
Interesting your note about Jugnoo, I too like his style inspite of (according to my standards) unparliamentary language
I was amazed that your Dadajan did not write because he was so forceful a speaker.
Did I tell you I found one writing of his in Gujranwala? He wrote on "Iqbal key shairee main shaitan ka tasawwur" and I understood most of his Urdu references but could not grasp Farsi references, as you know so much of Iqbal's classic poetry is in Farsi. He did not publish but it was written when he was in Jail sometimes 1941-42.
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