Hunger Games: Art Depicts Life Which Imitates Art?

June 17, 2014 by 1 Comment

Hogwarts Professor Freeman posted here earlier this week about the pro-democracy demonstrations in Thailand that have taken on the three finger symbol of resistance featured in the Hunger Games books and films. I wanted to add three notes to this subject.

First, I find this adaptation both unnerving and important. It points simultaneously to the meaning of Ms Collins’ artistry in this trilogy and its potential for use and abuse.

Ms Collins is after a herd of big game in her Panem saga. One of the biggest beast questions she tries to address is the power of media and story in our lives, how story and corporate media fashioning of that story’s screened images shape our understanding of ourselves, life, and the world. Hers is not a pretty picture and the Gamesmakers, although they are largely the servants of the Capitol and District 13 governmental faces of capitalist and statist fascism, are perhaps the greatest villains of the narrative.

The events in Thailand are disturbing, I think, because they reflect how a popular culture consumed country like the country in question so easily takes on the powerful images 0f Catching Fire’s depiction of the Victory Tour’s stop in District 11.

This illustrates Ms Collins’ point about the potential of story to change people’s lives, as the Mockingjay Resistance is stirred by the Katniss and Peeta story as written by Haymitch, Plutarch, and Cinna and then twisted by President Coin to serve her ends. Forgive me for wondering, as we watch the Thai protesters, how long it will be until the images and sacrifices become commercialized and packaged.

Second, I think this is a real possibility because the conversation about the depths of meaning in The Hunger Games has been restricted to the political narrative, and, even in that sphere, to the political narrative of the left. Hollywood has recast the films so the crony capitalist government of President Snow is the black hat and the Gamesmakers are the game changing good guys, at least in potential. The spiritual dimensions of Katniss’ and Peeta’s love story, the essence and heart of the books, are lost.

I felt this most strongly when reading a strident and eloquent criticism of the story’s by a Catholic woman, Ellen Finnigan, active in efforts to combat war and violence. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Hunger Games

JKR on the Hogwarts Saga as Seen From Draco’s Perspective

June 16, 2014 by 5 Comments

A Harry Potter reader named (?) Cassidy posted a thought on @jkrowling social media that “I would give anything to read Harry Potter from Draco’s perspective.”

The Presence herself responded, believe it or not. Unlike other authors — Orson Scott Card and his disciple Stephenie Meyer come immediately to mind — Ms Rowling does not promise to re-tell the stories from another character’s point of view to re-invisage, reinvent, or critically review the first telling. She just shares a list of the book titles from Draco’s Hogwarts Saga.

  • Draco Malfoy and the Rejected Handshake
  • Draco Malfoy and the Better-Than-Potter’s Broomstick
  • Draco Malfoy and Hagrid’s Bloody Chicken
  • Draco Malfoy and the Year His Father Would Hear About
  • Draco Malfoy and the Inquisitorial Squad
  • Draco Malfoy and the Vanishing Cabinet
  • Draco Malfoy and the Year He Realized He Had Been a Douchebag

Three notes:

(1) The ‘Douchebag’ final note indicates that Ms Rowling needs a social media handler or she should just say no to drinking and twittering.

(2) The idea that Draco and company think of Hippogriffs as “bloody chickens” really is funny. And, yes, I know that ‘bloody’ in the UK carries more weight on the playground than ‘douchebag’ or even the f-bomb. Not so in the US, so we can give it a pass. The note, funny as it is, however, reflects such a degraded mind and disenchanted workdview, that we can be grateful all we have is the titles.

(3) Books 1-2 reflect Draco’s Harry obsession, I confess to not ‘getting’ Book 4’s title (either just a note that the TriWizard Cup would be well publicized or an aside about Draco feeling neglected or… what?), and Books 5 and 6 actually sound interesting. Draco actually was a player in these two years. I can imagine reading and enjoying these two installments.

Link below the jump — comments and corrections, coveted as always! Hat tip to Ideal James.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Hog Pro Notes

Cormoran Strike: Silkworm Excerpts Available Online

June 6, 2014 by 1 Comment

J. K. Rowling’s detective series featuring private dick Cormoran Strike, a veteran of the Afghan waR and illegitimate son of aN aging rock star, has a new entry on 18 June, namely, The Silkworm. USA Today published an excerpt online this morning, what seems to be the first two chapters (expletives deleted), and I confess, it was good enough a tasting that I broke down and finally ordered an advance copy.

What’s it all about? From the book summary at Amazon:

When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife calls in private detective Cormoran Strike. At first, Mrs. Quine just thinks her husband has gone off by himself for a few days-as he has done before-and she wants Strike to find him and bring him home.

But as Strike investigates, it becomes clear that there is more to Quine’s disappearance than his wife realizes. The novelist has just completed a manuscript featuring poisonous pen-portraits of almost everyone he knows. If the novel were to be published, it would ruin lives-meaning that there are a lot of people who might want him silenced.

When Quine is found brutally murdered under bizarre circumstances, it becomes a race against time to understand the motivation of a ruthless killer, a killer unlike any Strike has encountered before… A compulsively readable crime novel with twists at every turn, THE SILKWORM is the second in the highly acclaimed series featuring Cormoran Strike and his determined young assistant, Robin Ellacott.

Three quick notes:

(1) My advance copy was ordered at my local bricks-and-mortar bookstore. No, I haven’t suddenly become righteous about online purchases and, no, my favorite store won’t be having a Midnight Madness celebration to hand out copies to the Rowling Faithful at the strike of the hour opening the day of publication. It’s just that Amazon and the publisher are having a little disagreement. Who would have ever thought that Ms Rowling and her publisher, given their egregious history of copyright protection heavy-handedness, could play the role of David in a ‘versus Online Goliath’ story? Having been roughed up by Amazon myself as an independent publisher, I can only wish Hachete Group the best in this struggle.

(2) The Silkworm is the second of what Ms Rowling promises will be a seven book series. When do we begin to chart the ring composition echoes? Each book or in the parallel books of the series? Rhetorical question, of course.

(3) Insert obligatory observation that I wouldn’t be interested in this title almost certainly if it I didn’t know it was written by the “world’s best selling author” (c).  The voice is hers, however, and it is a delight.

Links to online stories mentioned above can be found after the jump. Hat tip to James! [Read more…]

Filed Under: Cormoran Strike Tagged With:

Shared Text: The Wasp That Turns Roaches Into Zombies

May 29, 2014 by 1 Comment

I kid you not. It’s called the ‘Dementor Wasp.’ Ampulex Dementor…

Why? From The Independent (UK):

The Ampulex Dementor, which is known for its ability to turn cockroaches into zombies with one sting, was given its name after visitors to Berlin’s Natural History Museum were asked to vote on what they felt the newly found species’ name should be.

They decided that Ampulex Dementor was an apt title, and for good reason too.

Like the Dementors in the Harry Potter books, who leave their victims in vegetative states after feeding on their souls, the Ampulex Dementor gives birth by first finding a cockroach and then delivering a toxic sting to the insect’s head.

Injecting in the cockroach a deadly dose of neurotoxins, it quickly becomes becomes submissive to the wasp and can be led back to the Ampulex Dementor’s burrow, where the Dementor’s eggs are laid inside the cockroach.

The cockroach then becomes a host for the Ampulex Dementor’s eggs and they feed off its carcass while they mature.

The name Ampulex Dementor won out over four other suggested names and was an exercise by the museum to try and get people to better engage with biodiversity and become excited about the discovery of new species.

When your book’s ancillary characters, a ghoulish species none of whom are known individually or for any period of time, becomes the scientific name of an insect species, a name that will live on well after at least one or two movie re-boots, you’ve reached Shared Text status. Kind of sounds like a curse in the Latin — Ampulex Dementor! Just imagine how that would sting…

Hat tip to Rev Dr David! Links after jump for those wanting to read more. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Uncategorized

MuggleNet Academia 28: Is Harry Liberal or Libertarian?

May 28, 2014 by 2 Comments

Ben Barton of the University of Tennessee Law School and author of ‘Harry Potter and the Half-Crazed Bureaucracy’ and Jack Gierzynski, PoliSci professor at the University of Vermont and author of Harry Potter and the Millennials (Georgetown University Press, 2014) join MuggleNet’s Keith Hawk and the Hogwarts Professor to talk politics.

Filed Under: MuggleNet Academia