‘Ten Things You Didn’t Know About Book 1, Sorcerer’s Stone’

June 4, 2012 by 6 Comments

Beginning tonight and continuing for seven weeks, God allowing, I will be giving free talks at Oklahoma City’s biggest independent bookstore, Full Circle Books, about each of the seven Harry Potter novels. The title of the first program, which I hope will be a template for the next six, is, as you read above, ‘Ten Things You Didn’t Know About Book 1, Sorcerer’s Stone.’ If you’re in the neighborhood, it will start at 7 pm and end at 8. If not, Mary is filming it for posting at iTunes someday.

If you’ve been hanging around this web site, of course, and have read one or more of my books, the ‘Ten Things You Didn’t Know’ may very well be the things you not only know very well but have shared with friends yourself. But I’m pretty sure that most of what I cover won’t be found in Steve Vander Ark’s Reader’s Guide to Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone or even Dr. Graeme Davis’ Re-Read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Here are the ten points and a first chapter trivia quiz:

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Filed Under: Chapter Quiz, Hog Pro Notes

Tolkien Publisher Declares Bankruptcy: Elves Cashiered!

June 3, 2012 by 1 Comment

This news item may be a little hard to understand from the ‘One Ring’ perspective of many Tolkien readers, but Houghton Mifflin Harcort, the publisher of the Lord of the Rings books in the US and many of the ancillary texts (the library of extras) has filed for bankruptcy. First the news release from theOneRing.net and then some explanation of what happened. It wasn’t the Middle-Earth Epic and Hobbit Cash Cow that failed them, obviously.

U.S. Tolkien book publisher files for bankruptcy
May 23rd, 2012 by MrCere

Some news from Publisher’s Weekly that shouldn’t impact readers of J.R.R. Tolkien but might be discomforting all the same. Long-time U.S. Tolkien publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt “officially filed for pre-packaged bankruptcy Monday morning, citing debts and liabilities of over $1 billion.”

The venerable company, in the publishing world for well over 100 years, has published every one of Tolkien’s works since “The Hobbit,” in 1938 which includes novels, essays and poems. The same company has published many noteworthy books about the author’s works including all 12 volumes of “The History of Middle-earth,” by Christopher Tolkien. (You can see the company’s Tolkien website if you click these words and you can read the rest of the Publisher’s Weekly story right here. Just a hunch but “The Hobbit,” will probably sell even more copies after December.

Publisher’s Weekly gets into the nitty gritty of how a company with these treasures digs a billion dollar hole:—-
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Filed Under: Hog Pro Notes

Shared Text: ’30 Books That Could Be the Next Harry Potter’

June 2, 2012 by 9 Comments

Well, we’ve had a day of Hunger Games posts and a follow-up day of Twilight thoughts; it must be time for some Harry Potter reflections and news. Today, a light and a relatively heavy post on the Hogwarts Saga: the first on Harry’s legacy post Deathly Hallows, the second on literary alchemy’s resurgence in the ’20’s and 30’s parallel to the contemporaneous renewed study of metallurgical and esoteric alchemy.

First, the fun.

I argued this time last year in Christianity Today, as the world braced for the last Harry Potter blockbuster film from Warner Brothers (but… does anyone seriously doubt there will be a re-boot or re-make sooner than we can believe today?), that Harry’s influence on the culture was not over. The final movie represented only the end of the beginning because the tsunami of Potter Mania in the early 21st century had remade the literary landscape: reader expectations for narrative fiction and the experience to be had were re-set at a much greater height — and smarter writers and publishers have naturally rushed to meet those expectations.

Twilight and Hunger Games certainly are the most successful book and movie franchises a la Harry to date but the queue to be the “Next Harry Potter” is quite long. And almost everyone standing in that line is someone in whom serious readers probably would recognize the Potter family resemblance and embrace for the likenesses and differences.

We’ve talked about Divergence, Chaos Walking, and the Leviathan trilogies here and I hope to continue those conversations (because none of the three are Hogwarts clones, if the influence is important). TotalFilm.com has conveniently given us a snapshot, though, of ‘The 30 Books That Could Be the Next Harry Potter’ to make my “it’s only the end of the beginning” point. Working through this line of Harry Heirs will keep The Boy Who Lived alive in our imagination for years, if not decades.

Please take a look and let me know what you think! My youngest boys’ favorite author, after only Jacques and Rowling, is listed as #1 and you will be reading about Artemis Fowl here if you stick around; I’ve got notes on this boy wonder begging for an outlet. I look forward to reading what books pictured here you have read and liked, despised, or can’t wait to re-visit.

Filed Under: Hog Pro Notes

Alchemy & Literature, Alchemy of Literature, Literary Alchemy

June 2, 2012 by 2 Comments

Here for your reflection and easy reference are  overdue and oft requested definitions of three topics and ideas that are easily confused:

Alchemy and Literature: As a baseline, I think we need to recognize the obvious fact and conventional understanding as normative. Metallurgical and esoteric alchemy are subjects studied by historians of science, Jungian psychologists, and comparative anthropologists and historians (it is an art or sacred science known in the Levant, China, India, and the West over a period of centuries). Literature, in contrast, while the subject of psychological reflection since Freud put Oedipus and Hamlet on the couch, is principally the domain of language wonks, e.g., English Literature studied by ‘English Departments,’ of occasional historians, and of the beloved amateur book lover and serious reader. As a rule with an increasing number of exceptions, the person knowledgeable in one area is not very well read in the other.

Alchemy of Literature: This is the Aristotelian cum Coleridgean phenomenon in which the reader of a poem or novel or audience member at a play so enters into the story, successfully “suspending disbelief” in “poetic faith,” becoming operatively the heart rather than the persona, that s/he elides with the principal(s) into the story action and experiences katharsis or purification (or trauma!) imaginatively as the principals do. This imaginative experience is heightened insomuch as the eye of the heart entering the story recognizes its reflection which makes the elision and identification and consequent cathartic experience that much more profound, even transformational. This is alchemical insomuch as the alchemical work was just such a simultaneous and corresponding illumination of subject and object through logos elision.

Literary Alchemy: Stanton Linden in Darke Hieroglyphicks, his survey of the use of alchemical symbols and themes in English literature from Chaucer to the Restoration, defines positive, as opposed to satirical, literary alchemy as “specialized vocabulary and individual images in the allegorization of transmutation subjects in light of Christian doctrine.” In the vernacular, that means the use of terms, images, symbols, stages, and colors from historical metallurgy and esoteric alchemy to foster the reaction between reader and text, audience and drama, that is the essence of ‘the alchemy of literature.’

To sum that up, ‘Literature’ and ‘Alchemy’ are distinct subjects of study, ‘the Alchemy of Literature’ is a description of what happens when we read or watch a play (not screened images, alas), and ‘Literary Alchemy’ is the use of alchemical tropes to foster our transformation while reading.

With that in mind, here is an exchange I had a year ago with that friend in Texas I mentioned yesterday, whose weblog you need to visit:

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Filed Under: Hog Pro Notes, Literary Alchemy

Twilight as Literature: Is Alice a Mary Sue; Meyer and Keats?

June 1, 2012 by 2 Comments

Sadly, Forks High School Professor was knocked for a loop last month when Hogwarts Professor and The Hog’s Head went offline for a day to facilitate repairs. I’m assured the posts there weren’t lost and will be available again soon.

As part of today’s Twilight set, I wanted to share an idea posted as a comment to the ‘Anne of Green Gables and Twilight‘ discussion over at the comatose FHS Professor. [For a similar, shorter discussion, see ‘Anne of Green Gables and Harry Potter‘ at this site.] The question and wonderful answer are from Caroline at the challenging and fun Briarfield Chronicles weblog:

I just discovered your post [on Anne and Twilight], and I’m struck by the parallels between Anne Shirley and Bella Swan. Especially Gilbert/Edward.  What I’m wondering is, is Alice Cullen the true Mary Sue instead of Bella? Also have you noticed the similarities between the Twilight Saga and Keats’ The Eve of St Agnes?

No, I really hadn’t thought of Alice as the true author-in-the-story and I missed the Eve of St. Agnes parallel, too. But I should have picked that up, right? I wrote to Caroline:

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Filed Under: Twilight