Thoughts for the Serious Reader of Harry Potter
The Three High Points as I see it with first thought commentaries from the Hogwarts Professors:
(1) “The Experience of Reading”
Ms. Rowling gives as her premise to the Pottermore venture this thought about what reading is: “Just as the experience of reading requires that the imaginations of the author and reader work together to create the story, so Pottermore will be built in part by you the reader.” For a given or premise of an argument, this is rather a radical thought.
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At the beginning of nearly every Potter Pundit segment in the Leaky Cauldron’s PotterCast show, Travis Prinzi, our host and moderator, makes the point that the program is a forum for serious readers who are the real ‘Pundits.’ The talking heads on the program are only representatives of this much larger group. He says that not only to defer the inevitable Gilderoy Gang jokes, but because it’s the simple truth. The folks listening to those shows and reading our books (that would be you all) are the ones generating the conversation topics and the greater part of the discussion.
Recognizing that, allow me to share below the jump three CFPs or ‘Calls for Papers’ to a new essay collection and to two exciting conferences planned for 2012. They were sent to me with the sincere and formulaic request that I participate and with the hope that I would pass it on to you. You’ve got a Harry Potter essay in the drawer or an idea you’d like to expand and share with other serious readers. Time to get a round Tuit and start writing!
I hope to see you in Orlando, Florida, 13-17 July, for the second edition of the Leaky Cauldron’s Leaky Con. You can read all about it and sign up here, if you haven’t already. It promises to be a Fandom spectacular, especially because of the movie release that will happen mid-conference and the presence of Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which all but guarantees a crowd of Harry Potter mecca pilgrims. As has been true of every conference since Nimbus 2003 (HPEF), also in Orlando, there are rumors that The Presence Herself will make an appearance.
But I wouldn’t count on that.
What you can count on will be two talks by me about subjects that will excite serious readers. Elizabeth Baird-Hardy will be there as well and we’re hoping that Travis Prinzi will join us for a co-ed, ad hoc Potter Pundits panel and maybe a podCast for The Hog’s Head. To read about my talks, make the jump! To see them, travel to Orlando —
UPDATE: A longer version of this post is available at the International Business Times’ Book page.
I have been buried in owls about the PotterMore.com web site that Ms. Rowling will be launching Thursday. You can read about it at Entertainment Weekly, the BuzzFeed, and there is a good conversation already in progress at The Hog’s Head. An excellent summary of the ‘best guesses’ of what this new site will be about, seven guesses gathered from the global speculation the teaser announcements have inspired, can be found at ‘The Week.’
I’m confident the Hogwarts Professors will have more to say about PotterMore on Thursday, as we will about the movie franchise’s last installment in July. I want to note one thing now, though, and that is we have been assured that the new site’s launch is not the occasion for the announcement of a new Hogwarts saga book publication.
My two responses, consequently, to the new web site are “so what?” and “please don’t patronize me.”
One of the highlights of 2010 for me was corresponding with Prof. David Downing and finally interviewing him about his book, Looking for the King. If you remember our discussion then (or if you just follow that link to read it), you know it was always friendly but not a little combative, which is what I think words between reader and author with book should be — full-on engagement, not quite argument. One of the fruits of that edifying exchange was an invitation to read and review another book, Toward the Gleam, on a similar if wonderfully different subject.
King, you’ll recall, is the story of two Americans in England just before the second world war. They find themselves in a hunt for a sacred object and have the good fortune to have C. S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and J. R. R. Tolkien as advisers. Prof. Downing is an Inklings authority whose books on CSL’s Narniad and Space Trilogy are rightly esteemed as among the best so his foray into fiction this way had to be very good to meet what were high expectations from the Spare Oom reading set. And it was a grand read.
Toward the Gleam is by an author I had not read previously but the subject was so daring — a story re-telling how The Lord of the Rings was written, with a host of historical figures from Agatha Christie to Winston Churchill — that I confess I wondered if it was possible to pull it off credibly or as engrossing fiction. Despite being endorsed by Michael O’Brien, the planet’s most notable and risible Harry Hater still standing, Gleam hit on all cylinders. Below the jump you’ll find my 10 question interview with the author about the story’s genesis and peculiar choices. Enjoy!
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