Pictures from Ring Talk in NYC: TGTSNBN!

October 11, 2010 by 4 Comments

I look a little crazy in these photographs, but, in my defense, it was an exciting night; the combination of a phenomenal venue (check out the Samsung Experience wall-screen), perhaps the most knowledgeable Harry Potter fan group of significant size — The Group That Shall Not Be Named, NYC’s Rowling Society, and a mind-blowing topic overwhelmed me at times. Seeing two rows of beautiful readers wearing red bow ties in the front of the audience may have contributed to the madness, too.

I promised TGTSNBN that, if they listened closely, they would never think of any of the Potter books or the series the same way again — that they would now be tempted to read the books from the middle out rather than front to back and that the Deathly Hallows symbol, Moody’s trunk, and Harry’s round glasses would have entirely new meaning to them. Jonathon Rosenthal, the Group’s leader, wrote today that I didn’t over-promise, as hard as that may be to believe:

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Filed Under: Hog Pro Notes, Ring Composition

Picture of Rowling Original Potter Notes Released

October 8, 2010 by 2 Comments

The notes pictured at the “I Am Bored” website are described as “JK Rowling`s Notes For The Potter Series [Pic]. It`s the original hand-written plot points for the Harry Potter book series. She had everything planned far in advance.”

Forgive me, but even a cursory look at the notes shows they are a time-line and plot-point progression for Order of the Phoenix rather than the series. Of course, it could be the Phoenix page of a larger set of notes.

Does anyone know how these notes came to the surface for internet posting? I’m curious if this is a trend or an isolated release. (Hat tip to James!)

Update: The page is originally from Ms. Rowling’s web site, one of the “extras” you can find if you tickle the pear or know the password to get in. The Harry Potter Lexicon spells it all out here with a very helpful transcript page, to boot. (Hat tip again to James!) Be sure to scroll up to see all the goodies available from the Rowling archives — lots of doodles and drawings! It’s a trend, not an isolated release.

Filed Under: Hog Pro Notes

HogPro ‘Rings’ Talk in NYC Thursday Night!

October 6, 2010 by 4 Comments

Harry Potter Chapter Rings, Character Names, and Magic Mirrors: The Genius Inside the Planning of the Hogwarts Saga

Joanne Rowling has told interviewers for more than a decade that the secret of her success was “planning,” a “boring answer” she always apologizes for. But what exactly was she planning that took five years to sketch the books and six months prior to each novel’s composition? Potter Pundit John Granger, author of Harry Potter Unlocked: Seven Keys for the Serious Reader and editor of Harry Potter Smart Talk, believes she was working on embedding within her story the structures and symbols that would reflect her most profound meaning. Want to learn why Harry’s name as well as all the alliterative names and those with reduplicated letters are what they are? Curious about the Deathly Hallows symbol and what it really tells us about Ms. Rowling’s novels? Interested in why specific events happen in the chapters they do in each book and why there are seven novels? Come to the Samsung Center to hear John Granger reveal at last the genius in Rowling’s planning and how it generated Potter-mania

The Venue: Thursday, 7 October, 6 pm

Time Warner Building
3rd Floor Columbus Circle
New York, NY 10019

The Sponsors and more about the event: The Group That Shall Not Be Named

Filed Under: Hog Pro Notes, Literary Alchemy, Ring Composition

Chaos Walking #3: Todd Hewitt, ‘Hewn Heart’

October 6, 2010 by 5 Comments

Life is short, art is long; let’s get right to the alchemy, then, if you don’t mind.

As discussed previously, the books’ penchant for Christian and biblical names makes me think ‘Todd’ is meant to be understood as ‘Thaddeus,’ the Aramaic word for ‘Heart,’ the spiritual faculty of the human person, or “breast,’ as in ‘bosom buddy.’ The last name of our hero, ‘Hewitt,’ is a not especially opaque telling of “hew it,” which translates as “roughly shape or fell the hard object.” Together, I think the Dickensian cryptonym gives us “the stone or wooden heart’s felling” or, better, “the revelation of the heart out of stone.” His story is a postmodern Everyman tale of the spiritual journey to human perfection or apotheosis.

If you’re a newcomer here, that must seem a real stretch. Old hands, however, I’m sure, have already started asking themselves, “If Todd is the Stone/Heart being perfected, are the three books the three alchemical stages of the Philosopher’s Stone?” Indeed, they are. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Chaos Walking, HogPro Book Club, Literary Alchemy

Chaos Walking #2: The Noise and the Word

October 5, 2010 by 6 Comments

Except for the Noise, an “illness” that strikes male Settlers of New World whose chief symptom is the broadcast of every thought and image in one’s mind to the world around you, Chaos Walking, in the words of Elizabeth Baird Hardy is just “Huck Finn on ‘The Planet of the Apes’.” It’s safe to say that, whatever Patrick Ness’ message may be in his dystopian trilogy cum coming of age story, it is wrapped up in the meaning of the Noise.

Today, consequently, after looking yesterday at the curious surface macro-structures of these books, I want to begin discussion of the work with some conversation starters about the Noise. Here is a brief look with more questions than answers at the narrative, moral, allegorical, and anagogical levels for your reflection and comment:

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Filed Under: Chaos Walking, HogPro Book Club