Thoughts for the Serious Reader of Harry Potter
In the second post to celebrate the countdown to the theatrical release of Fantastic Beasts: the Secrets of Dumbledore, Beatrice Groves, Research Lecturer and tutor at Trinity College, Oxford, and author of Literary Allusion in Harry Potter, has written a Hogwarts Professor Guest Post: Literary Allusion in Secrets of Dumbledore: Fantastic Beasts 3. Beatrice leads us from ancient Chinese bestiaries to the poetry of Alexander Pope, by way of disapparating dodos and totalitarian lingerie. Enjoy!
To celebrate the countdown to the theatrical release of Fantastic Beasts: the Secrets of Dumbledore (Friday 8th April for the UK release), Beatrice Groves, Research Lecturer and tutor at Trinity College, Oxford, and author of Literary Allusion in Harry Potter, has written a Hogwarts Professor Guest Post: The King of Beasts: Fantastic Beasts and the Beast Within. Beatrice takes a look at an intriguing twitter header that J. K. Rowling posted on 7th June 2021.
I have for a long time been a fan of podcasts. My own version of working in a Café as J. K. Rowling did is to work while listening to the spoken word. As a student this meant talk radio (which in the UK in the 80s and 90s meant BBC Radio4) and for the last eight years or so this has meant podcasts, or the BBC’s own Sounds application. The pleasure of podcasts is being able to tailor your listening by both content and schedule and one of my current favourites is a podcast hosted by Lindsay, Pools and Kenz called The Strike and Ellacott Files. This podcast debuted in 2021 and covered a read through of Troubled Blood. The show is currently part way through a re-read of Cuckoo’s Calling.
At the start of this month I was lucky enough to feature in an extra episode with Dr Beatrice Groves to discuss the epigraphs, past and future, in the Strike novels. The episode was recorded over a Zoom connection, linking the hosts in the US to Beatrice and myself in the UK. As a rank newbie, I was delighted to find the hosts just as friendly and engaging as I had imagined from listening. You can find out how I fared via the link below:
It was a strange (but thoroughly fun!) experience talking directly to people I had already grown used to listening to as an audience member. I have corresponded with Beatrice for some years but this was my first opportunity to talk (albeit at a distance) face to face. I hope in the near future to gain some more podcasting experience, but other than The Strike and Ellacott Files and the similarly excellent (but on hiatus) Denmark Street Deep Dive, I know of no others. If you have any comments or recommendations, please let me know down below:
Yesterday was the World Premier for Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore in London. The event was ‘live streamed’ for fans worldwide here, and like many adoring fans I tuned in at 17:30 British Summer Time, wondering if J. K. Rowling would make an appearance.
No appearance on the live stream, but twitter was awash with photographs of her there and it quickly became apparent that she was interviewed (briefly) and entered the theatre before the official live stream started. Fortunately enough, ODE entertainment managed to capture the interview, which I have included below.
Two key take outs for me: Covid forced a change in location, which may explain the move from the intended Brazil setting, and Rowling is excited to show the manticores.
I’m very please with the list of headers to J. K. Rowling’s twitter account we have assembled, but there are still many that haven’t yet been identified. There are also many that while we have identified them, we haven’t yet got a good explanation of the meaning of the image. In an attempt to foster further investigation and comment, I present an analysis of what Rowling has admitted to be currently working on when the headers were live.
Recent Conversation