Is There Philosophical ‘Meat’ in Harry Potter? Yes and No

December 12, 2011 by 3 Comments

I get email because I put my address in each of my books at both front and back. Frankly, outside of meeting readers at schools and conferences and the many friends I have made, this sort of correspondence is the best fun of living in Gilderoy-ville. Today’s note is from the UK where a student wanted my input on the philosophical side of Harry Potter. I hope you’ll chime in here as I am, as usual, way over my head in this subject area; I’m confident Ms. George would welcome your answers and expertise! The letter then my answers to her four questions —

Dear Mr Granger,

My name is Jenny George and I am a 6th form student at Priestley College, Warrington, England. I am currently completing an extended essay project titled What are the Philosophical and Religious themes within The Harry Potter Series and to what extent did they incite controversy?

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Hog Pro Notes, Mailbag

New Yorker: Dragon’s Egg — High Fantasy for Young Adults

December 10, 2011 by 5 Comments

Adam Gropnik offers his thoughts on Twilight, The Lord of the Rings, and the Eragon books in ‘The Dragon’s Egg: High Fantasy for Young Adults,‘ the Critics at Large column in The New Yorker (5 Dec 2011). I recommend it for three reasons:

(1) It is the sort of writing that thinks of reading as a psychological diversion rather than a means of transcending self, which is to say, ‘psychological’ in the sense of what we usually mean by ‘spiritual.’ As such, the insights and critiques offered, however clever and well put they are (and I like Gropnik…), leave me wondering, “does this sort of criticism explain what readers find worth re-reading many times, especially in the case of Eragon?”

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Hog Pro Notes

Hogwarts Professor Loved in Sweden — No Joke.

November 30, 2011 by 3 Comments

When anyone on the Internet links to this site, I’m sent a “pingback” notice. It’s fun to see who is talking about what we’re talking about here (most of the time) but sometimes the link is more of a stretch than usual. In September I got pinged from Sweden and I couldn’t make heads or tails of the post from way, way over there. So I wrote Odd Sverre Hove, our man in Norway, and he sent me a translation.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Hog Pro Notes, Shared Text

‘DA/AD’ Letter to C. S. Lewis: Hogwarts-Narnia Link?

November 19, 2011 by 8 Comments

I was caught off-guard at last week’s wonderful From Wands to Quills Harry Potter Conference at beautiful James Madison University when I learned that the two hours I thought I had to speak turned out to be forty minutes. Caught flat-footed, I was left with little choice but to abandon my original spider-outline on Hogwarts and the modern university and to share instead with friends in Harrisonburg, Virginia, a letter I found in the restroom of the Marion E. Wade Center in Wheaton, Illinois. I was there (in the Center, not the restroom) looking for evidence of C. S. Lewis’ hermetic artistry in the Wade collection of Inkling books, letters, and diaries.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: C. S. Lewis, Hog Pro Notes

Mailbag: King’s Cross Gaffe in Deathly Hallows Lectures

September 5, 2011 by 3 Comments

It would hurt to learn what a doofus I am if readers were not so wonderfully kind in presenting my mistakes in their letters to me. I give you this note from Bill Davis about my Harry Potter’s Bookshelf and Deathly Hallows Lectures as a case in point. He wrote (and I share this with his permission):

John,

I just read “The Deathly Hallow’s Lectures” and “Harry Potter’s Bookshelf”.  I found them to be quite interesting.   However, in both books (and I suspect some of your other Harry Potter books),  there are frequent references to King’s Cross tube station.   You stress the significance of this being an underground location.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Deathly Hallows Lectures, Hog Pro Notes