Elliot Nelson writes at Unless a Seed Dies: An Exploration of Christianity and he has been exploring at length there the Christian themes of Harry Potter. For those of you who find this subject as interesting as I do, there is a list of twenty five subjects with links to Mr. Nelson’s essays on those topics after the jump. Please share your thoughts and recommendations! [Read more…]

Harry Potter turns 30 tomorrow (and Ms. Rowling 45) and I wanted to ask you what you thought Harry’s best birthday was? I assume the great majority of readers and movie-goers will vote for his eleventh birthday because of the revelations in the House on the Rock and his day with Hagrid. That certainly makes sense because that b-day in many ways marks his re-birth and discovery of self.

But there are other birthdays in the book that are eventful and meaningful, even revealing of the story-ending because Ms. Rowling liked to point to the finale at the story-start and as often as not started with Harry’s birthday. Dobby, for example, appears on Harry’s LaborDay version of a birthday in Chamber and that book ends with Dobby’s re-birth and liberation.

What is your favorite Harry birthday, then, and please do share what plans you have to commemorate the natal anniversary of The Boy Who Lived!

Last week in Key West, folks celebrated what would have been Ernest Hemingway’s 110^th birthday with their annual Hemingway Days, a week-long celebration of all things Hemingway, including a look-alike contest, writing competition, and, my personal favorite, the running of the Hemingways, sort of like the  running of the bulls in Pamplona, only with all the Hemingway wannbes instead of bovines. Considering the heat in Florida in July and the fact that most folks go in for the later-in-life Hemingway look, it might actually be more dangerous than the bull running. I hope EMTs were on hand.

What does this spectacle have to do with our discussions here? Well, after enjoying watching all the great character impersonators at Infinitus (I don’t go in for that myself, but I really enjoy observing. I should just wear a sign that says, “Nope, these are just my regular clothes”), I noticed a few interesting trends. While some characters have many folks who want to adopt their look, others seemed absent; completely missing, unless I missed her, was anyone dressed up as Rowling herself. Which leads me to wonder how we will honor her in future years. Will people want to have Rowling make-overs? Is there a big future in Rowling impersonators, or will we be content to mug as the characters she has created? [Read more…]

Fr. John Zuhlsdorf answers a young person’s question about whether reading Harry Potter constitutes a sin that needs to be confessed. “Fr. Z’s” answer is a wishy-washy “no;” his dismissal of Potter as second rate reading and his defensive sop to his blog audience that he didn’t buy the books he read suggests even the overly-couched thumbs up for Harry comes at a price. Sure enough, the Harry Haters are on him in a minute and Catholic Potter-Philes are there soon after exchanging urls and sureties of just how wrong the other side is. [Read more…]