Sunday Quiz: Philosopher’s Stone ch. 1

September 1, 2024 by Leave a Comment

Answers tomorrow along with an explanation of the ‘Sunday Quiz’ project! It’s not an open book test, by the way…

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone:

Chapter 1, ‘The Boy Who Lived’

  1. What “dull, gray” day of the week is it when “our story starts” at 4 Privet Drive?
  2. Leaving for work, Mr. Dursley sees a tabby cat on Privet Drive doing two things cats cannot do. What are these two things?
  3. Dursley’s office is on what floor at Grunnings, his drill company?
  4. True or False: Dursley at lunch on Tuesday is hugged by a wizard, he is called a Muggle, and he calls his wife when he overhears conversation about the Potters and their boy, Harry.
  5. What is the name of the TV weatherman who reports that the owls are acting out of the ordinary? 
  6. What are the shapes of Albus Dumbledore’s and Minerva McGonagall’s eyeglasses?
  7. How does Dumbledore put out the lights on Privet Drive?
  8. What is Dumbledore’s explanation for Harry’s surviving Voldemort’s attack?
  9. True or False: Professor McGonagall is convinced Dumbledore is wrong in leaving Harry with the Dursleys.
  10. Hagrid arrives on Sirius Black’s motorcycle and reports that there were no problems retrieving Harry. The boy fell asleep as “we was flyin’ over” what English town?

For Your Reflection:

The very first chapter of the seven book series introduces the great divide in Harry’s world, the chasm separating Wizards and Muggles. It does this by sharing the views of Vernon Dursley, archetypal Muggle, and both Minerva McGonagall and Albus Dumbledore, witch and wizard, about the other side. Infant Harry at chapter’s end crosses this canyon to live with his Aunt and Uncle. Given what we learn in the chapter about the Dursleys (not all we learn in subsequent chapters and books), is Dumbledore’s decision a good one? 

 

Filed Under: Contest, Hog Pro Notes

Rowling’s Ten Most Important Interviews

August 31, 2024 by Leave a Comment

I was communicating on the HogwartsProfessor moderator backchannels earlier this week and the conversation thread led to a pretty serious discussion about a book each of us would like to have on our shelves, namely, a ‘Greatest Hits’ anthology of Rowling’s most important interviews. It was really an explosion as much as a ‘conversation’ because more than once of us had given this subject a lot of thought.

There were three main topics we explored: whether such a collection was possible, what constituted “important” when it came to comparing interviews between 1997 and today, and which interviews each of us would choose. I had an advantage in that last category, well, several advantages. While I will never have the encyclopedic recall of interviews that a Lisa Bunker, Beatrice Groves, or Patricio Tarantino at The Rowling Library index has, I did spend the last four or five years writing a PhD thesis on Rowling’s works and had to review as much interview canon as I could stand. I also, it turned out, had started a post on just this subject in May 2022, a draft that included a preliminary list of my own.

I compared that list of thirteen interviews with the one I threw together as a sample for the backchannel consortium last week, a list of twelve. Join me after the jump to see how much overlap there is — and where I want to go with this. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Hog Pro Notes

New Title from Rowling Library Books: ‘The Phoenix or the Flame’ Anthology

August 30, 2024 by Leave a Comment

The Rowling Library (TRL) Books announced today that they will be publishing ‘A. Ibid’s edited essay-anthology, The Phoenix or the Flame: Essays on J. K. Rowling’s Original Plans for ‘Harry Potter and the order of the Phoenix, in the “fourth quarter of 2024.”

Edited by A. Ibid, who goes by the username ibid-11962, a distinguished figure in online Harry Potter communities known for his extensive knowledge of J.K. Rowling’s works and canon, The Phoenix or the Flame brings together the insights of renowned scholars including John Granger, Beatrice Groves, and Louise Freeman, among other esteemed voices. Through their expert analysis, this collection not only compares the original plans with the published novel but also explores the broader implications of these changes on the Harry Potter narrative and its legacy.

The title, The Phoenix or the Flame, which references a quote from the Harry Potter series, is a nod to the juxtaposition of Rowling’s initial vision with its final outcome. The Phoenix or the Flame is slated for release in the fourth quarter of 2024. TRL Books will soon reveal the full list of contributing authors and abstracts, the book’s synopsis, and its cover design.

I’m mentioned in that announcement so I feel I can share the story of my participation in the project — after the jump! [Read more…]

Filed Under: Hog Pro Notes

Rowling’s Favorite Painting and What It Suggests about Her Artistry and Meaning

August 28, 2024 by 1 Comment

Rowling’s Q&A last Sunday in The Times of London was largely forgettable, as I discussed in ‘Rowling’s Q&A in the Sunday Times.’ Her answer to an outlier question about art in that set, however, was a ‘keeper’ on several levels:

What’s the first piece of art you loved?
I visited the National Gallery on my own when I was around 19 or 20 and was absolutely mesmerised by Caravaggio’s Supper at Emmaus. I had a battered print of it on my wall for years afterwards and it featured on my first ever website.

This was not a revelation. In what remains “the only authorized J. K. Rowling biography,” Lindsey Fraser’s 2001 Conversations with J. K. Rowling, much more of a seemingly superficial Q&A than a proper critical life history, Rowling concluded her answer to “Do you enjoy art?” this way:

Perhaps my favorite painting is Caravaggio’s Supper at Emmaus when Jesus reveals himself to the disciples having risen from the dead. I love it. Jesus looks very likeable – soft and rounded – and the painting captures the exact moment when the disciples realize who this man is, blessing their bread. (Fraser, 30-31)

The chapter in Beatrice Groves’ Literary Allusion in Harry Potter that convinced me of that work’s seminal importance and the writer’s true brilliance turned on her discussion of this comment and on the painting itself. Join me after the jump for a review of Prof Groves’ exegesis, the confirmation of her points in Literary Allusion  to be found in Rowling’s comments on Sunday, and some further points about Supper at Emmaus that the “mesmerized” Rowling may be assumed to have noticed. My idea is that her use of subliminal symbols ‘tracks’ with Carravagio’s and that we are called to a Ruskin-esque posture of “deep mining” before a painting if we are to grasp the depth of her writing.

I wrote to Professor Groves earlier this week to ask her permission to quote the passage in her Literary Allusion in Harry Potter about the Caravaggio painting, Rowling’s relationship with it, and what it reveals about the remarkable Christian Everyman subtext of Harry Potter. She graciously gave me her permission so here is that remarkable passage, a key really to the Christian content of the Hogwarts Saga: [Read more…]

Filed Under: Beatrice Groves, C. S. Lewis, Hog Pro Notes, Literary Alchemy, Traditional Symbolism

Rowling and the Kennedys: Part Two

August 27, 2024 by Leave a Comment

Yesterday I posted a YouTube video of J. K. Rowling accepting the Robert F. Kennedy ‘Ripple of Hope’ Human Rights award with a note about how upside-down it seemed to me that a feminist like Rowling would have a serial adulterer such as RFK as a hero. I think I understand that better today, though not because of evidence that the third son of Joseph Kennedy was a faithful husband or kind to the women in his life. He wasn’t  — or at least the dominant historical narrative today says he wasn’t.

Reading the transcripts of RFK’s 1965 Affirmation Day speech in South Africa, the so-called ‘Ripple of Hope’ address, though, and of Rowling’s 2019 Ripple of Hope Award brief acceptance talk has clarified for me that Kennedy was Rowling’s “political hero” — and the stupendous disconnect between the Kennedy family today and those who act with political and personal courage contra mundum and contrary to the expectations of family, friends, and fans.

After the jump, I’ll share highlights from those transcripts, I’ll review the 2020 comments made by Kerry Kennedy, one of Robert and Ethyl Kennedy’s eleven children and the principal guardian of his legacy, about Rowling and those she made last week last week about her brother, RFK, Jr., and the responses made by Rowling and Bobby Kennedy’s namesake about those rebuffs. Join me for that information and my thoughts about the unusual position RFK, Jr.’s beliefs put Rowling and her curious silence about his campaign to become President. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Hog Pro Notes