Mail Bag: Reader Questions about Harry Haters, Doppelgangers, and Ring Writing

October 3, 2022 by Leave a Comment

My email address is in all the books I have written and the ‘contact’ tab at the website provides even easier access to my inbox. That means, though I haven’t published a best seller since the peak of Potter Mania (2007-2008), in addition to ever diminishing royalty checks twice a year, I receive a fairly regular stream of notes from readers. Some are from young readers and as many come from older Potter Pundits and Serious Strikers, on and off the moderator channels.

After the jump I offer three quick examples of this mail that I have received in the last week or two with my responses. I share them in the hope that you will write, too; the best part of being “The Dean of Harry Potter Scholars” (TM), believe me, is the correspondence with thoughtful people about books we love and that we want to understand better. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Mailbag

Mailbag: Wise Men and Wizards

December 29, 2019 by 4 Comments

I received this note in today’s morning flock of email owls:

I have a question for you. Maybe you addressed it in one of your books, I can’t remember right now. But Christmas triggered this question among my friends: why the Wizarding Community celebrates Christmas, since everything Jesus did could have been done by a wizard? The only thing we thought could be impossible for a Wizard is resurrection, but then again, if Muggles were the only witnesses, why would Wizards trust them? And seen by Muggle or magical person, why wouldn’t the Wizards check that testimony themselves (via Veritaserum or Legilimency?)

My response was close to a non-response but it raised an important point. More after the jump! [Read more…]

Filed Under: Beatrice Groves, Hog Pro Notes, Mailbag

Mailbag: Dickens as Literary Alchemist?

November 2, 2019 by 3 Comments

Susan wrote:

As a Harry Potter fanatic, I have really enjoyed your books and learning about Literary Alchemy. I understand that A Tale of Two Cities is a classic example of a book with this structure. Could you refer or recommend where I could learn about the Alchemical components of this story?

Also I’ve seen several references to A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery as a good reference, however it is rather expensive. Do you have any ideas of where to find a reasonable used copy, or another less expensive resource?

Dear Susan,

Forgive me for jumping without courtesies and in haste right to your questions!

(1) To my knowledge, I’m the only person talking about literary alchemy in Tale of Two Cities, which, frankly, is daunting. (See Harry Potter’s Bookshelf or just search this site.) Fortunately for my mental well being (who wants to be called “deluded” or a “critic with an alchemy fixation/hobby horse”?), other friends who are familiar with hermetic formula a la Shakespeare have confirmed I’m not just making this up. Of course, this could mean we have a group-think delusion in hand, no?

If you have your doubts about Dickens as alchemist, though, read his The Haunted Man, a Christmas novella in three parts like Tale of Two Cities, featuring a chemist, a loving, poor family with six boys and a caboose girl, a ‘Voldemort-baby-at-King’s-Cross’ doppelganger, and a treatise about memory not so carefully put in with the melodrama. Watch the colors as you run through the three parts…

(2) The best prices for Abraham’s Dictionary I found at BookFinder4U.com were from the US — and, at more than $30 after including the S&H costs, the price still seems very steep. It’s too bad, because the book really is invaluable to the serious reader. The entry on ‘The Philosophical Tree’ I stumbled on recently has me reconsidering how I’ve understood C. S. Lewis’s Magician’s Nephew, for instance.

This probably seems gross but I urge you in addition to that book to find a copy of Lyndy Abraham’s Marvell and Alchemy (Scolar Press [not a typo], 1990).

The first chapter is her explanation of the historical context of alchemy, both metallurgical and literary in 16th and 17th Century Great Britain, and the references in it to Everard and Culpeper alone have me more than half-convinced that it is one of the books on alchemy Rowling read in her first years of plotting and planning the Hogwarts Saga. 

Marvell and Alchemy lists at $130, alas, but copies can be had for $50; in the US and for £24.00 in the UK. I got mine through Interlibrary Loan. Well worth the wait and hassle that this can be, believe me!

I hope that helps — please let me know how your adventures in hermetic literature turn out.

Fraternally black, white, and red,

John

 

Filed Under: Literary Alchemy, Mailbag

Mail Bag: Books Like Cormoran Strike?

October 2, 2019 by 1 Comment

Hello Professor,

I love all of your articles on the Strike series. I have read the series several times now and I’m dying for the next one. The detective genre is completely out of my wheelhouse as I usually read epic fantasy like Robert Jordon or Brandon Sanderson. But I’m enjoying this so much I would like to read more like it and I was wondering if you had any books or authors to recommend that are similar to the Strike series.

Hope you are having a great weekend.

Phil

Great question, Phil! Here are five recommendations for murder mystery books with a Cormoran Strike resonance:

(1) John Fairfax’s Benson and De Vere courtroom dramas

We’ll be discussing the first, Summary Justice, here beginning tomorrow! Go here for more on these stories and their relationship with Strike.

(2) Ian Rankin’s John Rebus novels

Cormoran Strike is in several ways Rowling’s re-imagining of Rankin’s John Rebus but with him set in London rather than Edinburgh and as a private detective rather than police officer. ‘Ian Rankin and Cormoran Strike‘ is a good first stop to learn about these two.

(3) P. D. James’ Cordelia Gray thrillers

There are only two, alas, but it is hard to overstate the influence of Cordelia Gray on Galbraith’s Robin Ellacott. Check out the Duchess of Malfi debts discussed here.

(4) Kate Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie books

I’m just starting Case Histories but, having read Behind the Scenes at the Museum, Life after Life, and A God in Ruins, I’m more than confident that Rowling is a great fan of Atkinson and that Cormoran Strike and Jackson Brodie would recognize each other as types.

(5) Boris Akunin’s Sister Pelagia mysteries

Akunin is a treasure whose Erast Fandorin novels — each a different genre (I kid you not) — are an international sensation and delight. His much shorter series on a plucky Orthodox nun in Tsarist Russia who is given leave to re-join the world in disguise to investigate crimes in obedience to her bishop are personal favorites despite its train wreck of a finish to this trilogy.

I hope that helps! If others have recommendations, please click on the ‘Leave a Comment’ button up by the post headline and share your favorites in the comment boxes below!

Tomorrow, the bracketing structure of Summary Justice…

Filed Under: Benson and De Vere, Hog Pro Notes, Mailbag

Mail Bag: Rowling on Draco as Werewolf

June 3, 2019 by Leave a Comment

Here’s a mailbag item that has been in my drafts folder for sharing since 2015. My response was a little harsh, well, ‘mean and bitter’ might better catch the sense of it, but I share it for your reflection and correction.

John, Professor, Sir,

http://hellogiggles.com/jk-rowling-shut-down-fan-theory/

I’ve never seen that one before. Draco definitely isn’t a werewolf (and Snape’s not a vampire).

I don’t think I remember we had this theory back in the day.

And, for once, this is an elucidation of the text, not some errant addendum.

Still Potter-ing about,

David

My response?

Sad, really. I really wonder why she felt obliged to tweet this. It doesn’t answer the questions serious readers had about the many clues Rowling placed in the books about Snape’s vampiric qualities and Draco’s transformation in Half-Blood Prince. And it’s not an “elucidation of text.” You lost me there.

The better fan theories, based on speculation from canon and tested in conversation at conferences and in internet debates, were not “Draco is a Werewolf” or Snape = Vampire as this article and her tweet suggest. The interesting speculation was that Draco was bitten by a werewolf, probably Fenrir, but not one fully transformed (just as was Bill Weasley) and that Snape’s father was a muggle vampire so, as son of vampire and a witch, Severus was a Half ‘blood-prince‘ and half-blood Prince, but not a real, teeth-to-the-neck vampire needing blood, etc. The two, as with so many Rowling characters, were liminal figures between worlds not conforming to type (and to people’s prejudices). Think ‘Hagrid as Half-Giant.’

If Rowling wanted to close down these conversations, she had her opportunity before July 2007. Now she is just asserting her command of all disputes to protect the Wizarding World and Warner Bros Franchises. 

Which, of course, is her right. I am at least as free, however, to ignore her claims to perpetual authority and updates, especially when she misrepresents the serious reader speculation she is dismissing.

I say this is “sad” because the excellent discussions about the psychological aspects of Snape as vampire and the Malfoys as elitist werewolves have been closed in the minds of many by Rowling’s imprimatur in reverse. Shame on her.

Thank you, David, for sending!

John

Filed Under: Hog Pro Notes, Mailbag