Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter Thirty Two: The Elder Wand

1. Why does Hermione scream after the wall falls on Fred?
2. How does the Trio figure out where the Dark Lord is?
3. With whom is the Dark Lord speaking?
4. Which side is Peeves the Poltergeist on – and what is his weapon of choice?
5. What two witches take out Fenrir Greyback to save Lavender Brown?
6. Whom does Hagrid sacrifice himself to save?
7. Who saves the Trio from the hundred dementors they meet on the grounds?
8. What spell does Ron use to freeze the Whomping Willow?
9. Snape begs the Dark Lord three times to let him do what?
10. Severus tells Harry to do two things before he dies – which are what?

For your reflection: Lord Voldemort kills Severus Snape with Nagini rather than a killing spell from the Elder Wand. Why does he think that would be sufficient to “take the mastery” from Severus? Why does he make the mistake he does here of misunderstanding which wand took the Death Stick from Dumbledore? Is this linked somehow to his drinking unicorn blood in Philosopher’s Stone?

Answers: 1. Acromantula crawls through hole in wall (639) 2. Hermione orders Harry to “look inside him!” and he does (641) 3. Lucius Malfoy (642) 4. Dumbledor’e Army: snargaluff pools (644) 5. Hermione Granger and Sybill Trelawney (646) 6. “Gigantic spiders” (acromatitulas) (647) 7. Luna, Ernie, Seamus(649) 8. “Wingardium Levioso!” (651) 9. “Let me find the boy. Let me bring you Potter.” (642) 10. “Take it” (his memories)” “Look at me” (657-8)

J. K. Rowling made a much longer than usual tweet on Monday in which she responded to a seemingly serious claim that “Gender identity is real, layered, and deserves a more thoughtful approach” than the un-nuanced assertion that “transgender women” are mentally ill men.

Here is the original claim with Rowling’s three paragraph response immediately after:

The first response to this was a question about Rowling being tested for chromosomes, the twixter assuming that Rowling had been asserting that the question “What is a woman?” can only be answered in terms of XX or XY chromosomes. Rowling replied with her answer to the question “What is a woman?”  (specifically, “How can I know I am a woman without a chromosome test?”) and a chart outlining the various genetic possibilities for men and women. [Read more…]

Robert Coover, one of a legion of postmodern writers with whose works a well-educated reader is supposed to be conversant, died on 5 October 2024 of undisclosed causes. I’m guessing at age 92 it matters less than it might otherwise for us to know.

The Washington Post’s obituary, ‘Robert Coover, Master of Postmodern Fiction, Dead at 92,’ was well done and the Wikipedia page devoted to him and his work is a helpful introduction and overview.

Reading the frequently anthologized Coover short story ‘The Babysitter‘ this afternoon, I thought of what Robert Frost is supposed to have said about writing in free verse: “I would rather play tennis with the net down.” Postmodern fiction, as ridiculously self-conscious as it can be about the rules of writing (and how all of them must be broken or challenged more or less simultaneously), too often makes me think that these are verbal artists who want only to play in the net, with the net, without rackets or tennis balls.

As noted in The Post obituary, however: “When Coover’s stories don’t work, which is about half the time … they’re dreadful — arid experiments that are the equivalent of lighting the wrong end of a filtered cigarette,” New York Times book critic Dwight Garner wrote in 2018. “But when they work,” he went on to say, “oh my.”

Indeed. When I’d finished ‘The Babysitter’ today, I realized the story — if you want to call its paragraph story facets that — would haunt me forever. It is the ‘break all the rules, the fourth and fifth walls coming down’ kind of writing you find in George Saunders’ ‘The Semplica-Girls Diaries‘ and Nabokov’s ‘The Vane Sisters‘ that years later roll into one’s thinking, unsolicited and seemingly without connection,  while standing in a queue at the beach or when taking a break from routine but hot and sweaty work at a job. Appearances which add the dimension to perspective and awareness that are the singular contribution of this writing. The “oh my” of Garner’s review.

I recommend those three stories, one, two, or the set, for anyone wanting to remember the remarkable Coover at his passing or for Rowling Readers, Potter Pundits, and Serious Strikers, who wish to remind themselves of the too-oft forgot truism that Mrs Murray is a postmodern writer writing on postmodern themes for a postmodern audience.

Foster that “incredulity toward the metanarrative”! “Innovate, innovate, innovate!” Etc.

I have hastily searched for a transcript to this interview and come up empty. I will do my best to rectify that.

Why? Because 2012 is an important year in Rowling Studies; it was the year Casual Vacancy was published, her first novel explicitly for adults and first publication post Potter, and we know now that she was neck deep in the planning and writing of the Strike-Ellacott books, the first of which would be published in April 2013. And The Ickabog and Christmas Pig, too? If memory serves, Nick Jeffery used the bread crumbs Rowling dropped in this interview about her current efforts and he predicted the existence of Pig well before that project was made public. Regardless, 2012 was a pivotal year and we need a transcript and annotated version.

If you want to read what Potter Pundits of the time thought were the most interesting and important Rowling droppings rather than listen to the fifty minute ‘virtual’ interview, check out the SnitchSeeker.com contemporaneous coverage of Rowling’s 2012 Potter Q&A. ‘Harry Potter Wiki’ has a page devoted to the event, too, one largely derived from SnitchSeeker’s summary.

More tomorrow!