My son Timothy and I are on our way to Chicago for LeakyCon3 at the Downtown Hilton on Michigan Avenue! I have given talks at the first two LeakyCon extravaganzas and am delighted to be headed back — this time to do four talks, something of a HogwartsProfessor Greatest Hits collection. The lecture titles and descriptions are below the jump for those interested; here’s hoping that I have time before and after these two-a-day sessions Friday and Saturday morning and afternoon that I’ll have a chance to sit down and catch up with any All Pros that are coming. See you there!
Off to LeakyCon 3: Harry Potter Chicago, Here We Come!
August 9, 2012 by Leave a Comment
NPR’s Top 100 “Teen” Novels: What Do You Think?
August 8, 2012 by 7 Comments
Time for a group participation post! Check out the list and make your comments (favorites, disappointments, surprises… whatever you want to include).
For me: I was pleased (but not surprised) that Harry Potter and Hunger Games were the top two.
I was pleased (and surprised) that, after 50 years, To Kill a Mockingbird managed the #3 spot.
I was pleased (and surprised) that the Divergent series beat Twilight by a healthy margin.
I was disappointed not to see Jane Eyre or Pride and Prejudice (maybe not seen as “targeted” at teens like the others, but the heroines are the right ages.)
Other books I wish had been on the list: Christy (Catherine Marshall) and The Cuckoo’s Child (because my cousin wrote it and it is set at my Grandma’s house).
Hoping to hear from others.
Meeting Veronica Roth: An Ascendio 2012 Highlight
August 8, 2012 by 9 Comments
In response to a reader’s question about Veronica Roth at HPEF’s finale last month in Orlando, “Yes, I did meet and speak with the Divergent trilogy author.”
Meeting my second big-name author, Lev Grossman being the first, I was delighted to find that Ms. Roth, like Grossman, is a very pleasant and thoughtful person, nothing like a self-important Gilderoy Lizard. I met her at a cocktail party of sorts for the “names” at this convention. The ‘Merlin’s Circle Reception’ with open bar cost $750 for non-names like me to get in and meet the stars of page and screen — I was only allowed in because my ‘Circle’ registration was paid for by Rosetta Stone in exchange for a talk I gave on magical language.
Anyway, I was enjoying a catch-up conversation with the delicately ribald (and nearly bald) Lev Grossman when Ms. Roth joined us with her agent, Joanna Volpe, and another YA author. The other author actually had heard of me and seemed very excited about our meeting; as I had almost done a prostration before Ms. Roth as they approached, her excitement brought things back into some kind of silly balance.
Josh Richards: Melancholy Poetry as Inoculation
August 8, 2012 by 2 Comments
Melancholy Poetry as Inoculation, a Hogwarts Professor guest post from Prof. Josh Richards
Today, we examine my previous, curious assertion [in ‘The Congealed Fire of Poetry‘] that sad poetry is, indeed, a comfort for the hurting. At first, this may seem counter-intuitive but it is, in fact, quite well-attested. So much so, in fact, that I will merely bring you A. E. Housman’s take on the matter. I won’t even pretend to be a wiser man than he, so let me walk you through his discussion found in the poem “Terence, this is stupid stuff” instead of bloviating myself.
The poem is found here.
And I would encourage you to open the link in a new window, read it aloud, and return afterward.
Now, most objections to poetry, especially of the melancholy sort, are little different than the first stanza of Housman’s poem—allowing for the usual convention of using musical terms and language to refer to poetry.
BBC’s Inspector Lewis: Is Fantasy Literature Perverse?
August 6, 2012 by 18 Comments
For those of you who have read my books and blog posts here over the last decade, the name ‘Titus Burckhardt’ is not unknown. I have referenced his ideas on alchemy and Perennialism from the start and remain not-so-secretly convinced that Ms. Rowling’s reading in hermeticism that set the story scaffolding for her Hogwarts Saga was founded in Burckhardt’s Alchemy: Science of the Cosmos, Science of the Soul. His Mirror of the Intellect, too, I suspect was influential, if only in drawing out the meaning for Ms. Rowling of the many mirrors in the English fantasy tradition. Harry Potter for Nerds has an important essay by Erin Sweeney on Rowling’s astrological-alchemical artistry that assumes just this Rowling-Burckhardt connection.
I’ve also mentioned another traditional writer in thoughts posted here, Martin Lings, who was both a Perennialist and Sufi like Burkhardt and a student and friend of C. S. Lewis.’ Frankly, I think the links joining the Inkling writers and the greater Coleridgean resistance to the errors of modernity with the Perennialist school to be significant and important, both for understanding the artistry and meaning of Tolkien, Lewis, Williams, Rowling, et aliorum, which is to say the power of their work, but in understanding ourselves, as readers and as human beings. Lings’ Sacred Art of Shakespeare is the model of exposition in this regard that I have tried to emulate.
Imagine my intrigue, then, when I heard from a mentor and friend that the BBC had filmed an episode in its Inspector Lewis ‘Masterpiece Mystery’ called ‘Allegory of Love’ that explored the tradition of English fantasy out of Oxford, notably, Lewis Carroll, C. S. Lewis, and J. R. R. Tolkien, in light of Perennialist teaching. I watched it last night via Hulu plus and my wife’s laptop and I review it below the jump; please watch the show yourself before reading what follows because I make no allowance in it for those not wanting to be spoiled.
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