John Granger Talks at Biola University! New Book ‘Deathly Hallows Lectures’ On Sale Now!

September 13, 2008 by 7 Comments

Update: The Hog’s Head’s latest PodCast is an interview with me about The Deathly Hallows Lectures. Please tune in and share what you think!

If you live in southern California, I am coming your way next Monday as a Torrey Honors Institute Distinguished Lecturer at Biola University. In my two days there, I’ll be responsible for a talk to the Biola University community, a 3 hour seminar for selected students, a podCast with the Torrey Scriptorium gentlemen, and another talk, this one just for the Torrey students. Only the first talk is open to all comers; please join the community of scholars and friends at Biola that night if you can and introduce yourself afterwards.

I’ll be talking about the “new stuff” from my latest book, The Deathly Hallows Lectures, namely, the meaning of the many eyes in the series finale and the help it gives us in turning what Ms. Rowling has said is “the key” opening up the seven books. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Deathly Hallows Lectures

The House of Gaunt: Is it from ‘Vanity Fair’?

September 12, 2008 by 9 Comments

This morning I received a note from Mr. Jerry Bowyer, a long time correspondent on Harry Potter subjects. Mr. Bowyer is a remarkable man, who, at the height of the Witchcraft Controversy, said publicly and without hedge in his newspaper columns and television and radio shows that Ms. Rowling’s books were the gateway to English Literature rather than to the occult. This took no little prescience and courage when his readers and listeners were those least disposed at the time to hear that sort of thing.

He wrote today on another matter but mentioned in an aside that “Susan and I just had an interesting conversation about ‘the dark mark’ which is found in the Gaunt family in William Thackerey’s Vanity Fair.” I am not a Thackeray reader, alas, but thought HogPro readers might be as interested as I was in this potential hat-tip and key to the Gaunt family cryptonym as well as a pointer to the ‘Dark Mark’ of Voldemort. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Plot Points

Question About Fidelius Charm

September 12, 2008 by 55 Comments

I received a list of questions this morning from a reader in Germany, Bernhard Nowak. Herr Nowak was disappointed in what he felt was the inconsistency of Deathly Hallows with the previous books of the series and Ms. Rowling’s comments on her web site. He wrote a polite letter to Christopher Little, Ms. Rowling’s literary agent, and to Bloomsbury, in which letter he detailed ten specific points that he thought didn’t line up, points that the Continuity Editor, if not Ms. Rowling herself, should have caught.

He has not received a response. Having just finished reading my The Deathly Hallows Lectures in which I discuss the questions I would ask Ms. Rowling in an interview, he sent his questions to me on the unlikely chance Ms. Rowling and I ever have tea.

I post the best of Herr Nowak’s ten questions here, one about the Fidelius Charm, with his permission. Is this a continuity gaffe? Can it be explained logically within canon? Or do we need an ex machina explanation? What, for example, does the inability of Death Eaters to enter 12 Grimmauld Place in Deathly Hallows tell us about the continuing effect of the Fidelius Charm? Are they only there because Harry and friends continuously break the Name Taboo?

Herr Nowak’s question for your consideration: [Read more…]

Filed Under: Deathly Hallows Discussion Points

HBP Film Screening: Major Changes from Book?

September 10, 2008 by 33 Comments

These reviews from a film screening in Chicago are all spoilers, of course. If you don’t want to learn about this movie, don’t click on the link or read the comments boxes below. I suspect the changes in the Tower scene alone and the decisions made about the funeral are going to have several All Pros upset. Remember, please; “the movies are just trailers for the books.”

(HT/LOONy Linda; thanks!)

Filed Under: Unlocking Harry Potter

Harry Potter Banned in Wasilla, Alaska?!

September 6, 2008 by 11 Comments

What a wonderful week of Daily Prophet watching we have had courtesy of the nomination by Sen. McCain of Gov. Palin as the Republican Party candidate for Vice President! Because of the compression of time post-Olympics and pre-election for the party conventions to play out the last two weeks, it has been a veritable feeding ground for Rita Skeeters, Cornelius Fudges, and Dolores Umbridges on both sides of the aisle to attack and smear political candidates, especially Gov. Palin and her family, and, in this madness, to bring the American political process out into the open for what it is. I waver between seeing it as “hilarious,” “glorious,” “shameful,” and Jefferson’s figurative fertilizer, the “blood of liberty,” but it never comes quite into focus so I keep looking.

If nothing else, the white heat of Presidential politics in Denver and St. Paul has filled my inbox with e-owl inquiries about what I’m up to these days and if I knew that Gov. Palin had tried to have Harry Potter banned from the Wasilla library when she was mayor of this small town in Alaska — and that she fired the librarian when her request was refused. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Hog Pro Notes