Green-Eyed Beatrice and Lily: Gauging the Depth of the Dante Influence in the Harry Potter Novels (A, B, & C)

November 16, 2007 by 13 Comments
Filed Under: Deathly Hallows Discussion Points, Literary Alchemy, Traditional Symbolism, Unlocking Harry Potter

Photos Never Lie? Ms. Rowling’s Seeming ‘Literary Alchemical’ Transformation

November 15, 2007 by 12 Comments

When I was a much younger man, I studied the alchemy of food and traditional cosmology with a man named Michio Kushi. One of Kushi sensei’s remarkable abilities was the ability to diagnose physical health and illness in an individual by looking at his or her face, as unbelievable as that may sound. My experience studying and working with him for two years and my reading in traditionalist literature since has convinced me that this is anything but hokum. The adage that “the face never lies” reflects a reality, though, certainly, when practiced by dilettantes or the uncharitable, facial diagnosis can be and often is abused. Mr. Kushi, as a rule (to which I saw only one exception in kindness), never shared what he saw in a person’s face unless asked in a private or public consultation. The legend of Socrates’ meeting with the “face reader” Zopyrus is instructive in understanding the value and the limits of this traditional art.

All that is only to explain my being simultaneously intrigued and skeptical when a post here suggested that a review of photographs taken of Ms. Rowling since the beginning of her success with Harry Potter ten years ago reflect an internal transformation of some kind. Here is that post and, with this person’s permission, the photographs she had posted on another Harry Potter site: [Read more…]

Filed Under: Unlocking Harry Potter

Harry Potter Maven on Strike: Writers Guild HogPro All-Pro Janet Batchler

November 15, 2007 by 21 Comments

I finally met Janet Batchler early last summer after a few years of correspondence and almost daily exchanges on the old HogPro boards. New Wave Entertainment had asked the two of us and Lexicon Steve to come to Burbank, CA, to be interviewed for an A&E Special, “The Hidden Secrets of Harry Potter.” I thought Janet, because of her beauty, clarity of expression, and command of canon (I hope you bought and read her What Will Harry Do? Payoffs and Possibilities in Book 7 before Deathly Hallows), was the best part of that show. In June, we met again at Sonorus 2007 in the desert above Los Angeles, where she, Steve, and I did a group Q&A with some of the most thoughtful and insightful members of Fandom I spoke with before Deathly Hallows made the scene. Janet was a hit there, too, and I looked forward to seeing her in Toronto at Prophecy 2007.

But there seems to have been a curse on the folks who were interviewed for “The Hidden Secrets of Harry Potter.” Steve Vander Ark’s drama is being played out on the world stage as his efforts to publish the Lexicon have been challenged by Ms. Rowling in court. I have moved twice in four months, if, by your prayers, that has been the extent of the curse’s touch on me. Janet Batchler has not been so lucky. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Hog Pro Notes

Time’s Person of the Year, 2007: Ms. Rowling, in a Landslide?

November 14, 2007 by 8 Comments

This is a delight. Time Magazine, as a run-up to its annual selection of the Person of the Year, has posted a reader ballot on its website. Here’s how they explain the voting:

Now it’s your turn to tell us who is really the most important person of 2007. Should it be a Nobel Prize winning former Vice President or quite possibly the future first woman President? Is the rabble-rousing President of Iran a more deserving choice, or what about the man behind the iPhone? Vote for your choice, though the editors reserve the right to disagree. Their selection will be announced in the December 31st issue of TIME, on sale Dec. 21.

You’ll note they don’t mention “best selling novelist of our time, whose series finale held the imagination of the world captive for much of 2007 and a movie made from a previous book broke box office records.” They didn’t include Ms. Rowling in the lead paragraph, but they won’t be able to ignore her in the results. The voting as of 14 November put Ms. Rowling well out in front of the politicos and entrepreneur Time thought would head the list: [Read more…]

Filed Under: Hog Pro Notes

A Stoic Looks at Deathly Hallows: A Note from Prof. Edmund Kern of Lawrence University

November 13, 2007 by 12 Comments

Edmund Kern, Associate Professor of History at Lawrence University and author of The Wisdom of Harry Potter: What Our Favorite Hero Teaches Us About Moral Choices, is teasing out the ambivalences of the religious meaning in Ms. Rowling’s novels for his class on Harry Potter at Lawrence. I asked for and received his permission to post a recent email he sent after the revelations of the Open Book Tour, that the “religious undertones” of the book were intentional, even “obvious,” and that Ms. Rowling “always thought of Dumbledore as gay.” Prof. Kern is concerned that readers will overstate the specific religious meaning, if there is any, in Deathly Hallows; the spirituality of the books, he argues, is intentionally open-ended, much like the author’s treatment of politics. As he puts it, “the books remain ideologically ‘open,’ and they remain focused on individual responsibility (in the tradition of liberal political theory), rather than offering revolutionary critiques of either politics or religion.” We certainly agree more than we disagree on this, if my interpretation of Ms. Rowling’s “struggle to believe” and understanding Deathly Hallows I think puts me just enough at odds with his religious/spiritual distinction that we can have an interesting discussion. I have promised to send your comments to him about this conversation starter for his response. Your comments and corrections, please!

JKR’s revelation that she’d always thought of Dumbledore as gay has led me back to her treatment of religious imagery. She’s sneakier than even we give her credit for. Here’s my promised, much longer take on recent “revelations.”

As you know, I like your reading of the Potter books, but I still feel more comfortable taking a more cautious approach. “Imagery” (whose presence she’s confirmed) is not the same thing as “message” (whose presence she still hasn’t confirmed). I’m not trying to be cute or coy here, but trying to pay attention to what she actually said.

The spiritual aspects of the books really do become more pronounced in books 6 and 7. The Christ-imagery is there, along with the passages from Matthew and 1 Corinthians. But Rowling also leaves the whole issue of spirituality–let alone religion, as its usually understood–rather ambivalent. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Deathly Hallows Discussion Points, Traditional Symbolism