Sunday Quiz 1: Answers & Explanations

September 2, 2024 by 2 Comments

Yesterday I posted a Sunday Night Quiz and promised to provide the answers with some explanation this morning. Scroll down for the answers; here is the explanation:

I am working on four books at present, reviving the online class I offered in 2017, and preparing talks for a local continuing education center for adults here in OKC, a series that will start in January. This is in addition to working three days a week at my ‘day job,’ helping my wife with her cooking business and online cooking classes (see MaryGranger.com for that), and writing here on a daily basis and a long form essay twice a month at the Hogwarts Professor Substack page. I’m in touch on a daily basis with Potter Pundits and Serious Strikers and Nick Jeffery and I talk at least once a week, largely about our ‘Rowling Studies’ podcast at the Substack site.

That’s a lot for an old man and I’ll be discussing each of these projects when there’s more to report.

Today I can share the simplest one of the book writing adventures: a Harry Potter trivia collection organized by individual chapters.

It started the year before Deathly Hallows was published when I was teaching Honors Freshman English at Valley Forge Military Academy. We read the six Harry Potter novels that school year along with most of the books discussed in my notes for what would become Harry Potter’s Bookshelf — Austen’s Emma, Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet, Shelley’s Frankenstein, et cetera. The cadets were hesitant at first but at Christmas break they learned that being expert in the Hogwarts Saga and attendant literature was a huge hit with every girl they met, the ultimate ice breaker. No complaints after that about the amount of reading they had to do…

Anyway, I started giving daily true and false quizzes about the reading assignments they had, quizzes that covered multiple chapters from which brief tests I could gauge who had and hadn’t done the work. My children enjoyed this much more than the cadets; they took the quizzes at night over dinner (and usually complained that they were too easy). They wanted a chapter-by-chapter quiz set that were actually questions rather than true and false exercises. I did a few of those for Order of the Phoenix but, in the madness surrounding the publication of Deathly Hallows, I let it slide.

In preparing bonuses for my 2017 online class, ‘Wizard Reading Formula,’ I found all those quizzes. I decided it would be a fun bonus for those who signed up to receive each week of the seven week course a set of quizzes for each of the chapters in one Harry Potter novel. My children and I, the three remaining at home then, went to town, so to speak, and threw together 198 chapter quizzes and one for the Deathly Hallows epilogue. I decided to throw in, on top of the ten questions for each chapter a ‘For Your Reflection’ discussion topic or essay prompt.

That last insertion proved to be no small addition. I never finished the project, though those in the class received the ten questions on time. It was a big hit with them and with my family but I put finishing the project (and my online classes aside) as I began my PhD studies and thesis writing. The only book I have ever written that might have universal appeal to Harry Potter fans has  been sitting in my filing cabinet ever since. 

My other two Rowling-related book projects are an expansion and adaptation of my Shed-heavy PhD thesis and a corresponding Lake-laden project that very serious readers will enjoy, the one a capstone project to my twenty plus years of “artistry and meaning” exploration and the other the first salvo in ‘Fourth Generation’ understanding of The Presence. I’m excited about those books, believe me, and I look forward to sharing chapters of each over at the Substack site as they are drafted and in a comprehensive online class in 2025.

Along the way, I’ll occasionally post a chapter from the trivia collection, usually on Sundays when I need a day off from posting. For the next six weeks, then, I’ll be sharing a chapter quiz with essay prompt from a different Harry Potter novel for your self-testing pleasure. Enjoy!

Answers to the quiz for Philosopher’s Stone, chapter 1, after the jump — [Read more…]

Filed Under: Chapter Quiz

Sunday Quiz: Philosopher’s Stone ch. 1

September 1, 2024 by Leave a Comment

Answers tomorrow along with an explanation of the ‘Sunday Quiz’ project! It’s not an open book test, by the way…

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone:

Chapter 1, ‘The Boy Who Lived’

  1. What “dull, gray” day of the week is it when “our story starts” at 4 Privet Drive?
  2. Leaving for work, Mr. Dursley sees a tabby cat on Privet Drive doing two things cats cannot do. What are these two things?
  3. Dursley’s office is on what floor at Grunnings, his drill company?
  4. True or False: Dursley at lunch on Tuesday is hugged by a wizard, he is called a Muggle, and he calls his wife when he overhears conversation about the Potters and their boy, Harry.
  5. What is the name of the TV weatherman who reports that the owls are acting out of the ordinary? 
  6. What are the shapes of Albus Dumbledore’s and Minerva McGonagall’s eyeglasses?
  7. How does Dumbledore put out the lights on Privet Drive?
  8. What is Dumbledore’s explanation for Harry’s surviving Voldemort’s attack?
  9. True or False: Professor McGonagall is convinced Dumbledore is wrong in leaving Harry with the Dursleys.
  10. Hagrid arrives on Sirius Black’s motorcycle and reports that there were no problems retrieving Harry. The boy fell asleep as “we was flyin’ over” what English town?

For Your Reflection:

The very first chapter of the seven book series introduces the great divide in Harry’s world, the chasm separating Wizards and Muggles. It does this by sharing the views of Vernon Dursley, archetypal Muggle, and both Minerva McGonagall and Albus Dumbledore, witch and wizard, about the other side. Infant Harry at chapter’s end crosses this canyon to live with his Aunt and Uncle. Given what we learn in the chapter about the Dursleys (not all we learn in subsequent chapters and books), is Dumbledore’s decision a good one? 

 

Filed Under: Contest, Hog Pro Notes

Rowling’s Ten Most Important Interviews

August 31, 2024 by Leave a Comment

I was communicating on the HogwartsProfessor moderator backchannels earlier this week and the conversation thread led to a pretty serious discussion about a book each of us would like to have on our shelves, namely, a ‘Greatest Hits’ anthology of Rowling’s most important interviews. It was really an explosion as much as a ‘conversation’ because more than once of us had given this subject a lot of thought.

There were three main topics we explored: whether such a collection was possible, what constituted “important” when it came to comparing interviews between 1997 and today, and which interviews each of us would choose. I had an advantage in that last category, well, several advantages. While I will never have the encyclopedic recall of interviews that a Lisa Bunker, Beatrice Groves, or Patricio Tarantino at The Rowling Library index has, I did spend the last four or five years writing a PhD thesis on Rowling’s works and had to review as much interview canon as I could stand. I also, it turned out, had started a post on just this subject in May 2022, a draft that included a preliminary list of my own.

I compared that list of thirteen interviews with the one I threw together as a sample for the backchannel consortium last week, a list of twelve. Join me after the jump to see how much overlap there is — and where I want to go with this. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Hog Pro Notes

New Title from Rowling Library Books: ‘The Phoenix or the Flame’ Anthology

August 30, 2024 by Leave a Comment

The Rowling Library (TRL) Books announced today that they will be publishing ‘A. Ibid’s edited essay-anthology, The Phoenix or the Flame: Essays on J. K. Rowling’s Original Plans for ‘Harry Potter and the order of the Phoenix, in the “fourth quarter of 2024.”

Edited by A. Ibid, who goes by the username ibid-11962, a distinguished figure in online Harry Potter communities known for his extensive knowledge of J.K. Rowling’s works and canon, The Phoenix or the Flame brings together the insights of renowned scholars including John Granger, Beatrice Groves, and Louise Freeman, among other esteemed voices. Through their expert analysis, this collection not only compares the original plans with the published novel but also explores the broader implications of these changes on the Harry Potter narrative and its legacy.

The title, The Phoenix or the Flame, which references a quote from the Harry Potter series, is a nod to the juxtaposition of Rowling’s initial vision with its final outcome. The Phoenix or the Flame is slated for release in the fourth quarter of 2024. TRL Books will soon reveal the full list of contributing authors and abstracts, the book’s synopsis, and its cover design.

I’m mentioned in that announcement so I feel I can share the story of my participation in the project — after the jump! [Read more…]

Filed Under: Hog Pro Notes

Rowling Still Writing Hallmarked Man

August 29, 2024 by 1 Comment

Rowling confirmed for her more than fourteen million Twixter followers what we have been reporting here for several weeks, namely, that her annual ‘Birthday Party’ cruise this year took the Murray clan to Greenland. In a four part thread, she thanked the people whom she had met, shared pictures of the natural beauty there (to include feminists near the Artic Circle), endorsed a guide to the folklore of Greenland, and assured her readers that it was a working vacation, i.e., she had not been “idle” in finishing The Hallmarked Man.

One by one, then:

The Rowling Library helped those of us who have neglected to keep up with our Danish (Greenland dialect) by providing this helpful translation:

The natural beauty!

It looks like Rowling &Company had a costume ball for her birthday revel and that she dressed up as ‘The Mother of the Sea.’ Forgive me for wondering if she traveled with the necessary dress, tiara, cosmetics, and hair dyes to pull this off or they sell these things at most shops in Greenland’s port cities. 

The Maria Kreutzmann book she recommended, Bestiarium Greenlandica, can be purchased at Amazon. What’s it about?

Meet the motley crew of dangerous, cheeky, and fantastical beings of Greenland! 

The world of Greenlandic mythology is inhabited by creatures that have played a vital role in Inuit beliefs and stories throughout the ages. The Bestiarium is a collection of what is generally known about these diverse beings, spirits, and animals. Their stories are gritty, cruel, and reflect from the harsh landscape and lifestyle of ancient Greenland. Descriptions are paired with illustrations by contemporary Greenlandic illustrators that transport these mythological beings into the 21st Century. A brief history of Greenland and the shaman tradition launches the reader into the ancient world of Greenland and how myth and legend told generation after generation can mould and depict a place that was dark and grim as mischievous and lively and full of natural wonders. 

If the Fantastic Beasts franchise is ever revived (ho!), perhaps this bestiary from the great north will be part of Newt’s kit.

And then there was this bit of news, perhaps as much for Rowling’s editors as for her readers:

Taking a closer look at the written page, we find a quotation from Oxenham’s A Maid of the Silver Sea as the epigraph for Hallmarked Man’s Part Nine:

That passage has a note of finality to it and Running Grave only had nine chapter sets, Rowling’s ‘Parts,’ so we can hope that she is nearing the finish line. I have to doubt very much, though, that it will be available for your Serious Striker’s stocking stuffer this December. Alas!

For a in depth conversation about the Maid of the Silver Sea and Oxenham, Nick Jeffery tells all in ‘Sark, Snark and Censorship.’

One jokester on the thread noted the hysteria that had been going on in her absence about her Olympic boxing “cyber-bullying” and how her silence for several weeks had meant to her critics that she was retreating from her war against gender theory extremists (discussed here). Her response was characteristically buoyant, appropriate for a woman sailing back across the North Atlantic in her yacht.

Tomorrow, some thoughts on the influence of P. D. James on Robert Galbraith. Stay tuned!

 

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