And extra yuletide conversation…
Merry Christmas to you and yours!
Thoughts for the Serious Reader of Harry Potter
Hogwarts Professor Pillar Posts
Keys to Understanding J. K. Rowling’s Novels and Screenplays
Recent Conversation
- Savanna on Not Until the Mockingjay Sings: Seven Reasons Suzanne Collins May Not be Ready to Leave Panem
- Amy on The Secret Doctrine of ‘The Secret Garden’
- RuVe on Rowling Tweets Status of ‘Sleep Tight, Evangeline:’ Sixty Percent of First Draft
- Mary on Rowling Tweets Status of ‘Sleep Tight, Evangeline:’ Sixty Percent of First Draft
- Viki on Audible Full Cast Recording – Draft Cover Art
Can’t believe I’m just now enjoying The Rowling Christmas Quiz with Nick and Zossima! It’s way better than any of the 12 days of Christmas gifts, and reminded me of the Kanreki marathon. I was so tickled that Nick asked what Hermione conjured at the gravesite of the Potters because I have different colored hellebores in my garden. They are not actually roses at all, but they do start blooming at Christmas. Some hellebores are called Lenten roses because they bloom later in winter. I love how the flowers hang like bells, or as in Harry’s case, like a mourner bowed in grief. I thought the hardest question was Zossima’s from The Christmas Pig: naming all the members of the royal family. I could only remember two and Memory was not one them lol. Well done and happy Twelfth Night and soon, Orthodox Christmas!
Greetings on this Julian Feast of St. Berhtwald – and Gregorian Feast of St. Cadoc (among others – in the Orthodox calendar I consulted)!
I have not been keeping up, but recent happy (Providential?) reading spurs me to note Elizabeth Goudge’s Henrietta’s House (1942) which I just encountered and enjoyed in a 1960 Dutch translation (from Tolkien’s Dutch publisher, who put it in a series of books for girls – and noted their earlier translation of The Little White Horse). I could not find it via the search function here and thought it worth asking, ‘Do “we” know if JKR read it, pre-Potter?’ – and commending it for comparison (and enjoyment!) in any case. For one big thing, it includes a variant of what Wikipedia calls “The Giant Who Had No Heart in His Body” for which I have not yet found a precedent – which ties into the story line, with a mysterious very tall, large man (cf. Hagrid?) who turns out very differently than Tom Riddle did (cf. King’s Cross).
And, following that I’m now reading C.R. Boxer’s The Portuguese Seaborne Empire 1415-1825 (1969 as republished by Penguin as a Pelican Book in 1973) – which has taught me how little I know about Portuguese (imperial) history and culture, and got me wondering what JKR knew before or during her years in Portugal. For instance, chapter 11 is entitled “‘Purity of blood’ and ‘contaminated races'” (!).