(No spoilers whatsoever under the cut…just my ramblings)
I’ve been reading a lot about spoilers for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, not only here on lj, but even in the Boston Globe. (Not only is today’s Living/Arts section entirely devoted to the forthcoming book, including a piece in which four local authors are asked to suggest their own possible endings, but the business section has an article about the tight security around the book and the leaks that have sprung, regardless.) But I’m not the slightest bit curious about any of the spoilers, or the speculative articles. The Governor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick, reportedly is on the edge of his seat in anticipation of …Deathly Hallows. But not me. I can wait.
Oh, it’s not because I don’t like the books. I do. I’ve read them all–repeatedly. I pre-ordered my copy of …Deathly Hallows months ago. That’s part of the problem right there. I’m going to have to wait, because I ordered my copy from Canada. For years, I wouldn’t read the Harry Potter books. Initially, I had to get over two hurdles: yet another trivialization of “witches” as people who wore pointy hats, waved wands and rode on flying broomsticks; and my own perverse resistance to jumping on any popular bandwagon. I would have gotten past those minor obstacles much faster, however, had it not been for Scholastic Books. When I read that Scholastic was re-writing Rowling’s prose to remove the British vernacular, and to “dumb down” the books for American kids, I was outraged. I was especially appalled when they changed “philosopher’s stone” to “sorcerer’s stone,” because as even lots of dumb Americans know, the Philosopher’s Stone is a very specific, actual historical concept, not something Rowling just made up. Scholastic’s excuse was that American kids “wouldn’t know what a philosopher was.” Well, excuse me, I thought. In the FIRST place, I always thought that all of us kids who grew up reading unedited British classics like The Wind in the Willows, Black Beauty,The Hobbit,The Chronicles of Narnia,The Once and Future King, and many similar works including adult fiction, and had to look up unfamiliar words in the dictionary or ask our moms or just work them out from context, were expanding our vocabularies and learning about a different culture. Silly me! We were all really just being confused and discouraged! Second, kids devour fantasy by the truckload that is full of invented words, strange names and even fictional languages–you’re telling me a child old enough to read even the early Harry Potter books can’t understand a word like “philosopher?”
So I was ripshit at Scholastic. And I still am. I refused to buy or even read any of the Scholastic Harry Potter editions, and I would be reluctant to buy anything published by Scholastic. I take literature, and an author’s right to respect, that seriously.
As I began to feel more and more left out due to not having read the books, I started to try and find a way to get my hands on the British editions. It wasn’t until spring of 2006 that I finally discovered that I could order them directly from Amazon.ca, in Canadian dollars. I ordered all six books and read them in one fell swoop (took me weeks, though!).
And that’s why I have to wait for …Deathly Hallows, because I have the Bloomsbury edition pre-ordered from Amazon.ca and it’s not going to get here until early August. But that’s okay. I can wait.
I just don’t want the Harry Potter series to end. I’m not interested in speculating on who dies, or reading spoilers–I’m just not that eager to know! I want to see how the story ultimately resolves. But, on the other hand…I don’t. I probably won’t sit up all night reading …Deathly Hallows. I have this feeling I’ll be reading more and more slowly the closer I get to the end. Maybe it’s because I’ve been feeling, the last couple of years, that I’ve seen all the death I want to see, and I know there’s a lot more to come. I can already see the thestrals. One of my vampire characters in Mortal Touch says at one point, “There’s nothing romantic about dying. I should know.” I don’t know who is going to die in …Deathly Hallows, but I’m not even anxious to see Voldemort bite the big one. Enough death is enough! Even heroic self-sacrifice seems like a waste to me, not something admirable. In my own next book, I’ve had to change the storyline slightly because one of the supporting characters, who was originally doomed, refuses to let me kill him. He refuses to die. I can’t do it–he won’t let me kill him off, just to boost the angst factor. He has taken his own fate away from me–which is a rather weird experience, and one which, I’ve seen hinted, happened to Rowling as she finished …Deathly Hallows.
But we shall see about that…or rather, you all will. I will, eventually, but…I can wait.