(no subject)

[cahn]

Parents are visiting. Within two hours of their arrival they had pressured us to buy a house (even though now is quite possibly the worst time imaginable in terms of the real estate market), dissed the company we work for, and pointed out that my cousin makes four times as much as I do "even though she only went to a three-year college." (The institution in question, mind you, is Cambridge University. Yes, that Cambridge.)

The hilarious thing is that once that was out of the way, we had a great visit, and I learned all sorts of unbelievably juicy family gossip. (My ex-aunt is a Major Korean Scandal! Like, national front-page news! Who knew?)

Anyway, so meanwhile, most of the reading I've been doing has been either Dante or Harry Potter, which D and I are rereading (so far, halfway through Book 2) in preparation for the 7th book. Oh, and I continue to snarfle through Josephine Tey: Miss Pym Disposes and The Franchise Affair, this time around.

I keep having this problem with Tey where I start the book thinking of her as sort of a better Agatha Christie, and then becoming distressed a couple of pages through where I realize that no, indeed, Tey actually has real characters and so I actually have to pay attention and not speedread blithely the way I can do with Christie, whose characters are all kind of clones of each other... it's like Christie is, I dunno, chips and salsa, and Tey is more like a really good soup; if you go too fast you miss half the fun. And-- this is related-- Tey is not really about the mystery. I mean, I guess they're mysteries, but they're books first. I especially loved Miss Pym Disposes, which had some just heartbreakingly wonderful characters, which therefore made me care about the central conflict (which is not, in fact, a crime; though a crime is committed, it's not actually the emotional centerpiece of the book. Can you say that about any Agatha Christie?).

HP thoughts:

-The first book actually starts pretty slowly.

-I had not noticed before that Hogwarts is actually a very small school! There are 5 Gryffindor boys Harry's year. This equates to about 40 students in Harry's year entirely, right? How can he not know everyone's name after the first year?

-Words cannot express how much I hate Dobby. He's, like, the JarJar Binks of Harry Potter for me.

-I have clearly been reading too much HP fanfic, because every time Crabbe and Goyle appear on the scene I'm all, "Oh, how cute!" Strangely enough, Draco is still canon Draco for me.

-Also, it was completely and unbelievably stupid for Harry and Ron to take the car to Hogwarts in Book 2. Would it have killed them to, you know, wait 5 minutes for his parents to come back first?!

Comments

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

I am so glad I am not the only person who hates Dobby. A caricature, and an annoying one, too. But you know, I think we can forgive Harry and Ron for stupidity. How old are they?

I'd almost forgotten Tey - it's been years since I read her or Christie. I always thought of Christie as a bit like a crossword puzzle. You read it, you solve it (or don't), but it's purely intellectual. No emotional involvement at all.

Oh, and as for your cousin: "only went to a three-year college. (The institution in question, mind you, is Cambridge University. Yes, that Cambridge.)" - yes, but which college? It matters, you know. Some have far more snob value than others. Well, unless you actually went there, in which case you compare them by food quality and room prices, and refer to the entire place as "Fen Poly"... :)

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

Oh, yay, another Dobby-hater! I could barely read those parts, I hated Dobby so much.

Hee, yeah, it's not like I didn't do horribly stupid things myself when I was that age, though they tended to mess up only my life and not other people's. Mostly because I was a horrible introvert, mind you.

Hmm, I've forgotten which college she went to, though I once knew. I think it was neither one of the really fancy ones nor one of the devoid-of-snob-value ones. It's not so much the snob value-- I went to a snobbish sort of university myself-- as it is the humor I find in referring to it as a "three-year college," as if it were somewhere in between a two-year community college and a proper four-year college :)

[desert-vixen.livejournal.com]

I was so glad that the house-elf stuff got cut out of the movie #4.

I think the thing with the names is that everyone stays within their own house, and only really associates with their house, except in places like the Quidditch field and potions. There's a brillant idea - let's take these two groups of kids that we encourage tremendous rivalry in, and then stick them together in a class where they could concievably poison each other.

DV

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

...Yeah. The house system makes less and less sense the more I think about it.

[ase.livejournal.com]

Somehow, I've missed Tey and Christie, possibly by mainlining SF through high school and college. At some point I'll cover the gaps in my literary pop knowledge.

Words cannot express how much I hate Dobby. He's, like, the JarJar Binks of Harry Potter for me.

When Rowling says "house elf", I say, "skim time!"

Also, it was completely and unbelievably stupid for Harry and Ron to take the car to Hogwarts in Book 2. Would it have killed them to, you know, wait 5 minutes for his parents to come back first?!

At their age? Yes.

One of my favorite scenes in the entire series is Snape finding the Harry and Ron outside the welcoming feast. "Where's Snape?" "Maybe he left!" "Maybe he's sacked!" "Or maybe he's standing right behind you." I am a sucker for comedy.

[charlie-ego.livejournal.com]

Not that there's anything wrong with mainlining SF! But... you got to Sayers, did you not? (Not that there's anything wrong with that either... I got to Sayers at the end of grad school *after* reading her Dante translation and her theological stuff. Probably the only person ever to do it in that order.)

At their age? Yes.
Heh. You're right. It says something as well that when I first read it... in high school, I think? or early college?... I didn't notice that it was stupid.

I really like that scene too... I bet Snape scenes are fun to write. Well, except the ones where he's extremely frustrated because Potter escapes retribution again.

[ase.livejournal.com]

I got to Sayers by way of Gaudy Night, but tried to keep going from there and stalled early in Busman's Honeymoon. I was young.

It says something as well that when I first read it... in high school, I think? or early college?... I didn't notice that it was stupid.

Oh yes. It is good to be older, wiser and able to learn from my mistakes.