No, I Haven't Started Reading The Deadly Hallows Yet

[dr_pretentious]

After Dan and I got home from seeing The Order of the Phoenix, I decided to reread volumes 5 and 6 before starting in on 7. Here I am, still mired in 5, so Dan's reading our copy of 7 first, under strict instructions to say nothing at all about it. I don't want to hear even one sentence in advance of reading it for myself.

(The current Harry Potter film is the best so far, which surprised me, because that book in the series was my least favorite on first reading. It's that the Hollywood-kid-movie sentimentality that marred the early films is finally gone. It always baffled me when the various directors lapsed into mawkishness, since the story doesn't need it. So hooray for David Yates, the first director in the bunch who really got it right.)

I'm zipping past all the Rowling-related posts on lj as fast as I can. Please, don't tell me a thing.

And yet, some of the non-spoiler comments on the book have caught my eye.

elphaba_of_oz says, There are many small moments of comfort in the book.

And I think that's one of the main virtues in the previous volumes that makes it possible for readers to go on, even very young readers, despite the relentlessly increasing bleakness. It's also one of the main virtues I think of when I see writing advice about tension. Tension is the big fetish these days, and as usual, fetishization is an indication that people have stopped thinking. Is your book not yet sold? That can only be because there's not enough tension in it. Do you have even one moment when the tension lets up? Expunge that moment, quick!

Right.

Well.

There's nothing on earth more boring to watch than a too-long car chase scene. And there's nothing on earth more tedious to read than a book whose primary virtue is tension. I say that having read literally thousands of freshman composition papers, so I know what boring looks like. There are fantasy series for adult readers that have lost me, after four or five volumes of avid reading, because the author's attempts to raise the stakes resulted in a string of calamities that turned just plain monotonous. If the outcome of every step for the protagonist is increasingly tense misery and failure no matter what s/he tries to do, fast pacing isn't going to be enough to restore suspense.

Books in which terrible things happen need to be leavened by small moments of comfort. Anybody who wants to know why J.K. Rowling's readers have been willing to follow her across thousands of pages from that first children's book about an 11-year-old all the way to the Deathly Hallows needs look no further than that.

Comments

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

This is why Joss Whedon hooks us in: He allows people periods - sometimes short, sometimes long - of real joy and security. Then he kills them with big fucking stakes rammed through the cockpit windscreen.

Not that I'm bitter.

[elphaba-of-oz.livejournal.com]

You really are quite hilarious. Thank you!

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

I aim to please.

Also, to misbehave :)

[awritersweekend.livejournal.com]

Word.

However, on the subject of tension: Donald Maass in his Writing the Breakout Novel workshop says that tension doesn't have to be a huge crisis. It can be as small a thing as having two characters who have a 'past' in the same scene. It can be sexual tension. It can be the tension of not knowing what the future will hold, the excitement of that. Hence, with Whedon, the vastness of outer space and then, wham! Ratcheting up the stakes, is what Maass calls it. Pun very much intended, sorry.

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

Which takes us neatly back to the post :)

[onyxtwilight.livejournal.com]

Bastard.

That's the reason I never want to see anything done in that world post-Serenity. I just can't bear that world without Wash in it. I am not strong enough to withstand Zoe's pain.

But y'wanna know how he originally hooked me? Two words: "Public relations." >:-)

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

I feel much the same way.

But I'll watch it anyway, because I am a hopeless addict.

[castalusoria.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't mind seeing more episodes set before "Serenity." Things that fill in in-between the extant episodes, or other things that lead up to the beginning of "Serenity." I'd love to see more between Mal and Inara, more Jayne, more River and Simon.

[onyxtwilight.livejournal.com]

I agree, which is why I phrase it that way. There's more backstory to tell! In particular, I want full details on the hands-of-blue boys. Why pairs? Why are the gloves blue? WTF?

[castalusoria.livejournal.com]

Yes! That's the kind of mythos/ethos/worldview questions I want to see explored more.

For me, "Serenity" did what it had to do in some ways-- offer closure on many of the myriad open plot and background threads-- but for me it was too condensed, and I kind of felt cheated that some of those long-term concepts and developments never got explored before being wrapped up.

I will say-- I didn't watch "Firefly" when it originally aired, I watched the DVDs of the episodes straight-through before seeing the movie in the theater. As such, I can say, academically, that I think it was a good, solid show with a lot of great content-- but (thankfully!) didn't have the vested interest held by folks who were watching it as it aired-- then had it pulled out from under them abruptly. So for my part, it's a small blessing.

But egads, Mal was hot. The Mal-and-Inara tension was so tasty! (There's only one episode-- one of the DVD-only episodes-- that made me cry. Only one.)

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

I wanted the preacher's backstory. It's clear in one of the Firefly episodes that he was some kind of military bigwig, with the implication that he fought against the Browncoats in the war. I wanted to see how that would play out.

It really bugs me that Joss Whedon thinks the only way to get tension out of monogamous couples in the long run is to (a) bust them up, or (b) kill one of the partners. I thought he was over that little problem when I saw what he was doing with Zoe and Wash in the series, but alas, no. The Whedonverse has no successfully committed couples in it, and although I love everything he's ever done, that seems to me to be a major verisimilitude problem.

[kistha.livejournal.com]

The guy who played Wash didn't want to be committed for any further Firefly things after the main movie. So he kind of had to kill him.

So, it might not be the Joss thing.

[castalusoria.livejournal.com]

The Preacher's backstory was one of the things I felt really had more to offer that they never had a chance to develop. They gave it semi-closure in "Serenity" in the private conversation between he and Mal, but I was deeply curious to know who and what he'd been-- there were other hints to it when he was injured and his Ident card got them no-questions access to a government facility...

In think the overarcing plot thread that lost out the most was what was going on in the government's various factions.

(I was deeply amused to see one of the actors from "Desperate Housewives" turn up as an Alliance captain, though I think chronologically, he must have done "DH" second...)

A suggestion....

[elphaba-of-oz.livejournal.com]

JKR read the first chapter of the book at midnight at the Natural History Museum in London. (London I think?) Scholastic.com taped it and put it on their website. I listened to it before I started reading. It added to the experience.

Re: A suggestion....

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that sounds yummy. Thanks for the tip.

[kistha.livejournal.com]

Interesting that you liked tOotP movie and thought it was the best of the bunch. I really didn't like it. It was too jerky, poorly plotted and banal even though it was very, very pretty. 3 is still the worst movie out there of the set so far, IMO.

I loved Luna, Umbridge was spot on and obviously someone's vision for the movie was "falling breaking glass".

About to start book 7 as soon as I finish LJ.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

I always wonder how the movies work for people who haven't read the books. I can sit there and fill in the gaps, but are the gaps problematic for non-Potter-readers.

I liked a lot of things about 3, but there's that scene in the infirmary when the director gets a cheap laugh by having Dumbledore thumping on an the cast on an injured student's broken limb. It's such a terribly false note that it breaks the suspension of disbelief for every second of the remaining running time. Instead of being immersed in the film's climax, I'm sitting there seething about how the director clearly has no idea who the characters are, if he thinks Dumbledore would callously, repeatedly cause major physical pain to a child who was right there in front of him, either out of cluelessness or in order to get a laugh.

I did like the way Cuaron used the Whomping Willow to show the passing of the seasons, though.

[jasminewind.livejournal.com]

First a question - What is mawkishness? Can you give me an example of how it was present in a previous HP movie but lacking in OoPh?

I agree, too long car chases are dull - I appreciate the explanation here of why that is so.

I think it is a good idea to be re-reading the prior books first, I did that with the last 2 HP movies before seeing the latest. I didn't do so with the book and had that annoying moment of "What, oh yeah! I remember" several times. I will probably go back and re read the lot of them now, at least the last few (I really disliked Chamber of Secrets, I find it hard to picture reading it again.

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Mawkishness is sentimentality so thick it causes a visceral recoiling reaction. The last several minutes of the second HP film, with its long, lingering close-ups on the major characters while they grin at each other in the Great Hall, are mawkish. It's as if the director doesn't trust the audience to get it that this is a happy ending and the heroes like each other unless he drags it out and cranks up the schmaltz in the music.

A lot of sentimentality seems to arise from either not trusting the audience to have the desired emotional response (and so bludgeoning the audience with instructions on how to feel), or not trusting the core elements of the story to elicit the desired emotional response (and so piling on peripheral elements and frilly techniques, to compensate for lack of confidence in characters or plotting).

The weirdest thing is when films and books that are working beautifully on their own terms and on the audience suddenly lapse into sentimentality. Remember that scene in Casablanca when Rick rigs the roulette game so the young Bulgarian couple will be able to escape the country? The camera keeps cutting to the most easily likable of the minor characters, Carl (played by S.Z. Sakall, one of my favorite character actors of all time), to show us that Carl approves. As if the audience wouldn't know to approve of Rick's rigging the game to save the lives and innocence of those kids. One cut to Carl is plenty, but several cuts to Carl, while he mugs more and more outrageously to demonstrate how pleased he is, just in case we are insufficiently moved on our own--that's mawkishness.

[castalusoria.livejournal.com]

I will be intrigued to see, when they transfer HP7 to film, what of those (and there are many) small moments are skipped, compressed, or otherwise jumbled. Other parts will very-easily translate to the big screen.

Have a great read!

[violet-moon25.livejournal.com]

I finished last Harry Potter book in under 24 hours due to insomnia & back pain. (I wonder if the size of the book added to the back pain?) I enjoyed it and will not give anything away until you get to finish it. It would have helped to reread book 6 but I misplaced it someplace in the house. I would love to see the movie but have to figure out what to do with Andrew. He is constantly on the move lately but his receptive language is improving amazingly. Of course that translates to he knows what you want him to do but only does it if he feels like it.