Preparatory

Indulging the inner child is always fun - and today I've been doing it big time! Well, I've just been reading something that probably better suits my real intellectual level (that is, low). Harry Potter!

There's a bit of a Potter glut at the moment, with the 5th film very recently out and the 7th and final (oh please final!) book out on Saturday. Not that I'm counting the days or anything. Look, there's an excuse, I'm a Potter Child - when the first book, HP & the Philosopher's Stone came out, I was the same age as Harry. That matters. Anyway, it's the 5th book, HP & the Order of the Phoenix I've been galloping through this afternoon, in preparation for seeing the film sometime this week. The films are great but they don't do the books justice, as they tend to leave great gaping holes where Rowling lovingly wrote explanations...it's annoying, so I curb the annoyance by reminding myself of the details pre-film. It's damage limitation.

People often ask me what I think of the Potter books, and it's invariably a slightly awkward conversation. They seem to think that because I study Real Literature (old books 'n' stuff), I will (a) not read 'popular' books or (b) look down on them but read them anyway, frowning and moaning. So the question is almost always asked apologetically, which is a bit sad. And then it's my turn to be trapped - either I say that I don't like the books, in which case I'm an academic snob and not open to anything fun/popular (and dismissing or rubbishing their literary taste into the bargain); or I say I do like them, in which case my studying Literature somehow becomes void and a sham because I can't tell the difference between Shakespeare and Rowling (in their minds). Obviously all this awkwardness and over-thinking is avoided if whoever's asking doesn't know that I study (a) English, (b) at Cambridge - a fact I keep as quiet as possible, so easy conversations do sometimes happen (not often enough, sadly). With the final HP book very much on its way, it seems time to come clean:

I'M CRUMPETTY AND I LIKE *HARRY POTTER*!

Rowling has got a fantastic imagination, and she does great stuff with it. The plot of every one of the books is gripping, and I want to know what happens next. And that last is vital. I'm not reading HP for a Literary buzz; I'm reading it because it involves a great yarn. Good against evil for kids, but with the dark bits left in. It's not patronising, nor moralising, nor stodgy. The writing quality has markedly improved since the 1st book, which is an interesting development to trace in itself - for starters, Rowling finally seems to have got a handle on her discourse markers ("NO!", "roared Harry", " shuffled Ron", "squawked Hermione", "warned Hagrid"...it's calmed down now, thankfully, and an unobtrusive "said" is used more often). Some of the writing can be really powerful, and other bits not so. But the urge to turn the page to see what happens next is huge. She can tell a story. And that's what matters in this kind of book. It will be good to see if she turns her hand to another style post-Potter, and if she carries it off. I hope she does (both) - it would be a shame to be a seven-part one-trick pony.

Have I ordered my copy of the 7th book, HP & the Deathly Hallows? Yep, of course! And I'll spend next weekend locked in my room, away from telephone, internet or annoying fast-reading children who might talk, within my earshot, about what happens at The End. Am I ashamed of this? No. Though, just in case I should be ashamed, I'll confess that I read HP & the Philosopher's Stone in Latin. Less impressively, I tried it in Russian but got about as far as a dolphin in the Sahara. So, onwards, Chapter 1 -

"Dominus et Domina Dursley, qui vivebant in aedibus Gestationis Ligustrorum numero quattuor signatis, non sine superbia dicebant se ratione ordinaria vevendi uti neque se paenitere illius rationis. in toto orbe terrarum vix credas quemquam esse minus deditum rebus novis et arcanis, quod ineptias tales omnino spernebant..."

(Who on earth thought it was a good idea to translate HP "et Philosophi Lapis" into Latin?! Fantastic, and mad!)