There's nothing that baffles and frustrates Maia like spotting us through the window.
Maia: "This is so weird. It's like, an out of body experience or something. WHY CAN'T I GET WHERE YOU ARE?"
Me: "Aw, kitty, you're so cute sitting up in the windowsill."
Maia: "I DON'T UNDERSTAND. There's this... this forcefield! How did you get on the other side of it?"
Me: "You really hate it when your people are outside and you're inside, don't you?"
Maia: "It's not right, it's just not right! There has to be a way around it! Where's the magic portal?"
Me, to myself: "I probably shouldn't tell her it's in the laundry room."
* * *
It's official: the fennel is as tall as I am, which takes some doing.
In other gardening news: I haven't had flax in the yard since I was a child, and I'm loving these little blue flowers.
Also, during all the rain of the last couple of days—when it's been too wet to walk the yard much—the raspberries have begun ripening. The first batch is always the sweetest.
And I spent last Saturday rescuing the vegetable garden from the buttercup invasion, as well as handling one of the more intense tasks of the year: tying up the tomato plants and pruning the indeterminate ones. Unlike last year, when the poor little starts were wet and sun-starved, this year's tomato patch has had the freedom of warmth and shelter in plastic-covered garden hoops. When I took off the plastic cover to start trimming and tying, I found a three-foot-deep jungle.
This task involved hunting out the long-lost baby cucumber vines, which I found growing happily along the jungle floor. It also entailed planting basil starts in a few square inches of spare earth and pouring used coffee grounds around them to keep the slugs at bay, and redirecting the enthusiastic pumpkin vines to parts of the yard they're permitted to take over. I had to wall them off from the tomatoes with cage wire. I love my pumpkin vines, but they're not allowed into the tomato patch.
If I didn't suck at photography,
I'd have spotted the blue tape before shooting that picture.
Oregano, thyme, leeks, cilantro, peas and pumpkins.
For better or for worse, I do not make hard choices when I don't have to. Faced with the necessity of removing a couple of little pumpkin vines from the hill, as well as pulling a couple of tomatoes that came up of their own accord, I dragged a couple of old pots out and gave the little plants their chance at life. They're much behind their fellows, but hey, we have room.
Tomatoes on the left, new strawberry starts from Mom on the right!
* * *
Music of the week: This Ralph Vaughn Williams piece, "The Lark Ascending", is mood music for today. I'm just loving it.
Master Nathaniel was drinking in every word as if it was nectar. A sense of safety was tingling in his veins like a generous wine... mounting to his head, even, a little bit, so unused was he to that particular intoxicant.
Endymion Leer eyed him, with a little smile. "And now," he said, "perhaps your Worship will let me talk a little of your own case. The malady you suffer from should, I think, be called 'life-sickness.' You are, so to speak, a bad sailor, and the motion of life makes you brain-sick. There, beneath you, all around you, there surges and swells, and ebbs and flows, that great, ungovernable, ruthless element that we call life. And its motion gets into your blood, turns your head dizzy. Get your sea legs, Master Nathaniel! By which I do not mean you must cease feeling the motion... go on feeling it, but learn to like it; or if not to like it, at any rate to bear it with firm legs and a steady head."
Author: Hope Mirrlees
Synopsis: In the long-lost days of Duke Aubrey, both human and fairy tradition had their influence on the city of Lud-in-the-Mist, which sits on the border of Fairyland. But the Fairyland-loving Duke was a rascal, and the law-abiding citizens banished him. With his banishment, importing fairy fruit—or fairy anything else—was criminalized, and the very name of Fairy became taboo.
In the days of mayor Nathaniel Chanticleer, however, the unspeakable things have begun to resurface. Haunted by the memory of a single Note he once heard in playful mimicry of old mysteries, Nathaniel himself feels set apart from his fellow lawmakers—and when fairy fruit smugglers and an enigmatic but popular doctor wreak discord and havoc in the city, and Nathaniel's own son shows disturbing signs of having eaten the fruit, Nathaniel is drawn into the resurgent conflict between the worlds of Law and Fairy. Only he can save young Ranulph and the city of Lud-in-the-Mist.
Notes: This is a tale of the relationship between Fairyland and ordinary life, which puts it at the heart of my favorite storytelling traditions. Born during the late lifetime of fellow countryman George MacDonald (relevant works: Phantastes, Lilith), and just thirteen years younger than G.K. Chesterton (Orthodoxy), Mirrlees seems to write under the guidance of the same muse that led them. It wouldn't surprise me if she were directly influenced by either one or both; nor would it surprise me if, like both of them, she influenced Tolkien (I'm thinking especially of "On Fairy Stories") and Lewis with her own work. Neil Gaiman (Stardust) apparently admits her as a favorite, and while I haven't heard anything Susanna Clarke (Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell) may have said on the subject, I strongly suspect she's read this book.
For all its both retrospective and forward-looking similarities to other great works of fantasy fiction, it's one of the more unpredictable tales I've ever read that yet managed an emotionally satisfying ending. I won't spoil the central points of unpredictability, but the satisfying ending bit required me to put my whole heart into sympathizing with the unlikely protagonist, which I did.
Nat Chanticleer, a plump, gin-and-cheese-loving, middle-aged lawmaker, is outwardly as steady and stodgy and Law-driven as his exquisitely stuffy friend Ambrose and all their comrades. But inwardly—well, inwardly, he's heard the Note. It's the Note that makes Nat a kindred spirit. He's never perfect; he's dithery and melancholic, and he bears comparatively little attachment to his daughter, for all he loves his son. But that Note helps him, and it's the first thing that puts tears in my eyes when I think back over the book.
For all the story's unpredictability, it's primarily a fairy tale. It reads a little like an allegory for something, but it's hard to fix on what, precisely. Mirrlees converted (from what, I'm not sure) to Catholicism just a couple of years after publishing this novel, and perhaps she, like me, saw in Catholicism one of the few places where Faerie took safe refuge from modernity, but her conversion did apparently come after writing the book, and her creatures of Fairyland are nearer relatives of Clarke's gentleman with the thistle-down hair than they are to any saint. That said, with the exception of possibly justifying certain dispositions of a certain rascal—I dare not get more spoilery than that—the allegory reads as true.
It's certainly an old-fashioned story; modern readers might find it difficult to get into, as it's heavily frontloaded with description and backstory. Nobody browbeat authors back then with the fear that such tactics might bore readers. The first half felt a tad long to me, but the second half—once the story began to be less about Lud in general and more about Nat—did not.
The second half is worth reading the first half for. It's hero's journey and murder mystery and philosophical conflict between law-abiding and lawlessness, and I thought it honestly delightful. But even the first half contains some startling little thought-gems and a lot of beautiful poetic prose.
I could see people disliking it, but it's hard to imagine who. If you like Clarke's work or Gaiman's, MacDonald's fairy stories or Tolkien's, it's worth giving Lud-in-the-Mist a try. It's not derivative fantasy; it's one of the classics from which the greats derive. I loved it. I could see myself reading it again. And perhaps again and again after that.
The Today meme is hosted by Masha! Join in over at Piękno, or leave your own sensory notes in the combox...
Today I am...
Feeling... close to all my friends who are suffering. So many prayers today. <3
Seeing... sheer gold curtains waving in the breeze. It's so wonderful to be warm enough to open the windows, even if I am sitting under a fleece throw and drinking hot coffee.
Smelling... fresh air. One of the great things about Bellingham is that it's almost never smoggy.
Tasting... the last cup of that Italian coffee, at least until it goes on sale again, and—last night—the very first cherry off our Benson sapling in the front yard. Lou and I split the cherry, which proved amazingly flavorful and sweet. That's a splendid little tree. I'm still furious at the deer that came by sometime Saturday night and ate a lot of the leaves off.
Listening... to myself singing "Dante's Prayer" and "Eileen Aroon" and "Scarborough Fair" and "Comin' Thro' the Rye" in the shower and around the house. My Scottish accent is horrifying. But I enjoy myself.
Grateful... for summer skies—the kind with puffs of white cumulus drifting across vivid, warm-weather blue.
Reading... the last chapters of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone; Terry Pratchett's The Wee Free Men, which is making me laugh a lot; a friend's long-awaited fantasy novel manuscript; and the sixth and seventh chapters (out of twelve) of my own work in progress.
Loving... my nieces and nephews. I got to spend Sunday with my family, and enslaved myself to the small fry out of sheer devotion. Being an aunty is one of my best consolations in life.
Hoping... for lots of pumpkins this year. I'd love to give some to the aforementioned small fry, and maybe let the little neighbor boys come over and pick one out, too. The neighbor boys are fascinated with the garden, and their mother tells me that watching Lou mow the lawn is a highlight of their week. :)
Good morning, magical friends! It's sunny, I'm wearing my Hufflepuff outfit—minus the fishnets—and it's time to talk about monsters and fame and unicorns and planets and Harry! Before we do, though, here's last week's recap and a mini-essay... I have a feeling those will be common henceforth:
Masha posted first with a beautiful drawing by her husband—seriously, you should follow her for Seth's artwork as well as her own commentary—and some tender thoughts on Ron's inner hungers and strengths as seen through his Mirror of Erised experience. Meanwhile, Christie posted pictures of her attempt at our first butterbeer recipe, which looks tasty, even if, as she said, chocolate wine made it not beery enough. She also expounded upon on some of the particulars of Dumbledore's conversation with Harry, to lovely effect.
Masha also linked two well-known anti-Potter articles in her post, coming from two entirely different directions, and here comes the mini-essay.
Mini-Essay #1: A Brief and Inadequate Reply to the Two Main Varieties of Serious Potter Critic
Anti-Potter article number one is one of the most famous among Potter fans: Harold Bloom's 2000 piece titled "Can 35 Million Book Buyers Be Wrong? Yes." Professor Bloom—of Yale—is a very well-known literary critic, author of The Western Canon as well as many other books, and certainly not someone whose literary understanding can be thrown away lightly. He's had a very interesting career, judging by a quick scroll through Wikipedia (yeah, I know), and I confess to respecting him more after looking at his achievements than I did after reading his article.
This response is inadequate on several levels; I don't have time to go point by point, and I don't begin to have comparable education, let alone experience. Others have done better. My difficulty with Bloom's piece is simple: he and I have totally different perspectives on something, and I'm not sure whether the point of profound disagreement is centered in the evaluation of literature itself or in the definition of what it means for reading to "enrich mind or spirit or personality." But we certainly have inconsonant opinions on the latter.*
Anti-Potter article number two is too recent to have gained the kind of widespread internet contradiction that it would have in the heyday of Potter fandom. Obviously, Michael O'Brien has gained widespread contradiction enough to put him on the defensive, however, and the whole tone of the piece is affected by this. To be fair, the piece is an interview with him on the very subject of his critics: Steve Jalsevac's "Michael O'Brien responds to his critics re: Harry Potter" at LifeSiteNews.
O'Brien, author of the controversial A Landscape with Dragons: The Battle for Your Child's Mind as well as the Father Elijah books and many others, has achieved something of a cult following for his detailed, religious-based criticism of various fantasy works. I hate to even give it the vague honorific "religious-based", since as a Catholic, he should know that there's no one-holy-Catholic-and-apostolic interpretation of any fictional work. The relationship of fiction to dogma is even fuzzier than the relationship of fiction to reality.
The inadequacy of my response is in how little space and time I have to devote to it at present. I'd love to go point by point, as displayed in my overexuberant reaction in Masha's combox. But I'll keep myself to the base problems with O'Brien's critical technique, which are twofold.
First, he treats symbolism as if each symbol is a neat container for a single positive or negative idea. This is simply not true. Snakes, for instance, are not universally irredeemable symbols of evil. They're not even treated that way in the Bible. With no appeal to the context of a given symbol's portrayal, O'Brien is doomed to miss the point of the story, and he consistently does.
Second, his understanding of the moral universe of Harry Potter is so baffling as to make me think of the ever-popular Internet aphorism, casually attributed on Goodreads to both Edmund Wilson and Diana Tixier Herald—goodness only knows with whom it actually originated—which states that "No two persons ever read the same book." If he'd read the same story I had, he could never have said this:
"In Potter world, the saving of the world comes through acquiring secret knowledge and perfecting supernatural powers, while never really developing significant character or virtues such as those we can so clearly see in Tolkien’s and Lewis’s heroes."
There are reasonable criticisms to be made of the Harry Potter stories, and he makes some, but that's certainly not one of them. He's wrong on all three points there, demonstrably wrong:
"the saving of the world comes through acquiring secret knowledge" The idea that "secret knowledge" and the power thereof can save either world or individual is Voldemort's mistake, not Harry's.
"and perfecting supernatural powers" Every last conflict between Harry and Voldemort is a David and Goliath scenario, as far as magical skill is concerned. It's also explicitly stated numerous times by a certain character that love, not magic, is Harry's sole hope of standing against his archenemy.
"while never really developing significant character or virtues" I just don't understand how it's possible to read Deathly Hallows and come away thinking this. Love. Courage, both physical and moral. Forgiveness. Compassion, even for an enemy. Respect. Harry makes visible, remarkable progress in all of these areas.
That last point, in particular, is farcical. If anything, Rowling is clearer in her symbolism and her direct emphasis on virtue than Tolkien was.
* * *
This Week in Reading Harry
Read: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Chapters 13-15
It's hard to focus on single discussion points in these chapters; there are so many events to think over. Neville's character gets some development, and it would be hard not to end up loving him. Hermione and Harry manage to leave the Invisibility Cloak behind while sneaking around the castle at night, which has never made any sense to me, since Hermione is quick-thinking and cautious, and since the cloak is the only thing Harry has that was his father's. Harry's scar acts up in one of the most horrific scenes the books possess, and he's rescued by a centaur named after Florence, Italy (in Italian, the name is Firenze). Hagrid proves to be a valuable source of information, while cooing to a baby dragon and calling himself "Mommy".
Hagrid is so much fun. I just love him.
Some Other Potential Discussion Points:
1. Nicolas Flamel. This historical character—yes, he was real—has had long-standing legendary (and probably not real) status as an alchemist. A successful one; that is, he's said to have made the philosopher's stone. Rowling put the legend into play for her first mystery, and the sorcerer's stone, from which comes the Elixir of Life, is guarded underground at Hogwarts behind a series of enchantments and, appropriately, Cerberus.
This is only going to get more fun in the next chapters.
2. "Our kind have to keep putting spells on Muggles" Ron's offhand remark about the Ministry of Magic's handling of Muggle sightings of dragons is one of the first revelations of unethical Wizarding practices surrounding the Statute of Secrecy (the law preventing wizards from revealing themselves and their world to non-magical humans.)
3. Popular opinion. Rowling knows how fame treats a person now, knows it firsthand, but she apparently had a perfectly good understanding of it from the outset. Hogwarts students as a group vacillate between lionizing and demonizing Harry, and as far as I know, every famous person suffers this.
Ron was probably my favorite character in book one, and his loyalty to Harry in this section was part of that.
4. Legality and mercy. Harry and Hermione get into trouble saving Hagrid from the law and himself. Hagrid is good-hearted, but not at all likely to pay much attention to seemingly arbitrary regulations about monster-keeping. And his confidence in his monster-managing skills—this is just the beginning of it, we haven't met Aragog or Grawp or the Blast-Ended Skrewts yet—is hyperconfidence; he's hiding a baby dragon in a wooden house.
Even law-abiding Hermione doesn't hesitate to help Harry get the dragon safely off to someone who has the wherewithal to keep it, though it means breaking a lot of school rules—and when she's caught, she doesn't betray Hagrid even to lessen her punishment. Nor does Harry.
This sort of ethical dilemma is generally resolved by Rowling with an eye to compassion rather than judgment, to mercy rather than straight-up justice. Ethicists and moralists will be arguing till the end of time over which virtue is more important in which case, but I think it's within the bounds of Catholic freedom to believe that both mercy and justice—as well as both compassion and judgment—are important, and that humility and wisdom and respect are prerequisites for good decision-making wherever the two seem to conflict.
In this case, going to Dumbledore would've been the best way to protect Hagrid, but Harry's just an eleven-year-old newcomer who doesn't yet know his headmaster. He handles it like a well-meaning eleven-year-old kid would, and suffers the consequences.
5. "Mars is bright tonight" The centaurs are reading the signs of war in the sky—and being infuriating in the process, which is mostly what the centaurs in Harry Potter do.
6. "Always the innocent are the first victims" Ronan's sighed philosophy strikes me as something to contemplate, but I'd need to put more time into it than I've got this afternoon. Anyone who wants to unpack his statement, feel free.
7. Unicorn blood. Firenze explains: "...it is a monstrous thing, to slay a unicorn... Only one who has nothing to lose, and everything to gain, would commit such a crime. The blood of a unicorn will keep you alive, even if you are an inch from death, but at a terrible price. You have slain something pure and defenseless to save yourself, and you will have but a half-life, a cursed life, from the moment the blood touches your lips."
This paragraph sets up the—if you'll pardon the wordplay—crux of the entire Potter saga. The conflict on which the whole story turns is this conflict between defenseless innocence and selfishness taken all the way to monstrosity.
Voldemort sets himself up as a god again and again throughout the story, sometimes coming off as a temperamental Grecian-style deity, but sometimes as something more sinister. Whether Rowling intended it or not, Voldemort's portrayal is often Luciferish, often a direct inversion of the Christ-image. This is one of the latter moments. Eucharistic imagery is inverted here as, instead of the divine self-sacrifice, we have a demoniac sacrifice of the innocent Other. And Firenze sets the passionate tone of righteous response:
"Do you not see that unicorn?" Firenze bellowed at Bane. "Do you not understand why it was killed? Or have the planets not let you in on that secret? I set myself against what is lurking in this forest, Bane, yes, with humans alongside me if I must."
As for what else stands between the defenseless innocent and the selfish monster, we'll get into that in chapter seventeen. But it's worth noting that both Harry and Voldemort are set up symbolically as representatives of our inner self. This becomes very clear in, if I remember correctly, books five and six—but if I say more about that, there will be spoilers....
Disserendo!**
* I was SO tempted to find a random trash can picture on the internet and caption it "The Dustbin of the Ages". Juvenile, I know, but that phrase just kills me. ** All right, Latinists. This is me using Google Translate; feel free to tell me I'm using the wrong word for the imperative "Discuss!", and that I'm liable to wind up smashed under a stack of hardbound doctoral theses....
"There's already morning glory grown up the fence where I weeded last weekend," I said yesterday. "And there are buttercups blooming in the English ivy. Weeding doesn't even last as long as housework."
I snapped the morning glory stems this afternoon on my way by with the camera, but the English ivy will have to wait its turn again. The herb garden, which I had neatly cleaned out a month ago, is now being marched upon, besieged, razed, and trampled by the weeds overgrowing the brush pile. I didn't think anything could conquer the salad burnet, but it got beaten down a bit by wind, and now the buttercups and morning glory are taking advantage of its temporary weakness.
The sun needs to come out tomorrow. I'm rescuing the Egyptian walking onions (no, I've never caught them singing Bangles songs, but I have to wonder what they do when no one's looking...) and separating the pumpkins from the tomatoes and unburying the herbs. Also, I have a lot of little potted starts begging for some ground space:
Fern, pinks, basil, and sweet peas.
I can never resist tiny plants on clearance.
Cilantro, zucchini, fig tree, and wisteria.
The roses, however, are overall quite happy. They're currently showing their gratitude for Lou's conscientious care:
* * *
Music of the week: I came across William Joseph by way of Lindsey Stirling the other day, and goodness, what an exceptional young pianist. I'm trying not to be envious. This piece was my favorite of his that I came across; I liked the Led Zeppelin remake, too, but it got stuck in my head, so watch at your own risk.
I mean to say, one does not court praise. The adulation of the multitude means very little to one. But all the same, when one has taken the trouble to whack out a highly juicy scheme to benefit an in-the-soup friend in his hour of travail, it’s pretty foul to find him giving the credit to one’s personal attendant, particularly if that personal attendant is a man who goes about the place not packing mess-jackets.
But after I had been splashing about in the porcelain for a bit, composure began to return. I have always found that in moments of heart-bowed-downness there is nothing that calms the bruised spirit like a good go at the soap and water. I don’t say I actually sang in the tub, but there were times when it was a mere spin of the coin whether I would do so or not.
The spiritual anguish induced by that tactless speech had become noticeably lessened.
The discovery of a toy duck in the soap dish, presumably the property of some former juvenile visitor, contributed not a little to this new and happier frame of mind. What with one thing and another, I hadn’t played with toy ducks in my bath for years, and I found the novel experience most invigorating. For the benefit of those interested, I may mention that if you shove the thing under the surface with the sponge and then let it go, it shoots out of the water in a manner calculated to divert the most careworn. Ten minutes of this and I was enabled to return to the bedchamber much more the old merry Bertram.
Author: P.G. Wodehouse
Synopsis: Bertie Wooster has plans to help a sensitive friend into a successful wooing, while also trying to patch up his cousin’s engagement and soften a potential misunderstanding between his favorite aunt and uncle. To his chagrin, however, everyone seems to want his servant Jeeves’ advice instead—the more so as his helpful suggestions begin to go extraordinarily wrong.
Notes: I read this book for two reasons: one, I knew from acquaintance with Psmith that Wodehouse is a funny man, and I was in the mood for some lighthearted reading, and 2) I did not know who Jeeves and Wooster were, but everyone else seemed to, and I was tired of my ignorance.
Not since Spindle’s End have I laughed out loud so heartily and so often at a novel. I loved Wooster’s cheerful narrative; it was childlike to the point of innocence, it was full of fun, it was hilarious. I loved the clarity of the other characters’ motivations, frustrations, and feelings, despite being seen through such a confused filter. And the classically comic setups, full of human foibles and absolutely devoid of shock value, were great fun.
There’s not much more I can say. Bertie Wooster speaks for himself, and I think it’s worth letting him.
This is a great read, especially for reinforcing a cheerful mood. It would go well with sunshine and a cold drink of the reader’s choice. Possibly whiskey and orange juice, which appear together in the story—although for myself, I prefer my orange juice with champagne.
I'm hopping into a new meme started by Masha! Join in over at Piękno, or leave your own sensory notes in the combox...
Today I am...
Feeling... enthused about new plans for going to bed earlier. I'm enlisting Lou; he's supposed to tell me to get off my computer at 10:15. When I do that, I usually play piano till eleven or a quarter past, and then I'm in bed by 11:30 instead of staying up till midnight, which is what happens when I keep working on my computer much past ten. That's right when my second wind kicks in.
Seeing... a touch of blue on the bayward horizon, which is where all the weather comes from. It's been a rather gray morning.
Smelling... the last dissipating aroma of a big cup of Italian coffee with cream.
Tasting... Raisin Nut Bran for breakfast—so expensive that I rarely buy it, but so much better on every level than standard Raisin Bran. And coffee, of course. Also, my next door neighbor gave me fresh-picked local strawberries, and fresh-picked local strawberries are one of my favorite things in the whole. wide. world.
Listening... to the silence that means the dryer has stopped. I need to go get the laundry changed over.
Grateful for... a free afternoon to spend with my family. Owing to everyone getting sick and the hockey game, I haven't seen the niece and nephew in three weeks. Aunty needs a kiddo fix.
Reading... besides Harry Potter... Lud in the Mist by Hope Mirrlees. It's longer than I expected it to be, which is the difficulty with Kindle books—you can't predict that just by looking. But it's enjoyable old fantasy.
Loving... my friend Janelle, whose birthday I'm celebrating this evening.
Hoping... the little dog that dodged in front of my car yesterday near the grocery found its way back to its family.
We're flying (on brooms, of course) through Sorcerer's Stone, with probably just a couple of weeks left in it after this one. That is, unless we find too much to talk about, which is possible. There's lots of fun to be had at the end of book 1. :)
Do you (pl. you guys, y'all) think magic in HP is more like its own entity, with its own personality, independent of its users, or more like an emergent property reflecting (with varying degrees of distortion etc.) the personalities (and foibles, and preoccupations, and limitations and hidden gifts) of its users?
There it is, an open discussion point for anyone and everyone to talk about this week!
Mini-Essay #1: Is Rowling's Magic a Silent Sentience, or an Incognizant Efficaciousness?
The way the characters interact with magic mostly seems to suggest Laura's latter option. At the very least, magic allows itself to be shaped by the user. There's the involuntary magic of children, e.g., Harry Vanishing the glass off the snake display at the zoo, or Neville bouncing when his uncle dropped him out of an upstairs window. This sort of thing isn't controlled by the young witch or wizard, but is shaped by his or her need and emotion.
There's controlled magic, usually worked through a wand, though goblins and house-elves have power over their magic without wands. These things obviously reflect the personalities, etc., of the users.
But then there are magic-infused items like wands and the Hogwarts castle, and it's harder to say how much of that infusion is created by willed wizardry and how much is magic gathering and acting of its own accord. For instance, as it's hopefully not too much of a spoiler to point out, Muggle electronics supposedly go haywire around Hogwarts because of all the magic in the air (this isn't shown, but it's mentioned by Hermione, and she and her photographic memory would probably know).
Four people who definitely left some magic lying around Hogwarts.
Art by Len.
There are talking portraits and moving staircases and trick doors and argumentative chessmen and something of the personality of Rowena Ravenclaw in her House's common room door-knocker, and sure, a lot of this is explainable by means of charms and other spells being put on inanimate objects, but is all of it so easily explained away? Masha is exactly right about Hogwarts: there's "a sense of humor in the castle, as though thousands of laughing wizards have left their joy hidden in nooks and crannies." Some of it was obviously deliberately left by the wizards, but some of it seems to be simply their magic embedding itself in the places they frequented.
Possibly the strongest argument for magic as its own entity comes from book seven, in which—trying to be spoiler-free here—a certain wand does a certain something, apparently of its own volition. The question there is: is the wand a semi-volitional creature in its own right, or is it magic itself that is volitional, acting through its own object?
It looks to me like this could be taken either way, but the idea of magic as an animate power is an interesting one to explore. Explore away, fellow students!
This Week in Reading Harry
Read: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Chapters 11-12
Oliver Wood opens himself up to feminist critique when he turns to a team of seven young people in which both genders are represented and says "Okay, men." Feminist discussion frequently degenerated into serious brawling at The Hog's Head in its day, so I'm always a little hesitant about bringing up the topic. But this one touches on one of my pet peeves: gender neutral or gender inclusive language.
See, there are some times when neutering English actually changes the meaning; a word like "people" does not carry the same shades of definition as "man" or "mankind" or "humanity". Linguistic inclusivism is also often extraordinarily unartistic. I loathe the practice when it comes to "updating" old hymns, for instance; I'll be singing my heart out in choir, and all at once I'll be singing different words from everyone else, because I'm going off childhood memory and most of the other choristers are reading the hymnal. Dear well-meaning hymn updaters, you cannot replace this:
Mortals join the mighty chorus
Which the morning stars began
Father love is reigning o'er us
Brother love binds man to man
with this:
Mortals join the mighty chorus
Which the morning stars began
God's own love is reigning o'er us
Joining people hand in hand
It doesn't rhyme, AND it's a terrible cliché. Also, all of us who grew up with that hymn already have it ingrained in our heads the old way. Speaking of which, this ploy is worst when imposed upon Christmas carols. Everybody already has them memorized with the traditional lyrics. "God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen" is what it is, and it should be left alone.
All that to say, linguistic inclusivism is a touch ridiculous when universally applied. But it's not a pointless concept, either. In Oliver Wood's case, I'm entirely with Angelina Johnson. You can't just look at your Quidditch team, boys and girls together, and address them all with, "Okay, men." There's this little thing called tact. It's friendly.
1. The funny stuff. There's so much in these chapters, especially eleven, that's just so beautifully comic. I love Quidditch commentary—and this is just the start of it; wait till we get to book six. Also, I get a kick out of the fact that Hagrid bought the hellhound Cerberus off "a Greek chappie" in a pub and promptly re-christened him "Fluffy". And then there's Fred and George, wizard chess, wizard crackers, and Hagrid's cooking.
2. Weasley family dynamics. We get more insight into them at Christmastime, with Molly sending Harry a family sweater—considering that she's met him just once, this is incredibly tender and perceptive of her—and Fred and George making sure Percy and Ron stick with the family spirit. Percy's resistance comes from a different place than Ron's, but both of them will pay for their withdrawal before the series is out.
3. Books in Harry Potter. The Restricted Section of the library is creepy and fun; the books, imbued with magic, don't just shut up and let themselves be read. I actually think Rowling could have done a lot more with this, but talking about that would mean spoilers for Half-Blood Prince.
Mini-Essay #3: Alchemy
I designed this emblem for this discussion point.
You can expect to see it a lot in future.
Before I get started: Everything I know about alchemy, I learned from John Granger. Granger's primary sources are Lyndy Abraham and Titus Burkhardt, as I recall (other oft-referenced names include Jung, Lings, and Eliade). Of course, I may be an imperfect student and make mistakes, but I'll shoot as straight as I can.
There's a lot to alchemy, so here's a basic summary—not of everything, but of the beginning salient points.
A. Alchemy is concerned with several key tasks, including:
Making the Philosopher's Stone, also sometimes termed the Sorcerer's Stone, which provides the means to immortality
Turning lead into gold
Purifying the soul of the alchemist
B. The alchemist's Great Work entails refining the prima materia—a formless, basic matter, analogous with his own soul—into the Philosopher's Stone. He refines matter and soul simultaneously in the one Work.
C. Refinement of the prima materia requires putting it through three main stages (or sometimes four; I'm sticking with Granger's explanation here), innately color coordinated for your convenience:
The nigredo or black stage, in which the matter is burned and decomposed
The albedo or white stage, in which impurities are washed away and the matter is acted upon by the "quarreling" opposites mercury and sulfur (this pair is represented in numerous ways, including cold and heat, female and male)
The rubedo or red stage, in which the reddening of the matter indicates success of the Great Work.
From the very title of this book—which Rowling and her U.K. publisher called "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone," and Scholastic renamed "...Sorcerer's Stone" for American audiences—we see alchemical influence. The title, however, could just be a classic mystery title. The fact that Hermione Granger's initials form the periodic table symbol for mercury might have been coincidence. The colors dropped here and there in the book could just be colors.
Or they might not be.
Here are some beginning alchemical connections to watch for:
The quarreling couple. Hermione is our cool, feminine Mercury, and Ron is our hot, masculine Sulphur. The two bicker constantly throughout each of the seven books. Their arguing often intensifies in the middle, during the build-up to the climax of the story, and the pair must always reconcile for the final phase of the story.
Color progression. Each of the books takes Harry through all three stages (and the final three books are stages in and of themselves; more on that later). We're in the albedo stage now, in which white and silver are common colors; we've progressed from the trip across the "great black lake" to mirrors and silvery invisibility cloaks and snow and a generally paler tone to the story.
Nicholas Flamel. :D
There'll be much more to come about alchemy. This is just a place to start!
Hold it up to a mirror, if you haven't yet. (I think I read this book at least three or four times before I got this.)
The Mirror is a tricksy thing, and probably a lot darker and more complicated for adults than for most children. (Harry, obviously, is not most children.) I expect that I'd see different things on different days... but I know what I'd see most commonly, and I know it would mean an explosion of tears, and I know it would feel like losing loved ones to turn away. What would you see? Answer aloud only if you're feeling brave.
Harry and Ron make an interesting contrast here. Harry sees himself with his family, and as Dumbledore put it, "Ronald Weasley, who has always been overshadowed by his brothers, sees himself standing alone, the best of all of them." I'd love to put both of their visions in context with Deathly Hallows right now, but SPOILERS.
There are at least a couple of major discussion possibilities just off Harry's conversation with Dumbledore after looking in the Mirror:
"The happiest man on earth would be able to use the Mirror of Erised like a normal mirror, that is, he would look into it and see himself exactly as he is." I've never quite bought this. It almost suggests an odd individualism, as if there's nothing beyond being satisfied with ourselves, which sounds like hell, in my opinion. I suspect I'm over-reading it, but there the matter stands.
"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live." This is one of Dumbledore's most famous quotes, with excellent reason. The Mirror is one of the most dangerous things Harry ever comes across. Always wishing for what you don't have is a means to immense regret.
And I absolutely agree with Dumbledore on socks. Though I never turn down books for Christmas. :)
As a general rule, I don't use this space to advertise, but I'm willing to when family starts cute Etsy shops. :) Check out Bijou Villa for work in silk and copper, wearable art and whimsy. I ought to patch my jeans with some of those butterflies.
* * *
After several months of depressive episode—which feels, to me, something like the drugged heaviness and mental dysfunction of getting up too early after taking Nyquil, only much more painful—I am awake this week.
Awake. I can see beauty with haze-free eyes, and concentrate on reading, and take childlike delight in little blessings like milkshakes made with cocoa and peanut butter, and cheer myself over imperfect but comparatively smooth attempts at Aeris' Theme on the piano. I can imagine ordering my days better toward neatness and productivity. I can sometimes even face up to my unfinished novels with a smile, and have thought about writing music again.
The windows are open, the sun is often out, and I'm awake. And I'm grateful for every minute of optimism and sunshine.
* * *
The last of the peonies are in splendid form right now. This deep purplish-red one might be my favorite of the lot:
I'm fond of this softer, frilly one, too, though:
Also: snapdragons! And a random buttercup. Buttercups are noxious weeds around here—they'll grow right up under your carefully planted flowers and vegetables and choke them out—but it's hard to hate something so cheerful.
* * *
I'm in the mood for summer reading. So much so that I’m half tempted to swear I won’t read anything dark or dreary or even difficult until the twenty-first of September. At which point, maybe I'll be ready to tackle War and Peace as promised.
Depression, begone; summer, come hither! I’ve got the first of Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching books awaiting me, and the new Sarah Dessen, too; I may look up the next Jeeves and Wooster (write-up on Right Ho, Jeeves coming next Wednesday), and I’m feeling adventurous with my Kindle. There are a handful of random romancey novels on my shelves, and I’ve got several unread Madeleine Brents and Mary Stewarts. I’ve even got a copy of The Wind in the Willows, which I haven’t read since childhood, and which, according to memory, is at least summery if not always cheerful. I might even decide to re-read an old happy favorite or two.
Expect some bright, blithe, warm-weather reading material around here in the next few months. :)
As longtime readers may remember, one of Maia's favorite things is laundry day. And one of her favorite parts of laundry day is getting made into the bed, which is especially fun in jersey-knit sheets:
Note the cat eyes, caught by the flash even through the sheet.
Maia: "I am a BRAVE CAVE LION. Mess with me at your own risk."
* * *
Masha reminded me rather poignantly this week that introverts get lonely, too. On account of which, I hesitated to link Buzzfeed's 31 Unmistakable Signs that You're an Introvert today... but seriously, O readers! This introvert has been far too busy since, like, last October. Consequently, a good 28 of those signs feel absolutely true right now (not all, because I do get dressed on the weekends).
It's also hilarious. But if you're in a lonely mood, maybe wait to read it till you're tired of being a social butterfly again.
* * *
Music of the week: I promised some Maire Brennan a few weeks back, and after listening to a playlist, found some favorites—this lullaby for her son in particular:
From the window of the stable loft, Sir Topher watched. The novice stood at the gate outside the dilapidated cottage. He knew she would stay there until the moon rose, as she had done each day since Finnikin's imprisonment.
"They will come," she said firmly when he joined her.
"And if they don't?" he asked. "I understand what you are trying to do, but your methods could get him killed."
"The captain will not let any harm come to his son."
"Sometimes fathers can't protect their children, Evanjalin. Did yours save you from harm?" Sir Topher asked, knowing the question was cruel.
"No," she responded fiercely. "But my father would warn, 'Be prepared for the worst, my love, for it lives next door to the best.' And for that I thank him each day of my life."
Author: Melina Marchetta
Synopsis: As a child, Finnikin sacrificed a piece of his own flesh to the gods to save his kingdom—not long before the five days of the unspeakable, when the king's family was murdered, his own father was imprisoned, and the land of Lumatere was sealed off with a curse. Now traveling among exile camps in neighboring lands, Finnikin finds himself teamed up with a secretive girl named Evanjalin who helps him one minute and betrays him the next. Finnkin just wants to gain relief for the Lumateran exiles, but Evanjalin is determined to find a way back into Lumatere itself—and she's convinced that a member of the royal family, Finnikin's childhood friend Balthazar, still lives. Finnikin would love to believe that, but then he'd have to trust the liar Evanjalin enough to do the impossible.
Notes: I've had my eye on Marchetta's work for a while, as she's acclaimed brightly around the young adult book blogosphere. Upon discovering that she'd written a fantasy, I had to check it out, and at the standard mid-book perusal of the back inside flap of the dust jacket—you know, that moment where you turn to the author bio because you want to get a look at the person who wrote the story—I was intrigued by this quote from her:
"I was told often that I couldn't write fantasy unless I had read all the greats and knew the conventions well, but I think the first step to writing good fantasy is knowing this world we live in well. I wanted to look closely at that world—where loss of faith, loss of homeland and identity, displacement of spirit, and breakdown of community are common—because these are the scenes in today's media that affect me the most. In this sense, the book is a search for identity in the same way that my other novels are."
With the most common complaint about fantasy being that everything seems like a Tolkien rip-off, there might be something to Marchetta's philosophy. I can't speak for whether she ever read Tolkien, but few of the common tropes made it into Finnikin of the Rock. It's less farm boy quest narrative and more the story of restoring a little city-state overrun by tyrants and cursed apart. Inside the boundaries of the curse, the Lumaterans suffer unthinkable abuse, and outside, they struggle to survive and retain some sense of Lumateran identity as exiles in foreign lands.
It's strikingly symbolic. The author "grew up with Bible stories, and although this trilogy isn’t religious, it’s biblical at times" (quoted from her blog). While it may not be specifically themed upon any one religion, there's certainly religion involved; the Lagrami/Sagrami goddess duality suggests the yin and yang, and the names Lumatere and Evanjalin have obvious connotations. Evanjalin's treatment of the savage thief boy, Froi, is redemptive charity strong enough to be shocking, and Finnikin, whose anger and sexual escapades made me dislike him for much of the book, is pulled toward goodness by her higher standards.
Higher being relative, of course. This is dark fantasy, and even the best characters do terrible things. Marchetta portrays humanity at a level of degradation I've not often seen up close, and there's a lot of violence, including rape; there's some open use of prostitution, plenty of hatred, and endless lying. The bedroom scenes are offscreen in keeping with the teen label—not that the teen label guarantees that nowadays—but the talk of sex and menstruation is frank enough to induce blushing. It's not a pleasant, poetic read like The Lord of the Rings, in which the "struggle is not against flesh and blood"; it's a rough and gory tale of human evil.
The scenes, especially the fight scenes, are written with a cinematic feel that I sometimes found hard to follow. I thought the narrative could have used some editing here and there for clarity, though I'm not sure how much to blame that on the fact that I read it during a head cold. The plot and mystery, however, are strong overall; I felt like I should have seen the twist coming, but it took me by surprise while seeming exactly right.
The ending contains a lot of hope, and I suspect the romance will be very satisfying for anyone who can love Finnikin. Rage and lust are supposedly common to male experience, but Finnikin was so dominated by the one and careless about the other that I never developed much respect or liking for him. I did love Evanjalin, however, despite her own set of not-so-defensible behaviors, and the fact that I developed a sort of tender concern for Froi—not usually the type of character an author will get a reader to sympathize with—is all to Marchetta's credit.
Readers who like their fiction dark and earthy will probably love Finnikin of the Rock, regardless of whether they like fantasy. The story doesn't focus on magic and visuals, but on the human experience of cultural and communal breakdown and the struggle to survive, not just in body but in spirit and identity. It's got a lot going for it on those grounds.
The day has finally come. I've been moderating away, but after getting well over a hundred spam comments on Monday's post alone, I've decided to enable Captcha.
I know it's frustrating. I'm sorry. I hate it, too.
Hold onto your pointy black hats! We're getting into Quidditch.
Which has been adapted into a full-contact, non-flying, fo'-realz sport, by the way... it looks like fun, but also potentially very painful. Here's the Complete Muggle's Guide, if you want further information.
This brings to the forefront of my mind the idea that the houses of Hogwarts are actually four different aspects of one person. Though more developed in some than in others, most characters—and all real people—have to some extend the daring of Gryffindor, the loyalty of Hufflepuff, the cleverness of Ravenclaw, and the potential for power that is in Slytherin. It would do very well to explain the stereotyping of the houses because each house is not a complete personality, but an aspect of one boiled down to its essence (oooh, alchemy terminology—totally unintentional!)
Granger then goes on to liken Rowling’s magic to that of Lewis and Tolkien. There are similarities, for certain, but he chooses a strange example in Caspian’s invocation of aid (it’s a musical invocation, which is Granger’s link to his approved incantational magic - but it’s hard to avoid the obvious call to help from beyond)... Magic is not something easily divided - incantations often invoke, invocations often implore, and God-magic can include both - as the Liturgy does, as Tirian’s call or Frodo’s “A Elbereth Gilthoniel” do; as forbidden magic does (and all magic apart from God is forbidden, be it chanting spells or calling up ghosts).
While pointing out that there's no demonism in Harry Potter is helpful on occasion in arguing in favor of Christians reading the books, I agree with Masha entirely in that post. Rowling's magic is about as non-pagan as it can be without changing the words witchcraft and wizardry, but the words are there and are not so easily worked around. I don't, however, think the Potter books lead a lot of people into witchcraft. I think they lead a lot of people to be either a) more fervent Christians or b) more fervent social liberals... or, if nothing else, c) more fervent internet junkies... and potential readers can interpret the dangers there at will.
Also, for your vicarious cooking pleasure, I made pumpkin pasties, using this fresh pumpkin filling recipe (which made WAY too much pumpkin filling for the amount of pie crust I made; next time, I'll cut it in half):
I used frozen pumpkin puree, actually, which I ought to have strained, and substituted heavy cream for the evaporated milk. The flavoring turned out pretty superb; I just ended up with three times what I needed.
For crust, I made a recipe for an eight-inch double crust pie.
Pie pastry gets tougher the more it's worked, so I don't recommend rolling the scraps more than twice. Also, the coffee mug as template meant making tiny little pasties with no more than two teaspoons of filling apiece. They were good, but a higher ratio of filling to pastry would have made them more flavorful. No pun intended.
I melted butter for the tops and baked them on wax paper. The latter proved important; I doubt they'd ever have come off even a greased baking sheet in one piece.
They turned out really cute, however—and rather tasty:
And now, for next week's discussion!
* * *
Read: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Chapters 8-10
Here's another recipe I'm inclined to try: steak and kidney pie. That's Jamie Oliver's dad's recipe, by the way, so I presume it's awesome, regardless of what kidney tastes like. (I have no idea, never having tried it.) The difficulty is that I'm at a loss where to get kidney in America, or in Bellingham, anyway, and although my husband is unbelievably patient with my attempts at making British food, I do not think he'll appreciate it if I substitute liver.
1. Safety isn't taken all that seriously at Hogwarts; nor, apparently, among wizards in general. Not by modern urban standards, at least. Madam Hooch's first flying class is disaster waiting to happen, and sheesh, what could go wrong with aggressive leather balls flying around trying to knock people off brooms fifty feet in the air?
Some perspective: According to Washington state motor vehicle laws, children are required to be in car seats or some other form of child restraint system until they're eight years old or 4'9" tall (an impressive hardship for enthusiastic young Catholic families, who may easily have four or five children under eight). Children are required to ride in back seats "when practical" until age 13. So, an eleven-year-old kid just three years out of booster seats in Washington state cars could be riding a flying broom skyward with twenty of his fellows at Hogwarts. A twelve-year-old, still forced to ride in the back seat of a minivan out here, could there be legally chased around in the air by Bludgers.
Believe me, I understand the desire and the reasons for child safety laws. But what kid wouldn't rather be at Hogwarts?
2. Rulebreaking and unethical behavior are standard practice at Hogwarts, not just among the students, but among the teachers as well. Snape's bullying of Harry and Neville is mind-boggling in these early chapters (as well as throughout much of the series). Even strict McGonagall, however, rewards a broken rule and gets the school regulations bent further for the sake of having a good Quidditch team. Faculty rulebreaking makes for handy plot points all the way through the series, but the thought of a professor like Snape being allowed to go on teaching year after year is just plain shocking.
I suspect both these sorts of things are more common among public and private school systems than a demure little homeschooler like myself could ever imagine. But just because something's common doesn't mean it's good, and the whole of Dumbledore's spoilerific history is more comprehensible to me than the lone fact of his keeping Snape on staff—even though I know exactly why he did it.
3. Harry's big childhood weakness is his flat-out hatred toward Malfoy and the Dursleys, an actual pleasure in watching them suffer harm. Considering how much harm he suffers at their hands, and how little moral direction he's ever had, this is not surprising. It's also—from the Catholic point of view, at least—not a good thing; it's serious sin, in fact. No part of Harry's story is more uncomfortable for me to read than his moments of glee over his enemies' pain.
I'd like to talk about future resolutions of this problem, but that would mean spoilers all over the place.
4. "There are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other..." I always thought this statement was rather profound. Perhaps anything's possible, but risking life and limb together and working for each other's safety is one of the surest ways of creating camaraderie. I used to work in outdoor adventure education, and this concept was very familiar among that crowd—and I still have warm feelings toward long-out-of-touch friends who pulled me out of a river or talked me down a nervewracking rappel.
5. Quidditch: way cooler than football of either the American or The-Rest-Of-The-World varieties. I'm not sure if there's anything in particular anyone wants to discuss about it, and I'm afraid enough of heights and uncoordinated enough with balls that I doubt I'd be good at it, but still. It sounds like so much fun.
