Pink Dobby and other stories

First things first: I've spoken with Masha and Christie, and the Harry Potter Book Club is cleared to move on to the Chamber of Secrets! Look for the first post right here on Monday. :)

* * *

I left the shopping bag on the table for her comfort. At least,
that's her theory.

* * *

Some Fridays, I have lots to say in a post. But then, some Thursdays don't involve having a mocha and mojito cake for lunch*. The latter fact may not appear to correlate with the former, but the equation series looks like this:

2 shots of espresso
+ lemony frosting
+ 0 protein outside of the mocha
+ flaming hurry
+ serious case of nerves preceding having to talk/conduct music in front of people for 2 hours
= too queasy to eat anything else all afternoon

1 case of too queasy to eat all afternoon
+ serious coffee jitters
% a great deal of prayer, careful preparation, and half an hour of peaceful piano music
= 1 relatively sane substitute choir director, for approximately 2 hours

1 relatively sane substitute choir director
+ huge amounts of residual caffeine
+ 1 small plate of spaghetti
+ bedtime
= 2 wide-open brown eyes and 1 hypercaffeinated, racing mind

Which meant I was up till two, and then my brain forced itself awake early. I didn't dare have more coffee—I still feel like I have jitters—so I fell asleep on the couch a little while ago and then chose to fight my way out of the resultant sleep paralysis. (No hallucinations, though. And I didn't follow the mocha with bad whiskey. I promise.)

All that to say: I feel super weird. And I still have to clean house and go to a cookout tonight, so yeah. Unless you count this not-very-interesting ramble, I haven't got lots to say.

* * *

I'll let the garden talk for me.

Crocosmia

Fennel

Oregano, leeks, pumpkin vines

Oregano

Daisies

Non-invasive morning glory

Cinquefoil, dahlias

A rose of splendid color.

My little poppy bloomed! Depending on angle, I think it looks
like a pink Dobby. Or Yoda. Something with huge ears.
Not Jar-Jar, though.

* * *

Music of the week: Maria brought this song to my attention on Facebook. It's soothing, and it's not often you see a violin strummed.



* * *

Happy weekend!

* Courtesy demands that I mention I was invited to help myself to a perfectly good restaurant menu. I turned it down, planning to get home in time to eat before the next event on the day's schedule, but I couldn't tear myself away from my nieces. They're adorable. So, the whole thing was totally my fault.

Currently Reading: The Power and the Glory

A new voice spoke, in the corner from which the sounds of pleasure had come. It said roughly and obstinately, "A man isn't afraid of a thing like that."

"No?" the priest asked.

"A bit of pain. What do you expect? It has to come."

"All the same," the priest said, "I am afraid."

"Toothache is worse."

"We can't all be brave men."

The voice said with contempt, "You believers are all the same. Christianity makes you cowards."

"Yes. Perhaps you are right. You see I am a bad priest and a bad man. To die in a state of mortal sin"—he gave an uneasy chuckle—"it makes you think."

"There. It's as I say. Believing in God makes cowards." The voice was triumphant, as if it had proved something.

Author: Graham Greene

From Goodreads: In a poor, remote section of southern Mexico, the Red Shirts have taken control. God has been outlawed, and the priests have been systematically hunted down and killed. Now, the last priest strives to overcome physical and moral cowardice in order to find redemption.

Notes: While we're talking cowardice, I've spent years being afraid to read this book. I'm picky about potentially depressing fiction; I try not to read it while I'm depressed myself, and if I'm going to invest my time and emotions in a tragic work, said tragic work had darn well better not end in existential angst and meaninglessness.

The story certainly begins depressingly enough. There's not a lot of bravery in the little state of Tabasco; not a lot of hope, and not a lot of love. The Church is nearly gone, and the one priest who remains is terrified of pain and death and doesn't feel repentant of his mortal sin. Timid and nameless, he flees the police through a landscape as bleak as his outlook, and the people he meets, disciples and betrayers alike, are often sun-baked and scraggly and desolate to match.

Greene narrates in slow, vivid, loosely connected scenes that function as pictures, as images: complacent piety and viciousness and lust and fatalism crammed together into a reeking prison cell in total darkness, tears over an empty bottle of wine, a pitiful confrontation between starving human and starving dog, and many more. Through the pictures, the author gives us a sense of the priest's struggle with his conscience and cravenness, of his compassion and his conviction that he's not the stuff martyrs are made of—and of what the sacraments mean to him that they drag him away from safety, again and again, because they are needed and there is no one else to provide them.

I had mixed reactions to the whisky priest's thoughts. It seemed to me that he missed distinctions when it came to comprehending things like love for sin versus love for a child who resulted from a sin. His empathy was outstanding, however, and his conflict with his own weakness was profoundly moving. Joyless as he and his story often were, even in the execution of duty, his dogged belief and determination to provide the sacraments were beautiful and, in their own unassuming way, alive. Greene portrayed that unseen life and beauty with such intensity that he almost made me want to write tragic fiction.

How any given reader will take the ending of this novel will depend in part upon perspective and in part upon which scenes and ideas stick particularly in the mind. There's too much to the conflict, too much even of ambiguity in the final scenes, to predict a response.

For myself, I finished this novel down at Larrabee Park, with the sun burning as hot as it ever does on the edge of the northern Pacific; with a languid, fishy bay lapping masses of kelp against the shore, and a handful of well-dressed, well-meaning parents scolding their youngsters for playing in the water. The heat and atmosphere gave me an extra moment's connection to dusty, uncharitable little Tabasco as I came up out of the last page, breathless and trying to scold myself into not crying on the beach. It was a sad story, after all, and the tragedy had its share of existential angst and meaninglessness.

But that wasn't where the tears came from. The final few scenes of the story brought some of the loosely connected images together with unexpected force, and the title of the book—drawn from the doxology that follows the Our Father—finally made sense. We humans are weak, and we are cowards, but Christ is strong. Whatever our individual lives may suffer, the Eucharist has been given to the world, and He will never leave us nor forsake us. He has built His Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Today

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... a whole mix of things. A little sleepy, a little wrung out, a little ways toward peaceful after transplanting strawberries and a passion flower and my poor long-suffering aloe, a great deal lonely for my piano as I've been too busy or exhausted to play it four nights out of the last eight, a touch regretful that yesterday's Potter post had to be put together so late and so quickly, a touch nervous about running choir practice this week and cantoring Sunday, a touch frustrated with reworking stories I've already written, and desperately anxious to start something new....

Seeing... gray clouds on the horizon. They're not supposed to last. I hope they don't rain too hard on my tomatoes.

Smelling... blue cheese from lunch, which I've only just finished.

Tasting... grilled chicken, which Lou cooked to perfection, with blue cheese and some of yesterday's white wheat loaf from the bread machine.

Listening... to Maia stalking a fly.

Grateful... for Lou, for his steadiness and sanity and comforting gentleness.

Reading... well, I'm in between books. Recent reads include Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory—oh, the beauty of that work—and Mary Stewart's Airs Above the Ground, which was fun. Next in line is Chesterton's The Man Who was Thursday.

Loving... kindred spirits, from the internet and from ordinary life. <3

Hoping... for a chance to fly out and see my grandma soon.

Harry Potter Book Club: Sorcerer's Stone, Chapter 17

At last, magical friends, we've come to the long-awaited final chapter of the first book. I must recommend finishing the book before you read much further in this post, as HERE THERE BE SPOILERS. (For the first book only!)

Also—I must check with my fellow hostesses, but there may be some delay between the end of book 1 and the beginning of book 2. Life happens to Muggle and wizard alike, and we have all been kind of having Things Going On with capital T-G-O, so I want to make sure we're reasonably ready to enter the Chamber of Secrets before we do. (Preparedness is helpful when you're facing giant SPOILERS.) I will let you all know the schedule as I can.

Before we get to all that, however, we must check in with the most recent offerings: Christie's piece on the Point of No Return, which I linked and quoted last week, and Masha's piece on friendship with Harry and acquaintance with Snape:

Snape's [Stone-protecting enchantment] though, is delightful. It's more than a task, it's sort of an introduction to the man, a picture of his layered and solitary soul. A soul full of nooks and chambers and dusty-0ut-of-the-way places where old photos are laid face down so we can't snoop. He's clever, hidden, lost inside himself, and oh-so-full of secrets, like his potions, and he offers clues..but not direct ones. If you need direct clues he despises you..which may be more of the reason for his dislike of Harry than anything else. Harry's a liar, but he's a clumsy one, he has no subtlety. Snape has subtlety in spades. I adore it!

One more link, in case anyone didn't know: Rowling pulled a first-class invisibility-cloak surprise the other day and released a brand-new mystery novel under the pen name of Robert Galbraith. I wasn't excited about her literary novel, being nearly as cautious around depressing fiction as I am around Death Eaters, but a mystery?? I may have to give this one a shot. If I do, I promise to review it.

And now, for this week's reading! There's more to talk about in this last chapter of Sorcerer's Stone than there may be in any one section till we get to Deathly Hallows... let's get to it.

* * *

This Week in Reading Harry

Read: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Chapter 17

Potential Discussion Points:

1. The Seventh Enchantment: Look into the Mirror of Erised and be totally pure of heart. Dumbledore has set his task up so that no one who actually wants to use the Philosopher's Stone can find it. If your ultimate desire is for life and wealth, that's what the mirror will show you. If your ultimate desire is to serve Lord Voldemort—if you're one of those few, (Le)strange* people—that's what the mirror will show you. If you want to find the Stone but don't care about using it, it drops into your pocket. "One of my more brilliant ideas," Dumbledore says, "and between you and me, that's saying something."

Art by Seraphim-burning.

2. "His head looked strangely small..." Perhaps it's a matter of the old saying that if you're too open-minded, your brains will fall out. Quirrell is no longer master of himself; he's surrendered so thoroughly to Voldemort that the latter's face is sticking out of the back of the former's head. This is one of the vivid horror elements in the series, and it's an interesting reversal, if you will. Those who surrender to love, to faith, show that in their eyes and faces; Moses, after getting a glimpse of God's back on Mt. Sinai, had to veil his face because it was "radiant" (Exodus 34:35). Quirrell gives his soul to the bad guy, and you can see it in the back of his head.

Art by rajafdama.

3. Snape "does seem the type,..." "swooping around like an overgrown bat..." Is Snape bad or is he good? We can't say yet—this is one of the biggest potential SPOILERS in the series, and what enormous debates were had on the subject in the year before Deathly Hallows released! But in this book, he's not the villain. Dark, yes. Terrifying, yes. Mean, yes. But pulled by an obligation he can't escape, forced by it into protecting the boy he hates. He succeeds, but it doesn't assuage his hatred. And I'll stop there, before the spoilers start flowing.

4. Burning hands. Every time Quirrell tries to grab Harry at Voldemort's orders, he gets blistered upon contact with Harry's skin. Dumbledore later explains:

"Your mother died to save you. If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love. He didn't realize that love as powerful as your mother's for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign... to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever. It is in your very skin. Quirrell, full of hatred, greed, and ambition, sharing his soul with Voldemort, could not touch you for this reason. It was agony to touch a person marked by something so good."

It's interesting here that hatred leaves a scar—as per Harry's forehead—but love leaves an invisible mark with stunning powers. But there's a lot more in this paragraph. This quote is one of a pair of bookends; we'll see its mate in Deathly Hallows. It has various companions, too, of which my favorite is near the end of Order of the Phoenix. Love, specifically self-sacrificial love in the face of death, is the central theme of the series. More on that in a moment.

5. "Three days."

It's often argued, usually by pagans and atheists and others who understandably want to claim the Potter books as equally theirs, that the Potter books aren't particularly thematically Christian. The dying and rising god is a popular story in history, goes the argument. Self-sacrificial love isn't the province of Christians alone.

Bronze figurine of the Egyptians' Osiris,
god of the dead, the afterlife, and rebirth.
By Suraj. Source.

And I say, sure. Self-sacrifice and resurrections are not the exclusive property of Christianity, and neither are the Potter books, which are in many ways obviously, intentionally vague about theology. Rowling steers very clear of making any stated claim about the afterlife other than that it exists.

That said, self-sacrifice and resurrection are the very core of Christianity, and all Christians are commanded to live lives of self-sacrifice, even unto death, in hopes of resurrection. (We often don't, but that's another blog-post.) Now, those facts wouldn't prove that the Potter stories are thematically Christian. There's more than enough evidence to show that the author centered her story in Christian symbolic tradition and meaning, however. Rowling didn't go vague at all with her symbolism, particularly at the ends of books one and seven.

"KILL HIM!" Voldemort yells here, and Harry, believing all is lost, sinks into blackness. When he wakes, one of the first things he asks is how long he's been in the hospital, where he has found himself upon regaining consciousness. He was sunk in the blackness for three days.

Art by Noel Coypel.

That's not vague. Neither is the idea of self-sacrificial love acting as a shield against the attacks of the Evil One. Neither, of course, is this quote from her October 2000 Vancouver Sun interview with Max Wyman:

Harry, of course, is able to battle supernatural evil with supernatural forces of his own, and Rowling is quite clear that she doesn't personally believe in that kind of magic -- ''not at all.'' Is she a Christian? 

''Yes, I am,'' she says. ''Which seems to offend the religious right far worse than if I said I thought there was no God. Every time I've been asked if I believe in God, I've said yes, because I do, but no one ever really has gone any more deeply into it than that, and I have to say that does suit me, because if I talk too freely about that I think the intelligent reader, whether 10 or 60, will be able to guess what's coming in the books.''

Which, by the way, if you've read the series (otherwise, potential SPOILERS for all the books but the last one), you can click this link to see how close this hopefully intelligent then-twenty-nine-year-old reader came to guessing what was coming.

6. The nature of evil. Another point of non-vagueness is Rowling's clarity about how willful evil treats its adherents. "He left Quirrell to die," Dumbledore says of Voldemort; "he shows just as little mercy to his followers as to his enemies." That speaks for itself,  I think.

Art by Linnpuzzle.

7. Dumbledore's quotes. There are some great ones in here:

"After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure." That sounds reasonable, but it's certainly not the view of someone who believes in annihilation. In context, he's talking about Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel, who have allowed for the destruction of their Philosopher's Stone at the cost of their temporal immortality. They've accepted the reality of death, and SO MANY DEATHLY HALLOWS SPOILERS I WANT TO TALK ABOUT. I'll restrain myself.

"...[T]he trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them." Well, don't we, though?

"The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution." Which is a refreshing idea in a world where popular belief is that truth is a weapon to be thrown around willy-nilly.

"Alas! Earwax!" All right, that one just makes me laugh. I love the whole concept of Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. I can't even guess what earwax tastes like, but apparently Dumbledore knows (vomit, on the other hand... that one we all know, and making a jellybean that flavor is just mean). Here are the Parselmouths, trying a few of the beans—yes, someone did capitalize on that idea:



8. Hagrid's book. Here at the end of book one, the Mirror of Erised disappears from Harry's life, but he's passed the test; when he faced it alongside his enemy, it wasn't his long-lost family he saw, but the way to defeat Voldemort and protect the world from an immortal and very powerful evil.

Art by RohanElf

But Harry's love and longing for his family was never the problem with Erised, and Hagrid gives him the same image in a form that isn't dangerous to him: old wizard photographs, collected in a leather-bound book. "Smiling and waving at him from every page were his mother and father." Harry, of course, is moved to tears. I cried, too.

9. Dumbledore's recognition of the four Gryffindor students, three of whom had earlier lost serious points at the hands of McGonagall. I love how appropriate and thoughtful these are. Ron is honored for "the best-played game of chess Hogwarts has seen in many years"; Hermione for "cool logic in the face of fire"; Harry for "pure nerve and outstanding courage". And then there's Neville. "It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends."

Possibly more, actually, all other things being equal. In this case, all other things are not equal, but Neville will have his chance later. This honor is just the beginning of his goodness and glory.

10. Harry's family. "You must be Harry's family!" says Mrs. Weasley, and Uncle Vernon responds with, "In a manner of speaking." I'm not sure whether this shows that Uncle Vernon is less capable of being family than Aunt Petunia [SPOILERS], or that the Dursleys are less Harry's family than the Potters or even the Weasleys, or just that Uncle Vernon is a jerk. Maybe all of the above.

And that's a wrap for me for book one. Go forth and discuss!




* Sorry, I couldn't resist.

The Problem with Positive Energy and other stories

The phrase "it never rains but it pours" is not exactly true of Washington State, in which a misty drizzle is part of two-thirds of the days in the year, but it does seem to be true of life. This was apparently the week for my friends to get hit with sorrows.

In one case, perhaps some of us can help: fellow blogger and NaNoWriMo friend Shallee McArthur's sister's house and garage burned down the other night, and the family—which got out safely, thank God—lost most of their belongings. Shallee has a site up with a list of clothing and household items they need, along with the option to donate financially. If you have the will and the means, I'm sure Kylee and her husband and baby would be grateful.

* * *

I washed a horse blanket with a laundry load this week, and Maia claimed it almost the moment I had it out of the dryer. Which actually made doing the rest of the laundry easier, as she spent most of the rest of the day in it:

She did, of course, swipe me with those claws at one point.

* * *

More garden color! I love this hanging basket.

Also: I happened across these minuscule poppies while I was weeding (the poppy is at my palm; of course, the little blue-flowering weed is cute, too... too cute to pull, so I left it there...)

I can't wait to see that blossom open.

Here's the big one I actually planted, for scale—and also because it's gorgeous:

* * *

I spent most of this week in productivity mode, and felt very thrifty and efficient as I made my currant jelly. All that positive energy may have backfired, however, as in my enthusiasm I boiled that jelly till I was quite convinced it had reached the ever-elusive jelly stage. Then, once I'd gotten it in the jars and through the canner, I used an old grandma-trick to guarantee a seal: flipping the jars upside down as soon as they come out of the water bath, and leaving them there till they cool.

Thanks to my aforementioned enthusiasm, this proved to be a mistake.

Nailed it. Haha.

Boil past the jelly stage, and you get what amounts to fruit roll-ups in a jar. :)

Not all my productivity suffered the effects of too much happy-go-lucky zeal. Beth and I made these maxi skirts on Monday. There's just one cut (two if you need to cut for length) and one seam, and the result is fantastic:

Girls, you want to make one of these! They're so comfortable.

It's also lovely to have an alternative to jeans, which are next to impossible to find long enough for me. This skirt laughs at length challenges. Next time, however, I will allow for my apparently having a longer stride than the girl who designed the pattern and add seven or eight inches to the lower measurement instead of five. I can't keep up with Lou when I wear it unless I pick up the hem. :)

* * *

Music of the week: Carrie-Ann linked me a couple of songs in the combox a few weeks back, and they were both so splendid that they'll probably both wind up on here eventually. Here's one: the Tallis Scholars singing Allegri's "Miserere". It moved me to tears.



* * *

Mermaid school!!! For that, I might try and get over my irrational horror of swimming pools. Thanks for the link, Arabella.

This post is late for many reasons, one of which is that Christie and Masha are getting me hooked on Firefly. I started the hour-and-a-half-long pilot last night, watched more of it while putting on makeup this morning*, and just had to finish it in my brief window of afternoon free time, when I should've been prepping this post. A sci-fi Western... I'm reveling in this. Now, here's hoping that Joss Whedon isn't a sadist about killing off characters like the writers for Downton Abbey are.**

Happy weekend, everyone!

* Why, yes, it is hard to put on eyeliner while watching television. And yes, propping my Kindle Fire up on the edge of a  high towel shelf so I could stream the show by the bathroom mirror was a little risky. But it all worked out in the end.
** Lou and I are working through season three of Downton Abbey, and after I complained about one shocking character killing to Beth, she told me who they kill at the end of the season. HORRORS. What, are they trying to be George R.R. Martin? I'm furious.

Currently Reading: Freckles

On the trail the Bird Woman wheeled to McLean with a dumbfounded look.

"God!" muttered he.

At last the Bird Woman spoke.

"Do you think the Angel knew she did that?" she asked softly.

"No," said McLean; "I do not. But the poor boy knew it. Heaven help him!"

The Bird Woman stared across the gently waving swale. "I don't see how I am going to blame her," she said at last. "It's so exactly what I would have done myself."

"Say the remainder," demanded McLean hoarsely. "Do him justice."

"He was born a gentleman," conceded the Bird Woman. "He took no advantage. He never even offered to touch her. Whatever that kiss meant to him, he recognized that it was the loving impulse of a child under stress of strong emotion. He was fine and manly as any man ever could have been."

Author: Gene Stratton-Porter

From Goodreads: In this book a homeless waif finds his deliverance in the primeval Limberlost swamp. Maimed and abandoned as an infant, Freckles seeks a chance to prove his worth. He is given that opportunity as the guard of the precious timber of the Limberlost. In his stewardship of the woods, he finds happiness in the companionship of the birds and other wild creatures and in the love of the beautiful Swamp Angel. This moving story of courage and virtue will warm the hearts of young and old.

Notes: Stratton-Porter was a naturalist and wildlife photographer in the Limberlost area of Indiana, where both this book and its companion novel, Girl of the Limberlost, are set. Her obvious knowledge of and love for the territory and its native creatures give life to these two books, and it seems likely that the unnamed Bird Woman is based to some extent on herself.

I read the later-written, later-set Girl of the Limberlost first, and by my judgment it's a better novel—more cohesive and marginally less sentimental—but I was curious about the characters of Freckles and the Swamp Angel, who make a brief appearance in GotL, so I was thrilled to find this book available on Kindle. Fortunately for me, I can handle sentiment with comparative ease; it's the book's worst failing, on technical grounds at least, but Stratton-Porter's hyperdramatic sensibility is also responsible for some rather beautiful little moments.

The orphaned and handicapped title character, for instance, is friendly with birds and beasts and humans alike, has an exquisite singing voice, and is utterly, lovably heroic. He's perhaps a little too good to be true, but then, this is a romantic story, and a little bit of larger-than-life virtue is called for. To those of us who would rather spend our reading hours with a pure-hearted hero than one of the Byronic or anti-heroic sort, there's not a fault to be found with the gentle, passionate, artistic youngster.

The Angel is cut from the same piece of cloth (which fabric is, in both cases, likely to prove either extremely chafing or extremely warming). Sixteen years old, flawlessly beautiful, and as innocent and sweet as the little birds Freckles feeds, she's also handy with a revolver, cool-headed enough to flirt with a hardened criminal in life-threatening circumstances, and unbeatable at mixing drinks. I'd have envied her to hatred if I hadn't loved her so much; for me, it was just a delight to get to know the motherly society queen Elnora meets in GotL.

Some of the book's ideas and ideals are incomprehensible in today's world, but the depiction of an artistic soul's adoration of natural beauty is timeless. It's this, along with the characters' open-hearted compassion and quickness of love, that make for the best scenes in the novel. Those features, together with the naturalist's descriptions of a historical ecosystem (which is now undergoing partial restoration), make the novel itself worth reading, sentiment and all.

H.P.B.C. Day Off Again: Hey, It Is Summer, After All

...and last week was the Fourth of July, and did you see all the sparks people were shooting into the sky?!! It was all very exciting, and beautiful, but somehow I talked myself into posting every day last week even though it was a holiday week and Lou had three days of vacation. Fellow friends of Harry... I'm taking a day off!!

Also, I want to give Masha another week to get in on this chapter. Blogging is hard in summer. Especially when you get your first real sunshine in weeks. :)

I'll extend the time on last week's linky, so you'll all have another week to post anything Sorcerer's Stone-related you want, and in the meantime I'll prepare the post on the final chapter.

Here are a few magical things to get you by for the week:

First, Christie's post on "The Point of No Return" (now that song from Phantom of the Opera is going to run through my head... fortunately, I like it):

There's always that moment before the great act, suspended before them like lustrous fruit to tempt, in which the would-be heroes could turn back, should turn back.  The moment when hesitation could creep in and infect them; the subconscious whispers, "No one would notice now if you turned back."  Self-preservation urges us to stay alive a little longer. 

That moment comes and goes in Chapter 16, with no fanfare or great build-up, so casually as to go unnoticed.

Second, this little video is so ubiquitous among Potter fandom that if you're a bolder soul than I, you could probably walk into any decent-sized milling crowd, call "Snape! Snape! Severus Snape!" on pitch, and have someone respond "Dumbledore!"



Also, if you've ever wondered how all Rowling's clever names get managed in the countless translations, wonder no more. I love it that Filch was translated to a word meaning 'magpie' in Italian. Thanks to Jessi for the link.

More Potter next week!

Brightly-Colored Holidays and other stories

Most Fourth of Julys that Lou and I have sat out on the corner behind his parents' house, watching the city fireworks through the trees, it's been cloudy and sprinkling.

Not so last night. I could see Saturn and the star Spica (a favorite of mine; you'll find out why if you ever read my NaNo novel) directly above the display, along with the occasional floating lantern, which always gets that song from Tangled stuck in my head. A few young men of the neighborhood shot mortars and Roman candles from across the street, and one of them played the trumpet, and Lou and I and his parents and their neighbor enjoyed the starlight and the music and the colors in the sky.

And today it's sunny, so you get lots of garden pictures.

* * *

Lots and lots of garden pictures.

To begin—I like loads of color in my flowerpots and beds:

Flower basket: I didn't plant these, so I'm not entirely sure what they are

...I think the yellow-flowered plant on the left is bush cinquefoil.
To its right are blue pimpernels and verbena.

Pinks!

And lavender.

 ...and I'll gladly take it in the herb and vegetable gardens, too.

German chamomile

Pumpkin blooms

It's also been a week for firsts. The first sweet pea:

the first dahlia:

the first crocosmia:

the first baby pumpkin:

and—not the very first, but early harbingers of homemade salsa:

and snap peas, all in a rush.

* * *

Candid shot:

"Do that typing thing again. I want to pounce
on your hand."

* * *

Lou has had these three days off work, which has been lovely, if perhaps unusually dangerous. So far, he's chopped the tip of his finger with garden shears, I've exploded a plate in the microwave, and one of the young men's fireworks fell off its stick and shot brightly-colored sparks our direction. (At least it wasn't the mortar.)

Other than that—I'd say it's been peaceful, but Maia, apparently displeased with the change in routine, has taken to walking over the top of us during the night. Last night at one-thirty—admittedly, not long after we went to bed—she stood on my shoulder and licked her jowls close to my ear; fifteen minutes later, she sprang out of the window, landed on my knees, and slid off. This morning, she took to pacing back and forth across us, stopping to ask for a chin rub, attacking my hand, jumping off the bed and up into the window, and then returning to pace across us again. It's all very well for her; she spends most of the day buried under the covers, sleeping away the sunshine.

* * *

Music of the week: Stars and Stripes Forever!



* * *

Happy weekend!

Reading Robin Hood Retellings

Happy Independence Day!!! To celebrate, it seems I'm talking about something English (or, if Lawhead is right, Welsh.) Is that bad form? I promise to say a prayer for America and watch fireworks later. :)

Book blog Pages Unbound is hosting a Robin Hood reading event this week, so I'm answering their discussion questions. I'd love to hear your answers—Robin Hood is a fascinating legend—so feel free to answer the questions on your own blog, in Pages Unbound's combox, or in mine.

What versions of Robin Hood have you read?  What retellings?

Hood by Stephen R. Lawhead and The Outlaws of Sherwood by Robin McKinley are the two that come to mind. It's possible that I've forgotten others. I've also read Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, and the outlaw and his merry men are featured therein. I've reviewed Hood and The Outlaws of Sherwood on this blog.

What movie or television versions have you seen?

I grew up with the animated Disney version, and am still known to sing some of the songs around the house and smile over them. As an adult, I've seen Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and its spoof, Robin Hood: Men in Tights.

Do you have a favorite book or film?

It's impossible not to love the old Disney, with its lively characters, cheerful songs, adventurous children, and happy ending. Men in Tights is naughty but desperately funny. Hood is the most interesting in a historical sense—Lawhead's study of the legend, explained in the back of the book, is as fascinating as his storytelling—and The Outlaws of Sherwood was probably the most enjoyable read for characters and relationships.

Who is your favorite classic character?

Eh, I'm a girl and a romantic. I like Marian.

How do you feel about female Robin Hood characters?

As in, the substitution of a girl for the traditionally male protagonist? Or the general shortage of women in old tales like this? The former could be interesting if done well. The latter... suffice it to say that that was one of the reasons I liked the McKinley version. McKinley puts females in lead roles even if they weren't present in the original myths.

Do you like an emphasis on the romance between Robin and Maid Marian, or more emphasis on adventure?

Adventure bores me very quickly if it's not strongly supported by character and relational development. Said relational development does not have to center around the romance, however, as there's lots of superb camaraderie to be had in the Hood mythology. But even though Marian was a rather late addition to the canon, historically speaking, I confess that I'll be a bit disappointed if the love story is left out entirely.

Your turn to answer the questions!

Currently Reading: The Moon and More

Now, she stopped what she was doing and looked at me. "Do you understand how insane you sound right now? How could your whole life be so different in less than twenty-four hours?"

"Because that's the way it is around here," I told her. "Nothing happens for ages, and then all the changes come at once."

"Not that fast," she grumbled.

"Well, then, maybe I'm just actually having a summer," I offered. "You know, a big one where Things Actually Happen. Hey, it's like I'm a tourist or something!"

Author: Sarah Dessen

From Goodreads: Luke is the perfect boyfriend: handsome, kind, fun. He and Emaline have been together all through high school in Colby, the beach town where they both grew up. But now, in the summer before college, Emaline wonders if perfect is good enough.

Enter Theo, a super-ambitious outsider, a New Yorker assisting on a documentary film about a reclusive local artist. Theo's sophisticated, exciting, and, best of all, he thinks Emaline is much too smart for Colby.

Emaline's mostly-absentee father, too, thinks Emaline should have a bigger life, and he's convinced that an Ivy League education is the only route to realizing her potential. Emaline is attracted to the bright future that Theo and her father promise. But she also clings to the deep roots of her loving mother, stepfather, and sisters. Can she ignore the pull of the happily familiar world of Colby?

Emaline wants the moon and more, but how can she balance where she comes from with where she's going?

Sarah Dessen's devoted fans will welcome this story of romance, yearning, and, finally, empowerment. It could only happen in the summer.

Notes: The contrast of small town and big city is a common theme in fiction, and Sarah Dessen sets it up here in the context of one teenager's relationships. Relationships are Dessen's great strength as a writer, and I loved how much of the aforementioned contrast she managed to put in simply by thoughtfully portraying personality, conflict, and connection.

It's always something to write up when the adults in a teen novel are decent, loving people, and Emaline's mom and dad—her dad, not her father; to Emaline, those are different men—are flawed but fantastic. They're on the small-town side of things; the dad because he's a hardworking construction guy with a passion for home improvement, and the mom because she made a bad choice at eighteen and wound up with Emaline. The stepsisters provide a sort of Cinderella dynamic to the family, albeit not such a mean-spirited one. And whereas the stepmother is the usual Cinderella villain, in this case there's a stepfather, and he's the good guy. Emaline's real father is the one to wreak havoc upon her emotions.

The usual Cinderella tale also contains a prince to raise the heroine from a life of drudgery to greatness, but I won't spoil the end of the story here. The prince's stand-in, Theo, is the center of the big-city half of the contrast, at least as its advocate. By ordinary inclination, I do prefer the tall, scholarly, lightly dorky type of guy over the hunky, shirtless poolside boy that is the presumed standard of all hotness, but I could never quite get fond of Theo. His arrogance about artistic symbolism was the worst of him; fond as I am of literary symbolism, interpretation absolutely must come with humility. At the very least, it must come with the understanding that it's a personal take on the work rather than an infallible reading of artistic intent. In the case of the novel's less-than-perfect romances, Luke, the pool boy, with all his faults and bad choices, was the better man.

Here it seems worth noting that while the novel's marketing (the Goodreads synopsis, for instance) suggests that Emaline is torn between small town life and sophistication, the impression I got throughout was of her rejection of the superlative lifestyle, of the need to have The Best—emphasis hers—of everything. She herself is of the small town, and over and over again, she recognizes something in the city folk that she reasonably disapproves: the arrogance, the disproportionate value system, the way untamed ambition sets parents against children and children against parents, even the limitation of experience. Big city characters and life choices do not go entirely without redemption for the most part, however, and part of the story's goal is to allow Emaline to take some part in that life without losing her roots and herself.

A lot of the core beauty of story and theme was situated in relationships that Emaline only facilitated—the conflict and resolution between Clyde and Ivy, for instance. Clyde is one of the best characters in the novel, certainly one of the wisest, and his climactic response to Ivy made for one of my favorite scenes.

The other non-Emaline-centric beauty that struck me was the incongruous relationship between Daisy and Morris. From its chastity to its artistry to its humility to its inspirational strength, it's a lovely thing. It's a more compelling romance than either of Emaline's.

Parents may wish to note that Emaline herself has no concern for chastity. There is at least one bedroom scene that I recall, though it isn't detailed.

While the story isn't quite as romantic overall as the marketing might suggest, in itself it's a hopeful thing. The heart of the book is in family and friendship, and in powerful little reconciliations between things like dreaming and grounding, potential and realization, and love of home and love of the world beyond. For that, it's really a pleasant read.

Harry Potter Book Club: Sorcerer's Stone, Chapter 16

Good afternoon, fellow book clubbers! I'm feeling a bit distracted and even Confunded today, possibly owing to an Energizing Charm going a little bit awry and keeping me up till four A.M. for the second time in a week.* I do hope this post makes sense by the time I'm through with it.

Art by acutecat.

In recap of the last discussion segment: Masha talked about centaurs (noted last week); Seth protested the insinuation of Harry Potter into his waking and sleeping thoughts, in terms much too fun to evoke sympathy; and Christie said some beautiful things about Neville, courage, innocence, friendship, and being "set against the very stars."

Highly recommended, all of them. And now, for the sake of getting this post done today rather than next Tuesday, we'll move on.

* * *

This Week in Reading Harry

Read: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Chapter 16. If you've never, ever read it, GO READ IT BEFORE YOU READ THE REST OF THIS POST. Otherwise, there will be SPOILERS.

I was going to take in Chapter 17, too, but there's just too much to talk about in both. We'll therefore have one more week on the first book.

Potential Discussion Points:

1. Harry's Declaration of Intent. It's page 270 in my yellowing, fraying little paperback. Oh, what the heck, I'll just quote it:

"SO WHAT?" Harry shouted. "Don't you understand? If Snape gets hold of the Stone, Voldemort's coming back! Haven't you heard what it was like when he was trying to take over? There won't be any Hogwarts to get expelled from! He'll flatten it, or turn it into a school for the Dark Arts! Losing points doesn't matter anymore, can't you see? D'you think he'll leave you and your families alone if Gryffindor wins the house cup? If I get caught before I can get to the Stone, well, I'll have to go back to the Dursleys and wait for Voldemort to find me there, it's only dying a bit later than I would have, because I'm never going over to the Dark Side! I'm going through that trapdoor tonight and nothing you two say is going to stop me! Voldemort killed my parents, remember?"

Art by thepolestar.

He sounds like he's been watching Star Wars, and he's unwittingly off on a couple of the facts, but the power in this statement is almost limitless. There are things in here that won't be fully explained to Harry himself until books five and six, but he feels them well enough now to stand on them: he knows Voldemort, and he knows the cost of renouncing evil. He knows that the mundane things that matter so much to us in the moment, things like the winning of points and the relief of withdrawing from challenges, mean nothing when the time comes to stand against the darkness that lurks loose and ever malignant in the world. He knows that it's better to suffer and to die than to align himself with wickedness or let it gain its desired ground.

That's pretty impressive knowledge for an eleven-year-old. It convicts me of my own weakness and hesitations every time I read it.

2. Neville's courage. Here, I'll quote Christie:

A word about Neville: courage is the dominant trait of Gryffindor, and while there has been a lot of reckless wandering-around-dangerous-places-at-night, disobeying elders, and standing up to bullies, the purest form of courage I've seen so far is from Neville.  It is exactly his lack of chutzpah that make his actions so courageous: standing up to Malfoy, holding his own against Crabbe and Goyle, and risking detention and loss of life (we all know which Hermione would find the more horrifying!) to warn his friends of a dirty trick.  Neville may be the bravest character I have yet to encounter in Harry Potter.

SPOILERS.

BRAVERY LOVE NEVILLE SPOILERS. So many thoughts that I can't yet speak of!! But Neville displays his pure courage again in this chapter, and while he's misguided as to his friends' intent, what he did was fantastic moral courage at its core. This will be returned to briefly in the next chapter.

3. Ron's response to Neville's courage. Oh, Ron, you're just so... so human:

"Don't you call me an idiot!" said Neville. "I don't think you should be breaking any more rules! And you were the one who told me to stand up to people!" 

"Yes, but not to us," said Ron in exasperation. "Neville, you don't know what you're doing."

His second argument has some merit; Neville doesn't know what he's doing, which is the boy's only mistake here. But Ron's first argument has no merit at all. It sits right at the heart of human weakness: the rules apply, but not to me. We all excuse ourselves where we would condemn anyone else.

4. The problem with quasi-Latin spells spoken aloud. Here, I quote my fellow Blogengamot member, Matthew "Korg20000BC" Boyd (DH SPOILERS at the link):

The fight in the cafe brings up a problem about wand duelling.  I did a little experiment and found I’d be able to cover about 10′-15′ and solidly punch, hit, kick or push someone by the time they could yell “Petrificus Totalus!”  Now, imagine if the witch or wizard’s target was armed with a staff, rock, chair or even a sword (like Godric Gryffindor).  It seems that the wizarding world has locked itself into a reliance on magic and perhaps forgotten what they are physically capable of.  Maybe that’s why there is a total absence of Physical Education at Hogwarts.  I’d put my money on an active muggle over a witch/wizard at close range.

Neville already has his fists up, but then again, he's eleven, and he'd have had to fight Hermione. Maybe it would have been different if Ron had thrown the curse.

5. The tests of faith and skill.

Remember Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, where Indy and friends have to dive out of the way of blades and find their way across a trick floor and step out over an abyss—a leap of faith, Indy calls it?

Here's where I wish I knew my Holy Grail mythology a little better. (I did see Monty Python, but...) Harry's pursuing the Philosopher's Stone (not to claim it for his own, but to save it from someone else, much like Indy). The Stone provides wealth and immortality, which on the latter point at least, bears some similarity to the Grail quest. Harry undergoes a number of trials, mostly enchantments, which test him and Ron and Hermione together in both skill and faith, in knowledge and in heart.

The tests, perhaps because they're headed up by Dumbledore, are basically an alchemical progression; we primarily get to see the nigredo and albedo in this chapter. Cerberus and the Devil's Snare are nigredo tasks. The winged keys (silver) and passing the white chessmen are albedo tasks. The joining of ice and fire by potion and spell at the end of the chapter signify completion of the albedo and prepare Harry to face the final task, which involves a red stone and total purity of heart. We'll save the rest of that discussion for next week.

Organized here for your convenience (let me know if I missed anything):

Knit your own Fluffy!
By janageek.

1. Getting to the third-floor corridor without getting caught. Requires invisibility cloak, which I'd love to talk about more if it wouldn't mean DH spoilers. ;) Involves safely bypassing Neville, Mrs. Norris (and, by extension, Filch), and Peeves, all of whom have their own reasons for stopping the Trio.
2. (Enchantment 1, by Hagrid) Cerberus/Fluffy. Note that he's guarding the Underworld. Passing him safely requires the use of music, "a magic beyond all we do here," as Dumbledore said. Music is David's antidote to Saul's evil spirit, and it is perhaps in a similar sense that the hellhound is neutralized by harp and pipe.
3. Blind drop into abyss. Here's that leap of faith, and Harry, naturally, is the one to first make it. The symbolism of Harry passing the hellhound and going underground on a leap of faith to face Voldemort is serious business, but it's only half the story; we'll be elaborating on this further next week.
4. (Enchantment 2, by Prof. Sprout) Devil's Snare. The trickster plant that sneaks around you, binds you closer the harder you struggle, and eventually strangles you. Devil's Snare is an appropriate name; the plant's defining attributes are highly suggestive of temptation and sin, and it cringes away from light and warmth.
5. (Enchantment 3, by Prof. Flitwick) The locked door and the winged keys. Here, we get into three trials that require the special skills of one member of the Trio. The first is Harry's; he's the Seeker, the one who sees things other people don't (like the fact that Voldemort is after the Stone, and that stopping him is more important than not getting expelled.) He is the one to use his otherwise mostly showy Quidditch skills to find the key, to catch it, and to unlock the door.
6. (Enchantment 4, by Prof. McGonagall) The chess game. This is Ron's big moment, and one of the reasons I love him. Ron is selfish and a bit volatile and, as aforementioned, very human, but he's got the heart of a knight. He shows it beautifully in this scene. For some reason, his choices of bishop for Harry—religious significance, there—and castle for Hermione seem appropriate as well, but I'm not sure I've ever put my finger on why.
7. (Enchantment 5, by Prof. Quirrell) The troll. Quirrell's rather coarse contribution is already knocked out cold, and the primary significance of this task, as far as I can see, is in its reminder of what first bonded the Trio together. Harry and Hermione don't have to do anything but step over it and go on.
8. (Enchantment 6, by Prof. Snape) The logic puzzle. Here's Hermione's chance to shine. I've always wanted to know whether this puzzle really works; this being Rowling, I'm nearly positive it does. Here's a post from someone who made an attempt to discover the exact ordering of the potions; I haven't checked his logic, as logic is not my strong suit, but it looks good on first read. And here's a mathematics teacher's version of the test.**
9. Walk through fire. This is another act of faith as well as one of skill and self-confidence—or, in Harry's case, Hermione-confidence. I suspect there's a lot of plausible symbolism in this little moment that I don't even know about. It reminds me of the final purification in Dante's Purgatorio, not that the matter of Lust particularly applies; it reminds me of a lot of little Scriptural references (Isaiah 43:2; 1 Corinthians 3:13; 1 Peter 1:7 and perhaps some other testing-by-fire verses). What Harry does in sending Hermione back and going on alone is arguably his bravest act so far, and Hermione contradicts those O'Brien arguments about secret knowledge and superpowers by telling Harry what's really important—the strengths that will really help him survive.

Art by Gustave Doré.

The seventh and final enchantment doesn't appear till next chapter. We'll finish all these half-started Book 1 discussions there, and find out who was waiting in the last chamber.

And if you already know who was in the last chamber, and whose side Snape was really on, here's a wizard rock video for you. Otherwise, SPOILERS.





* Muggle explanation: I think I had too much coffee, too late in the day.
** Weird story: here I'm randomly Googling Snape's logic puzzle, and as it turns out, I KNOW two of the thirty-five people who are listed as having correctly solved that mathematician's test. IN REAL LIFE. Small world. *jaw hits floor*

Today

Christie tells me that she hopes to get her Harry Potter post up tonight or early tomorrow, so I'm reversing post days. Today you get... well, the Today post. Tomorrow, you get Harry. :D

'Course, Masha hasn't put up her linky yet over at Piękno, so I'm just stealing her meme until she does.

Update: it's up!

Today I am...

Feeling... bright and cheerful. The sky is bell-clear, and it's honest-to-goodness hot outside, about eighty degrees (go ahead and laugh, all ye who are not from the Pacific Northwest). We get heat like this so rarely that I think of it as splendid. I'm in tank tops and shorts and French braids and enjoying every bit of it. Also, I've just had two extraordinarily pleasant days, on which I shall elaborate under the later sensory headings.

Seeing... bright blue sky and summer flowers; the first buds on my sweet peas; half-grown baby tomatoes (weeks earlier than we had last year, I think); the first female flowers on the pumpkin vines.

Smelling... the light, spicy scent of a glass of holy basil (tulsi) tea.

Tasting... homemade einkorn flatbread and pico de gallo, fresh fuji apples, and "doubled" eggs, all courtesy of my little sister.

Listening... to the strange whistling roar the WTA buses and semi-trucks make going by on the street.

Grateful... for everyone's prayers about my choir directing yesterday, and for a blessedly supportive choir and musical team. I felt very prayed for and loved, able to relax for the most part, to take little mistakes and difficulties in stride, to keep track of the cues, to be decisive, and to freely enjoy myself. And I was surrounded by helpful people who knew just what they were supposed to do and when.

As it turns out, directing is so much fun. You feel the pulse and dynamics of the music all the way through you—even subtle changes you might not notice when singing, like a shift of time signature. You lean in toward the choir and widen your count, and they raise their volume and intensity; you crouch back and narrow your count, and they bring the music down to a hush. You can speed or slow the beat by tiny increments, enough to emphasize the feel and meaning of the song, and you can make the count crisper or smoother to go marcato or legato or anything between. And the ensemble follows you, gets into it with you—at least, they do if they're as superb as my little group. I could see and hear and feel the response, and it was gratifying even before Mass ended and people started coming up to me and being all sweet and encouraging. I get to work with the nicest people. :)

Also, when you're directing, you can ask the accompanist to play organ on one of the hymns. There's not enough of the king of instruments in this world. At least, not enough in our Sunday Masses. ;)

Seriously: if you prayed for me, thank you. There was a memorable moment during Mass when I thought of all of you who had offered prayers, understood how much they were helping me, and was grateful.

Reading... the last two chapters of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, in preparation for tomorrow.

Loving... my little sister-who-does-not-like-to-be-named-on-the-internet and her daughters, with whom I spent a happy late morning and early afternoon. Lots of cuddles and smiles, countless instances of "Watch me!", four small hands helping me peel and mayonnaise the eggs—and spreading both egg peel and condiments over half the kitchen in the process—and coffee and shared thoughts and the occasional movie quote with my sister.

Hoping... that I'll get asked to substitute-direct again sometime. :D Even though I never like having any of our team missing.